Agreed, but I think the broken simplicity of the game was more a side-effect of the sheer wealth of optional content (including the "10% Glory Bonus" item on one of the DLC islands) and the fact that absolutely no enemy in the game was level-scaled to the player. I actually ended up skipping both Taranis and Kila almost entirely and I still was cleaving through foes without any problem whatsoever. I think the quickest and easiest remedies that could be made to the game are to make the enemies on Skull Island 500% harder (since you don't even get access to that area until after you've completed everything else) and/or to cut glory payouts by around half. An enterprising modder could take care of both of those without much difficulty, tbh. An upgradable stamina bar ala Dark Souls that governs over rolling and blocking, 50% damage if hit while rolling, as well as double flanking damage (for both the PC and his opponents) would be more difficult changes to enact, but they wouldn't be impossible either. Wish I could phone up PB...

As to the ending: all the game needed was a Risen 2-style conversation with every companion before AND after the final battle, and it would've been perfect. Still hoping there's a proper ending lying around somewhere...

Finally gave up on playing original Legend of Zelda properly. Resorting to savestates now. Blue Wizzrobes ought to be banned by the Geneva Convention.

I've been replaying Zelda myself. Since I've played it forever over the years, I thought I'd finally check out a walkthrough... are you ready for this?

http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda01-the ... ugh-01.php

Look at everything you can have before the FIRST DUNGEON.

I shat bricks. It almost feels like cheating.

LoZ, Metroid, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Baseball Stars were my childhood. Metroid is clearly the most complex of those games, but returning to any of those is more comfortable than riding a bike.

Pre-order bonuses gone crazy stupid:

EXCLUSIVE PANTS

wtf

Wonder if you could charge them for false advertising if you pick up your pre-ordered copy of the game in your underwear...

The worst thing about me reading that just now is that I could very well have written that walkthrough. Back in the day I had this giant map of Hyrule where I had marked locations of all of those super-powerful items you can get before you even start dungeon 1, and I had them on there in sharpie. I haven't played the game in probably ten years but I bet I could still get all that shit without consulting a guide, heh.

What you got for pre-ordering The Last Story

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t0qBEoKjm4Q/U ... rySet1.JPG

Or Shin Megami Tensei IV

http://sniper.cl/_upload/07/20132707142 ... grande.jpg

But yeah that pales in comparison with the awesomeness of the Ass Creed Unity pre-order bonus.

It all makes sense now. They couldn't find time / budget to make female assassins, because they were just so overburdened with all the extra work to make exclusive pants for select retailers.

I'm a huge Zelda fan and I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I haven't played the original. I played a bit of NES as a kid but I was a bit too young for that to be the console I grew up with. I dabbled a bit more in SNES but mostly N64. Lately I've been going back and playing old Zelda games I missed out on. At the beginning of this year I bought a 3DS and hooked my Wii back up and sort of made a casual resolution that I'd play as many Zelda games this year as I had the time for. So far I've played A Link Between Worlds (for the first time, obviously), Link's Awakening (for the first time), Ocarina of Time 3D (for the billionth time, but first time playing the 3DS remake), Oracle of Seasons (first time), and I'm currently near the end of Majora's Mask. From here I think I'll go for Wind Waker or maybe Oracle of Ages, but I was wondering if the original game is legitimately worth checking out if I'm not going to get any nostalgia out of the deal. Is it actually a fun as hell game? I'm kind of more tempted just to replay A Link to the Past.

The biggest surprise so far has probably been Link's Awakening, which is a thoroughly amazing game and has apparently aged perfectly since it was an absolute joy to play for the first time in 2014.

If you're a fan I don't see why not. It's a great NES game in general. But it's easy to say even the original with the overhead view and all, is a very different game. 90% of the difficulty simply stems from trying to survive the onslaught of insane enemies and rooms throughout the dungeons. That image inhumanist posted is no joke and really sums it up. Expect to get gangbanged. It's legitimately hard. You won't really need your thinking cap for any "puzzles", and instead you can expect some weird as hell cryptic moments that can be a bit annoying. "Oh this wall blows up and opens up half the rest of the dungeon?" and some really weird things on the overworld like repeating mazes and such. And I don't think there's any real way to know if walls can be blown or not, outside of the normal cracked ones.

I grew up with it so there's still a lot of nostalgia. But it's easily LTTP and LA that set the blueprints for the series. And yeah, LA is freaking amazing and always hard to believe it's a GB game. I finally played the color edition just a year or two back and it was a blast. I don't think it really has that much over the original, extra content wise, but it was great to see the game in more color. Out of Seasons and Ages I actually liked Seasons the most, kind of thought I'd prefer Ages assuming it'd be like LTTP, but it's pretty different actually. The overworld was a bit overly complex and I thought Seasons was more fun to navigate. Both are still great though.

