Weekend Confirmed - Friday, June 24, 2011
- Thread starter Neuromancer
- Start date
HamPster PamPster
Member
Oh so its the make you feel fucking old episode >:-(
Fuck this I played FFX in 2001 in college
Final Fantasy X HD collection for 10 year anniversary please
Fuck this I played FFX in 2001 in college
Final Fantasy X HD collection for 10 year anniversary please
MikeE21286
Member
really interested to hear what the guys have to say about;
inFamous 2
Trenched
Shadows of the Damned
inFamous 2
Trenched
Shadows of the Damned
Dogfacedgod
Member
On my iPod...
MikeE21286
Member
LiK said:
Get your BOMBCAST memes out of my Weekend Confirmed good sir
MikeE21286
Member
HamPster PamPster
Member
LiK said:
::giggles at imagined sexual innuendo and fills room with sexual tension::
he he he
Visualante
Member
Friday.
Domcorleone
Member
Infamous 2 section? Donde?
HamPster PamPster
Member
Spicer on infamous 2: "You can clearly see the user generated missions"
ChristianSpicer
Neo Member
HamPster PamPster said:
Wait, I don't get what you are saying here. Are you saying you cannot see the UGC missions? I think they are pretty easy to see. Green dots on the map, etc. Of course, you can turn them off in the start menu.
MiniBossBattle
Member
ChristianSpicer said:
You should listen to this week's Bombcast.
ChristianSpicer
Neo Member
MiniBossBattle said:
Listening now. They are talking about the colors not being clear or easy to see, at least regarding the difference between side missions (yellow) or UGC (green)...
I don't have that problem at all. I can see the difference easily on the map and as the highlighted waypoint things when I come across them in game.
I only had the featured UGC missions turned on.
ChristianSpicer
Neo Member
newjeruse said:
True. And if you are blind the game would much tougher too.
GhostWriter24
Member
Very nice discussion today, but I'm anticipating later in the year when they talk about more high-profile releases.
I wish people that said "inFamous 2 has bad morality choices" would expand on that point.
On what is this based? On playing both missions? Or hearing about the mission in the cutscenes and then always picking the good one? I would like concrete examples as I don't see that this is such a clear cut argument that it doesn't need supporting.
There are dramatic differences in the way the missions are justified from a narrative- and how they play out from a gameplay perspective.
You are doing quite a bit of false flag operations. Stealing blast shards after killing the bearer instead of finding them yourself completely makes sense.
You're the bad-ass that is going to save the country, you have more use for it.
The only thing I can currently think of from the top of my head for specific "evil" choices is the Street Performer one which seems a bit sociopathic. There is a reason to be cautious around them, but not to this extent.
Of course if the argument is that it shouldn't have this option in the first place because there is no reason to min-max then that's understandable.
On what is this based? On playing both missions? Or hearing about the mission in the cutscenes and then always picking the good one? I would like concrete examples as I don't see that this is such a clear cut argument that it doesn't need supporting.
There are dramatic differences in the way the missions are justified from a narrative- and how they play out from a gameplay perspective.
You are doing quite a bit of false flag operations. Stealing blast shards after killing the bearer instead of finding them yourself completely makes sense.
You're the bad-ass that is going to save the country, you have more use for it.
The only thing I can currently think of from the top of my head for specific "evil" choices is the Street Performer one which seems a bit sociopathic. There is a reason to be cautious around them, but not to this extent.
Of course if the argument is that it shouldn't have this option in the first place because there is no reason to min-max then that's understandable.
HamPster PamPster
Member
ChristianSpicer said:
Oh man I just heard your finishing move, poor guy. Just remember what gaf did to bleahy
FYI as others have pointed out thats a picture of Vinny, the world's premire color blind gaming journalist, bombcaster and all around good guy and shame on you for not constantly thinking "what would the color blind do" while playing infamous
Neuromancer
Member
Spicer's on GAF?! What up, brother?!!!
(Hope you check in more than Cannata does)
(Hope you check in more than Cannata does)
bandresen said:
How is that not an explanation? I think the choices in Infamous are shitty because they're binary to meaningless extremes. There's your "explanation." And I brought up Bioshock not as a joke, but as an analogy. The choices there are worthless for identical reasons.
If you want to see choice and consequence done right, go play The Witcher 2.
Neuromancer
Member
I think what Bandresen is asking is, how exactly does the morality system work? In other words when do you make the choices, in missions or in cutscenes or what?Zeliard said:
In Infamous 1 I believe it was a bit of both.
I was asking for how someone comes to the conclusion that it's bad.Neuromancer said:
Zeliard is championing The Witcher 2 which has a completely different objective than a game like inFAMOUS. But based on this I can at least see where he is coming from.
My take is that inFAMOUS 2 does it a lot better than the first one.
The very first mission in the first game, you free some food for the citizens.
Then a morality choice appears. Kill some citizens, get the food for yourself.
Don't do anything, you get not food. Narratively that makes sense. Food is a limited resource. The amount of food would mean you wouldn't have to worry about it for weeks.
