DLT FORUM

I have finally caved and picked up one of those new 360 elite systems and I want to know what game is best?

I like Gears of War and plan on picking it up. I've heard good things about Saints Row. Any other suggestions?

Dead Rising sells for around forty bucks these days and has the dubious honor of being one of the most ridiculously difficult games ever made, and I can just about guarantee that you'll hate the save-system. However, it's stupid, silly fun if you want it to be, and you'll get about thirty seconds of laughter out of it the first time you kill a zombie with a shower head.

Beyond that, I really hate most of the games I've played on the 360. The sports titles are, of course, rehashes of the previous year's title (free agency is not worth sixty dollars a year); Gears of War is graphically quite good, but comes up totally short in the fun department; Guitar Hero 2 is pretty fun, but frustrating when you consider that it's easier to play a lot of the songs on a real guitar; Crackdown is silly fun, and it's supposed to be a lot better with the ten-dollar downloadable content pack that just came out, but unfortunately the only reason ninety percent of Crackdown buyers bought the game was because they're Halo whores.

The sad thing is, the best games for the 360 are probably the ones that are downloadable over XBLA. Geometry Wars, Street Fighter, Uno, Catan... Bomberman's supposed to come out next month! And I'd take any one of these games over the gritty, hyper-realistic, Peter Moore's "lucid dream" graphical powerhouses that comprise the biggest hits the console has. Unfortunately, I'd take the silly fun of Rayman on the Wii over these games any day, as playing them is like a fucking chore rather than playing a game.

I mean, maybe I'm getting old, but I think that a game should make me smile. Or, if not that, at least inspire some sense of wonderment, as the Metroid games always have, despite the fact that the last two have been two of the most frustrating games ever made. Regardless, fun and wonderment are not high on the agenda of 360 development teams. They want high-poly character models and great lighting engines, and then they wonder why games like Spider-Man 3 end up sucking.

I played an hour of Saints Row and I can't be bothered to pick it back up.

Call of Duty 2 was great, Call of Duty 3 was only 'meh'. It moved around too fast (story) and too many things going on to feel .. engrossed.

Condemned is a MUST GET. Trust me.

Ok my list so far is:

Gears of War (I can get it for like 10 bucks)
Condemned
Dead Rising

It looks like the best games aren't out yet?

I'm really into the Hitman series so I'm in for Kane and Lynch. And Stranglehold (I think that's the name) let's you play as Inspector Tequila from Hard Boiled so I'm in for that too.

That's too bad about Saints Row. I had high hopes for that one.

John Woo's 'Hard Boiled' to Make HD Debut in First Blu-ray Game/Movie Hybrid

Finally, PS3 owners have a reason to be happy about their purchase. Getting the (exclusive) HD version of the movie along with the game is pretty coo.

Dead rising demo was a lot of fun. I'd want to get it, I just never did. Someday soon tho.

Lots of coworkers loved Oblivion. It sounded good, but I'm fucking obsessive about things as it is, I didn't need to play a game that stole my life for 2354235235235 hours.

Tom Clancy's games (minus Splinter Cell. That game owns me). Rainbow Six Vegas, Ghost Recon 1&2. Need for Speed's are good.

Yeah, the new Splinter Cell is pretty good. Oblivion is just damn awesome, and they must have a platinum hits version out by now. Perfect Dark Zero was also fun, and it's only $20 so you can't go wrong.

I really enjoyed the Dead rising demo too. When it drops in price I'll pick it up for sure.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Only recommended for the unemployed/soon-to-be.

Yeah, I got to the point where I just had to quit Oblivion cold turkey before it took over my life.

As for other 360 games, I really enjoyed Spider-man 3 and Splinter Cell: Double Agent but you could definitely get away with a rental for both of those.

Be on the lookout for Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect later this year. They'll be must-owns.

I saw the trailer for Assassin's Creed. Looks cool. I like the third person adventure games.

