I didn’t know where else to put this so here I go:
I played Red Storm Rising for the first time this week. Why didn’t I play it back in the day, you ask? Because the Hunt for Red October game that came out a few years before it was SO FUCKING TERRIBLE that I skipped RSR thinking it would also be terrible.
That, I now realize, was a grievous error on my part.
I’m astounded by RSR. It’s a game of simplified control but incredible depth and complexity. The design is just marvelous. It keeps the controls few, but still gives you everything you need to handle sub combat.
It also has a mesmerizing canmpaign. Watching that campaign map move is just wonderful. I’ve rarely seen anything like it. And the fact that you can find and kill the wrong target makes it that much more immersive for me.
I’m really, really busy amazed at this thing. I can’t stop thinking about what a triumph of design and implementation it is.
Sid Meier talks quite a bit about Red Storm Rising in his memoir, including about meeting Tom Clancy and then being invited to the house of Clancy’s co-author for a game night. He’s dreading a night of canasta or something until he arrives and finds out that they’re playing Harpoon and the co-author is Larry Bond, Harpoon’s designer. There’s an involved discussion about how the game was pretty boring–just blips on radar screens–until they incorporated using audio to identify enemies.
This thread appears to need some love. It was either here or revive the Far Cry 4 thread last updated in 2016 (BTW if I search for Far Cry like that it won’t bring up any results for me. I had to type FarCry 4).
Aaanyway, came back to this after a hiatus (just now in the snowy Himalayas) and for some reason or other the darn game needs me to give it UAC permission once before every game session. Checked and it’s not an overall Ubisoft Connect thing, since AC Origins is fine.
Am I the only one surprised that survival games keep gaining in popularity?
It just seems like boring busywork and grind to me? - “collect 20 coconuts to construct a wheelbarrow”…etc
If it stuck to survival type games, it’d be easier to ignore, but this crafting mechanic is unfortunately also inceasing in importance in most RPGs lately (at least thats my impression).
Yeah, the “gather fuckeridoos and then take them to senor von muckitymuck to convert into whatchamacallits you can forge into dickboppers at the anvil of g-gundambloodorphanslament” crafting cycle is a pretty maddening appearance in so many games these days. I know a lot of people love it, but god, what I’d give for a “skip this entire bullshit sequence” button :)
I think there are a couple reasons for their current evergreen popularity. Off the top of my head, a couple reasons -
Due to their generally open structure, they work well for content creators, streamers, and peer groups. There’s a lot to do, the content takes a while (a long while) to work through, they often have iron man modes, and each session may be vastly different from any other. This helps create a great illusion of content, while also providing longevity. For the groups listed above, this is great news.
Another reason is that many of them support some form of multiplayer. These are easy titles to co-op. There’s clear division of labor, you don’t always have to be with the other player, they can be casual, and control skill level requirements you’d find in, say, objective based shooters, are generally lower. This means you can get a wider player pool interacting with one another. It can also alleviate the stress of “Dammit Ken, you have to shoot the glowing spots!” and create a chill gameplay session for some pals.
There are loads of other reasons, I’m sure, but those two stick out to me.
The weird thing is I love this loop in a strategy type game, but I hate it in first/third person action/combat games. My biggest complaint about Dyson Sphere Programme is the way you’re tied to an avatar.
Counterpoint to the survival critique; FPS games like CoD and Battlefield are basically the same game loop as mouse practice games from MS-DOS where you click on the fast-moving flies.Also like Duckhunt, but less realistic. They seem popular too. ;)
Seriously play The Long Dark, or Subnautica if you haven’t.
As a veteran of Ark, Conan, 7 Days to Die, Valheim, Raft, Grounded and others that I can’t remember at the moment all I can say is different strokes for different folks :)
Sometimes I like the crafting games, or the Death Stranding build the infrastructure games. I just started God of War, and it’s terrific, but it’s an intense experience that I only want to play ~ 90 minutes at a time. After that I want to just relax and break some stuff, harvest resources, and build something while listening to a podcast.
I need some more HardSpace: Shipbreaker style content in my life to balance BOOOOOYYYYY.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker on the Switch? No, it’s a Mario spinoff that has only the Captain toad levels from Super Mario 3D World, spun off into its own complete game. Basically platforming without jumping. Or you could call it a puzzle game, I suppose.
