Game Recommendation

Originally posted by §P0oONY
AC games are very overrated, especially 'round these parts. I personally wouldn't recommend them unless you get them on the cheap.

Mass Effect is a solid game, not the best, not the worst. I would choose Fallout 3/NV in a heartbeat over it though.

Fallout: New Vegas, on the other hand, is a pile of glitches with no improvements over Fallout 3. F3 will admittedly entertain for a while if you're into Bethesda games, though.

Originally posted by Peach
Assassin's Creed (not so much the first one, but the second and Brotherhood) tend to be on the sandboxy side of things, in that you can wander and explore and there are optional side missions and objectives. However, there is a main storyline that you need to follow in order to finish the game, and your wanderings are limited depending on how far in the game you've gotten. And all of the side stuff is purely optional, as I mentioned.

Prince of Persia is extremely linear and offers no exploration at all, really; the exception is the 08 game in which you can do the different 'regions' in whichever order you please.

Mass Effect is basically KOTOR in the future.

Hmm, I had a feeling that would be the case. And it's not as if I hated KotOR but I was hoping for something more along the lines of Metal Gear Solid or Beyond Good and Evil.

I did not like KOTOR all that much, and I thought the first Mass Effect was unplayably bad. The second is better, but still not really a great game, IMO.

Wow, this is probably the first negative comment I've ever seen made towards the game. It seems to have received an overwhelming amount of universal recognition from both critics and gamers alike everywhere I've looked up until this point.

Originally posted by §P0oONY
AC games are very overrated, especially 'round these parts. I personally wouldn't recommend them unless you get them on the cheap.

Mass Effect is a solid game, not the best, not the worst. I would choose Fallout 3/NV in a heartbeat over it though.

Interestingly enough Fallout 3 pretty much embodied exactly what it is I hate about Sandbox games. I can see why some people would like them, but I definitely wouldn't count myself as one of those people (and to be honest I think games like Grand Theft Auto and Marvel Ultimate Alliance/X-Men Legends did a much better job of it than the likes of Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 etc.).

Originally posted by General Kaliero
F3 will admittedly entertain for a while if you're into Bethesda games, though.

That I am not (Morrowind is probably my single least favorite RPG of all time).

Originally posted by General Kaliero
Oh yes, the series with aggregate scores of ~80-90% for the main games and dozens of awards, including multiple "Game of the Year" awards, and over 20 million sales, is very overrated. 🙄

Well, to be fair, most games receiving 40% and being hated by everyone kinda lack the ability to be overrated.

The Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer expansion might be up your alley. Its written by the same guy who did Kotor 2 and I know you liked that. Its full of deep, interesting characters, symbology (mostly to do with the Triple Goddess figures of Maiden, Mother and Crone) and some of the best roleplaying choices in a VG that I've encountered. In particular it has one of the few evil playthroughs that's actually Evil, rather than petty and thuggish. This is a more calculating, manipulative type of evil.

Hell, it barely qualifies as an expansion. Its far better than most games out there.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Well, to be fair, most games receiving 40% and being hated by everyone kinda lack the ability to be overrated.

Well, that's not really the point; the point is rather that a series that has been shown to have earned its high scores, and where the developers went to such lengths to fix the issues from the first game, isn't exactly overrated. It's not like Halo or CoD where it's just more of the same but it still gets high scores. They're games in a genre that's never before seen commercial success despite always having critical success.

I mean, really, the only complaints I've ever seen about AC2 is that the ending is, to quote Desmond, very "What. The. ****."; the only complaints about Brotherhood is that the main story isn't as strong as AC2, it's seen as being better than the predecessor in every other way, though.

Played the Neverwinter Nights games as well (thought Planescape: Torment and KotOR 2 were a lot better to be honest). The only Bioware/Black Isle/Obsidian Entertainment RPGs I haven't played are Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Dragon Age, Alpha Protocol, Jade Empire, and Sonic: Dark Brotherhood.

If you've played F3 and didn't like it, don't bother with New Vegas. It's just more of the same but not as good, and glitchy to all hell.

Also skip Alpha Protocol, it's a terrible game. They delayed it a year and still couldn't come up with anything that was any good.

I actually liked Dragon Age decently well; it's not a perfect game by any means, but still good.

Originally posted by General Kaliero
Oh yes, the series with aggregate scores of ~80-90% for the main games and dozens of awards, including multiple "Game of the Year" awards, and over 20 million sales, is very overrated. 🙄

In Spoony's defence, and in support of Bardock's point, you can say very similar things about, say, Final Fantasy VIII.

Though I have tis vague memory that spoony liked Squall. Might have been jaden. Well, if so, my sympathy starts to plummet.

Regardless, a bit mean to pick up spoony for that when right next to him someone is criticising Mass Effect... if he thinks it is overrated, then let him think so!

Originally posted by Ushgarak
In Spoony's defence, and in support of Bardock's point, you can say very similar things about, say, Final Fantasy VIII.

Though I have tis vague memory that spoony liked Squall. Might have been jaden. Well, if so, my sympathy starts to plummet.

Regardless, a bit mean to pick up spoony for that when right next to him someone is criticising Mass Effect... if he thinks it is overrated, then let him thinki so!

FFVIII is a game I'd say got high scores based on the name more than anything else.

Also I will keep pestering you to play AC2 until you do.

