Settings You Like/Dislike

[Presence]

Septerra Core's setting is really quite good. The world shells all have strong theming and they do a good job with the mood. It's a shame beating the game is a grueling chore that results in a crap ending. Ross thinks he hates turn based combat. Play Septerra Core, and then you will know what it is to hate turn based combat.

 

Avernum: Escape from the Pit's setting is somewhat interpretive since the graphics are incredibly basic. So some people might not count it as being a good setting. For me it was a real leviathan of a game to sink my teeth into, and it had all kinds of different areas to visit. I think it took me about 80 hours to 100% it. Admittedly it took longer since I was on the highest difficulty for the achievement. Plus I took an extra hour to kill every living person in the bandit town.

 

Brutal Legend...I'm surprised no one's mentioned it. It's a flawed but good game and it really is like a journey through a bunch of 70's album covers.

[Selfsurprise]

hate:

fantasy medieval. I mean entire genre is basically one huge "medieval setting looks cool. Lets add some magic in it". And i just hate magic. Again, few exceptions, but mostly magic just doesnt make sense, just lazy writing. I know some of you are like "but magic isnt supposed to make sense"- well, thats exactly the part i hate. I mean it just is very lazy writing imo when writers throw in magic, as this is the sign that they cant be arsed to write even passable way of it fitting in & defining its limits.

Not to mention it still has majority of medieval setting games in it. And that is bad. Though to be fair, luckily there are more non-magic medieval games coming in.

I'm all for "traditional" Tolkienesque fantasy settings, but I'd like to think that they at least try to add some new paradigm or novel interpretation of the usual lineup of orcs, elves, dragons, etc. I think one of the more problematic aspects of fantasy is it's rather narrow definitions of history and culture, often resulting in some indefensible depictions of race and nationality that they invariably imitate. I think Dungeons & Dragons always appealed to me was that, despite the seemingly generic cast of usual suspects (in terms of races, places, tropes, etc) there was a rather broad potential for the material offered. For me, one of the most successful fantasy settings that clearly owes much of its elements to Eurocentric fantasy is the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

 

The world he presents is one that is both a loving homage to and a gentle critique of fantasy literature, it's a strikingly English take on what in passing might seem like a inheritor of Tolkien's lineage (which was certainly as anglocentric as storytelling can get, but in a more romantic and patriotic context) with it's intelligent and sympathetic humour. The heros and villains of Discworld aren't the obvious candidates of older saga-stylized narratives, there aren't any obvious good and evil races. They manage to come across as eccentric but perfectly believable individuals, even if they are dwarves or trolls or vampires or whatnot. They seem to be driven by very personal and human appetites and aversions (to borrow Hobbesian terminology) and not by nebulous and abstract notions prevalent in most fantasy settings.

 

Also, Pratchett's interest in science meant that the Discworld itself ran on an impossible but wholly scepticism defying logic. I think his description of light being slow moving on the planet, gently flowing into day and receding at night across the surface of the world is a gorgeous détournement of our understanding of light, in context of physics I mean.The Discworld feels as though it ought to exist, despite its inherent unlikeliness and even despite anyone's idealism and taste for other worlds. I can't think of higher praise for a fictional place.

[longliveprose]

I like geometric, colourful futures that aren't bad or good, just kind of there. Like, will we really be either involved in a nuclear war or have found the cure for AIDS by 2050?

 

I don't like mediaeval fantasy, since it's been done a lot.

[BTGBullseye]

The only medieval fantasy setting, in a non-tabletop environment, that I would enjoy now (considering its level of overuse at this time) would be "Stronghold with more stuff". (like numerous unit/building upgrades, customizable units, etc.)

[Meelis13]

The only medieval fantasy setting, in a non-tabletop environment, that I would enjoy now (considering its level of overuse at this time) would be "Stronghold with more stuff". (like numerous unit/building upgrades, customizable units, etc.)

so.. Stronghold Legends then?

