Whatcha Been Playing?

[Chopper]

I might give 4-1 a go then instead.

There's a great magic-scaling weapon near the start too.

[KSubzero1000]

So I apparently managed to socially engineer myself a free copy of RDR2 from some unsuspecting mark. Good to know I could have a potential con artist career to fall back on in case the global economy crashes or whatever.

I have very mixed feelings about Rockstar in general... On one hand, I think they have some of the best writers in the industry who are consistently providing the kind of biting non-partisan social commentary I'd like to see more of in games. And the fact that at least one of their studios is situated outside of the US is probably what gives them such a sharp and insightful outside perspective on american society. On the other hand (and I don't think this should come as a surprise to anybody), but I find their games to be rather boring and frustrating to actually play. I would prefer something more tactile, and open world simulation games will probably never be my cup of tea, but at least their great sense of humor, polished development and commitment to properly written protagonists are elevating them over the likes of Bethesda in my eyes.

Surprisingly enough, I count the first RDR among my favourite games of all times due to its sharp writing, fantastic sense of locale and unflinching portrayal of the american West. A few hours into the sequel, and it already seems like the logical conclusion of their signature design philosophy: insane amount of little details, top tier dialogue, but intentionally unresponsive controls. The aforementioned sense of humor is also conspicuously absent so far, which seems to align with common criticisms that I've read.

But my curiosity is piqued and I'll definitely keep playing for the writing alone while trying my best to muffle the hyperactive action fiend inside me. It's probably going to help that I haven't burned myself out on Spider-Man and Assassin's Creed in short succession like so many others.

So my in-laws from Wales are currently staying with us...

Cool stuff!

[Suits]

So my in-laws from Wales are currently staying with us...

Cool stuff!

Currently we’re all neck deep in PSVR.

It really is a great party piece.

Tetris effect got some serious praise for being wonderfully accessible and a truly massively immersive experience.

[Chopper]

So I apparently managed to socially engineer myself a free copy of RDR2 from some unsuspecting mark. Good to know I could have a potential con artist career to fall back on in case the global economy crashes or whatever.

They were probably thinking, what naïf can I unload this on to?

...of their signature design philosophy: insane amount of little details, top tier dialogue, but intentionally unresponsive controls.

Intentionally unresponsive? That would explain a lot, but why would they do this?

[KSubzero1000]

Intentionally unresponsive? That would explain a lot, but why would they do this?

Well... For the same Holy Grail of game design that every other developer is so obsessed with nowadays. "Immersion". An actual real life person like you and me (or, say, a middle-aged cowboy in the Wild West) does not move and respond to either internal or external input like Super Mario does. We don't have the reflexes and body control of cyborgs and superheroes. We don't have infinite stamina. Our strolling speed is pretty slow, all things considered. When we dive out of the way of incoming danger, it's not going to be an instantaneous pixel-perfect magnetic snap to the nearest cover. Horses aren't cars, etc...

By all means, try jumping on the spot inside your living room or over a fence in your garden. Whatever the end result is going to be, it's going to look a lot closer to the jump in RDR2 than to the one in Halo, in which Master Chief is instantaneously torpedoing himself 2,5 meters into the air while retaining all of his faculties. Especially in terms of the wind-up duration, which is where the aforementioned unresponsiveness comes from.

Rockstar's goal in creating the controls and interface of RDR2 isn't to make everything as fluid, dynamic and immediate as possible. Because if the player character had the same mobility and responsiveness as the one in Vanquish, the game's primary goal would suffer, which is to be a relatively realistic depiction of the time and place it's set in. They prioritise simulation over arcade, basically. My issue with this is that I don't think it makes for very enjoyable gameplay in general.

The same priority of animations over responsiveness is not limited to Rockstar, btw. Why do you think so many games like TLoU, Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed nowadays have these lengthy pre-canned takedown animations that play out when you approach an enemy from behind and press a button? Because that's (probably) what choking someone from behind would look and feel like in real life as well. They would struggle and gasp for air while slowly falling to the ground and the whole ordeal would probably take a while. Compare and contrast to something more arcadey and gamey like MGS2 from 2001, in which guards immediately drop their weapons when ambushed, the punch-punch-kick combo is sending them flying in no time, and they even get stars floating above their head to indicate their K.O. status.

That's basically my problem with this entire trend of realistic simulation over responsive arcade presentation style. It's not that I don't appreciate the time and effort that has been put into all these animations, it's that they factually come at the cost of the moment-to-moment player-induced decision making process and turn games into a more passive experience as a result.

[Chopper]

Ah! Thanks for taking the time to explain that; I had confused it with the obtuseness of the control scheme in general (button assignment, convoluted actions, and yes, the tendency to interpret cover as jump on top of it rather than hide behind it).

It also explains the terrible driving in GTA

Well, as you say, it fits the game type (simulation v arcade), so not a bad thing, despite personal preferences. Yes, there's a fair bit of waiting around, but there's a place for 'passive' too.

[KSubzero1000]

it fits the game type (simulation v arcade), so not a bad thing, despite personal preferences. Yes, there's a fair bit of waiting around, but there's a place for 'passive' too.

There's definitely a place for passive experiences and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with simulation design. In the same way that I don't think of immersion as the ultimate goal of game design, neither is immediacy. Look at racing games: You have incredibly high quality products with devoted fanbases on both sides of the fence.

