Very well.

Any gameplay mechanics ripped off from God of War were first ripped off from LoZ. It may have minor elements in common, but seriously, It takes almost everything from Zelda.

And I'm at work. I'm not watching a fucking walk through of Darksiders.

I bought Darksiders 2 a few months ago, but didn't really get into it. It seemed very boring.

A lot of people seemed to agree as it didn't sell well. I liked it though.

The sales may or may not be the factor here, as THQ had some problems selling their games despite if they were pretty bad or pretty good

Other games that didn’t sell well: Okami, Psychonauts, Ico, Stranger’s Wrath, Beyond Good and Evil

What are you trying to say here? Good games don't sell well? Because that goes both ways and marketing/advertising plays a bigger role in sales than the game's quality.

I’m saying that judging a game’s quality based purely on its sales is stupid.

See also: Call of Duty HEYOOOOO

Yeah, but who was doing that?

Finished Bioshock and Bioshock 2.

I'm in love. It took me a long time to finally get into Bioshock properly but I'm very happy I finally did. Now, onto Bioshock Infinite!

From what I've heard, if you liked the first two Bioshock games for what they were, Infinite might end up being somewhat different that you may or may not like.

I'd say that if you felt that the first Bioshock was far superior to the second then you will love Infinite.

I think I like both Bioshock 1 and 2 equally. Each had its moments but I struggle to think of anything that could make me like one more than the other. I've played Infinite for about an hour and I can't get over how amazing it looks. I haven't seen much of the core gameplay yet but I'm sure I'll love it, I'm not particularly fussy.

You know what wasn't particularly fun? The second half of Bioshock.

That must be why I stopped playing and never beat it, then. I just lost interest.

I'm fairly sure losing interest on a seven hour (At a stretch) game just makes you a faggot, but maybe so.

Post Andrew Ryan, everything was just so generic and drab compared to the previous areas.

Infinite's plot is fucking terrible and the gameplay is incredibly dumbed-down.

But hey, it looks good.

I got Infinite for free. Should I buy 1 and 2 before I play it?

It's not necessary, but you definitely should play the first ones.

Bioshock 2 isn't particularly exciting. Bioshock 1, on the other hand, is brilliant.

Bioshock 2 was fun. Bioshock 1 was superior though

Bioshock was a masterpiece. Bioshock 2 was a cash in with good production value.

...Which is why Bioshock 2 lacks tact over its predecessor - another dose of the same thing with some minor differences without being ground-breaking or having as good a plot, but it even had some gameplay improvements and was still as fun as the first game. Perhaps it was even more polished, too.

I've given them both a replay several times and am patiently waiting for Bioshock Infinite to be on sale.

I bought both 1 and 2 ages ago in a Steam sale and never played either of them.

I'm part of this conversation too!

You're missing out. :P (Even though the Games for Windows Live crap required for Bioshock 2 is a big sack 'o shit.)

Varrok lent me his copy of Dungeons of Dredmor. I trudged through up to Dredmor himself, fought him until he teleported, sighed and uninstalled the game.

No. Not my thing at all.

Shit. I could've sworn you'd like it.

The problem isn't that Lord Dredmor's too hard. The problem is that everything up to him is laughably easy in comparison. There's no difficulty curve whatesoever.

For 90% of the game you're tested by no other human metrics than luck and patience, and I don't find that fun.

The only things about it I liked were the "you n'wah" quotes and this, which is now my icon for everything.

http://www.dredmorwiki.com/w/images/...serker0_64.png

You did play with permadeth, didn't you? And not on Easy?

I was on Normal, and seeing as it was my first go I thought I'd leave permadeth off just to take a look through.

Needn't have bothered; I only died a couple of times and once was fighting Dredmor himself. I know you think games without permadeth have no tension, but it's not like I could just skip past things. Give me one good reason why a game I didn't enjoy at all without permadeath would be fun with it on.

Imagine The Binding of Isaac with checkpoints. Or FTL with save system.

I'd still find those fun. Because I enjoy the the gameplay, and the permadeath is just a twist, or a gimmick. As I said, multiple lives are not a free pass to skip hard parts of the game. You try getting the Dead Cat item and tell me if it makes BoI easier. You still have to get past hard parts, and those parts are still hard even with multiple goes - permadeth just makes it take longer. It's a perfectly legitimate mechanic for intense, skill-based games such as BoI, which favour adaptable players. But as I said, turn-based RPGs already have luck-based combat. If you've got luck-based map generation in a game with luck-based combat based around luck-based loot, where exactly does that leave me as a player?

As for FTL, I haven't played it nearly enough to have an opinion on that.

Permadeth sounds more like a heavy metal band every time I say it.

A more appropriate example would be "1up" mushroom. And yes. It does make it easier. Much.

Just one more reason to use it.

But it doesn't. It doesn't magically improve your skill, it just lets you play for longer, in effect combing two play's worth of distance into one.

A person capable of beating Mom is so, regardless of whether they die on the way there or actually make it on that particular run. Permadeath is effectively just padding ("Okay, so you can beat our game... but can you do it ALL IN ONE GO?"), and a game like Binding of Isaac or FTL would be ten minutes long without it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My argument with you isn't that permadeath is bad, it is that it's irrelevant. I like FTL and BoI because they are Good Games, and permadeath doesn't really enter into it. Why exactly is permadeath going to make DoD enjoyable for me, considering I don't like the game?

I dunno. For me it takes all the fun knowing that my risks of getting killed aren't actually risks because I can restore save or respawn. Because fuck consequences

Not to mention that permadeath is a good way to increase a player's heart rate and make a game more exciting, especially in a game where being lucky enough for success is difficult.

The thing for me is that runs in BoI or FTL are short enough to almost be considered single levels in the larger game of seeing new content and unlocking shit. Being sent back to the start of a level when you die is fairly reasonable.

Dungeons of Dredmor took me a good ten hours even with permadeth off. To me that's just too big to justify invalidating the player's former progress on death. I'm not surprised modern Roguelikes like Spelunky and BoI are moving towards a more accessible action style of gameplay. It just makes more sense to me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go roll ten dice until they all come up sixes, because apparently trying to be lucky is exciting.

Finally got my mount in WoW, was only 5 leveles late but yeah. It's fun to go fast. Kids these days don't appreciate mounts, what with the 5 gold cost and all.

MM does have a point - DoD games are relatively long. Playing with permadeath on and losing focus at the end of the game, resulting in 10+ hours of gameplay go away with no reminder except your high score on a tombstone (supposing you beat your previous best scores) is a rather devastating feel. I died to Dredmor himself a couple of days ago. At times like this, I always feel that I'm going to put this game away for a while, but after a couple of hours, I start analysing my skill build, looking for mistakes I made and such, and I usually end up making another attempt at the game.

For me, I think it's the style and the humour of the game in general that's so captivating. There's just so much to see in it - even after a hundred hours, I still manage to run into stuff I haven't seen before.

Concerning the luck factor, I admit that it is definitely there in DoD. However, a LOT depends on your skill build and your knowledge of what you can do with your chosen skills. Many skills are dependent on each other, so you have to make sensible choices when choosing them (unless you want a challenge/early death and go for Random). I remember that I found a really good crossbow in a barrel on the first floor once, which made things a lot easier for me, but that alone is not necessarily enough for winning the game.

A side question: what happens when you die without permadeath on? Do you lose money? Equipment?

Now you get it. Losing is Fun.

You don't respawn, you just have to load from an earlier save like your average RPG. If you didn't save then it's still effectively permadeath.