Giant Bomb GOTY 2014 - Destiny Has Brought Us Here

"This game sucks because I intentionally played in a way that was not fun."

Eh, it's pretty valid, I'd say. The combat is just braindead and requires nothing from the player. I guess that's fine as a power fantasy simulator, but it's unfortunate because a good half or more of the Nemesis system kind of relies on you losing battles every once in a while.

With that said, the various systems interplay can make for some fun sandbox moments.
 
lol while that video is hillarious, it's also not real ;)

How is it not real?

There are any number of YouTube videos in which people show how the combat in Mordor can be played to a high degree of success with very little attention from the player. You got that one video of the guy turning his monitor off and kicking ass in the game just by slamming his keyboard.
 
7. Dota 2 (Brad 1st)
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Eh, it's pretty valid, I'd say. The combat is just braindead and requires nothing from the player. I guess that's fine as a power fantasy simulator, but it's unfortunate because a good half or more of the Nemesis system kind of relies on you losing battles every once in a while.

With that said, the various systems interplay can make for some fun sandbox moments.
I enjoyed mordor and its probably in my top ten for the year but yeah I had to start dying on purpose because I was rolling through the captains too quickly so that I coudl level them up
 
Basically Mordor is their GOTy because it has elements that other games should take, like the nemesis system for Assassins Creed.
 
Basically Mordor is their GOTy because it has elements that other games should take, like the nemesis system for Assassins Creed.

i feel like batman games could really take some inspiration for mordor's combat and destiny from mordor's variety of areas
 
hold the fuck up



dragon age didn't even make it on there? how in the fuck did that happen? did rorie not make a list?

Mostly nobody except Jeff beat it, and he hated the ending. It was faulted as being too long for a game that came out so late in the year. Most liked what they had played of it, but there weren't any "experienced" people willing to go to bat for it.
 
i feel like batman games could really take some inspiration for mordor's combat and destiny from mordor's variety of areas

Huh? Did I play the same game?...

Every area in the game looks almost the same - barren sludge swampland. That's actually one of my big complaints with the game.
 
Drew's niceness means that he doesn't fight for things. He has by far the least forceful personality of anyone on the crew. Shovel Knight seems to be the one that snuck in. It wasn't particularly high on anyone's list, but it was on a lot of people's lists.

My way of thinking, there are 7 guys on staff. All of their #1 games should have had a showing.....and I think Destiny was given to Brad for that reason (even though it wasnt his #1)

I think I remember him saying something like "C'mon guys, theres at least 4 games on here that I don't care about, at least give me this" (I'm paraphrasing here). He certainly played the sympathy card well :)

Drew gave up on wolfenstein waaay to easily. Maybe he is just still sore over Halo to care about other games at the moment
 
How is it not real?

There are any number of YouTube videos in which people show how the combat in Mordor can be played to a high degree of success with very little attention from the player. You got that one video of the guy turning his monitor off and kicking ass in the game just by slamming his keyboard.

Have you actually played the game?
 
"This game sucks because I intentionally played in a way that was not fun."

I think that video is more showing how simply and broken the game's combat is and how the Nemesis system doesn't really come in to effect for a few people (like me) because it's next to impossible to die.
 
Mostly nobody except Jeff beat it, and he hated the ending. It was faulted as being too long for a game that came out so late in the year. Most liked what they had played of it, but there weren't any "experienced" people willing to go to bat for it.

i guess you get screwed if you release too early or too late (and aren't a fps). seriously though, while i agree the ending was poor and the main plot line felt like you went from 0-60 near the end, da:i brings back a fantastic sense of exploration. something that has been missing since ME1 imo. i just hope the new ME carries on with that
 
i feel like batman games could really take some inspiration for mordor's combat and destiny from mordor's variety of areas

Batman should definitely not do that. Batman's combat is just better in every way than Mordor's combat, which falls apart at the seams later in the game when you become completely overpowered through the leveling system.
 
Give a blindfolded guy an axe, put a log in front of him, he'll chop it after enough swings. Mordor's combat is fun and satisfying because you have a ton of options, and the game part of it is finding out which options are the most efficient in a given situation.

Try that 'only thumb' thing on a captain that can only be killed by arrows.
 
Give a blindfolded guy an axe, put a log in front of him, he'll chop it after enough swings. Mordor's combat is fun and satisfying because you have a ton of options, and the game part of it is finding out which options are the most efficient in a given situation.

