BFTD Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 14 minutes ago, Mr X said: Possibly and definitely! Live failed because it was shit not because of the sub model. I bought a copy, then they pulled the plug before I had time to give it a proper try  0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SANTAN Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 2 hours ago, GiGi said: Indeed. Hot take - football games are generally a gubbins waste of money, especially if you pay £50 for the same game every year. Each to their own and that, and people can spend their cash however they want but it will never not seem mental to me that EA and SI manage to make so much money each year for what would amount to a patch in any other game. It's all just a low effort money printer for these shysters and people just buy in to it.  3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 2 hours ago, Mr X said: Possibly and definitely! Live failed because it was shit not because of the sub model. It definitely failed because of the model. That model meant that for every new world they opened, after an initial period of excitement, the vast majority just fucked off. Think it was 1000 to a world, and by the time it had settled down you probably had about 100 actually appearing.  Like any live game of its type, it wasn't perfect, and it would have needed a lot of work, but the model they built meant they never built themselves enough time to actually do it. If they'd anticipated their entire model being shit, they could have bought themselves the time and improved things (which they were doing prior to them canning it) but alas, no. And they'll likely never try it again unfortunately, as the competitive nature of it added something that FM/CM have always been missing. EDIT: Although looking at who you replied to, if you're saying that it didn't fail because of being priced as subscription, then you're right. People were happy enough to pay that. It failed because of the model they had after you'd paid. EDIT2: And since we're in this thread, and you have to throw out aggressive comments, I completely disagree about a subscription based model for either FIFA or FM, think it would make the product worse rather than better, and believe it'll never happen. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 It definitely failed because of the model. That model meant that for every new world they opened, after an initial period of excitement, the vast majority just fucked off. Think it was 1000 to a world, and by the time it had settled down you probably had about 100 actually appearing.  Like any live game of its type, it wasn't perfect, and it would have needed a lot of work, but the model they built meant they never built themselves enough time to actually do it. If they'd anticipated their entire model being shit, they could have bought themselves the time and improved things (which they were doing prior to them canning it) but alas, no. And they'll likely never try it again unfortunately, as the competitive nature of it added something that FM/CM have always been missing. EDIT: Although looking at who you replied to, if you're saying that it didn't fail because of being priced as subscription, then you're right. People were happy enough to pay that. It failed because of the model they had after you'd paid. EDIT2: And since we're in this thread, and you have to throw out aggressive comments, I completely disagree about a subscription based model for either FIFA or FM, think it would make the product worse rather than better, and believe it'll never happen.Yes, I'm saying it didnt fail because of the pricing model.I agree it will never happen but I'd be interested to hear why you think it would make the game worse. Its the model most software is moving to. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senorsoupe Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 How frequently do you plan to post a new set of results @Miguel Sanchez? I am curious to know the next set of results 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 1 minute ago, Mr X said: Yes, I'm saying it didnt fail because of the pricing model. I agree it will never happen but I'd be interested to hear why you think it would make the game worse. Its the model most software is moving to. Fair enough. Yeah, the price was "fine" (although maybe slightly high for what was achievable within the game) On sub models, I don't think it particularly helps the developers deliver the best product, and I expect you'll ultimately pay more longer term. The benefit for users, I guess, would be that if you think a game's shite after a month or so, you can drop after paying, say, a tenner rather than the sixty up front. That's great for us, but what does it mean for the developer? I think people like to think that it means they have to get better to make sure people keep buying, but having more pressure and less money isn't always going to be a great breeding ground for innovation. In EA's case, I expect the game would just become more and more cynical, as they keep getting emboldened by people continuing to play no matter what shit EA shovel in. For SI, I think it could kill the product (if it ever happened, which I doubt it would, because it might kill them).  