Wednesday, July 31, 2013

EXP Podcast #235: Love, Hate, and Peculiar Pet Peeves

Image from Giant Bomb
Enclosed, please find one ticket to the Player Haters' Ball. After last week's podcast about the potential benefits of having a strong personality and being outspoken about your opinion (even if it's unpopular), Jorge and I decided to jump up on our soapboxes. We try to keep things pretty positive around here, but sometimes you just have air your grievances. This week, we talk about the things that annoy us, especially those things that everyone else seems to like. Don't worry: things get pretty silly and it's all in good spirit. Sometimes it feels good to talk about what grinds your gears, whether it's a beloved character, a particular genre, or a universally-loved indie darling. Want to get something off your chest? Jump into the comments!

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes
- Find the show on Stitcher
- Here's the show's stand-alone feed
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Runtime: 35 min 43 sec
- Scott's post about Final Fantasy VII's
- "What We Leave Behind," John Teti's Rogue Legacy review, via The Gameological
- Adam Jensen Does A Safety Dance! (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)
- Music by: Brad Sucks

7 comments:

  1. I was pretty close to yelling agreement at my mp3 player through most of this. Perhaps because I sometimes feel like I was the only one? Especially around the music of Chrono Cross, and Video Games Live covering the Sephiroth track.

    One of my own: I really did not like BioShock. BioShock seemed, in so many ways, to be a retreading of System Shock 2 to me, enough so that the twists in the plot all seemed very predictable to me. Plus, the game's manual, which I happened to read before playing, lays out much of what is going on, enough so that I experienced no sense of mystery. That kept me at enough of a distance that I could never really get into the material.

    Well, I did have one affecting moment, but in the end it felt like a betrayal too: I spent the early part of the game harvesting little sisters, right up until I woke up surrounded by them, after Tenenbaum (I think?) fixes you. Having all the little sisters reacting to me with fear was very affecting, and I resolved to never harvest again... but despite this turning over a leaf, and thinking of myself as the good guy from there-on-out, I still got the "evil" ending, which seemed like a betrayal of my narrative in some way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm playing through Deus Ex : HR on PC and I totally couldn't play that game, at all, if it not for quick save. Also, even though I accept that the game is technically great and deserves a lot of it's praise I kinda find it annoying. Especially compared to the original... Which I also couldn't play with out quick save :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's exactly why I was a bit puzzled about the criticism. There _is_ a quick save feature, and you can save whenever you want. As far as I remember, you do not have to rely on checkpoints.


    I loved the game. And the DLC was top-notch.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know this isn't the topic for arguments, but: you're totally missing the point if you're playing the Lego games as platformers. You need to play them in coop with your kid. My son and his friends *love* every Lego game. Platforming is just a small part of them. The coop parts are very well done and it's a lot of fun to destroy and reconstruct the world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You should feel guilty!

    But in all honestly, you're not the first person I have heard of that has had that reaction to the game. I would still recommend you give BioShock 2 and even Infinite a try though.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I had so many people correcting my error. Honestly I had no idea the game had quick save and it has completely saved it for me!

    ReplyDelete
  7. The frustrating camera always irritated me about co-op, but maybe they've amended that and some of my other issues since I last played a lego game. Now all I need is a child and I can get back into it!

    ReplyDelete