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Other PC Games Thread.
So with the film and music threads still going and being discussed... why don't we get some discussion going on something on topic to the board? What other games are you playing now?
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Ps 
Whether you were kidding or serious, it's still something I just had to mention regarding this subject... 
Willem 
Indeed. You fit in well here. 
"The City" 
How about that. Immersive enough? 
Srsly 
Re: Rage + Willem 
I take your point about the realism/immersion factor being a little lacking because of lame ass naming of stuff. And the incoherency of the travel element.

But (IMO) the environments and AI were great! I just mean that the 'shooting sections' seemed fast and fun to play. The guns felt good. 
 
"Indeed. You fit in well here."

Right. Look, I see now in hindsight that arguing this sort of thing on a message board filled with people who love and adore a 16 year old shooter was probably a mistake. In that design context, yes, names and world cohesion and that sort of thing are basically irrelevant. I get that now, sorry.

Ricky's post sums it up. World was pretty and guns felt good. That's the benchmark, OK. 
We Just Don't Get It 
But the thing is, on the other hand, if you intend on finding alledged immersion-breakers such as names and start looking around, you can find them everywhere in one way or another.

You do have a point - but it doesn't exclude the possibility that other people may be well immersed regardless of such things, maybe even appreciate the simple, to-the-point hooks that such stereotype names suggest. 
Look At It This Way Willem 
From a personal viewpoint, I enjoyed Rage about as much as I enjoyed Duke Nukem Forever.

Spent 15-20 hours on them roughly.

Skyrim - 130hrs
Battlefeild Bad Company 2 - 200hrs or something.
Left 4 Dead - 150hrs maybe.

UT3 - played that quite a lot too I guess.
GOW (1) - must have spent 60 or 70 hours on that on the 360 when it came out.

But yeah - world was pretty and guns felt good, like Quake (very incoherent immersion but great graphics and gameplay), and Doom (for it's time) - great graphics and gameplay, but not much of a backstory either.

Not to say that the fact that the stories were lacking is a good thing, it isn't, but did I enjoy them - YES!

Metro 2033 is another example. It had all three factors - great graphics, good gameplay and a very cohesive and immersive backstory/theme. But did I play it loads? NO! not really. I dunno, it just seemed a little stressful and dingy.

I fully agree with you about Rage on most levels. TBH the English wasteland punk enemies from Rage were just downright terrible! Fake English accents yelling 'Wankahh!' at me all the time. Felt good to shoot the annoying little bastards in the face, just to shut them up.

But the visuals in Rage were great. Just not when you were up-close. Then they looked pixelated.

I hope Doom 4 is better. From the look of some of those leaked screenshots, it possibly could be. But hopefully they wont fill the game with annoying cockney enemies that yell 'Wankahh!' all the time.

I'd rather go and play dynamic, squad based games of the uber-pretty BFBC2. Now that is fun. And immersive. And the backstory kinda sucks (WWIII - ruskies v yanks). But it's really fun. 
Willem 
Yeah, it's sort of a top down problem. If they can't even be bothered to come up with decent names for factions, what are the chances the rest of the game is good? Think it over.

I take issue with the logic that 'bland names = designers don't care.' That's just shitty logic. Feel however you want about Rage, I don't think anyone here gives a shit about that, but that kind of thinking just doesn't make sense.

The names may not be interesting (perhaps they were interesting to id) but imo they fit the wasteland extremely well. They are short, to the point, and they accurately describe the faction in question. Sure, that may be less interesting, but it better fits in with a wasteland scenario. When someone says 'the Authority' you can get a pretty good idea right away about who they are - that kind of thing fits in well in a place where danger is around every corner.

So if the names are uninteresting, fine, I'm not arguing that, I'm arguing against your terrible, terrible logic. 
Wankah!! 
Another highlight of the game for me personally. 
 
Reviewed Call of Duty 4. Pretty cool game, but a bit overrated with all the "game of the year" awards. Crysis was better.

http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/call_of_duty4_modern_warfare.php

8.5/10 
 
Cod4 was developed by infinity ward, not treyarch. 
 
The best shooter since L4D2 is Serious Sam 3. 
 
Oh yes, forgot to change the developer from the last review I did (Quantum of Solace). Cheers JT. 
Names 
Shrek racing game, our speed boost pickup was called ROCKET PANTS.

The publisher took it upon themselves to rename it to "fairy dust". 
I Think We All 
Know where the awesome is there.

But hey, the industry got rid of distributors quite efficiently, it shouldn't take long to bin the large publishing firms that cause this committee design shite.

The indy and garage developers are taking a non-marginal slice of the pie, and growing, as quickly as the big boys are laying off 00's of staff. 
Mass Effect 3 
I've just finished this.

What a bad game.

I can not remember ever having played a game in which I did not die once. Well, I did one time when I went too far from the objective. The game decided to kill me, out of the blue. I actually tried it again and got killed the same way. All the fights are more or less the same. Get behind something and shoot at the bad guys from behind there. There is absolutely no need to upgrade your weapons, the normal pistol could get you true the whole game.

