[:plant:] The GFF Game Club [Now Playing: Max Payne] Now with less spoiler tags

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The Current Game Club Game: Max Payne
Last day of play: Friday 30th April 2010
Ways to obtain the game: Can pick up second hand on consoles (Xbox or PS2) or purchase from Steam for PC owners: Max Payne on Steam.

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The GFF Game Club is an event series that will run a bit like a book club, but for games. Essentially we will pick a game to play, set an amount of time for people to play the game.

The idea is to encourage people to visit, or revisit, games that aren't necessarily brand new (though new-ish titles aren't entirely out of the question) and also get people playing stuff at the same time, sharing their experiences. We'll be focussing on mostly single-player experiences, so no multiplayer games, and perhaps even including some smaller titles like Flash games or small download indie affairs.

How to join The GFF Game Club

If you would like to join in with, or just register interest in possibly taking part with, The GFF Game Club idea then please post to say so.

To help the process of picking games it would be very useful if members kept an up-to-date Backloggery page: Backloggery is a free service that lets you keep track of the games you own and their status (unfinished, beaten, etc). If you have a page please link to it when registering your interest. This is not a requirement, but is very useful for organising purposes.

What are members required to do?

Essentially, nothing. There are no requirements on anyone who chooses to take part. No one will be required to play the games we suggest, and you can choose which games you would like to play along as part of The GFF Game Club on a case by case basis.

There will also be no requirement to finish games. If you can't finish or choose not to finish then that is a legitimate course of action, though we would still encourage you to join in the discussion as the reasons you didn't/chose not to finish could make for interesting talking points themselves.

The Organisers

There's a small group of us who will be organising the club and who will be the ones deciding on the games (and duration set for their playing) to be played each time. Suggestions and nominations are welcomed from any member of the club, but we'll be weighing those up with various factors, like how many people actually have the games, etc.

The organisers are: Colonel Skills, Qwarky, Philia and myself.

Members
- ^-^ [ backloggery ]
- aerisangel [ backloggery ]
- Appetite Lad [ backloggery ]
- Chaotic [ backloggery ]
- Colonel Skills [ backloggery ]
- Denicalis [ backloggery ]
- Encephalon [ backloggery ]
- Dr. Uzuki [ backloggery ]
- Garr [ backloggery ]
- GB [ backloggery ]
- Gechmir
- Iago [ backloggery ]
- Krelian [ backloggery ]
- OmagnusPrime [ backloggery ]
- Philia [ backloggery ]
- Qwarky [ backloggery ]
- RacinReaver
- Rockgamer [ backloggery ]
- Shin [ backloggery ]
- Skexis [ backloggery ]
- Soluzar [ backloggery ]
- Sousuke [ backloggery ]
- Tokubetsu [ backloggery ]
- Tritoch [ backloggery ]
- Turbo [ backloggery ]
- VitaminZinc [ backloggery ]
- wvlfpvp
- Yeldarb [ backloggery ]

Note: If you're not a member, and have no interest in being a member, please don't post in this thread. Please be courteous, this thread will be heavily moderated.

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Previous Games Played:
- ICO [finished: 07/01/2010]
- Beyond Good and Evil [finished: 28/02/2010]
- Ikaruga [finished: 28/03/2010]

How ya doing, buddy?

Well it's not signing up for just a game, though you're welcome to play just this one game and no others, it's more signing up to say you're interested in potentially taking part along the way. But yeah, definitely cool if you're going to join in with the first game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I've update the top post with the members so far. Remember, if you have a backloggery (or are willing to sign up), or have some other form of games list somewhere that'd be really useful.

Originally Posted by Iago

This gives me a good excuse to update my backloggery. I'm in.

What's your backloggery username (not sure if I know it or not, and so I can link in the top post)?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Qwarky

I'm also not in favor of setting checkpoints or requirements. We've all seen how badly most GFF members fare with schedules (GFF journal, Secret Santa, CD swap, etc), so we've set a single date by which we will begin discussion. It's up to everyone to decide how they'll play or if indeed they'll have time, putting less pressure (I feel) on the player, and making the experience more about them playing and enjoying the game, as opposed to keeping an eye on strict rules and requirements on process. If the final date comes and you haven't finished the game, you can discuss what you experience till then, and, if you plan on finishing, avoiding the discussion altogether since spoiler tags won't be used.

