Whats so great about Journey? NOW Shadow of Colossus first time play

I just killed the third Colossus, the humanoid one with a giant concrete sword.

He was pretty obvious, but that dang jump to get to his perch was so annoying. I fell five times.

At first I saw that circular stone grounding in the center and figured if I stood their and baited his swing he would break his sword on it, but the little cutscene basically tells you what to do. He went down with out any trouble. He was really shakin his *** a lot and trying my patience, but I've got a lovely little black haired girl to rescue, and the next thirteen stone bastards are going to have to do a little more than that to get between me and my frankenstein booty call.

He's one of my favorites because the fight is so epic. He's so tall that you climb really high, and then he shakes you super hard. Plus you have this huge thing running around trying to smash you with a giant stone bludgeon. I like that arena too, on the platform over the lake. It gets better and better. Each more epic than the last.

The ones you fight from horseback are pretty awesome too.

That was probably the first game I played that really showed me that video games can be art. It's really such a great game, for so many reasons.

I don't get journey. I don't really get shadow of the collosus either though. "Wonder" is a concept lost on me and I'm given no compelling reason to care about the wellbeing of the world or its characters, so any attempt at provoking an emotional respose falls flat on its face.

I can't say they're bad, but they're not for me.

All I can say is i'd never buy it. £15 for one hour of game time is a waste, no matter how excellent.

Only thing I've bought for £15 that lasted just over an hour is Physical Graffiti by Led Zep, something I can listen to many times and still enjoy, a game is less like that. Plus.... one of the best albums ever made vs some hyped up indie game..

I don't understand the love for indie games that try to be so good, since after all most games with better funding will be much better value for money, I mean Dark souls only cost me double what Journey would and my first playthrough clocked in at around 80 hours and I bet it's a helluva lot better than journey

Forum Pirate wrote:I don't really get shadow of the collosus either though..

That's true. At first it doesn't make sense. I thought, "Why am I killing these giant things to resurect my dead girlfriend?" However, the ending really puts it all together.

The ending was both unexpected and great.

I play JRPG's (Read: xenosaga and persona,) it doesn't need to make sense, I just need to care. About the characters or the story or finding secrets or looting or overcoming the challenge ect.

A mute protagonist running around slaughtering giants based on extremely iffy logic and wishful thinking and a bit of carpet trying to reach the mountain of carpet god (again for apparent reason beyond "carpet elder says so) don't do it for me.

@Forum Pirate
I'm glad there's someone who has a good taste in games.

Spoiler:

I like hearing other peoples opinions about what they like or dislike in games.


For me, in general, I don't give a damn about video game stories because they generally suck. Same with movies. So a game that gives me a visual experience that I like and allows me to impart my own ideas on it is perfect (think DKS, SoTC, Mount and Blade).

I could definitely understand somebody not liking SoTC, but for me it is just perfect. All I want from an action/adventure game is fun gameplay and the joy of adventure. Anything more is either a bonus or a detriment, in most cases it ends up the latter. In the case of SoTC, it is bare bones but does it's job perfectly.

At Plastic-

Yeah, he was definitely epic in the full sense of the word. When you hold down the camera focus button so that it tracks the Colossus, and you are just this tiny little speck running around, practically looking straight up to the sky to fully view him, and that music is just perfect, and then when the ground shakes as his giant concrete pillar sword thing crashes down and you run up it and are being thrown left and right... Or when he begins his giant swing and you start running to the side to avoid it, but the whole time you are watching it slowly come down like a freight train falling from heaven and wandering if it is going to smash you or not... Just perfect.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:I like hearing other peoples opinions about what they like or dislike in games.


For me, in general, I don't give a damn about video game stories because they generally suck. Same with movies. So a game that gives me a visual experience that I like and allows me to impart my own ideas on it is perfect (think DKS, SoTC, Mount and Blade)

Even movie storylines? I feel sorry for you, as the films you've watched have all been shallow dogshite if that is the case :|

go watch clockwork orange or vertigo, and get some good cinematic storytelling in you!

I do agree in games story is seen as secondary to most, though some games do produce nice and fitting stories, and some are even good enough to centre whole games around, like many of the FF series. I'm of the view that if a game has a good story, it's most likely gonna be the complete package as well.

I've seen both CO and Vertigo, both good movies. Vertigo kind of lost me with the dramatic love nonsense, I thought they were both too old to be pulling that teenager type stuff.

There are plenty of movies with good stories of course, but nowadays they come few and far in between.



But then, one of my favorite movies is Mel Gibsons Apocalypto which has a very meaningful though very simple story. Another favorite of mine is Mongol, which had a bit more story but was still largely dialogue free.

The vertigo love story was very much meant to be that way, in both halves one love was false while the other true, the role reversal of this was incredible really, though I admit the ending left something to be desired, the way she jumped out of fright.. I think it would have been a more effective ending for her to pull scotty off with her, but oh well.

Recent films with good story.. I admit I'm lost there a bit, other than the obvious stuff like inception I can't think of many.. not so popular films with good storylines.

Only movie i've seen without dialogue is 2001 space Odyssey, I should probably rewatch it now that I'm older i could probably appreciate it better.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:I like hearing other peoples opinions about what they like or dislike in games.


For me, in general, I don't give a damn about video game stories because they generally suck. Same with movies. So a game that gives me a visual experience that I like and allows me to impart my own ideas on it is perfect (think DKS, SoTC, Mount and Blade).