I like the model CoD/Warzone are currently using, to be honest. You buy your base game (or don't in Warzone's case) and then you have it and all of its features. If you want to get a bit of a boost, or access to certain cosmetics, you can pay them for a season pass as additional stuff, but it's by no means required. And - the really nice part for me - part of that season pass involves earning the currency that lets you buy the next one. I bought the fiirst one for CoD Zombies, and didn't need to buy the 2nd after earning it through playing. I think that's quite a nice way of doing it, without going too hard either way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 1 hour ago, forameus said: I bought the fiirst one for CoD Zombies, and didn't need to buy the 2nd after earning it through playing. I think that's quite a nice way of doing it, without going too hard either way. I've bought every version of the battle pass since about April and haven't had to pay for it since the first go given how many COD points the BP throws at you. Have to appreciate it for that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 (edited) The only FIFAs I've had were 2003, 2004, 2005 (on the Game Boy Advance), 09, 10 and 11. By the time 12 would have been coming out my Southend United career was still going strong and I had a PlayStation Plus subscription and discovered there were loads of other games I could be playing, so I wasn't interested in it beyond that. It's easy for me to say I have no interest in the model of FIFA's main game mode nowadays, but I have genuinely never had or seen a conversation about it where people weren't complaining about something, and where it didn't seem like the most miserable way possible of using a games console. 1 hour ago, senorsoupe said: How frequently do you plan to post a new set of results @Miguel Sanchez? I am curious to know the next set of results Daily, or so, but I was enjoying the conversation that followed the first pile. Edited March 9, 2021 by Miguel Sanchez 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 Fair enough. Yeah, the price was "fine" (although maybe slightly high for what was achievable within the game) On sub models, I don't think it particularly helps the developers deliver the best product, and I expect you'll ultimately pay more longer term. The benefit for users, I guess, would be that if you think a game's shite after a month or so, you can drop after paying, say, a tenner rather than the sixty up front. That's great for us, but what does it mean for the developer? I think people like to think that it means they have to get better to make sure people keep buying, but having more pressure and less money isn't always going to be a great breeding ground for innovation. In EA's case, I expect the game would just become more and more cynical, as they keep getting emboldened by people continuing to play no matter what shit EA shovel in. For SI, I think it could kill the product (if it ever happened, which I doubt it would, because it might kill them).  I like the model CoD/Warzone are currently using, to be honest. You buy your base game (or don't in Warzone's case) and then you have it and all of its features. If you want to get a bit of a boost, or access to certain cosmetics, you can pay them for a season pass as additional stuff, but it's by no means required. And - the really nice part for me - part of that season pass involves earning the currency that lets you buy the next one. I bought the fiirst one for CoD Zombies, and didn't need to buy the 2nd after earning it through playing. I think that's quite a nice way of doing it, without going too hard either way.See, I disagree, I think it does help the developers deliver the best product. By removing annual release dates you take the pressure off the developer to get new features etc finished by a certain date. How many years now have we seen a broken fm thats basically unplayable until the first patch?What they are doing now is incrimental upgrades to a base product. That's exactly the model online systems use and lots of other software development is moving to, except those systems release features as they have ready rather than bundle them all into one annual release. The pricing could easily be done to cover some of the risk. Charge £20 up front for the base game, for example, plus a monthly sub to keep receiving updates. Then you get a little bit higher income each year from new players plus the monthly fee from the regulars. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accies1874 Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 I'm a loser who's completely sucked in by FIFA's licenses which are a dream for someone purely interested in Career Mode. In terms of being a manager sim or football sim, it's pretty average at best but it remains a fun way to kill an hour at most. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Gaines Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 The only FIFA I played a lot was 98, and I enjoyed it immensely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senorsoupe Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 5 minutes ago, Andre Drazen said: The only FIFA I played a lot was 98, and I enjoyed it immensely. I loved FIFA 99, and then sorta liked the next few (up to 2005). Didn't buy another until 2012, thought it was shit and haven't bought any since lol 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 Last FIFA that I played regularly was World Cup 98. I bought FIFA 18 to do a daft match simulation thread for the last World Cup, and literally never got around to actually playing the game. Money well spent. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 (edited) IN JOINT 161ST, WITH 2 POINTS EACH Game: NHL 15 Release date: September 2014 Platform: Xbox 360, One, PlayStation 3, 4 Gameplay: Hockey, innit. Poll-maker comments: Fittingly since the thread has been discussing the FIFA series' foibles since the first update, let's talk the NHL series. Imagine FIFA, but instead of the world's most popular sport it's North America's 5th most popular sport, then imagine it's the same game as it's been for the previous six years, and you have this. Game: Command & Conquer Release date: 1995 Platform: Windows, Saturn, PlayStation, Gamecube Gameplay: Apparently it's been remastered and released recently Game: Burnout 3: Takedown Release date: 2004 Platform: PlayStation 2, Xbox Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OVswdR_iCY Game: Counter-Strike: Source Release date: 1st November 2004 Platform: Windows Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsEwwhkx22g Game: RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 Release date: October 2002 Platform: Windows Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWV_5SyOjKQ User comments: "Another from my childhood, and one for spending long days building your perfect theme parks.  