Critical Acclaim +: Open Mic

[HandsomeDead]

I loved how the soundtrack altered during playing too, I had custom songs on mine and would often boost at the most inappropriate times to get the track to turn all the way up.

That was my favourite thing about the game. None of the others do that, if I recall correctly.

Burnout 2 was one of my favourites on the Xbox. The crash mode was awesome, the races were real fun, and the pursuit mode was great too. It was the last one before EA bought them out, wasn't it? It had a slightly rough charm that was kind of lost under all the EA polish of the later games.

Burnout 2 did more with the music than that. Extra layers were added during boost like an extra riff or more drums and stuff, I'm sure of it. It's in later EA games with their licensed soundtrack did they just get louder during boost. But I'm not gonna knock Burnout 3, I liked that game a whole lot, too.

But indeed, Burnout 2 is awesome and I'd like a game in that spirit now. It's not something really done anymore. Criterion's Hot Pursuit was close.

[Sly Reflex]

Silent Hill 2 is Sunday's game.

[DANGERMAN]

I came to it a few years after it had come out, had the ending ruined for me, and still really enjoyed it. It's a great game that used its limitations well, although getting lost was a bit of a ballache. That and it seems like Konami are trying to recapture it every time they make a Silent Hill game, and they might be better trying a slightly different approach (Shattered Memories for example)

[Sly Reflex]

Actually reminiscing on this game I'm not sure what to think.

I've played most of the Silent Hill games and I certainly think this is the best one, but I'm now thinking that it didn't really deserve all the love it got. The story is a big highlight, but in retrospect it's not really that good, is it? A whole lot of nothing happens other than you get funnelled through some weird shit before being pushed through to the end. At the time I absolutely adored it and completed it several times to see different endings.

I'm thinking it was a case of people liking a game for what it was rather than it being this totem of awesome everyone that played it said it was. I still think it's a good game, but maybe not as exalted as it's put out to be. Mostly I'd put focus on how atmospheric it was.

[TromaDogg]

I have never been a massive Silent Hill 2 fan to be honest.

I really enjoyed the first game on PS1 and it provided me with a viable alternative to the all out action and more straight forward horror elements of Resident Evil....a game that geninely made me think about what was going on, and most importantly feel the atmosphere. I replayed it multiple times and knew the storyline and characters quite well, even had a decent interpretation of what was going on.

I can recall all the games reviewers of the day positibely creaming themselves over Silent Hill 2. This was back in the days before I had a PS2 and I was near chomping at the bit to play it....couldn't wait to once again lose myself in the atmosphere, feel the fear, try to make sense of it all. Many were saying (and still do to this day) that it was a far superior game to the original.

I'll be honest, I really didn't like the fact that it had virtually no connection with the original game, biut I was stil prepared to give it a chance. First thing I remember is the long walk to Silent Hill. Just walking, walking, walking, walking, walking into fog. Is anything ever going to happen? I started to think and was honestly already losing interest by the time I reached the first save point. A lot of the game felt like that....there was even a long walk down a long corridor doing nothing near the end I think. I didn't find the atmosphere anywhere near as ominious or oppresive as the original game.....with the original, you actually felt like something hugely....evil had taken place, thanks to the murky atmosphere, snowfall, bloodstains and carcasses strewn around, Silent Hill 2 just felt empty and desolate. I didn't find myself caring about any of the characters and whiny Maria and her multiple deaths just became an annoyance. The environements were bland and some of it was just plain....weird but not in a scary or thought provoking way, more of a 'What is this random shit they've just thrown in for no reason?' kind of way. From the clues given earlier in the game, I'd already predicted what James was going to discover once he reached the hotel, and that made me care about his wellbeing as a character even less....I honestly didn't care if made it out of the town happily or in one piece, and the 'In Water' ending I got for him was pretty appropriate I thought.

I didn't even see what all the fuss was with Pyramid Head. The bit where it raped some mannequins was a bit amusing I suppose. The rest of the time it was just a lumbering unkillable monster that was easy to dodge and eventually pretty much killed itself anyway. Add to that, I found the other creature designs bland and unthreatning. About the only time in the game I felt genuinely in danger was when Eddie the fat nutjob pulls a gun out.

That was probably the biggest downfall for me....I found the storyline completely uninteresting and by extension, couldn't feel immersed in the atmosphere at all. It was different to the orignal, but not for the better.

