Native Jovian

You lost me at "PSP".

Do so-bad-its-good ones count? Because Doom was so bad that it was awesome. District 9 was badass too, though.

It's more about running-and-gunning at the same time. It's a lot easier to shoot accurately if you're moving in a straight line in the direction you want to go than if you have to do a weird I-have-to-constantly-shift-between-the-eight-directions-I-can-move-in-to-actually-move-in-the-direction-I-want-to-go thing.

I support axing turbine and 2fort. I'd also be down with axing badlands and gravelpit, but that's just me. I'd rather see well switched from CP to CTF instead of axed entirely. Also, why is harvest listed twice?

Controller. I like actually being able to reach all the buttons at my disposal without having to look down at them, and I like having full 360 degree control over my movement instead of just forward/back/left/right. The only thing I like better about mouse/keyboard is that it's easier to spin around quickly -- and games that have a 180 turn button (like L4D) fix that problem quite nicely. I cannot fathom why people prefer using an input setup designed for word processors and spreadsheets to one designed for playing games. But OCR has a huge preference for PC gaming over console gaming, so I shouldn't really be surprised.

No. This is the difference between competitive players and casual players, which I think you're failing to grasp. You're a competitive player; you talk about losing ten matches in a row to someone using the exact same tactics the whole time and wanting to play more so you can figure out how to win, because you're a competitive player and you want to figure out how to compete more successfully. A casual player doesn't think this way. A casual player thinks "goddamnit, this is boring, frustrating, and humiliating, I don't want to do this anymore". And you cannot tell them that they're wrong, because they ARE getting bored, frustrated, and humiliated. They're not having fun. Which is bad.

Well, now you're not just playing to win anymore, are you? If you ban Akuma for "richness" (what does that even mean?), then where do you draw the line? I'm not saying that a ban is a bad idea (like I said, I could care less how you play the game), I'm just saying that now there's another force at work besides just "playing to win", which means you're being just as arbitrary as scrubs. The only difference is that your "added rules" list is shorter (it's "no Akuma" instead of "no Akuma, no throws, no spamming moves and no infinite combos" or whatever).