It took what Theme Park itself did ages previously, and improved on absolutely everything.  From making complex parks, to just renaming your ride to "yer maw" and laughing at park-goers saying how much they enjoyed riding her, it was great.  Also, to be a big fucking nerd, it was built in a really efficient but utterly baffling way by Chris Sawyer, who I once bought a floppy disk game from, from his little stall at Dunblane Church Fete.  He liked Rollercoasters, so he built this.  On yersel' Chris." Game: Rome: Total War Release date: 2004 Platform: Windows Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX3iKZ361Pg Game: Disco Elysium Release date: 2019 Platform: Windows, PlayStation 4, 5, Xbox One, Series X, Nintendo Switch Jim Sterling Jimpressions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMiY2f0DRSg User comments: "the only game I've ever played that's as well-written as a book. CRPGs are shite but this resolves their main problem, bad combat, by not having any. Playing an amnesiac alcoholic cop in the middle of a labour dispute has never been so fun and so melancholic." Game: Gran Turismo 3 Release date: 2001 Platform: PlayStation 2 Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7h6dOG8Xmg 100% playthrough from YouTube's biggest sim-racer, Jimmy Broadbent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mLRMWjJdFM Best memes from that playthrough: Baetle, Camaro PTSD, Pink Yaris, HILFE, W I L L P O W E R, the donation train where he starts crying, Jolyoff Palmer, Jimmywave, chikin bucket Poll-maker comments: This is the first Gran Turismo I played. I can guarantee that if I live to be 100, completely senile and not able to control my own bowel movements, I could hear the sound of navigating the menus from this game and immediately remember being that age and playing this. Game: Left 4 Dead Release date: 17th November 2008 Platform: PC, Xbox 360 Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ktJ3mGZIlc Game: SimCity 2000 Release date: 2003 Platform: PC Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxVci-fWj4 Game: SteamWorld Heist Release date: 2016 Platform: Everything except Xbox Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JNh955jDqo Game: Baldur's Gate II Release date: 2000 Platform: PC Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqk6JMv4Anw Game: Privateer 2: The Darkening Release date: 1996 Platform: PC Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6aGapGXuag Game: Undertale Release date: 15 September 2015 Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, Vita, Nintendo Switch Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Elm055MrY Zero punctuation review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSqIJRbmaW4 Game: Halo: Combat Evolved Release date: 15 November 2001 Platform: Xbox, PC Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ8Ekhv9SY0 Game: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Release date: 2017 Platform: PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7QZQfsBoGA Zero Punctuation review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-kP6ixtjvo Game: Spec Ops: The Line Release date: 26 June 2012 Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDqTF_ATVL4 Zero Punctuation review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNhPMjbgkXA Cutscene compilation which will get you some of the gist of the point of the game if not the personal emotional impact of playing it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x07hBBy-uBg Gratuitous inclusion of Glasgow Mega-Snake by Mogwai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO3qf8wMjA8 Poll-maker comments: This was my vote, and I'm honestly surprised a game I hold in such high esteem ended up only making 9th on my list. At a time when Call of Duty and Battlefield's yearly released competed to appeal to the worst aspects of the game playing and buying public, here came a game with a generic title that questioned if Americans going into the Middle East were always the heroes. I last played this in 2016 (genuinely stunned and horrified in equal measure by that), here is a review I wrote of it at the time. I'm sure it's an exercise in cringe, but it's certainly worth playing if you can: Spoiler I think previously in an essay on here about LA Noire which nobody read I was at pains to make a point about the relationship between gameplay and storytelling in games. Compared to other means of narrative delivery like novels, film, TV, the interactivity which is necessary in games will always mark them as separate. By that I mean purely the interactive aspect, not even the challenge. Play something like Heavy Rain and while the outcome is actually dependent on your ability to play the game to a high standard, you can still complete it and consume the 'whole' story purely from being functional. Rather than a complex sequence of button movements with theoretically limitless ways of reaching your goal it's only single presses, moves, whatever else. This is more like a linear format of story telling with no or limited input from the consumer, be it turning a TV on or turning pages in a book. There are rarer still instances like BioShock where a central gameplay element can be representative of the story in that it makes the game, the story an immersive experience. This represents a crossover of genres, in which a trope of FPS gaming - some form of weaponry you can utilise - is an integral part of the development of the world you're inhabiting. Plasmid use in BioShock is more important to the story than the conventional weaponry (although therein lies an important part of world building, namely the handbuilt weapons like the rocket launcher which is made out of spare parts) because it's the very reason everything went to pot in Rapture in the first place.  