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[Bohandas]

games with good stories are almost never cinematic games, though. games allow artists to bring stories in new ways. DF, LISA, Bastion, the Hate games, etc. Just making it a cinematic experience is pretty silly when you have such a flexible medium.

I didn't like LISA. After having nothing to do but walk back and forth at the speed of frozen molasses for a half an hour I just gave up on it.

EDIT:
That reminds me, I hate games where  a lot of t8me is consumed just walking from place to place.

[kilakan]

games with good stories are almost never cinematic games, though. games allow artists to bring stories in new ways. DF, LISA, Bastion, the Hate games, etc. Just making it a cinematic experience is pretty silly when you have such a flexible medium.

I didn't like LISA. After having nothing to do but walk back and forth at the speed of frozen molasses for a half an hour I just gave up on it.

EDIT:
That reminds me, I hate games where  a lot of t8me is consumed just walking from place to place.

I tend to agree with this, notable exceptions however being games like Morrowind.  In which you 'do' take a long time to walk from one place to another but the terrain is intersting, there's lots of random side-quests and npcs on the way and even dungeons you can encounter that you'd never know about otherwise...

Speaking of which a major gaming pet peeve I have these days is 'Short Story' games.  Games in which there's generally little re-play ability that you can beat within about 20 hours.  The first walking dead game comes to mind because:spoiler warning:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sure your choices might momentarily affect who dies and lives, but in the end everyone but the main character and two others end up dead.  You really don't change the story at all, and even if I went and replayed the game to choose totally different actions I'd still probably only have 22 hours to completion.

I know developers want to make fat stacks of cash these days but.... why does that always come at the cost of what a lot of older story games had; games you could get 100+ hours in and still not discover everything.  I'm probably just nostalgic I guess but I am scared to ever drop 50$ on a new game anymore because I don't know if I'll get my money's worth outta it even if it's a good game...

[Krevsin]

Here's a pet peeve of mine

"Replayability" as a concept and a marketing point
I hate it when games push for "intensely replayable". If I like a game, I will replay it. Just like I reread books, rewatch films and relisten music albums. I have replayed Half Life 2 more times than I can count, likewise Wolfenstein: the New Order and Metro 2033. Those are all very linear games with no significant branching and yet I return to them often just because I really really liked playing them.

In fact, it's not actual "replay" if you're constantly discovering new stuff. That's just called "play".

[UXLZ]

Eh, walking around, even in Morrowind, was a bit of a pain until you could run like Sonic. But the fact that you had to walk everywhere (fairly slowly at first) or catch an in-game travel service made the world feel a lot bigger than Oblivion and also Skyrim (though it was smaller than the latter.)

Fast Travel from anywhere makes the world feel small, pretty much no matter what. Fallout suffers from a similar-ish issue, but it's better because you can't immediately get to major cities really easily. It also helped that you couldn't see 20 locations of interest from your compass, because you didn't HAVE a compass.

Pet Peeve:

You know how Skyrim had a burial site, dragon lair, cave, bandit camp, wood mill, etc. etc. every 10 feet? THAT was annoying.

[Calidovi]

games with good stories are almost never cinematic games, though. games allow artists to bring stories in new ways. DF, LISA, Bastion, the Hate games, etc. Just making it a cinematic experience is pretty silly when you have such a flexible medium.

I don't fully understand the appeal behind Bastion. It had subpar gameplay, a feature that isn't amended by haven't a sensible story. It felt so lifeless, but not in the atmospheric way. I just felt like the entire point of the game was holding down left-click and reading text.

[Rolan7]

Not sure what you mean about the gameplay...  The weapons all took finesse to use effectively.  Even the flamethrower, probably the simplest, had to recharge every couple seconds.  Countering attacks with the shield was tricky too.

