If there is one thing that HL2 is really good at it is showing itself off. The game spend alot of time showing off it's physics, it's non-use of cutscenes, facial animation etc. However the original HL was a much better First Person SHOOTER and is still fantastic today, while puzzles and environmental storytelling are things that adventure games has been doing much better well before HL2 was released. While the game isn't bad, I can't help but feel that the game was a big "hey, look what I can do" with regards to its engine, it relies heavily on triggered events for everything doesn't have a story deep enough to be worth looking around the environment in search of clues to what happened.

Let me add that learning languages via video games is not the most efficient way and is not a good idea in general. I'd try attending langauge classes and/or buy books for beginners in English.

Aero5555

I'm going to have to completely disagree with this. Formal classes are an inefficient way to a language in my experience, you are much better off getting a good grammar guide, learning a few hundred basic words and diving into native materials that interest you as soon as possible, looking up anything you don't understand. If you are already familiar with the structure of a language, playing an RPG with a dictionary at your side in that language is one of the best ways to learn because the context of the game itself gives you great incentive to understand everything presented to you. The fact that you are enjoying yourself will allow you to learn faster and more solidly then you would in any class.

I'm no fighting genre expert, but I think that fighting games can obviously be button mashed, and a button masher may win against other button masher. But once you put someone in there that knows what they are doing, what buttons to hit and how to execute combos, the best button masher would lose terribly to someone who is decent. Thus, there is skill in the genre, otherwise the button masher would've win.

Some games have characters that are easier to button mash and win with, for example I think Jun and Baek from Tekken 2 were easy to win with just by mashing the button, but still, once against someone who knows what they are doing (even to a small degree), they'll usually get thrashed. Furthermore, a button masher using Jun or Baek could not win on hard difficulty, again, you need some skill and ideas of what you are doing to.

This can be said about other titles, I'm sure.

Also, to me, the genre is quite fun with friends, and it can get quite competitive. Atm me and my mates regularly get together to have a bit of a rumble, usually starts out casual but at times it can get quite serious (really trying to win).

Just to add, my favorite fighting game is Super Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. Good times.

trugs26

[QUOTE="MrDziekuje"]

FFVII was so popular because it was the first 3D FF. There's nothing compelling or outstanding about the game itself, just the time period.

hakanakumono

That's not true. It was very compelling to many players at the time. The reason why VII was so popular, was well, there's a variety of reasons but mainly its that it actually tried to tell a compelling story, moreso than any other previous game had. VI was a step towards that direction, but it's the artifact of the time between weak storytelling and strong storytelling, so some things didn't really recieve much attention, Kefka's person for example, whereas in VII there was a lot of time spent developing Sephiroth as a character more than just an evil villain.

Having played FFVI recently I'm incomplete agreement, Ireally don't understand the now huge "FFVI was bettern then FFVII" movement at all. FFVII was certainly overrated when it first came out (this is coming from someone who had never played an RPG before FFVII), but it's decent for what it is. FFVI just feels weaker overall, I completely fail to understand why people find Kefka so compelling and gameplay wise it isn't really any more interesting then any other FF.

I'm also one of those weird people who prefered the first BG to the second. I loved the open world exploration on the original, BG2 was great but I always felt it was far to 'streamlined', it's impossible to go off on a tangent and explore the wilderness. The city of Baldur's Gate itselfalso had more of a wow factor to it, you just can't wait to explore as much as you can where as starting off in BG2's Athkatla just felt confusing and lacking in direction until you got your bearings.

As topic says. Everthing has to go in real time nowadays. with notably few exceptions.

Everyone praised ff xii. i set on gambits and went for a cup of coffee or a smoke, the game played itself, where is the fun in that?

Please people help me get them back

there are tons of good ones for the ps2 but why not the "next gen" consoles or pc?

David

Ps: done all the great old goodies ;)

Taare

The problem withthis lineof argumentisthat FFXII's 'automatability' has nothing to do with the fact that it happens to have a non random real time battle system. Final Fantasy's battle system has always been inherantly simple and lacking in strategy (i.e. battles are best tackled by repeating the current optimal stratery over and over again with no long term consequences to prior decisions), so introducinga 'gambit' system to basicly any other FF game wouldhave the same effect, you would simply be automating repetitionthat you would otherwise beforced to control manually.

Random turn based battles are something I would happily get rid off at every possible opertunity I could, they simply serve to irritate me when I am tryign to explore. If you want to criticise FFXII the criticism should be directed at where it is warrented, at the fact that the battle system in and of itself is repetitive and uninteresting. The fact that the battles are in real time only makes their repetition that much more obvious.

Hahahahhahha.:lol:

The first thing I thought when I read the title of the thread was " This is going to be about Heart of Darkness isn't it". It's just the first thing that comes to mind when obscure PS1 sidescrollers are brought up.

The Dark Cloud games are a series that I really wanted to enjoy, but I just got sick of how utterly repetitive they are. If they cut back on the randomly generated crap and created actual environments then they would be a great deal more palitable.

I love Tombi and still play it to this day. It seems to be one of those cult games that goes fro stupid prices on eBay, like Kula World.

magic_treehouse

ok just tell me why u cant play a game that has quick save and load and just not use it... is it that hard to control yourself from using the function?!? anyway for YOUR OPINION, games like cod4/5, Mirrors edge, stranglehold, wanted, are all pretty fun games that use the checkpoint system instead of a save anywhere systemslyr114

This has nothing to do with 'control' orrestraint. It's not as if we don't like save anytime systems because of the temptation to save anywhere, my reason for not likeing them is that they force you to make arbitrary decisions on where to save if you don't want to be frustrated. The problem with this is that you are no longer playing a well defined challenge, it no longer means anything to say that you have passed a particular level, because you could have beaten it saving twice or half as much as you did.

When you playa game with well defined save points it is clear what you have acomplished. More importantly, it means that the game will idealyhave been designed to not be frustrating while still having specific sections which must be completed in one go. To me this is satisfying. Not only that, but most games with well defined challenges would become silly if they allowed save anytime. When playing a game with save anywhere there is no reason to believe that the developers put any thought into how the game would play if you only relied on the auto save. That is the key.