Qwarky has very much captured how I feel about the situation too. I really don't want to be holding people to meticulous schedules that dictate how they should be progressing through a game.

However, if you would like to post thoughts and discussion before the end date for a game please put it in spoiler tags.

As for the issue of multiple threads and sub-forums, for now I don't think we need to have more than this thread, but if need be we can always split threads out; we can see how things play out for the time being though.

How ya doing, buddy?

OK, I've updated the first post with those new people who've said they'd like to join in, so that should all be up-to-date. And, provided I stop being a lazy bum, I'm going to actually try starting ICO today.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Finished the game yesterday, jJust thought I'd offer up a few observations and a couple of responses to Shin's comments.

Spoiler:

I've clearly been spoilt by this generations hi-def nature because firing up this game was incredibly jarring at first and it took a little while for my eyes to get used to the pixelated nature of everything (especially the text). However, I'm glad I stuck with it, because once my eyes got used to it and the thing got in motion I was able to appreciate the beauty of the game, a lot of which is in the excellent animation work. I'm really impressed with how stunning a creation Yorda is.

Shin, having read your comments after I'd finished my run through I'm a little surprised by some of your comments.

I didn't find combat at all frustrating, in fact I rather enjoyed on the whole. I enjoyed the game of baiting the shadow monsters in and them trying to drag me away from Yorda. It was fun, and I thought it showed a nice bit of AI that didn't just stand there and let me club them. As for getting knocked down, I found that if you sort of move the stick rapidly and hit the buttons that Ico got up a lot, lot quicker. Plus I actually found Yorda did run from the shadow monsters a little. Not masses, but she wouldn't necessarily just stand there. Plus if you grabbed her you could make a decent dash for it. I don't know, just for my money I didn't encounter any of the issues you're talking about with the combat/fighting element.

I'm a little confused about which windmill jump you're talking about. I assume the one you guys mean is the one where you've got to jump onto the windmill arms, in which case I found the camera lined itself up for me perfectly. I actually thought the camerawork was, on the whole, excellent.

There were only a couple of minor frustrations I found throughout the entire game and they were both based in a couple of tricky jumps you had to make that both came quite close together. The first one the piston jump, which seemed to have really odd timing on it and I ended up having to press jump much earlier than I would have thought. The other was a waterwheel bit that was right after that and that was the most annoying bit of the game. The timing on the jump to the wheel, climbing up and then aiming yourself and jumping onto the bar was killer and was made really frustrating by how often Ico would just bounce off the wheel rather than grab on. But for two sticky points in the whole game, I'll let it off.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Soluzar

I thought we were going to choose based on what was already in the backlog of a decent number of members. Incidentally, I didn't realise we were supposed to have already started discussing Ico, I thought we were going to wait until the closing date before that started. Not like I mind, having played it already, though.

The intention is to use the backloggery listings to help inform what would make for sensible choices, but it's not always going to be limited to what game most people have.

As for the discussion, there's nothing stopping it just yet (though as I've said, before the end date it should be spoiler-tagged), though I would imagine just naturally things will kick off more at the end date. I think we just have to see how it goes and how it all works, but so far it all seems OK, and I highly doubt "the best discussion" will be gone or anything.

Originally Posted by Shin

I know we got started on this early and the period doesn't end for a while but does anyone have any thoughts on what the next game should be? I'd vote for something a bit more exciting, how about Crackdown?

We've not really discussed this yet beyond some random ideas early on when we were organising this all (amusingly one my random suggestions to Skills was Crackdown).

FELIPE NO

OK, so we're not far off a week away from the deadline; how's everyone getting on with the game? Has anyone started and not finished yet?

Also, how are people feeling about the amount of time we left for the game?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

About time you finished Bayonetta (awesome game that it is).