Try that 'only thumb' thing on a captain that can only be killed by arrows.

unless he maims himself with the axe by accident.
 
I think that video is more showing how simply and broken the game's combat is and how the Nemesis system doesn't really come in to effect for a few people (like me) because it's next to impossible to die.

I'm not gonna call Mordor's combat sophisticated or groundbreaking, but I think if you're using what looks like at least a partially upgraded Talion against a group of non-specialised vanilla enemies (in that fight there are no shield-bearers, no bezerkers, no caragors, no special Uruk that are combat masters, etc) you're not accurately representing the entire scope of how that game can be.
 
If only this was recorded after the Destiny expansion came out. The false hope for what lies on the horizon would have already been crushed.
 
i guess you get screwed if you release too early or too late (and aren't a fps). seriously though, while i agree the ending was poor and the main plot line felt like you went from 0-60 near the end, da:i brings back a fantastic sense of exploration. something that has been missing since ME1 imo. i just hope the new ME carries on with that

The bigger the game, the more problems it has, but the more things there are to hook people. But it was a hell of a year for RPGs, and people would have needed to focus hard on DA:I to actually finish it in time for voting (which was, what, 2 or 3 weeks ago?)
 
Have you actually played the game?

Yes, I've got about 18 hours according to Steam.

I died a single time, in the first couple of hours before I understood how overpowered the dodge move was. I'm not great at video games, especially action games. The combat is just completely mindless.
 

If we used 10 points for 1st down to 1 point for 10th. Tie breaker goes to game that appeared on more lists.

1. Shadow of Mordor (Alex 8th, Brad 4th, Dan 1st, Drew 9th, Jeff 3rd, Pat 4th, Vinny 1st) = 47
2. Bayonetta 2 (Alex 2nd, Dan 3rd, Jeff 6th, Pat 1st) = 32
3. South Park (Alex 5th, Brad 3rd, Dan 9th, Vinny 3rd) = 24
4. Far Cry 4 (Brad 5th, Dan 2nd, Jeff 2nd) = 24
5. Jazzpunk (Alex 1st, Jeff 9th, Vinny 5th) = 18
6. Hearthstone (Alex 3rd, Drew 6th) = 13
7. Shovel Knight (Alex 7th, Dan 6th, Drew 10th, Pat 9th) = 12
8. Destiny (Brad 2nd, Drew 8th) = 12
8. Mario Kart 8 (Alex 6th, Dan 4th) = 12
10. Wolfenstein (Alex 10th, Drew 1st) = 11
 
Please tell me what Mordor's combat had that Batman's didn't? Because for me Mordoor's combat was a sloppy Arkham with any difficulty removed.

That's exactly what it was. It removed any of the timing and observational skill-based challenge that Batman had.
 
You don't need to die to take effect

Sure, but it's still a part of it. Especially since the game is so easy the uruks coming back makes little to no difference. My final nemesis at the end of the game turned out to be some random uruk I met once.

I'm not gonna call Mordor's combat sophisticated or groundbreaking, but I think if you're using what looks like at least a partially upgraded Talion against a group of non-specialised vanilla enemies (in that fight there are no shield-bearers, no bezerkers, no caragors, no special Uruk that are combat masters, etc) you're not accurately representing the entire scope of how that game can be.

While that's true, it's not as if the game's combat is any harder because of those additions. Because of the core gameplay foundation (the ability to counter at anytime, roll over things with invincibility) the entire game's difficulty is a joke.
 
Sure, but it's still a part of it. Especially since the game is so easy the uruks coming back makes little to no difference. My final nemesis at the end of the game turned out to be some random uruk I met once.



While that's true, it's not as if the game's combat is any harder because of those additions. Because of the core gameplay foundation (the ability to counter at anytime, roll over things with invincibility) the entire game's difficulty is a joke.

You keep saying that the combat is easy while other people claimed being frustrated by the combat stuff early on.
 
You keep saying that the combat is easy while other people claimed being frustrated by the combat stuff early on.

Maybe those people never played Batman or Sleeping Dogs or Assassin's Creed? I don't know what to say.
 
You keep saying that the combat is easy while other people claimed being frustrated by the combat stuff early on.

Well... not everyone is skilled at action games? I don't know what to tell you. Coming off the Batman games, SoM is a joke in terms of difficulty, even with the FX prompts and so on turned off.
 