As gaming as a form develops and improves (which is something it will inherently struggle to do because of the focus of money in the industry compared to the others I've mentioned and how mass exposure is so reliant on money) I would like to think that cases like the above become more common. In the meantime however I don't think there can or should be a discrimination of conventional means of gameplay with regard to its ability to deliver unique, engaging narratives. Step up a bog standard cover-based 3PS which offers literally nothing new or different in its gameplay. You can shoot people. There's an array of weapons with different firing modes, there's grenades, there's useless NPCs you can direct. NPCs whose futility is compounded in one of the least self-aware mechanisms you've ever seen, wherein you aim at an enemy and press a button to get someone else to shoot him rather than doing it yourself. Which you can do, because it's a solid five seconds between targeting someone and seeing them dropped. Graphically the game is... quite poor, actually. Even the cutscenes look bad, I was quite surprised given how recent the game is and how little there is in terms of character design and set design. The surroundings all look quite similar, the characters are all in similar outfits, it's not a very diverse colour palette. Given that the game is set in a modern, ultra-rich city in a desert which is rapidly encroaching upon... everything, there shouldn't really be any shock that most things exist in some shade of brown or grey, or what interior designers would call "earth colours." Perhaps the one thing to say in the game's favour here is that it does get generally darker as things go on, particularly in one evocative scene with lots of flames and stuff, that contributes to the deteriorating psyche of the characters and the game itself. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Only other thing to mention gameplay-wise is the entirely context-dependent ability to shoot out windows above or beside enemies which are holding back a great deal of sand which subsequently falls on them. While this helps to build the character of the location to an extent (you progress through a city ruined by the sand, you get to manipulate this to help you progress) it's so rare and so necessarily staged that it feels contrived. It's very satisfying, but it never takes care of actual difficult enemies. So, a bit pointless.  Now, to try and explain why the game is good. I could explain it within the context of other modern military shooters if I had played enough of them, but while I've recently played through the Modern Warfares again I don't think they're comparable despite their similarities. In his Extra Puncuation review of this game Yahtzee Crowshaw said that what sets this game's particular shocking moment apart from other games with shocking moments is the purpose. In Modern Warfare 2's No Russian you're made to fear and hate the enemy. In Modern Warfare's nuke aftermath scene there's a degree of self-reflection as you ponder the futility of life in the Terminator 2-inspired struggle, but it's surrounded by fighting the enemy who're responsible for setting off the bomb in the first place. Modern Warfare 3 (which by this point as a series has arguably lost the capacity to shock, following No Russian) has a family video from a holiday in London where a chemical bomb is set off next to them, but by that point there's so much destruction and so much horror that any impact is lost. The Line, however (I refuse to call it "Spec Ops," partly because this refers to a series of games which last saw a release ten years before this game, partly because such a vague and undescriptive title is only slightly resolved by its second half having some actual relevance to what happens within) eschews these conventions by being an entirely self-reflective exercise - both directly and indirectly.  The context of the game is important. Walker, Adams and Lugo (they have first names but they're irrelevant) are lead by Walker whose life was saved by and who fought in Afghanistan with Colonel John Konrad, whose 33rd Battalion stopped off in Dubai on their way back in an effort to aid the people trapped there after the city started being reclaimed by the desert. As you can imagine, hilarity ensued. As you progress through the game you see the uneasy relationship between the 33rd and the people of Dubai but more importantly, the relationship between the 33rd and itself. Part of the Battalion didn't like what they were doing, so they rebelled. So already, there's an inversion of the usual military shooter trope - the Americans are the bad guys. That this subset of Americans finds itself in conflict with another subset of Americans comes up later, so the establishment of a form of internal conflict is very prescient.  