GOTY 2013 - Last is First - The Bear and Badger

JonB

TheDJR wrote:

GTA lacked heart but it always has.

That's exactly it.

It's always impressive in its scope and the range of references it covers, but everything seems to be included based purely on whether it will appeal to the core audience. For all the effort put in on the story side of things, it all comes across as someone trying too hard to be cool.

hylian_elf

You guys hit the nail on the head on GTA. Lack heart. Plus I always thought the main game/campaign was repetitive crap.

@Dready: remember when I was raving on about TWD last year? I think I mentioned that it was barely a game. But that didn't affect the overall experience. As long as you don't expect complex game mechanics or something, you should be fine! I mean, if we really are going to judge solely or mostly on gameplay, then I do see TLoU falling off. Shoot, hide, find ladder/plank/big bin, repeat. (That would make a decent club tune, someone make me a DJ.)

Yossarian

The repetitive nature of the SP is one of the issues V addressed. There's a lot more variety in the missions.

JMW

With the absolute fuckton of games I've got, especially with Plus, my vote has to go to something that kept me coming back despite the huge amount of competition. So that'd be GTAV and TLoU. I've got that new Mario Land, and even that doesn't manage drawing me back quite as well as those too. It'd probably take my third, although at the moment GT6 runs it close.

hylian_elf

Mario World? My only issue with the (great) game is that it only really takes off in World 4 or 5. Very slow and dare I say almost dull beginnings. But it becomes 'stellar' by the end.

JMW

Yeah, my measure is though with the limited time I have what am I keen to get back to, and GTAV and TLoU both do/did that for me. Not knocking Mario World, but it's not quite there in those terms - partly no story but also I usually find the frustration factor in those games tips slightly too far in the last third - I am only on world 3 though.

JonB

Yossarian wrote:

The repetitive nature of the SP is one of the issues V addressed. There's a lot more variety in the missions.

While I gave up quite early on, the variety isn't so much the problem as the lack of much gameplay in most of them. Driving from a to b or walking up some stairs to the roof of a building while listening to some shitty dialogue do not make for great game moments.

Brooks

Finally loaded up Papers Please. That's a good fucking piece of work right there. Instant best-of-year.

dynamiteReady

Brooks wrote:

Finally loaded up Papers Please. That's a good fucking piece of work right there. Instant best-of-year.

It's immediate, innit?

It gets you from the very first challenge, and the designer gets a lot of mileage out of a very simple play set.

Bollockoff

Come on Steam winter sale.

dynamiteReady

There's a free version out there...

I'm waiting on an Android conversion myself.

AJ

Bollockoff wrote:

Come on Steam winter sale.

...because £6 for what a lot of people are calling their game of the year obviously isn't cheap enough.

Bollockoff

That's two Eggnog lattes in my world mate.

Brooks

dynamiteReady wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Finally loaded up Papers Please. That's a good fucking piece of work right there. Instant best-of-year.

It's immediate, innit?

Hilariously so. We imagine ideal games-as-fiction projects where context, mechanics and presentation all blend into something elevated and specific to the medium and then holy shit it comes along and it's made to look effortless.

Erases the stench of a billion Bioshocks.

dynamiteReady

Not everyone will be tuned into such a thing though. I mean, I've had easier jobs... Spacechem is similar in that respect, but not as easy to get into.

Ali

TheDJR wrote:

. GTA lacked heart but it always has.

Yes, and no. GTA3 lacked any personality but was so far ahead of its time, it didn't matter. Vice City, on the other hand, was full of heart and a tongue in cheek reverence for its subject matter. The music, for me, hit it out of the park and it still has by far the best humour as more recent releases have simply tried too hard. San Andreas, I hated. Crap music, crap character, complete lack of humour and a world that, while large, was constantly popping in or being obscured by fog. IV, I actually liked. It had its stupid issues (STOP PHONING ME ROMAN) but Nico's tale and character were really quite endearing, but V just dropped the ball. An amazing city populated by unlikeable scumbags and a return to the humour free void of San Andreas. Let's hope they get back to Vice one day soon...

krs

Having a mobile phone didn't bother me in IV so much, but the bloody smartphone in V will not let me have two minutes to myself.

Ali wrote:

An amazing city populated by unlikeable scumbags

The first time I played I headed straight for the countryside and, waiting quietly for a cable car at the foot of Mount Sixty-Nine (or whatever it's probably called), a woman walked up to me and said, "Get away from me, you creep. That's it, I'm calling the cops," then out came her mobile and a two star rating (is it ever just one star?). All I did was mind my own business and not kill anyone.

Dark Soldier

Gonna start Papers Please today I think.

krs

It has naked people in it.

TheDJR

Me too.

TheDJR

Papers Please, not naked people.

Dark Soldier

I'm past the nudity stage, s'all about breaking the hearts of Eastern Europeans these days.

dynamiteReady

Ali wrote:

. GTA lacked heart but it always has.

Yes, and no. GTA3 lacked any personality but was so far ahead of its time, it didn't matter...

Invention replaced the need for warmth and subtlety, maybe, but the game was warm enough. Lazlo is still one of the best comedic inventions that gaming has ever seen.

And there have been loads of attempts to trump that watermark since then (like Stephen Merchant in Portal 2).

Dark Soldier

Wait so all my family died in Papers Please wtaf I was only getting $5 a day this is shite.

Brooks

That's the point. Trade off between professional diligence and the survival of self and kin. Plus it makes the game propa harcore.

Dark Soldier

I really don't get it, though. Where's the fun? Am I supposed to feel something for my non-existent (as in you never see, know, feel or experience) family and/or these repetitive faces that keep trying to get in?

Its like a point and click without the enjoyment. Sure, it probably is a challenge but seriously, GotY?

AJ

I found it very much like that for the ten minutes I played it. I'll give it another chance some day.

Brooks

It is fun though.

Dark Soldier

My first game lasted 43 minutes, will give it another go in a bit to see if something magically appears and makes it click.

dynamiteReady

I liked the challenge of it. I mean, it's nowhere near as nuanced as I imagine the real thing to be, but double checking everything, reading stories about people I'd accidentally (or intentionally) ushered through, badgering the chancers trying their hand with a knocky fake...

It's more engrossing (to me), than it is fun.

That's why I can't place it above Mazza or Tearaway. But I will swap out TLoU for Papers Please.

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