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Sonic the Hedgehog Community |OT2 Battle|

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P

PKrockin

Member
It is entirely possible the people who made the original mod have a completely skewed perspective of how hard the Unleashed levels in the Generations engine are. I know when I first started making shitty Mario World levels, I would breeze through them and be baffled when I showed them to others and hear back that they found them outright impossible.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
Nocturnowl said:
I cringed more playing the game, speaking of which...

If I speed through a game as fast as possible it’s usually for two reasons, the first is that the game is so damn good I can’t withhold myself from playing it, the other event is when I just want to get a game out of the way, Jak 2 falls into the second category with the unique angle of me wanting to get it out of the way the very moment I started it up. On numerous occasions I wondered why I was even bothering to continue punishing myself playing this wretched turd of a game but I had to satisfy my curiosity, just how utterly awful can Jak 2 get? The answer is simply “very awful”.

It’s not often that I outright dislike a game but take a bow Jak 2, not only do I loathe you but you’ve earned that coveted spot at the top of the putrid podium, you may very well be my most disliked game of all time. The truly fascinating thing about this is that Jak 2 is not a fundamentally broken game, it’s not a glitchy mess, it’s not unfinished and yet even avoiding the main pitfalls of truly dire games it still manages to be a complete wreck.

When the team at Naughty Dog sat down to brainstorm this mess I have to believe that one of main the ideas tossed around was to ensure that the game is never actually fun, damn near every mission in the game exists to infuriate the player with the sole exceptions being the brief platforming focused moments that are possibly more painful to endure knowing that this is what Jak 2 should have been focused on in the first place. Instead Jak 2 seems to focus on other avenues that were popular at the time, GTA being the main inspiration leading as to an open world with a mission structure except without any of the quality of that series and failing on every level to recreate its success. The games open world map is utterly horrendous, incredibly aggravating to traverse thanks to terrible vehicle controls, cluttered and confusing streets and a map that segments itself in such a manner that getting from one side to the other offers little options but to follow the same old winding routes like the game desperately wanted to pad out playtime with tedious traversal. The city may be full of pedestrians (that Jak can uncharacteristically run down) but make no mistake this is a lifeless setting offering nothing to benefit the game, it only detracts.

Of course you can’t be a GTA wannabe without being gritty, never mind how cheery and lighthearted Jak and Daxter was, grey is the colour of the day, bleak and bland locations like Pump Works, Dig Sites and slums are what’s in now. Characters let slip the most minor curse words they can get away with while simultaneously still trying to act cartoony and zany alongside their newfangled “mature” storytelling, oh and Daxter gets drunk and leers at tits, what is this shit?! Playing the first and second games back to back is so incredibly jarring. Jak also has guns now as well as a dark side because it’s what all the cool kids do, never before has a game been so clearly focusing at the teenage market and desperate to cast off the family friendly image of the first game in such a blatantly shameless manner.

Heading back to the games various missions, Jak 2 goes out of its way to bring the player a selection of hated mission types, turret sections? Oh it’s got them, multiple escort missions? You bet! Taxi equivalents, timed checkpoint runs and races making use of terrible driving controls? Oh ho ho ho, Jak 2 you spoil us so. The vast bulk of missions within Jak 2 are all executed in a terribly half arsed fashion, none excel in the areas they venture into, at one point the game throws you a new hoverboard mechanic and immediately expects you to pull off a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater high score trick run complete with janky controls and unsatisfying mechanics, it wants everything and gets nothing right. Guns forms the core of the game combat, a whopping FOUR weapon types relying on sketchy auto aim against waves of enemies, four hits typically before death and checkpoints are scarce, it’s like they actually designed the game to highlight how half baked their mechanics are and how thoroughly unsatisfying the gunplay is.

Trying to think of a most detestable mission and I’m spoilt for choice, maybe the one where you travel across a long pier constantly besieged by waves upon waves of generic grunts with only four hits until death? perhaps the underwater mech monstrosity? Or maybe a timed mission in the city where you hunt three bullet sponging spider mech things with the law enforcement in constant pursuit? I really don’t know, the game is full of so many lows that I just can’t decide and even the more tolerable missions are hurt by terrible or nonexistent checkpoint placement.

