Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

The train level is great fun--I will say that. As is the Hoth level. Academy's strength for me is that sometimes it's more fun to go around just slicing up bad dudes.

As a Jedi, I agree. I always appreciated Outcast as a shooter because that's what you play half the game as. Then you get the Light Saber and Force Powers and it's like wwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[Krevsin]

Empire At War: Forces Of Corruption

Technically an expansion and not a sequel but it counts because it brings with it a lot of content. It basically adds an additional half of the game.

My thougths on it sum up as: "Hey let's introduce a 3rd faction to this RTS but make them objectivelly superior to the other 2 in every way."

[Neonivek]

Empire At War: Forces Of Corruption

Technically an expansion and not a sequel but it counts because it brings with it a lot of content. It basically adds an additional half of the game.

My thougths on it sum up as: "Hey let's introduce a 3rd faction to this RTS but make them objectivelly superior to the other 2 in every way."

Reminds me of Age of Mythology's expansion... But made the new faction too weak, then too strong, then too weak... and now they are fine.

Then they added a newer faction and everyone is up in arms about how overpowered they are once again. The Cycle of balance.

[Krevsin]

Yeah it's a real problem with RTS games. Seems like that unless the game is developed with all the races it has in mind, any additions will inevitably end up overpowered.

[Folly]

You don't necessarily need a physical manual nor a lengthy tutorial. Many games include in-menu help areas with information about confusing topics, often conveniently searchable. Mouseover tooltips are also a thing.

[nenjin]

Manuals come down to whether or not you're a "reader." A good, flavorful manual is fun in and of itself to read. I remember pouring over the Warcraft 1 and 2 manuals while the games installed and it was worth my time to do so. Flavorful content, interesting art, useful tips on how to play the game. Tutorials can accomplish that but very few people are interested in putting in the effort to make a really interesting and fun tutorial, because they just want to get you on to the rest of the game. And tooltips get the job done, but they rarely add anything to a game in the way a well done manual does.

And again....a game that is complicated enough to warrant a manual gets my attention these days. So many games are designed to be as accessible as possible and that pretty much precludes requiring your customers to READ.

[miauw62]

morrowind's graphics have not aged well, at all.

if a game can't hold my interest long enough to be fun, that's not my fault, that's the game's fault.

Did you read the rest? That's what I said--I just said Morrowind is a better game than the other TES games on the whole.

You're entitled to your opinions--at the same time, "one hour" of a game isn't really getting the breadth of it. The thing is you didn't "slog" through anything, you went to Balmorra--like... the easiest thing to do in the game. Just complete your character and get on a Stilt Strider, done. If your experience in walking several feet to the fast travel station was not as wild and adventurous as you expected I dont know what to tell you, lol. I'm not telling you it's the holy grail of RPGs, just something that people often forget is what MADE TES--I mean in comparison, Skyrim isn't even a TES game really, the Witcher does Skyrim better than Skyrim does.

I'm not even talking graphics--ya, better graphics would be great, but the gameplay has just gone so downhill since Morrowind--Oblivion's was okay, but every year they strip it down a little more. One less thing to customize, one less ability, etc. Like I mentioned earlier (if you read anything I've written at all--I assume you just fixated on the "How Morrowind is Better than Skyrim" part) Bethesda is the real worst Sequel--whenever they have something good they tirelessly whittle it down to the bone and it isn't fun any more.

Even worse is how, like I mentioned earlier, how uninspired Bethesda games have become. The worlds themselves are just get less interesting. In case of TES, Every year the wonder just goes--even if the environment is beautiful, it's nothing I haven't seen or could go to Norway and see. OR, if it fantastical in nature it's so cookie cutter and stereotypical that I don't even care about it. In the case of FO... while the concepts are more original, they're almost campy in presentation, and specific places themselves have no real character for the most part. Neither series captures the imagination like it used to.

If you don't like a game sure. All these games I've mentioned can stand on their own two feet as individual games, but we'r talking about sequels here and more often than not these games fail their predecessors hardcore.

I sure love all the subtle ad hominem! Now I'm really convinced that Skyrim is literally Hitler and Morrowind is the savior of video games!

It still doesn't change that I didn't really touch Morrowind again after I walked around some in Balmorra, got some directions to go some place, walked a bit, was swarmed by Cliff Racers and died trying to swing my sword but failing, and deciding my time would be better spent playing other games instead of figuring out Morrowind. Apparently that makes me a simpleton?