[BTGBullseye]

Haven't played it yet, but I know it's not even close to what I'm wanting... Think Civilization technology research for each unit and building type, and full customization of different aspects of each. (like choosing between chainmail and leather armor for your archers, or smooth vs rough facing on the walls, or metal plated doors vs normal wood vs oak vs solid metal, etc.) The customizations all have different properties, costs, research requirements, and produce different visuals on the units/buildings altered. (and the options include some uniques for each of the dozens of factions) I also like the way Starcraft 2 has the 'choose what major unit alteration you want' available that encompasses all of each unit type, and changes their base design to something else. (that would be a good addition, some customizations to the base unit design outside of combat, and a lot more that just upgrade the base design in combat)

 

I just plain want a true RTS that gives more than a few dozen options per faction. (the best I've seen is C&C Generals with mods, and that maxes out at 8/9 upgrades/abilities per building/unit unless you're menu-stacking, totals only around 120 upgrades when I got done modding it and that's considered really high by the RTS community)

[Selfsurprise]

The more I've played the new game and thought about the underlying premise, I actually really enjoy the Doom-verse. It's an insane game franchise but I honestly think that if humanity had access to the howling pits of hell itself we probably would exploit it for our own commercial ends, UAC style. I feel like the human race (or to be more fair and not tar everyone with the same brush, the western European model of social engineering) are basically Ferengi at this point.

[longliveprose]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion. I can name one: CoD Black Ops.

[rairii]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion. I can name one: CoD Black Ops.

battlefield vietnam/BFBC2 vietnam

[longliveprose]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion. I can name one: CoD Black Ops.

battlefield vietnam/BFBC2 vietnam

That's still only what, 2? There's also GTA London 1969 and BioShock 2, but that only brings the list up to 4! Meanwhile there are hundreds and hundreds of games set in the 2010s and 20s.

[Meelis13]

Mafia 3 as well, but i agree with your point

[BTGBullseye]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion. I can name one: CoD Black Ops.

Team Fortress 2 is listed as being set in the 70's according to Wikipedia...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_set_in_the_1960s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_set_in_the_1970s

[longliveprose]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion. I can name one: CoD Black Ops.

Team Fortress 2 is listed as being set in the 70's according to Wikipedia...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_set_in_the_1960s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_set_in_the_1970s

That brings the official count to what, 6?

[BidetoftheDead]

Sports

 

Screw sports

[Selfsurprise]

Sports

 

Screw sports

Sports: The Setting!

 

Does fantasy football (ala BloodBowl) count? Other than that minor quibble, screw sports indeed.

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion.

Well, I can give you a game set in the early 1950's! It also has a cool setting I like: Historical wars that have been mostly forgotten.

The game is called 7554 and is set during the First Indochina War. You play as a Vietnamese soldier fighting the French (07.05.1954 was the date of the last major battle, which explains the weird name).

So that's another thing that you sadly don't see in a lot of games: A major western country as the enemy. Sometimes I just get tired of fighting the filthy communists, what if I want to fight against the capitalist oppressors for once?

[Selfsurprise]

Not enough games are set in the late 1960s in my opinion.

Well, I can give you a game set in the early 1950's! It also has a cool setting I like: Historical wars that have been mostly forgotten.

The game is called 7554 and is set during the First Indochina War. You play as a Vietnamese soldier fighting the French (07.05.1954 was the date of the last major battle, which explains the weird name).

So that's another thing that you sadly don't see in a lot of games: A major western country as the enemy. Sometimes I just get tired of fighting the filthy communists, what if I want to fight against the capitalist oppressors for once?

The closest thing I can think of are all those slightly dodgy game replacer mods for Half-Life made by Russians, the kind A Jolly Wanker tends to feature on his channel.

[Heliocentrical]

Stronghold Legends

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little from hearing that game's name. Seriously, why is it so hard for Firefly to understand the concepts behind their own fucking games? Ever since Stronghold 2 they've been completely out of touch with what made the Stronghold series good. Stronghold 1 and crusader were RTSes where the resource management felt important; It had layers upon layers of how everything worked together and no other RTS series had ever done that. In RTSes like Starcraft 2 resource management takes a backseat, is a chore and overall it's fucking boring.

[Meelis13]

i agree with you there. SH2 was last good SH (though SH crusaders 2 is also pretty decent), even though even that has fair share of problems. I really dont dig population limit

[Selfsurprise]

Having had a nice long conversation about the pros and cons of the Resident Evil franchise with an acquaintance today, I do like the particular "real world" setting-niche it occupies. The series isn't exactly above standard 90's corniness in regards to the cast and narrative, but there is something immeasurably cool about an alternative world where biological warfare has advanced to a state that the world's corporate power groups have nefarious paradigm-shifting agendas and the capacity to engineer horrific and unnatural monsters as weaponry.