Sorry it's been a while. Got way busy with schoolthe7k wrote:You really think Guitar Hero is just as good now as it once was? Lemme give you the run down...
All but the last five songs = amputees can do it
Last five songs = SNK Boss Syndrome
Every non-Harmonix GH I've played has been like this.
As for Half-Life, I love it. It's of the same ilk as Quake, Unreal, etc. Ya know, none of the hand holding crap that got popularized by... wait for it... Halo!
If a isn't game worth full price, I won't pay full price. I still buy games I want to support at full price, but I ain't gonna spend $60 on a game like Arkham Asylum, a game that can be completed in a weekend. The reason we "Hardcore" are so picky is because unlike casuals, we know what a game is worth. Let the casuals spend $50 on Deca Sports 2, we'll save our money.
.I don't really have much to say in response to your Guitar Hero comment seeing as I hardly ever play it (though I laughed at the SNK boss joke). I have a few friends who really enjoy Guitar Hero and Rockband series. Four of them are what I'd call casual gamers while one hardly ever plays games (although she's surprisingly the best at it). They usually play the higher if not the highest difficulties and always have a good enough time
. I understand how a weak difficulty can really hurt a game though (damn you Twilight Princess and damn you Super Mario Galaxy).----
Be aware though that when I use the term "casual gamer" I mean people who buy perhaps 3-5 games a year and power on a console only once or twice a week. Usually their taste isn't too bad, albeit not original by any means. Examples of people like this would be most of the guys I work with. Their recent purchases include the likes of Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Madden 10, Arkham Asylum, Halo 3: ODST, and Left4Dead.
Buying Deca Sports 2 is a mistake made only by those who are completely ignorant and to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the term "casual gamer" being used to identify completely uninformed consumers. I'm a casual movie watcher, but there's no way in hell I'd be dumb enough to think The Hannah Montana Movie might be good. I make mistakes with movies (DAMN YOU 9!!!), but not very many. In the same sense I don't think casual gamers are the kind to walk into (many) total stinkers.
In my eyes, the casuals are the same people (or kind of people) who were buying and playing Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, and GoldenEye back in the day. Their tastes may have changed, but they still know how a good game plays.
(Sorry about the little rant. I know it's not really relevant to the conversation.)
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On Halo, I didn't really notice any hand holding while playing Combat Evolved or its sequel. You're playing as a weapon of extreme last resort who is kept frozen in a cryogenic tube until needed. Why should the average enemy be a threat? I expect to be more badass than some anonymous soldier or scientist in a haz-mat suit. I'M FREAKING JESUS WITH A LASER GUN AND THOSE ALIEN BASTARDS ARE GOING TO HELL!!!!
I don't expect or want extreme difficulty from every game I play. To me extreme difficulty spikes or curves (especially in the modern day) usually reflect poor game design and pacing. It restricts the way you play the game.
In the FPS genre this look often takes the face of:
-Run into room.
-Kill enemies using weaker weapons. Remember, you may need the stronger ones later.*
-Lost too much health.
-Kill self to respawn with advantageous knowledge of enemy locations.
-Kill enemies using weaker weapons. Remember, you may need the stronger ones later.
*I HATE HATE HATE HATE THAT FEELING!!!!!
Halo had a flow that allowed (and sometimes forced you if you weren't careful) to use all the different weapons and vehicles. I found it really satisfying.
Plus, I really didn't find either Half-Life game to be all that difficult
. Sometimes I got cheap shotted, but they weren't too challenging overall. And it may be a small thing, but it just really annoyed me how I could always tell when a copter was coming because of the case of infinite rocket launcher ammo right before the next door 
.In looking around I've found that Jeremy Parish nails many of my feelings on Half-Life (especially the "prod at your back" bit) - link
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Just for the record though, I'd not mutter Quake and Unreal in the same breath as Half-Life.
Gameplay in Quake/Unreal and their ilk goes something like:
-Enter boring ass box of an environment at point A.
-Run around room and maul the inexplicably really pissed off enemies.
-Look around emptied room for health packs, ammo, and armor. Avoid lava and colored liquid.
-Exit really boring ass box of an environment at point B.
Gameplay in Half-Life and its ilk (aka damn near every FPS to follow it if you look at what it brought to the FPS genre in terms of narrative structure, scripted events, and thoughtfully crafted/relevant invironments) is completely different.
