It's Kevadu's annual PAX thread!

[Yggdrasil]

Lightning Returns was...ugh.  I tried to go into it with an open mind, but I disliked pretty much everything I saw.  I didn't care for the new combat system, the storytelling was garbage as expected, and the whole costume system really does come off as blatant fanservice.  The victory poses and stuff were just so unnecessary...and completely out of character, at least for what little character Lightning had.

Going with an open mind to a play game you don't care about is one of the worse things you can do really. Your attention is all over place and your conscience is always ready to hate on the game rather than enjoying it.

Is pointless and a waste of time.

I'm not saying any of this because of your reaction about LR, that's your opinion and I don't care. I'm only saying this from experience so don't take any of what I said in a tone like I was trying to be a dick or anything to that affect.

[Aeolus]

Lightning Returns was...ugh.  I tried to go into it with an open mind, but I disliked pretty much everything I saw.  I didn't care for the new combat system, the storytelling was garbage as expected, and the whole costume system really does come off as blatant fanservice.  The victory poses and stuff were just so unnecessary...and completely out of character, at least for what little character Lightning had.

Going with an open mind to a play game you don't care about is one of the worse things you can do really. Your attention is all over place and your conscience is always ready to hate on the game rather than enjoying it.

Is pointless and a waste of time.

I'm not saying any of this because of your reaction about LR, that's your opinion and I don't care. I'm only saying this from experience so don't take any of what I said in a tone like I was trying to be a dick or anything to that affect.

Depends on the kind of open mind we're talking about here.

I went into Metroid: Other M with an open mind that the people bitching about the game were doing so because it wasn't yet another Prime title. Turns out, they were mostly right (the Prime games do have their issues and more of them isn't the solution) and I was horribly disappointed (and not like, writing it off at the first sign of trouble but right at the end when it became painfully apparent that Samus had actually managed to fail completely at carrying out any of the final tasks Adam gave her during that retarded Sector 0 cutscene).

Besides, the way that Kevadu described it sounded very much like the kind of game that Squeenix was going for in all of their promos, and trailers, and teasers, and press conferences, and so on... They've replaced Serah-chan by making Lightning into Lightning-chan, even going so far as to bring back X-2's Dress Spheres because X-2 was such a well made game and not at all cheap fanservice BS (not).

[Yggdrasil]

Besides, the way that Kevadu described it sounded very much like the kind of game that Squeenix was going for in all of their promos, and trailers, and teasers, and press conferences, and so on... They've replaced Serah-chan by making Lightning into Lightning-chan, even going so far as to bring back X-2's Dress Spheres because X-2 was such a well made game and not at all cheap fanservice BS (not).

Well, too bad you and a bunch of other people can't get into the experience and enjoy it (because of reasons).

But oh well fuck it. Since I got into FF I've seen a lot of people (mainly old school fans) annoyed by pretty much everything SQEX does, and I don't know about you but I can't deal with that kind of attitude for such a long time. so whatever I'll just go have a good time by myself and ignore the rest.

Also I forgot to ask: Kevadu, how is the PS4's Touchpad?

[Annubis]

The fact that people are speaking calmly while you are displaying obvious zeal makes me side with the side that can see the game for what it is instead of what you think the game is when he has played it and you haven't.

[Darilon]

Lightning Returns was...ugh.  I tried to go into it with an open mind, but I disliked pretty much everything I saw.  I didn't care for the new combat system, the storytelling was garbage as expected, and the whole costume system really does come off as blatant fanservice.  The victory poses and stuff were just so unnecessary...and completely out of character, at least for what little character Lightning had.

Was the combat much different than XIII and XIII-2? They actually grew on me after a while. I thought the battle system in XIII-2 was a nice improvement from its predecessor.

[Daggerstrike]

Besides, the way that Kevadu described it sounded very much like the kind of game that Squeenix was going for in all of their promos, and trailers, and teasers, and press conferences, and so on... They've replaced Serah-chan by making Lightning into Lightning-chan, even going so far as to bring back X-2's Dress Spheres because X-2 was such a well made game and not at all cheap fanservice BS (not).

Well, too bad you and a bunch of other people can't get into the experience and enjoy it (because of reasons).

