Well, swore an oath with my brother not to play SD till release day so we get the full might of the game at our disposal. Also, to make the inevitable bumbling more epic.

So now, it's time for Sword of the Stars The Pit



Look's like a good game and you guys might want to pick it up if you are into roguelikes.

Why do so many of you have short attention spans? Can't you appreciate anything that doesn't have a linear or short campaign?

Most games I play nowadays have no campaigns. I find that they tend to restrict my choices when it comes to what I want to do in game.

I enjoy games with long stories, but sometimes it's fun to play short, linear game, just to change things up.

Also Metal Chao I found your tumblr and I accidentally went through 120 pages of it

What people don't understand is that complexity takes skill, and we're just now getting the tards that grew up with 90s games to work for these big corperations and everyone's all "OH WHAT IF WE DID SOMETHING MARIO DID LIKE IN X GAME BUT A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT?" "OH YEAH JIM, THAT'S A GREAT IDEA. WE'LL JUST TAKE A PLOT WITH THIS Y GAME AND CHANGE THE NAMES. WE'RE GOING TO MAKE MILLIONS!"

>mfw games are only going to get worse when the kids who play modern warfare games now become developers

I think linear games are vastly under appreciated nowadays. Sandbox-y games are ok sometimes but it's really difficult (usually impossible) to have a good sense of pacing or storytelling when you can encounter different experiences in any order. When playing freeroaming games often I find myself trying to guess what order the game developers intended for me to do things in in order to maximize fun. I often regret going off and doing wacky things as it often flubs the order of things and certain bossfights get trivialized by overlevelling or I missed out on a canned event.

Like this one part in Skyrim where I approached this unusually well manned bandit fort and a portcullis came down at the front gate, precluding my entrance. I tossed a couple of rage spells at some low level mooks to divert some of the archer aggro and hopped up some rubble. With some good timing and possibility that teleport shout I made it over the castle wall and pulled the level to open the portcullis. This base was unusually tough (and I was playing on max difficulty, avoiding followers, and avoiding cheese) so it took me a couple of trips to make my way through. At the end of the dungeon I found some tunnel which lead outside to a camp where a couple of knights asked me to sneak inside and open the gate for them. Having just killed everyone in the building I walked back inside past the trail of naked corpses and jiggled the door lever. The high level npc knights rushed in through the front with much a do; swords waving in the air and battlecries at full volume they made an impressive charge on the empty fort and I feel like I cheated myself out of a really fun and interesting event.

That said I think a certain amount of choice is good, but games nowadays often have "choice for choice's sake" and it gets in the way of fun. There is also nothing wrong with prototypically linear games such as Uncharted provided they are done well.

Contrary, ever play a game called Noitu Love 2?

I played the demo years ago and loved it. I unfortunately do not have a good way to pay online yet so if I want to buy it I have to get a prepaid credit card which means spending an hour setting it up and then burning a third of the card on the prepaid credit card fees, various exchange and use fees, and the little bit left on the card I can't use for anything. I can bug friends and family to buy stuff for me in exchange for cash but I don't like to do that unless it's on something essential because it is kind of a bother to them.

Definitely going to put that at the top of my list once I get a credit card next year.

Mother of god, I hadn't thought of that.

Let's just pray that enough of the people who want games that are actually challenging are still around.

Then try the "Legend of Princess" game that Konjak has also made, it's amazing too.

I see you people are talking about 90s Games...
One of my favorites was some kind of "Cowboy" Game for my SEGA. You could play with another friend. There were 2 cowboys, the first one was not really a favorite, for being a revolver guy, the second one, looked like a mexican for me, had Shotguns. Yes, Shotguns. He dual-wielded them.

I don't have to worry much, then.

The guys at Paradox Interactive pretty much make almost all the games I play. Each year, they grow more complex with more features

On the topic of Paradox, I am so looking forward to the next expansion to Vicky.

My friend got Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3. It's cool, there's an alternate costume where Naruto dresses up as Goku.

