Its not just me, games used to be better

Finished Tomb Raider part 3 of the reboot trilogy last night. At one point Laura cries after blowing up a military helicopter. Wow, I never realised violence could be traumatizing to a person before. I hope we get to see more protaganists in our action adventure games cry after big action set pieces in the future. Isnt that why we play action adventure games?
 
I played a few minutes of dead space 2. Holy smoke, it was freaking awesome.

I dont know if I was tired, but I genuinley found the intro when Nicole jumps up on the table creepy. Same thing when the guy transformes in front of you or when they guy cuts his throat. Shows that graphical fidelity isnt the most important thing.

The camera or the FOV is making my a bit nauseous on a big TV so I dont know if I will be able to keep playing it.
 
ZebMacahan said:
I´m playing the third of the new tomb raider games at the moment. Its pretty fun, but there so so much crap and busy work to do which feel more like a chore many times.

"You picked up 2 underwater plants, pick up 3 more to complete the challange"
"Return later when you´ve learned a new dialect to scan this wall painting to get more xp".
"You can stop and shoot every animal you see for more quick xp"
Etc.

Some of the environments look really good but it really stops the flow and mood of the game when you´re switching to batvision contanstly to see the glowing orange things you can interact with. This game would have been so much better if they had cut all that crap.
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Yeah, agreed. Personally, I found it quite strange how Lara Croft is basically the Predator, leaping out of trees and stabbing mercenaries to death. I was surprised there wasn't an option to wear the skins of your fallen enemies by the end of the game.

I hope that any future Tomb Raider reboot moves away from fighting mercenaries and more towards dinosaurs and monsters. Gritty realism was the sensibility at the time of the 2013 reboot. There's scope for something sillier now.

Shifty Geezer said:
A huge detraction for me in the original Uncharted, 2007, was the collectables. They ruined the flow of the story to complete the full game. Trapped in a burning building about to die? Don't escape just yet - explore all the flaming timbers and dark corners for a shiny trinket first.
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Definitely. I suppose a straightforward way to address that would have been to only have them appear in the second playthrough onwards. It was such a short game that subsequent playthroughs with more poking around the environment is a natural fit.
 
ZebMacahan said:
Finished Tomb Raider part 3 of the reboot trilogy last night. At one point Laura cries after blowing up a military helicopter. Wow, I never realised violence could be traumatizing to a person before. I hope we get to see more protaganists in our action adventure games cry after big action set pieces in the future. Isnt that why we play action adventure games?
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I do not play action adventure games for the mindless set piece action, I can tell you that. I absolutely welcome devs trying to give characters actual humanity rather than them being some blank vessel for your inner 8 year old going shooty shooty bang bang at everything.
 
Seanspeed said:
I do not play action adventure games for the mindless set piece action, I can tell you that. I absolutely welcome devs trying to give characters actual humanity rather than them being some blank vessel for your inner 8 year old going shooty shooty bang bang at everything.
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Nothing wrong with going shooty shooty bang bang and living out your male power fantasies in video games. Thats the number one reason to play videogames :)
 
Seanspeed said:
I do not play action adventure games for the mindless set piece action, I can tell you that. I absolutely welcome devs trying to give characters actual humanity rather than them being some blank vessel for your inner 8 year old going shooty shooty bang bang at everything.
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I like a good story and characters too, but showing the real life emotional trauma of killing people when a third of that game is about killing people can get a little weird to say the least. It might work for some games, like last of us, but in a game like tomb raider it just seems pretentious.

Are we going to see Indiana Jones have an emotional breakdown after he blows up a nazi tank?
 
Seanspeed said:
I do not play action adventure games for the mindless set piece action, I can tell you that. I absolutely welcome devs trying to give characters actual humanity rather than them being some blank vessel for your inner 8 year old going shooty shooty bang bang at everything.
Click to expand...

You don't play action games for the action set pieces?

ZebMacahan said:
I like a good story and characters too, but showing the real life emotional trauma of killing people when a third of that game is about killing people can get a little weird to say the least. It might work for some games, like last of us, but in a game like tomb raider it just seems pretentious.

