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The GiantBomb Quick Look Thread

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Cday said:
Looked good to me. Actually playing it bored me to tears though. Probably because I just mashed.

Looked like her limbs are flailing around alot like the characters did during the ODST cinematics. Which is to say :lol
 
The ragdoll animations in DS is fucking atrocious. I mean up there with the all-time worst ever.

Bigtime slowdown in FPS in some sections too.

Still, there aren't many games out there like it these days. It has some major issues but it's still a great game for a lot of other reasons.
 
Felix Lighter said:
Demon's Souls - 32:50 Vinny, Dave and Jeff

Vinny plays and Jeff and Dave are there for moral support, apparently.
Oh wow! Seems to me as if one would have to be way into masochism to enjoy playing this game.

edit: Ha! Seems like Vinny agrees with me!
 
Demon's Souls definitely looks interesting and I like the look of the gameplay but I don't know if I have the patience for it. Ruthlessly punishing. Still on the fence and I'll probably wait until the fall rush.
 
Felix Lighter said:
Demon's Souls - 32:50 Vinny, Dave and Jeff

Vinny plays and Jeff and Dave are there for moral support, apparently.

this quick look is awesome… not the game, mind you, but the quick look. The reactions of Vinny and Jeff are great. gasps and shrieks of terror.

I love the bloodstains in the nexus showing people falling to their deaths :lol

game seems brutally hard and it is completely not my type of game. But, as Dave shows in the QL, there are some people who are into this stuff.

edit: fuck that octopus dude :lol insane!!!
 
Ok, so watching more of it now, there seem to be something intangibly appealing in this game. Hmm, didn't know I was into S&M... :/
 
It's not nessecarily the death penalty that is off putting for me, it's more about the combat itself. The animations make it seem like you're fighting with a stick rather than a heavy sword and the same goes for the armor you're wearing, it looks too light when you are walking, running and rolling around..
 
The game has some interesting ideas and I don't mind a hard game but losing all your souls? Being forced to basically restart the game? Fuck that, that's not fun that's tedious and boring, what te hell is wrong with Japanese developers these days? They just don't get it, they can't streamline a game for shit. If I got it and had that happen to me I'd just quit then and there.
 
Darklord said:
The game has some interesting ideas and I don't mind a hard game but losing all your souls? Being forced to basically restart the game? Fuck that, that's not fun that's tedious and boring, what te hell is wrong with Japanese developers these days? They just don't get it, they can't streamline a game for shit. If I got it and had that happen to me I'd just quit then and there.

Then it's just not the game for you. The producer that got this game made wanted it to be like this as he wanted something like King's Field. Those games are fair but very unforgiving. So the difficulty isn't like some fighting game characters where they're just cheap in terms of difficulty. There's no hand holding or easing you in. You either learn the mechanics and learn them quickly or you're screwed.
 
SolidSnakex said:
Then it's just not the game for you. The producer that got this game made wanted it to be like this as he wanted something like Kings Field. Those games are fair but very unforgiving. So the difficulty isn't like some fighting game characters where they're just cheap in terms of difficulty. There's no hand holding or easing you in. You either learn the mechanics and learn them quickly or you're screwed.

But half the mechanics were ancient and half the game Vinny had no idea about after playing for 6 hours. You can still make a hard and unforgiving game while not being tedious, annoying and using decade old mechanics and a bad camera to boot.
 
It's hard but it's not unfair at all, when you die it's usually because you made a mistake. I almost never have to die twice and lose all my souls since I learn from the first death. My first time fighting those octopus man was pretty much the same way, now I can kill them in an instant and my level is not much higher than the time they were rolling me.
 
Vinny got real lucky 13 mins in when he had like zero health and someone recommended his message.

I knew Dave would kind of get into it!

Jeez. I keep watching and am screaming HEAL HEAL!! Don't walk around with 5% health man.

ARRGG He died right before he got right to the shortcut. Sloppy!!
 
Darklord said:
But half the mechanics were ancient and half the game Vinny had no idea about after playing for 6 hours. You can still make a hard and unforgiving game while not being tedious, annoying and using decade old mechanics and a bad camera to boot.

You can if that's the game you want to make. It's not what this dev wanted though. Demon's Souls is a throwback game in every sense. For some people that's great because it's what they've wanted for others it's just something that they can't get into. But going from the general impressions and reviews of the game, it seems like this is what quite a few people have been craving.
 
So I decided to check out more of the game and those boss battles look pretty damn epic! Watching a tower knight boss fight right now. You know what? I think I might just pick this one up when it hits bargain bin price point.

edit: Oh wait this is PS3 exclusive? Well damn! No go than. :(
 
There is nothing cheap about the difficulty in Demon's Soul. In fact, even though it's one of the most difficult games I've played this generation, it has the most fair challenge of any game I've played. When you die, it's always your fault. It's because you took things too fast, you don't heed warnings, you weren't observant enough, you rushed a group of enemies, you didn't exploit a weakness, etc.