Except that it's no different from the scrub's "arbitrary rules". In one of his articles, he mentions Akuma has an example of a legitimate ban. Akuma is apparently so overpowered that if he was legal, every tournement battle would be Akuma vs Akuma. What he fails to do is explain why this is a bad thing. He actively encourages players to forgo playing weaker characters if that's what it takes to win (with the caveat that "weaker" characters may have some hidden advantages that make them viable in competitive play). How is Akuma any different? If Akuma is the best character, and you're playing to win, then obviously you should play Akuma. But yet, this is an exception for some reason -- and Akuma is banned, even by those who play to win. Either there's some difference somewhere that he failed to make explicit and I'm not catching on my own, or else he (and the entire community) is contradicting itself. Here's the thing, though: I have no problem with the ban itself. If that's what they do for fun, fine! That's awesome, I hope they have a good time with it. Just don't tell me that cutthroat use-whatever-advantages-you-can-get "playing to win" is the only "right" way to play the game and then fail to live up to your own philosophy. Obviously, there's some good that banning Akuma brings to table. What that good is isn't made explicit, and I think it's lazy thinking to say "oh, he's just an exception". To win, obviously. Playing to win is fun, and obviously people like Sirlin have fun playing to win, but they somehow don't accept that there are other legitimate ways to have fun. If his point was "casual gamers who enter competitive play and then complain that other people are playing to win are stupid", then I'd agree with him. But he's not. He's saying that "anyone who doesn't play to win is a scrub, and therefore stupid". Maybe he's just so used to competitive play that he's forgotten that there's any other kind, or he assumes that anyone reading his articles will be doing so because they want to enter competitive play. I don't know. Ah, here's a good quote. That entire attitude sums up my problem with "playing to win". Scrubs are not playing to win. That's fine; everyone can accept that. What kills me is that what the competitive player does to the scrub -- or at least, the sort of competitive player represented by Sirlin -- is to beat them. Hooray! You've proven that you can beat a person who's not playing to win! Congratulations: all you've done is made him not want to play with you anymore. You get to feel high and mighty and superior because you won, which is what you were trying to do after all, while they get to find something else to do because you're ruining their fun. If you're playing a game with someone, I would hope that you want them to have fun just as much as you want yourself to have fun. If you're "playing to win" and you're playing against a scrub, then that's not possible. Competitive players have fun by playing to win. Scrubs do not. What people like Sirlin encourage is to have fun at the expense of scrubs. Playing to win against a scrub ruins the game for the scrub. It's not fun for them. It discourages them from playing the game (or at least playing against you) again. And Sirlin sees this as a good thing! That is my issue with his philosophy. My experience has been the opposite -- perhaps because I'm coming from the opposite site of the argument. I totally agree with you that anyone going to a tournament and then complaining that they're beaten (however it happens) are being unreasonable. But I've never played in a tournament. I'm not a competitive player -- and "playing to win" people still piss me off. As an anecdotal example, I knew a pair of kids in college who were competitive Super Smash Bros Melee players. They actually traveled to tournaments and played for prize money and stuff. That's all well and good. But our group of friends were casual Melee players; we'd play for fun. But when they'd play with us (which was often, because they liked playing Melee and they'd join us when they saw us playing), they still played to win. They were undoubtedly better than us -- they would dominate the field, complaining all the while about how we were playing on stupid levels (ie not Final Destination or Battlefield), and that using items were dumb because they were pure luck, etc etc. And while they're doing this they're wave dashing around and only using top-tier characters and using I don't even know what other tricks to kick our asses seven ways from Sunday. We stopped letting them play with us after not-too-particularly-long. Because it wasn't fun. But here's the thing: a competitive player can ruin a scrub's game by playing competitively, but the reverse is not true. A scrub in a tournament does not ruin the tournament; they just get knocked out and play moves on. A competitive player in a casual gaming session, however, does ruin the casual gaming. It's no longer fun for the casual gamers because that one "playing to win" guy is being a douchebag. One competitive gamer can ruin to for all the causal gamers playing. That's where the anger comes from. And the only solution is for the casual gamers to refuse to play with the competitive one, which isn't fun for anyone.

I feel like I have to quote this for emphasis. I'm not opposed to "epic" or "cinematic" games on principle, but I definitely know what Cerrax is talking about when he says that it detracts from the "gameyness", for lack of a better term. Games like Xenosaga and Metal Gear Solid (which have already been mentioned) have such a separation between the gaming aspect and the storytelling aspect that there's no connect between them. What I always love to see is when story takes place in context of the game, rather than the other way around. Valve is a good example. The Half Life series is famous for never taking control of the PC, never pulling you out of the experience and making you watch "yourself" do something in a cutscene. There are cutscenes, certainly, where you do little besides sit and watch the action or listen to dialogue... but you can still move around, explore the area you're in, do whatever. That's an extreme example, but it's certainly one way to help you keep that sense of being in the game world and having an effect on what's happening in the game world. Dead Space is another good example of a game where you almost never go "out of character" during the game. However, it is limiting (from a storytelling perspective) to have a "heroic mime" main character that adds to the story only indirectly. And that's not the only way to get that sense of staying in control, either. Zircon mentioned The Force Unleashed, which I think handled it particularly well. There are, basically, only four buttons in the game -- jump, lightsaber, force lightning, and force push/pull. Fighting certain enemies (including all the bosses, but also stronger non-boss enemies like ATATs, rancors, and special anti-Jedi secret agent guys) would occasionally put you into a little minigame where you had to pick the right action in order to continue; if you completed the whole thing, you'd kill the enemy instantly (or at least damage them, in the case of bosses), and if you failed at some point you'd take damage and/or have to start over. It sounds like a quicktime event, but instead of just "push A to not die" it actually made it more immersive, because the action you pick has a direct effect on what happens to you. If an ATAT is about to stomp on you, the jump button will light up, and if you hit jump you'll leap to safety. But if you hit, say, lightsaber instead, you'll get stepped on. And so on through the entire minigame, until you manage to leap away from the attack, Force lightning the crap out of it, and then cut it in half with your lightsaber. It's very cinematic (and it looks awesome), but it's all as a direct result of player input, which keeps it from running into that disconnect that Cerrax mentions. That cinematic feel without being passive on the player's part is brilliant when it's done right. Hell, even Metal Gear Solid 4, which had absolutely unbearably long non-interactive cutscenes otherwise, actually managed to pull that feel off a few times, particularly during the final boss. With proper timing and positioning, it'll turn your basic "attack" into brutal combos, which look great and don't feel like they're out of your control. That sort of gameplay is what I'd like to see more of. "Cinematic" and "interactive" don't have to be mutually exclusive!

