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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » Wow, have I seriously not played enough good games?

   
Author Topic: Wow, have I seriously not played enough good games?
Raymond Arnold
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For the past few years, WoW is basically the only computer game I've played. (I tried out Halo 3 and a few other games briefly but they didn't take). Not so much because I thought it was the best thing in the world, but just because I didn't have the time to invest in anything else (well, that and up until recently I only had a Mac, and the Windows side of my laptop doesn't work that well). I stopped playing WoW several months ago and haven't played games since.

A few days ago I randomly downloaded Aquaria. I'm not sure why - it looked kinda dumb, childish and vaguely girly. (You play a mermaid).

And was absolutely mindblown.

The graphics are incredibly simple yet visually stunning. The magic system is interesting (you play various songs to cast different spells). And every 15 minutes or so I run into something that introduces a completely new aspect of the game. (About an hour or two into it I learned to access the.... Dark Mermaid? side of myself, where you lose song-based spells but gain access to fireballs and you turn all dark and sinister looking).

The plot so far is really simplistic, but it doesn't make me feel like I'm an adult playing a dumb childlike game, this game literally recaptures what being a child was like, back when everything was new and exciting and when I got a new videogame I got a visceral thrill of exploration because I didn't bother reading the manual first and memorizing the perfect build for my character. I haven't felt like that in years (way before I started WoW)

It's got a great mix of combat and puzzles (combat that actually INVOLVES puzzles... I just figured out how to beat the first boss).

I just finished the demo portion. I'll probably wait till I've got a better handle on schoolwork to buy the whole game but I look forward to it. This forum seems like the sort of place where people might be into this. I think it'd be a good game for parents to introduce their kids to - it has neat universal appeal. It's also a good stress reliever - if you wanna blow stuff up you can do that, if you wanna just chill and swim with the fishies you can do that to.

Above all, I'm wondering why WoW doesn't have all these elements. A lot of them would be really easy to integrate.

[ May 12, 2009, 01:44 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]

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Raymond Arnold
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Heh. A while back I made a post asking about good, cheap beverages, and someone accused me of being a plant, placed here Lock and Demosthenes style to draw attention to a particular product. It occurs to me this post'll look a lot like that too.

Whatev. This is an indy game. It needs the publicity.

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ricree101
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Eh, if a plant were to make almost 600 posts across almost an entire year just to hype up some indie game, I'd say they've earned their little bit of publicity.

[Wink]

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Godric 2.0
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How funny... I just started playing WoW. Before this, I haven't played a game in 2+ years on any platform.
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scifibum
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You should try the demo of Braid, Raymond.

Also, Portal is a stunningly good and different game, and I think you can get the first half of the game for free.

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Belle
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I love Portal! Great game.
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BlackBlade
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Portal was fantastic.

Further if you like puzzles I wouldn't completely rule out WOW. If you can hit the level cap and find a raiding guild I think you will find the newish dungeon "Ulduar" to have more than enough strategy. The problem is is that everyone relies on the top raiding guilds to kill the bosses first, post how they did it, and then follow in their footsteps. If you walk in on a boss blind I think you would find that the strategy involved would initially bury you behind a wall of deaths until you figured things out on your own.

I'm having a blast raiding Ulduar as it is, the whole thing starts out with an epic assault on vehicles! There's very little trash between bosses and every boss fight has been really fun for me.

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twinky
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In addition to Portal and Braid, I suggest you check out World of Goo. It's available for the Mac. Portal and Braid you'll have to run in Windows, though.
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The Pixiest
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Portal is fun, but you need the whole game. It's fun for MORE than just the game.

There will be cake.

...

BB: I haven't been to Ulduar yet, but I despise vehicle quests and vehicle zones (my guild's name for Oculus is "Suckulus"). The "very little trash" part sounds really nice though.

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Raymond Arnold
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Yeah, Braid and Portal are on the top of my list but only recently were they A) ported over to windows, B) I actually got access to a windows computer. I've already seen Portal played all the way through so I'm not sure if it's worth buying at this point though.

quote:
If you walk in on a boss blind I think you would find that the strategy involved would initially bury you behind a wall of deaths until you figured things out on your own.
Yeah, I absolutely hate how everyone expects me to already know exactly how a dungeon works. Instances are the only place in WoW where I have noticed more interesting designs, but everyone's always "Rush Rush Rush!!!!"