I do like Silent Hill 3 though, and it's a welcome return to form, as well as a welcome extension of the storyline and atmosphere of the first game. Silent Hill 2 just doesn't 'feel' like a proper part of the series to me.

[Sly Reflex]

Final Fantasy VIII. I'll be back to change the game tomorrow night, as I've not played this and I have no interest in it whatsoever.

[radiofloyd]

Ah I loved this game. Especially the GFs. I played VIII before I ever went on the internet so finding a new GF (which you had to draw from bosses, mostly from sidequests) was always exciting. I can still remember my first fight against Ifrit. VIII was full of secrets - hidden locations, hidden bosses - and had one of the best mini-games in the series with Triple Triad. Finding somebody with a rare card was another highlight of the game.

Like all the PS1 Final Fantasies VIII was full of memorable locations. Listening to the Balamb Garden theme music still brings a tear to the eye. I always liked the story in the game. What I really remember are those sad and melancholy scenes which I think the old rpgs did really well.

I don't know how many times I played VIII and IX between the ages of around 8 and 15, I would say three or four times each.

[RoboticMonk3y]

FF8?

yeah, it's alright.

didn't enjoy it as much as 7 or 9 though.

the card game was fun, but 'drawing' magic put me off.

[dante76]

Right, catch up time...

Burnout 2 : Loved it, played it too death, even Mrs D loves this one. We got very competitive with the Crash game....

Silent Hill 2 : The best of the series. An adult thoughtful plot, combined with a step up in graphics adds to the involvement. I've done a few of the endings and the subtext and narrative structure is a symbolist dream (which is probably a contradictory sentence). There's shed loads of stuff on line about the meaning of it all.

FF VIII : Mixed on this one. It was a great graphical leap, the environments, even the school was a great idea. The draw system is one of the most simple to understand and should make a return. The GF's actually did something, I loved Triple Triad, the FMV when the Gardens fight was brilliant, and the ending did bring a tear to my eye....

Its just I find Squall so fucking annoying....

Oh, I killed Omega and all I got was a fucking sign....

[Sly Reflex]

Halo: Combat Evolved.

[spatular]

Halo is amazing. there's so many different things that make it great - the combat that is fun, tactical, and varied, the coop campaign was great and worked so well, the warthog handles brilliantly and is fun to drive and be a gunner, innovations like recharging shields, carrying limited weapons, grenades on their own button - maybe these weren't firsts but they were combined so well here that they're copied all over the place, taken for granted these days even, the enemy AI that are fun to fight against, brilliant levels like the silent cartographer and the ending sequence, the great multiplayer. all this together in the first game in the series - for me it's one of the best games ever. although i might personally prefer 2 for the multiplayer, or 3 for all round brilliance, all the things that the first one got right, it's remarkable. looking back on it now, it probably does go on a bit too long with samey corridors and stuff near the end, and easy to get lost sometimes mind.

[RoboticMonk3y]

Halo: CE?

yeah! it was good,

liked it.

mental deep story, if you could be bothered to dig, many a fun hour spent on multiplayer.

fond memories of LAN gaming at uni.

[DANGERMAN]

didn't like it then, didn't like it now. I mean don't like it now. It also gets a disproportionate amount of credit for stuff other games did, and not slated for making it so all games only had 2 weapons

[Craymen Edge]

I'm possibly the only person who didn't buy the Xbox 1 for Halo (JSRF and PGR, thanks for asking).

In fact I never owned a copy of Halo. I enjoyed playing co-op campaign quite a lot, disliked PvP multiplayer, and found the campaign a bit of a dull chore in single player. This stands for Halo 1-3 (the only ones I've played) actually.

If there's something I think deserves acclaim, then its the way the whole level seemed loaded and populated with the enemies you'd encounter as you played, it didn't seem like they were just popping in as you got near. That seemed really cool. (Or was that just Halo 3?)

I guess it also helped make FPSes playable on consoles by having a decent control scheme for others to copy.

[RoboticMonk3y]

didn't like it then, didn't like it now. I mean don't like it now. It also gets a disproportionate amount of credit for stuff other games did, and not slated for making it so all games only had 2 weapons

I can respect that, it certainly did tip FPS games upside down and shake them a bit,

[Sly Reflex]

First of all I think the original Halo was amazing, but it took a while for me to really admire and respect what Bungie had done.

didn't like it then, didn't like it now. I mean don't like it now. It also gets a disproportionate amount of credit for stuff other games did, and not slated for making it so all games only had 2 weapons

OK. I think there's a massive difference between introducing something and making that feature work.

