I don't think anyone expects the gameplay to be ground breaking, just good, which it isn't. It copies Gears of War (which imho had boring shooter mechanics at best) and slaps an RPG-lite leveling system onto it. Now, that's all fine and dandy, but they could've done a better job balancing gameplay or making the combat a little less repetitive. It doesn't have to be revolutionary - say what you will about Rage, but it was very polished and felt great, but wasn't revolutionary by any means. There's really no reason the same couldn't have been done with Mass Effect.

I would say, for the book analogy, that it's more like here's a book, and there's this chapter of the book that's included with the book you bought, but only if you pay extra for that chapter. If I bought the book, shouldn't I get all the chapters already? 

"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."

But ... you have no way of knowing who is being honest and who isn't. Your logic isn't sound on this one.

What leads you to believe that Ron is writing from the heart and, say, IGN is only writing good things because they're being paid to?

Liking Ron's review because it says what you want it to say is fine - but you need to admit it. :) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zze...

Has the potential to be fucking epic imo. Arkane Studios (dark messiah might and magic) + Viktor Antonov (hl2 art director) + Harvey Smith (deus ex designer) + Sandbox assassination game set in a steampunk city = wet pants. 

Why would Ron come on a Quake forum, and Troll ME3, if he did in fact like ME3? That doesn't make sense either. Are you trying to tell me that it would make more sense for Ron to come on a forum and lie about his own opinions? Why would he do that?

I base my assumptions on the following things:

1 - There was a lot of good hype on the mainstream websites about Mass Effect so I went out and bought a copy, only to discover that the game was an excruciatingly tedious and boring game full of characters that we're either ridiculous, un-likeable or both. Having been playing Crysis before hand I was also disappointed by the poor visuals and level design of Mass Effect. I remember in the game there is a part near the beginning where you land an a planet only to discover that the planet looks dull, and you can't travel around it because the whole mission is heavily scripted and completely on a rail. I also noticed that the combat was poor, I was basically encouraged to squat behind walls and crates all of the time. Which is dull.

I also remember in another part of the game, there was a VERY tall elevator shaft, with an elevator inside it. You cannot see out of the elevator once you are inside it. But to use the elevator you have no choice but to watch the entire journey from the corner of the elevator. Well there's three minutes of my life I will never get back.

2 - Ron is claiming that he found similar issues to be present in ME3. The review for ME3 is also good on the mainstream websites.


I don't like watching the TV. I don't like Star Trek. ME is a bit like Star Trek. And playing ME1 for me was on par with watching Star Trek. Which I find to be dull and boring.

IGN, Fox and the teams of directors employed at the studio where Mass Effect and it's sequels we're born are examples of evil capitalist scum, which will kill art and video games in order to make sure that they make the fastest buck.

Ron is some guy who I don't know who posted his opinions on a forum.

I know who I would trust. Neither of them. I would trust my own intuition. The same intuition that made me decide to stop playing GoW2 in the large underground tunnels section because I found it to be dull and boring, and the characters made me feel as though I was insulting my own intelligence by continuing.
And that was one of the last times I played a game on my XBox 360. Though I diverge, for that is another heart warming tale, which I will conserve for another post, some other time. 

"IGN, Fox and the teams of directors employed at the studio where Mass Effect and it's sequels we're born are examples of evil capitalist scum, which will kill art and video games in order to make sure that they make the fastest buck."

OK, whatever you say. Discussion isn't possible with this sort of hate in the way. Thanks for the reply! 

Just flicked through that with sound off but from your description and faith in it, I agree. Could be very cool. GFX are a bit Bioshock in graphical quality as well as style, but definitely has potential. 

I know that such strong words are a lot to handle, even for you. How a discussion can continue with all of the curse-words I keep using, god only knows.

Anyway, that's my honest opinion, I can honestly say that I honestly think that IGN are a bunch of dis-honest fuckers who are sat around with their dicks in their hands, feeling all 'important' when actually they are just slaves to a big money making system. I went through a phase of trusting IGN and was disappointed by them many times.

I read their review of the new Star Wars MMO, and in the first couple of paragraphs the reviewer explained how the training element of the game was rubbish, and that the 'battles in space' parts of the game we're also rubbish. Yet the game score was still displayed - 9.5 out of 10.

Then there was all of the hype with Far Cry 2. But that was a very boring and repetitive game to.

Eventually I start to read the website and just think - 'Yeah - you guys are either stupid, or you are taking bribes for some of these scores'.

Fox - OK, well there's a company which totally ruined the Aliens franchise. Nice work Fox, way to go - why not take all of the cool stuff out of Alien movies, and replace it with cheap from-a-can nonsense, slap a PG13 rating on it so that you get the best box-office windfall. Cause that all the fans care about, surely. 

I get it, Ricky, thanks. Like I said, there's no real discussion to be had if you've already decided that professional reviewers are evil scum bags out for the almighty dollar. I get that. And that's fine, that's your opinion - but it leaves no room for discussion so we're done with this, yes? 

And this goes without saying but your tastes are running fairly orthogonal to most other gamers I know. Even shooter fans. Mass Effect and Far Cry are well loved in every other circle I run in. So there's that... 

But yeah - ME series being good - so the official line is that "That's the word on the street". All the hip folks back home really love the ME series. Yeah. Well it's not for me. And I tried to like Far Cry 2, I really did. But it was so repetitive, and the fast travel system was still tedious. By the end I just didn't have the energy for it.

I'm just a random gamer discussing my opinions of the mainstream gaming media. And a mainstream game. And yes, I have a narrow opinion, who doesn't. I know what I like, and I like what I know.

You don't seem to be able to handle my harsh criticisms of said mainstream gaming entities, is that because you have a vested interest in them? 

Me? I don't care what you say about media outlets or whatever. Rant away. My issue was with your calling one review honest and others not, without having any knowledge of their motivations OR even having played the game yourself.

That's all. 

Dishonored looks great. Steampunk = awesome. Long as I can just shoot shit up instead of listening through keyholes to random conversations. Lots of whores in it as well, which is always a plus. I'm glad Arkane are doing it, it's about time they did something new - it's been 6 years since their last game Dark Messiah. 

are the rpg elements in ME3 further simplified from ME2? that was one of my major problems with ME2. :( 

actually, i should probably say stats/class stuff as opposed to RPG.
i like setting up characters and builds. :) 

Willem, we have < q > </ q > tags, would be awesome if you could use them. Searching for the closing " when skimming over posts sucks. 

If this board used standard tags, I might care. As it is, if I can't remember what to use I don't. :) 

would <span class="quote"></sp... be standard enough for you? 

If that's what you believe the standard for message boards is ... sure. 

BBCode some sort of standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCod... 

some sort of standard 

Note, I am not using the nerd sense of the word "standard". I'm using it more in the "what most people are used to" sense.

But yes, mirroring BBCode would make the codes more likely to get used.

Also, adding buttons to insert them would help as well.

But this really has nothing to do with PC Games, so... 

 

I'm not surprised Mass Effect's combat is getting a bad rap on a Quake board - it's doing things that are quite the opposite to what a hardcore Quake player would find interesting (I'm generalising, but I've heard so many people on this board share the same views about cover-based combat, that I think it's a fair generalisation).

Personally I really liked (nearly loved) Mass Effect 1, as I got an very atmospheric and engrossing space opera. I enjoyed the combat, but I enjoy a very wide range of combat mechanics, so I'm quite easily pleased. Haven't played 2 or 3 yet. 

I like cover mechanics when they're done well... 

is not an rpg at all. i think of it as an action game with lots of dialogue. but the mechanics are a lot like, say the batman games. you get xp, buy points for that skill you like and move on.

dragon age on the other hand, thats an rpg. the first on i mean, haven't played the second one. and while it is linear like mass effect, i really think it was done in a much, much better way.

but i love the mass effect games. i love the atmosphere and the looks of it, funky sci-fi stuff and even cyberpunk sometimes. but i agree, the games are linear and the combat is very simple, cover based stuff. i wish there was more exploration, but strangely i don't mind the linearity of it.

even choices are not really an issue because its something that just happens. i wish it was more like, say the witcher, which i think its the only game that does choices really well.

haven't played the third yet. will wait for a price drop. not enough $$ to buy new games these days.

somehow i feel this post is useless, but i'm posting it anyway. :) 

I was just having a poop when I realised that naming argument about Rage was full of shit. Remember those movies with the Empire and the Rebellion? 

I'm not sure about the Rage argument (I haven't seen it in context), but in general names are super important and will always influence your perception of things. (The degree to which it does, and your awareness of it, will differ between people and scenarios, but it will always colour your perception and there is nothing you can do about it).

If it doesn't matter, why not just name everything in a generic and functional fashion? Who cares, right? Might as well call your items weapon1, weapon2, weapon3, etc. How about your skills? You've unlocked ability 1! Wow. Can't wait till I get ability 4! You were slain by melee1. Oh no. You picked up 5 units of ammo for weapon 6. Yeah!

Gonna go rock the house in coop with RemoteClient4! FUCK YEAH! 

'You picked up four 5.56m Jacketed Hollow Point rounds for your M24A SOCOM X-4F Elite ranger 4.4344443434 27n gunwank carbine.'

No the names do matter, but they aren't the big deal being made of them. If the Authority had been introduced properly, had some proper backstory and a build up of threat it would have been a sore point but easily forgotten. The fact they weren't means that the name now stands out, because it's the ONLY thing we know about them.

Half-Life 2 and the Combine had a mystery about it that was interesting, and you encountered a lot of their activities, so the boring name didn't mean anything because it was drowned out by the other stuff.

Given the same company gave us the 'Strogg', I'm not sure I care about basic names in games. At least it allows us to avoid having to read about the shimbogs and their leader flobblewobble's involvement in the yuktuk wars of timblemin-minor against the savage tribe rrr-thuk-rgggrg. Because that's the shit we'd end up with. 

The Combine is actually a good name. A combine, used in farming, is a great metaphor for what they did to Earth. Someone put some thought into that and it works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combi...

Also, there's the aliens and humans working together in combination angle. 

Quick Mercenaries 2 review. Bit of a shit game, 5/10. I was expecting a short, cool, fps. Got an open world, third person RPG/shooter reminiscent of Saints Row 2, only worse.

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere... 

some old propaganda and propaganda posters referred to nazi forces as a giant combine tearing up the earth, if I recall correctly. Art depicted a giant combine with a swastika instead of the rotating blades churning up the countryside. 

Thanks to Spirit, the DICK, I'm kind of replaying it again (the "portable" version). So great. People usually credit SS2, but the first one has more atmosphere imo. Maybe because of the low res textures and sprites. Quite nonlinear and explorative gameplay, even secret doors and areas. And with the pistols you can even rapid-fire like in HL if your trigger/mousefinger allows it. Just cleared the medical deck - didn't remember there were so many reinforcement mutants.

The standard controls take some getting used to, but it can (and should) be set to play like Doom. Spirit: I found out that E enables mouselook. It's a good idea to check out the reference card, although some standard key are remapped in the WASD config. 

Even in this day and age. 

that's what you get for not liking deus ex.

thanks! 

crosspostin' from rub2 thread.

