GamerSushi Asks: Would You Rather?

The summer drought of gaming is upon us. Naturally, this means it’s time for another “Would You Rather” feature, since gaming news has pretty much slowed to a crawl unless it’s related to the Halo: Reach Beta. So, it’s time for some more getting-to-know-you type features.

In Would You Rather, I simply ask a series of questions, and you follow up with your answers. Give as much or as little explanation as you want for your choices, but we all know that we like to see the reasoning behind the madness.

Don’t let your answers suck, though. We will judge you harshly. Like, we might call you bad names and stuff.

 

Would you rather…

1. Have original music in games or licensed music from popular artists?

2. Play an FPS with regenerating health or health packs?

3. Have more crossover in games (Gears in Lost Planet 2), or keep them separate?

4. Play a game with difficulty that scales to your level of play, or be able to choose your own difficulty to challenge yourself?

5. Have a silent protagonist with a customizable appearance or a fully-voiced protagonist with a set appearance?

6. Opt into a Beta to play game before release, bugs and all, or would you wait for the polished version?

Written by

I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

14 thoughts on “GamerSushi Asks: Would You Rather?”

  1. 1. Original music. I just feel that it’s better than licensed.

    2. Regenerated health. It just seems to be the wave of the future. Not to mention, I tried playing the original Call of Duty, and it was difficult.

    3. Separate. Crossovers can be a bit…strange.

    4. I actually like both options. Games that gain or lose difficulty based on how you play is a good option, but being able to choose it yourself is also good.

    5. Have a silent protagonist with a customizable appearance or a fully-voiced protagonist with a set appearance?

    6. It depends on the game really. For like, Half-Life I’d love to opt into a beta, but some other games I can just wait to play.

  2. 1. Original. Let the game make the music not the other way around.

    2. Health packs, prefer a system where you can carry some health packs around with you (L4D, Tomb Raider etc.)

    3. Separate, Not a fan of crossovers unless it’s done really well.

    4. Choose. But let me change my choice at any time because getting stuck half way through because you put the difficulty hard is lame.

    5. Whatever. I like customization but Gordon Freeman, Mario, Master Chief etc. wouldn’t be the same if they were customizable. We’ve seen silent set and voiced custom chars too so anything works well really.

    6. The only betas I’ve played are a ton of MMO closed/open betas as well as the TF2 beta. I like being able to submit bug reports and see the bug I reported getting fixed but that never seems to happen any more. Depends what game it is but in most cases I’d rather play Beta.

  3. 1. Original music. As I witnessed in FF13’s final moments, adding licensed music as opposed to the game’s original soundtrack is all kinds of fail. Fell flat for me, at least, because the rest of the game’s soundtrack was so good.

    2. A lot of people criticize regenerating health as being unrealistic, but I don’t see how it’s any less so than finding a magical health pack that fixes your bullet wounds. Regen ftw!

    3. I think some crossover is good, when it makes sense. The crossovers in Super Smash Bros Brawl are just awesome. The game wouldn’t be the same without Snake and Sonic.

    4. I like being able to choose a difficulty level. It lets you keep things as casual or hard as you want. I mean, playing Halo wouldn’t be the same without a legendary mode for me. Alternatively, Oblivion had a really nice scale that you could slide, which I’m surprised that more games don’t replicate.

    5. I think this is Dragon Age vs Mass Effect for me. Personally, I’d prefer the Mass Effect mold. Dragon Age felt like less of a full experience in comparison.

    6. Depends on the game, but I love just being able to take a peek under the hood. This is why I’m pumped for the Reach Beta today.

  4. 1. Original without a doubt. So much better, and I love game soundtracks, especially Halo and Mass Effect.

    2. Health packs. Keeps people from running and gunning all the time, and it’s really satisfying to be owning it up when you’re beeping red.

    3. Crossovers are all fine and cool as long as they don’t crossover in the story.

    4. If it’s done well, scaling is just fine with me.

    5. Definitely a fully voiced. I absolutely hate silent protagonists because they feel so lifeless and awkward when people are speaking to you. However games like Dragon Age are an exception because while my character doesn’t physically speak the words, I choose what I want him to say so I feel like he (or I) am saying it.

    6. Definitely do the Beta. That way I can satisfy my thirst for a little bit, and help out the developer in making the final product more awesome.

  5. 1. Original Score if it’s by someone good, Licensed if it’s sports / GTA games.

    2. Regenerating, but 2 or 3 shots should kill you. Having a Health meter and packs makes you a God amongst men normally.

    3. Separate. I find cross-overs tacky.

    4. Pick my own difficulty. There’s no way a game can keep up with me and try to compensate ;).

    5. Fully voiced, set appearance. i don’t care about the way I look in a single player experience… just don’t make him look like a poof.

    6. Beta can be good, but I’m not usually excited or “in the know” about something early enough. However, I LOVE seeing Alpha/Beta video footage.

