The crew dissects the latest adventure of Grumble McGrumbleson in The Witcher 3, plus on the heels of David Letterman’s retirement we dive into the holy grail of game discussion that is the Top 10 list. Featuring Richard Naik, Brad Gallaway, Anne Lee, Mike Suskie, and Jeffrey Mautlef.
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It's Richard!
Latest posts by Richard Naik (see all)
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Wow Crofto…You beat me to, well, almost all of it. Re Witcher 3: Its combat is really substandard and boring. CD Project Red mentioned multiple times in public that they tried really hard to improve the combat – so there is no use claiming that it was not a focus of this game, and that announcement just compliments Croftos assertion that CE Project Red, “don’t really understand the concept of good polish and fluidity in game design”. Add to that the supporting combat systems of the; upgrade system, inventory, levelling etc, and to claim that combat is not a focus… Read more »
I agree with Crofto on this one. Everything that ME1 did well was improved upon in subsequent installments. So to cite it as one’s favorite in anything but story is a little silly. The exploration aspect was an ambitious idea, but executed poorly. It basically amounted to a three-dimensional version of the old PC game Starflight. Mass Effect 2 is my personal favorite of the series. It’s the most focused entry, with the best characters and the best plot. It’s basically a heist tale, with Shepard at the center, getting the crew together for one last job 🙂 -sleeve [quote=Brad… Read more »
Hey Crofto.
So, do you like ME1 or you don’t? it was hard to tell! ^_^
Well, nobody ever agrees on any top 10, so there’s no list that’s gonna make everybody happy. Mine suits me pretty well (for this year, at least) so I’m sticking to it.
Out of curiosity, I’d love to see your own top 10! = )
B
If I rated games on narrative sophistication, I don’t think I’d ever play videogames. Then again, I wouldn’t watch too many movies either if I was as terribly rigorous regarding narrative sophistication as I could be. I equate my love of games to my love of the films I find strictly entertaining, not particularly good. Differentiating between the two (entertaining and good) makes it a lot easier to enjoy the videogames I play. When it comes to “good” games, I can only really point to stuff like Demon’s Souls and Shadow of the Colossus. And that’s due precisely to the… Read more »
On The Witcher 3, I’m afraid I lean towards Jeffrey in terms of finding poor combat too detrimental to my enjoyment of the game. I somehow managed to grind my way through the first two games but came to the conclusion that CD Projeckt are simply one of ‘those’ developers who don’t really understand the concept of good polish and fludity in game design. The games are really janky in several regards, but the idea of approaching an open-world game – as fully detailed as it is – with rubbish combat just isn’t doable for me any more. Don’t get… Read more »
I don’t think it’s surprising at all to see how well-received ME2 was, considering how it addressed ME1’s myriad flaws. And I think it is disingenuous to characterize ME2’s combat as a bunch of “linear hallways” considering how much more development went into the combat system. So many more abilities went from being a complete waste in ME1 to being actually useful in ME2. The ability system received a complete overhaul for the better. I don’t think that can be reasonably disputed. For you to dismiss that part of ME2 as “linear hallways”, I think, betrays a fundamental lack of… Read more »
Some important context before I reveal my top 10 below. I had an Amiga 500 as a young teenager, but I never really got in to games till much later at 27 or 28 years old in 1998. I still have a memory of looking at Zelda OoT gold packaging when it was first released and thinking, “well, that looks gay”. Oh how wrong I was, and sorry about my past casual gay disrespect. N64 was my first console, and I’ve owned every single console since, as well as a PC for the last 3 years – Which I play… Read more »
4. Far Cry 2 in there before Red Dead and Fallout plz 🙂
I thought ME1 was the best of the three, it certainly had the biggest impact on me at the time of release anyway. ME2 had that terrible end boss, and by ME3 Bioware-fatigue was setting in.
Some good games there, Crofto.
1. Demons Souls
2. Mount & Blade (2008)
3. Dark Souls
4. Red Dead Redemption
5. Fallout 3
….
10. Beyond: Two Souls
😀
I’m not surprised to see fellow posters note how it is almost absurd to have chosen ME1 as your favourite game of ALL TIME(!!!) when, in literally every regard the sequel is far superior. We all have our tastes when it comes to narratives, so I am happy to concede to gamers when they say they enjoy ME’s narrative (I just can’t help shake the feeling that the series is lightyears behind Knights of the Old Republic in that regard, though). But, aside from that, ME2 is a godsend in comparison to the first game. I was quite overjoyed that… Read more »
Gotta say, I’m a bit surprised to see so much love for ME2. It was alright, but it put way too much focus on the loyalty quests, not to mention the way the combat design turned most of the rooms into linear hallways with low crates for cover. And that ending? Everybody brings up ME3 as having a terrible ending, but ME2’s was pretty awful in its own way. The mission to get there was great, but the rest? Ehhhhhhh. Anyway, we’ve all got our own favorites — you guys are quite welcome to post your own top 10s here… Read more »
Tom, I don’t think I agree with you about the poor narrative in the gaming space – a lot of it may be ‘fill in your own story’ but there are plenty of games that handle exposition in an understated and artful way – ICO and SotC for example (I never got past the second colossus in the latter though, hate that game). We did a ‘top games of the (now) last gen’ vote on the forums a while back. It suffers a little from the lack of traffic down there, but guess what was number one? Mass Effect …………………..27.5… Read more »