What are you currently playing?

[Bambi]

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. My inexperience with this gen is evident in how unintuitive I find the controls to be.

[Bluecast]

While I love the game. It's overly QTE heavy. I hope LoS2 fixes that.

[Bambi]

While I love the game. It's overly QTE heavy. I hope LoS2 fixes that.

Just finished the first chapter, here are my initial impressions for what their worth.

Really nice art style, especially some of the environments, there's lots of variety, combat, puzzles, boss fights. I agree there's too many QTE, being forced to hold RT every 2 seconds during that Ice Titan fight wasn't engaging, it was annoying.

Minor complaints would be that to me the voice acting is a little stunted, Gabriel's accent is a bit questionable but you can overlook that, especially when Marie shows up to let you hear what really bad voice acting sounds like, also she had really weird model animation in one of the early scenes.

Like I said these are minor complaints, they're certainly not impeding my enjoyment of the game, not nearly as much as my own retardation is in any case.

[Bluecast]

You have one more Titan to fight later on. It's not as Tedious. I found it easier. Again this game to me feels like CV 1-4 in 3D. So yeah try to think of it like that. before SOTN CV was more Gothic and horror driven and straight forward. I don't care for the chucacobras. Little bastards. The game isn't perfect. It has many nods to older games esp when you reach Argatha Falls and the Music Box. Also Pay attention to boss names.

[Kenny]

Gaming is different. the idea of good and bad is skewed, so someone can make a game thats barely interactive, features only a handful of assets and barely even works right and still make it big (Temple Run) or they can completely steal another person's everything and still be successful (Ninja Fishing)

its sad but people will reward complete crap even at the entry level of this industry.

I don't think so. Think of all the recent blockbusters and acclaimed indie films you've seen the past couple of years, more than likely you'll consider some of those pretty bad or terrible. But they made tons of money. If your actor looks really hot, people will gloss over their lack of acting ability initially. If the movie as tons of 'splosions or cheesy romance, it'll gain an audience of some kind. Or if it's a tiny budgeted "too hip for the mainstream" flick, it'll gain traction and success too. Bullshit like "Tiny Furniture", "13 Tzameti", "Napoleon Dynamite", and "Safety Not Guaranteed" easily fall in this category. I'm completely FLABBERGASTED at their success.

Movies are ripped off and cheesed up because they do the bare minimum of what they think is successful. Gaming and Movies may or may not be on the same wavelength, but it's still in the same freelance crapshoot industry that is Entertainment.

I guess the point i'm trying to get at here is that yes, I can be frustrating to bust your ass only to see products shipped out that you perceive as half assed make it big. But with me, I have a vision to fulfill. I share many of those visions with lots of people and I've gotten widely positive responses ranging from "hmm, interesting" to "holy shit that's awesome." I figure if you really like what you do and other people like what you do, that's all it takes to move forward.

I don't worry too much about my competition cause I know if I can make the best thing I can, I can trump the hacks in the world and find success. Twilight, Ted, and all of Uwe Boll's filmography has made tons of cash? Pttth, fuck 'em. I can point out all the bad things wrong with alot of films I see if I wanted to, but I rather focus on the good stuff and craft my material based around that. Cause if bullshit can be successful, great material will be MEGA successful. But it also depends on what you're making too. Can't realistically expect a JPRG to be a mega hit like Call of Duty in this day and age, you have to go with something more mainstream to also achieve mega success.

[Bambi]

You have one more Titan to fight later on. It's not as Tedious. I found it easier. Again this game to me feels like CV 1-4 in 3D. So yeah try to think of it like that. before SOTN CV was more Gothic and horror driven and straight forward. I don't care for the chucacobras. Little bastards. The game isn't perfect. It has many nods to older games esp when you reach Argatha Falls and the Music Box. Also Pay attention to boss names.

I actually haven't played the older Castlevania games before so everything is new. SotN is the first one I took an interest in.

[Bluecast]

IV is my fave. Try the ones on NES(minus 2)/SCV4 and X on PSP.

[OL]

I know it's not older, but Order of Ecclesia was great as well.

[Bambi]

Still playing Lords of Shadow, just finished the 3rd chapter, I'm still not very good at the combat in this game and I spent forever looking for a 4th dark crystal shard and 3rd fairy in the previous areas, both of which I had to look up and discovered they were in really obvious places.

[Segata Sanshiro Jr.]

Dodging id your absolute best friend. Like the castlevanias of old, jumping, dodging and knowing the enemies reach is invaluable.

Also the sub weapons are extremely useful, it seems like everyone say not to use them but theres nothing like jumping over a werewolf and planing a silver dagger in the back of his skull to end a combo.

[Bambi]

Dodging id your absolute best friend. Like the castlevanias of old, jumping, dodging and knowing the enemies reach is invaluable.

Also the sub weapons are extremely useful, it seems like everyone say not to use them but theres nothing like jumping over a werewolf and planing a silver dagger in the back of his skull to end a combo.

I do dodge a lot, I think it's probably my only saving grace when it comes to the boss fights; one thing I really don't have down is the synch blocking though and it seems really useful, especially with some of the follow up combos you can purchase.

[Bluecast]

Yeah it's more about landing attacks on timing and dodging.Rather than just jamming the attack button. In the first CV they on purpose made hitting the attack button would have a slight delay on screen and designed the enemies patterns and level around that. Attacks were slightly strategic. LoS isn't quite like that as you can still hit the whip button plenty. Just unlike the SOTN and ones like that whacking away enemies like weeds won't cut it. At least later on. Grunts and such are cannon fodder but many enemies that are more powerful require a little more timing based attacks esp when you have 4 coffin walkers or 3-4 huge knights after ya

[Segata Sanshiro Jr.]

Synch blocking is great for normal combat but on bosses it can get you fucked. Cornell for example has a bunch of attacks in his first form that break guard and by the time he is in his second form he can break any guard with all of his attacks.

There are some enemies near the end of the game that can one shot you, and if not for synch blocking I'd have killed myself. (I think I got a plat in LOS, not getting hit while fighting the last few bosses was insane!)

[Who Really Cares?]

Finished Fable 2 and it holds up well for a 08 release.

Much better than 3 and for 4 if they can get 2's type of world[with no loading screens!], 1's combat and outfits and Journeys attention to story telling they might have a true winner.

[Spokane]

Still doing Enslaved. Up to Chapter 12 and I have done it all on Hard.

So I kind of take back some of what I said before, I like it the more I play it. I like everything about it except for the controls at times as I said before, but even those don't seem to be as bad after the first 2 chapters. I guess its just getting used to them. But it is the weakest point of the game and its not even game breaking or that bad, its just obvious that it could be improved a lot.