The official Piss All Over Everyone's Top 20 Thread

[Prospero]

All GTA missions requiring you to fly miniature things need to burn in a car fire. The large helicopters are perfectly flyable with WASD but those little fuckers are way too sensitive. I hate those levels, they are the reason I refuse to replay the GTA games.

[Tebonas]

Indeed, thats why I play GTA 3 now in the hope it doesn't have a mini helicopter mission you can't ignore!

[Endie]

The thing I found with the GTA series, as with stuff like Operation Flashpoint, was that while the central gameplay was well implemented, the controls for the "extra" stuff wasn't as well implemented.  I know how driving games work, how the program should feed back to me, how well I should be able to adapt to the nuances of each.  So when I start playing what has temporarily become a driving game, or a helicopter game or whatever, it falls into an uncanny valley of being almost, but not quite, a usable driving game.

I love the way Call of Duty implements its "minigames": they tend to take a more limited approach, and they work beautifully.  The AC-130 gun camera sequence in COD4 is a masterpiece.  It is truly perfect in every conceivable way.  Everything about it reeks of verisimilitude, from the graphics (which, put simply, look identical to the real thing) to the voiceovers, which could have been sampled from released footage.  I was vastly disappointed that there was only one such episode in the game and I wish that it were longer.  But more importantly I forgot all about the controls, the ambient sounds of my house and so on.  I was totally immersed.  The game had ceased to be a discernible presence between me and the experience.

This was a theme throughout the game, I felt: rather than testing your ability to press rapid sequences of buttons (I have guitar hero for that), the game interface itself acted to help you achieve what you wanted to do.  If you chose the right things then you would probably succeed.

[Yegolev]

The RC helicopter mission in Vice City sucked even with a DualShock.  The hardest thing for me in VC, however, was trying to do the ambulance missions.  I can't think of anything particularly hard in San Andreas.

[Samwise]

I got through the RC helicopter bits in Vice City by remapping all of the controls so that WASD controlled pitch and rotation and the numpad controlled the other stuff.  That way I could steer it in XY with WASD as if it were a car without having to think about it, and use the other hand to manage altitude.

[Azazel]

I did all of those missions using WASD and possibly using the mouse for pitch (I can't remember). I do know that they were indeed sucktastic and Not Fun. I agree about the AC-130 sequence in CoD4 being totally awesome. I can't think of any other minigames in the game though.. oh, unless you mean chopper gunning?

[Endie]

I did all of those missions using WASD and possibly using the mouse for pitch (I can't remember). I do know that they were indeed sucktastic and Not Fun. I agree about the AC-130 sequence in CoD4 being totally awesome. I can't think of any other minigames in the game though.. oh, unless you mean chopper gunning?

The thing about the CoD series is that they merge the minigames in so well that it is arguable that sonme of them become part of the real thing.  The minigunning is an example, yes: is it a minigame or fully integrated?  The mission where you get to call in air support on things with the glowing circle of death, or the one where you get to use the Javelin launcher, are similar in that the interface barely changes but the gameplay is totally different from any other bits.  All Ghillied Up has a couple: the "crawl through the field of guards and tanks" bit which is totally unlike anything else in the game, and the sniping section which uses different physics.  There is the "you have a minute to set up a pattern claymores" in Pripyet.

The last couple of CoD had far more distinct sections, where you were using mortars, or tanks, or taking out snipers as an observer.  I think one of the really great things in CoD 4 is that only the AC-130 section (that I can remember) isn't seamless.

[Bunk]

Am I just blind? What happened to all the wonderful charts and graphs Schild was going to make from this data?

[schild]

Did a few charts and then it got put aside to finish the loot shop while the gaming release schedule died down. And another secret project.
I'll see what I can pump out this weekend

[Samwise]

[Wolf]

The highlighted graph is when they invade?

[Azazel]

did this concept die a quiet death?

[Yegolev]

It was a quiet death.

[Azazel]

approximately once per month, this thread needs a bump.

 

[schild]

It's a sticky! You don't think I notice it! You jerk! Sooooooooooooooo mean!

[Strazos]

Graphs and Spreadsheets please!!

[Azazel]

It's a sticky! You don't think I notice it! You jerk! Sooooooooooooooo mean!

I'm still waiting on the next installment of The Schild Chronicles. What game review will be next?

[Velorath]

Not to mention updating his game release calendar.

[schild]

Work is hard.

[Yegolev]

The lesson being learned here is "Don't ever try."  Because there will be bitching.

[Phildo]

[sidereal]

Me too

[Azazel]

The lesson being learned here is "Don't ever try."  Because there will be bitching.

It's not so much that, but more of a "Hey whatup wit' dat supa-cool thing you got us all to list and get involved with an shit. Tree muns'ago?"