Topic: Team Microtransactions (MTX) PS3 Library Deliberation Thread

@ZeD (Team Captain)
@leucocyte @LieutenantFatman @Rudy_Manchego @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy @kyleforrester87

I made a new thread for us to post in so that our posts aren't mixing with those from other teams.

The current list of games:

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One Insomniac Games
Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault Insomniac Games
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus Insomniac Games
Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty Insomniac Games
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction Insomniac Games
Ratchet & Clank Collection Insomniac Games
Rayman Origins Ubisoft Montpellier
Rayman Legends Ubisoft Montpellier
Record of Agarest War Idea Factory
Record of Agarest War Zero Idea Factory
Record of Agarest War 2 Idea Factory
Red Dead Redemption Rockstar San Diego
Red Faction: Armageddon Volition
Red Faction: Guerrilla Volition
Remember Me Dontnod Entertainment
Resident Evil 5 Capcom
Resident Evil 6 Capcom
Resident Evil Chronicles HD Remaster Capcom
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Slant Six Games / Capcom

Well, first, let me clean something up. Atelier Rorona, Totori, and Meruru make up the Arland 'arc' of the Atelier series, respectively, so it makes no sense to consider that entry as its own thing. They're cute, pretty, but niche and somewhat inconsequential JRPGs. I think "Not Important" is an OK spot for them.

I've little-to-no experience with the other games on this list. I'll be doing some research.

The Good
Ok, let's squash the AC list down....
They all offer something to the table in ways of game play and story. But if we are going for most important from this list, I would say Assassin's Creed III. Apart from ACII, it was the biggest change in the formula. We were originally 'locked' to small cities with very little free roaming. AC3 mixed this up with more open environments using natural items to climb. To also introduced us to sailing ships which was a blast and improved upon in ACIV.
We could argue to that ACIV was a game changer too but for me that will always be a PS4 game.

Back to the Future
For me this was the last of the good 'legacy' games. It is in the same league as Strongbad & Sam & Max. It had an engaging story and a good selection of puzzles. This comes from the era where puzzle progressed the story other than the player progressing the story by performing basic tasks (Walking Dead etc).

The Unsure
Ape Escape
I remember this one. It is the move required one & it was not bad. It showed off what the Move Controllers could to in term of depth & positioning. Fun arcade like action but it did take my looking it to remember what it was. So as fun as it was, was it that important as we know what happened to the Move project.

Army of Two Series
I only played the first of this series & it was a good game. It was released when local co op was still quite popular. I am just unsure about the last 2 in the series. Did they improve on the last or changed too much?

The Bad
Angry Birds Star Wars & Angry Birds Trilogy
These were just the by product of the mobile success of the games. Try and get them on as many platforms as possible. Like Skyrim, but birds rather than dragons!

Avatar: The Game
Tie in movie game that was a generic 3rd person shooter. Far better examples of that genre out there.

Ok, good idea for a new thread to reduce confusion, I'll post a reminder of how we ought to file these games:

The whole purpose of this section is to put every retail PS3 games into one of five files. Very Important, Important, Existing, Not Important and Pointless. From there we can then place them in an order far more easily. There isn't any half way houses in between any of these fields so choose wisely!

Please weight your choices according to these metrics and in this order; Importance to gaming as of today, Technical achievement, Artistic Merit and Personal opinion.

So I posted my thoughts about the Armored Core games in the original thread, I would suggest that of the games on PS3, Verdict Day is probably the best of them. It had the most reliable online infrastucture, allowed players to join teams and face off against other teams, allowed the player to team up online and play all story missions in co-op and also allowed several players to team up and go against several super bosses. In the west these games aren't particularly popular but are far more popular in Japan and have a big following over there.

As Verdict Day was the last AC game made and had by far the best support in terms of online (and was the first AC game to do this well) I would personally put it in the important box. While the other entries I would put in the Existing box. I think the technical achievement of allowing players to create their own mech with thousands of possible combinations which can drastically change the way the game is played in all sort of different ways is well worth recognising. And as the AC series provides such a unique player experience, I feel it deserves recognition for this status.

of the list, i have only played: the first two army of two games (i didn't even know a third one existed!), all of the assassin's creed games except for rogue, and black flag i have on PS4, avatar the game, and back to the future. i know next to nothing about the rest of them, except anarchy reigns.

of the ones i've played:

for AC, it probably makes sense to think of Ezio's trilogy as one - though i didn't actually finish revelations, i got bored of it. for me, the first game seems more like a prototype in open world building, the game itself wasn't that great, and was superceded in importance, imo, by AC2 (or the Ezio trilogy if you like). ACIII is just a massively boring game, not a particularly interesting map, location, or setting imo. black flag is a pretty good game, though personally i wasn't too enamoured with the naval combat - i know that some people liked it and thought it mixed things up. i wouldn't personally rate it as important for PS3 - maybe for PS4 as a launch game.