Also, if anyone has any suggestions they'd like us to consider for the next game I guess it wouldn't hurt to start voicing them now.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

I can get Ico played by tomorrow without any problem.

You've gotten until the following Sunday, so no need to rush particularly.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

OK, so here we are at the last day, so how did everyone get on? Who decided to give ICO a go and where did you get to? Did anyone not finish?

Since the discussion is now open there's no further need for spoiler tags when talking about ICO.

If you haven't already I'd recommend jumping back a few posts and taking a look at Soluzar and Shin's interesting posts about the game's general premise. I think Shin is definitely onto something with his point about the fact that a lot of it is open to interpretation. I'm certainly interested to see what other people made of it.

As for the game's mechanics, I didn't find the combat a problem at all. It wasn't as fun as the exploration of the castle and puzzle solving aspect, but I had no real issue with it. The aspect of the game that took the most getting used to for me was actually firing up a PS2 game on my big HDTV. It took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the rather pixelated nature of everything. At first I wasn't sure I was going to be able to deal with it, but I'm glad I stuck with it because once my eyes adjusted I could appreciate how beautiful a game it is really, especially the animation. In fact I'd argue that the animation in ICO could best a lot of current-gen games as it's the subtleties in the animation that really sells the relationship between Ico and Yorda.

Q might not like me making this comparison, but I actually felt reminded of Uncharted when playing through some of the climbing sections as much like Naughty Dog's game I found they had that same sense of someone pushing the limits of their capabilities when clambering about, it never felt like it was particularly easy, which I think sells the engagement with environment and makes for a more relatable character.

As something of a side-note we're now in the process of deciding upon the next game, so if you have any suggestions feel free to voice them now.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by GB

Feh. There's no physical copies of Beyond Good & Evil within 30 miles of where I live, and I don't like downloading games when I can own the disc.

Have you tried looking on Amazon (or any similar site that might be used for second hand sales)? I ordered a copy this very evening for a princely sum of £5 through Amazon, which is none too bad, and avoids the need of finding a copy in my local area (which would probably be near impossible).

Definitely good to see a few people already up for playing the next game, that's ace. Don't forget though, there's still open discussion on ICO right now, especially now that the spoiler tags can be ditched.

Gech: Will add you to the list on the front page. Pretty sure you don't, but do you have a backloggery page at all?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by GB

I thought about it, but by the time I would receive my copy, the play period would be halfway over.

I've found that delivery on services like Amazon's second hand stuff is incredibly quick. It shouldn't take more than a week really and that still gives you a couple of weeks to tackle a short-ish game (which is why we brought the deadline forward somewhat). Even if you didn't finish it in the time we've set it doesn't mean you have to give up on it. If you really don't fancy waiting, whilst you'd prefer a physical copy, the Steam copy really is very cheap.

Originally Posted by Philia

ICO: Alright guys, WHO GOT THE MACE?

Seriously, who actually got it without looking it up for it? I would had ran past that room without looking closely. Ditto for that unsuspecting TREE. o.o'

I got the mace without looking it up. I'd seen a comment somewhere about the fact that there was at least one miss-able area and so I had an eye out, which led to spotting the odd bit of wall in that room. I quickly got that you could pull on it, but it took me a little bit to realise it twisted. Once I'd done that I got in there, set the platform off and found the cup. It was a while before I found the ball and I only did so because I'd got to the point where I was basically hitting and grabbing everything in an attempt to see if anything happened (to my surprise hitting a random tree caused a ball to fall). I sort of twigged the ball in the cup thing and I think it only took me 3 attempts after that and then ta-da a mace.

Q: What's this watermelon ending you speak of?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Tritoch

That would only leave a week and a half until February 28th. Why did you guys set such a small amount of time aside for this one? It's around half the time set aside for Ico, which is notoriously short.

