The Giant Bomb Quick Look Thread 2

I've played the Flash version of No Time to Explain, I'm not sure they've expanded it enough for the Steam release to make that a viable choice. It has its heart in the right place, but lacks the polish that made something like Super Meat Boy so special compared to the super bare bones Flash version.

demidar said:
That Arcadecraft QL made me depressed, never have I seen a more artificial feeling of an atmosphere of fun, kind of like a carnival that no one goes to.
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This should have been THE game for Jeff. The concept is good!
 
bonercop said:
But he's only a trap character if you overuse him, which they didn't. There's a good argument to be made that the Frederick-style characters are the best in their respective games, because they have a huge level lead over the rest which is almost impossible to bridge.
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The problem is that the rest of the team will fall behind enough that they'll get one-shotted in later levels. Fredrick-type characters can't take on an entire enemy force by himself, especially when status ailments come in to play.

Not much of a problem in Awakening though since you can grind but it is in earlier games with limited maps.
 
Jintor said:
We have an early, strong contender for QL of the year. Jesus dino christ on a pogo stick.
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It felt like Vinny was drunk throughout, but that just made it better (when he didn't fuck up so bad I physically cringed). That ending was a kicker though.
 
I'd never really though of Vinny and Patrick as a winning combo before but Vinny's relentless cheerfulness and Patrick's slightly beneign enthusiasm was perfect for what that game was.

Let's get that GB fighting game off the ground
 
demidar said:
The problem is that the rest of the team will fall behind enough that they'll get one-shotted in later levels. Fredrick-type characters can't take on an entire enemy force by himself, especially when status ailments come in to play.

Not much of a problem in Awakening though since you can grind but it is in earlier games with limited maps.
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There is a middle-ground between not using the Jeigan character at all and soloing levels with him/her:P For the most part, completely avoiding Jeigans is detrimental compared to using them smartly.

(Then you've got your Titanias and your Seths, who are so good, that soloing their games with them is totally viable.)

Jintor said:
We have an early, strong contender for QL of the year. Jesus dino christ on a pogo stick.
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It ended too soon, though:(
 
bonercop said:
There is a middle-ground between not using the Jeigan character at all and soloing levels with him/her:P For the most part, completely avoiding Jeigans is detrimental compared to using them smartly.

(Then you've got your Titanias and your Seths, who are so good, that soloing their games with them is totally viable.)
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Jeigan, that was the term I was looking for.

Anyway I think my problem stems from the fact that, unless you really do your reading, newcomers will over-rely on them since they can murder anyone early game, which is natural pragmatism in a franchise known for permadeath. But it's a problem of counter-intuitiveness since relying on them too much can screw over the player end-game and this isn't exactly spelled out of the player. Normally it makes sense to use your strongest character to wipe out your opponents.

Replayable battles like in Awakening does a lot to alleviate that though, and while diehards might not like it I think it's a good compromise for newcomers so they can't paint themselves into a corner yet still retain the tension as more battles means more chances for characters to die.
 
People may give them shit for doing iOS Quick Looks, but because of them I now have bought 10000000, Hundreds, ad The Room.

EDIT: Fun Fact about "No Time to Explain" - the guy who does the voices in the game actually works with me and I didn't even know he was in this game until I saw his name pop up in the beginning of the Quick Look. He sang a song about a stove.
 
AHappyPanda said:
No Time to Explain - one of the best QLs in a long while
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Yup, a lot of Quick Looks have been missing a sense of fun lately, that one had it in spades.

I think the guys other than Vinny have been trying a little too hard to make these Quick Looks informative. Personally it's more important to me that those videos are fun and entertaining, often the information simply comes from witnessing the game being played rather than getting into the meticulous details (that's informative, but often boring to either watch or hear be explained).

I'm purely speculating, but it seems to be one of the side effects of these conversations Jeff has been having with other editors from Gamespot or elsewhere about where videogame coverage is going and the role video plays in it. Video content is becoming all the more popular, and we see more people talk about how they simply use Quick Looks as their metric for deciding if they want to buy a game or not and so I think Giant Bomb has been leaning into the more informative side of things a lot more often to try and serve that. I think Ryan, Brad, Jeff and Patrick are doing their best to fill their critic role (having the second man on can help lighten the mood, but it varies) and I think that's why Quick Looks are often a lot better with Vinny around - because Vinny fills a different role at the site I think he approaches this stuff with a greater sense of levity and willingness to just have some fun.

