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Post by Malev on Jun 6, 2016 23:34:31 GMT -5
If you wanna get technical I think Myst would almost qualify too---although that had puzzle-solving gameplay to overcome and wasn't just a walking tour. Well, The Chinese Room have been pretty bad about being pretty non-interactive in their titles. Just compare Amnesia The Dark Descent with the sequel A Machine For Pigs.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2016 23:37:37 GMT -5
If you wanna get technical I think Myst would almost qualify too---although that had puzzle-solving gameplay to overcome and wasn't just a walking tour. Well, The Chinese Room have been pretty bad about being pretty non-interactive in their titles. Just compare Amnesia The Dark Descent with the sequel A Machine For Pigs. Oh God, don't remind me---major disappointment. At least Outlast came along to scratch that itch for me.
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Post by Snarboo on Jun 7, 2016 2:42:53 GMT -5
If you wanna get technical I think Myst would almost qualify too---although that had puzzle-solving gameplay to overcome and wasn't just a walking tour. A lot of early FMV adventure games would definitely qualify as "walking sims" under the modern parlance. In some cases, you don't even walk or move, you simply interact with things!
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Post by Maciej Miszczyk on Jun 7, 2016 3:06:51 GMT -5
I enjoyed Gone Home for what it was and I really liked the father's story. it's one of the better walking simulators out there (although it's definitely not a first one) and I actually liked how its scares were fake and everything turned out mundane. I don't think it's a great game though, I think everything it tries to do was already done better by older games (The Last Express had a far more interesting lesbian relationship even though it was just a side story there and it was the main plot twist here) and IMHO the ending ruins a lot of the plot for me. for the most part, the game handles its themes in a fairly mature way but in the end it is revealed that your sister ran off with her girlfriend, stealing all the things that are missing (some of them not even belonging to your parents but given to your father for reviewing) from home. it's a very juvenile escape fantasy for me because for the whole game, the parents are presented as ultimately good people. they don't understand her daughter's homosexuality but not in an explicitly malicious way - they think it's just a phase. and yet the game presents the whole thing as your sister's triumphant moment, without even considering the parents. or even without considering the realistic future of two homeless, unemployed teenagers without any sort of job qualifications whose only financial resources will come from selling stolen VCRs. I hate to be on the contrary but you sound like people not liking stuff like Gone Home and Ghostbusters are mostly made up of sexist pr--ks who just hate having women be featured in various media. I mean it's not a really healthy viewpoint to have, really. I mean granted there may be a few people who are like that and trolls but still sometimes people may have a point in not liking them; you can disagree of course, not saying you can't. don't bother trying to change his mind. I tried, more than once.
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Post by JDarkside on Jun 7, 2016 5:01:19 GMT -5
I'm not sure a developer's intent should factor into whether or not a game is worth an audience's time. A game designer can easily set out to make a game that is impossible or infuriating to play, or worse, insensitive. They might even succeed at that goal, but that doesn't mean the game is good because they achieved everything they set out to do. Granted, Gone Home is pretty solid for what it is, and I enjoyed my time playing it. Death of the author is my school of thought most of the time too. At the same time, if you judge a game on merits completely different than its own, it's a bit of a disservice, or it's possible it's just not a game for you. Most people never really admit that it's just not their thing a lo when they dislike games like these, I wish they would because it's perfectly understandable something like this may not mesh with them.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 5:02:20 GMT -5
It *might* be my kind of thing, but I disliked the price and also the game trying to pass itself off as another jumpscare game at first.
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Post by JDarkside on Jun 7, 2016 5:03:56 GMT -5
If you wanna get technical I think Myst would almost qualify too---although that had puzzle-solving gameplay to overcome and wasn't just a walking tour. Well, The Chinese Room have been pretty bad about being pretty non-interactive in their titles. Just compare Amnesia The Dark Descent with the sequel A Machine For Pigs. I actually brought that up in the Stanley Parable article! The Chinese Room are he guys who make the type of "walking simulator" people seem to hate more than anything in the most concrete way. They rob games of choice significantly. Where Gone Home or Stanley are about giving the player a space to explore for one reason or another, The Chinese Room streamline everything far too much.