Putting more puzzles in single player parts of the game would help people actually get to solve them.

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scifibum
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"I've already seen Portal played all the way through"

Ah. A shame, really. I hope it was sort of fun watching someone else have all the fun.

World of Goo's demo was a lot of fun. If you've played "Fantastic Contraption" you have an idea, but the demo hints that there's kind of a Tim Burton-esque darkness to the whole thing.

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BlackBlade
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Pixiest: How can you hate vehicle quests?! Riding on the shoulder of some Titan while he picks up minions and hurls them like a projectile is so sick!

Also the vehicle assault on Ulduar involves motorcyles that fire sonic blasts, dump oil that others can set on fire, and has a passenger seat for a certain boss fight that involves people launching themselves onto the top of a huge tank, destroying turrets, leaping off, and requiring a quick pick up from one of the cyclists. [Big Grin] If nothing else, vehicles have only given more options for quest, boss fight, designers.

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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
You should try the demo of Braid, Raymond.

Also, Portal is a stunningly good and different game, and I think you can get the first half of the game for free.

I heard about both of those, but haven't played either yet.
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scifibum
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I think I got the Braid demo through Steam, and played through it in about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. It stumped me on one puzzle (the puzzle puzzle) but except for that one I found it just the right mix of hard and fun.

It's on my list of full titles to buy when I have more time and money.

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The Pixiest
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Pixiest: How can you hate vehicle quests?! Riding on the shoulder of some Titan while he picks up minions and hurls them like a projectile is so sick!

Also the vehicle assault on Ulduar involves motorcyles that fire sonic blasts, dump oil that others can set on fire, and has a passenger seat for a certain boss fight that involves people launching themselves onto the top of a huge tank, destroying turrets, leaping off, and requiring a quick pick up from one of the cyclists. [Big Grin] If nothing else, vehicles have only given more options for quest, boss fight, designers.

I picked my class so that I could do what my classes does. Being on a vehicle negates my class abilities as well as all of my hard earned lewt.

It doesn't help that until patch 3.1 any vehicle quest or instance would mess up my UI, frequently causing me to die or my group to wipe (I'm usually the healer.)

Riding motorcycles is a huge negative to me as I don't like motorcycles (they've killed two and a half of my friends) and their noise makes my head hurt (and I hear it all the time as Midlife-Crisis Guy in my neighborhood loves his incredibly loud motorcycle noise) and they jerk me out of the fantasy aspect of the game even more than other gnomish/goblin contraptions.

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by The Pixiest:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Pixiest: How can you hate vehicle quests?! Riding on the shoulder of some Titan while he picks up minions and hurls them like a projectile is so sick!

Also the vehicle assault on Ulduar involves motorcyles that fire sonic blasts, dump oil that others can set on fire, and has a passenger seat for a certain boss fight that involves people launching themselves onto the top of a huge tank, destroying turrets, leaping off, and requiring a quick pick up from one of the cyclists. [Big Grin] If nothing else, vehicles have only given more options for quest, boss fight, designers.

I picked my class so that I could do what my classes does. Being on a vehicle negates my class abilities as well as all of my hard earned lewt.

It doesn't help that until patch 3.1 any vehicle quest or instance would mess up my UI, frequently causing me to die or my group to wipe (I'm usually the healer.)

Riding motorcycles is a huge negative to me as I don't like motorcycles (they've killed two and a half of my friends) and their noise makes my head hurt (and I hear it all the time as Midlife-Crisis Guy in my neighborhood loves his incredibly loud motorcycle noise) and they jerk me out of the fantasy aspect of the game even more than other gnomish/goblin contraptions.

Huh....well I gotta say all that makes perfect sense.

For me, I still get to be a hunter 95% of the time, so if for just alittle while I get to do something else, I enjoy it. If you hit Ulduar there are still devastators and catapults if you want to pass on the motorcycles.

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