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I hear that Scarface: The World is Yours is a phenominal game, but I never got around to playing it myself. I do however hold The Godfather and The Godfather II to be some of the best movie tie-in games, even if they're a few decades late to being tied in to the films. And I'll always bang on about how the Disney games on Playstation One were awesome, and I'm not just talking about Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue.

I often feel disconnected from games, but not for the reason described there. It is kind of a given that you have to choose to do the main objective of the game, otherwise what else is there? The disconnect I feel is when the game doesn't have a clearly defined narrative to follow and serve as an incentive to continue the struggle. The opposite of which the article seems to be advocating for. I find the suggestion for games not to have a specific story to tell, but offering many potentialities of stories to be experienced by the player, not just undesirable, but completely infeasible. That would mean the need to make 5 games or 10 games to make just one. The narrative of a game either works for the player and they end up liking it, or it doesn't and they end up not liking it. And that's alright. As for the disconnect between the game mechanics and the narrative, I always think of that as a technical limitation. Sure it would be great if you could smash all rocks in the game environment and they would stay smashed, but I understand that it is not feasible. You don't experience games as you do real life, and your inputs and reactions are limited. So there needs to be an established set of mechanics and rules on how the player interacts with the game. These mechanics need to be clearly defined and should never suddenly change. Just because there are choices in the story, doesn't mean the game mechanics also need to be a'la carte.

I took the liberty of getting it for you, so you should take your time and enjoy it mate. Have fun.

Fallout: New Vegas because it wasn't as black-and-white as Bethesda developed titles, and I didn't like the reputation system (which I would come to learn is not a new addition, and has been with the series since its dawn) and the themes and the factions. I came to like it later on when I simply got my head down and took a moment to dig a bit deeper into its myriad messages. Spyro 2: Season of Flame because it was a Game Boy Advance title that didn't just do what Spyro: Orange - The Cortex Conspiracy did and make it a side-scroller. Not only was the isometric view painful to look at due to the limited field of view, it also meant one of Spyro's two signature moves would land you in deadly water, of which there is no coming back from save for respawning or reloading a save state on an emulator. I have since come to enjoy the game because it wasn't all that bad, and at its heart was a game that deserved to be part of the series. The ultimate honour goes to Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, which I've spoken at length about in the past but would be happy to do so again all the same. The first obstacle being it's a fairly old game, and the remaster doesn't do much to make it look much better than the original. It also uses an older - but still functional, contrary to popular belief - rule system for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. Despite being autistic and sucking at math, I still managed OK with ThAC0 (To Hit Armour Class Zero), so yah boo sucks to you, grognards. ThAC0, because I want to further rub 1d4 in the wound, is the equation you work out for your character's ability to hit an opponent. The calculation works out as follows: Attacker's ThAC0 - Defender's AC = [minimum number on the dice required to hit]. If I managed to pick that up despite being used to a much later and simpler edition, then I don't get what the problem was. Unless people just didn't see it the same way I did, which is fair, D&D books as they went on were woefully written. The game still should've done a better job of explaining this though. At least ThAC0's nothing like Fallout's damage calculations. If you can make sense of that, what are you doing on this forum instead of building spaceships? Carrying on, the game doesn't really tell you anything on how to play the game. It assumes you A: have access to AD&D 2E books (which would be replaced with D&D 3E come BG2's release), or B: you know where to find this information in the Steam instruction manual, which nobody has ever needed to know before playing this. Alternatively you can look at wikis and forums that are compiled by people who were just as confused as you, and then took the initiative to compile it on a website on Fandom or wherever. But I eventually got into it because it's one of the most fun games to learn that I've ever played. I enjoyed making sense of it all, especially the Iron Crisis plot. You earn your grandiose plot, and despite being the chosen one you have to discover that later in the story and work for it through many trials and tribulations. It made magic fun for me. It made being a rogue fun for me. It was one of the nails in the coffin of the basic basher class for me. It's because of this it's up there as my all-time favourite RPG.

The Saturn came out in 1996, I believe, so it's very much a console of the past. It was well ahead of its' time, but it was so poorly marketed and support from third party developers was next to non-existent, so it failed outside of Japan pretty quickly. In Japan it lived on for a good 10 years, had some amazing games developed for it, as well!

Yeah, it's been the same on the Xbox side, as well. The games they release are good for short periods to get your interest back up, and then they go back to mediocre games that aren't that fun to play. Still have to give them a download and a try, though, since they're free! Yep, spot on! It doesn't matter if you have a massive collection or a collection of 5 games. If those five games mean something to you and you get enjoyment out of them, then more power to you! This is very, very true. I have games in my collection that I bought to try and couldn't get into, so I pushed as far as I could and then they now sit in my backlog waiting for the day I get back to them. At least I tried it, I'm thankful for that with every game in that situation! In my Steam library, very much so! I get a lot of games gifted to me at christmas and on my bday, and they're usually games that are jokes picked out by friends being funny (Shower with your dad simulator, for instance). I don't play those games and they sit in my Steam library gather e-dust!

Not necessarily, it depends on when I get to play my games or when I want to have a gaming session. That being said, playing horror games at night definitely boost immersion.

Well, most people are upset by the smallest things nowadays so I'm hardly surprised. Having said that, this essay is quite an interesting read and I do quite like the concept provide it is naturally integrated into the story and doesn't feel forced.

Yes, I find myself doing that at times. That's actually what starts straining my eyes because I'm looking around too much too fast. And it makes gaming have a distancing effect instead of immersion. Sometimes I know I have to move on and it's easy to fall into the fast play. Sometimes I even think about getting somewhere before the sun sets or before the sun comes back up. I have to stop myself and look at my surroundings. Many times the in game music motivates me to slow down and soak things in. But when the music cuts out, and I start fighting, looting, riding, etc. I've got to remember to enjoy myself before I give myself a headache.

This is exactly why, despite what the so called "PC Master Race" will say, we need consoles. Consoles effectively "tie down" game development so it doesn't run too far forward out of control. Without them, dev's would push games too far and too fast towards running on top-end hardware that a lot of people can't afford. Thus the install base is lowered. Combine that lower install base with the fact these games would cost even more to make, games would have to be even more expensive to buy and/or filled with more monetisation bullshit than they already are. This would push even more people out of gaming, lowering the install base even more creating even more expense for all parties, thus lowering the install base again. Basically, it would be a massive negative feedback loop that would cause the ecosystem of the gaming world to pretty much collapse. Look at Cyberpunk 2077. That game was developed to get the best out of PC's then they made console ports, and we remember how well that worked. That's why developers usually design their multiplatform games primarily as console games the further develop a PC version. Like it or not, that's the way it needs to be done.

If they started singing and dancing with devils, then I'll lose trust.

Some of the fatalities in MK 1 is really funny looking at them now.

So far it seems less buggy, and I'm enjoying playing with mods 🙂 And the remaster does look quite good with the enhanced clarity/sharpness.

Actually different gamers will have different requirements. They can't listen to each one of them. but at least they should understand what majority of the gaming community wants from them. Just what has not been heard by EA and Ubisoft.