What Video Games Have you Been Playing?

faith,

The snes zelda blew me away when it came out, and I think that despite its dated graphics and sound it's still a good play. That one I think probably surpassed the original, but of course the original was a milestone in its own right. I also really liked ocarina of time, but not as much at the one that was for snes (even though that's the one whose name continues to escape me.) If I ever get a wii I'm looking forward to seeing how they've grafted zelda onto that interface.

I never got into everquest. A year or two ago I tried runescape and found the gameplay to be pretty repetitive and it seemed like it was mostly populated with children. Occasionally I play adventurequest. I enjoy the quirky sense of humor the game seems to have, although it's really not an mmorpg in the traditional sense.

I'm on a mac, non-intel, so my choices for pc gaming are limited. I also don't really have an interest in paying monthly subscription fees for a game.


Dauer
 
Okami. Nuff said.

I just recently started playing games again after getting out of college, but prior to that I was a pretty hardcore gamer. One of my favorite series is Devil May Cry, in fact, I'd say it was one of the catalysts for my interest in religion.
 
Okami. Nuff said.

I just recently started playing games again after getting out of college, but prior to that I was a pretty hardcore gamer. One of my favorite series is Devil May Cry, in fact, I'd say it was one of the catalysts for my interest in religion.
Can you expound on that? I'm a non gamer...occasionally put a quarter in a machine or play for a bit at someones house, but never got into any of them to any extent. (fond memories of pinball, and love to play board games and card games...)

My son plays some SimCity at my house, but I wouldn't mind getting him a game that was well regarded and rated highly among gamers but made one think and grow...vs. shoot and maim...
 
Can you expound on that? I'm a non gamer...occasionally put a quarter in a machine or play for a bit at someones house, but never got into any of them to any extent. (fond memories of pinball, and love to play board games and card games...)

My son plays some SimCity at my house, but I wouldn't mind getting him a game that was well regarded and rated highly among gamers but made one think and grow...vs. shoot and maim...

lol shoot and maime is "in" baby! :D Thats what the people want. How old is the young blood? And what console does he use... or is it a CPU? And I will ponder and come back with an educational and FUN title...
 
wil,

I have to disagree with 17th. Not all games are about violence, although may do contain some element of action, as is also common in movies.

**Warning: Mild Spoilers about Final Fantasy X**

FFX came in the mail. Really awesome game. It's about a young girl who's a summoner. She's going on a pilgrimage to various temples. At each temple she has to pray so that she will be granted a new aeon (one of the summonable creatures.) One she completes her pilgrimage she'll be granted some sort of ultimate summon which is supposed to allow her to defeat Sin. something she knows she's destined to do from the start, but doesn't seem ready for. The game is just beautiful, and the plot has been pretty neat. The name of the enemy in this game is Sin. There is one group that is attempting to fight it all costs, called the Crusaders, including via the use of forbidden, advanced machina. Sin came as a punishment to the world because of something the people of the world did in the past, and it will not leave until all is atoned for. Currently there are summoners who rise to defeat Sin. This is followed by a period of peace called Calm, and then Sin returns again, the cycle continues. This seems to have been the way it's been for the past 1000 years, since the event that created Sin to punish the people.

The world contains many races and deals with issues of racism and also the sort of ideas of superiority that can sometimes develop among groups. It also weaves many different myths from world religions together into a beautiful tapestry, but as a backdrop and as some of the pieces of the plot.

I even found it taking the time to tackle issues like, 'How do we apply our codes of ethics? When do they apply, and what of it is subjective?' And other things.

I was watching one scene and halfway through I realized it was modelled after Freud's theories of early childhood development, which was neat.

The female characters in the party can be divided into "the blonde", "the goth", and "the innocent", but I've found so far that all of the characters have much more depth than this, even if on the surface they seem to be stereotypes (well, the blonde does mechanical things, so not entirely.)

So yeah, good game. Good time. And now it sells for only US$19.99 on the PS2.

Dauer
 
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I was given Front Mission 3 and Final Fantasy Tactics (along with a copy of the first edition The Dragon-Blooded form Exalted) for the holidays (the couple who gave them to me got baked goods in microwave-safe, reusable containers with the recipes for the treats. :eek:) The gentleman is coming over later this week to configure something so I can play them (and to make sure I go the "easier route" in Front Mission, seeing as I've never played anything like it before [I think].) He's also going to transfer all of the games they gave me before onto the "new"/secondhand computer I got so I can start playing them again (before any of you get "uppity", I don't have a television, so I have to play any video games I get on the computer.)

I'm also on Dofus, an MMORPG that my friends got me on (I don't recall if I mentioned it before or not. :eek:)


Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine
 
17th,

Either way. There are certainly people who are not looking for violence in games.

