I enjoyed Doom a lot and it surprised me.
I enjoyed Homefront 2 significantly more and it surprised me even more. Also, it is pretty much fixed now, on PC at least.
I meant structure in the sense of a clear progression through the game, meaningful goals to achieve and rewards for doing so, etc. It’s a perennial problem I have with racing games - just getting faster times isn’t enough for me, I want a structured career leading to better cars etc. All the reviews I’ve read say that Steep doesn’t have much incentive to do its activities other than the pleasure of doing them, and maybe seeing some new scenery. Which is fine, but I get the strong feeling I’d regret it if I paid full price.
Unsure if a game still in EA counts, but Battlerite has been surprisingly good for me.
It’s like the good parts of a MOBA and a fighting game merged into one.
I don’t know if you’ve got the time to go into this, but I’d love to know what these are. As someone who has tried to get into the genre multiple times and bounced off. My own experiences with MOBAs vs regular RTS games was that MOBAs make every battle feel insignificant. So you’re attacking each tower, and it’s a series of small victories and small failures. Meanwhile in regular RTS games, each clash between sides usually results in a big victory or a big failure. MOBAs seem to get rid of those peaks and valleys of enjoyment and make it a more steady experience. As a result, you never feel the deep valleys of failure when you go down, but you also don’t feel the rush of victory when you win either. Everything just becomes more even keel.
Well, there’s no creeps or anything- it’s pretty much straight-up teamfights with the pacing of a fighting game, but with MOBA skills. It even uses a super meter system similar to Street Fighter with EX moves and supers.
Their description of their genre is arena brawler.
I know it’s not a perfect comparison, but it feels a little bit to me like Mario Kart… as in you can have someone with a huge lead, just dominating the board and a few chance events or one big one and they’re on the bottom for the home stretch. I don’t consider this a bad thing, and I love Mario Kart games, I just think some people hate that constant in the air chance or potential sudden spontaneous change thing that can happen.
I kind of love that idea that there are no guarantees but someone who understands the game, works a strategy still has a pretty big advantage… just not a guarantee.
This does not describe my experience, except maybe with HOTS. Tower destructions aren’t the victories, they’re the spoils of victory for winning the teamfight before. And a teamfight is generally a much more gamechanging clash than an RTS skirmish (not to mention more engaging in the moment given the use of active abilities, the importance of positioning and so on).
Yeah, in that case, Steep wouldn’t fit the bill. Other than the exploration angle, the only progression in Steep is unlockable costume doo-dads and new colors of skis and stickers for your backpack, which I couldn’t care less about. Didn’t the SSX games have character stats?
-Tom
Where I would take issue with the comparison is that Mario Kart is engineered so that the players in last place get the best power ups. It’s not randomness, because it uses power ups as a catch-up mechanic. Gremlins Inc doesn’t have any catch-up mechanic that I’m aware of.
That said, it is balanced in that whatever someone does to you is something you’re just as capable of doing to them. The cards are there for everyone, the more dramatic cards are more expensive, and there are plenty of ways to subvert them. For instance, the way you can get busted when you have certain cards in your hand. That’s clearly a balancing concept to make some cards riskier than others. While I grant there can be significant swings in terms of who’s winning, it is by no means arbitrary. No more so than any boardgame that uses dice or cards.
-Tom
I picked this up last night based on the favorable review that someone (maybe Tom?) posted. Really enjoying it so far! It’s on sale on PSN for 38.99, less if you have a 20% off coupon from the newsletter.
I think it kind of does. It’s been a few months, and several patches, since i played, but I know there are cards that target the player with the highest or most x. I’ve been hit by those several times… Like this card hits the person with the most money, or the least about of devil points (whatever that’s called).
Now it’s true I don’t think anyone gets a better chance at getting those cards just because they’re in last place but there are cards that seem to target the one in first making it easier to bring them down. So you’re right it doesn’t really try to help the losing player win so much as provide several opportunities to catch up.
Oddly enough, I don’t think there is a list of cards out there anywhere. That kind of surprises me.
Yeah, the group I am talking about is the group that won’t do dice games at all, they’re out there, and the cards are iffy. I know one person like this. They really like games like Agricola… not much chance just planning.
Pardon if I’m reading too much or guessing wrong, but reading your exchange, it seems to me you are discussing the same game, but with a different number of players.
