Sudden slamming on Dead Space 3, hilarious?

[AppleQueso]

At the very least, can we get rid of QTEs in the middle of cutscenes? Sometimes I'll put the controller down, and suddenly a QTE prompt pops up and I have to scramble to grab the controller again to hit that button.

[Lodestar]

The problem with self-imposed challenges has mainly to do with the tedium of resetting or starting a new file upon failing. I've never been one for in-game trophies/achievements, so the limited Elika use challenge is not something I'd be interested in; it just feels wrong when you have to reset the game instead of the game punishing you through a game over screen. Would it have been such a game design hassle to include a difficulty mode where you could only use her a set amount of times between points X and Y? Something like that would have ameliorated the issue.

I do approve of speed running as a self-imposed challenge, or others like a "no kunai run" in Shinobi 3, or a soul level 1 challenge in Dark Souls, but those are easy to do because you aren't imposing unnatural/fourth-wall-breaking punishment upon yourself - you'd still die like you normally would.

Ultimately, it comes down to designers catering to the lowest common denominator first and foremost. Some people may hate on Ninja Theory's "DmC" for being too easy, but the harder difficulty modes are there...I think a lot of people are noticing that normal mode is no longer the standard they're used to and should aspire for hard mode right off the bat because of the shift towards the casual market. The game has multiple modes for all types and PoP 2008 could have benefited from doing this as well. The one size fits all approach doesn't work because there's a great divide between gamers and they should, by all means, both be accounted for.

[Jmustang1968]

The problem with self-imposed challenges has mainly to do with the tedium of resetting or starting a new file upon failing. I've never been one for in-game trophies/achievements, so the limited Elika use challenge is not something I'd be interested in; it just feels wrong when you have to reset the game instead of the game punishing you through a game over screen. Would it have been such a game design hassle to include a difficulty mode where you could only use her a set amount of times between points X and Y? Something like that would have ameliorated the issue.

I do approve of speed running as a self-imposed challenge, or others like a "no kunai run" in Shinobi 3, or a soul level 1 challenge in Dark Souls, but those are easy to do because you aren't imposing unnatural/fourth-wall-breaking punishment upon yourself - you'd still die like you normally would.

Ultimately, it comes down to designers catering to the lowest common denominator first and foremost. Some people may hate on Ninja Theory's "DmC" for being too easy, but the harder difficulty modes are there...I think a lot of people are noticing that normal mode is no longer the standard they're used to and should aspire for hard mode right off the bat because of the shift towards the casual market. The game has multiple modes for all types and PoP 2008 could have benefited from doing this as well. The one size fits all approach doesn't work because there's a great divide between gamers and they should, by all means, both be accounted for.

What's really the difference between a game over screen and resetting while playing a game with a save feature?

[flex wood]

At the very least, can we get rid of QTEs in the middle of cutscenes? Sometimes I'll put the controller down, and suddenly a QTE prompt pops up and I have to scramble to grab the controller again to hit that button.

I hate when that happens. Of course in my case when I'm scrambling to grab the controller, I hit the wrong button and get to watch the cutscene again.

In a perfect world QTEs wouldn't exist, you would be able to control your character in the cutscene the whole time and the game would react to what your character was actually doing. That would be nice but I'm sure the technology just isn't there yet or if it is the cost of development of the game would end up higher with having to basically make a ton of extra cutscenes.

Basically I'd like cutscenes/QTEs that are more like a choose your own adventure then what they are now.

[Opa Opa]

Responding to the first post. Don't wanna get involved in the QTE discussion. lol
I'm going to jump around a little bit on your points... just fyi.
---

Let me preface this by stating I've only played the first title. I haven't had a chance to pick up 2 or 3... Someday I'll get to them.

I'd say Dead Space is a horror game. Although, horror is a genre distinction that has very loose defining characteristics. Heck, you can put games like Castlevania under horror. Are they scary? Not really, but they're chock full of classic horror themes and characters (dark castles, haunted woods, vampires, mummies, freakin' bats, et cetera).