Dauer
 
17th,

I think you're probably wrong about that. When you consider the number of people who prefer rpgs, or driving sims, or sports sims, or strategy games, or puzzle games, or mmogs, or any of the other types of games not based primarily in violence, I think you'll find that each single one does not have the majority, but add them all together and I'll bet they make up more of the market than games whose primary selling point is violence.

Dauer
 
Some of my favorites are:

Civilization
Sim Earth
Genghis Khan (I'm dating myself)
Hot Shots Golf
Tiger Woods
Sims
and, I have to admit, GTA - San Andreas

I like RPGs, Strategy / Simulation and, of course, GOLF!

I'm mostly playing Tiger Woods. GTA is for stress relief!
 
17th,

I think you're probably wrong about that. When you consider the number of people who prefer rpgs, or driving sims, or sports sims, or strategy games, or puzzle games, or mmogs, or any of the other types of games not based primarily in violence, I think you'll find that each single one does not have the majority, but add them all together and I'll bet they make up more of the market than games whose primary selling point is violence.

Dauer


Ok so the final fantasy range.... There is no violence in that? There is no violence in any RPG? I know driving games with violence :D and strategy games aaaand sports games... Then you can add the shooters and sci-fis and horrors and gangster games and random criminal games such as GTA and so on... I would quite happily place that bet with you. Gears of War? Oh whats that? It sold over 4 million copies world wide? Oh its only been out since November? lar plz, kthx.
 
17th,

Ok so the final fantasy range.... There is no violence in that? There is no violence in any RPG?

The focus of the game is not violence, as I'm sure you're aware.

I know driving games with violence and strategy games aaaand sports games...

Same as above.

Your case was that people are looking for violence in games. If violence is not the focus of a game, then you cannot reasonably say that it is targetted at people looking for violence. I own GTA: San Andreas and that most certainly is a game targetted at people looking for action, and even some degree of realism. However I also own most of the ff series, and those are not games whose focus is violence, even though they do all include battles.

Dauer
 
Your case was that people are looking for violence in games. If violence is not the focus of a game, then you cannot reasonably say that it is targetted at people looking for violence. I own GTA: San Andreas and that most certainly is a game targetted at people looking for action, and even some degree of realism. However I also own most of the ff series, and those are not games whose focus is violence, even though they do all include battles.

Take away the battles from your ff series... Remove the swords and other insanely over sized weapons :D Still a good game? ;\ a degree of realism in gta? lol... I see people running down the road firing rocket launchers and car jackings without a struggle all the time ;\
 
17th,

Take away the battles from your ff series... Remove the swords and other insanely over sized weapons Still a good game?

Rpgs have many facets to them. I'm sure the fighting could be removed if it was replaced with more puzzle-oriented gameplay. And I'm sure you're quite aware that random battles (the majority of battling in any formulaic rpg) are widely considered to be annoying and tedious, so much so that they've spawned multiple flash cartoons about how dull and tedious they are. If the fighting was limited, and different ways of levelling up were added, like the puzzles I suggested, that variety (and the reduction of battling) would probably improve the games in the eyes of many rpgers. In my experience the central aspect of any rpg is its story, and with some rpgs taking upwards of even 30 minutes just for fairly non-interactive story sequences (think the chrono- series post trigger) it would be hard to argue otherwise. They're essentially interactive epic novels, now with an added twist due to the fact that speech can be done in the games, instead of requiring actual reading of the entire game.

a degree of realism in gta? lol... I see people running down the road firing rocket launchers and car jackings without a struggle all the time ;\

I think now you're just looking for silly reasons to be argumentative. When I mentioned realism I was not referring to the gameplay, but to what the media has also pointed to: the game takes place in a place that's supposed to resemble real world cities where most of the people are merely civilians, (the others also with realworld counterparts; gangs, mafia, or police) who react in ways one would expect (and with graphics that were enough to make it more controversial) to being assaulted with various sharp and blunt objects, as well as explosives and projectiles. It's not a war simulation. It's a game where you can go into an ordinary looking neighborhood and commit mass homicide, with the gasps, screams, running men and women etc, one would expect. I don't know how you could infer a suggestion the game is some sort of sim based on my statement it has "some degree of realism."

Dauer
 
Mostly I just can't seem to pull myself away from World of Warcraft - hands-down *the* most addictive video game I have ever played! Seven million in number of subscriptions as I understand it, and definitely an entire digital *world*, online!!!

I hear that Oblivion (Elder Scrolls) is equally huge, but I walked around in some village for hours and hours and never could get anywhere. :p

Something about single-player just doesn't hold it for me anymore. I wanna team up, go into a dungeon and even if we don't truly RP we can at least see the balance between characters, races, classes, etc. Teamwork. Plus it's wonderful to game with people on 3 or 4 different continents, and learn funny Aussie terms like "chockas." lol

All-time favorite video game: System Shock, and System Shock II (using the Thief engine). Old by today's standards, but during a time when Doom was all the rage (I'll never forget seeing that for the first time), SS was light years ahead ... Cyberpunk genre. Nowadays, Doom III and HalfLife 2 are still cool, but I miss the excitement of System Shock! Perhaps BioShock will live up to the innovative tradition.