i thought the second Army of Two game was much better than the first, though i see the metacritic score is the same for both. the second one made improvements to the first's systems and added a couple of improved co-op features like the aggro system. throughout the game there were pretty basic morality moments which affect the story of the game (steal weapons and leave somebody defenseless, rescue hostages or let them get killed, etc). certain types of cover could be penetrated by bullets, so you couldn't just hide behind, but needed to use co-op maneouvres. i played it solo, but as far as i can remember, you could direct the co-op moves.. somewhat like ghost recon (which was better to be fair). the dialogue is just plain awful in both games though. the second one at least is probably a solid 6-7/10, not sure i'd rate it as that important.

avatar was badly executed, which was a shame, as it had some interesting ideas. it had asymmetric gameplay, so you could choose to play as a human, or as a na'vi, so you got different weapons, skill sets, and environments. as a na'vi you had more primitive weapons like bows/cross-bows, and melee weapons, so you had to have a different combat style than the humans because ranged firing wasn't really an option. the skills were a linear progression rather than a tree that you could customise to your own play style, though it did have offensive, defensive and tactical skills. i can see its influence on games like defiance 2050, or even anthem, but i think most people remember it as it being mediocre due to its technical issues (framerate was all over the place), extremely repetitive gameplay loop, and clunky controls, so would have to put it on the not important pile.

for now, i'm going to rank:

Important: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Existing: Anarchy Reigns, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Back To The Future: The Telltale Game
Not Important: Army of Two, Assassin's Creed III, Assassin's Creed: Rogue, Avatar The Game

Edit: removed assassin's creed 2, as pointed out by @zed, it wasn't actually listed. d'oh.

@leucocyte Assassin's Creed 2 is not on the list

@ZeD - geez i didn't notice that - i just saw a wall of AC games and thought they were all there.

@leucocyte I looked at it three time to make sure I was not going mad

@leucocyte @ZeD Assassins Creed 2 is already listed as Very Important. You guys actually picked it in the Prolouge I think.

Very Important
Assassin's Creed III
The story may be bland but apart from AC2, it pushed the series forward.

Important
Assassin's Creed - first in series and we would not have the franchise without it
Assassin's Creed: Revelations - finished off the best part of the franchise
Back to the Future: The Game - see other post

Existing
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Assassin's Creed Rogue
Army of Two
Ape Escape

Not Important
Anarchy Reigns
Ashes Cricket 2009
Backbreaker

Pointless
Angry Birds Star Wars
Angry Birds Triology
Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard
Avatar: The Game

@themcnoisy I see. Those ones are already chosen.

@Ralizah Thanks a lot for creating this thread. It makes sense to discuss everything in our own thread.

This is what @themcnoisy has stated
1) Take your time no one is under any pressure. If this is too many games please let me know and after this section I can reduce them down.

2) Don't forget you have 3 team vetos and 2 thread wide vetos which can be used if you see a game unfairly marked down after the team captains have posted the final results. This is will maybe irk some people, please don't let it - we all have the same powers!

3) All teams try to have your results in by Sunday, if you can do it before that is absolutely fine as I need to update the database. Again no one is under any pressure to participate as long as we have results off the team captains or other designated vice captains in that team.

4) The whole purpose of this section is to put every retail PS3 games into one of five files. Very Important, Important, Existing, Not Important and Pointless. From there we can then place them in an order far more easily. There isn't any half way houses in between any of these fields so choose wisely!

5) Please weight your choices according to these metrics and in this order; Importance to gaming as of today, Technical achievement, Artistic Merit and Personal opinion. An example I would use here is a game I love called Videoball on PS4. Its not very important today, it had no real technical achievements, its artistic merit was average however a bit different to usual sports games and I rated it highly. That would slide into the Not Important bracket unfortunately, existing at an absolute push if my team felt the same way. I hope that clears it up (go buy Videoball).

6) Good luck, have fun and if we argue that's all good. Please no personal insults we are all big gamers who play a lot of games. We all have different tastes and hopefully this can encourage us to look back at some of the classics in a new light.

@Ralizah @BAMozzy @ZeD @leucocyte @LieutenantFatman @Rudy_Manchego

I see that some have already made a Start which is excellent. I think that EVERY game will start in the middle category - Existing and as a team, we will either move some up 1 or 2 groups (important or very important) or down 1 or 2 groups (not important, pointless).

We can discuss as group which category games can be moved up or down and ANY game we are unsure of collectively - even after researching will remain in the 'existing' group. If there are ANY disagreements - even after a discussion as to why it should be placed in a certain group, a mini vote will take place. If its split, then those that have actually played the game will be given extra points - if its still split, Captain will decide which group to place it in.

Lets remember we are a team and we all work together and everyone is equal, respected and heard.

@Ralizah can you edit the post so it looks like how @BAMozzy mentioned? Everything in the middle and as we talk, update the post moving them around?

Or even a Google Spreadsheet we can edit?