When it comes down to it I didn’t find Jak 2 any fun at all when it wasn’t focused on platforming and that makes up a surprisingly small portion of the whole game, well we’ll always have Mar’s Tomb I guess? (even with it's crappy camera, especially for the Daxter bit) Jak 2 casts aside that what the previous game did well to try and grab a wider audience by being a pale imitation of other games, what’s left is a disjointed mess that betrays its past in both tone and gameplay. This is why I hate this damn game, no sequel has ever felt like quite a heavy “fuck you” to people who liked the the original while also being rife with horrid design decisions that create a truly frustrating experience to endure, in conclusion this game is a colossal calamity of crap.
Click to expand...

i don't think i could have put it as well as that. welcome to the brotherhood.

i remember playing jak ii the first time. it was only a year after playing jak and daxter and ratchet & clank. i really liked jak and daxter, and thought ratchet & clank was a neat experiment for a platformer (guns and platforming? how wild!). in 2003 i picked up jak ii before ratchet & clank: going commando, and sorta slogged through it for about a week. it was a tedious and confusing experience. i also remember complaining on the official thread on neogaf how i wasn't having much fun with it, but was urged on by people later in the game to proceed.

so i did. and the day ratchet & clank: going commando was released, i gave it a shot after about an hour of jak ii. i just needed something else.

big, big mistake. not only was going commando jam-packed with tons of shit, it did everything jak ii did, but extremely well. the level design, the hubworld (specifically, the lack thereof), the way it handled weapons and health (with a then-unique leveling system), how its story was kinda serious, but mostly lighthearted, like a good saturday morning cartoon. i had seen the light, and then i had to plunge back into the depths. jak ii was a different game, but i assumed that maybe it still got better.

i think i lied to myself and said that it did. after all, the city actually opens up a lot, acting more like a real gta city and less like shit, there are more platforming levels, and ... well that's about it i guess. the plot twist was awful, especially when it meant there was no reason not to have warp points around the game's overworld. of course, the whole shit sundae was topped of with turd of a boss fight as the cherry on top. it literally has you running in a circle and shooting at a thing. thanks, fuckheads.

even without learning that naughty dog looked at the platformer genre as being beneath them, i couldn't help but feel that i had had someone spit in my face a little bit.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Schalla, hope you're not offended by this but hope things work out well for you, sad to hear things aren't going good for you lately =/

Noi said:
Well, they get Yakuza Ishin on fucking launch. I'm slightly jealous.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it, we're getting Indies over here in the west...
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Hot Coldman said:
It's on PS3 and Vita though, it's not even true next-gen Yakuza ;_;
Click to expand...

funnily enough, while I played Uncharted 1 first, Yakuza 3 seemed like the FIRST 'next gen' looking game I've played on my PS3 XD the character models during cutscenes were quite lifelike.
 
D

Dario ff

Banned
Sega1991 said:
some Unleashed Project staff have started slinging insults.
Click to expand...

Why do you lie? Who insulted you there? Someone who fixed up a few models under a commission one time disagreed with you?

You're the one throwing slander on that video, calling me a jerk indirectly on your blog while doing a bunch of false equivalences, appealing to authority every two sentences, and many other fallacies. I've only helped you do that mod AFAIK, there's no reason to be disrespectful like that.

Sorry I had to shit up the thread with this, but don't go around lying like that to help your case. Most of my contacts that were far more involved with it don't mind your mod at all, they're annoyed by your attitude about it. Think of how much of a difference that makes.

I'll debate about game design all you want (This is probably not the best place tho) and justify the reasoning behind it, but I can't help it if you get emotional / derogatory about it. No good discussion comes out of that.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Any day that starts with me hitting a parked car while pulling into a spot is bound to be a good day.

I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not. I mean, it's unlikely (but certainly possible) to get worse...
 