Is there anything like Zelda other than Zelda? Does the 360 have an equivalent?

Prepare yourself for The Wall of Text!

eamon angelface wrote:I saw the trailer for Assassin's Creed. Looks cool. I like the third person adventure games.

Is there anything like Zelda other than Zelda? Does the 360 have an equivalent?

Nothing really comes to mind. I mean, when you look at the three major system manufacturers and you ask the question, "What is this system's flagship game?" you find that it really has a large bearing on what kind of games are made for that console, as well as what kind of gamer that console is really aimed at. In the case of the Xbox (and soon the 360), the flagship game is unquestionably Halo, and so the console, while certainly capable of Zelda-esque games, is made for action junkies.

The inherent issue ends up being the developers and publishers saying, "Do we really want to pursue this sort of game for this or any console?" If you'll recall the last time anybody wanted to try a new intellectual property and make a sort of Zelda-esque game out of it, it was Tim Schafer's Beyond Good and Evil, which crashed and burned, as so many original IP's do these days. For the PS2, probably the best example of such a game would have been Kingdom Hearts, which of course was developed by Square using familiar characters from Square games and Disney cartoons.

I think that a lot of developers and publishers are leery about making a game that tries to get too far into the Zelda style of play. If you looked under the surface, Dead Rising is a third-person adventure game, not entirely unlike Zelda, but the presentation really sets it apart, so it's probably not compared very often. And, while free-roaming games are getting more common, it's getting to be less often where you can see blatant rip-offs from Grand Theft Auto 3, because developers have realized that players and reviewers recognize rip-offs after a while.

But I digress. The 360's primary, stereotypical gamer is not going to be the sort of person who wants to play Zelda. The 360 is aimed at the gamer who thinks Zelda is childish and wants something more gritty, preferably involving automatic weapons and a great deal of blood. If you'll notice, classic Japanese-style RPG developers are staying away from the 360, with Enchanted Arms being the only real U.S. release for the genre thus far... and it's not very good, and sold even worse. The developers know that the PS2 is still the console to play those games on (since eye-candy is relatively pointless in such a game), and so they're just throwing money away on higher development costs by developing for a system that is outsold in Japan fifty-to-one (in a bad week) by the DS Lite.

But if you want to consider American developers and publishers and ask why they don't make anything like Zelda, look to the big publishing powerhouse, EA. Electronic Arts really doesn't make original IP's. The last time I can remember that they tried to make one was Black, and it didn't fare well, so EA's not really willing to take chances on a new property, so they just charge gamers sixty dollars a year for roster updates, and they're quite happy with that. Other publishers, such as Activision, Ubisoft, Take Two/2K... they're not really going to throw away ten million or more dollars to find out that people don't want to play Zelda when it's not Zelda, so they don't take the chance on it. Why take chances when you can make another shooter, be it first-person or third-person? All you apparently have to do is make it pretty and it'll sell like hotcakes on the 360.

I pretty much agree with everything Umgawa said, but I take issue with this part.

Umgawa wrote: The developers know that the PS2 is still the console to play those games on (since eye-candy is relatively pointless in such a game)

I agree that with certain games where the devs just fancy a more cartoonish look, there's no problem with not pushing the boat out graphically, but there's nothing to say that a decent RPG or any genre of game can't have good graphics and not have it be detrimental to the gameplay/story, just like there's no reason to assume that every game that has cartoonish graphics is going to be catered for the kids.

I've read a lot of arguments for and aganst graphics over story, and vice versa etc. etc. but it almost seems to me like the majority of people think the two to be mutually exclusive, and it's usually just a side argument in an even bigger argument defending their "favourite" console creator or whatnot.