Than said: By the way, this is perhaps warrant for discussion in itself, but are there any modern games that have this kind of level design (or design similar to typical Quake maps)? I can't think of a single game, but I haven't played that many recently; SS3, Duke, Bulletstorm and Rage are about the only shooters I played recently, and none of them had particularly interesting level layouts or vertical maps. Level design seems really dumbed down these days, or has very different objectives at least.

It's a shame but I think the sad truth of the matter is that the majority of the games-buying public nowadays have the attention spans of gnats (can't really say that in a way that doesn't sound snobbish - I appreciate there are a lot of nice people who play games who simply have limited time and just want some quick, easy, turn-your-brain-off action), and the more opportunities you give the player to be off the beaten track, the more likely it is they get lost, confused or whatever - even if only briefly - but it makes them respond less favourably to the game.

Back in the "good old days", gamers I think were a hell of a lot geekier and more patient and more interested in exploring sadistic maze-like levels. These gamers are still around of course; they're us! But sadly us wrinkly grey old farts now make up only a small fraction of the market base, and it's no longer financially viable to make games for us any more.

(normal Kinn disclaimers apply; the above is likely to contain random splatterings of bullshit/hyperbole which you may ignore as appropriate/to taste). 

Got to disagree, a lot of old games were badly designed and there were not that many to choose from. So we all endured the repetitive nature of 'old' game design. Fighting awkward control scheme's, obtuse UI layouts and getting lost because the designers believed in mind reading are not reasons to celebrate, but simply rose tinted glasses of a time when we were young and did not know otherwise.

Not all new games are shallow in depth or detail and there are plenty to find but everyone man and his dog is making games nowadays and finding stuff is a lot harder. Games nowadays are easier to pick up and play and cater towards certain groups of people better. I am sure there will be some weird backlash to current game design eventually and we will go retro again! :) 

was more about why I think games such as shooters have gone largely from non-linear to linear, rather than from badly-designed to well-designed.

I fully agree that a lot of old games had terrible level design, and even I avoided them. I couldn't stomach more than I think 2 levels of Hexen II, for example. 

Was terrible. Simply awful level design imho. 

http://i40.tinypic.com/2hydpic.jpg 

it's funny - i hate getting lost, but I love non-linear level design. My favourite levels in any sort of game are the ones where you have multiple objectives/routes from the start, and you can visit them in any order. Even if the choice of which one to tackle first is not a meaningful choice, I still love the feeling of freedom it gives. I suppose I am exactly the sort of audience for games that give you a map - go wherever the hell you want, but here's a map so you never get lost. 

Having multiple paths cost development / testing time which ultimately cost money. I remember working on a certain game and we wanted several paths through a level, it would have been so cool. We were told no because it would have meant extra time for QA to test it, extra time for Art to create additional assets and coders were not happy because it meant a larger file size (DVDs are not endless space apparently!)

Even after all those arguments we were told no from the publisher! Choice is an awesome concept but it costs time and not every developer / publisher can afford it.

I am sure if you speak to any developer about extra routes, choice, non-linear play and most will agree it is awesome but nowadays games are too complex to create / make even without the extra stuff. That is not to say all games are linear, some still exist but they are rare. 

...Which leads me to a question.

What do people think about the objective arrow system used in games like Oblivion and Skyrim - where you have little direction indicators at the top of the screen telling you where to head, letting the designer just plonk you in any environment and know you won't get lost.

The reason I ask is this: would I be chased into the night with pitchforks and shovels if I was to make a Quake level that was basically "press X buttons in the level lol", but was really non-linear/free-roaming and it used some sort of objective arrow system? (i don't know yet what this would be, whether it's something floating in front of player to appear as if it's on his HUD (yuk), or something a bit more subtle - maybe some sort of texture with arrows on that you find on walls or floors in junctions, but the arrow(s) can change to point in different directions depending on your objective(s)). Is this an awful idea? 

maybe some sort of texture with arrows on that you find on walls or floors in junctions, but the arrow(s) can change to point in different directions depending on your objective(s))

I think the dm456sp by negke did exactly that, and it was okay (aka not overly coercive (then again how the fuck is an arrow not ever coercive?)). 

i think the issue here is that you only want arrows when the player gets lost, and the player's realisation that he's lost generally comes when he gets to a junction and thinks "which bloody corridor do I go down to get back to the sodding GK door?" If I identified some important junctions and placed dynamic arrows there, I guess it could work. 

dynamic arrows

What if the arrows were written on wheels, and you could actually see some of them hiprotate when you press a button?? 

kinn: just try it and see how it goes.
i'd argue it might be better if you could work these "arrows" into the map itself... so like a visible building with something like lightning or flames or something to communicate that that place is important somehow. 

For some reason I did not care about the pacman dot trail in Fable 2 or the markers on the map / compass in Skyrim. I just wanted to get to the location and do what I was suppose to do, fight, find loot and have fun.

If you want to be clever then build your anti-getting-lost system with good art. Like have runes that change to obvious directions after a timer when the player is in an area. I am always disappointed with Quake levels that have arrows pointing somewhere because the design is saying go a different direction.

This is a classic thing to do in SP design btw, player enters area, timer starts, then hints start to appear in the environment or HUD. I would suggest decals and cool shader effects then I remembered it was Q1, but you could be clever with movers or sound. 

You could also use lights. As the level progresses, you could turn off some fill lights in specific corridors where you don't want the payer to go anymore. Nothing major, but we naturally gravitate towards areas with more light in them so it might be subtle enough to work... 

@Kinn, I know I probably made you run to the hills with my crazy email about textures but have you decided what art style you are going with? It will ultimately help with your method of trying to give the player directions. 

This is a classic thing to do in SP design btw, player enters area, timer starts, then hints start to appear in the environment or HUD. I would suggest decals and cool shader effects then I remembered it was Q1, but you could be clever with movers or sound.

that's interesting... a progressive hint system. 

I'd put in an arrow or some kind of primitive radar for the UI, as being obvious is a lesser evil to the player getting totally lost. You can still make the directions fairly vague, but just make sure the player has some idea of their progress (ie how many things they have left to collect/activate etc) and general hints on where to go.

I really think Serious Sam 3 has some great levels in it, surprisingly intricate with cool fights, but it really needed Painkiller's arrow to tell you where to go because arenas could be so big with lots of buildings and after fighting for ten minutes you lost track of where you entered and where you were supposed to go.

Also generally as graphics get more detailed I find games are getting less and less effective at pointing out where to go through architectural or lighting cues (though this could also just be that they've stopped trying and just put a UI marker in. I reckon L4D did very well in giving general hints as to where to go through lighting, but not making it too obvious so progress wasn't instant and in fire-fights you could still loose your sense of location.

Rage had some cool levels and some dull ones. The level in the abandoned brewery where you climbed all around the vats and fought mutants climbing up the walls was fun I though :E 

I always think it's a bad sign when you're looking for the way to proceed, find a corridor or jump or something, and find out it's actually a secret :p 

What if the arrows were written on wheels, and you could actually see some of them hiprotate when you press a button??

very cool idea :} I really like this actually.

i'd argue it might be better if you could work these "arrows" into the map itself... so like a visible building with something like lightning or flames or something to communicate that that place is important somehow.

Interesting but the first part of one of my maps has 3 objectives active at once (do in any order) and they are all in indoor locations...

If you want to be clever then build your anti-getting-lost system with good art.

one requirement is that it might need to support multiple objectives e.g. (if you go this way or this way, there's stuff, but not this way). Hmmm...multiple "arrows" pointing down different corridors...

You could also use lights Probably not feasible as all light comes from gothy flames - still could do a "flames go out" setpiece for something though - tbh i can't remember a gothy map that's done that...

@Kinn, I know I probably made you run to the hills with my crazy email about textures but have you decided what art style you are going with?

I haven't recieved any emails...bdwooding - at - gmail.com ?

As for the art style, the whole episode is old and damp and earthy in the good old medieval gothic style. Here's an example of a typical area (please ignore any wip suckiness and lack of texture variation):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61424391/Q... 

Some nice screenshots and a video about the art. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20... 

In my original post I was more bemoaning the lack of really 3d spaces and reuse of area by having routes that loop back multiple times through the same area - something common in Quake maps, but less so in more modern games. Perhaps the best example of underusing the structure of a level I can think of is Bullet Storm. That game had so many epic areas and so much time was obviously spent on the environment art, but the gameplay was little more than walk into room, kill a bunch of shit and proceed to the next room. In addition, the gameplay was very flat - it was a fun game, however.

When you look at Quake levels (even the stock id levels) they are full of verticality and passing again through the same areas from multiple angles. This doesn't seem to be terribly common in more recent games, but there are sometimes levels where you are forced into a small environment (a house, boat etc.) for a prolonged period and thus the environment is better exploited.

Given how much time and resources are spent on decorating areas, it doesn't seem like a great use of those resources to just make one long environment, but better to actually design the level in a way that takes progression back through existing areas in a way that makes sense.

There are a few reasons I can think for avoiding intricately interwoven levels:
*vertical areas are more difficult for console players to handle due to the often reduced field of view and slow speed of rotating the view on a controller.
*it might not make sense in the game's story, whereas a Quake level has no real story and designers tend to just do stuff because it's cool or fun.
*many modern games have a real world setting, which somewhat limits the scope for complex level layouts as designers want to keep their levels feeling realistic and functional.

Anyway, more examples of modern games with interesting level design would be nice. 

I certainly wouldn't hate you for employing a "find X buttons to open exit" style of design! I remember being impressed a long time ago by a speedmap Lunaran made that has exactly that kind of gameplay. I think it was basically a DM map with lots of grunts and some buttons, but it played well (and looked quite nice considering how quickly it was made.)

My current map is a similar kind of design, but actually the progression is fairly linear at the moment. You have to find 5 sacred tomes and read them and the order is not important, but actually, the design of the level kind of forces the player into a linear route :/ Maybe I should try and free it up a little. 

The hard rain campaign in L4D2 is one of the more interesting level designs I've seen in a recent game (although it's not too fresh now and I can't play new releases on this machine). The map is a there and back fetching mission, but two things combine to make it interesting.

Firstly the level floods between going out and coming back, so returning by the original path becomes a slow trudge through water. At the same time different combinations of one-way drops make it so that the shortest route back is quite different to the shortest path forward.* It's all really clever and I recommend you grab a chance to have a look at it.


*The one way drops are also an interesting feature for the versus gameplay, as separating members of the survivor team is often the best way to deal damage on them. The one-way drops give you a chokepoint for your attacks, but they aren't irreversible - which is good for balance. If your teammate is caught in front of a one-way drop you've taken, you can go back and save them by taking the intended route for the other direction's journey. Still, the loop takes time so there's usually a good amount of damage as reward for the play. 

was wondering the very same thing.

Guess I might check out the latest Wolfenstein and perhaps that other Raven game with the time travel. Are they worth playing? 

I am an idiot

Spirit linked an old post in another thread, I was multitasking and forgot that it was an old post and then replied to it :)

Yes, L4D2 has some cool level design. Hard Rain is very memorable indeed. 

Perhaps the best example of underusing the structure of a level I can think of is Bullet Storm. That game had so many epic areas and so much time was obviously spent on the environment art, but the gameplay was little more than walk into room, kill a bunch of shit and proceed to the next room. In addition, the gameplay was very flat - it was a fun game, however.