SAILOR SHOOK BARGING IN TO BE CANTANKEROUS

I simply prefer linear campaigns because, due to my almost compulsive need to 100% things, i tend to lose interest in wide open sandboxes before i manage to complete their main storyline. Fallout 3, Oblivion and Skyrim were all VERY NEARLY not completed by me, because after having dicked around for a large amount of hours, there wasn't a lot of new things left to see. It was only the pretty cool main storyline that saved them from being shelved prematurely. New Vegas has sadly gone uncompleted for that exact reason, because when my character is powerful enough to punch everything to death in two seconds, the challenge of playing is gone. I tend to play games that challenge me, because while a cakewalk is relaxing, it's also boring in the long run. If a game is boring, there is no point in playing it.

AND THUS, do we come to why i like linear games: You can't accidentally overlevel your character, and i won't lose countless hours looking for minor encounters everywhere. If i play a linear game at the right difficulty, i can be sure that i'll be challenged from start to end (though obviously not so much to begin with, difficulty curves and all that), without worrying about my character becoming too powerful. That way, it's also more of a direct challenge issued by the devs to the players (you get this and this to do this and this, go), rather than a challenge that's only appropriate in a certain interval of the gameplay that can easily be missed.

Also, i like my gameplay fast and frantic, preferrably without long breaks. Painkiller, Serious Sam and Space Marine are good examples of this. This is EXTREMELY difficult to achieve in a wide open sandbox, and it generally doesn't mesh well with that whole sandbox deal, since you'll be busy fighting tons of mooks all the time. I get that this isn't what everyone wants, so for those people, large and non-linear campaigns might well be perfect for them. They are, however, not perfect for me, and likewise with games that don't have a clear path for me to follow, because i WILL get lost, and i don't like being lost.

Now don't get me wrong, i like large maps and such, because it's way more fun to have some elbow room to jump around in rather than being confined to narrow corridors, but if there's nothing to keep me occupied in these areas, then... Well, cut them out, shorten them, whatever. Unless there's some really awesome ambience, of course. Also, it's lovely to know where i'm supposed to go next. Doesn't have to be a huge floating sign in the heavens saying "GO HERE YOU NINCOMPOOP", subtle guidances are entirely adequate. What i really don't like, however, is being given a huge and convoluted map and an objective that says "go to the room and find this terminal", and nothing at all to guide me there. Especially if there are multiple paths. That's just a ♥♥♥♥ move that should be abolished forever.

All that said, i CAN appreciate a well-made game when i see one, regardless of campaign length or structure, it's just not a given that i'll prefer it over others. I'd much appreciate if you don't automatically stamp others as being short on attention span and unable to appreciate non-linear game designs, because it's generally not true.

I haven't had a chance to try any game in the UNS series, but based on videos and stuff I've seen, they actually seem really mechanically solid. Also, went to Gamestop about a week ago and UNS3 had one of the honored "giant advertising poster" positions behind the checkout counter, alongside stuff like Asscreed 4 and Bioshock Infinite, so I guess the games probably generate a considerable amount of sales too.

@Shook yeah a linear game can just generate a specific memorable experience in a fashion that an open-world sandbox just can't. Sandboxes are kind of like multiplayer manshoots- simple fun, with a good chunk of content, a lot of situations you can find yourself in, and many potential hours to dump into. A good linear title is more like a good drama-action movie (or simply is a movie if you're playing something like Final Fantasy XIII: Corridor Sim) in that it's concise and has attention to details ala "oh let's have scenery x here to impose emotion y on the player" or "let's play soundtrack z here to make the player cry like a little girl."

Now that's not to say that a nonlinear/sandbox game can't have a good storyline. I quite liked GTA IV's campaign and thought it would have been even better if my fat ♥♥♥♥ cousin didn't call me every five minutes to go see "BEEG AMERRYCAN TEETEES," and Red Dead Redemption was seriously well-done, but it takes a might sight longer to clear one of these titles at a natural pace than it would take for a non open-world game.