Single-player Video Games Thread

Atheris, just watch the movie “40 Year Old Virgin”, its about the videogame life of a guy who never has sex till 40… he had a really amazing video game set up, was in fantastic shape bicycling everywhere, had a million super collectable action figures worth alot, and got married… and sang the age of Aquarius song.

Am I the only learned, cultured person on this forum?

…from the late 80s to early 2,000s, and yes… the latter, although I have been known to pick up a joy pad every now and again :wink:

Please people, lets be grown up and not discuss masturbating on this forum.

Atheris,

If you try the first Dark Souls, which was a fan-requested port from PS3, there is an unofficial patch called “DSfix” or something like that makes the game much better to play in terms of frame rate and resolution. Set that up and it should be a decent experience. Also, it was made to be played with a controller and I hear it’s awkward with keyboard and mouse. Can’t promise you’ll like it, but if you do you’ll probably love it. Seems to be the way it goes with those games. I’ve played all three and loved them.

I had never played the Elder Scrolls series before Skyrim so I was impressed when in came out in 2011 and sunk a bunch of hours into it. I burnt out on it before the DLC was even released, but I had so much fun with it. I still listen to the music on occasion. I agree that the world and character design are generic, though.

Minecraft does actually have an ending of sorts. There is a main boss you can find and defeat and the credits will roll, but yes it is the type of game that is essentially creative and can go on forever. I think it’s best played on a personal server with a few friends to build cool stuff together, go adventuring, or just have wars with one another.

Yeah the original Half-Life is a classic and I have nostalgia from playing it late at night when I was a kid. Graphically even the remake is slightly dated now, but it’s still pretty unique and fun to play. If you’ve never played it you might want to start there for your next FPS.

Yes, Bioshock Infinite is good.

Also, the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot is a great 3rd person shooter.

I just picked up this game called “Outlast” and played it a little. If you’re a masochist and/or like horror games I recommend it, it’s really well made. But, since screaming like a little girl and shitting my pants isn’t exactly what I consider “fun”, I stopped playing. I’ll probably watch a walkthrough tho, as the game seems really interesting.

The movie sounds boring.

And if by learned and cultured you mean somebody who watches movies like “40 Year Old Virgin” then I guess you are :laughing:

Thanks for that. Likewise, if you ever decide to play a Gothic game, tell me because you really need to patch it up in order for it to be playable and look decent :stuck_out_tongue:

I can definitely see the quality in Skyrim and why some people like it, but I myself got a little bored and didn’t have much time to play then. I did have my fun with it.

Just picked up a fantastic single-player game. Mark of the Ninja. Side–scrolling stealth game… I’ve already put so many hours in… If you wish I can give more of a review.

Ha, yes, it’s true. You could be missing out though!

Also, anyone ever play The Witcher 2?

Rejection

Lowering the standards, one post at a time.

Finished Prototype 2 recently. It’s an improvement over the previous game in almost every relevant aspect. Combat is significantly more fluid and controlled now, with more options, better animations and all that. There’s dodging, blocking and counter strikes that also give you the option of dismembering stronger enemies etc. It’s the primary reason to play the game. Second is the incredible feeling of freedom, agility and power. You can run as fast as a racecar, jump as high as a building and throw cars around like they’re stuffed animals. You can slaughter enemies any way you like, barefisted, with one of your deadly 5 mutated melee weapons, with military weapons or with military vehicles, completely up to you (except in some missions). Oh, and the finisher attacks look just spectacular.

Story is one of the aspects of the game that was dumbed down, it was somewhat interesting in the first game, but now it’s completely uninteresting. The main character is James Heller, the stereotypical two dimensional, brainless action hero. Not nearly as interesting and complex as the main character of the first game, Alex Mercer who is, by the way, included in the 2nd game. Then again, this isn’t a game you play for the story in the first place.

As for the technical side, graphics and animations are improved compared to the first game. I’m not a graphics whore but in a game like this they are relevant because of immersion. More importantly however, animations are more polished. It’s kind of poorly optimized but should run decently if you lower settings.

Finished the game and having fun with Alex Mercer’s skin and other Radnet accessories, it’s really sweet :smiley:

I picked up The Last of Us again and finished it. It is definitely a unique take on crafting realistic characters who you come to know and care about. The Last of Us is an exceptionally pretty and immersive third-person shooter; however, since I have become recently spoiled by gorgeous open world games, its boundaries and linearity slightly dampen the affect.

For the fps players out there, Destiny has some really addictive firefight action. The combat controls and mechanics are excellent. It’s like a sleeker Halo, which makes sense because it was created by Bungie, the same company responsible for developing Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo Reach before Microsoft took over the series. What’s (even) worse this time around, however, is the story. It is super short and thin. And the Halo mythology was much more interesting than anything in Destiny. But, if you like challenging and competitive shooters, you will find a decent amount of fun here. It also seems like Bungie continues to update the game with new end game missions and multiplayer modes for free. One major downside for people with unreliable internet connection, though: this game requires an internet connection at all times because the story mode is designed so that you regularly cross paths with other players. I worried that seeing and working with other players during the campaign would be a major nuisance, but to my surprise it was instead fairly enjoyable to causally cross paths and interact with other people playing the same level. The internet requirement still blows.

This is the last great game I’ve played:

Vanquish

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRAAFCAq3pI[/youtube]

This one is quite a spoiler, so don’t watch it if you haven’t played the game.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgYXCKFc_ys[/youtube]

They call it “Gears of War on crack”. I played it before playing Gears of War and I have to say that compared to this, GoW is crap.