As you have all made a start and looking at the list that @ZeD has drawn up, the only one I would contest is Assassin's Creed 3. I certainly can't argue that it was a big departure, jumping forward in time and attempting something different. It was certainly more different than 2 was from the first BUT like 2 was to 1, I would say that 4 was to 3. 3 was a miss step, something that may have killed off the franchise. After 2 and the 2 spin-offs, Ubisoft needed to freshen things up but 3 wasn't 'generally' liked. 4 saved the franchise, for better or worse, it was the game that put Assassin's Creed back on the map, back on the gaming landscape and gave us the naval combat which was a big departure. Its the game that was also a launch title for PS4/XB1 which may not be a focus for us discussing PS3 but it was 'beautiful' in Full HD. If you ask anyone which AC game is the most important (discounting 2), 4 would be their choice.

I really do think that 4 saved the franchise again and is remembered more fondly than 3. You could argue I guess that 3 was too much of a departure after the last 4 games, that is potentially why people felt more negatively. It was still 4 though that showed Assassins Creed games outside of that Renaissance era could be successful - its also gone on to inspire 'Skull n Bones' too. AC3 may well be more in the mind as its about to release as a remaster but its also the last (excluding the very first) to be released on this generation - for a reason.

I do think that AC3 should be moved down to 'Important' and AC4 should be moved up to very important. Brotherhood too could be considered 'important' as it was the first of the Assassins Creed games to offer Multi-player. I know that MP has been subsequently dropped but I still think that was an important part of the franchise and gaming culture. We were seeing a LOT of Single Player games trying to put MP into their games at this time but few actually succeeded and offered something 'fresh' and 'new' - something that Brotherhood managed - maybe because it wasn't centred around the shooting mechanics that the majority of games were, couldn't convert that to the 'Call of Duty' type modes - whether 3rd Person Gears of War style or first person. Ubisoft had to be more creative where as Bioshock, Dead Space etc were poor MP's. I must admit, AC's MP wasn't my cup of tea, but I have to give Kudos where they were deserved - I know many of my friends enjoyed it.

Therefore I would say that ALL AC games should be Important but AC4 has to be the next most important after AC2. AC4 again saved the Franchise and spawned a new IP spin off (Skull n Bones) as well - naval combat has appeared in both Origins and more so in Odyssey too. You cannot deny that fans of the Franchise have been calling for Naval Combat ever since AC4. AC3 has, for years, been considered as one of the 'worst' in the franchise and whilst I certainly cannot argue that it changed the franchise, it also almost killed the franchise where as AC4 revived it and became the standard by which all subsequent AC games were compared to - at least until Origins came out.

In truth, I have only played the Assassins Creed (except Rogue) games out of this list and therefore can only speak of those from actual experience. Any others will be based purely on researching the games via sites like Metacritic and youtube.

@ZeD Done.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14uRdE72JtbW4N3dPmgzaf...

Here's the sheet. It should be set so that anyone with the link can edit it.

@BAMozzy Reading your comments on AC did take me back to the 1st time I loaded up AC4 (it was on PS4) and it did feel very fresh; a major upgrade on what Ubisoft were trying to do in 3. The size of the map and the interesting story really fleshed out the world being created.
I think my issue is that I have always seen it as a PS4 game, not PS3. But if I remove that, yes, I agree with your points.
Maybe I could argue it would not exist without 3, but I could say the same about the original game.

@Ralizah @BAMozzy @leucocyte @LieutenantFatman @Rudy_Manchego
What are your thoughts on the monster AC list? Once we sort them, it removes a large chunk

@ZeD As you have already started a clear list, If @Ralizah can use your format as the 1st post in this thread and update, change as necessary, rather than have multiple lists throughout that may get confusing, that would be easier. Post 1 page 1 will always have the most up to date list (if that's OK with @Ralizah - there 'job' in the team)

Any games missing from @ZeD list need to be added to the 'existing' list. Once that is done, we will discuss our next move. I am thinking that I will allocate games to us ALL from the Existing list to research. I am sure that those either above (important and very important) and below (not important and pointless) are there because someone has decided they belong there from experience and/or knowledge. That doesn't mean they are 'fixed' in that position - not until we have ALL agreed/voted etc - and/or at 'deadline' day and as 'Captain' has locked the positions. Up until deadline OR we have a majority agreement, the positions are NOT finalised.

I am thinking that I may allocate some games to each member of the team @Ralizah @ZeD @leucocyte @LieutenantFatman @Rudy_Manchego and myself to research - those being the games that are in 'existing' as I will assume that 'no-one' has played or experienced these to know if they were important or not. If anyone has ANY issue with the placement of games at ANY time, they are free to speak and start a discussion - such as I have regarding the placement of a few Assassin's Creed games above.

Lets get this done team

@BAMozzy I have updated the spreadsheet with the discussion so far. Colour coded it as well (Green is locked, Orange is pending).
We will use this to discuss and lock down the results.
Thanks @Ralizah

@LieutenantFatman you seem to be knowledgeable of the Armour Core series. Where would you put Verdict Day? Important/Very Important. The rest can go in existing.

@Ralizah same question about the Atelier. Where would you put each one?