I don't doubt that certain developers prioritise graphics over content simply because they overbudget the one and skimp financially on the other, and that is a valid point. Developers shouldn't concentrate too hard on the one and neglect something else that may be equally important to the success of the game (or movie, or book, or console). Just like in any genre of entertainment a balance must be struck and a target audience must be identified, rather than just generalising everything (yes I'm lookin at you hollywood)

efilflah wrote:I pretty much agree with everything Umgawa said, but I take issue with this part.

Umgawa wrote: The developers know that the PS2 is still the console to play those games on (since eye-candy is relatively pointless in such a game)

I agree that with certain games where the devs just fancy a more cartoonish look, there's no problem with not pushing the boat out graphically, but there's nothing to say that a decent RPG or any genre of game can't have good graphics and not have it be detrimental to the gameplay/story, just like there's no reason to assume that every game that has cartoonish graphics is going to be catered for the kids.

Disgaea 2 has cartoonish graphics, and it's one of the best RPG's I've ever played, probably because it carries itself with a certain sense of whimsy that's been totally lost since Lucasarts stopped making adventure games.

It's not so much that graphics are a detriment to an RPG. In fact, I can't really think of any cases where it's been that way, as good graphics can be utilized to help reinforce things like scale or just give the gamer a sense of awe or grandeur. I present the evidence of the use of Aeons in Final Fantasy X as an example: I think the first time I whipped out any one of the Aeons, my reaction was, "Bad fucking ass..." I mean, it was a hell of a lot cooler than seeing a 2D tile in the NES and SNES iterations of Final Fantasy, and I'd never really thought about what it would really like to be in the same vicinity as one of these things. Was it absolutely necessary? No. Did it help to make the game better? Sure.

However, with regard to the 360, all we have in the States to cite as an example is Enchanted Arms, which is certainly pretty, but it's just not a very good game. It's not bad... but it's also not very good. I don't think the graphics hurt it at all, despite their being very flashy and such, but the 360 needs games created by Japanese developers for Japanese gamers in order to sell the system over there, which would cause more Japanese developers to jump on board and make more games for Japanese gamers, which would hopefully ultimately trickle over to other regions.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's attempt at financing or otherwise taking the initiative in creating Japanese interest in the Xbox or the Xbox 360 has managed to fail miserably, time and again. True Fantasy Live Online turned to vapor, and Blue Dragon sold over 200,000 copies in Japan, but any developer could look at that, assign a $60 price tag to it and do the math to find that developing for the 360 doesn't pay off, unless it can be done on the cheap, and –as we've been told time and time again– development costs have gone up considerably in this console generation. Also, Microsoft has shipped (not necessarily sold) 317,319 units to Japan between launch and February 11, 2007. It's just not a good business decision for the Japanese to develop for the console, as they'll never profit in their home territory, because they don't have the luxury of writing off a loss as "system seller."

In the end, that's not good for variety, resulting in more games being developed for Americans by Americans, which means more and more mindless fucking shooters. And then developers wonder why few people would categorize videogames as "art" and why the people who do consider them art can't explain what defines them as such. But that's an argument for another thread.

I like third person shooters and driving games over RPGs. I liked Zelda for the 64 and I played a bit of the Wii version which was cool too.

My favorite games for the old XBOX were the Hitman series and the Need for Speed series. Maybe I'm a culture-less boob? I dunno. I remember Smash saying I have boob like taste in movies which is odd. I spent 5 years getting an MFA in screenwriting and have been writing consistently since only to end up a boob? Ah well. A boob I must be then.

Is the 360 the best system for boobs? It sounds like it. Japanese games don't hold the same allure for me that Japanese movies do. And how come Korea doesn't have a thriving gaming industry? Or China? Japanese games always seem like they're at least half marketed to children. Those anime eyes and talking dogs and such throw me off. I can't kill a talking dog. I can't drive one either. And how come I can't get no Tang round here?

I'm going to call Rockstar and ask them what's coming down the pipe. They have a big office not overly far from me.

*UPDATE*
for me this is.....










Post number 666



POST OF THE DEVIIIIIIIIL!!!!!!!!!!