There's a great combination of things you see showing the uneasiness of the order established in Dubai once the ruling classes (read: rich people, something which is explored in the audio logs you find and which adds an additional layer to the human tragedy on display) left and the 33rd came in. Fighting your way through a makeshift camp in an abandoned shopping centre is a powerful image, especially as you see such squalid living conditions adorned with grand pianos and diamonds, symbols of the lost wealth of Dubai which ultimately serves no practical use when before it would have made its new owners very rich. In fighting off the soldiers as you work your way through this area the game firmly establishes a cause in the minds of Walker and the player, that they have discovered a far-reaching human atrocity and now have to attempt to set things right. Another thing to note at this point is that Walker's opinion of Konrad clearly clouds his judgement at this point and makes him very reactionary. Where before he would have trusted implicitly the character of someone who saved his life, he begins to see Konrad as a despotic killer. This adds to the increasing recklessness of Walker's character, setting up the game's most profound and shocking moment.  A moment which happens shortly after. You emerge upon a camp of US soldiers. There's no way past them, but there's a handily placed mortar placement. Cue the firing of white phosphorus into the soldiers, which burns horribly. Once you've dropped a dozen or so rounds of this stuff on people you hear screaming from the few people left alive and head down... to discover the place you just bombed the **** out of had several dozen civilians camped at the back - including the particularly haunting image of the charred corpse of a mother holding a child. Now, this in itself is a shocking moment and really sets up the inversion of typical military shooter gameplay - the player is no longer the hero. The medium somewhat limits things at this point, because it's unavoidable. If you try to just shoot the Americans you get absolutely bombarded and can't get through. In MW2's No Russian your player slaughters civilians, but there's still an option not to. You could argue I suppose that the limits of the game mirrors the limits of the reality of the situation, a line of thinking which would hark back to my previous thoughts on BioShock and the concept of free will and its relationship to the story being presented and the actual physical process of playing a video game, but something of a disconnect does happen here between player and emotional investment. I think the shortcomings of this particular moment are even exposed by other moments in the game where you're presented with choice. On one occasion the rogue soldiers have a CIA agent captured. You're presented with two means of getting to him - go straight for him and risk the civilians being used as collateral to get him to talk being killed or - go round the side and try to get him quietly. The symbolism of Lugo (white) and Adams (black) advocating these respective options isn't lost on me either, but even though the end result is the same regardless of your actions, the choice and the inherent consequences dependent on your actions are what's important. This is missing from the white phosphorus incident as there's no sense of freedom for you.   Returning to Walker as a character, he doesn't take the whole "I painfully slaughtered women and children in my singlemindedness to get to the bad guy," very well. In fact, he takes it so poorly that shortly after this episode he finds a radio on the body of one of Konrad's lieutenants who he had executed and starts talking to Konrad. This symbolises the beginning of Walker's descent into madness because, as we discover by the end of the game, Konrad's dead and Walker's talking to himself. This descent into madness, started by the phosphorus incident and exacerbated by Walker's delusions (in the form of self-justifications) leads to Walker externalising his guilt by fabricating an enemy who he holds responsible for his actions. This level of examined guilt and delusion is, frankly, spectacular. For a medium, a genre previously confined by its very nature of completion and achievement there has previously been room for such deep reflection, never mind such continual deep reflection. In his quest to punish Konrad, to assuage his own guilt, Walker drives further and further against the rebelling faction of the 33rd. In addition to destroying the camp in the shopping centre and the camp with the soldiers Walker is effectively tricked into destroying the existing water supplies of the civilians by one of the CIA men who is in Dubai to try and get to Konrad. He uses Walker in this way in order to try and suppress the actions of the 33rd, the fear being that the US would see retaliation for their atrocities. Aside from this moment being another case of Walker & co. being used by another party for external aims, it creates another betrayal of Walker's actions in his own mind. He's been rushing in, he thinks he's doing good - he isn't.  It's around this time in the game that more subtle changes emerge. To start off, when killing someone Walker would say something like "target eliminated," as he descends into madness he starts screaming things like "KILL IS ****ING CONFIRMED." The character models change, loading screens make the player feel personally responsible for the actions of Walker - the empathy increases at this point in a way which is so simple you're amazed it feels like something new. In an inherently interactive medium I've rarely felt responsible for my actions. In a shooter I will kill scores of enemies because I'm supposed to. That's the point. Here I kill people shooting at me, and virtually every time it's proven to be a bad mistake. I am fulfilling the expectation the game has of me to progress and do what I'm told, what I believe is supposed to be my objective - but Walker is doing this too. And it's bad. That's the point.  