Not played bullstorm but iirc Painkiller was exactly like this (epic impressive environment art dressing up essentially a series of huge box rooms), from the same developer incidently.

The interesting thing with Painkiller is that the developers were clearly Quake fans, with the general feel of the movement, secrets, trick jumping and all that Quakey stuff, yet they decided not to use any of the level design principles that worked so well in Quake. In many ways the game felt to me as if the levels had been built from scratch by artists with absolutely no communication from the designers as to what gameplay was going to take place in them.

There are a few reasons I can think for avoiding intricately interwoven levels

One argument that was presented to me by an artist was that if you have a big open area, the most environmental detail can be focused around the playable space, and built with a certain direction of movement in mind, and the background stuff can be largely optimised as the player won't get close to it. If you take the same large area but you make the playable space occupy a greater % of the overall space (e.g. you allow the room to be traversed in different ways at different times), then the average density of detail required goes right up. Personally I think that decent design can make that a fairly weak argument but it is food for thought.

I remember working on an action platformer a few years back where the lead artist was trying to convince us to use a God of War-style fixed camera so that all they had to worry about was essentially two back walls and a floor :)

We went with a proper "look anywhere" 3rd person camera thankfully. 

I certainly wouldn't hate you for employing a "find X buttons to open exit" style of design!

Cheers! At least I know one person will play it then :}

Maybe I should try and free it up a little.

I think it can make for a more rewarding experience both for the player and the mapper - It's funny, making a level that's very non-linear gives me a wierd sense of nerdy glee, as if I'm crafting a real functional place, rather than piecing together a predictable script. One worry though is that the encounter design could suffer, as I need to accomodate the fact that the player infil points and order in which he encounters monsters is going to be pretty damn unpredictable for the most part... 

Fuck yes/ fuck you - looks totally awesome and perfectly detailed/scaled. 

Thanks!

Tbh, I didn't intend to pimp this early (as you can tell from the unaligned textures and stuff) :} 

yeah, what were you thinking?!

;)
very atmospheric. looking forward to this :) 

The new Deus Ex had some good level design, always fairly open with lots of vertical action and choices, obviously a deus ex with linear levels wouldn't really be deus ex though.
Also Bioshock (1&2) both had fairly non-linear levels that felt comparable to some quake levels.

I get bored of over-linear FPS and rarely finish or even play them nowadays... 

Do players actually notice if light does not have a realistic source? I don't (unless it is a really bright spotlight and the game/map's narrative is realistic.

Kinn: that looks amazing. did I tell you that you and czg should team up? because you and czg should team up. I tell you! 

I agree modern games would benefit from more (vertical) interconnectivity. It probably depends on the type of game (or its goal), though, e.g. not applicable to or desired in those countless games that are just long series of setpieces.

As for nonlinearity, however, let's face it: people are always quick to criticize modern FPS for their extreme linear design, and rightly so, but as soon as they come across a nonlinear section themselves, even long-time Quake players in a Quake level, it often boils down to getting lost and confused. And then it's all the mapper's fault for not making the right route obvious enough.
Think back when you first played the game, though - didn't feeling lost in those strange and hostile environments actually add to the game experience, the atmosphere? Of course, back then combat skills and FPS mechanics weren't as well-trained as today, so it may be possible that players today are more easily bored and thus have a "decreased willingness" to explore, which could be linked back to the expectations of an average gamer nowadays and the question why modern FPS are what they are. 

Nice post, negke.

We find that a lot. If we give players choices of routes, they get angry because they don't know which one is the "right" one. If we only give them one route, they complain about lack of exploration. It kinda sucks, to be honest... 

What I usually do is deliberately take the "wrong" route (if it's clear which one leads on and which one is a dead end) or go in the opposite direction just to have explored everything.

I just thought about situations where the explorable space is restricted by obstacles, closed doors, or clip walls (sometimes areas that actually ARE interconnected), and the worst possible thing a designer can do: a "leaving the mission area" kill/restart trigger. This made an awkwardly appropriate allegory pop up in my head: it's like walking your dog, but pulling him away from stuff as soon as he intends to sniff on them - for the walk is not about his personal enjoyment, the sole purpose is for him to take a dump. So... when that's done you can actually turn around go back home. 

I only played through Dead Space late last year so it's fairly fresh in my mind. I'm sure it has been discussed here, but it seems relevant to the current discussion, so:

One of the best features of the game was the little help system which would draw a path to the target on the ground. At any point you could press the relevant button and see where to go, but the path would fade out after a few seconds. Since it wasn't "always on" it eliminated one of the major negative aspects of some other navigational aids (i.e. when you're too busy watching the sparkly shit or the HUD arrow to actually look at the environment and soak up the atmosphere).

Of course, what I would often do (and what I'm sure everybody would do!) is press the button to discover the "correct" path, turn around and go in the opposite direction to find all the secrets and explore... then go back to the main route again.

It's not perfect, but it allowed some degree of choice and exploration while still ensuring that the player could never really get lost. A pretty good compromise which allowed for at least a little non-linearity while eliminating potential confusion and frustration. Since it was player activated and temporary you only used it when you needed it, but you could go forth with the confidence that you both know where you're going and that you didn't leave anything behind. 

That was a nice mechanic. The second one sort of took the fun out of it a bit by allowing you to look for different map elements like stores, work benches and so on.

Playing Bioshock2 now - which is a pretty good game (fuck the gaming press!) and has a simialr sort of compass to many games. Combined with the map it allows you to hunt down everything, which I think most players seem to enjoy doing, at least when the core mechanics are fun.

When people say non-linear I get the feeling that they mean not closed in. CZG07b for example is completely linear, with a few offshoots for secrets. It does not feel linear though since you revisit several areas at different heights and coming from different directions.

Compare it with the word examples of corridor design which allows for little to no exploration. And usually has 100's of identical doors, some of which you're allowed to open, some not.

Oh, and clip walls across otherwise open terrain. Those are great.

http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=... 

i was just thinking that i actually hate it more when i choose the RIGHT route because that means i have to backtrack so i can go explore everything. :P 

I don't think that being linear and making the route obvious are mutually exclusive. It's possible to do the latter without locking yourself into the former - just look at the id1 maps for a good example. They're littered with little arrows hinting "go this way", when you find a key you're normally dropped to the door that needs it very soon after (it's often on a ledge or ramp above the door, even). You're still free to explore, you can get yourself wonderfully lost as much as you want, but you can always find where you need to be quickly enough. 

about the id levels (eps 1, 2 and 3 at least) are that they are all small enough so that even if you are totally lost, a quick wander will generally always lead you back to somewhere that orientates you. Also, I find each area is pretty good at being distinct and recognisable.

Episode 4 is by far the weakest in this regard as the maps have lots of corridors that kinda look the same. 

Is probably old news, but yet another indie roguelike is making fame:

http://spelunkyworld.com/

Been laid up with flu and playing this. Terrible, yet oddly compelling design. 

That must be some flu indeed.

I'll agree some things are unintuitive, or plain out frustrating, but just about everything can be mastered over time. And that's pretty much the point of anything that claims to have roguelike elements, right? 

I'm a student of games design... when things are unintuitive or frustrating it seems to go against everying I've been learning all this time.

But its a lot of fun, hope they do well with the port. 

That bandwagon nearly killed me! 

Rules are made to be broken, once you know them. Spelunky would be half as interesting if it was more intuitive and user friendly, it's one of the strong points of roguelikes, even recent ones (see Binding of Isaac). 

Much preferred The Binding tbh. The design felt like it was on my (the player's) side more. I ended up 100% on that one.

A lot of playtesting has gone into Spelunky, but it seems many things are just, well, broke.

Maybe I haven't played far enough, but why are the shortcut tunnels not on the main screen? I can see the arguments for them off to one side, but none of them doesn't boil down to 'frustrate the player' at its core.

Intuitive and user friendly don't have to be the pariahs of games design.

Granted that most designers that focus on these don't really like the game they're making, and it comes out in how it plays.

There must exist a bridge between Garage and Indie design, just a case of figuring it out.

Not ignoring the Roguelike element, but thats just a description of a format, and one that's inherently friendly to small dev teams since its not necessary to spend all that time building full levels. 

Antibiotics. Ignore most of the above. 

Because I got into it after Supa recommended it in like 2009. 

Unintuitive was probably the wrong word.

Unpredictable, rather. 

I get the unpredictable, it's something that goes right through the game. Sometimes a flying rock will hurt you, sometimes not. Sometimes the ledge grab doesn't work on certain ledges, identical to the rest.

There's lots in there where I'm not sure if its bugs, or intended behaviour.

'bomb in a chest' is the worst thing in the game. Or maybe its the control scheme in general.

Even though it sounds like I hate the game it is compelling - I'm still playing it at any rate.

Just don't buy into the argument that roguelike = broken so much. But it depends how 'broken' is quantified.

I suspect they'll struggle on XBLA, although it'd be nice to see them do well. 

I got stuck on for a fair while, and posted before I think:

http://www.desktopdungeons.net/ 

Are a gateway drug into proper roguelikes.

For some odd reason nobody's linked to DoomRL yet. 

Nice, thanks. 

Been waiting ages for the tiled version of DoomRL.
And it was worth it, it's awesome! :D 

Hope you weren't looking forward to Assassins Creed 3 on pc -

“We’re definitely supporting PC, we love PC, but I think it’ll be PC with a controller."

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/ubis...

Ahahahahahahahahaha, etc. 

^^ was me 

@Daz, quiet a lot of games play better with controllers plugged into a PC, they were designed and tested that way. 

If devs loved PC, they would develop PC games, not port console games. 

You mean the same way devs hate unpaid overtime, so don't do it? 

I have Asscreed on the PC, and it TOTALLY needs a controller. It's the only game which I have which NEEDS one. The controls are silly. Spacebar makes you run forwards (WTF?!).

Like Crackdown. Ever play that? Almost impossible without a controller I'm sure.

I have a mate who plays Skyrim on his PC with a controller (XBox360), and he loves it. 

I'll get a wired 360 controller and play Assassins Creed 1. 

I played a large chunk of AssCreed 2 on a PS3. It has some of the worse controls I've ever used.
I was quite shocked after the amount of hype that went on and on about it's cool movement system and stuff. I didn't realise it would involve holding three buttons at once and giving up camera control. Yeah, don't let me control the camera right when I need to see where the hell I'm going.

And I so wanted to get into it because the actual atmosphere of wandering around a town is really cool :( 

rFactor car sim, real tracks, real cars, formulas, GTs, 100MB basic game engine, 300MB each car, 50MB per circuit, 1MB program to connect. my favourite ATM are F458 Macau street circuit, F1_2006 Jerez/Korea, GP2_2010 Singapore night street circuit. icq/qip contact 259689233 

I prefer controllers for everything, including FPS's (and I know saying that will make a lot of you back slowly away from me, feeling the walls for an exit whilst making sure not to break eye contact). It's a comfort thing for me.

If FitzQuake had support for the 360 controller, I would be on that shizzle. 

You're not alone. I love controllers for almost any games on my PC. When games don't support my 360 controller, I sigh in disappointment. 