Are we going to see Indiana Jones have an emotional breakdown after he blows up a nazi tank?
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Agreed. It could have been earned, but it certainly wasn't. Don't build your game around killing people if you want your protagonist to feel guilty for killing people. Unless maybe you're trying to put the player in the shoes of some conflicted serial killer.

Put Lara in the position of just being a treasure hunter who occasionally fights monsters, and it makes perfect sense to be devastated by destroying the helicopter: she just had to kill humans. But after I've spent hours skulking in tree canopies, firing rope arrows through the necks of mercenaries before leaping down, yanking the rope so that their final, gasping breaths are spent suspended from a branch, in agony and confusion, as their colleague looks on in horror before I slit their distracted throat too... Yeah, crying over the helicopter doesn't make sense.

We accept the conceit in action games and films that whoever we're killing are "the baddies" and we put it behind us. This maungy nonsense of "oh but one must be conflicted" doesn't belong in the action genre and seems solely to serve the purpose of pretending to be above simply enjoying something silly.

Explosions are cool. Vanquishing your enemies is glorious. 2013-2018 Lara Croft is a psychopath.
 
Seanspeed said:
rather than them being some blank vessel for your inner 8 year old going shooty shooty bang bang at everything.
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I feel that's a pretty insulting statement. Good gameplay is good gameplay and isn't childish. Combat provides a structure for a lot of good gameplay. You can have good adult stories, and good 'adult' gameplay - neither should be seen as inherently derisible.
 
Tkumpathenurple said:
You don't play action games for the action set pieces?



Agreed. It could have been earned, but it certainly wasn't. Don't build your game around killing people if you want your protagonist to feel guilty for killing people. Unless maybe you're trying to put the player in the shoes of some conflicted serial killer.

Put Lara in the position of just being a treasure hunter who occasionally fights monsters, and it makes perfect sense to be devastated by destroying the helicopter: she just had to kill humans. But after I've spent hours skulking in tree canopies, firing rope arrows through the necks of mercenaries before leaping down, yanking the rope so that their final, gasping breaths are spent suspended from a branch, in agony and confusion, as their colleague looks on in horror before I slit their distracted throat too... Yeah, crying over the helicopter doesn't make sense.

We accept the conceit in action games and films that whoever we're killing are "the baddies" and we put it behind us. This maungy nonsense of "oh but one must be conflicted" doesn't belong in the action genre and seems solely to serve the purpose of pretending to be above simply enjoying something silly.

Explosions are cool. Vanquishing your enemies is glorious. 2013-2018 Lara Croft is a psychopath.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the game even incentives you to murder your enemies. Murdering them gives you xp, sneaking past them gives you nothing.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
I feel that's a pretty insulting statement. Good gameplay is good gameplay and isn't childish. Combat provides a structure for a lot of good gameplay. You can have good adult stories, and good 'adult' gameplay - neither should be seen as inherently derisible.
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It wasn't meant to be insulting, just pointing out that there's more to video games than just 'action'.

I like good gameplay as much as anyone, but games can and should be more than just big explodey action.

ZebMacahan said:
Nothing wrong with going shooty shooty bang bang and living out your male power fantasies in video games. Thats the number one reason to play videogames :)
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Again, for you maybe. Not for me. Even with things like retro FPS-style games, if it was straight up just action(like, say Serious Sam), it does little for me. I really need some other elements to make the gameplay feel rewarding. A sense of exploration, finding secrets, progression, etc.

I'm fine with criticizing how well a game like Tomb Raider does in humanizing Lara or something, but I definitely dont like hearing the idea that games just shouldn't have that kind of stuff.

Tkumpathenurple said:
You don't play action games for the action set pieces?
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I really dont, no. Same with movies.

If I'm not invested into the characters or story, some big spectacle set piece does absolutely nothing for me. And even sometimes when I am invested, if it takes away too much control or has some boring gimmick(like a turret section or something) then I might also be ready for it to be over ASAP. I need some kind of drama, not just spectacle.

Also, we're talking action/adventure games. For me, the adventure part is usually the bigger draw.
 
Seanspeed said:
Even with things like retro FPS-style games, if it was straight up just action(like, say Serious Sam), it does little for me. I really need some other elements to make the gameplay feel rewarding. A sense of exploration, finding secrets, progression, etc.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you favour SystemShock, BioShock, Deus Ex ect
 
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