But oh well fuck it. Since I got into FF I've seen a lot of people (mainly old school fans) annoyed by pretty much everything SQEX does, and I don't know about you but I can't deal with that kind of attitude for such a long time. so whatever I'll just go have a good time by myself and ignore the rest.

Also I forgot to ask: Kevadu, how is the PS4's Touchpad?

How does SQEX dick taste? Is it bitter like the tears of the people bitching  or sweet like the tears of the fan boys that think they can do no wrong?

[Yggdrasil]

The fact that people are speaking calmly while you are displaying obvious zeal makes me side with the side that can see the game for what it is instead of what you think the game is when he has played it and you haven't.

Whatever you say man. I'm not the one defending LR nor I care about getting into discussions because of it at this point.

I've enjoyed the games for what they are with their flaws and everything. If that makes you guys have a bad opinion about me then that's your own problem not mine.

How does SQEX dick taste? Is it bitter like the tears of the people bitching  or sweet like the tears of the fan boys that think they can do no wrong?

A company doesn't have a dick you silly. :P

[Kevadu]

Was the combat much different than XIII and XIII-2? They actually grew on me after a while. I thought the battle system in XIII-2 was a nice improvement from its predecessor.

It's quite different.  As I'm sure you've heard there's no party here, you just control Lightning.  The way it works is that for a given...paradigm?  Costume?  I don't even remember what they're calling them now.  Anyway, for a given thingy you only have four abilities that are mapped directly to the face buttons (one of which always seemed to be some sort of guard).  You would then switch...thingies with the shoulder buttons, each having its own set of abilities and associated costume.  Every action you took would burn some amount of AP which slowly recovers on its own, but the weird thing is that each costume/set/whatever has its own unique AP bar.  So you're basically encouraged to burn all your AP for one set, then immediately switch and use the next one's AP, then switch again, etc.  There didn't seem to be a lot of strategy to it, but at the same time it lacked the fine control to really be called an action game.  Like, you could move around on the battlefield with the left analog stick but it didn't seem to really do anything.  Pressing attack would make Lightning run up and attack no matter where she started from and enemy attacks weren't exactly dodgeable either.  And the constant costume changing (as far as I could tell there was simply no reason not to change as soon as you were out of AP for your current set) makes the dress sphere look sensible by comparison.

Also I forgot to ask: Kevadu, how is the PS4's Touchpad?

None of the games I tried actually used the touchpad, so I can't really say...

[Yoda]

A company doesn't have a dick you silly. :P

In the USA corporations have some of the rights people do, so they might as well have dicks! Also, corporations are also good at fucking us all in the ass.

[pseudonym]

Since I got into FF I've seen a lot of people (mainly old school fans) annoyed by pretty much everything SQEX does, and I don't know about you but I can't deal with that kind of attitude for such a long time. so whatever I'll just go have a good time by myself and ignore the rest.

We have our reasons. X0

Whatever you say man. I'm not the one defending LR nor I care about getting into discussions because of it at this point.

I've enjoyed the games for what they are with their flaws and everything. If that makes you guys have a bad opinion about me then that's your own problem not mine.

There are flaws that can be overlooked, flaws that can tamper the overall experience of the game, and/or flaws that are a result of game developers being: lazy, out of touch, pandering to a creative ideal, patronizing the "perceived" base, or some other reason that makes the developer look like a giant nincompoop. I assume that people play a game with an open mind that is able to accept some flaws and not one that accepts the combination of flaws that tamper the experience. I think Kevadu was trying to  the overlook simple flaws but realized during his play-time that there was an undercurrent of crappiness that overrode a pleasurable experience.

[Yggdrasil]

Titanfall at PAX seems to have been a success. I'm kinda curious now for the hype behind that game has gotten lately.

In the USA corporations have some of the rights people do, so they might as well have dicks! Also, corporations are also good at fucking us all in the ass.

Metaphorically speaking, yeah you are right.

[Kevadu]

The lines were insane today and I didn't get to see as much stuff as the first day.  But I did manage to try out:

Transistor
Beyond: Two Souls
Ryse
Titanfall

Yes I man managed to make it through the Titanfall line.  I have a rant (unrelated to the game) about how poorly MS manages the lines at their booth...basically, I don't mind a long line (it's just kind of expected...), but when they start capping lines because they're wrapping around blocking traffic and stuff and yet there's a bunch of totally unused space at their booth something is wrong...