I wanted my controller to work when I got Super Meat Boy. That's about it. I don't see how people can play on controllers when a good mouse/keyboard setup is available (especially when it comes to shooter), but then I've been largely a PC gamer since I was 4-5 years old so that may have something to do with it. 

Decades of mouse and keyboard use have ruined my shoulder/wrist so the less I need to use that combo, the better. 

with my Rat 7. 

Mouse and keyboard are good for FPS with guns, but for anything else it really depends. For most games playing with a controller is nice, for strategy games and such I like playing with my Wacom tablet when that's supported, much easier on the wrist and more natural. 

Same here Willem, I have to take a good weeks break in between playing games so my mouse wrist can recover again. Keyboard one is fine, it's just the damn mouse that fucks it up.

Do controllers not effect RSI as badly as the mouse? 

They don't for me. Using a mouse is definitely my trigger action. I can use a controller or an art tablet all day, no worries. 

Maybe try one of those mousepads that have buldge on one side where you put your wrist on? 

Thanks. Yeah, I've purchased several hundred dollars worth of devices, pads and gadgets over the years. I also get a deep tissue massage once a month. It's a lifetime commitment of maintenance at this point...

It's the kind of thing you can't tell other people to prevent it because they won't listen. The whole, "Sit up straights, arms at 90 degrees, shoulders relaxed, etc" advice sounds horrible but it really would help.

But nobody wants to hear that ... until their wrist/shoulder starts hurting, and then it's too late. 

That kind of stuff is horrible, I stopped using a mouse for work a few years back and it's done so much good to my hands, so now I try to be careful with the rest, but it's not easy.

Out of curiosity, are you in your 30s or 40s Willem? 

Just turned 42 last week. I've had these issues for several years though... 

Wow, I thought I was the only old timer around these parts, turned 43 at the beginning of this year. :) 

A few of us in the 40s 

wtf I swear I was 16 just last week and now I'm 27!! I too am old as fuck. :( 

You're 27? Oh, that explains why you still love mouse and keyboard so much. >:) 

A couple of the older designers at work use those vertical mice because of their wrist problems, similar to this:

http://img.directindustry.com/imag...

I hope that never happens to me, but I'm already creaky and falling apart. 

And haven't noticed any real aches and pains yet, but 5-10 years ago I could go out partying 10 hours, sleep for fifteen minutes and go into work fresh as a daisy.

Nowadays it takes me a week to recover from a handful of hours party. And no chance 2-3-4 days in a row. 

Mine kicked in around 37 or so. Just FYI. :) 

The unfortunate thing is, it isn't something where you start to feel something and then you correct it. If you feel it, you've got it, and you're into management mode.

I wish you all luck! But don't kid yourself into thinking that you don't feel anything so you must be OK ... if you're slouching in your chair and all of that other stuff, it's likely just a matter of time.

Sorry to be a wet blanket. :P Just trying to help...

It's not a problem until it is. 

I thought you were STILL 16.... All the soliciting for nothing! 

I got RSI quite bad several years ago (i'm 32 now) to the point that I had to use a cold flannel on my wrist, but I started using the mouse in my other hand occasionally and just managed it better and it got better again. Tried one of those big flat mouses where you're hold hand sits on it, but it was annoying and slow to use.

Then a few years ago I went self-employed so I don't have to work so hard on the computer. But about 7-12 mnths ago it started getting worse and hasn't improved since. I haven't got the pins and needles at night so much, so I know it can still get much worse than it is now. And it will... probably have to give up gaming in a year or 2, or at least do maybe 1 game a month rather than a few a month.

Willem what do you find works best for it? What kind of mouse do you use/any wrist pad for it? 

Oh by the way I reviewed STALKER Clear Sky. Didn't really enjoy it, it just pissed me off. It seemed to be quite popular on this forum so you guys might not agree. 6/10.

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Also tried Silent Hill Homecoming, but it crashed alot, especially when alt-tabbing, the combat absolutely sucked assholes and it wouldn't accept my key config. Trying to change it in the menu only accepted some of the changes. Fucked up console port that I quit not far in.

Next on my list is either Assassins Creed or Devil May Cry 4 :) 

Kona

I tend to favor the Logitech MX518 mouse - the one that looks bullet riddled. Primarily because it's light and that puts less strain on my hand moving it around but it still feels good button/wheel wise. Wireless mice are right the hell out as the batteries make them instant torture devices.

I don't use pads or gel strips or whatever. Those don't tend to work for me at all. What I found last week, actually, is this hand glove thing:

http://www.amazon.com/Imak-Compute...

And THIS actually seems to work for me. I can rest my wrist on the padded part and it feels pretty good. Doesn't help my shoulder but I'll take what I can get. :)

As I said before, I also get a deep tissue/trigger point massage once a month as a maintenance thing. She works out all the knots in my back/shoulders/neck and tries to reset me for another month.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Mine doesn't sound as bad as yours but that might be because I've found a maintenance routine that helps keep it under control somewhat.

Good luck! 

Oh yeah, and if things get really bad I'll wrap my wrist in a cold pack while I watch TV at night. That tends to bring down the inflammation enough that the next day feels better. 

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice...

Need to get a new one though... 

Yeah, I tried one of those but keeping my hand/arm stationary all day actually seems to do more harm than good. 

Those gloves are gold. I used them a couple years back when my wrists began to act up. I also bought a trackball and a magic trackpad and cycle between them and the mouse. Haven't had too many problems since then, but then I'm a programmer, so I don't use the mouse too much anyway. 

I have had various problems with the use of the mouse but luckily it never reached the point of no return. As much as sitting up straight and different mouse types help, I found switching around my routine helped the most. I would make it a habit to stretch, use different apps, get up from my desk and walking around, making coffee, etc. 

...ugh, kids! Eh, Shambler? 

 

Tried the vertical mice. They work for awhile but I think my problems are addressed differently. They don't work all that well for me. 

im the other way around. i get cramps with controllers as opposed to keyboard/mouse. specially the xbox one that's asymmetrical compared to the ps3 one. i only have a ps3 at home, but whenever i go to my brother's place and play with it, i get cramps like after 30min or something. 

Cramps. Oh WOE IS YOU. :) 

yes :'( 

Fallout for zero money at http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/fal... for 2 days 

I bought the classic series pack when it was on Steam sale not long ago. Haven't played it back in the day - what a miss! I'm totally enjoying the games. Already played through FO1, and I'm close to beating FO2 (on normal) now. Nice games, I like the theme, the humor and all the little extras the player can discover.
Also good to finally learn some background information on things they picked up in FO3 and NV. Quite faithful to the originals in many areas apparently. 

awesome, thanks for posting that. :) 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...

Or something. I wish him the best of luck. I like his views on FPS gaming style and I hope with the lessons learned from DKT he could make it a great game. GL HF. 

If it re-uses a Daikatana base, it could turn into something cool. Daikatana concept was really interesting, just a shame it turned to shit too early..
As shambler said + I want to see another Romero FPS ! 

Still fun, but boy has this series been dumbed down. The first few at least left it upto you to figure out some of the puzzles, not so here, the clue is always staring you right in the face.

Some nice visuals and setpieces though. 

maybe it will do as well as his last company that was making an MMO of his design...
http://kotaku.com/5383644/romeros-... 

Blacklight: Retribution

http://blacklight.perfectworld.com... 

Unless by cod you mean a fps. 

Give it a shot, it is surprisingly good.

Fast like I like it, not one of those plodding crawl'n'headshot from 3 miles pansy-fests.

Proper full paid for game quality. Similar to Neotokyo for HL2 if you tried that, but faster.
Tons of luvely GITS influence, always a plus.

Yeah you have to gain points and levels by playing to unlock new gear (you can easily unlock items for 1 day) or use money to unlock stuff early BUT the basic weapon and gear you are given is very adequate, have no probs reaching top 3 in Kills, Caps for CTF/KOTH/DOM, Assists etc even when server is full of guys having poured in over 60 hours already. 

Ooops that was me. 

Only played one game, so far movement feels a bit awkward. There's like a slight delay if you want to change direction or something like that - peculiar. And I don't think the models loaded all the way, the game seemed a tad blurry in spots. Was pretty good though, if a bit laggy. 

I had none of those probs, for the Lag did you try another master server ?

A funy thing though, not sure if its coming from my PC or the game but some resolutions give slightly less responsive controls (even though it would be a lower res) Try a couple diff 16: 16:10 resoltuions see if it helps.

I can't stand games with laggy mouse/keyboard response, would of noticed, so its def coming from your side. 

http://www.metropulse.com/news/201...

That, absolutely. 

Particularly the lost irony of corporation control. 

Reviewed Assassin's Creed. Gave it a 6/10. Great visuals but the combat and gameplay is complete shit. I don't know how this is so popular.

Are the sequels any good?

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere... 

It would normally classify as a mediocre generic sci-fi shooter. But the fact that EA's intention was to milk more money from the 'franchise' and being dicks with pathetic attempts at justifying the switch of genres and design goals can only lead to one verdict: the game sucks.

Sure, it had czg's name in the credits, but it also used a Skrillex track, TWICE. 

I turned off VSync (I hate it) and the controls feel better, but movement is still not as clean feeling as I'd like. The controls also don't feel as responsive as I'm used to, a few times I went into iron sights, pressed left mouse to fire and ... nothing happened and I got gunned down. The controls in other games (CoD most notably) feel really good and responsive, but the controls in Blacklight just don't feel as good yet.

It also takes a while for all the assets to stream in appropriately, and a few times I played a match with blurry assets. Respawning can also be jarring if the game is trying to load assets when you spawn, and can slow down the game.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, because it's quite good, and pretty fun overall, but it doesn't feel as polished as CoD or that other one I forget the name of that Friction plays a lot. Battlefield, that's it.

You get tons of unlockables. That's kind of cool, but the problem is that you get a ton of 1-day,2-day,3-day limited items, which kind of sucks because they just go away after a while. You can purchase permanent versions through in-game currency which you accumulate very slowly or you can spend real $$ for "Zen" and just get items that way. The biggest problem is that by level 5 you just have a shit ton of clutter and you're not really sure wtf to do since you have so much useless, time limited stuff in your inventory. I spent a couple minutes buggering about trying to figure out how to customize my avatar, but then gave up because I just can't be arsed. The whole system feels very cluttered and messy atm.

The levels are really bland. They are not as enthralling as Deus Ex's world. That isn't to say they're ugly or anything, they're pretty gorgeous, but they're just dark and generic feeling. They could use better lighting techniques for highlighting important areas and keeping them separate from hazardous ones. There are some paths that I first didn't recognize due to poor lighting, as well as some hazardous drops (that highrise map, for example.)

tldr - The game is fun, it's good, I have a lot of little problems that are mostly nitpicky. Doesn't feel as good or polished as a CoD or Battlefield, but I think it will get there over time. 

You can purchase permanent versions of the equipment with the ingame experience, no money needed. You failed to see the option to unlock permanently when in the purchase menu.

Think you rig is maybe not up to it ? Streaming of assets lasts 1-2 seconds for me and done, and its a what was good 3 years ago pc. Oh yeah, you did turn off DirectX 11 and all the useless depth of field, blur and whatnot bullcrappery right ? :P
DirectX 11 is a bit broken in the game I think.