Games should follow whatever vision their creators hold dear. With that said, there is also an argument to be made that old-school games with arcade sensibilities have gotten a bit of a bad rap and unduly shoved aside in recent years.

[Chopper]

Passive is a bad word to use because of its almost-entirely negative connotations. We can't use immersive either really, as that applies across the spectrum of games. I'm sure the person getting all the rings in Sonic is just as immersed, or more so, than me seeing if the toilet flushes in Deus Ex.

[Flabyo]

I do think a lot of the shade thrown at Assassin’s Creed for this particular aspect has been addressed in Odyssey and Origins, they control quite differently to the earlier games.

[KSubzero1000]

Passive is a bad word to use because of its almost-entirely negative connotations. We can't use immersive either really, as that applies across the spectrum of games. I'm sure the person getting all the rings in Sonic is just as immersed, or more so, than me seeing if the toilet flushes in Deus Ex.

Actually, I'm not sure I would agree with either of those statements!

I don't think "passive" is a negative term. If what I call the "moment-to-moment player-induced decision making process" is demonstrably being devalued through long-winded animations and/or a lack of immediate mechanical feedback in GameA as opposed to GameB, then to me that's just a factual observation based on data. "How many important decisions can you make in one minute of average playtime?" That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with preferring GameA over GameB or vice versa. Different players have different priorities, and everybody prefers a different level and/or type of interaction in their games.

Look at it this way: I certainly prefer passive linear storytelling as opposed to interactive branching storytelling. Nothing wrong with that either!

Your definition of "immersive" is interesting. To me, it always refer to the ease with which the player is able to suspend their disbelief in the events portrayed on screen. Deus Ex is going to look and feel much more convincing to your brain than 2D Sonic, hence being more immersive (especially when the game world is reacting in the way you'd expect it to like with the toilet flush). That has nothing to do with quality either; as much as I love Silent Hill 2, there's no way I would ever refer to it as being as immersive as, say, Alien Isolation.

I would say that "engagement" is the one quality that applies across the spectrum of games. Then again, perhaps this is all a big semantics argument!

[Joshihatsumitsu]

Without giving Rockstar too much credit, they make incredible sandboxes. They make okay games, and the writing is... cinema-lite: the influences are obvious, but comes up very short. And the satire is the laziest form possible. GTA V is the last Rockstar game I've paid good money for, and I've learnt my lesson.

That being said, if I got the chance to play RDR2 at no cost, I'd get down off my high horse and at least give it a play!

[ratsoalbion]

By all accounts, the writing in RDRII is far more accomplished and mature than that of GTAV.

[Joshihatsumitsu]

By all accounts, the writing in RDRII is far more accomplished and mature than that of GTAV.

I do have fond memories of the first RDR, but I'll probably still wait it out. Never takes long for triple-A titles to come down in price, usually a few months.

[Flabyo]

It’s never felt to me like the woolly controls of rockstars work was a deliberate attempt to be obtuse, more that they just don’t have the right people there to do it better.

That part of ‘game feel’ is an absolute *git* to get right, And you can burn years of your life trying to find it. Sometimes the only way to do it is to tear it down and start again, and given that rockstar are clearly building their games on the codebases of the previous ones, there probably isn’t the time/money combination for the kind of rewrite it needs. (This is also why Bethesda stuff is getting clunkier, their entire quest and asset management system is tied to their tools, but that appears to be too tightly coupled to their render tech, so they can’t just lift that out and bolt it into, say, unreal 4 without spending years on it)

I don’t think we ever quite got the combat in Fable as fluid as we always wanted it to be, and then Kingdoms of Amalur came out and nailed that first time out (purely in terms of combat control I mean). A Fable game with our art, character and story design but with Amalur’s combat would’ve been amazing. But we weren’t good enough to do it in the time we had.

[Pitwar]

Pretty much been on Tetris Effect and not much else this weekend, but what a game that is. I'm hooked, as I always tend to be when a new Tetris comes out.

Other than that, I got to laugh at the wife playing Rush of Blood. The amount of jumps and screams was hilarious.

Although a boss fight being seemingly impossible to beat ended her brief foray into video games, but it was nice while it lasted.

[KSubzero1000]

I'm thinking about trading-in Red Dead Redemption 2 before I've even played it. That's crazy, even by my lofty standards, but the current trade-in price in CeX is €58. That means my bundled PS4 Slim will have cost me just €191.00. Bargain.

I think you've come full circle with the scamming, Mr. Lime.

[Pitwar]

How likely is it that RDR2 will feature in a Christmas/January sale? I see that the special editions are both discounted now for Black Friday, but would the base release of an AAA game ever get a seasonal discount?

Rockstar Games generally hold their value for a while, so I can't see RDR2 getting much of a discount, if anything after Christmas.

I'm really on the fence about it, even after all the praise I've heard from people I trust with their gaming opinions.

I've put it on the Christmas list just in case someone in my family fancies treating me, but I'm in no hurry to rush out and buy it myself.

[KSubzero1000]

Ha! Nicely spotted!!

To be fair, I only made the connection about two days ago. I'm ashamed it took me so long!

[Flabyo]

Yeah, rockstars stuff very rarely sees any discounting.

[dezm0nd]

I sold my copy of rdr2 for 40 quid at cex. Ive tried so hard to enjoy it and 30-40 hours in i just got bored.

So i purchased tetris effect with the money and finding it alot more rewarding but why does the game suffer from framerate dips and affect the input in a laggy way? It puts a delay on the controller input and severely knackers the run