[Game Discussion] Good games that sucked.

[Mazer]

Hey ho. I'm trying to get some serious discussions about the design of games going on and this'll be the first public go at it.

I was originally thinking of having everybody post a game they really liked, and what about it they thought was so great about it. But that might just turn into some biased arguments or something. Instead what we'll do is pick a game you really liked, and tell us what you didn't like about it.

Like so:
Title of Game
Developer (if you know/care)
Date of release (if you know/can find out)

[screenshot or graphic of game here for our reference (optional)]
EDIT: And let's try and keep the size of the screenshot low. <= 640x480 sound reasonable? Just so we shouldn't have to scroll to see the whole thing (and the rest of the post)
Description of game here (feel free to copy it from the publisher website or something)

A few quick points describing what you liked in the game.

A description of what you didn't like. What should've been done to make it better. Try and be objective and especially serious here, as what we're trying to do is analyse the game's design to see what could be improved.

Sounds good?

[Mazer]

Since I've started the thread, it would only make sense for me to start this thing off. And since I don't want to be biased about a game I didn't like (hopefully by now you could guess what this is), I'm choosing one of my favourites.

Oni
Bungie Software
Jan. 28, 2001

An intense action anime thriller comes to life in Oni. As an elite member of the tech crimes task force, Konoko is an agent on a mission to fight the evil Syndicate. But things are not always as they seem ... Konoko is haunted by unknown demons of her past, and the truth threatens to send her over the edge. Can you master this explosive hybrid of hand-to-hand combat and cutting edge weaponry to free Konoko from the evils that surround her?

What I liked
It was a futuristic action game that played like an anime.
There were weapons available (some were pretty cool), but it focused on hand-to-hand combat.

What I didn't like
The enemies. First of all, there were maybe 5 or 6 (this is a guess, I haven't played in a while) different enemies, with a bunch of variations of colours as if that makes them new and interesting. Secondly, it was somehow more of a problem to have to deal with two or three of the lesser buggers than to go one on one with the boss.
Visuals. No, don't get me wrong, I think the graphics were done very well. It's just that things seem kind of empty sometimes. Some of the levels are just series of empty rooms
Controls. You couldn't actually customize them (speaking of the PC version here) without manually editing some file outside of the game, and they just seemed less responsive than they should've been. I don't know how to properly describe it, sorry, Just think of an old action game you might not have played for a long time and remember how the awkward the controls felt compared to a more recent game.
Sound. Some of the voice acting just wasn't right. Like watching a dubbed anime, you can't help but think it shouldn't have been too hard for them to find someone better.

[jamonathin]

One of my all time favorite games is:

Diablo 2 - Lord Of Destruction [LOD]
Blizzard


What I Liked

- Perfect graphics. They aren't extremely well done, because then the gameplay wouldn't be as well done.
- Excellent Multiplayer. Playing an online RPG Owns. The trade system, dual system, and everything else worked out perfectly.
- Selection of characters. Good selection of characters, and the skills section let you personalize your character, so that not everyone has the same character stats and skills.
- Items. The idea of rare, unique, magical and juss regualr equipment made the game a lot more interesting, because it was always different. It too also made your character mroe unique.
- Enemies and Difficulties. The enemies were well set up with the different difficulties. There strength/weaknesses were well distributed between the 3 difficulties, and a lot of testing was clearly put into it because the enemy difficulty never jumped from easy to insane. (Normal, Nightmare, Hell)

What I Didn't Liked

- Although I did end up using it because it was hard to keep up with everyone else on multiplayer, the maphack. It sped up the game by at least 3x.
- Ebay. People would use maphack to do "mephy" runs where they pumped up their magic find and would make a random game and kill Mephisto for good items, then restart. Then they would take what they found and set up a paypal account and sell their findings to people on ebay.
- Hackers. People would create programs to sook-up their character with items that weren't originally made by Blizzard.

Overall, if I had time to, i would start playing again because the multiplayer was fixed up now and most of my dislikes don't exist anymore.
[/img]

[Cervantes]

Baldur's Gate II
Bioware Corp
September 22, 2000 (original) and June 22, 2001 (expansion)


Overview
Shadows Of Amn (original)
Welcome to a world of intrigue, adventure and fierce combat. Every world has conflict. Good and evil. Friend and foe. Safety and danger. In Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, you'll find yourself between these factions. This epic sequel will immerse you in a world of intrigue, adventure and fierce combat where your ability to discern the difference between these sides - with the assistance of steel and spell - determines your fate.

Your story begins anew in the exotic southern kingdom of Amn, amidst the opulence of the sinister capital city of Athkatla. Journey through the fierce, unforgiving wilderness of Amn, and through the treacherous caverns of the Underdark, in your quest for artifacts of awesome power and treasure of inestimable wealth.. even challenge dragons, if you dare. Such is the life of a legend.
Throne of Bhaal (expansion)
War wreaks havoc among the Bhaal Spawn, and as a Child of Bhaal, you too become embroiled in the conflict. The mysteries concerning your dark heritage require final answers, and the secrets of your hidden powers are soon to be unleashed. Your journey down the Sword Coast has finally lead you just south of Amn, to the country of Tethyr. It is here, on this final battlefield, that the victors shall rise above the vanquished. You are the Bhaal Spawn, and your ultimate destiny will be yours for the taking!

