As you can see in my sig, I'm with you on Nicole. Judging by what was in S3 so far (and without spoiling anything) I would be shocked if she didn't get at least a somewhat meaningful ending.
I admit, after spending so much time on this forum, banners in SIGs have become a bit of a blind zone for me, heheh. But now that you mention it, I see - we've got another man of culture here
On the topic of "which college game does it better"... I'll take a page from Geralt's (from The Witcher) book and try to go the neutral route. I think each of them - BaDIK, Law School, Not Going Back, No Such Luck - does something good, in their own way, and I enjoyed each of them very much, albeit probably in different ways. Hell, BaDIK is my favourite AVN of all time, LS and NGB are in my Top 25 and NSL is very close to being in it.
One particular thing I strongly agree with Milton on - NGB's MC is definitely one of the better ones.
Would be another wall of text from me, I have time, so why not
. Bear with me.
Game ratings discussion actually made me think about how I evaluate and categorise AVNs.
I's say I use term "Theme" as my primary filter to understand the setup and the direction story will likely take. It helps me predict how tags will be handled. Few rough examples: "College + Harem" - instant blacklist, however, "Dystopian + Harem" is something I’d try, "College + Mind control" - black list, while"Sci-fi + Mind control" - I might try. There're exceptions of course.
I have a certain "mandatory" themes that I value above others - Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Undercover/Detective, Cyberpunk, and Vampires (which I separate from general Fantasy). To me, Sci-Fi is essentially more interesting, whereas a College setting starts at a disadvantage cause it’s a more "boring" baseline from my perspective. For a college game to work for me, it has to reach a much higher standards of quality to compensate for this trope "heavy" setting. Most games simply fail to reach that bar, though whether my standards are too high is purely subjective.
When it comes to my final verdict, I separate "theme" from "quality". For me, "quality" is not solely about the technical renders or writing (writing matters though, obviously), it’s about the amount of joy I get while playing it. By "joy" I mean emotional aspect. I want the game to make me feel something - whether that’s excitement (hype to be precise), sadness, anger, or even annoyance. There needs to be a balance of emotions that keeps me immersed in that universe though, if the game constantly makes me feel annoyed that's not good, I have enough burdens in my real life, I don't need it in the game. Does it mean the game is bad though? - Not necessarily, it just means it's not for me.
So, the end goal for me is immersion and escapism - I play to get away from the real world and get immersed into another one. One more example - if I judged games strictly by their themes, I would have deleted Broken Promises from my signature a long time ago, cause as a "cop/undercover" game, it’s technically not very good (mildly saying). Yet, the emotional experience keeps it there. (It only came to my mind cause I finished replaying it yesterday)
Anyway, to put it simply, - "theme" gets me through the door, but emotional aspect (aka joy) is what determines if the game stays on my top list.
Going bak to Law School, I already ranted a bit before (you can read it
here), but to summarise what spoiled my experience the most:
1) silly MC - I think Milton has been ranting for both of us in that regard, starting with the silly kiss blackmail and ending with the basketball stealing "incident".
2) to much far fetched drama for my taste.
This is why it’s lower on my list. Where Law School failed, NGB succeeded. That said, I still have it on Steam and think it's a decent game (for a college game, anyway).
Hell, BaDIK is my favourite AVN of all time, LS and NGB are in my Top 25 and NSL is very close to being in it.
I agree,
Lost Solace is a great game
.
One particular thing I strongly agree with Milton on - NGB's MC is definitely one of the better ones.
Heh, that reminded me of that MC competition posted on Reddit: -
You must be registered to see the links
.
I’m definitely
not judging them based on their attractiveness, but looking at them overall - character wise - I’d say my top 3 are:
1) Valentine (Unbroken)
2) William (WIAB)
3) Rockford (Leaving DNA)
Oh wow, our top 5's are almost identical with Zoey taking fourth place for me.
Once again, I'm not going to spoil anything from S3 but it seems like Bianca might also get a path in the future (or at least a partial one).
I don't mind spoilers, so feel free to write whatever you want - just maybe put it in spoiler tags for the sake of other people here.
Good to know though. Damn, I'd be on cloud 9 if we could actually date Bianca. The real question is - at what cost? Considering we only get to know her if we're on the Bella or Jill paths, I guess I'll just have to take whatever I can get heheh.
