The depiction of Hogwarts never was so realistic as in Hogwarts Legacy. The overworld and the whole castle looks awesome and believable and is a wonderful combination of depictions in the book and the movies. It's really great to finally have a video game that brings this world to life like that. But with the evolution of graphics and the demand to make everything look and feel realistic, problems arise that are not as problematic in simpler and more illustrative video games.

It seems so incredibly strange to me that a game in which you play a 15 year old student has greater adventures and more brutal adventures than most adults while single handenly masterting the everyday school life. You're supposed to be a child but even in the intro you see someone chewed on by a dragon and noone is fased by it at all. Then a attack on Hogsmeade by trolls which came straight outta Warcraft 3 and you just fight to win even though all the people around you run for their life. It gets even worse when there is a cutscene which reveals that the troll attack was all about you and you're supposed to be kidnapped by some evil people. What's the next step? Drinking a butter beer I guess?

Even away from the main plot, there are similar problems all the time. Such incredibly strong dissonances everywhere that I don't know why people ignore them so hard. For example, you're supposed to be a good person, but the next moment you're killing animals and people in cold blood. You smash them around, set them on fire, freeze them to death and even later you have the ability to use the unforgivable curses. And a lot of rewards are locked away and random homes of others people in which you break in and rob them. I don't understand why they make it this way. It would make more sense if you're a professor instead of a child but even then the things you do seem wayy to vast. Bigger than any adventure seen in any previous book or movie.

Why does the game try to so hard to be the next Skyrim or something? Why doesn't it concentrate more on the lessons, puzzles, everyday life (dialoge with other students and professors), stealth, defensive options, exploration on the school ground and basically a lot of stuff that is already in but is sidecontent instead? It doesn't really work the way it is and that's a real bummer. If it would be very different if it was a SNES game from 1994 but that's not the case. I still enjoy my overall experience because a lot of good things are in place but I really really need to be blindfolded sometimes. The game is so stupid in so many ways.

Has anyone also had similar experiences and can't get past this dissonance?

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Posted by18 minutes ago

I have to praise The Last of Us Part 1 for it's difficulty settings

So like many others, I picked up TLoU Part 1 after watching the show.

I've had remastered for a while that I've probably started over like 3 or 4 times, always quitting at around the end of the Boston point. So early on.

The problem is, I'm just not into these kinds of games. I despise stealth. I despise shooting controls on consoles (mainly a PC player). I'm a giant baby when it comes to horror.

But alas, the show got me hooked on the story. So I decided to commit to beating the game (mostly because my girlfriend wanted to watch). I'm not adverse to difficult games. Beat Bloodborne, beat Elden Ring. I don't mind a challenge. But for the sake of getting through the story, I decided to play this on the easiest settings.

First of all, the sheer amount of difficulty customizations you can do is amazing. Just want to make stealth easier while combat is still a challenge? You can do it! Just want to make your melee weapon never break? Go for it!

But even playing everything on the easiest setting as I did, one of the most amazing things was how tense the game still was. I still found myself being extra cautious. I wanted to avoid combat as much as possible, or at least take out people quitely. My heart rate was still raised, even though there wasn't much at stake. My palms still sweat. I was still scared. But most importantly, I was actually having fun playing a genre I typically hate!

There are many games where easy mode kind of takes away all the fun. That was not the case in TLoU, so this is yet another praise the developers should get on top of everything else.

Now on to Part 2 (on easy)!

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Posted by1 day ago

Riven: Immersion through Integrated Puzzle Design — a spoiler-free recommendation of the sequel to Myst

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Posted by2 hours ago

Gaming knowledge we take for granted: The art of the dodge roll.

Have you ever played a mainstream game to be confronted with the tutorial message: Use WASD to move. Use the mouse to look. Did you roll your eyes? I do. I sigh, and try to speed through the bare bones stuff. However, for some players this will be their first ever video game, that prompt to use WASD to move might be the first step on their journey with the hobby.

Some games assume a certain amount of competency from the player, with tutorials only for specific mechanics, not the basics like using WASD to move. So what happens when a game that assumes fundamental game knowledge is played by a player who doesn't have it?

Recently, I got to watch my partner try their hand at Tunic, a top-down souls-like zelda-like puzzle/exploration game that drew them in with its cute art style and resemblance to Zelda games, which they played when they were young.

For those that don't know, Tunic can be hard. The art style and similarity to kids' series might have you thinking it'll be a breeze, but the boss fights and some encounters are up there with Elden Ring levels of difficulty, taking skill, cheese, or time to beat. I spent more time fighting its final boss than I did any bosses in Elden Ring (possibly with the exception of Melania).

One of the things they struggled with the most was mastering use of the dodge roll to avoid attacks and take advantages of openings in enemy patterns to do damage. Taking time to watch, I realized why: they didn't understand how it worked fundamentally. They were almost exclusively dodging away from enemies, or spamming it when faced with dangerous attacks, or not using it when I thought it'd be a no brainer to dodge.

I wanted to take the time to lay out what a dodge roll accomplishes, partly to put to words something that so many of us might simply understand intuitively, and partly to provide a bit of advice to readers who otherwise don't dabble in games with souls-like combat.

The purpose of a dodge roll is not to get out of the way of an attack. It is to be invincible during an attack.

I-frames (invincibility frames) is something many games with dodges confer, from Dark Souls to Super Smash Brothers. During the I-frames of a dodge, you're immune to being attacked, whether or not it appears to hit your character onscreen. This is typically not something mentioned in a tutorial, or in any notes within a game's menus. Unfamiliar players may think the burst of speed from dodging is supposed to avoid attacks, when in reality it's a tool best used for positioning. The act of dodging makes you invulnerable for a short time, and the movement is for getting to where you need to be to do damage to your foe, not to get further away from them.

Unfortunately, I watched my partner face down a tough boss (the librarian, for any curious) and set the game down to "try it later" which I understand is code for "I'm never touching this game again, back to Stardew Valley with me".

What are some other things that we understand intuitively about new games we pick up, that games might assume you know? What things might a player new to the hobby not know without every being explicitly told?

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Posted by5 hours ago

Academic Survey

Research on esports vs gaming

Hello everyone,

I am doing a research on esports and gamers behaviour and would love your input.

Here's the survey https://tally.so/r/mYPGEq

As per the template, please find below info on the research

Research extract

Esports is a rapidly growing industry that has gained considerable traction in recent years. With millions of fans worldwide, the esports community has become a major player in the world of gaming and entertainment. However, despite its rapid rise in popularity, many people still wonder how esports compares to traditional sports and whether esports viewing is a solitary or communal activity.
To answer these questions, this research aims to investigate the esports community's viewing habits and preferences regarding specific titles. The study explores whether esports viewing is a communal or individual activity and how it compares to traditional sports viewing. The researcher also seeks to understand the factors that influence esports fans' interest in watching competitive gaming.
Esports tournaments are increasingly being broadcasted online, with large audiences tuning in to watch their favorite players and teams compete. Many esports fans not only play games themselves but also watch others play. Thus, the study aims to investigate whether esports viewing is a social activity, with fans watching games with friends or family, or whether it is more of an individual experience.
Esports fans are known for their loyalty to specific titles, with some games having a much larger esports following than others. By exploring which titles have more of an esports following versus a casual gaming audience, this research will provide valuable insights into the types of games that are best suited for competitive gaming.
To gather data, the study invites participants to complete an online survey that will ask questions about their viewing habits, their favorite games, and their opinions on esports as a whole. The survey will be distributed across various esports communities to ensure a diverse range of responses.