Enforceable and discrete I can buy, (if only because the logistics of a ban don't work otherwise), but what does "warranted" mean? In that article, he basically says "if everyone agrees to it", which is no different than how he describes scrubs (with their own personal added rules) except that they get the Playing To Win Seal of Approval™. My problem with the "playing to win" community -- largely championed by Sirlin -- is that they don't accept that there are other ways to play the game. Anyone who isn't playing "their" version is a scrub, to be ignored at best and ridiculed at worst. The entire idea of the community is that if you're not playing to win, you're a scrub, and therefore not as good as people playing to win. I don't mean in the sense of "not as good at the game", I mean in the sense of "those that play to win are better people/gamers/fans than scrubs". They suggest that playing to win is the only "right" way to play competitive games -- which is just silly. Even Sirlin's section on "not playing to win" basically boils down to "not playing to win in the short run is acceptable in order to maximize your chances of winning in the long run". Winning, according to Sirlin and those who follow his philosophy, is literally the only point in playing the game. Maybe this isn't what Sirlin is trying to say, but that's what it comes across as -- and the attitude of the community as a whole (though not necessarily every member of the community individually, of course) backs up that impression. I am an incredibly uncompetitive person. This doesn't mean I don't like to win, it just means that I don't "play to win". We play TF2 together -- I'm sure you've noticed how much I loathe spies. It's not because I think they're overpowered -- spies are a good balance against static defenses in general and engineers/snipers in particular. I hate spies because I don't think they're fun. I don't have fun playing as a spy. I don't have fun playing against spies. If spies were forevermore removed from the game, I would like the game better. I'm not going to suggest that such a thing be done, because I recognize both that spies are important to game balance and that some people DO enjoy playing against/as them, but that doesn't change how I feel about them. The "playing to win" attitude is basically that I'm lame for disliking spies and I should learn to deal with them and/or stop complaining. They're basically telling me that my opinion is wrong, and that spies are fun if you're just playing the right way (ie their way). To which my response is that they can fuck right off; my opinion is what it is, and to tell me that I'm wrong isn't just annoying, it actually pisses me off. On the more general "gaming sportsmanship" (gamesmanship?) topic, does trash talking annoy anyone else as much as it does me? Discuss.

Oh, good. I'm glad I'm not the only person who hates this guy.

Explain this.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on in this, but it appears awesome and I wish to know more. Everything always needs more Aquabats. Always.

I AM THE NIGHT.

so don't join a team until mayhem is over. Wasn't that suggested like four pages back?

Yes. This is the point I was trying to make however many pages ago about you (the plural you, not just BGC) and I playing different games.

I have to dispute this because I hated RE4/5 but loved Dead Space. Of the options you listed, I would recommend Dead Space and Pikmin. Both were very good (though obviously in completely different ways), and have plenty of replay value. I don't know anything about the Wii port of Pikmin, but I've played the original to death and it should be good unless they radically changed it somehow.

