This is the new games thread

[TimBuktu]

Like I said, I can understand why someone who likes RPG's would like Fallout 3, but I don't know why I thought I'd like it. I usually have maybe an hour a night at most I can devote to playing video games, maybe a little more on the weekend. I need something that I can just pick up and play for a short amount of time. These games require you to get fully immersed in the world, remembering people's names, building up attributes, remembering what people told you to do... basically following bread crumbs back and forth across a giant map for weeks and months. It's just not something that interests me.

I liked Mass Effect because you could rip through the dialog stuff quickly and move onto the action, which was enjoyable to me. The best story I think I've seen in a videogame was Bioshock, and even with that game, about half way through I was tuning it out. The acting and storytelling in these games is just bad when compared to television or movies at this point. It's just not interesting enough to me to devote that much time to it when it's the major hook of the game. The action in Fallout simply wasn't satisfying enough to keep me engaged through the stilted dialouge I had to plow through for hours at a time.

I guess I just don't like RPG's, no matter how well executed they are. Would you even call Mass Effect an RPG though? It was the first one I ever actually liked, but it seemed to be more of an action game or something to me.

[nathansmart]

Maybe you should rent Fable II? It's got a lot of stuff to do, but if you just went through the story line it's about 15 hours or something and there's plenty of action and such.

[TimBuktu]

Maybe you should rent Fable II? It's got a lot of stuff to do, but if you just went through the story line it's about 15 hours or something and there's plenty of action and such.

Meh, I'll stick to games where you either play sports or shoot things in the mouth.

[dan telfer]

Antien Noldo is "Nathan the Wise" in Tolkien's elvish.

[nathansmart]

LOVE IT

[Gene George]

Like I said, I can understand why someone who likes RPG's would like Fallout 3

I like the sandbox-y way that Bethesda did Oblivion and now fallout. I don't have to pay attention to the main plot if I don't want to and I can roam around blowing the hell out of people if I like. First Person Shooters like half-life, halo and mass-effect are fun too but lack the customization level and non-linear gameplay of a Oblivion, Morrowind, or F3. Bioshock was a FPS with some RPG trappings, but I'm with you when mediocrely voice acted exposition people start jabbering at me about the Evil Smoojaermlets that destroyed Krebbidge Acres or imploring me to rescue another damn little kid I usually want to punch them in their smug CGI faces. Usually I don't, but with the Bethesda games I often can if I want to.

There is something to be said for the "Hey, you're a space marine, kill all these aliens, NOW!" school of games.

[nathansmart]

There is something to be said for the "Hey, you're a space marine, kill all these aliens, NOW!" school of games.

See, I look at it the other way: "There's something to be said for non-linear games." I feel like people try so hard to make these sandbox games and just because you add 100 hours of play time doesn't make fetch quests any funner.

I get bored in those games usually and just get lost or try to kill people. I like a game with a linear path - it keeps me focused in the small amount of time I have to devote to game-playing. That's why I like Fable II, it's the best of both worlds.

[Gene George]

See, I look at it the other way: "There's something to be said for non-linear games." I feel like people try so hard to make these sandbox games and just because you add 100 hours of play time doesn't make fetch quests any funner.

I get bored in those games usually and just get lost or try to kill people. I like a game with a linear path - it keeps me focused in the small amount of time I have to devote to game-playing. That's why I like Fable II, it's the best of both worlds.

Yeah I think we're diametrically opposite here. I prefer sandbox, linear optional games. Sounds like you like the opposite. Although Bioshock was ultimately very very very linear and I really enjoyed that a lot.

Agreed that the typical FedEx quests blow but I have noticed, especially in the Bethesda games a tendency for the AI to "play with itself" more, ahem.

Last night I saw a pair of fire ants squabbling over some scrap of raider corpse or something and it ended up with a big firebreathing ant brawl (and me lobbing the odd pistol shot to keep it lively). That kind of immersive AI fascinates me. It seems like the world keeps tootling along when you aren't around to see it.