As Walker begins to hallucinate some of the images he sees are very striking. He sees a fiery tower off in the distance with hands reaching out of the sand like something from a zombie film. There's probably scores of religious imagery in this I'm missing but the tower concept is recurring. First they track down the 'Radioman,' a journalist who was with the 33rd and who after disaster struck set up a makeshift sound system through the whole city, playing pertinent music to wind up Walker & co. and to goad them on. Once they reach this point and realise he's not the guy they're after the focus turns to what I assume is the Burj Khalifa, where 'Konrad' is. Once Walker starts hallucinating though there's little on offer in the way of genuine justification for any of their actions, it's just progress, progress, progress.  The game actually starts with a sequence where you're manning a minigun on a helicopter trying to take down people chasing you. This then happens again after you've killed the Radioman. Walker notices this, he says something like "wait this isn't right, this happened before." This little callback is very effective as it makes you question the reality of the actions which you're carrying out as well as making you realise the consequences of all of your actions and interactions are more crucial than might previously have been let on. The aftermath of your helicopter crash (it gets downed in a sandstorm) sees you save Adams and then hunt for Lugo.  I said of the white phosphorus incident that there's a sense of disingenuousness to the implied level of guilt I'm supposed to feel because there's no alternative to the slaughter of innocents. I'm now going to recall my experience of my most recent playthrough, which I did in one day in order to add authenticity and a sense of immersion to the experience. Once you've picked up Adams you both search for Lugo, who's radioing you telling you his arm's broken. As you get closer to him (I don't know how he ended up so far away from the helicopter, come to think of it) he gets more and more panicked, there's locals surrounding him. He starts speaking Farsi to try and placate them but once you reach him... a crowd of people in another makeshift camp have hung him. You pull him down, try to revive him, but he's dead. Since there's only Walker and Adams and a large crowd they're not very put off by the fact they're up against two armed soldiers, and you're faced with a choice. Shoot them, or shoot at them. This in itself feels a fairly innocuous choice, but the option of a choice is still obviously there. I reacted out of pure instinct and fear and shot the crowd, then immediately felt ****ing awful. Walker's own transgressions had shifted from the unreal to the real. My empathetic journey was complete. Not only have I felt responsibility for Walker's actions, I have felt the guilt and effectively assumed responsibility for them by allowing Walker to be an extension of my own psyche as I relate to him through the game. This, this is where video games can be a unique and unparalleled success. While a novel can be in first person and create a relationship with a reader, nothing can top this level of emotional investment. "Do you feel like a hero yet?" the game asks in a subsequent loading screen. The words of Konrad ring in my ears: "There were over five thousand people alive in this city, the day before you arrived. How many are alive today, I wonder? How many will be alive tomorrow?"  I reacted out of instinct, as an extension of Walker. I'm in, that's it. Over the next, closing part of the game Walker and Adams fight further to get to the tower. Walker has more hallucinations along the way, an armoured enemy pops out a door with Lugo's head screaming YOU KILLED ME which goes along very well with an incident previously where he tried to take down one of the big guys in a room while the lights were flashing like he was having an epileptic fit. The final choice (well, occasionally penultimate choice) actually occurs when you've completed your objective, you've reached the tower, you've reached Konrad. Aside from the hilarity of entering the only pristine building you've come across in your time in Dubai to see an aquarium in the walls with sharks swimming around making a mockery of the sobbing people desperately trying to salvage water from your previously wrecked trucks, there's a remarkable peacefulness to the tower which was absent during the hellish sequence immediately before. You rock up to the penthouse to discover the truth. Konrad's long-decaying corpse sat in a chair, while Walker's mental image of Konrad stands with a huge painting of the phosphorus-burned civilians. It's here Walker's actions, his true motivations are revealed to him. It's also where the choice comes. Walker and 'Konrad' stand in front of a mirror with guns, Konrad forcing Walker at gunpoint to take responsibility for what he's done, or he'll shoot him. Think the ending of Fight Club, when Jack shoots himself in the face to METAPHORICALLY kill his HALLUCINATION. Konrad gives you a countdown, you can shoot him, you can shoot yourself, you can wait to be shot. Again, instinct kicks in, on three (out of five) I shoot him. Although there's a more immediate deadline presented to you compared with the Lugo-hanging mob, it was very much an instinctive reaction on my part. Consider what it symbolises, though. "It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him. And if the truth is undeniable, you create your own." says Konrad once you've shot him. What was my motivation? What was Walker's? Was it survival, the fear of this great enemy winning? Of him beating me? Was it a continued refusal to accept responsibility for my actions, when it's been made patently clear that my actions were entirely misguided and caused much more harm than good? Am I shooting myself, shooting Konrad, shooting... what am I shooting? Is it even real? After the credits you see US soldiers sent in to get Walker out and there's the choice to shoot them and retain your 'control' of Dubai or to just give up. I was done fighting by this point.  