What I liked:

• Great characters & NPCs. They can bring so many different moods to the game, including insanity, from Minsc, the human ranger who suffers from a head injury and keeps a minature giant space hamster, Boo, as his pet.
  
• Dialogue options. Choose what you say.
  
• Many optional quests.
  

What I didn't Like:

• Playing as an evil character was too pointless. The goodie-two-shoes get all the items, experience, and thanks.
  
• Better NPC AI would be nice. Would give more the feel of playing as yourself and commanding your party, but not really dictating their every baby step. Would take away from all the micromanagement.
  
• Harder battles. The difficulty is great the first few times, but the replayability of this game is so incredible that you want to play it again for the NPC's/classes/quests/items/spells/strategies, but you are bored by the by now easy battles. There is one mod for this game, the Tactics mod, that does just this, though in many cases it just seems rediculously hard and forces the player to take advantage of silly enemy AI bugs.
  

[AsianSensation]

Play on auto-pause, like real Pen and Paper DnD, where you get to make your decisions. Then the game gets alot easier.

And I agree, it's hard to roleplay the evil characters. They get nothing. That's why you play Neverwinter Nights instead.

[jamonathin]

StarCraft (SC)

Release: 1998
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Mac OS X and N64
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Genre: RTS
Predecessor: WarCraft II
Expansion: StarCraft: Brood War, Starcraft: Retribution, Starcraft: Insurrection
Influences: Starship Troopers, Aliens, Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40,000
Gameplay: Galactic war between 3 asymmetric species
Official site: StarCraft@Blizzard

Complements of Answers.com



What I liked
- Single player was fairly well done. I can't say too much about it since I learned how to play this game through battle.net
- Battle.net was pretty sweet. I've always thought blizzard's always done a good job on their multiplayer games.
- Different types of game: Free for alls, teams, ums, ladder, and so on, all very well done, and make the game a lot more interesting. ALong with the records of your wins/loses/dc's
- SC Map Editor! I loved that. I literally lived on that dumb thing. That's what got me through summer school, is my friend and I would write scripts for an rpg I was making on it, and sadly enough my computer crashed, and the floppy I saved my file on ****ed up somehow, and its gone forever
- Along with the editor, I loved the UMS Games. I was crazy addicted. I would listen to the radio while I played, and now whenever I hear a song that was on during that time, I start to twitch and want on that Battle.Net.

What I Didn't Like
- Clans. But not necessarily clans in general, just when you go to try out for a clan, and you make it, you needed to start a brand new account. They should have set it up like Gunbound.
- LAG!!!11 Oh man did lag suck. If you were on dial-up and didn't have a damn near brand new computer, stay off man! That's not necessarily Blizzard's fault, but lag sucked anyways, and always will.

There's nothing else I can really think of, I guess the lag just made me want to play it more, and seek for a faster/better game.

Overall, I love this game and wish I could play it again.

[Cervantes]

AsianSensation wrote:

Play on auto-pause, like real Pen and Paper DnD, where you get to make your decisions. Then the game gets alot easier.

And I agree, it's hard to roleplay the evil characters. They get nothing. That's why you play Neverwinter Nights instead.

Yeah, I know all about the autopause, and I use it to a moderate extent. Autopause at the end of each round is just ridiculous, though I think I used autopause at target destroyed, weapon unusable, enemy sighted, and maybe one other. The thing is, the more you pause, the longer the game takes and the less fun it is. And the more you are forced to micromanage, the more you are forced to (auto)pause.
I suppose it depends on the way the fun comes from the game. Some think it fun for the role-playing purposes. Some think it fun for the tactial challenges. Personally, I'm somewhere in between, so I like my pausing taken in moderation and my NPC's good!
EDIT: Y'know, when I first looked at this thread and read Coutsos saying "this'll be the first public go at it" I was thinking, "No it's not. You made this thread a while back where we posted some screenshots and said what we disliked about our favorite games." Then I realized. *Sigh*

[Mazer]

Cervantes wrote:

EDIT: Y'know, when I first looked at this thread and read Coutsos saying "this'll be the first public go at it" I was thinking, "No it's not. You made this thread a while back where we posted some screenshots and said what we disliked about our favorite games." Then I realized. *Sigh*

Heh. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Nobody seems to care...

[jamonathin]

Coutsos wrote:

Cervantes wrote:

EDIT: Y'know, when I first looked at this thread and read Coutsos saying "this'll be the first public go at it" I was thinking, "No it's not. You made this thread a while back where we posted some screenshots and said what we disliked about our favorite games." Then I realized. *Sigh*

Heh. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Nobody seems to care...

I gotchas Coutsos, that's why I posted twice. I think it's a good topic.

[[Gandalf]]

You see, a while back I posted here, and I had such an in depth description... And then, guess what? Before posting, Firefox crashed because of some @#%! quicktime plugin - so I got mad, and never really wanted to spend the time to retype my post...

I will try to post some time when it's not 12:40am.