[nathansmart]

Agreed that the typical FedEx quests blow but I have noticed, especially in the Bethesda games a tendency for the AI to "play with itself" more, ahem.

Last night I saw a pair of fire ants squabbling over some scrap of raider corpse or something and it ended up with a big firebreathing ant brawl (and me lobbing the odd pistol shot to keep it lively). That kind of immersive AI fascinates me. It seems like the world keeps tootling along when you aren't around to see it.

That is awesome and again another reason why I like Fable II. While it's not on that scale, I enjoy the amount of stuff that the AI characters do when I'm not around. I just read somewhere that while a guy was on a quest a group of bandits raided the town where his wife lives and he didn't get back in time, so they killed her.

[darrylduffy]

teach me how to find my friend code again. (for the wii)

[TomHicks]

Like I said, I can understand why someone who likes RPG's would like Fallout 3, but I don't know why I thought I'd like it. I usually have maybe an hour a night at most I can devote to playing video games, maybe a little more on the weekend. I need something that I can just pick up and play for a short amount of time. These games require you to get fully immersed in the world, remembering people's names, building up attributes, remembering what people told you to do... basically following bread crumbs back and forth across a giant map for weeks and months. It's just not something that interests me.

I liked Mass Effect because you could rip through the dialog stuff quickly and move onto the action, which was enjoyable to me. The best story I think I've seen in a videogame was Bioshock, and even with that game, about half way through I was tuning it out. The acting and storytelling in these games is just bad when compared to television or movies at this point. It's just not interesting enough to me to devote that much time to it when it's the major hook of the game. The action in Fallout simply wasn't satisfying enough to keep me engaged through the stilted dialouge I had to plow through for hours at a time.

I guess I just don't like RPG's, no matter how well executed they are. Would you even call Mass Effect an RPG though? It was the first one I ever actually liked, but it seemed to be more of an action game or something to me.

Leveling up a character and distributing skill points and such is considered an RPG game trait. But genres like action and shooter and RPG have become more blended. One of the other staples of RPGs was that they used to be turn based. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are probably two of the franchises that most define what an RPG game was in the '90s.

[Gene George]

Leveling up a character and distributing skill points and such is considered an RPG game trait. But genres like action and shooter and RPG have become more blended. One of the other staples of RPGs was that they used to be turn based. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are probably two of the franchises that most define what an RPG game was in the '90s.

These days I think it comes down to the choices in game play in terms of railroad vs. sandbox. Even though you could choose plasmids in Bioshock there really was no choice in following the story line. Sure you could stealth/hack things or good/evil the little sisters but your choices weren't particularly sophisticated. Half-life and Doom same thing. Totally different experiences.

I can't think of an entirely sandbox experience off the top of my head. Even Sim City had scenarios to play. Is Little Big Planet all sandbox?

[TimBuktu]

Crackdown is the best sandbox game of all time. Discuss.

[MikeMic]

I think the real appeal to half-life especially is the modding capability, games that offer up an SDK to work with sort of make that the sandbox i guess. Although, I guess we aren't talking about (online) multiplayer games anyway so forget it!

[nathansmart]

These days I think it comes down to the choices in game play in terms of railroad vs. sandbox. Even though you could choose plasmids in Bioshock there really was no choice in following the story line. Sure you could stealth/hack things or good/evil the little sisters but your choices weren't particularly sophisticated. Half-life and Doom same thing. Totally different experiences.

I can't think of an entirely sandbox experience off the top of my head. Even Sim City had scenarios to play. Is Little Big Planet all sandbox?

Well, SimCity had scenarios but those were different play modes. The actual game is completely sandbox, but most sim games are already in nature. I don't even think you would count those because there isn't really a linear sim game.

What is your criteria for an entirely sandbox experience? Is it that there is no storyline to complete whatsoever? GTA is as sandbox as it gets, even if the story ends.