When there's a 'you have to wait as long as it takes for your Internet connection to download you a game' option, i.e. an insta-obtain option, I don't really think you can bitch at us for not taking into account the fact that you might want to ship in some copy. I've never owned or played this game and given I'm on Mac and therefore lack Steam support I'm purchasing a copy myself. If it leaves me not as much time as I might have if I had a copy in my hands right now, so be it, I don't see 2 weeks to complete what I've been told is an 8-10 hour game as that bad. We left ages for ICO because this idea was just getting off the ground, we didn't know what the right amount of padding was to give people, we didn't know how the discussion aspect would fare; now we have some idea of that stuff and so we've set what we consider to be a reasonable amount of time.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

More the merrier Ence, I'll get you added to the list on the front.

How ya doing, buddy?

I just finished this up, though I'll save thoughts for tomorrow since that's when we lift the spoiler requirement.

Since this game's time is very nearly at an end we'll be starting to think about the next game, so anyone have any suggestions they'd like to throw into the ring? If so, speak now.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Actually Sousuke the discussion is now open, no need for spoiler tags any more. I'll put my thoughts together into some sort of coherent block and post them a bit later (a bit wrapped up in Heavy Rain right now), but feel free to go ahead and start discussing the game.

How did people get on? Did anyone start and not finish it? Anyone consider starting and not bother?

Again, how do people feel about the amount of time we left? Any thoughts or input so we can keep refining the process much appreciated. And as ever feel free to lob some suggestions our way, though ideas for shorter titles definitely appreciated this time around as March is looking pretty crazy on the release front.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm going to address the time issue first up since there's been some comments on that, and whilst I'm willing to say a week more wouldn't have hurt I'm not convinced it would really be that necessary. I had to buy this game and wait for it to arrive, which took about a week, and I've had a crazy busy month so as it turned out I didn't get to start the game until Friday, but I still managed to complete it (without any sort of rushing) before Sunday. Essentially I think for the length of game we left a reasonable amount of time, but this time people just didn't get into I guess.

For my money though I was really impressed by this game, more so than I thought I would be. I didn't really know much about the game up front beyond the fact I'd see the two main characters before and I knew a camera was involved somehow. I really didn't mind the whole anthropomorphic animal thing and actually thought it added to the character of the world in a kind of funky way. I actually thought the character design (for Jade and Pey'J mainly I suppose) was pretty strong.

One thing it's easy to forget when revisiting games like this is that these are now a good few years old, and I believe Beyond Good and Evil was released in 2003, so it's 7 years old now. I've done the whole revisiting games I liked after a few years (less than 7) before and had some nasty shocks when I've found games that I used to love seemed terrible. In that light Beyond Good and Evil holds up really well and despite some small issues I was thoroughly entertained throughout. Personally I really enjoyed the stealth mechanics, though the combat was a bit loose and unfocussed. I didn't find the AI got in the way too much, and the smash move was pretty useful on the whole (and HH could take the DomZ guards out really easily with his head ram move). They could have been more useful, but I didn't find them a nuisance.

The one thing that did bug me was the camera (not the gameplay mechanic camera) which could be really unhelpful at times, and trying to get it to show you the next bit where you need to be looking could be a real struggle at time. I certainly suffered a few deaths from trying to position myself to move the camera and just sneaking out enough into the sights of a guard.

So overall I really enjoyed playing through the game. I'll definitely agree with the comment that the ending comes a bit suddenly and without much explanation (in fact the story on the whole could have done with more fleshing out), but I definitely had a lot of fun with my time with the game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Philia

SO. WHO GOT ALL OF THE ANIMALS (in photos)?

How about that WHALE in the ice that you can destroy?

Can't say I got all the animals at all, but I got a fairly decent chunk of them that's for sure. I did end up being fairly focused on the story so didn't explore as much as I could have. But what's that about a whale in ice? o_O

Also, as Skills has wonderfully pointed out the next game is up. Hopefully a number of you will join in over the course of the month as you don't have to do anything but sample the game (you could perhaps cheat a little and play the trial on XBLA to get a taster if you're not willing to purchase).

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by GB

...And this will be the third game in a row that I will not be playing.

Why not? What's stopping you this time?

Also, as has been said a number of times, feel free to throw suggestions our way if there's something you'd like to recommend for next time.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Lady STD KILLA

Looking forward to a month when all my several fantastic suggestions aren't completely ignored.

