| Mythmaker1 said: The fact the game can make a legit miss to look like it struck home (and presumably a direct hit to look nowhere near) is pretty silly. As for the second point, it seems pretty clear what he means; that the Valkyria Chronicles progression is interesting and integral to the experience, while the one in Code Name STEAM is uninteresting and can be almost comletely ignored. |
You presume too much. Nowhere does the reviewer mention seeing apparent 'miss'es register as hits. He also does not say that the upgrade system is uninteresting, only that it is "inessential." If you try hard enough, you can completely ignore a lot of things in a lot of games. It isn't reason enough to dismiss those features or content entirely on the basis that it is "inessential."
Let's take another look at what he said. "Since the game only checks to see whether your attack was lined up at the second you pulled the trigger, sometimes you’re left watching your bullets literally pass through an alien, no damage done." What he is saying here is that his bullets passed through the alien, yet no damage was done because his attack was not lined up at the second he pulled the trigger. Let me say that again, his attack was not lined up at the second he pulled the trigger. It registered as a miss and this, obviously, is the fault of the game and not the fault of the player, who pulled the trigger while his attack was not lined up. (Just how slowly do these bullets he's talking about travel, anyway? I haven't even seen any bullets in this game. Any weapon that would fire a bullet just shows an explosion, and the enemy is hit.)
Let's pretend that we can see the bullets and that the reviewer didn't mess up his shot and blame it on the game. A bullet appears to pass right through an enemy unit without damaging it. Why would this happen -- is it some kind of glitch? Hardly. The game has an accuracy check, like many, many, maaaaaannnnnnyyyyy other Strategy RPGs. Even shooters are no stranger to such a concept, implementing bullet deviation. Imagine a reviewer complaining that his machine gun in an FPS sprayed an inaccurate burst of bullets rather than a deadly straight line of bullets, all of them landing at the center of his crosshair. Sure, in an FPS you might see the bullets miss, which gives better visual feedback to the player, but this is still an RPG. Its priorities are different from those of an FPS.
If you want to see evidence of the accuracy check in S.T.E.A.M. (and to see how immediately apparent it should be to any player that the game has such a check), watch this for five seconds. The player fires three times, and despite the enemy not moving an inch, one of those shots misses while the others hit. Furthermore, your attack can miss even during Overwatch, which aims automatically.
Accuracy is used to balance weapons and risk vs reward. There is a 'sniper' type weapon with greater accuracy than the rifle in the above video, but it is less powerful than the rifle. If the rifle was as accurate as the sniper, what would be the point of using the latter? The rifle's accuracy is dependent on the user's distance from the target. Use it from far away, you'll probably miss even if your crosshairs are dead center. Use it from only a space or two away, guaranteed hits. That's the risk/reward: in order for this weapon to be effective, you have to get close to your target. This puts you in danger of being spotted or hit with Overwatch; it also leaves you with less steam available for further actions or Overwatch yourself. The payoff is greater damage to your enemy. Or you can use it from a medium distance away, taking the chance that one-third of your shots may miss, because that will still do more damage than a hit from a more accurate weapon. This is especially important for Overwatch -- see here (forgive the crudeness of this model, I didn't have time to paint it or build it to scale):
(I guess I lied, it is slightly painted.)
Black lines are walls, red circle is enemy and arrow is his path. If the player stops on blue, Overwatch will activate from far away and will most likely miss. The player can spend more steam to advance further to green. This puts him in a more vulnerable position, but ensures that Overwatch will be a stronger counter-attack.
If there was no accuracy check, you could use Overwatch from anywhere. It would favor a more defensive playstyle, leading to longer (and easier) missions.