The game may be great, but it really hasn't aged well. Early 3D graphics in general haven't aged well, and while I can't blame the game for that, it does reduce my enjoyment (I really can't stand it, for some reason). The lack of explanation is also pretty annoying to me. And before anybody says "spoonfeeding", I'd just like to be told how the basic mechanics work. The fact that all characters speak in walls of text was also not something I particularly liked. It's just personal preference, but reading stuff, especially literature, on a screen is something I just don't like. So a physical manual would be nice, as a child I was always dissapointed in how short my PS2 manuals were. But a PDF is something different entirely.

That's just things that come to mind immediately. There's probably more, but most of it is probably rather minor. I'll probably come back to Morrowind someday and actually try it, because everybody says it is good, and I believe them, but the game is a bit too hard to actually get into for the amount of effort I'm willing to make right now. For the record, I  have 3 hours logged on Morrowind according to Steam.

And I'm sure Morrowind was really groundbreaking when it came out, which is probably why so many people like it. It feels to me as if it was released in another era, when almost all (PC) games were sort of inaccessible in some way or another, and Morrowind was something really unique and unheard, so people were willing to put in more effort? That's just an extrapolation of my limited, youthful experience, though. It's in no way ment as an insult to old games, because there are many gems, which I'm sure includes Morrowind.

[Krevsin]

Morrowind's combat system was not good when it came out. Remember, when Morrowind was out, Gothic was already out a year and Diablo was 6 years old. RPGs with good combat system that weren't turn based or real-time pausable, with the player directly controlling the weapon were around and they weren't bad. The only reason why Morrowind's systems are so archaic and why its combat is terrible is because they are a direct port of the mechanics present in Daggerfall to a 3D environment with... terrible results for the most part.

Morrowind's combat system sucked when it came out and it sucks now. There's just no defending that thing.

[itisnotlogical]

I think Daggerfall was more satisfying than Morrowind. Not that the mechanics were especially satisfying, but there was a nice THWACK and big spurt of blood when you hit an enemy. In Morrowind it just kinda wooshes, what you see has no relation to what's happening under the hood, and even if you hit it you're not sure, and you can't tell how much damage you're doing in the base game w/o expansions.

[Krevsin]

Back on the main subject, STALKER: Clear Sky

Like Homeworld 2, this one is more disappointing than truly awful. The faction warfare system is a neat idea, but the way it's implemented is highly annoying and very shallow. You're basically just shooting people until a bar goes up enough. And then you can't truly eradicate an enemy within a region. Likewise all the really atmospheric stuff like lab delving and exploring of ruins was relegated to sidequests and voluntary explorations for the most part, with most of the game's story taking place above the ground, following a group of soldiers and fighting another group of soldiers with different coloured uniforms.

The factions that felt much more fleshed out in Shadow Of Chernobyl felt more like paper-thin reskins of the same soldier model endlessly respawning in order to populate checkpoints that got attacked and eradicated by a similarily endlessly respawning enemy. Part of this is to blame on how much emphasis was placed on the faction warfare stuff and how shallow that turned out to be and part of it is just that the various leading members of the groups are just not as well written. in SoC members of Freedom and Duty had distinct personalities that reflected the beliefs of their respective groups, and those beliefs were given much more depth.

in Clear Sky, the choice between Freedom and Duty isn't a choice between anarchic liberty and carefully maintained order, but between greenish brown and black and red (always go for black and red, FOR THE BROTHERHOOD). There's just no personality there.

Likewise the story is kind of all over the place. Now that's pretty much par for the course in STALKER, but Clear Sky somehow overtakes Shadow Of Chernobyl in plot developments that come completely out of left field and that really make kind of zero sense when you think about them. Not to mention the ending sucks. A lot.

Oh well, at least the clear sky uniforms look cool and we got the glory that is Bandit Radio. Almost made the milquetoast, dull slog of shooting through waves upon waves of differently uniformed soldiermen worth it. Almost.

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh my god.
The last four pages have just been people fighting over their personal preferences.

It's called an opinion and with video games, there comes a point when you just have to accept that you and the other person have different opinions and nothing you can do that will change it.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

-snip-

I sure love all the subtle ad hominem! Now I'm really convinced that Skyrim is literally Hitler and Morrowind is the savior of video games!

There's no ad hominem. My point is literally the exact opposite of that. See: The part where I say that on their own two feet both are great video games, but Skyrim as a sequel of Morrowind fails to live up to the expectations.

It still doesn't change that I didn't really touch Morrowind again after I walked around some in Balmorra, got some directions to go some place, walked a bit, was swarmed by Cliff Racers and died trying to swing my sword but failing, and deciding my time would be better spent playing other games instead of figuring out Morrowind. Apparently that makes me a simpleton?