I've not written these words in anything resembling a cohesive or immediate fashion (I finished the game like two weeks ago) and I could go into much more depth and micro-analysis but what I want to put across right now, more than anything is the way this game makes you feel. Purely as a functional video game it's absolutely nothing remarkable. By its own averageness it probably appeals to as much of the available market as possible, which is a good thing. As a means of storytelling, its interactivity and the extension of the controlled character utilises the medium in a way nothing else in its genre has ever come close to. Whatever empathy and relatability exists with characters and stories in films, in books, in TV, there is no means among them to make the consumer feel responsibility for anything that happens, good or bad. It would take a truly special skill to achieve that - Spec Ops: The Line manages it entirely because of what sets it apart. That it manages to do so by using a genre lambasted for its money-orienting commercialisation of the games industry makes it all the sweeter. I hope this game persists. I hope doubters can play it and understand, I hope it exists for as long as people care for art and experience to understand the human condition. If other games come along and better this then... fantastic. I'll gush over them too, I'm sure. But here stands the first. Play it.  Edited March 9, 2021 by Miguel Sanchez 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 33 minutes ago, Mr X said: See, I disagree, I think it does help the developers deliver the best product. By removing annual release dates you take the pressure off the developer to get new features etc finished by a certain date. How many years now have we seen a broken fm thats basically unplayable until the first patch? What they are doing now is incrimental upgrades to a base product. That's exactly the model online systems use and lots of other software development is moving to, except those systems release features as they have ready rather than bundle them all into one annual release. The pricing could easily be done to cover some of the risk. Charge £20 up front for the base game, for example, plus a monthly sub to keep receiving updates. Then you get a little bit higher income each year from new players plus the monthly fee from the regulars. Fair points, although I'd argue, as a developer myself, that the pressure doesn't magically disappear. You've got customers paying monthly. They've likely got every right to expect something for that money, and given their history, likely won't expect you saying it isn't ready yet.  I don't doubt that some problems get solved if you move to that model, but it's also fair to say you'll create more. Certain games and products are going to thrive under it and are well suited, but not convinced it works for them all, and I'd expect definitely not for the likes of annual releases. But who knows, maybe they'll move to it, thrive, and I'll have to buy you a boxed copy of some Zelda title or something, I don't know. And since this is the thread, we're in, and we've corresponded fairly civil so far... 36 minutes ago, Mr X said: How many years now have we seen a broken fm thats basically unplayable until the first patch? That's subjective, and I'd argue none. It's always playable. Sometimes shite and not fun? Absolutely. But always playable. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
19QOS19 Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 Ooft, someone else has a Resi that isn't 2 Expected 2 to feature a lot higher. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 I had Resi 2, nothing touches that for me. I thought I'd be well into the Remake too, but just ended up watching a Let's Play rather than buying. Just not the same as the original and its 2-4 hour story. Probably the high-point of the entire series too. Might be controversial, but 3 wasn't quite as good, 4 was..different, 5 and 6 were utterly disastrous. 7 seems like a complete reinvention, so class it as new. So aye, 2 is the best clearly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 (edited) At this point I'm just praying I counted all the Resident Evils properly. Edited March 9, 2021 by Miguel Sanchez 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 5 minutes ago, forameus said: That's subjective, and I'd argue none. It's always playable. Sometimes shite and not fun? Absolutely. But always playable. One of the Championship Managers crapped out with a database error after a couple of seasons, but it was fixed in one of the early patches. I'm sure I remember a couple that had weird initial bugs where over time the results would get weirder and teams would score silly numbers of goals, or non-league teams would take off like a rocket and end up champions of Europe for no real reason. I'm not so sure about after it became Football Manager, but there was a time when people waited with baited breath to see what game-breaking bugs the game would launch with  0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SANTAN Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 Left 4 dead was such a fun game, spent a lot of time with my mates trying to complete the first mission on the hardest difficulty and always failing right at the end. I'd love to play that one again. How the hell did 2 people vote for a hockey game from 2015 I'm guessing there are a few Counterstrike games? Never played but aware of how popular it is. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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