Your suggestions haven't been ignored, Philia mentioned a couple of games you'd said (one of which being my very own suggestion too), but they just weren't what we decided to go with this time. We've got plenty of days ahead of us and all sorts of suggestions to take into consideration. Ping me an email with which games you want included for discussion next time and I'll guarantee it happens.

Ikaruga happens to be one of the games that was floating around since I kick-started this idea and since March is such a busy month we figured it made a suitably choice in something people could either mess with for 30 minutes or spend 30 days trying to master. I appreciate that the whole one game at a time thing means people don't get their wish in a speedy fashion, but I must say I'd be somewhat disappointed if you started a competing thread because of that (at the end of the day there's nothing to stop you playing the games you want to anyway).

However, if you really think I'm running this in a terrible way then fair enough, let me know and I'll see what I can do to change that.

Edit: Apparently I was too late and Shin has already created his own thread.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm not saying your thread is competing Shin, you are chasing something different (high scores), this much is obvious. However I didn't know what your idea was when I posted that, I just figured you might make a similar thread with different game picks, hence the comment.

Anyways, I have no problem with discussion whilst the game is in play and for Ikaruga I'd argue it doesn't really need to be spoiler tagged either, but obviously the problem with discussion during play is that it might spoil it for people who are a bit behind the pack. Hence we merely ask people discussing it during the time use spoiler tags. I can't control how people do and don't post, and I'm certainly not stopping anyone. If people want to try having a few months of purely open discussion with no spoiler tags I'm game.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Lady STD KILLA

I really was only joking with that earlier post, I know my taste in games is somewhat divergent from yours, Skills' and Q's so I never expected many things I own to pop up in this thread.

But that's where you're wrong. It's not about the organiser's tastes, I'm using this as an exercise to push me towards things I wouldn't normally consider too (like Ikaruga). You had two suggestions on my shortlist this time round (Crackdown, which I also suggested way back, and Super Monkey Ball - I merely voted Ikaruga because I've not played that yet). Tell you what Shin, how about you join the dark side and get involved with us on the organisational group. If your voice is so different to ours then it will only serve to mix things up and then you can take part in keeping the discussion going (and yes I have bloody well posted after every game and tried to stimulate some sort of response, but I literally can not force people to reply to me).

FELIPE NO

We're actually trying to pick games we think everyone will find interesting, and that the maximum number of people who have signed up might have or have access to (or are able to get access to), what kind of game we think people have time for, something that varies up the style to the last pick somewhat, and other stuff besides. I agree that the picks thus far might not look that way, but that's very much how we've gone about doing it, and I can post the arse-long list of games that's been up for consideration and debated about over the last few choices. If people would like to know the process we've gone through (and read our inane chatter) to make the picks we've had so far I can make that available, I just didn't think anyone would care.

Fair enough if you're too busy, but I think you'd be an interesting contributor to the process (and someone who would do their part), which is why I suggested it. I don't think someone pushing for Too Human or Killer Instant would be a bad thing at all. In fact Too Human is a decent suggestion (though for a quieter month) and if people took to heart the idea that part of this is about exploring games you might not otherwise look at (you know, like how a book club works) you might even get a whole bunch of people playing the game. Hell it's cheap enough these days that I'd definitely consider it, and so far I've had to buy two out of three of the picks.

Just so we're clear I really have nothing against you Shin, I do appreciate your feedback and it is precisely what I asked for, the only thing that irked me was the (not obviously a joke to me, though perhaps you just picked a really bad day for this, but that's a whole other story) swipe at the thread and Philia in your new thread. Though I am now aware that it was in jest so fair enough, no harm done.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

OK guys, so since we're now getting close to the final day for the current Game Club game, who's been playing? If so, anyone want to share their thoughts so far?

And more importantly, anyone have suggestions for the next game? I'm thinking it should be a small-ish game again because April is another crazy month, but I'm willing to take all suggestions on board. So, hit us with your thoughts.

Jam it back in, in the dark.