I like the maps, the assets very GITS, again are COD and battlefield levels that interesting ? For games based in semi "reality"...

tldr : I think zwiffle is having a few issues, the game is amazingly polished to me - admitted I turned a lot of fluff off.
Oh and I can be bothered to observe and think 30 seconds to figure out an interface which helps... 

Oh noes EA is an evil big corporation blah blah no facts just feelings, never mind that syndicate had probably been in development for at least as long as deus ex:hr and so on.

I'm sure it doesn't have the same feeling as the old syndicate but what about talking about the game own it's own.

Haven't seen much discussion about it here (maybe I missed it?). 

It wasn't released on Steam + didn't hear much good about it + there was no PC demo = couldn't be bothered to care, instead of probably buying it on day one just cause czg worked on it. 

I mentioned that you can get permanent versions, read my post again.

Like I said, it's polished, but just not as polished as CoD or Battlefield. Maps in those games 'feel' like their own levels, whereas in BLR the maps are very generic feeling. They don't really 'identify' well. Even DX:HR's levels were very charismatic and felt vibrant.

Also, the only thing I turned off was VSync, which was responsible for the laggy mouse I was feeling. Everything else stayed on, which is fine. The only real technical problem I have is assets taking a while to load (or maybe the asset itself was just lo-poly and looked bad?) and occasional frame drags when I respawn. Otherwise, the game runs fine.

The interface isn't hard to figure out, that wasn't the problem. THe problem was you just get a lot messy stuff filling up your inventory. It's cluttered and cumbersome to look through. Read my post again. 

Because keyboard gaming is starting to drive me nuts these days. Not reliable or responsive enough. When I want to JUMP, I dont want to stand there like a dolt.

/rant

ps; various keyboards, same deal over the years... :( 

Not sure what you mean. Use mouse2 for jumping. 

Sounds like it depends on software/hardware?

Different topic: Rock of Ages.

It's fun, but small. Seems like the multiplayer would be fun.

Could have had some more out there items to place as well. Apparently there's DLC on the horizon. 

Maybe all the keyboards I've used just hate having so many keys pressed at once.

Was getting my butt kicked in boss battles from Ys: Oath in Felghana because of the this. Switched to 360 controller and that has already made a massive difference in the accuracy of movements. Some games are definitely more suited toward controllers. 

Use mouse2 for jumping. 

You're right Zwiffle mea culpa I seem to have skipped a line in your post on the zen/in game currency. 

Sounds exactly the same as C1 and C2. Looks exactly like a cross between C1 and C2....but fucking cool: http://www.bluesnews.com/screensho... 

now that is how you do post-apocalyptic. Not this dull endless-grey-wasteland bollox. 

yeah, that'd be a nice change from the constant mad max post-ap stuff we've been seeing.
i mean, i like the evile desert wasteland thing, but i think a really beautiful and peaceful (until monsters try to eat you) setting could be awesome. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AB...

Do want. 

Fact is, in a game like Spelunky you just can't trust people. The best example came in a two-player game, where a mate responded to the presence of a bat with the immortal words "I'll take care of this." He went to whip it, missed and hit me, got bitten, panicked and dropped a bomb on my stunned body, got bitten again and impaled himself on some spikes as I was blasted to smithereens. On the game over screen, you could see the bat still nipping away at his corpse.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/... 

Which the coop version would come out for PC. :( 

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/131787/...

Exactly more of the same but the setting looks great to me. Gameplay is incomprehensible in the trailer tho. 

I hope they up the ammo limits after Crysis 2 that was my main annoyance with that game.
They removed your pistol slot and then halved total ammo capacity :( 

but the game sounds like it could be cool if they are going for more of the open jungle type gameplay of the first game but with a slightly less monotonous environment. 

Reviewed Raven Squad from 2008.

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Very average shooter, 5.5/10. Probably fuck all people have played it since sites like IGN gave it a 2/10. 

On your review list, 'The Precursors' links to the RS: Vegas 2 review. 

cheers mate, just fixed that 

Given your appetite for obscure and possibly horrible FPS's, have you played or reviewed Marine Sharpshooter? I bought it on impulse (very rare for me) seven years ago or so. For me this was a $20 case of buyer's remorse as I didn't even tolerate it for more than 2 minutes off the start in a dark camp getting shot by unseen enemies that I was trying to spot over a huge and overly bright HUD. Just curious as to whether or not it ever got any better. 

Possibly horrible, lol. Nah I passed on Marine Sharpshooter. There was a bunch of them actually, I was possibly going to get Marine Sharpshooter 4, but the screenshots looked really bad, even for 2008, and even for me. There's plenty better (but still horrible) Russian shooters to play ahead of it.

I just tried to play Steam Slug, a German shooter that looks very similar to Painkiller gameplay-wise. Except it's all in steam punk 90s style level design. Couldn't re-map the mouse buttons though, and I don't use wasd.

Looks like I'm playing Dreamkiller next
http://www.gamespot.com/dreamkille... 

the last part of your review makes it sound like a horrible (AND consolified) game! 

And now I've finished Dreamkiller :P
Review http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

5.5/10. Wasn't that bad, but only if you liked Painkiller and want more of it. 

 

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20...

Reminds of RetroBlazer quite a bit. 

Looks like it has really REALLY boring level design.

A lot of developers seem to confuse "old-skool" with "crap". 

I honestly couldn't watch much of the video. The fight with those large robots after they hit the red button almost put me asleep. I've never seen such a dull shotgun before. The lack of feedback/flnching or such from the mentioned fight and later doesn't exactly help either.

Many people do seem to miss the point with this 'old skool' thing with FPS. Just because the game doesn't play like COD and you run around in various square rooms fighting enemies like in the 90s doesn't mean it's 'like Doom' and going to be fun.

It's the level layouts (and then design) which tend to fall short. :/ 

most "old skool shooters" made these days tend to be arena shooters with waves of dumb enemies. The level design is dull and generic typically.

I never really understand why this is, if you look at the real old-skool shooter games, ie. most of the older id games, they are nothing of the sort. Either these developers are incredibly lazy or incredibly uninspired.

Wracked will have it's own level editor on release however, it looks very similar to worldcraft. Just fyi. 

shit level design, even shitter enemies and combat. cell shading as always looks kind of cool, but it's only hiding a pretty shitty game. that needs a lot more work.

when, for the love of god, are developers going to stop putting fucking spiders in their levels? Daikatana should have permanently ended developers love affair with insects. 

"Feel" is the hardest thing to nail in a game. They have the basic mechanics - fast movement, guns, enemies, pick ups - but it doesn't have any feel. There's no kick. It's all very sterile and meh... 

Looks so bland and not fun. As Willem points out, the weapons seem to lack oomph. The shotgun looked like it was spraying buckshot everywhere but killing enemies regardless of the awful spread. Plus it had a crappy sound (youtube video fault maybe?) and animation.

Daikatana might have had crappy little spiders, but it actually had some fucking awesome weapons. Shotcycler was the best shotgun ever. The RL was pretty nice in dkt too. Don't really remember the other weapons because I deleted the game after a bug with the shitty "AI" "helpers" prevented me from finishing a level.

Also, if you're going to throw 200 crappy mechanical spiders at me, give me some explosives, not a lame sword.

Among us, we could probably make a nice old skool fps, but Quake already exists so I'm not sure there is much point. What was the last really good old skool fps anyone played that isn't Quake? 

 

Painkiller was pretty oldschool.

Also: A lot of developers seem to confuse "old-skool" with "crap".

Yes.

"No, no, it's supposed to be shit, it's oldschool!" 

Defines old school as a lot of these developers seem to want to emulate. But instead they emulate the dearth of shit Doom clones that came afterwards and nobody wanted. 

Some modern developers seem to think that oldschool means that they just threw the game together, that they didn't work hard for months on end and impose crunch of themselves (before that term was coined) in order to make a great game.

So they do a half-arsed job without any soul or proper balancing, then slap the name old school on it when all it deserves is 'poor'. 

Soldier of Fortune 1 

"Oldschool" is used quite freely in certain contexts, as if the term was a definte concept, while in reality it closely relates to feelings of nostalgia, which differ from person to person and over time. If there was a new game that's 100% like Doom, it might still not get the same love and everything, simply because it's judged from a different context (now vs. 17 years in retrospect). I was actually going to make a discussion thread about this topic for some time... 

And I'm not going to attempt to define it because I don't think you can. I think most FPS's stopped being oldskool after Half-Life 1 - suddenly it was all about coherent stories, and a coherent progression through a convincing environment. A lot of the abstract and arcadey elements seemed to vanish. Yeah, you had stuff like Painkiller that ignored all that, but Painkiller sadly forgot to add any interesting gameplay. 

I enjoyed Painkiller, but as a game, Serious Sam is far, far better. Serious Sam doesn't have the level design complexity of Doom or Quake, either, but it does have even greater monster variety and uses that variety well, and becomes it's own game.

Really the level design and variety is a key thing always missed. I think a lot of people, especially in reviews, haven't actually played Doom, or played it years and years ago and don't actually remember what it's really like.

Having said this, comparing the default maps of Doom to Quake's maps or modern user made wads like Scythe or Speed of Doom is pretty amazing. You see how unfocused and tedious a lot of Doom maps were, and how refined the craft has become :) 

PS The idea that 'arena combat' is oldschool is pretty funny really, because that's exactly what a modern shooter level does. Stick you in a fixed area and spawn stuff for you to kill, move to next area, repeat. 

DNF felt a little old skool to me, in that the gameplay was not really all that complicated by the awful plot, and it really seemed that it was an anything goes kind of game. Almough many of the levels were super generic, there were a few gems in there such as the one set in the fast food restaurant where you are shrunk down and have to navigate many obstacles for whatever reason...

Then again, due to its ridiculous development, I think DNF also showed the difference between pre and post half-life fps games, since it seemed like they started off as a classic shooter with a few crazy elements, then later toned things down and tried to match what hl and later hl2 had done.

I id make a new Quake, I doubt it will lack a story or obviously linear levels, but I hope id at least look at why we are still making levels for it 16 (argh!) years on. 

Finally played Bioshock and rated it 9/10. Pretty lenient because the gameplay got a bit shit in the second half of the game.

Review here:
http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Looks like Crysis is my game of the year for 2007 now that I've played everything. 

So apparently the first three "DLC" for Risen 2 are already included in the game --> and can be unlocked by a simple cheat code! While the pirate clothes are usable just like that, Steelbeard's treasure isle and the Stormisle expansion will lack the corresponding dialogue voiceovers, but they're still fully playable with subtitles. The only actual downloadable part is the dialogue files.

On the one hand, this is a case worthy of outrage similiar to the ME3 controversy, but on the other hand it's also quite a lol. I'd like to think PB did it on purpose as a sort of retort to this dick move by Deep Silver. :D 

Most DLC's are already inside the game and unlocked when you buy them. It's how games are made. Downloadable Content typically isn't, because games are built in a modular form and the publishers only want to pay once.

Also, making genuine DLC incurs greater costs from Microsoft / Sony. 

DLC = Downloadable Content. 

Forget the acronym and the orginal meaning of it, Bal. Bonus content (or the majority of it, anyway) for add-on packs and extra 'DLC' is often included with the assets for the original version of the game, as ijed says.