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Post by GamerL on Jun 7, 2016 6:08:19 GMT -5
Wasn't Dear Esther the first major indie walking simulator type game? As far as the modern terminology goes, yes it was. The remake is actually worth playing because because despite the linearity it has beautiful graphics and a legit haunting atmosphere. I'm curious to try The Chinese Room's new game one day.
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Post by Maciej Miszczyk on Jun 7, 2016 6:53:04 GMT -5
interestingly, earlier (pre-Chinese Room) walking sims were usually trippy and surreal like LSD: Dream Emulator or Yume Nikki. for some reason, some of those surreal walking sims were made to promote music albums - see: Xplora1, Tr3s Lunas
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Post by Arale on Jun 7, 2016 21:03:12 GMT -5
I actually brought that up in the Stanley Parable article! The Chinese Room are he guys who make the type of "walking simulator" people seem to hate more than anything in the most concrete way. They rob games of choice significantly. Where Gone Home or Stanley are about giving the player a space to explore for one reason or another, The Chinese Room streamline everything far too much. This is me being pedantic, but they made more games than the ones that most people know about, so I feel like most generalizations like this are based on Dear Esther and Amnesia Not-2 alone. Like, one of their first games was an HL2 multiplayer mod where you played soccer with antlions Also, unrelated, but some of yall are realllly stretching that faux-term now
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 21:53:26 GMT -5
Final Fantasy XIII is a walking simulator, if you think about it.
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ult
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Post by ult on Jun 7, 2016 22:56:02 GMT -5
I don't think it would have caused half as much controversy if it had been priced more competitively at launch. EDIT: Article by jdarkside. How unsurprising. my thoughts exactly
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ult
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Post by ult on Jun 7, 2016 22:56:57 GMT -5
JDarkside : You're criticizing waifu culture despite loudly announcing whatever latest H-game you're playing. seconding this
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Post by GamerL on Jun 7, 2016 23:07:37 GMT -5
I actually brought that up in the Stanley Parable article! The Chinese Room are he guys who make the type of "walking simulator" people seem to hate more than anything in the most concrete way. They rob games of choice significantly. Where Gone Home or Stanley are about giving the player a space to explore for one reason or another, The Chinese Room streamline everything far too much. This is me being pedantic, but they made more games than the ones that most people know about, so I feel like most generalizations like this are based on Dear Esther and Amnesia Not-2 alone. Like, one of their first games was an HL2 multiplayer mod where you played soccer with antlions Also, unrelated, but some of yall are realllly stretching that faux-term now I can't remember the name of it (I could Google it of course but I'm too lazy at the moment) but I remember The Chinese Room actually made a horror game after Dear Esther but before A Machine for Pigs, unfortunately I remember it being pretty slapped together (a lot of reused Half Life 2 assets) and just overall kind of bad, but did feature the same quality narration voice acting in the style of Dear Esther. People are too hard on A Machine for Pigs, sure there's not much real gameplay there but it does have a pretty creepy Victorian era vibe (I love those almost steampunk like factory environments)
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Post by elektrolurch on Jun 8, 2016 5:52:33 GMT -5
I think it's absolutely valid to criticize the lack of gameplay. A critic's job isn't to take the author's intent into consideration, but rather the end result. Xenogears was intended to be a massive story that spanned six games. It ended up a single, half-finished game. I think it's absolutely nonsense for a critic to criticize the lack of gameplay. It's like a food critic going to an authentic thai-restaurant and complaining that the food is too spicy, or to go to a vegan place and complain that no meat is served. It just shows that the critic, as many parts of the public as well, don't get the genre and intent. If it is not for you, it's not for you, ok. But to critizice it for what it is, is like playing a racing game and complaining that all you do is drive in circles....or to play DOOM and complain about the violence...
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