D

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Hmmm... the only alternative I can think of where to take the S-Rank controversy issues is the Unleashed Mod thread. Dario's kind of right in saying that this probably isn't the best place for this. Not to mention that you might get a bigger reach with the debate since more people will talk about it. Who knows. But yeah, discord is kind of not... something I want to deal with at the moment.

And oh jeez, Shadow Hog, that sucks. I hope you didn't back up too much into the car and just scrubbed it a little. Depending on whether or not the guy's a complete dick, I hope you don't get charged with anything. :x

I'll write more about Rayman a little later, Nocturnowl. I didn't get a chance to play it that much yesterday due to feeling super-tired, and not... feeling... up to doing much because I was kind of down again.

But I do have to say something about the Vita version and the fluidity of the game. The thing about the Vita game is that the Lums were easier to get since you could pop the bubbles with the touch controls. So while you're controlling the player character, it's easy to just pop the Lum bubbles while not having a lot of gameplay interrupted. That's why it felt so fluid to me, and that was the last version I'd played.

And yes, the checkpointing in Legends is kind of annoyingly forgiving. The Origins checkpoints made more sense.
 
B

BHZ Mayor

Member
So as someone who never played Origins, and taking the 40 Origins levels into consideration, is it worth getting Legends? And if so, which version between PS3 and PC?
 
B

BlackJace

Member
BHZ Mayor said:
So as someone who never played Origins, and taking the 40 Origins levels into consideration, is it worth getting Legends? And if so, which version between PS3 and PC?
Click to expand...

Legends, while still somewhat floaty, is one of the best platformers I've played in a while. The invasion levels are spectacular.

Also, I'd go with PC + Gamepad, or PS3 if you REALLY care about leaderboards.
 
D

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Yeah, I'd completely deter anyone from getting the Vita version now. I'm not enjoying how things are handled here.

Kinda wish I'd picked up the PS3 version now. The controls are tighter than Origins, btw,
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Dark Schala said:
And oh jeez, Shadow Hog, that sucks. I hope you didn't back up too much into the car and just scrubbed it a little. Depending on whether or not the guy's a complete dick, I hope you don't get charged with anything. :x
Click to expand...
Well, his was a fairly big black pickup truck and mine a dinky little 2009 Honda Civic. Once I'd backed out of his car and into the spot proper to take a look, I was surprised to see no obvious dents or scuffs on his vehicle at all (and since it's a black paint job, you'd think it'd be damned obvious where something got scraped up). Mine, on the other hand, has the passenger side of the front bumper (immediately underneath the lights) hanging away from the front of the car an inch or two, so I'm going to need body repair - or at least see if that can't be popped in.

I left the guy a quick explanation of what happened, jotted down in pen on a Wendy's napkin, under his driver-side windshield. Noted where I hit his car, that I couldn't see any damage, but that if he saw something I didn't and wanted my insurance information, he could contact me at my home, work or cell phones. Given that, I doubt the guy's gonna be a jerk (if he calls at all), since I've done my obligation in explaining and giving him some means of contacting me - no hit-and-run shit here. My only concern is that it's awfully cloudy; I fear it might rain, and rain isn't too good on paper products, particularly not napkins.

Oh, and on top of this all, I swear my driver-side front tire has a leak. I get the "low tire pressure" light on my car within days of filling all the tires up. That can't be normal. And then there's the $168 or so I had to pay a towing company because I didn't get the correct parking permits at closing. And I need to get a contractor to figure out why my dryer isn't drying. And I need to complain to Verizon that I can't log into my router, despite resetting it to factory settings several times over.

I've got a lot on my plate, yeah.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
BHZ Mayor said:
So as someone who never played Origins, and taking the 40 Origins levels into consideration, is it worth getting Legends? And if so, which version between PS3 and PC?
Click to expand...

eITHER should be fine! ...but the game has offline co-op for majority of stages, so if you have others to play with maybe get PS3 if you have 4 controllers for example.
Vita ver. is OK too.
 