It is almost always your fault and no one else's for your death. The game is also designed so that it anticipates you being in your soul form the vast majority of the time. If you're in your "revived" form most of the time, that's the exception to the rule. Even though the penalty for your death is that you lose all your souls, the game gives you the opportunity to try to carefully make your way back to your bloodstain to retrieve them.

This is a game that forces you pay attention and memorize the dungeons. It demands you learn from your mistakes, and if you refuse to learn from your mistakes it'll toss your ass down the stairs again and demand it of you again. This game is the OPPOSITE of cheap.
 
54-46! said:
It's not nessecarily the death penalty that is off putting for me, it's more about the combat itself. The animations make it seem like you're fighting with a stick rather than a heavy sword and the same goes for the armor you're wearing, it looks too light when you are walking, running and rolling around..
You can't roll around very well or at all in heavy armor. And if you look at it when he uses the weapon two-handed the weight is killing him.

If you're pretty strong and you try to roll while wearing heavy armor you can just hear him clunk on the ground and the animation has different timings.(It takes him longer to stand up compared to the light-armor wearing Vinny at the start of the game.)

That part is actually made surprisingly well.

Just for balance though: The game is punishing, the camera is wonky, the targeting should work from farther away and it misses a strafe button. (No idea where it should be placed though. ;-))
*edit: Ragdolls physics is laughable, not being able to invite friends without jumping through hoops for co-op is a missing feature. I don't buy the "design choice" explanation. If they wanted it to be random people, there would be a spell to summon phantoms in your area at random.

That Vinny hasn't tried the co-op stuff or read up on it in the description is a bit weird though. Given that he has played it for 5 hours on that char already. But I guess it just picks up right after him beating the first boss.
 
Darklord said:
The game has some interesting ideas and I don't mind a hard game but losing all your souls? Being forced to basically restart the game? Fuck that, that's not fun that's tedious and boring, what te hell is wrong with Japanese developers these days? They just don't get it, they can't streamline a game for shit. If I got it and had that happen to me I'd just quit then and there.

You only restart the level. Also during the level you can unlock extra passages allowing you to skip passages that you have already passed. So, you don't start entirely from scratch. Knowing that if you die before you reach your bloodstain and loosing all your previous souls just adds that extra suspense. Though, Demon Soul is not the kind of the game that you can just quit and be done with it, if you put the effort in and really go for it the experience is engrossing and unique in this console generation.
 
Darklord said:
The game has some interesting ideas and I don't mind a hard game but losing all your souls? Being forced to basically restart the game?

When he first died 15 or so mins in Vinny was STEPS away from opening a door that would've led him right back to the beginning. That door stays open even after you die so if you do die you don't have to go through that part of the level again. He was playing recklessly for the demo.
 
Darklord said:
The game has some interesting ideas and I don't mind a hard game but losing all your souls? Being forced to basically restart the game? Fuck that, that's not fun that's tedious and boring, what te hell is wrong with Japanese developers these days? They just don't get it, they can't streamline a game for shit. If I got it and had that happen to me I'd just quit then and there.

Don't make overly broad generalizations about Japanese developers, it just makes you look ignorant.

Resident Evil 5 was developed in Japan and is as streamlined and user-friendly as any game out there when it comes to having regular checkpoints, a friendly save system, etc.
 
Amir0x said:
There is nothing cheap about the difficulty in Demon's Soul. In fact, even though it's one of the most difficult games I've played this generation, it has the most fair challenge of any game I've played. When you die, it's always your fault. It's because you took things too fast, you don't heed warnings, you weren't observant enough, you rushed a group of enemies, you didn't exploit a weakness, etc.

It is almost always your fault and no one else's for your death. The game is also designed so that it anticipates you being in your soul form the vast majority of the time. If you're in your "revived" form most of the time, that's the exception to the rule. Even though the penalty for your death is that you lose all your souls, the game gives you the opportunity to try to carefully make your way back to your bloodstain to retrieve them.

This is a game that forces you pay attention and memorize the dungeons. It demands you learn from your mistakes, and if you refuse to learn from your mistakes it'll toss your ass down the stairs again and demand it of you again. This game is the OPPOSITE of cheap.

Man when he was in the prison I was in awe that he wasn't killed by the Flayer sooner. He had enough times to break the boxes and pick up a key. He seemed like a kid in the middle of the street.
 
