Topic: Why I'm Selling The Conduit

Sean007s wrote:

what i understand is your a graphics whore

clicketyclick wrote:

Sean007s wrote:

what i understand is your a graphics whore

Hey, a man's gotta earn a living somehow. In these hard economic times, try to have a little understanding!

Better technology doesn't simply mean better graphics. It's not that superficial. It also means better enemy AI (because of greater processing power), larger worlds to explore (because you can store more info), more animations - and just simply more dialogue and the ability to alter the course of a game by making different choices. Better technology makes game designs that weren't possible before due to hardware and data limitations finally realisable. It frees game designers to create what they originally envisioned and gives them the ability to make their game worlds come to life.

I find it kind of funny that you two are disagreeing since you're quite often stating the exact same things. Bahamut said that though someone says, "SMB is the greatest game ever made," that's just personal opinion, not fact. And you said "if that guy over there says Mario bros is the best game ever then thats what he thinks." You see? You reiterated his point exactly (and stated it more clearly.)

He's making the exact point you are: it's not a fact that X is the greatest game ever; it's just opinion. And that opinion, like any opinion, is shaped by many personal experiences and emotions - including nostalgia.

clicketyclick wrote:

@Sean
Ah, but you see, when you play them today, you're experiencing nostalgia as you play them. It is impossible detach yourself while playing them to the point that you don't recall your past experiences and emotions with the game as you play and can evaluate it on its own merits. Every time you remember a part of the game and every time you feel some familiarity, you're likely experiencing nostalgia. Not unless you've never played these games before and only are now discovering them on VC can you really play the games without the danger of succumbing to nostalgia!

As for old games still being fun, that's exactly what Bahamut said and agreed with you. He said that technology makes games better, but does not change the "funness" of them. I know that's not a word but just smile and nod and pretend it is.

His point though, I think, is to ward off Grampa Syndrome that experienced gamers often get into: when gamers start saying "back in my day, they made way better games! We just had two buttons and that was good enough for us! These young rapscallions don't know how to make games nowadays! Pass me my teeth, will you, Olga?"

calculon wrote:

jbrodack wrote:

Is it me or reviewers extra harsh on this game besides Ign who gave it a positive though not hugely impressed review?

Nope. The Conduit sucks. It's that simple and here's why my copy has been sat on a shelf waiting for trade-in:

Single Player: Without doubt the most dull, uninspired and horribly generic approaches to single player content ever.
Multi Player: Lame level design, terrible matching algorithm, horrible 3 minute+ waits for matches, random killing, high spawn-into-wall ratio and totally un-forgivable forced game options.

To give you an idea of how bad multi-player is, out of 10 matches I spawned into a wall 6 times and started two team games with only one opponent. I've hardly ever found any ideal matching players and the fact that you can't quit out of the game when you're stuck in a wall is simply unforgivable.

The Graphics: Oh dear, all shiny and no style. It's a real mixed bag, from the N64 quality book-cases to the pointless use of bump-mapping on walls (because you're going to want to face a wall when playing a FPS - must be something HVS have a hard-on for, walls) The character design is terrible with maybe two or three enemy types being noteworthy and the locales are really just a demonstration for some spot effects like lighting - again there was probably only two area that had any sort of impact. The bosses by the way are truly uninspiring both visually and in terms of challenge (other than for standing still wasting ammo for minutes on end)

The Sound: Oh dear god. Terrible voice acting and horrible music (I turned it off after only five minutes of play)

The Controls; Probably the only good thing about the game, but in essense totally overkill. The other customisation options are largely worthless. I can only liken the customisation being the equivalent of installing Windows - but less productive.

Like most HVS stuff, I think the only purpose of The Conduit was to demo their engine and nothing more. The same will go for The Grinder which in itself looks to be nothing more than an evolution of the engine wrapped around a whole ubnch of generic enemies and dull environments. If it gets above 5/10 I'd be surprised.

To be honest, my attention for HVS has moved on to Vicarious Visions and GH5, who seem to be REALLY pushing the Wii in the right direction rather than just shoving only old crap in our faces and claiming it's the next best thing. Oh, and before people start screaming fanboy GH5 will be my first game in the series.

To compare The Conduit to Perfect Dark is laughable. If Perfect Dark were brought bang up-to-date with Metroid Prime (or even Red Steel) quality visuals and online multi-player it'd wipe the floor with practically every FPS on the market. There's a reason why it remains one of the greatest games in gaming history - the only reason The Conduit should be remembered if because HVS far exceed even Bplus when it comes to spouting bull about their products.