The reason this decision is meaningless however is that the game doesn't use food for anything.
If you had to scavenge for food like in Project Zomboid that decision would be very important.
I already made a little case why inFAMOUS 2 has gameplay and narrative ramification in the above post. But another example: If you're evil you have protesters running around the street. These protesters don't run away from you. So when you face a big group of enemies you use them as batteries, draining them all and get supercharged and being able to spam the most destructive abilities without paying the ammo.
That's a clear consequence of the morality system with gameplay benefits.
ChristianSpicer
Neo Member
HamPster PamPster said:Oh man I just heard your finishing move, poor guy. Just remember what gaf did to bleahy
FYI as others have pointed out thats a picture of Vinny, the world's premire color blind gaming journalist, bombcaster and all around good guy and shame on you for not constantly thinking "what would the color blind do" while playing infamous
CAN'T STOP MAH SHINE.
And can we make bracelets to sell at high schools that say "WWTCBD" (apologies if one has already been made).
JeffCannata
Neo Member
Neuromancer said:
I'm always here, lurking in the background. Worry not.
Neuromancer said:
Seems largely the same as the first so far. You make an evil choice and your evil meter goes up, you get evil points, skin starts graying, etc. You again have the selection of "unique" good and evil side quests on the map which lock each other out.
In-game choices are thus far of the "kill everyone or don't" variety (the first major choice you have is literally that), and Infamous 2 in fact seems to go even further with the evil/good extremes by, for example, giving you XP bonuses for killing pedestrians and such if you're playing evil. Methods of gaining evil points include killing street performers and cops. And again the whole evil aspect clashes with the main storyline, which basically has you going around trying to save people and tackle the Big Bad.
Don't get me wrong, I generally enjoy the Infamous gameplay, but its "morality-based" system of choices is weak, as are all similar binary systems.
MiniBossBattle
Member
Jeff and Christian need avatars.
Something with Whimsy and another related to Canada, like bagged milk.
Something with Whimsy and another related to Canada, like bagged milk.
I don't think it does. It's a different approach.Zeliard said:
Blue means "Be Mr. Niceguy to everyone".
Red means "The end justify the means".
And false flag operations aren't made up by Sucker Punch. They are out there.
Killing civilians to recharge your health so you can continue fighting is a perfect example of the red philosophy.
I don't remember if outside of the tutorial hour you are forced to play "good". My recollection is that if you're saving someone they are Persons of Interest, not just random civilians.
bandresen said:
I think you're being a bit kind with qualifying them as such. You gave an example earlier that killing a shard-bearer instead of getting the shards another way is not extreme. Really? You're killing them because they're slightly inconveniencing you, while also knowing you can get access to those shards anyway. That isn't what I would call "ends justifies the means," when the ends can be achieved through other means. It's more of a basic good/evil thing and I just don't find it very compelling.
Killing civilians to recharge your health when you can use enemies for that purpose, or travel to another point in the environment when you have use of your map and know where every bit of electricity is, is again a matter of convenience. You are killing people for the sake of your own convenience, which I think most would agree is an 'evil' thing to do.
And I'm not admonishing the existence of these actions or anything (I played evil in both games), but just pointing out that they don't really do much of interest from a moral standpoint. The choices are generally rather cut-and-dry and I think are mostly just there to serve as an excuse for the dual powers paths.
The end result of Cole using shards is getting more power. There is no reason for a civilian to have them. He takes what he sees to have a better chance at fighting the beast.Zeliard said:
Of course if you don't buy into the story that the beast is quickly approaching and thus have all the time in the world there is not much reason to steal the shards.
Sure, I could. it would just be a tactically unsound idea to jump into the enemies, drain them all and then continue fighting when I can do that from a comfortable distance to the demonstrators and then fire 20 missiles without losing energy.
Oh definitely. First came the gameplay and then the window dressing. I'm just saying that I think the window dressing is not as bad as people are saying.
I even think there were a few instances where the moral choices were interesting. The most notable is of course the final choice. If you divorce yourself from the idea that you're just the player and you're not just doing it for the trophies and the different choice is a reload away and consider the world and the ramification then I think it's a well made choice.
ChristianSpicer
Neo Member
MiniBossBattle said:
I'm game for suggestions...ha...this could end up being painful...but whatev.
DidntKnowJack
Member
From now on, this thread needs to be called "Garnett Lee's Weekend Confirmed".
GhostWriter24
Member
I love how they gush over Uncharted 3 when they were talking about Best of E3 nominations.
GhostWriter24
Member
For as much flak as Garnet gets for his sometimes outlandish statements, you'd be hard pressed to find a better host for a marquee gaming podcast. He's the man.DidntKnowJack said:
EDIT: Crap, apologies for the 2x post...
Neuromancer
Member
Isn't Xav the Canadian?MiniBossBattle said:Jeff and Christian need avatars.
