Video game thread. Huzzah!

[Ryan]

I agree with yous guys, it's best to wait to get a new console. The kid in me can't believe I'm saying that, hey Trey! haha, but it's so true.. on release they're full of bugs, they're super expensive, and the launch titles are almost always kiddie platformers, racing games, not the best work that will come out.

I think I'd be both though, a pc gamer and a console gamer.. you gotta have some of those exclusives! Like Demon's Souls.. you gotta play Demon's Souls! But that pc power and upgrade-ability is awesome.. and I love how the pc games always come with editors that let you make really powerful and interesting mods to some games, I'm thinking Dark Souls and Skyrim off the top of my head...

So true also that even as a pc gamer you're probably gonna end up using the controller of one of the current consoles, that seems really common.

I also think you're still gonna see some killer PS3 and 360 games in the next year or two.. like Dark Souls 2 in March.. there's over a 100 million total of those consoles out in the world so their life isn't over just yet.

Slow gaming times lately with the new console releases.. everybody's playing the same 4 or 5 games and it's kinda boring as a spectator..

[AngryGoldfish]

Would you consider GTA a driving or shooting game predominantly?

[Ryan]

haha great question.. I'd probably consider it a shooting game predominantly but I think it really depends on the player. I only see people playing it in a really violent way, as a gross murder game.. but I'd love it if somebody played it as a driving sim, it's definitely got great driving mechanics and physics and looks awesome... pretty sweet driving/murder simulation software!

[Wes Mantooth]

That's how my roommate plays it, his favorite part is just collecting cars and driving. You can make some pretty sweet rides in GTA

[Ryan]

Bigtime, the cars and mods are awesome! That's cool!

[AngryGoldfish]

I'll be honest, as much as I abhor violence in real life, GTA violence is fun and ashamedly satisfying. I hate admitting that, but it's a boatload of fun to play. Then again, it has a lot more to it than just robbing a store and shooting the cashier in the face. For instance, I just spent the last four hours 100% completing flight school in the game. I then bought a full wardrobe of suits for one of my characters and pimped out one of his stolen cars. I mean, how many games allow you to do that?

I've always considered GTA a driving game. That's how Rockstar started with the franchise and that's what they've always been best at. Some didn't like the driving mechanics in GTA IV, but I did—although I do prefer it in the most recent iteration. It took me a while to get used to it at first, but it worked well in the end. I enjoyed that game greatly, but the combat was not especially impressive and the missions weren't as well written or as fun as GTA V, San Andreas, or Vice City.

And I'm definitely both a PC and console gamer. I'm not a hardcore gamer in that I don't play every release, but I love the community and I really enjoy playing, particularly open-world realistic titles that don't involve monsters or zombies.

That reminds me, is it me or are zombie/monster/creature games kinda stale now? Take the first Uncharted for example. That game was pretty damn good. It had a solid flow, the enemies were smart, challenging, and combat was tense and exploring was rewarding and satisfying. Then suddenly there were monsters running at you. It didn't feel right or fit. And this has happened with other major titles as well, like Halo and Far Cry. I know with both those game the monsters were critical to the story, but the actual gameplay with them was nowhere near as good, at least for me. The monsters in Far Cry were pretty good, but I much preferred the humans. Zombies and monsters don't react to different weapons, terrains, or adapt to your actions. They just run at you without a care in the world except mauling you. That's fair enough, but it doesn't feel tactical and gives me the impression that the developers couldn't think of a way to stretch another 2-3 hours of gameplay out of it and expand the playing style so that reviewers and users didn't find the game repetitive. I get that, but I wish they could come up with better ways to keep the gamer enticed than throwing in mindless hoards of enemies.

A game that blends monsters and humans perfectly is The Last of Us. The Clickers in that required a tactical approach and responded in unique and intelligent ways to their surroundings. They looked scary, sounded scary, and were threatening in an almost passive and quietly deadly way. You had to use sound in order to get around them, instead of just shooting hoards of them in the face as they blindly run at you. Gears of War did it, Half-Life did it, Fallout did it, Skyrim did it, Metro did it, The Witcher did it, Stalker did it, Fear did it, Crackdown did it, Far Cry did it, Halo did it, Uncharted did it, Bioshock did it, and I'm sure there are a few others I've forgotten. Some did it well, others not so well.

[Ryan]

Good point! I wasn't familiar at all with the early GTA games until I watched a cool documentary on them awhile ago, very informative and interesting:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xhY9LSGbNk[/youtube]

I always poo-poo the realistic violence in video games but I hear you, I don't think you're a psycho or anything either! *smile* I get those games are fun and they're amazingly well done.. I shouldn't pass off GTA as a murder sim, it's a really cool franchise with a ton of groundbreaking work involved.

You're so right about the zombies in games now.. I cringe to see a new zombie title haha! The Last of Us was awesome though, great game and great story, 'twas awesome. Otherwise they sure stopped being intimidating... remember the first Resident Evil game? That for me was the first really scary zombie gaming experience.. in retrospect they're slow and ridiculous.. but when they were new, with the atmosphere of the game and the sounds they made..especially when the weird camera angles didn't exactly show you where they were.. and you didn't have any bullets... it was awesome.

I love all the monsters and bosses in Dark Souls, they're so wildly cool and powerful. I love the Colossi (?) in Shadow of the Colossus, so big and impressive and sad.

I think the coolest scary monster experience video game is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.. the way they nailed the dark atmosphere and Lovecraftian monsters was so creepy and cool!

[Atrox]

Vice City is still the best GTA, the setting and the characters were totally amazing. I still play it from time to time!

[Achtane]

Vice City felt dead to me in comparison to the others; not nearly enough peds and cars.
Those bikes though...mindblowingly good at the time. And I loved the mission where you gotta shoot those dudes from the helicopter.
GTA3 was absolutely magical when I first played it. It sounds weird, but driving around the second city in that game was so cozy.

[t-rey]

I'm officially going to start calling GTA a murder sim.

I'll hopefully be picking it up tomorrow since it will be $35 some places.

And as much shit as I talked, looks like everyone loves AC4 (even people like me who were 'done' with the series after 3)....so I'll probably scoop that up soon as well.

[AngryGoldfish]

Vice City is still the best GTA, the setting and the characters were totally amazing. I still play it from time to time!

I think I enjoyed Vice City the most for sheer entertainment value, but this new one, it's definitely up there as one of the best as far as perfect game design goes, maybe even the best. They're all fantastic though. I've loved every GTA game I've played, which were all the main titles on PC and consoles—I haven't played Liberty City Stories for the PSP—from GTA, London 1969, GTA 2, III, Vice City, San Andreas (also fantastic), GTA IV (not as good as the rest), Liberty City and GTA V.

[Sardocasm]

I'd have to say my overall favorite GTA title would be either GTA 2 (loved the respect meter mechanic) or GTA III. That said, GTA V is incredible and a worthy successor to the earlier games thanks to bringing back some of that trademark humor that was sorely missing in IV.

[AngryGoldfish]

And I LOVED how they brought back killing sprees/rampages. I don't think gamers want random killing sprees where you have to kill 40 Elvis impersonators any more, and Rockstar know this. But they do want them to be integrated and have a point, which is exactly what they did with Trevor.

[Sardocasm]

I don't see how people could not want to run over 40 Elvis impersonators.

[AngryGoldfish]

I seriously can't imagine GTA would be the huge franchise it is today if they stuck to the same silliness as the originals. They retained some of it, yeah, but overall—at least in my opinion—gamers today want more complexity and depth. The reason why titles like as Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid were such revelations were because they focused on characters and story as much as they did on gameplay and having fun.