The Gamer's Quarter

[kirkjerk]

It hits me that I'm fond of some things that varying levels of unpopularity here.

Like, I don't think EGM is all that bad. Not great, I don't really trust any particular review numbers, but they sometimes have some nifty articles. And I'm glad seanbaby has a home even if he's not as funny as he is back in the NES and Twinkie parts of his old site.

Mario Party, that's another one. I think it's brilliant. a decent wrapper around retro-style games, but with a huge emphasis on 4-player, something the classic era didn't have enough of (but when it did...MULE, Warlords... wow.) Yeah they're beating the franchise into the ground, and I generally don't dig the boardgame stuff that much, but still.

I don't know what the sentiment here is about the GTA series. I haven't played a game that has such a good balance of "living breathing world", sandbox, and mission style gameplay. I think there's tremendous power in how little your character can do at the end of the game than at the begining, if you know the weapon and money locations. Mario 64 has the same quality, actually, the very opposite of Zelda and Metroid, each sequel of which has to figure out some excuse of resetting the character so the tale of gradual power gathering can begin anew.

[Lackey]

Actually, I'd cite the Gamer's Quarter as a pretty good example of people with diverse tastes getting along. I think everyone here has some game they like or love that others despise.

Oh! Maybe this will become a "guilty pleasures" thread?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Scratchmonkey]

"Guilty Pleasures" implies that you know that the pleasure in question is bad, or bad for you, whichever you're more or less fond of.

For example, I am quite fond of GTA and sports games, two genres which are regarded as "bad" by the Internet Gamer Clique crowd, yet I don't feel guilty about the fondness at all. If I did have a guilty pleasure, I'd probably cite Final Fantasy I. I can see all the flaws in it and why it's not such a good game; I still enjoy playing through it every couple years or so.

TGQ seems to be pretty good for this sort of thing. The Insert Credit forums seem to have a bit more of an attitude problem in that area, if you're really interested in it.

[dhex]

i guarantee i have worse taste in games than you, kirk.
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[dessgeega]

mario party 2 is the best mario party. similiarly, gta 2 is the best grand theft auto.
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[kirkjerk]

2 often is the sweetspot in a series. MegaMan comes to mind, Street Fighter...I'm sure there are other examples.

re: GTA...I've only dabbled with stuff earlier than 3. I really think the perspective hurts the driving, though I understand they did more interesting things in terms of world modeling. Which one had it so that there was a finite # of cops, and eventually you could clean them out of the city?

GTA3 had an overhead view I think the later ones tended to drop... and it's amazing how similar it looks to the previos GTAs. I started with GTA:VC, so going from there to GTA:3 and then to GTA:2 was interesting; GTA:3 was one of the most classic instances of "lets do the exact same thing but in 3D" I've ever seen.

[OtakupunkX]

Mario Party is really fun multiplayer, but then again, pretty much any game can be fun when played with the right people.

I'm a really big fan of GTA: San Andreas, even though I never finished the "main quest" or whatever you want to call it. It's fun to just go in and try ridiculous things that most people wouldn't think about doing (the other day I booted it up and drove around for 30 minutes without breaking any traffic laws whatsoever).

[kirkjerk]

Heh, a "my tastes are worse than yours" contest.

Usually I have a good explanation for why I dislike what I dislike. And it doesn't stop me from respecting giants in the field, even if I'd NEVER want to play them, ala Tony Hawk or Final Fantasy.

One big thing is...I hate RPGs. Turnbased combat just doesn't do anything for me, and I hate games with a lot of character flddling, I think I'm always worried that I'm going to do something wrong early on and end up in a hopeless character later on. Oh, plus I hate leveling up in most games.

The distrust that i won't do something stupid early on...so much of game play is a matter of faith, trust that the game designer didn't actually make something impossible (see: Impssible Mission for the 7800) or so difficult that I'll never get it. Lately, as time becomes more scarce, it becomes "is this do-able with my skillset and the time and energy I'm willing to put into it".... which is why I don't mind GameFAQs and walkthroughs et al, I play games to "interact with something interesting", not to challenge myself in particular.

I blame the Metroid map in the old black-covered Player's Guide Nintendo put out. Great stuff, seeing it made me switch to NES even though I knew C=64 was more powerful... but after seeing all those hidden missiles and pathways that I NEVER would have had the patience to discover or explore so fully on my own, it set me down a dark path of Nitendo helplines and Internet FAQs.

[friedchicken]

[ApM]

[TheRumblefish]