The other one which I liked quite a bit is Metal Gear Rising (from the same company) but I have yet to finish that one.

I think this thread belongs to the “art” subforum, not here.

Literally anything can be called art. This thread is dedicated to a more casual talk and discussion about games though, rather than an attempt to evaluate their artistic value (or if they even possess it), but people are free of course to express themselves and write what they will.

Vanquish seems a little too futuristic and dynamic for me, almost like a cartoon. I’m more into gloomier type of shooters or at least a little more realistic.

Still butthurt about Last of Us being a console exclusive :imp: . I heard Destiny is pretty mediocre tho, though I’m not exactly sure this is a reliable review or a site altogether :laughing:

videogamessuck.com/review531.html

  1. You are unaware of the meaning of literally.
    What you are saying is that “anything” can be called art. Actually “anything” is a abstract noun, I suppose you might call a word, art, but that is not what you mean.
  2. If you mean “anything can be called art”, then you are also wrong. A Galaxy is not art, nor is a pebble on the beach. Art has to be what humans do, not what appears by nature alone.

Anything a human finds aesthetically appealing can be called art, even a galaxy, and it’s fun that you mention the galaxy because it really IS aesthetically appealing to me and inspires awe and wonder. That’s exactly what art is about, is it not?

Anything that can be framed, can be art. But yes, framing requires a subject who frames.

…but a photo or image of such things may well be.

We don’t all have to agree on what is worthy of being called art. How could we when our values differ and conflict-- In fact, it is good that we do not completely compromise our aesthetics.

The reason I said that is because I recently posted in another video game thread that was created in the art subforum, so when I left this thread I expected to be in the art subforum which is why I started looking for the music thread (which wasn’t there, of course, since I was in the off-topic subforum.) That’s all.

But if you want to discuss the “are games art?” topic I am all up for it. I’ve mastered that topic long time ago and have been through it like billions of times already.

I didn’t find it to be cartoonish, but it’s kinda arcadey, that’s true.

Yeah, all the exclusivity is a pain. I don’t buy many games so it sucks when the few games I want to play are spread out between 3 different platforms.

Destiny is mediocre.

This is literally wrong, but it is also literally right. Literally anything can be called anything because words are symbols and they can point to whatever the hell you want them to point to. Moreover, to make things even worse, in the universe that is interconnected, everything is a kind of everything else (which is to say, everything is related to everything else), meaning that, all concepts can be reduced to all other concepts, meaning that, strictly speaking, you ARE right. Everything is art, but also, which is something you didn’t mention, everything is everything else e.g. everything is woman just as everything is man just as everything is vacuum cleaner just as everything is forum and so on and so forth. I was trying to explain to some guy on some other forum a while ago about how women are vacuum cleaners, that is to say, how women can be used as vacuum cleaners (by forcing them to lick the dirt), but he didn’t believe me a word! Heraclitus and relationalism are too difficult for people (who are mostly platonists) to understand.

However – and this is a BIG however – just because everything is related to everything else does not mean that we can’t determine when something starts to be something and when it stops to be that something. It does not mean we can’t differentiate between things, it does not mean we can’t separate that which is art from that which is not art, it does not mean we can’t put things into their own categories (even though in reality everything belongs to every category.) It is a mistake to reach for such a conclusion for such a conclusion leads to nihilism, to inability to discriminate at all, to pure perception of flux (which is actually no perception at all.)

I’m pretty sure I’ve lost you by now, but don’t worry, I can say other things as well.

Basically, you are wrong: some things are art and some are not.

For example, my monitor is NOT art, though I can certainly try to use it as such.

The thing is that the word “art” denotes a function, and functions can be applied to any objects. If functions can be applied to any objects, then any object can be considered to be an object of any function. However, not all objects perform equally well at any given function, and it is precisely this that ends up determining which objects should be associated with which functions and which objects shouldn’t be associated with which functions.

Girls aren’t vacuum cleaners – they are terrible vacuum cleaners. Moreover, there are many other functions girls are far better at (e.g. giving birth to babies.)

My monitor performs terribly as a function of art and is pretty great as a function of monitor (which is why we call it monitor and not art.)

Function might be a wrong word. A more suitable word could be “a kind of becoming”.

Yes, but that does not mean that what they call art is really art. Not to insult, but reality is reality, and what you’re saying here is a pseudo-intellectual sort of thinking.

No, galaxies can never be art, unless you are connecting the stars in such a way so that they resemble various things that are not galaxies (but even in that case, that would be a really bad sort of art.)

Art is simulation. Galaxies aren’t simulations, though as I’ve said, you can use them as such. But if you do, they will be very WEAK simulations.

Simulation is an illusion, it is something that is happening merely inside of one’s head.

Simulation: that which appears to be something that it is not.

If you are staring at the stars, and seeing nothing but stars, that’s no simulation, that’s reality. However, as I’ve said earlier, if you’re seeing something other than stars, an illusion of some sort, then we’re speaking of artistic experience, which is, however, in all cases, very weak, and thus, not really an artistic experience.

There is a difference between a REAL galaxy and a galaxy painted on a canvas. A galaxy on a canvas is NOT a real galaxy, it’s a simulated galaxy – an illusion of galaxy (this is one of the reasons why architecture isn’t art.)

MagnusAnderson, I’ll read and respond to that when I’m sober.

I’m playing this baby again.

[tab]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/41700/header.jpg?t=1386683457[/tab]

With AtmosFear 3 and SMRTER mods. Perfect.