At one time I was supposed to activate 2, ehm, things in the map. There were lots of enemies around. I just ignored them and pushed the buttons and that triggered a cutscene.

If you look at the game stripped to the core basics, you are left with mostly random shooting bits in very very simple made maps.
The maps look nice (decent anyway...), but you can only walk as far as the invisible walls allow you to. The playable part of the maps are so bad that they wouldn't even be rated on Quaddicted. Often it's just hallways surrounded by inaccessible map areas.

The sidemissions are the dumbest thing I've ever seen in games. You walk in the Citadel and overhear people talking about stuff they want. That stuff you can get from doing planet scanning, a part of the game most doable after smoking some cannabis sativa. If you already did all the planet scanning thing, you don't have to search for anything anymore and just collect your reward from the people with the red squares around there head.

And then there is the interaction part. Maybe it's got something to do with my being Dutch and not having a degree in English, but it looks very much open to interpretation. I can't recall a specific moment in 3, but I've got one from 2: At one point an alien spoke to me about a spider queen I released in the 1st game. One of the options was to say: "Tell her to be good". I choose that one. I thought it was a nice thing to say but my character made it into a warning !

And then there is the love aspect in the game. I chose to save the games being a faithful and a not cheating partner to the blue girl. Sure, she was nice to me for the pre-endgame battle, but before that she used to greet me by saying "Shepard", or "Nice to see you". That's fucking love for you ...

And then there is the ending. It is so mindbogglingly stupid that I regret not only playing part 3, but the whole series.

But the point I'm trying to make is this:
The game gets stupidly great reviews from almost all the gaming media. One of the best games ever, they dare say. The reviews I've seen on the internet say more about the state of our planet then about Mass Effect's, I'm afraid ...

My score, for what it's worth ...

04/10 
I Started Playing ME1 Once 
Got very bored very quickly, and never played it again. But the character you play in the game is annoying, the shooting is *ahem* CRAP, and the LD is frustrating.

So yeah - nice to see an honest review of the game, from someone who shares my opinion of it:) 
 
So I'm clear ... by "honest" review you mean "review I agree with"? :) 
Nah 
Most people rave about the series - I wasn't impressed either.

Weak gameplay that's disconnected from any sense of purpose.

I suppose if I didn't know how to read then the story (ie. cutscenes) would have been interesting.

One of the few games I'll never finish. 
Nah 
I mean 'honest' as in the reviewer was being honest when he wrote the review.

As opposed to writing a good review because that is what he was paid to do. You know, so that the game sells, all of those people who we're thinking of buying the game read a 'good' review of the game, then they go and buy a copy.

I can't comment on the true validity of the review because I have never played Mass Effect 3, and I probably never will. 
Mass Effects 1 + 2 
I love the first two Mass Effect games. Not for gameplay, but for overall ambience. They did a really good job of making it feel like a scifi universe.

But making gameplay 'fun' has never been what Bioware was about, they were about a big game with lots of story. They are crap at balancing games, they suck at AI, and they tend not to innovate or 'fix' their problems. Even as far back as Kotor, the gameplay wasn't exactly fun, but very generic and tedious. They can't balance games worth crap either, they tend to be either very difficult or very easy, rarely does it feel like a good challenge.

As much as I would like to, I probably won't get Mass Effect 3. :( :( :( 
Yeah 
That was the odd thing for me - you'd think making the interactive part worthwhile would have been the focus.

I was introduced to Bioware on ME1 - I'll probably avoid their other games on general principals.

Seems like they do the types of games I don't like to play. Not any particular genre though - I quite like RPGs. 
Mass Effect Backlash 
I really can't understand the crazy backlash that is going on with fans of Mass Effect. It was never about combat, shooting, scanning or squad tactics. The game was all about story and immersion in the game universe. Why would anyone expect the game play to be ground breaking? Last time I checked, the encounter design was box rooms with cover and dumb AI. You run in, shoot, take cover and eventually kill stuff.

I always thought of ME as something that is trying to push the envelope on story. It wants to make the player care about what they say and do (storywise and some actions). With the introduction of the ship crew emotional involvement I assumed players wanted a space opera.

The fan review reaction to ME reminds me of someone reading a book and then getting upset because the book has no pictures and it should do, because all books have pictures nowadays! ;) 
As A Matter Of Fact, I Started ME1 Yesterday 
I'm not a fan of Bioware-flavored "RPGs", and this one confirms it once again. Too linear and restricted, tedious combat, and I'm not overly impressed with the levels so far. Of course, this is only the first impression after some three hours, maybe it's getting better later on, but I doubt I'm going to play much further. Bioware seems to be a love or hate thing - if you enjoy one game, you'll probably like the others, too; if not, don't bother.

Can't say much about the story, I'm not super excited about it. Is it possible that the stories and twists in each game are quite similar?

I agree about the dialogue options - I hate it when games give you some option and then lets the character say something totally different.

Sock: More like this: a book that's said to be an excellent piece of fine literature which then has silly pictures in it, and people getting upset about it are being told to ignore them (and that it's their own fault they aren't enjoying it if they can't or won't just ignore them). 
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