I also have Secrets of Atlantis installed, which is great fun if you like the idea of mythological civilizations and the occult. Starts you out on the Hindenburg in WWII, takes you to the Empire State Bldg, and now I'm stuck at a puzzle in China.

Along these lines, Drowned God is quite wonderful, involving UFOs, the Kabbalah, Knights Templar, and Arthurian Legend. Again, old-school and single-player, but if Myst was your thing, these kinda games should interest. Also, if you haven't seen PYST, try it out - should be obtainable somewhere, it was shareware. Quite funny take-off on Myst. ;)

I have Need for Speed Carbon installed, and Titan Quest, Neverwinter Nights 2 and others waiting around, but they'll probably never get played. WoW just tends to be so much for fun for me, with the multiplayer. Guild Wars was prettier along these lines, but hasn't nearly the playability as WoW.

Still, I see the graphics in some of these games, and note that there is some kind of *physics* engine card out there now - an add-on card, totally separate from the the video card, for "real-world effects" (Aegeia or something?). I mean, kids drop $750 for a video card sometimes, $500 for one of these, and a quadcore processor plus 2 sticks of RAM is not even that. Storage at a quarter a gig, or 50 cents if you buy the 750gb drives. :p

Then again, if ET is getting here from across the galaxy, he ain't exactly doing it in the space shuttle, is he? I'd give a gold mine to see their computers. :D

~Zag
 
Rpgs have many facets to them. I'm sure the fighting could be removed if it was replaced with more puzzle-oriented gameplay.

And I'm sure you're quite aware that random battles (the majority of battling in any formulaic rpg) are widely considered to be annoying and tedious, so much so that they've spawned multiple flash cartoons about how dull and tedious they are.

If the fighting was limited, and different ways of levelling up were added, like the puzzles I suggested, that variety (and the reduction of battling) would probably improve the games in the eyes of many rpgers. In my experience the central aspect of any rpg is its story.


I think now you're just looking for silly reasons to be argumentative.

When I mentioned realism I was not referring to the gameplay, but to what the media has also pointed to: the game takes place in a place that's supposed to resemble real world cities where most of the people are merely civilians, (the others also with realworld counterparts; gangs, mafia, or police) who react in ways one would expect (and with graphics that were enough to make it more controversial) to being assaulted with various sharp and blunt objects, as well as explosives and projectiles. It's not a war simulation. It's a game where you can go into an ordinary looking neighborhood and commit mass homicide, with the gasps, screams, running men and women etc, one would expect. I don't know how you could infer a suggestion the game is some sort of sim based on my statement it has "some degree of realism."

Dauer

Could be, would be, if they did this, if they did that... But they won't :D Fighting sells darnit! Indeed the random fights can get a abit tedious...

Looking for reasons? lol.

Indeed... You can just walk around all nice and normal... Infact, just like you do in the real world... I know that's why I buy GTA based games. To simply walk around the pavements and think "wow this looks like a city." People play these type of games because they can execute hate and rage upon the people in these cities as you said..
 
Could be, would be, if they did this, if they did that... But they won't Fighting sells darnit!

Asserting your view is not in itself an argument. And they have indeed played with the formula. For example in FFX which I'm playing right now there are puzzle sequences at all of the Temples, nevermind the amount of time dedicated to story. The fighting in rpgs is generally a means of progressing the story, part of which includes level building.

Indeed the random fights can get a abit tedious...

So then you agree. Fighting is not the key element of rpgs. It's something formulaic that's been essentially canonized, and could be reduced to make room for more entertaining types of gameplay. So you can't then call rpgs fighting games and say that fighting is what sells em if that's an element of the game that's both annoying and secondary.

Indeed... You can just walk around all nice and normal... Infact, just like you do in the real world... I know that's why I buy GTA based games. To simply walk around the pavements and think "wow this looks like a city."

You didn't understand my point or, as I suggested before, you're being intentionally difficult and just looking for reasons to argue instead of paying attention to what I'm saying. It's not that you can walk around these places that are like the real world. It's that you can walk around these places that are like the real world and commit acts of mass homicide. If you go back and check the posts, I brought up San Andreas as an example of a violent game. I never used San Andreas to show violent games are unpopular or anything else, just as an example of a violent game. You took issue with my saying it has "some degree of realism" and yet now you are agreeing with me that indeed, the enticing factor is the realism I was referring to.

People play these type of games because they can execute hate and rage upon the people in these cities as you said..

Then what is your point? In your previous post you agreed with me on both of the points of mine you brought up (one of which was only a non sequiter from when you took issue with something I said that you later agreed with), while still asserting without further presentation that you're right. That just doesn't make sense to me.

Dauer
 
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