It's easy to look at Zelda II and be pretty puzzled. But it's another I grew up with and I've always been a fan, though 20 years later like I said just a couple pages back... I finally beat it for the first time. lol, it's weird as hell. You can't really blame them experimenting since it was the second game at the time.

The original title theme is one of my favorites on the NES in general though, I think I even prefer it to the actual overworld theme. It's just a bit different...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvytTVeTxCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncg72VswyTs

You're not a real fan until you can say you've beaten this one. CHALLENGED!!!

I think the main reason is that they couldn't animate wind kicking up plaid miniskirts simultaneously with bouncing breast physics on last gen hardware.

The sad thing is, this is actually what they claimed.

They were probably too busy making another game too. I'm sure they're hoping to announce three games in the same year.

Enjoy your AssCreed.

So, since the first Zelda was released on the Famicom Disk System originally, which was a bit beefier in the music department, the original title music is actually a bit different from the NES one we all know:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ7NVh1_QOM

I love the original Zelda though, and actually have a complete copy of the Famicom Disk System version on its way to me now.

Here's a fun discussion question: when do you think we'll see a AAA, single-player action-adventure game have an exclusively homosexual playable character? I'm not talking about pseudo "choice" games like Mass Effect or Fallout where the option simply exists, but rather locked down, linear, story-based games like Tomb Raider where the player is "forced" to walk in the shoes of a gay character. Also, I'm not saying the game itself should have anything to do with homosexuality; rather, that the character you're playing simply happens to be gay in the same way Max Payne or Niko Bellic simply happens to be straight.

I think very soon (2-3 years) we'll be seeing a lesbian protagonist, since all but the absolute shittiest people in the world seem to like lesbians (even--or perhaps especially--homophobic guys) but I'm willing to bet a gay male PC is still years off.

What do you think? Do you think there would be any negative effects of having a gay main character?

There was a lesbian protagonist in Fear Effect on the PS1. But it was just pathetic pandering fanservice, so I really wouldn't count it as a positive example. [Edit: oops, it appears she wasn't the exclusive protagonist, but part of 3 playable characters. My bad, didn't remember so well because frankly the game was kind of bad.]

I can't think of any reason why playing a gay protagonist should be a problem for anyone except bigotted idiots, but sadly it seems like it's still a long way off. Hell, even in a game with a female protagonist, Remember Me, they had to edit out a romantic scene from the game because the execs didn't want the (male) players see the playable character kiss a dude. Because, you know, that's so gay!

Remember Me sold really badly too and a lot of evidence points to it almost exclusively being because the main character was female. If you're not Lara Croft, you won't get sales. Awful.

I don't think those devs give a shit though, looks like their next game stars another female lead I believe.

Guess that's another issue. lol

I think I own Fear Effect but I never played it, because when you have all 3 Syphon Filters there's really no need for anything else on the PS1 .

That's ridiculous about Remember Me, though. At least they're being up front about who they believe female protagonists are REALLY for (basement-dwelling teenage boys whose knowledge of women comes exclusively from porn) rather than, yanno, actual women.

I recall reading somewhere that games with female pcs are usually badly marketed. Publishers refuse to invest much into games with female protagonists because they have a record of selling badly. Thus the blinkered prophecy fulfills itself.

Didn't you post a link about a week ago criticizing Jimquisition for saying Nathan Drake should come out as gay because that implies the "right" way to be gay is to act so nobody notices unless they're explicitly told? Now, I disagree with that article and I agree with you here, but I'm just a tad confused.

I think that of course there should be more representation of people who aren't white men in games, but at the same time I feel like crowbarring that particular trait just to meet some imaginary quota isn't really helpful. Like, of course I'd like to see strong gay or female protagonists, but having an established character like Drake just pop out and say "By the way I'm gay" three games into his franchise doesn't feel like a victory or a step forward. It feels, to me, more like executives rolling their eyes, throwing their hands up and saying "Okay fine you can have this one". I'd say we need fully new characters to really make an impact of any sort. Then again, that'd require studios to create a new IP instead of the bazillionth sequel of their flagship franchise so that could be a looooong way off

I'm actually surprised that Remember Me's poor sales is being pinned on having a female protagonist. I haven't played it, and all I've really heard about it is what Yahtzee and my brother (who beat it) have said about it, and they both share the same basic complaint that the premise is really cool but woefully under-realized. I always kinda figured that's why the game tanked (new and creative idea (aka not a guaranteed moneymaker) plus mediocre to poor execution of said idea), though I can definitely believe that the female PC might have had a hand in it. But with that said, Mirror's Edge was a big success, wasn't it? I mean, I know it's just kind of a blip on the radar since other critically adored games with a female protagonist didn't sell well initially (like Beyond Good and Evil), but it's not like it's unheard of. Seems like a weird thing to blame it on to me.