I think Quick Looks have gotten a bit away from the idea of "show, don't tell" to some extent. Or maybe I'm thinking about it too much. :P

FStop7 said:
Vinny and Brad should try 999 and VLR if they like The Room so much. But they never listened to Patrick when he praised 999. ;_;
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It's probably because Patrick never gave any real impression that 999 and VLR were anything like the sort of game The Room is. As someone who has never played those games (though I've long been interested in checking them out) most of what I hear around the internet (and what I heard when Patrick talked about the games on the bombcast) simply gives the impression that the games essentially involve scrolling through text and picking the odd dialogue choice or something. I don't really hear anything about solving interesting puzzles or the like.
 
That's because the puzzles aren't really the best part of the game, they're just kind of these roadblocks that give you some breathing room in between reading. Well, they are plot-important, but they're not the interesting part of the plot, put it that way.
 
Meatvillain said:
It's probably because Patrick never gave any real impression that 999 and VLR were anything like the sort of game The Room is. As someone who has never played those games (though I've long been interested in checking them out) most of what I hear around the internet (and what I heard when Patrick talked about the games on the bombcast) simply gives the impression that the games essentially involve scrolling through text and picking the odd dialogue choice or something. I don't really hear anything about solving interesting puzzles or the like.
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999 is all about room escapes.
 
Meatvillain said:
Yup, a lot of Quick Looks have been missing a sense of fun lately, that one had it in spades.

I think the guys other than Vinny have been trying a little too hard to make these Quick Looks informative. Personally it's more important to me that those videos are fun and entertaining, often the information simply comes from witnessing the game being played rather than getting into the meticulous details (that's informative, but often boring to either watch or hear be explained).

I'm purely speculating, but it seems to be one of the side effects of these conversations Jeff has been having with other editors from Gamespot or elsewhere about where videogame coverage is going and the role video plays in it. Video content is becoming all the more popular, and we see more people talk about how they simply use Quick Looks as their metric for deciding if they want to buy a game or not and so I think Giant Bomb has been leaning into the more informative side of things a lot more often to try and serve that. I think Ryan, Brad, Jeff and Patrick are doing their best to fill their critic role (having the second man on can help lighten the mood, but it varies) and I think that's why Quick Looks are often a lot better with Vinny around - because Vinny fills a different role at the site I think he approaches this stuff with a greater sense of levity and willingness to just have some fun.

I think Quick Looks have gotten a bit away from the idea of "show, don't tell" to some extent. Or maybe I'm thinking about it too much. :P



It's probably because Patrick never gave any real impression that 999 and VLR were anything like the sort of game The Room is. As someone who has never played those games (though I've long been interested in checking them out) most of what I hear around the internet (and what I heard when Patrick talked about the games on the bombcast) simply gives the impression that the games essentially involve scrolling through text and picking the odd dialogue choice or something. I don't really hear anything about solving interesting puzzles or the like.
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It's hard to tell WHY they're so good without...telling why they're...so good. It's complicated. "Just do it" is as far as you can go and hope the MINDBLOWINGEDNESS just-beat-it posts tempt enough.
 
Zeer0id said:
Maybe the Wii U version's gimmicks would make it more fun?
:(

Gearbox is such an odd developer
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Indeed, so odd in fact that they don't even develop their own games... Seriously, I thought for the past couple years that they talked about Aliens, that they were the only developer working on it.
 
SteveWinwood said:
999 is all about crazy story. The room escapes are shitty filler that they hope people mistake for puzzles so they don't realize they're just reading a book with anime characters on screen.
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Biggest design flaw of the game is that it made you play through puzzles you've already completed when going for the other endings

because they were so much fun the first time through!
 
The A:CM QL made it sound like Jeff made a decision as a child that the Aliens looked "dumb", and then spent the last 25 years avoiding the franchise.
 
SteveWinwood said:
999 is all about crazy story. The room escapes are shitty filler that they hope people mistake for puzzles so they don't realize they're just reading a book with anime characters on screen.
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This. I love 999 but the escape sequences are just padding in my opinion. The crazy story is where it's at. If game was only escape sequences no one would give a shit about it, and if it was just the crazy story it'd be infinitely better and more replayable. I didn't get all the endings because I didn't want to play/replay escape sequences.
 
I stopped watching the Aliens QL and rewatched Vinny playing Sleeping Dogs instead. Vinny probably couldn't have saved Aliens, but he'd be a step up.
 
yea, not even hilarious. it was just pretty boring. only Drew's interest with the lore was what kept it going for me.
 
Canada has failed
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