I could definitely understand somebody not liking SoTC, but for me it is just perfect. All I want from an action/adventure game is fun gameplay and the joy of adventure. Anything more is either a bonus or a detriment, in most cases it ends up the latter. In the case of SoTC, it is bare bones but does it's job perfectly.

Play Heavy Rain.

I don't care about story in many games, because I'm not playing them for story. If I am given a "go here kill this" goal though, there's nothing inbetween, nobody to talk to or plants to pick or stuff to smash for money and the giant creature is a total pushover, there better be story.

For adventure, I play morrowind and fallout (or D&D.) Its not an adventur if I'm not scared of anything, in proper adventure one can go from completely safe to completely dead in about a second (the soul series does this too) and you might get jack crap for your effort but you could also discover atlantis and raise an army of their dead with a staff made from a tentacle of cthulu.


I liked heavy rain.

I thought about using that example too chiz, but sadly i feel i can't, it's not really simply a game.. more of a fusion of cinema and video games, it's both and neither at the same time. It's an excellent experience (obviously too short to merit the fullprice tag, luckily ii got it for tenner but still), but it's not really a video game with a story.. more like a story with interactivity.

I get what he's saying, though i view it more as some games do story well, others do other things better. He prefers games that give him the regins, rather than a concreted story.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:At Plastic-

Yeah, he was definitely epic in the full sense of the word. When you hold down the camera focus button so that it tracks the Colossus, and you are just this tiny little speck running around, practically looking straight up to the sky to fully view him, and that music is just perfect, and then when the ground shakes as his giant concrete pillar sword thing crashes down and you run up it and are being thrown left and right... Or when he begins his giant swing and you start running to the side to avoid it, but the whole time you are watching it slowly come down like a freight train falling from heaven and wandering if it is going to smash you or not... Just perfect.

Yeah, the music in that game does a lot for it, for sure.

I will give Heavy Rain a go once I finish SoTC and Okami. Isn't it just something of an interactive movie? If the story really is so great I'll try it, but I'm picky about stories, especially if it is the center of the experience.

About 2001, that movie had dialogue, I'm not sure what you mean. It is another one that goes over my head. It is sooooooooo dreadfully boring. Ten minute scenes of a guy floating through a room to flip a switch. Over and over. I ended up skipping through it just to see the end. I suppose if I was high as hell or just generally "out there" in the head I might enjoy it, but it definitely wasn't made for people like me.

And an SoTC update, I killed the fourth Colossus, which was something of a giant horse or deer. It took me thirty minutes to get on the monster, but once I did it was over in a few minutes. The godly voice told me to hide underground after a few minutes, before that I had been trying to use the mounds to get a jump from the horse to reach the monsters tail. I had the right idea, but I wasn't waiting for him to lower down and look into the tunnel. It took forever before I finally got him to make that animation, although I figured right from the get go that he must make some special action regarding my disappearance into the tunnel, but I just couldn't get him to do it.

The next Colossus is said to be a flying monster. Given my trouble with the previous one this one should prove to be a challenge. I'm going to try it tomorrow.

If you're going to play Heavy Rain don't see trailers or nothing, it's best to keep everything as a surprise.

Can you tell me what the theme of the story is? I should be able to make a good assumption as to whether or not it will be worth a download for me from that.

The story of tacking a serial killer and his latest intended victim (a boy around 10) from the perspectives of 4 different people. Thats all I can manage without spoilers seeping in.

That's actually very important :shock:

You already told him him about you gonna use different people and how much of them there are.

But yeah, it's about a serial killer. you will like it. The story is great, but it's not the forte of the game, the strong point of how it translates the emotions of the characters to you, in my case, in some cases I really got extremely nervous and had that strange feeling in your stomach that comes with huge nerves when my character was facing a tough situation.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:
About 2001, that movie had dialogue, I'm not sure what you mean. It is another one that goes over my head. It is sooooooooo dreadfully boring. Ten minute scenes of a guy floating through a room to flip a switch. Over and over. I ended up skipping through it just to see the end. I suppose if I was high as hell or just generally "out there" in the head I might enjoy it, but it definitely wasn't made for people like me.

I meant it didn't have a lot of dialogue.. I mean there's whole sections like the earlier ones with the ape discovering the use of tools (smashing the skull with a bone). I dunno what the concensus on that film is, but it seems to me that it's an epic trying to thoughtfully represent the way humanity has evolved and will continue to evolve and develop over time. The bit at the end with the whole star baby thing i thought was a bit strange, not sure what to make of it.

master, it's an interwoven plot based on 4 protagonists in the style of a suspence/crime thriller. There is some nice character progression, mainly on the part of the central protagonist ethan mars, but pretty good in the others as well.

The game uses suspense and stressful situations to make the player really jump, while also juxtaposing it well with everyday life like cooking, looking for a kid's bear etc. I agree with cihz though that while the story is very good (sometimes a little bit random), it's main strength is immersion and the empathy you experience with the characters in the game.

I personally think (while not quite being my favourite), is probably the most interesting and fresh game on the PS3.

By the way, you'll have a lot of fun with okami, it's that generation's version of ocarina of time. Excellent stuff.

All the characters are on the cover. He could have gotten that from the back of the box and some observation.

I'll throw my hat in that ring also. I enjoyed Heavy Rain immensely. Almost all the gameplay is quick-time events, which I found a bit off putting at first, but they really managed to pull it off. There are some extremely intense scenes. I'd equate it to playing the movie Seven, where the decisions you make alter the course of the narrative. Really a well made game.