Keep in mind now, I'm definitely in agreeance with the general sentiment here because I'm not a bigoted/misogynistic twat, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

This is why it hasn't happened and why it will probably always be rare: if you're playing a linear game with a story intricate enough for the protagonist's sexuality to matter, then most likely the developers will have put some time into thinking about how players can relate to the character they play as. As soon as you make your plot-heavy game's one and only playable character gay or lesbian, you immediately reduce your potential playerbase by...oh, I don't know, half? Some people would still play it out of curiosity, but since less than 10% of the population is gay you're risking a financial disaster. The developers would have to find other ways of making the main character relatable. And if that means they must downplay the main character's sexuality, it raises the question: "why even bother making him/her homosexual?"

However, I think a game that has multiple playable characters, with one or two of them gay/lesbian, is probably closer than it seems. That gives about 99% of the population a character they can relate to. There will of course be a small population of bigots so rabid they will refuse to play any game with gay characters, but that's too small to make a big dent in sales.

I'm just going to throw this out there for discussion's sake. The chance of a popular video game with a transgender main character being released in the next 30 years is 0%: agree or disagree? I'm not counting (bad) shooters or fighting games with minimal plot and an afterthought background story.

I meant that the hypothetical game wouldn't itself revolve around The Experience of Being Homosexual (e.g., a game named The Trials and Tribulations of Harvey Milk, wherein you'd balance your political career with your dating/sex life via turn-based menus, combat homophobia with words through a Typing-of-the-Dead-styled minigame, and have the occasional bullet dodge QTE to keep younger gamers awake), but rather to have a game where the main playable character is gay. Whether they're 'camp' or not isn't related to the conversation... or at the very least, my hypothetical scenario .

Well... yeah that's kind of exactly what I'm talking about. That article said Jim was wrong for wanting explicitly that, a gay character that doesn't deal with gay things. I'm not saying we need Liberace Squad for PS4, just I was under the impression that you thought a character that most normal gamers would totally assume is straight but incidentally happened to be gay was a bad thing for reasons I said before (because it implies the best gay person is a gay person who isn't gay unless you ask him). Maybe something got lost in translation but that's what I got.

If it doesn't serve any purpose to the plot though why even mention in-game that the main character is gay? I mean, I think when most people play Halo their first assumption isn't "Master Chief is straight," but rather it's "why the fuck is this relevant, let me shoot things in peace."

I could see a gay male or transgender protagonist being "accepted" more easily in a game that explores a shocking or transgressive psychological space, like a Silent Hill-type game. Seems like if people are already primed to feel unnerved by "weird and freaky shit," they might be alright with a factor that makes them feel that much more removed from their everyday state of mind. I mean it sounds weird and semi-exploitative to say it that way, but I can sort of see that happening.

As for female protagonists, games that feature them in a non-obvious way tend to fare better, I think? I'm thinking titles like Metroid, Mirror's Edge, Perfect Dark, where you're technically playing a female character but the femaleness of your character never really comes into play very much, and there's not much of a personal story to make you feel out of place wearing that backwards Chicago Bulls cap and Tapout t-shirt.

Mike: Cannot you have a 'queeny' character who does not exclusively limit himself to 'queeny' activities? I have a couple of very very camp gay friends and, believe it or not, they do more than gossip about Tyra, shop for clothes with their besties and host gay coke orgies. The vast majority of their days consist of the same boring activities as everyone else, yet if you had a conversation with them you'd know quite quickly they were not straight.

Going back to my earlier comparison, Niko Bellic and ESPECIALLY CJ would often shout out lewd, deeply sexualizing phrases at women, yet the games did not by any means revolve around their heterosexuality. I never once said "gamers wouldn't even know the hero was gay most of the time;" I'm just saying that being gay wouldn't be the only thing this (hypothetical) game would be about.

Okay yeah in which case we're completely on the same page, just had confusion based on that one article from a week ago is all

Why not make a "normal" male protagonist who, when it comes to romance, just happens to have a male love interest. You'd neither have to make a big deal out of it nor make it a don't-ask-don't-tell thing. Just let your characters roll with it like they would with any other mundane human activity (unless you're specifically gonna depict bigotry).