N

Nocturnowl

Member
Shadow Hog's car has been cursed by the demonic 2013, is nothing sacred?!

AniHawk said:
i don't think i could have put it as well as that. welcome to the brotherhood.

i remember playing jak ii the first time. it was only a year after playing jak and daxter and ratchet & clank. i really liked jak and daxter, and thought ratchet & clank was a neat experiment for a platformer (guns and platforming? how wild!). in 2003 i picked up jak ii before ratchet & clank: going commando, and sorta slogged through it for about a week. it was a tedious and confusing experience. i also remember complaining on the official thread on neogaf how i wasn't having much fun with it, but was urged on by people later in the game to proceed.

so i did. and the day ratchet & clank: going commando was released, i gave it a shot after about an hour of jak ii. i just needed something else.

big, big mistake. not only was going commando jam-packed with tons of shit, it did everything jak ii did, but extremely well. the level design, the hubworld (specifically, the lack thereof), the way it handled weapons and health (with a then-unique leveling system), how its story was kinda serious, but mostly lighthearted, like a good saturday morning cartoon. i had seen the light, and then i had to plunge back into the depths. jak ii was a different game, but i assumed that maybe it still got better.

i think i lied to myself and said that it did. after all, the city actually opens up a lot, acting more like a real gta city and less like shit, there are more platforming levels, and ... well that's about it i guess. the plot twist was awful, especially when it meant there was no reason not to have warp points around the game's overworld. of course, the whole shit sundae was topped of with turd of a boss fight as the cherry on top. it literally has you running in a circle and shooting at a thing. thanks, fuckheads.

even without learning that naughty dog looked at the platformer genre as being beneath them, i couldn't help but feel that i had had someone spit in my face a little bit.
Click to expand...
When I first played Jak 2 many years ago I borrowed it off a friend and gave up shortly after getting the first gun being very much aware that no good could come from continuing, so despite spending the bare minimum of time with it i'd like to say i've always been part of the brotherhood but I guess I had to return to solidify my opinion that the game was indeed shitballs, it's never been so painful to be so right.

What's particularly hilarious about the final boss is that the actual king metal head thing is barely a threat himself, now those baby metalheads that burst out of the eggs, genuinely 100 times more formidable than the actual boss, in fact those enemies have a special place in hell for being annoying gits.

Dark Schala said:
I'll write more about Rayman a little later, Nocturnowl. I didn't get a chance to play it that much yesterday due to feeling super-tired, and not... feeling... up to doing much because I was kind of down again.

But I do have to say something about the Vita version and the fluidity of the game. The thing about the Vita game is that the Lums were easier to get since you could pop the bubbles with the touch controls. So while you're controlling the player character, it's easy to just pop the Lum bubbles while not having a lot of gameplay interrupted. That's why it felt so fluid to me, and that was the last version I'd played.

And yes, the checkpointing in Legends is kind of annoyingly forgiving. The Origins checkpoints made more sense.
Click to expand...
Game changer, so this is what people actually meant when they said it was the definitive version.
 
K

Kokonoe

Banned
I never could really get into the Donkey Kong series, but I'm having a lot of fun playing Donkey Kong Country 2 on my Nvidia Shield I just got in the mail today. I've changed my mind. This is the best Donkey Kong game.
 
V

ViewtifulJC

Banned
Kokonoe said:
I never could really get into the Donkey Kong series, but I'm having a lot of fun playing Donkey Kong Country 2 on my Nvidia Shield I just got in the mail today. I've changed my mind. This is the best Donkey Kong game.
Click to expand...

iW0PF5tHeONeU.gif
 
Q

qq more

Member
Kokonoe said:
I never could really get into the Donkey Kong series, but I'm having a lot of fun playing Donkey Kong Country 2 on my Nvidia Shield I just got in the mail today. I've changed my mind. This is the best Donkey Kong game.
Click to expand...

Oh cool you finally got the Shield. How is it so far?
 
