The Video Game Critic

Hey DaHeckIzDat, is it the first encounter with Barthandelus or the second? Are you using both a synergist and a saboteur? I recommend having Vanille (with Belladonna Wand) and Sazh in your party. He's vulnerable to deprotect, deshell, imperil, and poison.

On another note, was the problem with your PS3 not reading ff13 resolved?

I'm like Vexer it gets to me if I don't finish a game I own, so I'm persistant until I finish them even resorting to foul means (ie cheat codes) if nessercery but only on games where the challenge has stopped being fun.

[QUOTE=Vexer]I never felt like my time was wasted even if I played all the way through a bad game like Ride to Hell(which did give me enough unintentional laughs to not feel like a total waste of time), in the past there were some games that I did give up on and got rid of, only for me to end re-buying them again at a later date because I just had to find out for myself what happened next(watching the cutscenes on Youtube just doesn't cut it for me, and they were so cheap on Amazon and Ebay that I didn't really mind), now there's just no way I can give up on a game before finishing it(by "finish" I mean getting the ending(s), there are some games like Jak 2 and 3 where I'll finish them, but I won't bother with getting 100% on stuff like time trials), because I know if I don't beat it myself then it's just going to eat away at the back of my mind until I do.[/QUOTE]

I just wanted to clarify that, even when I decide not to finish a game, I very seldom consider it a waste of time. There are plenty of games that I've gotten a lot of pleasure out of but never ended up finishing, and I'm okay with that. I have the opportunity to get lost in a new world for awhile, I expand my palette of experiences, I learn about my own tastes and preferences in games and I get to think about why the team behind the game made the creative choices that they did.

At first I thought exactly the same way you did - that I had to finish every game I bought. After I had accumulated a rather large number of games a few years ago, I realized one day that finishing every game was becoming a job of sorts and I just wasn't having the amount of fun that I should from what is a pretty frivolous hobby. At that point I came to the conclusion that I was going to drive myself crazy unless I relaxed a bit and got back to letting myself have fun, and sometimes that was going to mean either putting a game to the side for a while or getting rid of one altogether.

[QUOTE=Vexer]... because I just had to find out for myself what happened next... getting the ending(s) [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Vexer]...game genres that I outright despise like sports [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Vexer]One game I would highly recommend you check it out is Alpha Protocol, this is one game where pretty every choice you make, no matter how minor, will impact the story in some way [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Vexer]The biggest problem I have with the game (alien isolation) is that it's just not scary or suspenseful [/QUOTE]

Vexer: Pardon me for taking your thoughts out of context. I know you will correct me if you disagree.

I see Vexer as a gamer quite different from Segatarious. While Vexer/Darkrage does comment on gameplay mechanics, the storyline matters. It matters so much so that not playing to its resolution bothers him. It matters so much his appraisal of a game is heavily influenced by its plot or how you can affect the plot. That genres that do not focus on plotlines, like sports hold little interest is consistent.

Its not about anyone being right or wrong about the value or place of storytelling with video games. Its that there definately different appetites, and making many kinds of games is a good thing for gaming.

[QUOTE=ptdebate]Hey DaHeckIzDat, is it the first encounter with Barthandelus or the second? Are you using both a synergist and a saboteur? I recommend having Vanille (with Belladonna Wand) and Sazh in your party. He's vulnerable to deprotect, deshell, imperil, and poison.

On another note, was the problem with your PS3 not reading ff13 resolved?[/QUOTE]

It's the second encounter. I'm using Lightning/Hope/Fang for their commando, sentinel, saboteur, ravager, and medic abilities. I don't bother with a synergist because ol' Bart's apostesus (or whatever) move instantly takes away all status bones I've racked up and I don't like to waste time getting them all back, especially when he'll just knock them out again.

[QUOTE=DaHeckIzDat][QUOTE=ptdebate]Hey DaHeckIzDat, is it the first encounter with Barthandelus or the second? Are you using both a synergist and a saboteur? I recommend having Vanille (with Belladonna Wand) and Sazh in your party. He's vulnerable to deprotect, deshell, imperil, and poison.

On another note, was the problem with your PS3 not reading ff13 resolved?[/QUOTE]

It's the second encounter. I'm using Lightning/Hope/Fang for their commando, sentinel, saboteur, ravager, and medic abilities. I don't bother with a synergist because ol' Bart's apostesus (or whatever) move instantly takes away all status bones I've racked up and I don't like to waste time getting them all back, especially when he'll just knock them out again.[/QUOTE]

Hope has good magic but at the point in the game you're at, Vanille outclasses Fang. If you've leveled enough, you won't miss Fang's Sentinel role by switching.

I've noticed something weird in my gaming habits in regards to persistence.

With modern games it's highly unusual that you die often (unless you're playing a Souls game lol).  So I've noticed with modern games that I will basically keep playing for a long stretch where I won't die.  Then when I finally die or have to redo even the tiniest stretch of a level...I shut the game off.  


With retro games you die constantly.  In Castlevania or some of the Contra games you're dying nonstop.  Yet, I have no problem with it.  I'll gladly hit continue and keep playing.  The key I think is that you constantly get better at the levels and little by little you get further and see more.  It's oddly satisfying and it keeps me playing for hours.  

I don't always turn off a modern game when I die once...but if I die and I have to redo more than 5 mins of gameplay.  I turn it off.  I think this is because you aren't constantly engaged in most modern games.  You might be in the clear and just running about.  This stuff is boring and not fun to play over again.  I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.

I will go back and play the modern game later...but I always see death in these games as some sort of natural stopping point.  Strange, cause I've never really thought about it before this topic lol.

I die fairly often in modern games myself, but it doesn't really bother me unless the game suffers from Checkpoint Starvation(I.E. Alien Isolation).  Though I find it very silly to turn a game just because you don't want to redo 5 minutes, and personally I am constantly engaged in modern games and I rarely ever want to put them down, so I don't mind playing through parts again.