But why is this the case? Why aren't games able to pass on information, and why is entertainment antithetical to education? Hell, Sephfire has . Being entertained doesn't hinder learning, it actually helps it. You can't teach anyone anything if you put them to sleep in the process, can you?What's the difference between Six Days in Fallujah and Black Hawk Down?

I suppose the difference in attitude is coming from the difference in playstyle. You guys are talking about closetcamping or rushing or versus tactics and stuff. I never do any of those, because I don't find them to be fun, despite the fact that they're good ways to win the game. If the fixes to your "it's too easy" kill my "woo shootin' zombies!" fun, then I think that's a legitimate complaint -- even though I recognize what they're trying to do. The fact that spitters are good for breaking up cornercamping or meleestacking honestly didn't occur to me -- because I didn't do that in L4D, I didn't notice that I couldn't in L4D2. The fact that I'm looking for something different in L4D2 than what you're looking for in L4D2 doesn't make me "wrong" -- it just means we have different opinions. About weapons and infected being the same -- I didn't mean identical, I just meant that they're close enough as to make no real difference. The hunter/charger pins you in place, the smoker/jockey pulls you away from the group, and the boomer/spitter pukes crap at you that you have to avoid or take damage (and sprays the same crap when you kill it). The weapons have minor differences in accuracy, firepower, and ammo capacity, but ultimately a shotgun is still a shotgun and an assault rifle is still an assault rifle. I'd much rather have something actually new than variations on the old theme. I won't say that everything added was a rehash, though. The adrenaline shot was neat -- it offers an interesting counterpart to the pain pills. I haven't had an opportunity to use the defibrillator in the demo yet, but I can see where it would be nice as well (though generally I think the health kit would be a better choice). The "gauntlet" crescendo event in the form of the "get to the tower to turn off the alarm" bit was also a neat change up from the original formula. The jukebox in the demo also started playing Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" during one play through, which legitimately amused the crap out of me. Anyway, I just wanted to express my opinion of the demo. I'm not trolling and I'm not making shit up just to piss you off; everything I've said here I honestly believe. I don't mind if someone disagrees with me, but do me the favor of not insulting me for disagreeing with you. If negative opinions aren't allowed or this thread is "L4D2 fans only" or something, I'll totally leave you alone and you can go back to having your discussion without the distraction of dissenting opinions. Ya'll can suck it for the console hate, though. I've been enjoying the demo more on my 360 than I have been on Steam.

I played the demo this afternoon. I can't say I was really impressed with any of the new content. The new weapons all play the same. There's no real difference between any of them except looks. They just gave the L4D weapons multiple skins, really. The melee weapons were novel, but again, all play the same. There's very little difference between using a nightstick and using a frying pan (well, the pan does make a very nice CLONK when you hit a zombie with it), and given that you can still melee with your guns, very little reason to give up your pistol for one. The bile bomb was fun, but essentially combines the best of both the pipe bomb (it draws zombies away) and the molotov (it deals damage over time in a specific area). The new infected seemed to be rehashes to. I'm actually hard-pressed to describe the difference between the hunter and the charger (one jumps at you and pins you, the other runs at you and pins you?), though apparently the charger is designed to break up corner camping and the like, so I guess it you can't just melee it away? The spitter and the boomer are likewise very similar -- one spits stuff at you that causes damage, the other spits stuff at you that summons zombies that causes damage. The jockey was at least genuinely new, but it was annoying as hell because given that it's a) small, on top of a survivor, and c) moving around, it's damn near impossible to free someone from it without shooting them in the process. It may have just been tweaked for the demo, but everything seemed much more fast-paced than L4D, too, which isn't really a good thing. There were always infected around, which meant that you never got any of the rising tension that L4D was good at -- nor did you ever really get the chance to deal with specials by themselves, there were always regular infected mixed in like speed bumps. I found myself having to melee through them constantly while going after specials or just trying to catch up to the other survivors. The core game was still fun, but the only thing that's really new is the characters and campaigns, which I'm not going to shell out full price of a new game for.

