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You know you use the computer too much when you see something in real life that's absolutely stunning, shocking, unusual, or just plain awesome, and your very first reaction is to take a screenshot of it.
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Wow, I think those are the worst NesVideoAgent screenshots I've seen yet. (Except for #7, that one might work.)
I watched this, so I figured I'd drop by and vote yes. I couldn't quite tell where the improvements were aside from the screen transitions while Metroids die, but it was still fun to watch the whole way through.
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Found Kraid's HP: 040B. He apparently starts out with 96 HP. (60 in hex). My movie gets his HP down to 44 (2C in hex) before he fires the missile that kills me.
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Here's what I think is happening: Kraid's stomach missiles will block your shots, but you can get some shots in on him between the missiles while falling for the first time. Those will freeze Kraid, and while he's frozen, his missiles actually become vulnerable to be stunned. If they are stunned, Kraid will walk forward and leave his missiles behind, allowing you to shoot and damage him. If you keep Kraid stunned, the missiles will stay stunned.
Unfortunately, even though I thought I was stunning him constantly, he threw a missile at me and I died. There's got to be some way around that.
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Dragon Warrior 3 completed quickly by using a bizarre glitch that allows the author to fill his inventory with useful items, manipulate is stats, and even add places to his return list! This allows most of the game to be skipped.
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Dacicus wrote:
I judge linearity by how much freedom the player has in completing the main adventure. Side quests are not essential to beating the game, so I ignore them in that respect.
Remember that some sidequests contribute to the main adventure. For example, in Metroid, sidequests can lead to finding energy tanks and missile expansions that make later portions of the game significantly less difficult. Heart containers and certain weapons from Zelda are similar (and in some cases, these expansions can be considered essential to beating the game since avoiding them all would make the later areas crazy insane difficult)
I think a sidequest is only truly a sidequest when the result is just some pointless collectible item that doesn't make the main adventure any easier or harder for you, it's only added in to increase the gameplay length.
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I found this text document on my hard drive recently. It was part of a post that I was going to post to some forum, but I don't remember posting it. I find it kind of interesting...
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“Linearity” has become quite a buzzword in modern gaming, at least from where I stand (having spent a few years with a Metroid community, that is.)
Nonlinearity means you are not always told what to do, forced down a fixed path.
…Or does it?
Everyone always cites Super Metroid as the model nonlinear game, but save for the unintentional sequence breaks and glitches, it was quite linear. You couldn’t go to Brinstar without the bombs, you couldn’t go to the wrecked ship without the grapple beam, you couldn’t go to Norfair without the Varia suit, you couldn’t go to Maridia without the power bomb, and you couldn’t go to Ridley without the space jump. You couldn’t just go wherever you wanted, you had to complete the game in a fixed order. Straying from the path and going your own way only rewarded you with a missile expansion or energy tank, but you’d eventually have to go back.
When I think of a nonlinear game, I think of the original Zelda. You had to complete all 8 dungeons, but you could do them in almost any order you wanted. You could do level 2 first, then jump to level 3, then come back for level 1. Then you could go right to level 6 and come back for level 4. The choice is yours. All you need to worry about is what you are capable of with the weapons, items, and hit points you have! In fact, if you’re playing the game for the first time, you’re going to venture into any dungeon you run across regardless of order and crawl them as far as you can go. A few of the bosses in the dungeons required weapons from the other dungeons to kill, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t hop inside and grab the dungeon’s item from the treasure room while you were there.
Another example is the Mega Man series. You’re presented with 8 levels with boss robots at the end, each holding weapons which make all the other levels easier. The path is yours to choose. Sometimes a weapon will be required on another stage, but this is usually the exception to the rule – numerous different paths are possible.
Unfortunately, true nonlinearity is something that is completely vanishing from videogames today. Never again will you see a Zelda that will let you do a single dungeon out of order. Game designers want all potential gamers to be capable of completing their games, so they hold their hand lest the dreaded “where the hell do I go now” disease strikes them.
---
So, what do you think? Do your definitions of linearity and nonlinearity match with mine? What games do you think are model nonlinear games?
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BoltR wrote:
Load up Widget, get through the title screen and intro. Hit left+right. Crash time ~4 seconds. Yawn.
Fun fact: Widget doesn't actually crash when this happens. Hold down fastforward long enough and the game will eventually continue as normal when the invalid hurt sequence is finished.
Edit: I've got an obscure one. Back when I played Action52 for the first time, I tried to beat The Cheetahmen and I found a "Level 10" glitch. You could fall down a certain pit in level 5 that would take you to a warp zone with a 1-up, but exiting that warp zone would take you to... a glitched world that would lock up the game if you went too far.
Well, that entire cartridge was just one big glitch anyway.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/116880226/TEH_CHEETAHMEN.fcm
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FODA wrote:
Xkeeper wrote:
One thing I always hated about Picross is the additon of "errors".
Add me to that group too, this is very annoying. In Brain Age's sudoku mode you can make as many mistakes as you want, and then you have to fix them yourself, but it doesn't tell you that you've made a mistake. You're on your own. I hate not being able to turn that hint off on picross ds... Yes, it's a hint.
You do know, don't you, that the harder half of the game is "Free mode" which doesn't tell you when you make a mistake and expects you to figure it all out yourself?
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Just a silly off-topic poll:
Which do you like better, a forum system that forever archives all your old posts for future reference, such as this one, or one that regularly deletes posts that haven't been active for X days?
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This makes sense, looks legit, and has the code to back it up. Now you just have to search the rest of the code to find the line that modifies that value.
It makes perfect sense that an arwing enemy would only pop out of a trap chest.
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I was playing SMB2 on the Wii this morning, and I encountered a very strange glitch. When I entered Mouser's room, I was holding a gray snift for no apparent reason. I was playing as Mario, and I didn't do anything unusual like the hold-2-items trick. I tried it on an emu this morning, but I can't seem to reproduce it. I imagine if this were to be reproduced, it would save some time in a full run.
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Besides games I have played, I watch anything that particularly grabs my attention.
When voting on games that are more obscure, I focus on the technicality judgment before the entertainment judgment. If I didn't play the game, and it appears there are no mistakes in the movie, and there is (however much) positive feedback from other people, then I'll vote yes, regardless of whether or not the movie struck me as "totally amazing".
If I see a mistake in a movie, I might try it for myself. If I do, and I find I can gain time, then I will vote no. This is what I did with the Widget movie.
If the movie struck me as really boring, and already got some negative feedback, I will vote no or meh.
(Hopefully that answers the main question of the thread)