And Mass Effect sucks, damnit 😛

To be fair, my big issue with Mass Effect is the controls. The controls in the first game were pretty much broken, hence why I said that it's unplayably bad. The second is much, much better in that regard; that said, I still am not a fan of the gameplay itself, and the plot wasn't compelling enough to make me want to play more than a few hours.

Originally posted by NCRotCA
Played the Neverwinter Nights games as well (thought Planescape: Torment and KotOR 2 were a lot better to be honest). The only Bioware/Black Isle/Obsidian Entertainment RPGs I haven't played are Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Dragon Age, Alpha Protocol, Jade Empire, and Sonic: Dark Brotherhood.

Well then....you play too many games. Icwind Dale isn't your thing as its a gameplay focussed one, Jade Empire is good, like Kotor but with different gameplay. Play Mass Effect.

The only other game I can think of is Vampire the Masqurade: Bloodlines. And if you've played that too then gbefhdvkfgtfo! We should be asking you for goddamn recommendations!

Well I've not actually played Mass Effect, so maybe it does, but you have to admit that that is not a majority opinion...

And that may indeed be the reason for FFVIII's high score, but the principle remains that for a game to be overrated it... well, it has to be rated highly in the first place! So pointing out that people like it doesn't really disqualify the criticism.

Oh man, I suppose I'll give in one day. I am trying to spend less on games! I'd start with the first though.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
In Spoony's defence, and in support of Bardock's point, you can say very similar things about, say, Final Fantasy VIII.

Though I have tis vague memory that spoony liked Squall. Might have been jaden. Well, if so, my sympathy starts to plummet.

Regardless, a bit mean to pick up spoony for that when right next to him someone is criticising Mass Effect... if he thinks it is overrated, then let him think so!

And I can point out several failings of ME1, though I think ME2 effectively repaired most of them while introducing a new handful of issues.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Well I've not actually played Mass Effect, so maybe it does, but you have to admit that that is not a majority opinion...

And that may indeed be the reason for FFVIII's high score, but the principle remains that for a game to be overrated it... well, it has to be rated highly in the first place! So pointing out that people like it doesn't really disqualify the criticism.

Oh man, I suppose I'll give in one day. I am trying to spend less on games! I'd start with the first though.

But I played FFVIII and couldn't stomach the game enough to get past that battle across the sea or whatever right at the front end of it, so that seems evidence of something.

You really should play Assassin's Creed! AC1 is, well, decent, and Altair's an ass, but I suppose I would agree that you should play the first, if only to appreciate the improvements in the second. And maybe unlike Peach you'd be into the series' metastory!

Well, again to be fair, FFVIII was only one game after FF got mass brand recognition. In any case, as I said to Peach, ti is just demonstrative of the issue. The reason Why a game might be overrated doesn't change the issue at hand- a high review score is a prerequisite for being overrated, not a counter!

And flaws or not, if you are attacking Mass Effect, you are also saying a VERY highly regarded game is overrated, so it is subject to the same objection.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Well I've not actually played Mass Effect, so maybe it does, but you have to admit that that is not a majority opinion...

And that may indeed be the reason for FFVIII's high score, but the principle remains that for a game to be overrated it... well, it has to be rated highly in the first place! So pointing out that people like it doesn't really disqualify the criticism.

Oh man, I suppose I'll give in one day. I am trying to spend less on games! I'd start with the first though.

I edited my post with why I didn't like Mass Effect.

And do it do it do it do it. Though the first is definitely the weakest of the main series (it can be repetitive, and Altair is nowhere near as good of a character as Ezio), and there's a secondary storyline linking the games together that I couldn't care less about. And looking on amazon.co.uk shows them as being dirt cheap for the PC.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Well then....you play too many games. Icwind Dale isn't your thing as its a gameplay focussed one, Jade Empire is good, like Kotor but with different gameplay. Play Mass Effect.

The only other game I can think of is Vampire the Masqurade: Bloodlines. And if you've played that too then gbefhdvkfgtfo! We should be asking you for goddamn recommendations!

Now there's something I haven't played. And something that I hadn't even heard of until you just mentioned it to be honest. 😂

Nobody seems to care about my recommendations. It seems that the majority of the stuff that I like is either really niche or overwhelmingly hated on. Speaking of though, did you ever get around to playing Ever17?

Originally posted by Peach
I edited my post with why I didn't like Mass Effect.

And do it do it do it do it. Though the first is definitely the weakest of the main series (it can be repetitive, and Altair is nowhere near as good of a character as Ezio), and there's a secondary storyline linking the games together that I couldn't care less about. And looking on amazon.co.uk shows them as being dirt cheap for the PC.

Well, I feel that if you are happy to say Mass Effect is overrated, you should have no objection to someone else saying AC is. That's how opinion works!

My list of things I feel are overrated goes on longer than I am allowed to put in one post. That's just me, though.

And ok, I'll get around to the darn thing.. I'll probably play both franchises now, just to be awkward.

mod edit - illegal talk is not allowed!

Originally posted by General Kaliero
Nonono not PC. PC versions are bad. AC1 was notoriously glitchy and the controls don't translate well. And AC2 has a demonic DRM system that means if your internet or their servers go down, you can't play the game at all, including if you're in the middle of a mission.

But I don't have any fancy console-ma-jigs!

I do have a joypad though- how bad can the controls be?