I totally respect your opinion about the atmosphere and storytelling, though!  *I* liked it a lot, but that's entirely subjective, and it probably helped that I was enjoying the mechanics too.  Maybe because I haven't played a lot of top-down shooters recently (though this felt far more mechanically engaging than old classics like Alien Breed).

[Calidovi]

Not sure what you mean about the gameplay...  The weapons all took finesse to use effectively.  Even the flamethrower, probably the simplest, had to recharge every couple seconds.  Countering attacks with the shield was tricky too.

I totally respect your opinion about the atmosphere and storytelling, though!  *I* liked it a lot, but that's entirely subjective, and it probably helped that I was enjoying the mechanics too.  Maybe because I haven't played a lot of top-down shooters recently (though this felt far more mechanically engaging than old classics like Alien Breed).

I get the appeal of Bastion. I certainly liked parts of it, but in its whole it felt repetitive. I can understand where the appreciation comes from, just not my cup of tea.

[Darkmere]

Oh good, I thought I was the only one who didn't like bastion. The gameplay was simplistic and repetitive, and the narrator was grating after about 10 minutes. Music was nice, though. I felt I got everything important I needed from reading the TVTropes entry for it and calling it a day.

[Neonivek]

Oh good, I thought I was the only one who didn't like bastion. The gameplay was simplistic and repetitive, and the narrator was grating after about 10 minutes. Music was nice, though. I felt I got everything important I needed from reading the TVTropes entry for it and calling it a day.

Which is honestly legit and one of the reasons why a good review is one that explains itself and not one that either kisses the feet of a good game, or bemonishes a bad game.

[Krevsin]

I personally never found the narrator irritating.

But that's just because I'm the type of person who enjoys listening to men with deeply sexy voices narrating things.

[Darkmere]

I personally never found the narrator irritating.

But that's just because I'm the type of person who enjoys listening to men with deeply sexy voices narrating things.

It wasn't really a quality of the voice or anything like that, so much that the narrator (for as far as I got in the game) only told me two things:

1) Exactly what I was doing right that second... yes I can see the train is on fire and about to wreck, thanks.

2) Some random bullshit about the world long gone, that never came up again. So, expository filler.

The handful of exceptions were buried under all the rest and I know I probably missed a few just by tuning out the constant jazzman drone.

[miauw62]

The exposition defines the setting and adds to the atmosphere. You could call almost anything filler by your standards.

[Darkmere]

You examine the bush and pick up a hunting musket. It looks weathered but well-maintained.

"Kid picks up an old musket from the bush. Muskets like this were used by the bush-hunting musketmen..."
Yeah, got it.
"... when they were after game to feed the good people..."
hunters shot muskets. Yep.
"... of the city back in the old days."
*sigh*

The art was one of the strong points about the game, more than capable of carrying lots and lots of detail all on its own. Telling me exactly what I'm looking at when it's unnecessary is filler, yeah.

I didn't mind the relevant plot or character parts, but those were interspersed with making sure I knew my eyes were working. It felt kinda like playing a cinematic with audible stage directions and scene descriptions, if that makes more sense.

[Calidovi]

You examine the bush and pick up a hunting musket. It looks weathered but well-maintained.

"Kid picks up an old musket from the bush. Muskets like this were used by the bush-hunting musketmen..."
Yeah, got it.
"... when they were after game to feed the good people..."
hunters shot muskets. Yep.
"... of the city back in the old days."
*sigh*

The art was one of the strong points about the game, more than capable of carrying lots and lots of detail all on its own. Telling me exactly what I'm looking at when it's unnecessary is filler, yeah.

I didn't mind the relevant plot or character parts, but those were interspersed with making sure I knew my eyes were working. It felt kinda like playing a cinematic with audible stage directions and scene descriptions, if that makes more sense.

Honestly, I liked the narrator if just for his unique role. I didn't find it irritating, and it was nice to hear a familiar voice in the weird, barren land of Bastion.

[Neonivek]

barren land

Yeah very barren... except all that non-barren stuff.