Mini-rant: I hated the cult plot line in Dead Space. I was really liking the game but then of course they had to throw in a damned cult! It's such a cop-out. How many horror games have this plot now? I'm tired of it.
Oh yeah, why was there a girlfriend/love interest character involved? That ruined the story too!
As odd as this may sound, the best story Dead Space could've had would have been no story. If it were just you, the character, alone on the ship and never truly finding out what went wrong.

Okay, so back to DS3...
So you can ignore the microtransactions and the optional co-op is fun to play and takes nothing away?

I think people are grasping at straws to justify any kind of hate they can throw at a game/company. People threw a big bitch-fest with RE 6 ("it isn't scary!" Because these games were never scary to begin with?), people will whine and moan with every new Final Fantasy installment ("it isn't as good as my precious Final Fantasy IV!" *gollum*), every new Madden (because they don't ever change the gameplay mechanics, right?)... need I go on?

I'd say if you enjoyed the game; great! Let everyone else keep complaining and eventually they'll move on to the next game.

[Ack]

For the record, RE 2 was likely the scariest the series ever became. It's the only game where relatively average people were forced to face hordes of undead.

[Menegrothx]

For the record, RE 2 was likely the scariest the series ever became. It's the only game where relatively average people were forced to face hordes of undead.

The Resident Evil 1 GG remake is the scariest of them all. Sure you play as a memeber of an elite task force rather than as a rookie cop, but how much does that affect gameplay? It doesn't really. The tank controls and aiming system are the same and you can use heavy weapons like the grenade launcher just as well as in RE1/RE3. It's not like Silent Hill 1-4 vs Silent Hill Homecoming. And besides, you get to play as Ada and Hunk later on in Resident Evil 2.

[Ack]

For the record, RE 2 was likely the scariest the series ever became. It's the only game where relatively average people were forced to face hordes of undead.

The Resident Evil 1 GG remake is the scariest of them all. Sure you play as a memeber of an elite task force rather than as a rookie cop, but how much does that affect gameplay? It doesn't really. The tank controls and aiming system are the same and you can use heavy weapons like the grenade launcher just as well as in RE1/RE3. It's not like Silent Hill 1-4 vs Silent Hill Homecoming. And besides, you get to play as Ada and Hunk later on in Resident Evil 2.

True. I was only looking at the original games. But admittedly there are a few things which make it less scary, particularly the self defense weapons. Great, a zombie is about to...oh, no, never mind. But the addition of the Crimson Heads...ho, now that is a beautiful sight. A freaky, terrifying, beautiful sight.

[Menegrothx]

I would still argue that the original Resident Evil is scarier than Resident Evil 2. Resident Evil 2, like 4, is pretty much a perfect game imo, but still I think the original has a charm that can't be matched. Not just the setting and the FMV clips, but the general athmosphere was different. It was just you and the few remaining guys, trying to figure out the mystery of the mansion. In the following games the scale got bigger as the virus spread and the stories became overblown and convoluted with a lot of stupid action movie, corporate conspiracy BS. Cutscenes were mostly about explosions and people jumping out of windows and helicopters going down etc. RE3 was a lot worse than RE2 in this regard, but if my memory serves me correctly, RE2 still had a fair share of that. A huge part of the athmosphere came from reading all the text entries of people describing mutations&how things had gone to hell and trying to put 2 and 2 together based on what you read in order to figure out what had happened. The first game was about discovering the mystery of the mansion and the second game felt like it was full of despair because the virus had spread and destroyed a whole city. I guess after that they didn't know where to take the story anymore, and the rest is history.

Anyways, I also felt that ammo and ink ribbon conservation were the most important in the original. If my memory serves me correctly, RE1 also had more creepy text entries (most famous of them is this) and claustrophobic hallways with weird camera angles than RE2. Both RE1 and RE2 had memorable, spooky soundtracks but 3 had a comparatively forgettable soundtrack imo (I've got like 8-10 songs on my external HD of both RE1 and RE2, but I've only got Nemesis and The save theme from RE3)

[Opa Opa]

For the record, RE 2 was likely the scariest the series ever became. It's the only game where relatively average people were forced to face hordes of undead.

Huh, I always thought 3 was as scary as it got.

Yeah, Jill isn't the "everyman" character but you're alone practically the entire game. (Aren't there only like 4 or 5 cutscenes with other characters? And they rarely help you, from what I recall.)