  6. 1. Original music, easy. I’ll take Marty O’Donnell over some band anyday. There’s so much more atmosphere, unique personality, and immersion you can get from an engaging game with original music.

    2. Spartans or Elites? Hmm… Well I don’t mind which really. Regenerating health makes things quicker and simpler, but health packs or Medics add some value to respawning and add a new commodity to control on a map. So I lean a bit more to Health packs just because they keep the game interesting, although if done poorly limited health can really be a burden.

    3. Well some crossovers are good, like Marvel VS Capcom for example. But the majority of crossovers are ridiculous abominations. It takes a lot of skill and luck to make a crossover work, whether in games or any media. If two or more story universes coalesce well, then crossovers add some interesting flavor to the universes and the game, but it’s rare that such a miracle occurs.

    4. I prefer a combination, where you can set a general difficulty and then the difficulty changes slightly as you play. Left 4 Dead does this well, but I don’t know of any other games that do this, so I’ll lean towards set difficulties just so that I can choose to have an easier or harder challenge, and general difficulties are typically close enough.

    5. Silent protagonists are all fun and games, and customization lets you feel like you’re part of a story. Once you add an actor’s voice, it doesn’t feel like YOU are playing, but rather you’re selecting the actions that this character over here does. So in reality it’s a rather small difference, but silent, customizable protagonists are able to embody the player more effectively, so I prefer the Silent Custom Hero.

    6. Oh I see how it is. As long as a Beta functions well enough and is free, I don’t mind testing a game and getting a decent feel for a game. I like free demos since they let me get a taste of a game, so a free public Beta with more purpose than just an early look is great for me.

    And yes, the Halo: Reach Beta is awesome.

    Great questions (although you already asked #1 before) and keep ’em coming!

  7. 1) Original, or better yet, original music commissioned from popular artists.

    2) Makes no little to me. Neither are particularly realistic (show me a band-aid that can instantly recover any wound, please). If I didn’t have the choice of -neither- I’d pick regen, just because it’s more streamlined than having to find/stockpile health packs.

    3) Crossovers are cool, assuming the two IP’s take place in similar universes.

    4) Scale. It’s sort of pointless to replay a game on a higher difficulty when you already know how to beat it. there is little reward for doing it again, just with more frustrating gameplay.

    5) Both are mutually exclusive and we’d be missing out on a ton of brilliant games by doing away with either option. Neither is preferable over the other; They are genres in and of themselves.

    6) Depends on how impatient I am over the game. I’d rather play the game as the creators intended it to be consumed but it’d be hard to resist previewing a game I was really looking forward to.

  8. [quote comment=”11186″]

    2) Makes no little to me.[/quote]

    I are good at proof reading.

  9. 1. Original music. I’m sure I’ve hinted at my love of all things Jesper Kyd plenty of times. Sports games are different though, licenced music worked superbly in SSX3.
    2. Regen. ‘Nuff said.
    3. Seperate lest it be in the vein of SSB.
    4. Scale when it works, but I’m still happy with the whole easy/normal/hard/(please insert variation of SUPER HARD here).
    5. Depends on the game. RPGs? Customise. FPSs (unless it’s a FPSRPG eg Deus Ex) but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GIVE MY CHARACTER A VOICE! Silent protagonist = fail.
    6. Never been in a beta except for 2 days of Uncharted 2’s so can’t really say.

  10. 1. What kind of game are we talking about here? I’m going to assume not music games (i.e. Guitar Hero or Rock Band) and say I’d much prefer original music. Especially in RPGs. Final Fantasy battle music has always stuck in my head and I got a kick out of listening to that Crono-Cross anthem posted here the other day.

    2. I like the regenerating health. It makes the gameplay more hectic and immediate.

    3. Crossovers seem like a good idea. I’d like to see more, but not an overload.

    4. I like to choose the difficulty and stick with it. A lot of games now have an option to change in game, so if it’s really that hard, you can change it yourself.

    5. Option 3, the Mass Effect option. Completely customizable, fully-voiced character. Between the two, though, I’d rather have pre-made characters with voices. Except Demon’s Souls wasn’t that, and damn that’s a good game.

    6. I’d rather wait, especially since most Betas don’t let you carry any saved material over to the finished game…or do they?

  11. 1. Original music.

    2. Regen health.

    3.Crossover is fine.

    4.Choose and stick.

    5.Set appearance. No silence.

    6.Polished version, please.

  12. 1. original music
    2. I personally would like to see something that incorporates both,
    3. don’t care either way, as long as it fits
    4. I like the option for both, but If I want it hard, I want it hard dammit
    5. Don’t care as long as it is implemented well.
    6. depends on the game, I would love to get in to the Starcraft 2 beta

  13. 1. Original, it can be the deal or no deal for me

    2. Regenerating keeps the action more flowing

    3. Capcom vs Marvel? Not my slice of cake

    4. Singeplayer ~ Select yourself Multiplayer ~ Scaling

    5. Undecided

    6. Beta, also because then i know if i’m going to like it 😀

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