The nerd rage that ensues when gamers get wind of it is always at least vaguely amusing, but it's getting a little tired nowadays due to sheer repetition. I'm always completely astonished that the indignant spankers getting up in arms about it completely ignore the business aspects of it and can only repeat ITS ON THE DISK SO I ALREAdY PAID FOR IT again and again, like a toddler having a tantrum. 

I remember rumours, playing the Quake 1 demo, that the other 3 episodes were unlockable if you just had a certain "hack." Lol, as if the other episodes and extra monsters etc were included in the quake demo - why bloat the demo DL size especially in those days.

That said there is absolutely a psychological difference between "I'll sell you this cookie jar," and "well technically you already have the cookie jar, but I'll sell you a key to get into it." The latter pisses people off, I don't understand how you don't understand that Frib. People's calculation of winning, losing, and especially "having a right" or "getting screwed" are not necessarily rational. Seriously, don't give them data they can't unlock and then offer to sell them the key, it's douchey - sorry for thinking like a caveman about it heh. 

I know from my experience on Gears that this is not entirely true. Generally, we're working on DLC content after the game ships. Are there recent examples of companies having shipped DLC content on the original game disc? 

I do understand, and you're right from an absolute perspective about the psychology behind it... but seriously, after the initial outrage, why can't people just take a step back and actually think about it?

- Buying the physical disc doesn't mean you 'own' what's on it. You're paying for the advertised content and set of features, and gaining the right to use them only in the ways set out in the EULA. I'm not saying I necessarily approve of these practices, but that's the terms and conditions that we're agreeing to when we purchase the games.

- Further to the above, just because it's on the disc (or in the initial download) doesn't mean you paid for it. The extra content cost extra money to develop, and the developer/publisher wears that cost under the assumption that they can recoup (and hopefully profit) via the 'DLC' fees.

- It costs a lot of money to deploy a patch or update on services such as Xbox Live. Not a trivial amount, either.. it's enough that even the big boys hesitate because the cost could cut heavily into profits or even cause them to lose money. This is why the Xbox version of TF2 didn't get all the free incremental updates that the PC version did, if you recall. For this reason, bundling the extra content on the dics makes a lot of sense.

- Sometimes having the extra content is done in part for the convenience of the users. A recent example was one of the Street Fighter games, where all of the extra characters (which were to be sold as 'DLC' later on) were on the disc in part to allow players to join servers and play against those characters (rather than being locked out of the game entirely, or having to download the content just to get in the game).

- Not everyone has fast/cheap/always on internet.

You don't have to be a developer to understand these things, the average gamer that follows the news could connect the dots (and to their credit, they often do). 

I think Mass Effect 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken were the big ones causing a kerfuffle recently.

http://au.gamespot.com/news/on-dis... 

That was my point, and why I used both DLC and the phrase downloadable content in the same post.

The reality has little to do with the name.

Willem, I work almost exclusively on full DLC games - only done a single disc game and hopefully won't be doing more.

But we usually develop the content paralell to the game, and include it in the same package.

With the advent of freemium and live teams (as in, big publishers are realising they're losing a serious amount of market share), this'll be set to change soon as well. 

I bought the latest Indie Royale bundle:

http://www.indieroyale.com/

It's better than the last one, Data Jammers, Weird Worlds and Containment are quite nice. I wasn't so happy with Dungeon Defenders, felt like they were immediately trying to milk me for more cash and I didn't find it too fun either.

Anyway, I'm not just plugging the thing. It seems that Weird Worlds was mainly made by none other than Iikka Keränen.

It's pretty good as well.

If you don't know who that is then first punch yourself in the nose, then check Quaddicted. 

Just bought the game on steam ($9.99), and now I can't stop playing it. Also purchased Jamestown and Legend of Grimlock. Played those for a short while too. 

yeah it looks cute aye. i might go back and play it one day.

legend of grimrock looks a bit shit. 

Is an excellent game.

The amount of variety and humour in there WITHOUT including BS driving sections or even parts that just feel broken or like a cop out, is amazing. 

nice game. much better than brutal legend 

A fantastic little survival horror-ish game by Jasper Byrne. Looks gorgeous and has some of the best audio work I've heard in a video game. Qba'g gnxr vg ng snpr inyhr.

http://www.lonesurvivor.co.uk/ 

 

 

http://gamersushi.com/2012/05/10/e...

I love the idea of this! It's a real shame I don't own Arma2 or I would probably end up playing this mod all night :) 

skyrim is 20$ off this weekend on steam... picked it up finally, but i'm not sure when i'll get to play it. o.o 

 

I just got Alan Wake from GOG.com. I considered buying it in Steam's midweek madness sale but didn't make up my mind in time, then two days later GoG does an even better price with bonus content and absolutely no DRM! Bargain.

I'm underwhelmed by the gameplay, but it's a beautifully crafted world to "explore". I use the term explore loosely as there doesn't seem to be a lot of freedom. So far I'd give it 6/10, but I've only played for forty minutes or so. 

wasn't for me 

fucking steam exposing my cowardice to the world. 

http://www.callofduty.com/uk/en/bl...

Why did no-one tell me this? Looks typical COD garbage from the trailer and I suspect the atmosphere and gameplay will be mostly the utter puerile drivel that COD has become famous for, but the....war machines do look well cool in it....that might even tempt me. 

Finally! Someone has had the vision to do a futuristic war game. I certainly can't recall any first person shooters in recent memory with sci-fi suits and gadgets, or indeed vehicles! 

I do like the idea of riding a horse and being strafed by the starship enterprise. 

Yeah at least they're trying a slightly different setting, and putting horse riding in.

But... "what happens when someone steals the keys?" Seriously? That trailer is pretty fuckin cheesy.

Oh and it shouldn't be called Black Ops. That's just a cash-in. 

I just thought the near future thing was a fair bit cooler than modern....warfare. 

Edited down a bunch of video I captured during the recent stress test for GW2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pul...

The video is pve gameplay using the Guardian class.

The game in short : Fucking amazing :) 

You can currently get Duke Nukem for free on your iPhone. Controls are pretty much impossible to use it seems though. Try switching to dual-stick mode if you want half a chance though. 

Duke Nukem 3D that is 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6...

I played a little bit of the original PS back in the day, this sequel looks like it going to blow everything out of the water, wow :) 

This time the thief http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE7... shooting, and stabbing. 

Torchlight 2 - Beta Update: Upcoming Weekend Stress Test
http://www.torchlight2game.com/new...

Path of Exile is doing regular open beta weekends apparently. I missed them all so far... :(

http://www.pathofexile.com/ 

I'm in the Chinese city and while the sky above is very cool I seem to be wondering around a lot of small streets and box rooms, and my kill count is approx 1 pwnage per half hour of playing. Endless talking and getting lost otherwise.

Does the fun and excitement happen soon?? 

Deus Ex isn't an action game. 

I've managed to collect 7 different guns (with modifications) and 3 types of grenade because it isn't an action game. 

What leads you to believe that Deus Ex is an action game? The presence of guns? Guns are one path through the game but that's the not the point - you have other choices and options. Talking is part of it, sneaking another, hacking another.

If you're expecting thrill-a-second gun play, you made a poor decision. 

reinstalling Deus Ex to make a lethal playthrough. 

The main character in Taxi Driver carries three different guns. Clearly an action film. 

It's current on sale at greenmangaming.com for £3.99 and the key they send you can be used on Steam.
http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/gb... 

Really. I never knew that about Deus Ex. 

That's either sarcasm or an honest admission ... based on your posting history, I'll go with sarcasm and reply : Then quit bitching about it. :) 

Free russian "2D arcade platformer" to keep an eye on and play as soon as it has been translated: http://iichantra.ru/ 

http://lesser-vibes.com/vibecrc_-_... 

 

But it's still in the action RPG genre right? 1 kill per half hour isn't action. 

Is an action a game.

It says so right here:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/...

TBF it has guns and bad guys, and you can run and jump and shoot stuff. Sounds like an action game to me. Just saying.

I mean Crysis is an action game, but you can play through a lot of that using stealth and stealth alone.... 

I haven't played it yet either :D

So as per usual, I'm talking about shit which I know nothing about r. o. f. l. 

I think the defining thing about Deus Ex, the thing that makes it fantastic, is that it is whatever game you want it to be.

I'm playing dx:hr again at the moment and I decided to go through as a social/hacking/stealth master this time around, I just got to China without killing anyone and it's been just as fun as my first time through where I was some kind of blood crazed madman :) 

I am trying to be a blood crazed madman. Unless I start shooting police and civilians, there really isn't much option (earlier missions were better, at least there was an option there).

Also I have done turds with more personality than "Jensen". 

Right. This isn't the game for you. 

The protagonist of the new Deus Ex puts me the fuck right off.
Havent tried it yet even though there is no greter Cyberpunk fan than I. Why does it have to be a macho moody puurdy groomedy beard shite head, why not something truly cyberpunk - gender bent/less ?
Because thats taking risks and fuck that.
Prolly just gonna replay a jazzed up version of the original Deus Ex instead...when I have time... which is prolly not for quite a long while. 

TBH I don't think any game would benefit from gender bending purely for the sake of taking a risk. Deus Ex has a story to tell (it's quite good -- no novel, but still a lot better than most action RPG's) and it would be derailed if you started throwing in questions about Jensen's sexuality or gender because that drastically effects relationships with other characters. It's only really possible to do that sort of thing in a more sandboxy RPG like Mass Effect, and such a gameplay approach would surely have ruined some of Deus Ex's excellently balanced level design by diluting the developer's sense of focus.

Deus Ex may not tick all of the traditional cyberpunk boxes, but then cyberpunk isn't as "edgy" and "underground" a concept as it once was, so perhaps it's good that people are changing it up a bit.

As for whether Deus Ex is an action game or not ... well ... it's certainly not a point and click adventure. There are moments of explosive action, but it's strengths are its stealth sections imho -- which is also action, of a sort.

/rambling 

It seems the servers are going to shutdown at the end of the month (may 31st 2012) and if you have not tried the game yet, it might be a good time to try before the servers go offline. They have also turned all the worlds to white difficulty which makes the game slightly easier. After playing dark souls I had forgotten how hard the original was, crazy boss fights but an amazing game for melee combat systems. 

Mean that the game can't be played after the server are offline?

Never tried any of the series tbh, though a lot of people have recommended them. 

The game is certainly better with online server elements (co-op, world messages, world status) The game can be played offline, but maybe harder if you don't know what you are doing.

When you connect to the servers the world status (black-grey-white) is reset to the server average which can help with difficulty of the game. It is very easy to end up with pure black world if the player dies a lot. When you kill a boss the world shifts towards white (this is the only event when this happens) Certain places and events only unlock when the world is a certain colour.

If you want to see the game, I highly recommend you try it before May 31st, the worlds are set to white (easier) and there is a lot of players around to co-op with. 

to fit it into the schedule... 

run on a few yrs old PC an equipment (GTX 465 if you are wondering) 

I have an i7 3.0ghz and a gtx 460 and I'm running it with everything on max with no issues. 

will pick it up. 

Because another legendary trilogy I never played is on sale: Thief.

The first 3 games for 15 USD. 