D

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Shadow Hog said:
Well, his was a fairly big black pickup truck and mine a dinky little 2009 Honda Civic. Once I'd backed out of his car and into the spot proper to take a look, I was surprised to see no obvious dents or scuffs on his vehicle at all (and since it's a black paint job, you'd think it'd be damned obvious where something got scraped up). Mine, on the other hand, has the passenger side of the front bumper (immediately underneath the lights) hanging away from the front of the car an inch or two, so I'm going to need body repair - or at least see if that can't be popped in.

Oh, and on top of this all, I swear my driver-side front tire has a leak. I get the "low tire pressure" light on my car within days of filling all the tires up. That can't be normal. And then there's the $168 or so I had to pay a towing company because I didn't get the correct parking permits at closing. And I need to get a contractor to figure out why my dryer isn't drying. And I need to complain to Verizon that I can't log into my router, despite resetting it to factory settings several times over.

I've got a lot on my plate, yeah.
Click to expand...
Oh God, that fucking sucks. :(

That happened once before. Just a little scrub and no one got mad about it. Because, like, I'm not an asshole. But oh man, you have to pay for those repairs now. I hope your insurance doesn't go up because of that. Though perhaps it might be a blessing in disguise since you have to fix up your tires, but it sucks that you have to deal with that in that capacity. >_<

Contractors are super-expensive so I hope you get one that doesn't charge a high amount just to come to your place to look at the dryer. The router stuff will get resolved when you call them, I hope. Though since you couldn't get on, I wonder if you could ask for your billing period to be changed in some capacity to make up for the router doing stupid stuff.

Usually for the first few weeks of September, I kind of go nuts with stress, but this time I'm trying to take it easy. I have an easier schedule as a result of my life going crazy during Feb/Mar/Apr, and I kinda like it that way. It eases me back into school, though I still have to deal with financial stuff, scheduling stuff, and settling in again. So, I kinda understand where you're coming from with respect to new surroundings and stuff. :( I hope things get resolved for you soon.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Dark Schala said:
Oh God, that fucking sucks. :(

That happened once before. Just a little scrub and no one got mad about it. Because, like, I'm not an asshole. But oh man, you have to pay for those repairs now. I hope your insurance doesn't go up because of that. Though perhaps it might be a blessing in disguise since you have to fix up your tires, but it sucks that you have to deal with that in that capacity. >_<
Click to expand...
In all honesty, if the guy doesn't bother to call me at all, then I'm not gonna bother involving the insurance company. If it's just a bumper, then the body shop's charge would probably be below my deductible anyway. (I don't think they'll fix the tire, though; that's another issue for another day, and wasn't related to this morning's accident.)

Dark Schala said:
Contractors are super-expensive so I hope you get one that doesn't charge a high amount just to come to your place to look at the dryer.
Click to expand...
I called Sears. $79.99 to come in. No idea if there's extra fees to actually fix it, but I do have a 10% off coupon.

I'm having the body shop look at the car tomorrow while the Sears guy comes in later in the day. Should be straightforward enough... I look forward to not having to hit up a laundromat.

Dark Schala said:
The router stuff will get resolved when you call them, I hope. Though since you couldn't get on, I wonder if you could ask for your billing period to be changed in some capacity to make up for the router doing stupid stuff.
Click to expand...
Well, I am getting Internet, through the wired connection; I just can't rename the wireless network or change its password, which is rather awkward and has me hesitant to set up connections on any of my other devices. Should be a quick replacement, one would hope.
 
K

Kokonoe

Banned
qq more said:
HOLY SHIT

Does it control very well?!
Click to expand...

If you mean the input lag, it feels like playing the Wii U Game Pad. as for the controls, they are solid. It feels weird at first like with any new controller, but I honestly find the shape of this controller more comfy than the Game Pad. The DPad doesn't suck either. It's not better than let's say the Saturn's DPad, but it's perfectly functional unlike the 360's. The Analog sticks and Triggers are the best part as are the buttons.
 
