The seagulls are back for another podcast about fighting dragons, microtransactions, Kinect features, word puzzles, knights, beer can noises, more dragons, and tanks. Lots of tanks.
Reticle or ‘reticule’ is the word of the podcast.
(For the record, we named this podcast when it was edited on August 20th. Sometimes podcast serendipity just happens.)
Timeline
01:00 – Incorrect corrections on Sniper Elite naming conventions
04:10 – Appreciating the complexities of match three games
07:00 – AJ seems to regret having had fun
09:45 – ‘Wing wam’? (we think he means ‘wing man’)
12:24 – Deliberate ‘shaky reticule’ sparks Dylan into rage over past transgressions
15:30 – Dylan comes up with a pithy term
16:30 – Friend of the podcast ‘Pete’ is mentioned (in terms of his gifts)
18:40 – AJ accidentally starts knocking things over
21:30 – ‘Bashing your head against the wall’
24:29 – We praise AI… in a word game
25:55 – We talk about our listeners, all 7 of them
27:11 – ‘Shaun, do your thing then we’re fighting’
31:19 – ‘Executioner’s Contract doesn’t have the same ring to it’
36:50 – Universally shit – in your opinion
39:38 – AJ repeats himself
43:15 – ‘I always loved it but I hated it too’
47:20 – ‘If you die… everything’s gone’
48:40 – ‘Pokemon effect’
52:34 – Ace Team, oh Ace Team
55:46 – ‘Dagon Queef?’
58:08 – ‘And talked about how they hated it’
1:01:10 – Returning to roots, although they never really left
1:03:51 – Japanese games succeeding in the West
1:05:26 – ‘A flying train that is a snake’
1:08:56 – Shaun managed to make talking about a game he liked sound as if he was advertising
1:11:25 – More pedanticism about names
1:12:08 – The pizza interlude
1:18:30 – Dylan demands more integrity so that we have even fewer listeners
Games mentioned
Sniper Elite III
Crimson Dragon
Ride to Hell: Retribution
Panzer Dragoon
Titanfall
Puzzle & Dragons
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
Dragon’s Dogma
Jetpack Joyride
Child of Eden
Rebel Assault
Phantom Crash
Quarrel
Dark Arms
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Knights Contract
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom
Abyss Odyssey
Spelunky
F.3.A.R.
Dragon Quest IX
Final Fantasy XIII
Nier
World of Tanks
Daisenryaku VII
Oh yeah, and Dark Souls
Comments
11 responses to “AR Podcast #19: Redonkulous”
This is a messy, messy podcast.
I can't imagine what the DP podcast is like.
I didn't think this one was too bad. But I guess before this you had already been off recording a whole different podcast with someone else, and may have developed Podcast Fatigue (it's a real condition, honest).
More like – I had already had 3 pints before I arrived then we had a fair bit more by that point.
Well, there is that too.
Incidentally, on the Enslaved conversation – which was either on-cast or off-cast, I can't recall – I did play the demo the day after recording this.
It is of course just the opening level of the game, so it is to be expected that it will grip your hand very tightly, but I was mostly unimpressed. The platforming is not quite as pointlessly non-interactive as I remember you arguing, but it is very much just about spotting a colour, pointing a thumbstick in the necessary direction and pressing a button when your guy can't move any further. The combat is okay, and perhaps new weapons and abilities mix it up a bit, but just from the demo it feels as if you could easily coast through the game by dodging once in a while and mashing attacks. Not terribly interesting but there's more going on than in the movement.
However I still like the idea of the game (reframing of the Bodhisattvha), the visual design is very striking, I like that the background of that first level was a crashing, disintegrating spaceship, and the bosses in the teaser at the end of the demo look impressive (and hopefully are fun to fight). Between these aspects and the gameplay being bland but not offensively boring, I might still play the full version if I spot a copy for a few quid.
Yeah – but did you not notice that you categorically can't move in any other direction than towards the next hold. Essentially, you can rotate the the left stick and mash the A button and once you reach the right vector – it will do the rest for you. It is so lazy that you don't even have to spot the next hold. As a result it removes almost all the excitement from the game as there is no wrong way to do it.
I did not notice that. It's… well, it's 'playing the game wrong' but it's a hell of an oversight to not notice that that is the inevitable result of preventing the player from failure.
Oh, the demo did once involve a jump through an area that was exploding. I misjudged it, got hit by a huge chunk of broken machinery, the screen flashed red, and then I was where I needed to be. At least I didn't have to sit through a loading screen!
I had come off of playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary and there are some spectacular moments where you will misjudge a jump and fall several storeys to your death and make you restart from the beginning of the climbing puzzle.
That tension elevates the game to brilliant. Enslaved, Uncharted and the new Tomb Raider don't have this, some people consider this an improvement.
I really enjoyed the new Tomb Raider, didn't like Uncharted at all, and you've just seen my thoughts on Enslaved.
Uncharted seems to have platforming that (as I recall) does have death or failure conditions but is largely linear and not well signposted, and it shifts really awkwardly between that and the unengaging, flat ranged combat.
Tomb Raider I feel has a much greater degree of flexibility in the traversal of levels and areas, and choice in which abilities you use, although I concede that it doesn't have quite the level of risk and split-second adaptability you see in Tomb Raider Underworld (the last TR I played). Nor do I think Underworld and new TR are /that/ different in gameplay terms (combat excepted).
Frankly I don't want to start from the beginning of a platforming section if I fuck up – whether I die or just fall to the bottom – if I felt that my progress in said platforming section was as much luck as judgement. 3D platforming is often most challenging because it is shit, and I've no real objection to games that make that process more fluid by being gentler on me. Opinions may vary of course.
GET OUT.
I completely disagree, there was a degree of estimation and challenge to the platforming. Once you remove that then I don't see the point.
The new Tomb Raider is nothing like Underworld – I felt none of the awe or exhilaration due to the on rails nature of and lacklustre platforming. But, yeah, this is a discussion for another time.
Well, it has been a while since I played Underworld. But sure, another time!
Something for my last podcast perhaps?
Will be down on the 26th-28th of September so we can talk about it then