 

You have all these to check out! 

very interesting Podcast about diablo from rogue like people: http://roguelikeradio.blogspot.com... 

only some small good thoughts actually, overall it was shallow diablo hate by people who did not seem to like them :/ 

I only listened to the start a bit, but none of them have played Diablo 3 at all (just one the beta, and that really doesn't count for much), and most of them haven't played much of the two other games either, so... 

could you summarize the few good parts for us? :) 

The one big thing that was a new consideration for me was that Diablo (at least 2 and 3) have no real goal. Your goal is to +1 your stats. A normal person will not come to a real end/finish. Actually I guess even if you are level 99/60 you do not "win" the game, correct?

And also how death is irrelevant. Made me think how different games handle death/failure differently and how one reacts to it. Eg in a rogue-like it is happening every other hour, no big deal, you probably learned something new; your next play is fresh and unique. In a FPS you reload and you have to replay (renavigate/re-aim) the last X minutes.

In Diablo, if you die, it is usually because you did not +1 enough beforehand. So the solution is to grind/farm (oh god, I am talking like some annoying nerd). (Apart from finding out what immunities/resistances an enemy has in Diablo 1.) To a degree you can learn patterns for some enemies, but handling those is often still bound to your stats. Skill is pretty much irrelevant, it is persistence and time-investment that makes you a good Diablo player.


Earlier when playing I noticed how in Diablo 3, if you focused any monster and hold your left button, you can move the pointer anywhere and it will still be targetting the monster. Even if said monster teleports. Ugh! 

So diablo 3 prettymuch boils down to squishing that mouse button down and waiting for the game to happen/progress? And then for your button subduing you may get an extra reward of a few $ to be made in the auction house...
Diablo 3 seems a funny kind of thing to me, some more business model than game went into it I think... 

or how Diablo3 became the antithesis of what it orignally was/the PC game culture it represented.
No moddability, always online, no lan etc. Does none of that count to what made it the game it was ? 

Not at all. 

Moddability was never a big thing for Diablo as far as I remember.

And yeah in normal you can pretty much run through really easily, but on the harder difficulties you actually need to play the game.
It's not an amazing game as far as gameplay goes, but it's still ok. 

Yes ok modability no but Blizzard was built on LAN. But this is the same old crap as with starcraft 2 nothing new then.
Good to know there is some gameplay to it then but still, tying in a real money auction house is bound to fuck around with balance and the game spirit, the stakes are changed.

Now heres possibly some good news on the Cyberpunk gaming front : http://www.rpgsite.net/news/1706-t...

Projekt Red doing a Cyberpunk RPG. This could be great :) 

I would add though although modability was not a big thing at the start it definately is now, Median XL, Hellfire etc for Diablo 1 and 2 are well popular mods. And this will never happen with Diablo 3 seeing how tight Blizzard are clenching their anuses around it. 

I totally agree that it's very sad that modding is dying. It's not just Blizzard though, services like Onlive or other game-streaming things are the logical next step, and they will completely kill any kind of modding. :(

For the real money auction house, I hate that kind of stuff. But if they didn't do it, the chinese would do it behind their back and keep all the money. As a company it makes sense that they'd set it up themselves instead.

Hope CD Projekt Reds cyberpunk game is nice yeah. The Witcher worked well because they had a great well written fantasy story to build from, hopefully they have an equivalent for this new universe. 

does anyone know how to get the dragon tooth in deux ex (1) without using hacking stuff? i am playing as gunslinger and will not pick or hack anything. the glass that protects it is unbreakable. i could not find the computer's login details yet. 

Ah, kind guesswork. There was a message about mchow's old password being Tai-Fun. I found another message where she stated Tai-Fun and Insurgent being her favourite books. Silly unsafe passwords. 

:D

To not answer your question though, I have no idea :( 

If the Dragon's Tooth is essentially a light sabre, why does it take up four inventory slots :E 

It doesn't turn off! Kinda tricky to carry around. 

You would not want it to extend accidentally without having the space for it. Same thing as pants, really. 

on sale via Steam and it looks very interesting. 

Limbo is excellent. Would highly recommend it... 

Yeah it's a nice little puzzle platformer, not so much to it but I'd recommend it as well. 

will pick it up. 

paying through GoW 1 atm, will have some questions for you :) 

God, that was so long ago ... I'll try and have answers. :) 

The only answer you need:

My Computer > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Gears Of War > Uninstall

No offence to Willem (who I'm sure did cool stuff that was swamped by the crushing mediocrity of the game overall), but as far as I can remember, it's the only game I've tried and uninstalled after a few hours. 

Hey, that's cool. There were several million other people who DID enjoy it, so it worked out in the end. ;) 

...more or less people than those who enjoy Britney Spears and Hollyoaks??

Or maybe exactly the same people!

Don't get me wrong, Epic have done some brilliant things with Unreal and UTx and their engines. But GOW1 was truly dire.


Hmmm what the hell is Fortnite all about then?? 

I really liked GOW and disappointed they didn't bring the sequels to PC. Sure I'm well and truly over cover-shooters so I wouldn't enjoy the sequels as much. GOW was so popular because everyone wasn't sick of cover-shooting at that point. But GOW was one of the best looking games of the year it was released (2006?). 

Shambler

You are indeed a unique and beautiful snowflake. Those millions of gamers? All wrong. :) 

In seriousness, if you don't like GoW, that's fine. If you think it's "dire", great. I think you're hilariously wrong. So ain't we both content? :) 

No one is content when you keep using that arrogant smug smile at the end of every single post of yours. 

Nobody is ever happy here? Ever notice that? :) 

if Shambler is allowed to give an opinion why is Willem smug for having his own?

So far I'm liking it, nothing groundbreaking but wasnt expecting it to be. 

 

Awesome musician. What's not to like? He's like one of the most versatile and talented producers ever. Anyone who says it's 'just noise' is probably deaf, or a Westlife fan. Fuck Westlife. Fuck them right in the Hay-hole. 

Yeah, Skrillex is a'ight. 

You lot revolt me. Skrillex makes GOW look like....Unreal. 

I really hope you have an actual cane that you shake in the air when you say these things. That's what's happening in mind, anyway. 

Er, riiiiiiiight. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

GoW is probably better than Unreal. I will give it that much. Really - if I had to pick GoW or Unreal I would play GoW. For the gameplay. And the GFX.

For Shambler to listen to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVz... 

Wait wait... are we comparing Unreal to GoW or Unreal Tournament to GoW? These things matter. 

So I was referring to ... 'Unreal'. From 97 or whenever it was. 

If anything would get Shambler interested, it would be the song that hooked me:

Skrillex - KILL EVERYBODY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21... 

Because it was the first thing that sprang to mind when I heard it. 

Wait what...? I thought Skrillex was a large series of tutorials for using synthesisers. ie not something any person actually listens to, unless they're off their face on ecstasy?

Shiiiit 

Every thirty seconds in a given song you can see he found another little knob on his control desk to fiddle with 

GOW better gameplay than Unreal?? Have you been smoking dog turd rollies?? GOW hardly had gameplay at all.

As for Skrillex, as someone who has been seriously into dance music for a long time, he is an appalling embarassment to the electric music genre (no his overblown childish screeching is nothing to do with dubstep at all).

Ricky no offence or anything but your taste is in your ass. 

Cane in the air, yes? 

Yeah, what the hell Shambler. What kind of loser are you? Next you will say that you dont like Lady Gaga, Rebecca Black or Game of Thrones even though EVERYONE DOES! Bet you *hate* Jar-Jar Binks too. Stop having an opinion, seriously.

As for dubstep, IM kick Skrillex ass anytime at that! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0D... 

He can have an opinion, sure. He just needs to accept that it's about 15 years out of date. :)

And him having an opinion doesn't mean he can't be mocked for said opinion. Especially when it's hilariously wrong. 

 

Unreal might be from 1998 but it looked magnificent for that time. I think it was the first PC game that genuinely looked good. 

We're down to people are spouting ridiculous crap so they deserve to be trolled.

Oh, and before I forget ... :) 

Any Unreal (except for Unreal 2) > GOW (which isn't as bad as Shamb says, but still).
Music > Skrillex

This is not my opinion, it is the Truth.


You guys should go play some Binding of Isaac Wrath of the Lamb, it's better then all your silly games with'em polygons and such (and its music is awesome). 

France : 1 Internet : 0 

Binding of Isaac is terrible. There, I said it. 

You forgot to smiley. :( 

Oh shit ... :) Wouldn't want anyone's impotent rage to settle down or anything. :P 

the truth is that people have different taste, popularity is a measure for popularity and willem is holier-than-you :)

now, back to games?

playing deus ex without using multitools, lockpicks or hacking is fun! it would not nearly as much fun if I could not save and reload quickly.

the plasma gun is pretty useless though, I am currently waiting for the next mg to pick up. just visited the universal constructor and I got 4 augmentation containers in water basins in front me. if I dive down I get killed by electrocution. guess i will have to leave them there.

found a couple of new routes already. and the running and jumping augmentation is great fun. 

I like how Spirit always blames me in these things. Was I the one who rudely declared GoW was "dire", which was nothing but a pure troll move? No.

Was I then the one to further troll by declaring that "Willem likes Skrillex"? No. Who was that? Oh wait, it was you!

Nice. Back to games indeed.

:P~~~~~ 

Anyhoo, if you do have GoW questions nitin I'm happy to answer. Maybe shoot me an email instead of posting here though, if you want to keep the noise ratio down. 

now, back to games?

Some 200-odd posts ago I banged the drum for Lone Survivor, and I'll do it again since it very much deserves it.

Watch the trailer, and if it seems like just another zombie game to you, then buy it immediately just to find out how much more there is to it.
The most defining feature aka the soundwork will scare you, then soothe you, and get you pumped for the next round of dark corridors. The soundtrack is very eclectic and not just a bunch of pseudo-NIN droning.

The pixel-plus aesthetic is fantastic, the game looks like a living mosaic, the screenshots don't really do it justice. It's very charming despite (or because) of the 160x120 or whatever the hell low resolution.

And if you don't care about all the other aspects i.e. NPCs, sidequests, keeping your character in good mental shape, then know that there are lots of wretched abominations to deal with... and there's a gun. 

Neither was saying Unreal / UTx / Epic engines being brilliant.

Game Of Thrones is great tbh. Sometimes fantasy for the masses (like LOTR films) can be done really well.

Now then. Witcher 2 - watching t'bird play it....is it going to make sense at any point?? 

He just needs to accept that it's about 15 years out of date.

Yup all opinions are rendered null and void if they were held by people in the past.

Just so we can be sure about this, at what point in the past do they become invalidated? Is it a year, or a decade, or five minutes? :) 

Now THAT is a quality troll people. ZQF has you all beat. Step up your game! 

And I've never listened to dance music, or 'real' dubstep.

First of all Gears of War is better than Unreal in many ways - it has better graphics (in real-time), better animation, better engine, bigger, badder maps - it's more immersive. IMO. Which is valid, because it's mine, and it's an opinion. I do not require your validation on that, and any attempts to in-validate my opinion will be ignored because I know who I am, and I know what my opinion is.