Though God knows I still spent way too much time searching for health packs; a game MECHANIC which I do not like at all. ESPECIALLY in Half-Life and those FPS's influenced by it where backtracking finds you empty halls and rooms that totally kill the narrative illusion by bringing the existence of scripted events to the front of your mind. No matter what purist crap you could possibly say in favor of them, my opinion on the matter is firm. And no, I don't suck at FPS's or games in general. (<--- Sorry for another rant)
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In some magical and perfect system we'd be able to play a game and pay the developer exactly what we thought it was worth (most likely in Zenny or something). We don't even come close to or attempt that, especially (I find) in the hardcore.
I understand not buying all games at full price. I don't feel that many of the games I buy deserve it. However, I don't think that buying half-priced games should be some badge of honor for the hardcore. The problem with us is that too often if we don't get it during that initial release hype (aka the "Choo choo! hype train), we usually wait until it's 20 USD or bargain binned years later. If we see it for 40 USD, we think "why not wait til 30?" At 30 we think "I've already waited so long, I might as well wait for it to lower. If I can hold out another month it'll be half the price! What a savvy consumer I am! Hahahaha!" If we don't pick up a game early on we put it on some back catalog in our minds to just be sure to pick up "someday" and turn our full attention to "what's coming next."
I do it too. I dunno how many times I've picked up some 5 USD game I thought looked really interesting years before that I have absolutely LOVED and regretted SO THOROUGHLY not paying original retail price for. Hell, I'm in the middle of not at all picking up Klanoa at its completely reasonable original retail price right now. I'm gonna hate myself in a year when I finally buy and play it
. What's annoying is how often we (especially the retro gamers cuz we're cheap) get on our little soap box months or years too late to cry woes and condemnation to all of those "mainstream whores too busy making love to Master Chief" to see that THIS game had merit. That THIS game was original! That THIS game had style, AND substance, AND heart!
I feel as though I should bring casual gamers into this argument. Far more often than the hardcore I see them walk into Gamestop, spy a game they didn't have the money for/weren't committed enough to buy a couple months ago for 40 or 50 USD, and say "Aw man! I've been wanting to play this! It's only 40 bucks now! I've gotta pick it up!" If more "hardcore" had that attitude, I think games would be in a better place.
You could be an exception. Most people aren't.
Video games rely SO heavily on their first month sales. Look at any game! It's second month sales are usually almost NOTHING compared to the first. Why do you think publishers give out so many pre-order goodies? Why do you think review sites don't get to review a game that was finished months before until a day or two before its release? Who would buy a game they've been hearing nothing but begative things about for a month? They want it fresh on your mind. They want it rolling off your tongue. They need as many people as possible to buy it right away. A bad first month almost always means commercial failure.
People have begun to realize this. I've seen you comment on Kotaku a good bit, so I know you can't have missed how many "Day one purchase" comments there have been for games over the past few months (especially as a game gets close to launch). Spoiler alert: most these people aren't gonna do it! If these people meant what they were saying, there'd be a helluvalot more niche games selling shit-tons. It's like some guilty knee-jerk reaction because they know they should support the developer and publisher as a means to get more interesting and original titles, but they just aren't going to. As I said before, the little dipshits will probably latch on to some minuscule and easily overlooked fault to pull a "I was gonna buy it, but then I heard... (insert lame excuse)" sorta thing. It's probably something they'd overlook in another, more important game (think Wind Waker's camera), but they literally claw at the walls for any excuse to back out of their little spoken committment.
Video games aren't like dvds. I'd pick up a dvd I like whenever. It doesn't have to be a new release. Very few dvds have a huge day one release. I expect it to be pretty much the same price a year from now that it is today. I don't think "but I could get this used for 'x' amount less..." In reality, it probably wouldn't even be much cheaper used anyways. They don't continue to get printed and don't continue to make money long term (although VC, XBLA, and PSN re-releases are finally turning this formula around a bit). Games don't generally rise in popularity and sales with time like a band's new CD might. They get one shot. They climax right away, and from there it's all down hill. Because games are so damned expensive consumers can (and rightfully so) be cautious with their money. The problem is how damned quick a game's considered "old-hat."
Why do you think all these games are getting pushed back to 2010? People aren't buying games right now and will be much more interested in some shiny new product than that "tired old hag" Bayonetta next time their wallet's fat enough for another game.
Companies like Gamestop slash prices as a response to our demand. The way we look at games and our perceived value of old games is the problem. That's what needs to change and that's why I refuse to glorify the "hardcore" gamers as some kind of "greater good." We bitch the loudest and help the least. Do you really believe there are so few hardcore gamers that many games targeted at us only sell 10 to 20 thousand copies? Casual gamers get more games for casual gamers because they put out. Too often, we don't.
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And yes, my posts do get exponentially longer with each reply.