Sure, the same way that Lavos has no motivation in Chrono Trigger. Most people seemed to think that that turned out alright. If you haven't gotten the general idea of what's going on in FFVII after several playthroughs, then I don't know what to tell you. It's entirely possible to get the whole plot as I've described it in a single playthrough. Part of the reason why FFVII is a bit confusing is because we're re-told the same thing multiple times (how many times do they go over the Nibelheim flashback? Three? More?) and none of them tell the whole true story. We're told that Soldiers are showered with mako to make them more powerful. Then we're told that they're "infused" with it in the same sort of process that we see making monsters in the Nibelheim flashback. Then we're told that it's not actually mako at all, but Jenova cells. Repeat this for every major plot point (and most minor ones) and it does get a little confusing. But it only takes one playthrough to get the gist of it, and if you're still "wtf?" after several, that's your fault rather than the game's.

Doesn't really make a difference; the upshot was that Jenova was ultimately in control of them both (at least until Cloud snapped out of it after Mideel). Or the players. Remember that we're talking about the fandom that completely forgot that Cloud was "fixed" by the end of the story. Which is why he's still an angsty loner emofactory in stuff like Advent Children.

Why is that too complicated? Isn't it basically like Steel? (if you use the "open the intel room" version at least)

Sephiroth was being mind controlled (or at the very least influenced) by Jenova. Shinra was experimenting in an attempt to make people more powerful by injecting them with Jenova cells. Soldier (or SOLDIER if you want to be anal about it) was the result of that experiment. The different levels of Solider (3rd/2nd/1st class) have increasing amounts of Jenova cells injected into them (apparently you have to be sufficiently badass enough to withstand being injected with them in the first place, which is why they don't just give everyone the full dose). Cloud (and Zack) were different because they got injected with a massive amount of them after the whole Nibelheim thing. Sephiorth was different because he was injected with them before he was born. Jenova can control people with Jenova cells in them. Remember the whole black-cloaked "reunion" guys? Remember Cloud freaking out more than once and handing Sephiroth the black materia/nearly killing Aeris/etc? That was Jenova mindhacking them. Sephiroth is seriously just Jenova's pawn. In the same way, you could argue that Cloud is just Aeris' errand boy. The real conflict is between Jenova (the evil alien thing trying to destroy the planet) and Aeris (the last Ancient, protectors of the planet). It's just presented in the guise of Sephiroth vs. Cloud, because neither Jenova nor Aeris can move around and do their thing freely (the former because she got blown up real good by the Ancients however long ago, and the latter because she got skewered by Sephiroth right after she figured out what was actually going on).

So I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to L4D2 because I'm one of those assholes who was annoyed by the fact that L4D1 didn't get nearly as much support as, say, TF2. Yeah yeah I know, I'm a terrible person and I should go suck a shotgun for demanding that Valve give me free stuff that I don't deserve because I hate America. Whatever. Anyway: I heard somewhere that it may be possible to play L4D1 content on the new improved L4D2 engine. Is there anything to that? I haven't been able to find anything online that confirms or denies. The closest I've found was this article which just said they're "discussing" it and "thinking" about it (second to last paragraph). I'd been operating under the assumption that L4D1 and L4D2 content would be completely separate, but if you can actually still do all the L4D1 stuff with L4D2, that's something else. Doubly so if you can do the L4D1 campaigns in L4D2's engine. I have the 360 version of L4D1 (spare me the console hate, please -- I didn't have a computer capable of running it when I bought the 360 version) -- if I can get L4D1 and L4D2 stuff for the price of just L4D2, then I'd probably pick it up for PC. Anyone know anything about it?