[ProfessorShutYoMouth]

Crackdown is the best sandbox game of all time. Discuss.

Wrong.

As for Fallout 3 and Oblivion type games, I had always been kind of anti-RPG but after getting pretty burned out on FPS games I took a liking to Oblivion. I am nowhere near complete, but I like that when I am in the mood I can pop the disc in and pick up where I left off, knowing that it will probably be years before I complete it.

I hate it when games end.

[Gene George]

Well, SimCity had scenarios but those were different play modes. The actual game is completely sandbox, but most sim games are already in nature. I don't even think you would count those because there isn't really a linear sim game.

What is your criteria for an entirely sandbox experience? Is it that there is no storyline to complete whatsoever? GTA is as sandbox as it gets, even if the story ends.

All sandbox would be "all goals defined by the end-user, no content aside from that generated by an interactive environment". Close would be GTA like (or F3, Oblivion) where OK so there's a main plot and scripted side plots, but you can choose to stealth or balls-out aggressively blow shit up the individual missions. Even so there are some race missions in GTA: San Andreas I had a very hard time passing. I am a shitty PC driver. I couldn't avoid them or mitigate them. That part isn't sandbox to me although the rest of the game is.

Now that I think of it Sim"X" provide as pure a sandbox experience outside of the scenarios. I think that GTA is very, very sandbox, unless you're playing the storylines. I think I am wishing for a theoretical game that allows for the complexity of goals and freedom of action of real life.

GTA, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 mimic complexity/freedom fairly well IMO.

[Gene George]

I think the real appeal to half-life especially is the modding capability, games that offer up an SDK to work with sort of make that the sandbox i guess. Although, I guess we aren't talking about (online) multiplayer games anyway so forget it!

Half-Life/ Counterstrike as a multiplayer online shooter? I think the goals of capture the flag or frag fest doesn't allow for a wide enough range of goals to be considered truly sandbox. You can't reason with other players or build things on the fly besides turrets. Now if you're talking some MMORPGS that's more sandboxy.

[nathansmart]

Basically, you just want an interactive environment that has endless possibilities and no goals, except personal ones.

Or Second Life.

A true sandbox game will never exist (except for Second Life) because then there would only be the need for one game ever. If it was really all up to the gamer to decide what the goals are then you would have to have an infinite amount of monkeys typing an infinite amount of code. What if my goal was to make the fantasy world be a sci-fi world?

I'm not creative enough to enjoy a game like Second Life. I can come up with something if I take time, but the problem is I don't want to (unless someone was paying me, of course). I want someone else to - someone who CAN come up with unlimited ideas that are amazing to play. Basically, just demote every game designer ever and have Miyamoto hand out assignments.

[Gene George]

Basically, you just want an interactive environment that has endless possibilities and no goals, except personal ones.

Or Second Life.

A true sandbox game will never exist (except for Second Life) because then there would only be the need for one game ever. If it was really all up to the gamer to decide what the goals are then you would have to have an infinite amount of monkeys typing an infinite amount of code. What if my goal was to make the fantasy world be a sci-fi world?

I'm not creative enough to enjoy a game like Second Life. I can come up with something if I take time, but the problem is I don't want to (unless someone was paying me, of course). I want someone else to - someone who CAN come up with unlimited ideas that are amazing to play. Basically, just demote every game designer ever and have Miyamoto hand out assignments.

Nope. I don't necessarily want that. I was speculating on whether a full-bore sandbox really exists. Second Life comes closest with user created content. Second Life is also about the mostest boringest thing I have ever experienced.

I have been happy with both Railroaded and Sandbox experiences, although a well done sandbox is my favorite. I see that there are pinch points in every game due to the artifice required to move the plot along or the simple fact that not every conceivable action can be performed or accounted for.

Thinking about it I suppose MMORPGS are the "best" arena for sandbox as people always have conflicting goals and methods for achieving them. Still, there are going to be rules and limitations.