I'm not saying gay characters should act exactly like straight people. But what does "acting like straight people" even mean? Is there a rulebook somewhere?

Casual.





Well... I would say give it a try. Admittedly, I don't think it has aged especially well in regards to how the game is designed. There are a lot of rather cryptic parts with very unhelpful clues - perhaps the hints suffered in translation though. It's hard to imagine how someone who doesn't have knowledge of the game from when they were a kid would react to it - but hey, make the test for us. Note that there was a map that came with the game that shows the location of some stuff, so you should probably find a copy of that online for reference.

Nah man, I even drew my own Hyrule map. I was just completely frustrated with that dungeon and didn't see myself progressing anytime soon. Also I'm itching to finally get to other Zelda games because honestly, the original isn't that much fun. But since now I have the Magical Rod I don't think savestates are needed any longer.

Yes, the game isn't that good. It's also not nearly as bad as most people have said. It actually reminds me of Tomb Raider (2013) in a way; both feature a female protagonist, both are very modern and hand-holdy (especially when it comes to the platforming), both focus too much on pretty graphics and set pieces over depth of gameplay, both have combat that is serviceable but not very deep or compelling (one is shooting, the other is melee-based combos)... the difference is that Remember Me's art direction, voice acting, characters, writing and story are infinitely superior to Tomb Raider's , and it actually tried to introduce some innovative concepts even if they were not fully realized. Yet for some reason, Tomb Raider gets glowing scores, but Remember Me gets middling or mediocre ones. I can understand the sales part, since Tomb Raider is an established franchise, but the critical response is absolutely preposterous.


I guess it's easier to relate to Greek demigods, Italian plumbers living in a mushroom kingdom, Renaissance super assassins parkour pros, 21st century thieves treasure hunting parkour pros, albino monster hunters with magic powers, green bonnet-wearing elves, anthropomorphic bandicoots and hedgehogs, spikey-haired greatsword wielders, genetically engineered super spies, genetically engineered assassin clones, vigilantes dressed like bats, robots, meaty red cubes...

...so long as they aren't female, gay, or trans. Because then how am I supposed to relate to them?!

It's the "uncanny valley" effect! If the main character is just a generic white guy parkour pro like Nate Drake, that's fine because that's a Regular Bro. Meaty red cubes are fine because that's just weird. But a *gay* generic white parkour pro bro? Nah, that's just too close to human for comfort.

I honestly don't want to see this type of thing handled from AAA big budget games cause they'll do a horrible job at it.

Here's my prediction for the first AAA gay playable character. Hot female lead like Bayonetta or Lara Croft with a hot lesbian partner. In other words, pandering to sexual fantasies to make money.

I think a good way to ease it in and draw in acceptance would be like a reincarnating love story. Like Xenogears. Or for those who haven't played Xenogears, the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The past love could be between a man and a woman and the current love is between the same genders or vice versa. That would connect people to see that the love is the same gay or straight.

On the topic of Remember Me..... From what I understand, the melee system is very similar to God Hand's, including creating your own combos and stuff. Now, as someone who played God Hand multiple times, I remember that being fucking awesome. Can anyone here vouch for that?

I really like this idea. Maybe as part of a plot involving two resurrective immortals trying to stop their never ending cycle of life and death?

^ that'd be sick bruh. Cool idea.

I will now be purchasing this game.

Remember Me is legitimately cool. Pretty much what Morrigan said was spot on - could have been truly great had the combat system been more fleshed out and the platforming more challenging. Still an extremely solid game, well polished, with a great female protagonist and a really interesting premise. Despite the letdowns with the combat and platforming, neither ever really seemed intrusively bad, more like unrealized potential. The game was also free to PS+ subscribers for a while so that would've been a perfect time to pick it up.

Agreed, fully and utterly a neat game, if not a little unpolished.

Currently playing Dishonored because it's free and I kinda dig it, but man, some of the AI is bleak, and the sprawling levels feel almost useless because really, there are only so many effective ways to do stuff - finally, I'm collecting all the runes (because there's a fucking item that tells you EXACTLY where they are - how easy is that??) so basically I'm already a god among men halfway through the game.

Hey, I just started Dishonored too! Pretty much agreed with what you said, plus - I feel like playing Deus Ex HR has kind of ruined all equatable FPS stealth games for me, because the mechanics of its cover system are so fun that every other game just feels underdeveloped in comparison.