I'll post thoughts later, I'm just taking a brief break at Starbucks before I go off to a party with a bunch of indie devs.

[kyuusei]

Anyone go to the Dragon Age panel, or Kamiya's?

[Kevadu]

There isn't just one Dragon Age panel, unfortunately.  It's really confusing what Bioware is doing.  They're not showing the game off at the show floor (at least not to the general public, I think press has gotten some access), yet they literally have an entire panel room booked for the entire convention.  All four days.  It's just the "Bioware Room", and they're having panels about Dragon Age everyday.  But each panel focuses on one specific aspect of the game and they sound fairly neener neener, at least from the descriptions.  I suppose if I wanted to spend the entire convention hearing about Dragon Age it would be fascinating, but seriously, I have other stuff I want to do.  In the end I didn't go to any of their panels because I couldn't really decide which one to go to.  I just want a general overview!

OK, here are some thoughts on what I saw today:

Transistor is awesome.  I have a confession to make: while I do think the style and atmosphere in Bastion were great, I really didn't like the combat.  I didn't like it enough that I couldn't really get into the game.  But I don't think I'm going to have that problem with Transistor.  The combat is a blast.  The whole quasi-turn-based thing works really well, and makes you carefully think about your moves.

Beyond: Two Souls is definitely a Quantic Dream game.  I think anyone who played Heavy Rain should have a decent idea of what to expect.  While the QTEs are a lot less in-your-face this time around, they're still there.  The game tries to make you feel like you have more freedom in what to do, but in the end it's still pretty scripted.  Well, at least they got actors whose native language is English this time around.  I enjoyed the demo, but then I also enjoyed Heavy Rain despite its flaws.

If I were to describe Ryse with a single word, that word would be 'stiff'.  Sure the game looks gorgeous, but it felt clunky as heck.  I know a lot of people are calling Ryse MS's answer to God of War, but it really doesn't play anything like a God of War game.  For one thing there's a pretty big difference in setting.  God of War is over-the-top fantasy action with a Greek theme while Ryse is pretty down-to-earth and slower paced.  Which isn't a problem, but somehow the combat in Ryse just doesn't work for me.  You know how in most action games your attacks just kind of go through the enemies?  Sure they do damage, but the animations don't change that because everything has to be tied together pretty tightly.  The animations in Ryse are very detailed and very context-dependent.  Swinging a sword that hits and enemy looks completely different from swinging at empty space.  But the flip side of that is that the game has start all its animations from the right point and in the right way to make the timing all work out, and sometimes it feels like you're not completely in control, with attacks starting much later than you thought they would or even going after a completely different enemy than the one you thought you were targeting.  It's weird.

OK, then there's the QTE thing everyone bitched about when MS first showed off the game.  They actually 'solved' this in this build of the game by getting rid of the button prompts...but the QTEs are still there, it's just that now you always press the same button when the game slows down and starts one of its execution animations.  Yeah, seriously.  I don't really see the point.  QTEs at least offered some challenge, and I didn't really hate them so long as they were for bonuses and stuff and passing them isn't mandatory to live.  These are so easy it's ridiculous...all you do is press the attack button, every single time.  Why even include them?

After much, much, waiting I finally tried out Titanfall.  It was pretty neat, I guess, but I have to say that after all the hype I was expecting more.  I do like the feeling of mobility, where you just just hope straight up walls and stuff to get on the roofs of buildings.  The titans themselves were kind of neat but they didn't feel as good as, say, Hawken.  Maybe I just sucked, but they also seemed kind of overpowered.  I don't know how you could be expected to take out an enemy titan except with your own titan, but then the game pretty much boils down to using your titan when you have it and running around trying not to die while you're waiting for it to respawn.  In the end it's a multiplayer-centric FPS with some cool gimmicks, but not really my cup of tea.