While that's true, it's not as if the game's combat is any harder because of those additions. Because of the core gameplay foundation (the ability to counter at anytime, roll over things with invincibility) the entire game's difficulty is a joke.

Well, that's not true universally. There are enemies that you cannot vault over, and enemies who you cannot counter, and enemies who can poison you, or kill you in two hits, or hit you from range. There are some enemies that just don't take damage from sword hits as well.

I mean, I'd never argue Mordor's combat is particularly hard, but claiming the games a joke because the most basic, easily dealt with enemy can be handled by spamming several buttons is very disingenuous.
 
Well, that's not true universally. There are enemies that you cannot vault over, and enemies who you cannot counter, and enemies who can poison you, or kill you in two hits, or hit you from range. There are some enemies that just don't take damage from sword hits as well.

I mean, I'd never argue Mordor's combat is particularly hard, but putting together a video of the most basic, easily dealt with enemy and claiming the ability to deal with them by spamming several buttons shows the combat is a joke is very disingenuous.

I agree with this, while I think the Batman combat is leaps and bounds better than Mordor, I'm sure some ass could record a video of Batman just spamming the punch button and defeating a bunch of thugs all the same.
 
So maybe difficulty is not exactly as objective measure as you can claim?

It kind of goes without saying that not everyone finds the same things difficult, but I think there are plenty of factual aspects of the combat system the contribute to it being a very mindless experience.

Well, that's not true universally. There are enemies that you cannot vault over, and enemies who you cannot counter, and enemies who can poison you, or kill you in two hits, or hit you from range. There are some enemies that just don't take damage from sword hits as well.

I mean, I'd never argue Mordor's combat is particularly hard, but claiming the games a joke because the most basic, easily dealt with enemy can be handled by spamming several buttons is very disingenuous.

Well, over 90% of your combat encounters will not be these complicated scenarios. It's not often you find guys that are completely immune to swords and such, especially if you don't die. And it says something about the game that the only time any challenge enters the scenario is when the opponent is damn near invulnerable to your attacks.
 
Drew should've fought for Wolfenstein to be on there. It was his #1 game too. Seems absurd for there to be 3 shooters on the list ahead of it.

I think this was said before, but it's so funny to me that they voted The Ubisoft open world template as one of the top 3 things that need to stop, yet they have Mordor and FC4 in their top 3 games of the year...
 
Objectively, the game's combat is a clone of Batman and is stripped down. People struggling with it doesn't really change that.

Well, one thing is saying that the combat is not complex and other one is that a game "is piss easy and can be played with 1 button"

And they still pretend to not like Musou games

That is the first time I heard that comparasion. Is probably the worst one.
 
Just got through the destiny fiasco. Brad claiming Alex "got two of his games on the list" so Brad wanted one for him might be the most immature part of this whole fiasco. He seems to forget that this is GIANTBOMB's list. I know he's hosting the bombcast now and all but he does not "deserve" to get one of his pet games on the list as a result.

Patrick legitimately tried to evaluate the games they were considering in the end there and Brad did the equivalent of putting his fingers in his ears and yelling over everyone else.

Destiny on the list at all given the argument they had is worse than Skyrim.
 
If we used 10 points for 1st down to 1 point for 10th. Tie breaker goes to game that appeared on more lists.

1. Shadow of Mordor (Alex 8th, Brad 4th, Dan 1st, Drew 9th, Jeff 3rd, Pat 4th, Vinny 1st) = 47
2. Bayonetta 2 (Alex 2nd, Dan 3rd, Jeff 6th, Pat 1st) = 32
3. South Park (Alex 5th, Brad 3rd, Dan 9th, Vinny 3rd) = 24
4. Far Cry 4 (Brad 5th, Dan 2nd, Jeff 2nd) = 24
5. Jazzpunk (Alex 1st, Jeff 9th, Vinny 5th) = 18
6. Hearthstone (Alex 3rd, Drew 6th) = 13
7. Shovel Knight (Alex 7th, Dan 6th, Drew 10th, Pat 9th) = 12
8. Destiny (Brad 2nd, Drew 8th) = 12
8. Mario Kart 8 (Alex 6th, Dan 4th) = 12
10. Wolfenstein (Alex 10th, Drew 1st) = 11

Much better list

threes had no business being as high as it was.
 
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