Ploid 3.0 said:
Man when he was in the prison I was in awe that he wasn't killed by the Flayer sooner. He had enough times to break the boxes and pick up a key. He seemed like a kid in the middle of the street.

He is a atrocious player who simply ignored the game's many attempts to teach him how to actually approach the gameplay. There is nothing clunky about the gameplay, minor lock on issues aside. It is an extremely precise, observational type of combat that rewards patience and strategizing over running around hack and slacking like some Diablo clone (like the retard in the video did).

Everything about the enemies requires the utmost patience to approach. The game is undoubtedly slow moving, but its pace is appropriate to its unprecedented atmosphere.

The quick look just shows that Giant Bomb is completely deficient as a game review website. They say it's easy to run out of healing items; that's absurd. I have more healing items than I can ever possibly use. Every like 10th enemy drops multiple healing items. Healing items are extremely cheap. By the end of the 1-1, I had over 40 Half Moon and Crescent Moon grasses.

He says the only way to regen MP is using a MP heal item, and then blames this on "1990-era gameplay design." Factually false. One of the characters fucking starts with an MP regen ring, that allows you to regen MP slowly over time. Crescent weapons allow you to regen MP. There are a plethora of options that allow you to individually choose how your character will regain MP.

This is an example of a person facing a wall of difficulty, doing nothing to learn how to approach the game to start winning, and then blaming it on poor design or unfair difficulty.

Giant Bomb is fucking awful, and so is the guy playing the game. They should feel genuinely embarrassed.
 
Amir0x said:
He says the only way to regen MP is using a MP heal item, and then blames this on "1990-era gameplay design." Factually false. One of the characters fucking starts with an MP regen ring, that allows you to regen MP slowly over time. Crescent weapons allow you to regen MP. There are a plethora of options that allow you to individually choose how your character will regain MP.
So he's right? You NEED item to regain MPs?
 
Amir0x said:
He is a atrocious player who simply ignored the game's many attempts to teach him how to actually approach the gameplay. There is nothing clunky about the gameplay, minor lock on issues aside. It is an extremely precise, observational type of combat that rewards patience and strategizing over running around hack and slacking like some Diablo clone (like the retard in the video did).

Everything about the enemies requires the utmost patience to approach. The game is undoubtedly slow moving, but its pace is appropriate to its unprecedented atmosphere.

The quick look just shows that Giant Bomb is completely deficient as a game review website. They say it's easy to run out of healing items; that's absurd. I have more healing items than I can ever possibly use. Every like 10th enemy drops multiple healing items. Healing items are extremely cheap. By the end of the 1-1, I had over 40 Half Moon and Crescent Moon grasses.

He says the only way to regen MP is using a MP heal item, and then blames this on "1990-era gameplay design." Factually false. One of the characters fucking starts with an MP regen ring, that allows you to regen MP slowly over time. Crescent weapons allow you to regen MP. There are a plethora of options that allow you to individually choose how your character will regain MP.

This is an example of a person facing a wall of difficulty, doing nothing to learn how to approach the game to start winning, and then blaming it on poor design or unfair difficulty.

Giant Bomb is fucking awful, and so is the guy playing the game. They should feel genuinely embarrassed.

Dude, wtf is wrong with you? That was just a quick look from a guy who spend just a couple of hours with the game. Chill the fuck out.
 
In the video:

"The second bar is my mana... which does not regenerate. You have to use items to get it back. This game uses a lot of mechanics that were crafted in...1990?"

One, mana can regenerate. Magic users like Royal start with a ring already equipped which regenerates your mana/mp. Second, you can also acquire weapons which will also regenerate your MP. As a third option, you can use spices which also can heal your MP.

To suggest the game has no ability to regenerate MP is false, which is clearly the implication.

Dejan said:
Dude, wtf is wrong with you? That was just a quick look from a guy who spend just a couple of hours with the game. Chill the fuck out.

After 2 hours with the game, I knew how to play and approach the mechanics. After apparently 6 hours of play from this Vinny guy, the guy is still flailing around like a spaz on holiday and still fails to grasp even the most rudimentary of gameplay functions in Demon's Souls. It is an issue because people are watching this and thinking "wow, Demon's Souls really must be a good for masochists. It's unfairly difficult, clearly!" Instead of "This guy Vinny fucking sucks ass at games and shouldn't be informing anyone about this title."
 
While looking at that video I thought, "yeah, we're not getting more games like this, and this here is why." I really wished this game would have sparked something, and that more games would do stuff interesting like this. Not exactly the same but a creative approach.

Yesterday playing the game I started to use the bow a lot, giving soul arrow a rest. It felt like I was playing an adult adventure game, well think zelda but in a unforgiving world with risks, tension, blood reds, and browns.

To me megaman 9 is harder than this.
 