I've been played a bunch of indie games outside of the PAX showfloor.  There was the indie game party I went to tonight, but I also snuck into a similar party last night despite not attending the convention itself yesterday.  I'm not going to list everything I played, but here are a few that stuck out to me:

Organic Panic: Oh look, an indie puzzle-platformer.  Never seen one of those before.  But wait, this one has fully destructable environments with a LittleBigPlanet-esque physics engine, multiple characters with distinct abilities you have to switch between to get through the stages, and...uh...vegetables.  Yes, the characters are all different kinds of vegetables for some reason.  Never mind that, this game is actually pretty rad.  Fun, challenging, and creative.

Videoball: The closest thing I can think of to describe this game is asteroids meets air hockey.  You are a little triangle ship thing and you have to shoot balls into your opponents side of the screen to score points while they're trying to do the same.  Played in 2 vs. 2 team matches this game was a lot of fun despite the minimalistic presentation.

SpeedRunners: This was my favorite game to play in a party setting in a long time.  That said, I'm not really sure how well it would work outside of a party setting, and I don't really do that many videogame-related parties these days so I'm not sure I'm going to get it.  If I was still in college, living in a dorm room with random people hanging out all hours of the day I would be all over this, but I'm not.  Anyway, the game is kind of like a 2D platformer, except it's a race.  You're competing with other people running (and swinging off a grappling hook you have at all times) through a course with twists, turns, deadly obstacles, and cool powerups to pick up.  But it's not the normal kind of race where you're competing to get to a goal first, it's an elimination race.  It's played with all four characters on the same screen and anyone who falls too far behind and goes off the screen--even temporarily--is eliminated from the race.  If the race goes on for long enough the borders of the screen actually start shrinking to make sure somebody is eliminated.  The last person left wins that round, but the rounds actually tend to go pretty quick (much faster than a course in a typical racing game), so you have to win three times to win the match.  I'm not sure I've properly conveyed just how much fun this game is...it's a pretty simple concept, but you really have to experience it.

[Kevadu]

Double posting to share my belated thoughts on the final day (figure that last post was long enough...).

I took it fairly easy Monday and mostly saw indie stuff and went to a couple panels.  Notable indies include:

Samurai Gunn: This game started getting strangely hyped over the course of the convention.  A lot of people were talking about it, even saying it might be the game of the show, etc.  Personally I think that's going a bit far.  The game is a fast-paced four-person retro-styled brawler in which all your attacks (if they successfully connect, anyway) are one-hit kills, respawning is instantaneous, and you're just racing to reach 10 kills first.  It's fun but also very simplistic.  All you have is jumping, a short-ranged sword attack, and a long-ranged gun that can't be fired for a while after you use it.  Definitely very easy to pick up and play but I didn't feel like there was much depth to it.  Frankly if you're looking for a four-person party game type experience I still think Speedrunners was better.

Barkley 2: I played this just for you, Aeolus.  It's a strange game.  Completely absurd in some aspects and yet strangely serious in others.  This time around the combat plays kind of like a dual-stick shooter crossed with a dungeon crawler rather than aping classic turn-based RPG design.  I never actually played the first game, but I've seen trailers and stuff and my impression from this demo was that overall there was a more serious tone this time around.  You could completely remove the Barkley theme without affecting the game much, I felt.  On top of that, even though this was a very early build and the game isn't expected to be finished for a while, there was still a whole lot of stuff in the game.  Lot's of freedom with regards to where you could go and what you could do.  But the presentation was very classic RPG-esque.

Always Sometimes Monsters: Very interesting game that I think that folks here would do well to keep an eye on.  It's sort of a modern-day adventure/RPG thing with a big emphasis on player choice and morally ambiguity.  That said, in my demo of the game I apparently unlocked this hidden cat mode thing (without even trying!) and played through most of the demo as a cat.  I was told that my experience wasn't really representative of the game, and apparently I was only like the 7th person at PAX to find that mode (and this was during the afternoon of the last day of PAX).  I don't know if I should be disappointed or proud...after playing that I kind of wanted to play the game in a more normal way, but there was a line of people waiting who hadn't played it at all...


Oh, I also played Puppeteer.  Seems like a very solid platfomer with an interesting presentation style, but not really anything ground breaking.  At least in the portion of the game I played there wasn't really much combat, there was more emphasis on just avoiding obstacles and things.  Though getting the scissors towards the end kind of changed things up so the full game might have more typical direct attacks.