Something with Whimsy and another related to Canada, like bagged milk.
bandresen said:
The game goes out of its way to give you an abundance of things to do before hitting the end point, so it doesn't exactly hurry you along. And if you're saying it's somehow not a bad thing to kill a person for shards to grow in power instead of gaining it from them another, slightly more time-consuming way, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
That's what I personally do in the game, because I can't be fucked, but I have no qualms I'm playing a bastard.
bandresen said:
Everything you're describing is a matter of convenience, not necessity. If you're at a comfortable distance away then you should generally have no issue attaining power from one of the many other outlets. So if you're killing civilians for that purpose, you're again doing an evil thing according to the game, and that's why you get evil points for it. If you're playing good Cole you're expected to abstain from killing innocents, even if there are points when that section of the city has no electricity. Your good guy meter goes down if you don't.
It's even built into the powers. Grenades split up into multiple ones and such when you go evil because at that point you're playing as a character who doesn't care about collateral damage, innocent humans or otherwise, so you just become increasingly destructive. Now in Infamous 2 you get bonus XP for whichever civilians you do happen to take out along the way. The choices are black-and-white and they're largely gameplay-driven.
Just look at the way your character visually changes the further you go evil; they're not trying to be that subtle about it. It's only a surprise Cole doesn't grow horns.
bandresen said:
Still playing through it so I haven't seen the ending yet; I'm actually playing it right now. It's a fun game so I don't want to really bag on it. I just don't think there's interesting about the actual choices you make in the game, in Infamous 1 and so far here. They're more about which line of powers you're going for, and as the powers are diametrically opposed in intended impact, so are generally the choices involved.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
It's funny that Garnett and Jeff were suggesting Shadows of the Damned feature "a game by Suda 51"... That's exactly what they did!
It says "A Suda 51 Trip" front and center on the game box.
It says "A Suda 51 Trip" front and center on the game box.
The narrative is set up in a way that you get periodically reminded how far away the beast is. Be it via the framed narrative after each collected Blast Core or the random news casts on television.Zeliard said:
It all comes down to how invested you are in the narrative. Cole is clearly in a hurry to use the RFI. That's what the story tells. That the beast will never come if you never continue with the main mission is a video game conceit.
I think you misunderstood me. There is a power that will drain other's health around you that will give you unlimited electricity. Unlimited electricity means unlimited rockets/grenades. This is a red power. It has a very tangible benefit and inarguably is a useful power to possess.
In the first game Cole was much stronger with the bad karma option. That doesn't mean he is evil. He still wants to save the world.
Comparison: Renegade Shepard in the video game world. Or if you want a cool example in movies: Bryan Mills in Taken.
Anyway, I think all the points have been made. It would just be nice in general to have people explain their position.
Just like last week when Garnett played the contrarian in regards to DNF so the others on the podcast had to explain their position. It makes it much more interesting.
Keyser Soze
Member
BocoDragon said:
Although, they removed it for PAL...
Weird that the same company, in different parts of the world, can have two different ideas.
bandresen said:
It's a clear example of the gameplay and narrative jarring with each other. Narratives in video games are meant to bolster and supplement the gameplay, and vice versa, not fight and contradict each other. If you're creating an open world game, or one with a large exploration aspect, then you should ideally take these things into consideration. The original pre-patched Fallout had a time limit built in for this exact reason. Now Infamous 2 added even further distractions in the form of user-created content.
bandresen said:
Of course, but the analogy you're looking for is Dark Side/Light Side. Shooting lightning out of your hands and frying whatever is in front of you is undoubtedly useful, but it's seen as an evil act due to its destructive nature. And in what is clearly an homage to Star Wars, you can literally attain that very power in Infamous if you go the evil route.
There's no moral complexity here.
bandresen said:
Evil Cole is wantonly and indiscriminately killing the very people he's trying to save, for no purpose other than convenience and selfishness, and getting points and powers for it. Simply another area where the gameplay jars with the narrative. Many open world games have this sort of problem, including GTAIV.
Over the course of the game I doubt I have killed more than 1000 innocent citizens as Bad Karma Cole.Zeliard said:
Every hour in the game world millions of people die. He is making the choice of killing a few to save a lot. Clearly you disagree with the way he tries to go about that, but there is no question about the effectiveness of this approach.
Hence my "the end justifies the means" comparison. And the false flag operations to garner support against Bertrand is the very same idea.
I think your Dark/Light side comparison is apt. I disagree that there is no moral complexity to be found in that situation. Clearly authors that write Star Wars expanded universe disagree with that notion or they wouldn't explore this very topic in some of the books or upcoming videogames. ;-)
Battlefield 3 is a very different game than Modern Warfare 3. The only reason they're often brought up in the same conversation is because EA's been working for months to have people do that, see the two as being in the same league, as the "two big shooters" instead of just the one (not EA's) we're used to.
Call of Duty is a fast, twitch shooter. Battlefield is not. They play nothing alike, and Call of Duty will sell between 2 to 3 times more. 30 fps or not just doesn't matter at all.
Call of Duty is a fast, twitch shooter. Battlefield is not. They play nothing alike, and Call of Duty will sell between 2 to 3 times more. 30 fps or not just doesn't matter at all.