Q

qq more

Member
Kokonoe said:
If you mean the input lag, it feels like playing the Wii U Game Pad. as for the controls, they are solid. It feels weird at first like with any new controller, but I honestly find the shape of this controller more comfy than the Game Pad. The DPad doesn't suck either. It's not better than let's say the Saturn's DPad, but it's perfectly functional unlike the 360's. The Analog sticks and Triggers are the best part as are the buttons.
Click to expand...

Sold.

I'mma skip on the XL for now. This is higher priority!
 
B

BlazeHedgehog

Member
Dario ff said:
Why do you lie? Who insulted you there? Someone who fixed up a few models under a commission one time disagreed with you?

You're the one throwing slander on that video, calling me a jerk indirectly on your blog while doing a bunch of false equivalences, appealing to authority every two sentences, and many other fallacies. I've only helped you do that mod AFAIK, there's no reason to be disrespectful like that.

Sorry I had to shit up the thread with this, but don't go around lying like that to help your case. Most of my contacts that were far more involved with it don't mind your mod at all, they're annoyed by your attitude about it. Think of how much of a difference that makes.

I'll debate about game design all you want (This is probably not the best place tho) and justify the reasoning behind it, but I can't help it if you get emotional / derogatory about it. No good discussion comes out of that.
Click to expand...

Whoa, there.

People who are listed as contributing to the mod are generally considered staff. That's the simple truth. They worked on the mod. Maybe not as much as others, but they still did.

Look, I mean no disrespect to you directly. You're right, you've been nothing but hospitable to me. It's just that this is a subject I've dealt with multiple times, before The Unleashed Project has come along, and every single time it's the same exact story:

Me: "Hey, you made your hack or whatever too hard."
Creator: "Well you're just a loser and need to get better at the game."
Fanbase around the Creator: "Ha ha, you suuuuuuck!"

It certainly didn't help matters when I was trying to explain my case on Sonic Retro and suddenly you descended from on high after days of complete silence just to say "I wish CERTAIN PEOPLE would shut up, already."

That leaves a lot of room for assumption. It's the polite way to deal with a situation, but it also contributes to something I've already been through three or four times already. Silence does not always convey the message you intend.

A lot of people, myself included I guess, are fucking idiots when it comes to properly balancing difficulty in a video game. All I want to do is make sure the widest possible audience is satisfied. And the thought of people resisting that is actually, on some level, legitimately hilarious to me. It's the same way I expect I look to everybody else: a bunch of people whining, "But what about my scoooooore!"

I guess nobody can actually win in this scenario.

Regardless, Dario, I'm legitimately sorry if I've upset you.
 
P

PKrockin

Member
Man, with the shit hitting the fan for so many of you, I feel lucky 2013 has been fine for me so far.

... Is what I would say except the higher ups basically pulled the rug out from under me and my coworkers and I probably won't be working again until December/January. On the plus side I have plenty of time to study Japanese and exercise.
 
N

Nocturnowl

Member
2013 is like a JRPG final boss, each time you think you've got it beaten it gains a stronger new form that then cheap shots you in your weakened state with a cheese super move.
I don't want to start back from the last save point!

Also i'm under levelled and don't like grinding.
 
D

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
2013 feels like a superboss to me.

Tomorrow's a day that's supposed to be special but there isn't really much to celebrate and I'm not sure if we're even going to celebrate it, so I dunno if I'm going to be around much.

PKrockin said:
Man, with the shit hitting the fan for so many of you, I feel lucky 2013 has been fine for me so far.

... Is what I would say except the higher ups basically pulled the rug out from under me and my coworkers and I probably won't be working again until December/January. On the plus side I have plenty of time to study Japanese and exercise.
Click to expand...
Oh, shucks, that sucks! D:

And they say we're out of a recession, eh? Lots of people I know just went back to school because they couldn't get work. :/
 
Q

qq more

Member
I'm having a shitty year too, but at the same time it had one of the best days ever in my life. Things has been getting better for me lately, thankfully.

Let's hope 2014 is a better year for all of us.
 
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