Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
There's a big difference I think, Digi, between free-roaming and freedom.Hardly any games, maybe none, have freedom.
Free-roaming as in, free to roam about...yeah.
-AC
Hmm. I suppose.
...
Anyway:
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Oblivion. Or Daggerfall for its time. Elder Scrolls does free roam like other companies only wish they could. Those games could stand alone without a main story. Hell, I played Daggerfall for dozens of hours, and couldn't tell you one thing about the main plot. How many other games could say that? For all the fun people have in the GTA's, Zeldas, and such, they need a driving motive.
...
Originally posted by Peach
And Oblivion was probably one of the few games I've gotten that I really regretted. Thankfully I got it free so I wasn't actually out anything.
Sometimes I just don't understand you, Lana. First Mass Effect, now this? What acclaimed games do you like?
😛
Despite what Lana will say, she definitely has an instant opposition to things that are massively acclaimed, haha.
In her defense, I see her point. As Yahtzee so agreeably said: "These days hype is more likely to make me suspicious than excited.", or something.
Whilst she probably has a lot of publically acclaimed likes and mainstream-approved loves (I know she likes Final Fantasy 10 and Foo Fighters for example), she probably is harder to win over in that sense than someone else might be.
Obviously, most of that isn't me speaking for Lana, it's me speaking as someone who doesn't like very many publically acclaimed things.
-AC
I feel like I'm still able to differentiate between quality and crap, even among acclaimed games. Hated GTA IV, for example...the sandbox aspects don't nearly make up for the crap mission structure and needlessly complex controls.
I do, however, feel like the praise is warranted with some, such as Oblivion. Taste is subjective, of course, so I won't pretend to be "right," and mistrusting critical acclaim is fine for those who know their own tastes better than game reviewers ever will. But mistrusting praise and shirking mainstream titles just because they're mainstream doesn't seem right either. If I understand AC correctly, he doesn't do that, but such fears aren't too far from that kind of extreme.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Despite what Lana will say, she definitely has an instant opposition to things that are massively acclaimed, haha.In her defense, I see her point. As Yahtzee so agreeably said: "These days hype is more likely to make me suspicious than excited.", or something.
Whilst she probably has a lot of publically acclaimed likes and mainstream-approved loves (I know she likes Final Fantasy 10 and Foo Fighters for example), she probably is harder to win over in that sense than someone else might be.
Obviously, most of that isn't me speaking for Lana, it's me speaking as someone who doesn't like very many publically acclaimed things.
-AC
I can't really argue too much, as you do know me too well, but yeah. Hype makes me wary. Too often a game will be hyped up to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I'll give it a try, and...*yawn*
Despite that, I'm still a massive Final Fantasy and Zelda fan, though - always have been, always will be. Mario I love and all, but I will admit I am starting to get tired with it - probably because I've always preferred the 2D Mario games over the 3D ones.
I'm just incredibly picky. A lot of the games I've been enjoying lately have been ones generally overlooked by the larger gaming population, and considering which games I plan on picking up in the coming months, this is going to continue. It's not so much a dislike of mainstream things, but rather what developers have shifted towards making and thus the things I like in games are becoming more rare.
I did try Mass Effect and Oblivion. I didn't care for either. Mass Effect was just too much like KOTOR which was a disappointment for me in so many ways, and Oblivion bored me less than three hours in. I'm just not a fan of that sort of RP style in video games - I would much rather prefer to actually roleplay it out, then the gimped version of RPing you can get in a video game where you can supposedly make choices, but they're very superficial. For the same reason, I don't plan to get Fable. It's not my sort of game. It also doesn't help that most RP systems tend to be broken in some way. Unfortunately in a game, it's impossible to fix things/make up new rules on the fly.
GTAIV was fun and all, but I didn't actually do a single mission in the game. I just drove around and destroyed things until I was bored with it. Same with every other GTA game I've played.
Open, free-roam games simply are not my thing. I haven't got the attention span for something that lacks the 'bite', so to speak, to draw me in.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
I feel like I'm still able to differentiate between quality and crap, even among acclaimed games. Hated GTA IV, for example...the sandbox aspects don't nearly make up for the crap mission structure and needlessly complex controls.I do, however, feel like the praise is warranted with some, such as Oblivion. Taste is subjective, of course, so I won't pretend to be "right," and mistrusting critical acclaim is fine for those who know their own tastes better than game reviewers ever will. But mistrusting praise and shirking mainstream titles just because they're mainstream doesn't seem right either. If I understand AC correctly, he doesn't do that, but such fears aren't too far from that kind of extreme.
What you've got to realise is that mainstream acclaim often comes from the mainstream public, and the mainstream public honestly don't know shit from clay.
If EVERYONE is saying a game, album, song or whatever is really good, chances are that I definitely won't like it. It may sound presumptuous and elitist, but I base this on a lot of times it's happened. I'm right about it 99% of the time, and even if I'm not, and I do like something that's embraced and acclaimed publically, I don't like it nearly as much as they do.
I'm confident enough in that to the point that I often won't even check out the subject just because I know. People say "You don't know until you try.", but that's just it, I do. The few times I've ignored my instinct and actually given it a try, I've been disappointed and frustrated that I even bothered.
-AC