DS has about the steepest learning curve I've seen this generation. It's a hard game to learn.

Now, as Ami pointed out it isn't cheap hard. It's just difficult.

There's a group at GAF that would recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't. Not because it's a bad game, because I think it's the best ARPG I've played in a long time. It's just a damn hard game to step in to.

It's not for everybody. It's not meant to be for everybody.
 
Amir0x said:
In the video:

"The second bar is my mana... which does not regenerate. You have to use items to get it back. This game uses a lot of mechanics that were crafted in...1990?"

One, mana can regenerate. Magic users like Royal start with a ring already equipped which regenerates your mana/mp. Second, you can also acquire weapons which will also regenerate your MP. As a third option, you can use spices which also can heal your MP.

To suggest the game has no ability to regenerate MP is false, which is clearly the implication.
Is it that strange that he hasn't come across items that regenerate your mana yet? It seems he's spent about 5 hours with the knight so far. How soon do you run into MP regen items if you're not a magic user?
 
Amir0x said:
He is a atrocious player who simply ignored the game's many attempts to teach him how to actually approach the gameplay. There is nothing clunky about the gameplay, minor lock on issues aside. It is an extremely precise, observational type of combat that rewards patience and strategizing over running around hack and slacking like some Diablo clone (like the retard in the video did)...

Giant Bomb is fucking awful, and so is the guy playing the game. They should feel genuinely embarrassed.


Giantbomb has shot themselves in the foot.

6fhaxc6.jpg


:lol :lol :lol:lol :lol :lol :lol
 
Vinny and Dave both were pretty positive about the game. Vinny was bummed that the difficulty was probably going to be too much for him. Jeff was the only one who didn't like the game. That reaction seems ridiculous.
 
Loudninja said:
Didn't he say he skipped most of the tutorial in the game? so isn't it his fault if he doesn't know some of the things he should?
I thought that was Jeff. Actually he was the only guy who was down on the game. I had the impression that Vinny enjoyed his time with Demon's Souls and is willing to spend more with it. I'm not quite sure about Dave tho, but he seemed at least interested.
 
Amir0x said:
He is a atrocious player who simply ignored the game's many attempts to teach him how to actually approach the gameplay. There is nothing clunky about the gameplay, minor lock on issues aside. It is an extremely precise, observational type of combat that rewards patience and strategizing over running around hack and slacking like some Diablo clone (like the retard in the video did).

Everything about the enemies requires the utmost patience to approach. The game is undoubtedly slow moving, but its pace is appropriate to its unprecedented atmosphere.

The quick look just shows that Giant Bomb is completely deficient as a game review website. They say it's easy to run out of healing items; that's absurd. I have more healing items than I can ever possibly use. Every like 10th enemy drops multiple healing items. Healing items are extremely cheap. By the end of the 1-1, I had over 40 Half Moon and Crescent Moon grasses.

He says the only way to regen MP is using a MP heal item, and then blames this on "1990-era gameplay design." Factually false. One of the characters fucking starts with an MP regen ring, that allows you to regen MP slowly over time. Crescent weapons allow you to regen MP. There are a plethora of options that allow you to individually choose how your character will regain MP.

This is an example of a person facing a wall of difficulty, doing nothing to learn how to approach the game to start winning, and then blaming it on poor design or unfair difficulty.

Giant Bomb is fucking awful, and so is the guy playing the game. They should feel genuinely embarrassed.
That would make for such a boring quick look. There's a big difference between playing a game by yourself where you can have utmost patience and be slow moving versus a short video that is meant to entertain and inform. You would have to be more reckless and you can't give something your full attention when you are playing the game, informing the audience and bantering back and forth with 2 other guys at the same time.
 
Darklord said:
The game has some interesting ideas and I don't mind a hard game but losing all your souls? Being forced to basically restart the game? Fuck that, that's not fun that's tedious and boring, what te hell is wrong with Japanese developers these days? They just don't get it, they can't streamline a game for shit. If I got it and had that happen to me I'd just quit then and there.
haha
 
Demon Soul’s is definitely one of the most polarizing games out there, that’s for sure. comments on the GB quicklook are an expanded version of what’s going on here. lots of people on both sides.

As for Vinny not having a Mana replenishing item, he spent 5 hours playing as a knight (very little magic use) and only an hour with the mage character. not all magic characters are going to have items on them that regen mana, so he was simply stating his experience with the game. maybe if had created a bunch more characters, he would have come across one that had it.

I see nothing wrong with the quick look. they were very upfront about how long they’ve played it and what they like/ dislike about the game in general.
 
I think the quick look does a good job. It shows that the game isnt for everyone, you can play for 5hours and still have a hard time staying alive if you dont want or cant take the time to "learn" the game.
 
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