Both you and Ice have just ad hominem'd yourselves and then accused me of accusing you of being idiots. But the fact remains, if you haven't played the game--you can't make any compelling arguments about it, or compare it to other games. In fact, I've stated several times now that you can not like the game, and that Morrowind isn't perfect. Never have I attacked either of you.

That's just things that come to mind immediately. There's probably more, but most of it is probably rather minor. I'll probably come back to Morrowind someday and actually try it, because everybody says it is good, and I believe them, but the game is a bit too hard to actually get into for the amount of effort I'm willing to make right now. For the record, I  have 3 hours logged on Morrowind according to Steam.

Coolio. Frankly, it ISN'T a game for everyone. The combat doesn't appeal to a wide audience, and game starts out slow. I encourage you to try it, but like I said, it's not the holy grail of RPGs.

And I'm sure Morrowind was really groundbreaking when it came out, which is probably why so many people like it. It feels to me as if it was released in another era, when almost all (PC) games were sort of inaccessible in some way or another, and Morrowind was something really unique and unheard, so people were willing to put in more effort? That's just an extrapolation of my limited, youthful experience, though. It's in no way ment as an insult to old games, because there are many gems, which I'm sure includes Morrowind.

My journey into gaming began 2004, and I probably didn't play Morrowind until 2006/7--I played Oblivion first actually. It WAS released in a different era, when RPGs in general were less accessible, See: Part where I mention how different and groundbreaking it is compared to BG2, which came out only 2 years earlier. However, many of the mechanics were similar to then-modern RPGs and I highly doubt people put in more "effort" back then to understand Morrowind.

Lastly, as a final note, neither you nor Ice actually read (presumably) or responded to the majority of what I wrote about the game and simply complained about me attacking your characters--which I didn't and haven't done. Nor did you even acknowledge this discourse within the frame of the TES games as a series and the standing of Oblivion and Skyrim as sequels of Morrowind. Getting closest at Ice's remark about how he was sure that Morrowind was panned as a dumbing-down of Daggerfall at its release as well. You can't get angry about me questioning how you can compare the games (which neither of you have really done here) when you have barely even played one of them. So cheers, I don't care if you ever play Morrowind again. It IS a pivotal title in the development of the RPG genre. It's NOT perfect. It's main strengths were it's coherent and inspired design and just it's ability to break the mould. Oblivion, improved on several elements of Morrowind and lost the thread of several others, but on the whole was still different and inspired enough to not only define it's own original fantasy setting, but also break the mould of other RPGs at the time. I.E. Two Worlds, Divinity, Sacred 2, etc. Skyrim failed to improve on pretty much anything Oblivion did right. Removed spell making, dumbed-down enchanting, the story was not great (though none of them really are), etc. etc. and in return we got what? Duel Wielding and the ability to yell very loudly? A poor trade off, the new mechanics feel more gimmicky than truly additive to the gameplay. Again--since you've managed to overlook this part on every. single. one. of. my. posts. As their own games Skyrim is great, Oblivion is great, Morrowind is great. BUT in a series, there is a visible, marked decline, and that's what this thread is all about. I'm not going to rehash anything about WHY there's a decline as I already have several wall-of-text posts on it literally within the past few pages. If you're interest, go back and read them.

Now as Chiefwaffles has said, it's gotten a bit out of hand. This is my final nail in the coffin. Peace, dudes.

[hector13]

Jiminy Cricket, don't write out a massive post responding to something and then say "that's it over". It makes you look like a tool wanting to get the last word in, and that kinda defeats the point


Civilization 4 was a step backwards in my opinion, but I think Civ3 was my favourite of the series so that's to be expected.

Also Yakuza 4, just 'cause 2 of the extra three characters were mostly forgettable (or frustrating as all shit to play as) and I'm presently bemused by Yakuza 5, mostly just 'cause I've spent at least 40 hours playing it and still don't have a pissing clue how everyone fits into it. I'm not even sure what's going on yet.

Wouldn't go so far as to say they're worst sequel ever material, just... not as good as the third in the series, in all cases.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Jiminy Cricket, don't write out a massive post responding to something and then say "that's it over". It makes you look like a tool wanting to get the last word in, and that kinda defeats the point

*angry sigh* I tried to move on from it like 2 pages ago, but peeps responded anyways. Idk what to tell you, I'm not gonna just let people yell "Ad Hominem" to defeat the point im making.

[hector13]

And you continued arguing in t'thread, keeping the ball rolling. You were arguing too, bub.

If any of you feel like continuing the argument, please take it to PMs.