What Nesries describes is what I experienced in 4 players game - which features the best catch-up mechanics ever: two or more players pissed at the one winning - while the balance Tom describes looks more like what 1 on 1 experiences are, where it is an more of an eye for an eye situation.
I prefer the 4 players game of having to hide what your hand and scheme really is - it goes rarely the way you wish, but when it does, it is a glimpse of gaming glory - but I was surprised at how effective the 2 players game can still be. I find it charming Gremlins Inc propose different but enjoyable experiences depending on the number of entrants.
You’re correct. I always play 4-player, often with 2-3 humans in it.
You besides in the game? :)
Again, I’m not sure how that’s different from any boardgame. Nesrie’s claim about Gremlins Inc was that “one thing that might drive some true board game folks nuts is the amount of change in it…lots of dice rolling”. Which makes no sense to me given that true boardgame folks understand how the randomness of cards and dice work. I guess if by “true boardgame folks” she means people who only play Tigris and Euphrates, then, yeah, they’re going to have to learn to deal with occasionally rolling a six-sided die and managing a hand of randomly drawn cards. But part of the beauty of the design of Gremlins Inc is how much control you have in terms of mitigating chance.
Despite the appearance of the board, Monopoly this ain’t! There’s no call to warn off “true boardgaming folks”. In fact, they’re precisely the people who would appreciate the design.
-Tom
My understanding of this conversation is that @Nesrie is talking about a pure Eurogamer as opposed to an Amerithrash type player (some call it Ameritrash games but I like Amerithrash better - though that usually involves a lot of dudes on map with all the dice rolling).
I wasn’t trying to address your other divergences, but merely point out that you may be talking about two distinct variants of the game.
But as I love to argue and try to prove that I am always right, even on matters I know nearly nothing about (“modern board games”? unnnh…), I’ll jump into the dialectic fray and say it may be different from real-life board games because of the time imperative of the online play. There is no discussion, no eyeing, no negotiating: all the diplomacy is intangible and everything must happen in 30 seconds. It is even worse than chess, in that if you don’t act quickly enough, you don’t get to pass: a (very dumb) computer takes your turn over and, most likely, ruins any plans you may have held. This put some emphasis on gut reactions against sensible planning in my experience, especially if one has to take into consideration the data inflation imposed upon her (well, my, at least) little brain by each extra player.
In short: it’s an action board game.
I agree that mitigating the chances is a reality, especially in 1v1 Gremlins Inc games, but I’ll argue that if it is possible to assess the chaos of a 4 players game, by memorizing the cards for instance, managing it or even guessing effectively what one of your opponents’ next move might be is near impossible a large majority of the time, especially with so little time to consider the situation. The path to victory in Gremlins Inc is then about trying to build your capital while raising as little suspicions as possible, to be in position for the unsuspected one hit kill and, even then, agreeing to leave most of it up to chances and be prepared for any setback. I think this requires a special masochistic kind of players - although I have no idea if considering whether said players like board games or not may be the best way to assess that.
Hey, that game’s mechanics actually may fit its theme!
Although…
Guilty as charged, in my case :D
Yeah that group. I am not warning off board game players so much as warning that there is this random chance mechanic that some board game players might not appreciate. There are actually people out there that refuse to play games that have dice in them… if you haven’t met one of these individuals, well that’s fine of course. This group is still fun to play with; I just wouldn’t recommend this game to them.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “true”. That was a poor word choice for what I was trying to convey; my apologies. What I was trying to hint at is I’ve never encountered this strong stance against chance amongst video game/electronic game players. I’ve only run into these fine folks in the board game sphere, and because of access I guess; I’m seeing these two spheres merge more as more board games show up on mobile, consoles or online.
Given the development time and troubled history, I was surprised that Twilight Struggle was released in such good shape.
@Nesrie I appreciate you bringing it up. That perspective makes me more confident Gremlins Inc is not something I’d like. I enjoy dice plenty, but random catastrophic set-backs aren’t something I typically appreciate (except in Chaos Reborn for reasons I don’t understand myself).
I also want to mention how much I’ve enjoyed this list and the subsequent comments. The only big downside is I think I had almost finished Shadow Warrior 2 and now I’ve got a ton more games I just purchased and want to play instead…