Starting from the bottom up, Halo was the first FPS to work correctly on a pad. I know Quake tried the dual analogue style when it was released on PS1, but it fucking sucked. I'm pretty sure that Alien Resurrection and some Medal of Honour games had the dual set up as well as options, but they didn't take as they were kind of shoddily implemented. Halo made it work and set a template for others to follow. For this reason I appreciate it.

Recharging health. This featured in a game called Odyssey on the Amiga back in the 90's. Bungie used the fact that you could only take so much abuse as a way of balancing difficulty, and while they still had health packs in the game they were not needed. It's a simple way of making it so that the player doesn't have to go scrimping around in corners for health. Take one of the greatest games supposedly ever made. Half Life 2. Point system for health. I spent more time looking for health pick ups than I did playing the game because the next encounter would kill me because my health was so low. It's boring. It's frustrating when you are painted into a corner because of a shitty health system. Now I'm not saying point health systems don't worth, because some games need them to function, but those games are not in the majority, and as much as I love games like Left 4 Dead and Borderlands that use those methods, they should stay to those situations where they add to the game rather than take away from it. Recharging health makes for a cleaner more efficient way to play where difficulty comes from each encounter instead of whittle down over several encounters. That's the way it should be, being able to force your way through by using medikits or whatever isn't cool. For a design point of perspective it's also really hard to balance. Halo made this work and effectively opened the eyes of other devs to streamline their design if it needed it. For this reason I appreciate it.

The two gun limit. It all comes down to balancing. Similar to recharging health, it means you can no longer carry a wrath of guns on blow your way through a situation. You have to pick the right tool for the job. There are no allan key weapons. Of course you have you meat and two veg weapons but there's occasions where they're not going to cut it. The thought processes behind this mean that you're going to have to sacrifice something thats good at one thing for something thats going to be good at something else. You have to take the best tool for the job. Again, Bungie paid attention to what all the capabilities of the arsenal was capable of and gave even the pistols a place, something which would have been the lowly last resort weapon in other games, a weapon that you'd fall back on if everything went pear shaped. Halo busted that mantra. It also solved the upcoming problem of player vs player gaming on a pad. Would you want to play a game online where you have 8 different guns and have to cycle through them on a pad? No. That shit would make for confusing unneeded faffing around. Two guns that are balanced with in a framework of weaponry is way better than giving you access to everything. I really appreciate the changes Halo brought on in this category.

The AI in Halo is still miles ahead of some games even now. The ducking and weaving of enemies in Halo was revolutionary at the time, and even now I still think it shows a lot of games up. The combat feedback was brilliant as well, you knew exactly if you bullets were hitting due to florescent blood flying across the floors or shields becoming visibly distressed. Even sound effect cues like the sticky grenade making a squelch as it connected or shields popping and bleeping provided sufficient feedback.

Seamless vehicle sections that werent shite. I'm sure many other games tried this and failed miserably. Halo really nailed it though, it paved the way for a lot of games I like now.

From a design point a view Halo pretty much smashed everything that went before. It rewrote the rulebook. It's fine if you don't like Halo, I'm totally cool with that, but I'm sure that the influences of the game made some of the games you love now better because of its existence.

Halo managed to streamline a genre without dumbing it down to a point where it became pointless. For that I think Halo: CE deserves all the praise it gets.

Seriously though, fuck The Library. That level was bullshit.

[DANGERMAN]

no offence Sly but I'm not reading all that, all I said was I think it gets a bit too much credit and limiting weapons has a bad side, I didn't say it didn't deserve any praise or had no influence so I'm not going to argue as though I did

[Sly Reflex]

It wasn't totally directed at you, apart from the weapons part.

I also take offense, all my future posts from now on will be monosyllabic, just to please you.

[DANGERMAN]

if it wasn't aimed at me then I apologise, you quoted me so I thought it was aimed at me

[Sly Reflex]

I quoted you because what I had to say was cross referenced with a few things you brought up. Mainly that introducing something doesn't mean you made it work within the game and the whole 2 weapon limit stuff. It doesn't matter though.