Secondly 'dub-step' is a beat, not a style of music. I never said Skrillex was dubstep (though he does have some songs which are dubstep). I like Skrillex's tunes. And so do a lot of other people, though that is irrelevant to me, I only listen to it because I like it. I have listened to most of his tunes, and really like almost all of them. The ironic thing is that Full-flex is probably the most commercial-sounding song he has, and is the one with the most air play AFAIK. It's also one of my least-favourite Skrillex tune.
I frankly couldn't give a flying fuck if Shambler likes Skrillex, I'll wager he hasn't listened to very much of it, because I think that technically and artistically it is superior to a lot of the crap that is going around.
The dude is like 25 years old or something, he has already produced so much [good] music! Started off in a metal band too, BTW. I haven't heard of anyone shake up the world music scene as much as he has since Cobain. I mean everyone has heard of him, or heard some of his tunes. And it seems that people either really like it, or really hate it. Which is a sure sign of amazing music, if I ever heard it.
I think that what he has done is really clever. He plays some very sophiticated-sounding or just generally off-the-wall 'verses' and then powerhouses into his choruses with utter, utter filth. Gets old grannys bopping to really hard music. Which is good. Skrillex is not cheesy, but has subtle humour. People who don't like the sound can atleast admit that it's well-done. I mean srsly - get a life. THAT, my friends, is all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvx... 

Ricky ... he doesn't really care. You're typing paragraphs into the abyss, man. 

Willem: For the record. You seem to enjoy feeling superior to the often critical discussion that this message board features. Since your "I am so much above you" attitude annoys me I troll back. :)

Ricky: You listed things that GoW do better but did not mention anything that defines the game itself. Is it a better game?

---------------------

There is a new Humble bundle and they finally got back to exciting games: Bastion, Amnesia, Psychonauts, Limbo, and Sword & Sworcery

As usual, all on Windows, Linux and Mac.

http://www.humblebundle.com/ 

I heartily recommend Unreal, even those ten+ years later. 

Hope I can just download the binary for those, already bought them on steam. 

Argument is invalid, Unreal and Gears were both terrible games. 

jt_: Wait! Apparently they lied and it is just Wine for Limbo at least. I'll post when I know more. Since I already bought it... 

What critical discussion? "Everything sucks" isn't a discussion. It's a lifestyle. :) 

I did play Unreal back in the day, on a P166MMX :)

I enjoyed it, but I just think that GoW was a deeper richer game. Mainly because in ten years gaming had moved forwards with more technology for richer games. 

Misread that post then. 

Correct I didn't read that gibberish. "I think GOW was a deeper richer game" justifies my decision not to.

P.S. HTH nitin :) 

UT had layers like an onion, maaaan... 

just listened to the few skrillix songs posted in this thread. honestly it doesn't seem that bad to me, although if that's his best songs, it doesn't put my in any hurry to download his albums.

however the songs did seem to have some cool beats and a bit of rhythm going on, which is a lot more than can be said about a lot of rock and metal these days which is just constant noise. they'd probably sound good in a pool bar with not so much dancing going on but just some cool grimey electronic stuff. 

"Yeah, sorry dude ... your music is alright but it's just not good enough for me to download for free." 

These days. I do frequent and brutally honest cleanses of my music folder these days.
My opinion:
I think Skrillex is mediocre. I also think the hardcore anti Skrillex stuff is unnecessary as the hardcore fandom. That being said, the only hardcore Skrillex fan I know used to be a hardcore nickelback fan. Perhaps instead of being the Cobain of ...fax machiney dubstep?... He's the chad Kroeger.

Re HIB:
Just started playing bastion now and I am blown away by how much I'm loving it already! Wasn't sure I'd be a fan of the art style but in game it is actually pretty damn charming.
Totally not ready for Dark Descent though. I think I had a small stroke. 

These days. 

Lol Willem that's about right

"sorry skrillax your music is ok, but not enough to spend the time in my precious life downloading it for free" 

Does nobody have standards anymore? Is this the sort of trolling that is expected to get responses these days? I mean ... ahh, forget it. If you can't even take a piracy dig and turn it into something respectable ... you all really must be too old to play this game. 

For the record Limbo is an incredible game that everyone should play! 

Who me? I don't really troll tbh, just speak my mind.

I personally don't believe in paying for music. Not when I've spent 100s of hours creating Quake levels and gave them out for free, so why does some little bitch named Rihanna for example, who's already many times a millionaire, think she deserves $30 of my hard earned money for one of her albums that she's already made millions on, and probably threw together in a few weeks. Do I earn millions of dollars with a few hours work? NO.

I can understand with the smaller bands that haven't made it big, but anyone who's big makes loads of cash for concerts - which I do pay for if they actually ever come to my country - and from people who do buy their music either on itunes or cd.

My money is far more valuable to me than it is to Rihanna so she can buy another pair of $100k shoes to wear once. So why should she have it just because she made some songs? And let's be honest, most of the mainstream artists these days don't write or produce their own music. They get it given to them on a plate. And even if they did, guys like Skrillax prove that it's really not that hard to make music. I'm 100% certain I could make better music than most of what's out there today, with the necessary tools and experience - but that's wasn't my chosen profession. It's really NOT that hard to make music.

Ultimately, most artists don't actually deserve all the money they get just because they made some cool songs. I put just as much effort as they do into my own professional, and I don't charge millions for it. $30 for a cd is a ripoff, and I won't pay that much for any album ever again unless it's someone I really, really respect (Amon Tobin, Boards Of Canada).

So that's my little rant about why I don't pay for music and don't believe I should :D 

with the necessary tools and experience - but that's wasn't my chosen profession. It's really NOT that hard to make music.

Yeah I think the same thing everytime I listen to Jimi Hendrix. Totally unimpressive, just give me ten years of daily practice and bleeding fingers.

Oh, and a life-time of turmoil and family strife to channel into my music. 

Also during lunch just now I played some Limbo and god it owns so much.
Perhaps the best industrially-themed game ever made! 

hehe well not so much Hendrix. I guess there are plenty of artists that have spent years practising on instruments that don't deserve to get pirated.

I'm thinking more computer based production rather than actually playing a musical instrument, because that's actually mostly what I listen to. Electronic genres, hiphop. But much of the top 40 stuff these days isn't a typical band. A producer made their song. Maybe I'm wrong and there's more bands out there in the mainstream. 

He's not going to benefit from any of the money.

If his family didn't sell his rights, then maybe they would? If not it would be the record label that gets rich of that 40 years dead dude ... 

He ain't dead baby he just went home. 

Hence why I wouldn't reinstall GOW if someone forced me at gunpoint, would rather listen to 5 minutes of chronic diarrhoea than a Skrillex track, and definitely pay for all the artist music I get because I believe that people deserve payment for the effort they put in to that media. 

these dudes are Old Skool. 

was just pondering the whole Skrillex v GoW v Unreal v Me v Shambler v Willem BS.

Quite funny really. 

although it didnt really fan as much as it should have. Maybe you guys have lost your trolling skills. 

Ricky is trolling or just an imbecile.

Willem isn't he's just irate and misguided.

I was just honestly trying to help, Nitin! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rU... 

I've had time to play lots of "Other PC Games" while you've been having this silly discussion, I win once again! 

Why is "Other PC Games" in quotes anyway? Are they alleged games? 

They're not really PC games, they're all just ports of console games. 

Whilst Skrillex is off topic :S 

Starforge. I guess this is what happens when Minecraft has its way with Halo or something? Really interesting looking procedurally generated fps/sandbox thing.

I did vidyuz yo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcc... 

the player pain sound is hilarious. :D
i've been wondering how long it would take until someone made a sandbox randomly generated game. i agree about minecraft, btw. making stuff was fun, but the combat didn't really do it for me.
thanks for that video. :) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lV... 

Now featuring Braid and Super Meat Boy... hey, don't wander off, yeah those are included in every bundle, but what's also in is the extraordinary Lone Survivor!!

http://www.humblebundle.com/ 

So the game will be given to everyone who bought HIB V before today as thanks for early adoption, regardless of what they paid - which means close to 400,000 people will already be guaranteed a copy!

http://superflatgames.com/wordpres... 

It's an awesome game. 

Here's a Prince of Persia (2008) review
http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

6/10. Shitty combat and jumping, but it's a great looking game.

Ubisofts done some really overated games in 07/08 (Assassin's Creed, Vegas 2). I hope I'm not disappointed by Far Cry 2. 

FC2 was cool though, albeit flawed. 

thats a different PoP, havent played that yet. 

Willem, how much involvement did you have with the Belly of the Beast levels? IMHO, the first set of levels with real atmosphere and they have a Shadar Logoth vibe to them (strange connection but thats what I felt). 

...and has the guy who designed the controls on the buggy thing in Gears 2 been forbidden from ever designing controls again? 

is now available on Steam for a reasonable price.

Getting it cos the original version doesnt work with Win7. Hope WoT makes it someday too. 

Quake scene tidbit: FrikaC is responsible for this new release. it has some bugfixes and polish from what I know. and the soundtrack is included. you can blame me for it being in ogg vorbis. 

some maps are supposed to be redone to remove dead ends and unintended death spots etc 

Just got back from spending five weeks in Vietnam doing serious work stuff (much as I would have liked to have spent that time playing games and arguing about fucking Skrillax and Gears of War).

Actually - on topic, I did play some games over there! Video game shops in Hanoi are hilarious - there are entire streets where every shop is selling pirated games burnt onto discs. It's just how they roll over there. You buy a dodgy chipped console, and pick up a shitload of dodgy games for about a dollar each (I think I bought about 50 of 'em at once) In fact, I don't think it would be possible to buy a legitimate game in Vietnam even if I wanted to. I played Gears of War 2 and 3 that way (split screen) with my mate (can't go online on these hooky consoles) and it was a blast! Shambler you are wrong. 

Ur a great big gayer and I hope you caught 'nad rot over there. 

I've only finished 3 out of 5 Acts so far and it is a flawed game, but I've liked it. I will say this, its worth playing just for Act 3, very atmospheric and cool. 

Did you get a chance to go out and about? 

Why is "Other PC Games" in quotes anyway? Are they alleged games?

Because when I made this fucking thread it was 'Other Games', and included console games like normal rational designers might discuss.

But then Shambler the Tyrannical Cocklord decided that the glorious PC race was somehow suffering by hearing that people enjoyed anything on 360 or PS3. 

Did you get a chance to go out and about?

Yes absolutely. I saw a lot of Hanoi (which was where I was staying). I friggin love the Old Quarter, and met so many cool people there :) As well as doing some daytrips to areas near Hanoi (ancient villages, Ninh Binh etc.), I also spent an awesome weekend on a boat in Halong Bay. During some downtime I managed to do a bit of flying around and I spent some time in the coastal cities of Hue and Hoi An (Hoi An at night is stunning), and I even flew over to Laos to spend the better part of a week chillaxing in Luang Prabang. Sadly I didn't get to see Saigon or any of the rest of the South, but that's for another time I guess.

In fact I loved the country so much, I'm currently figuring out a way to stay in 'Nam in a more permanent capacity. My partner in this game business thingy I'm doing lives in Hanoi, so it would make sense for us to be in the same place.

Are you from around that neck of the woods? 

Glorious pc gaming master race 

no I'm from Australia but did visit Vietnam and Cambodia for a holiday a few years back so was just curious as to whether you got about or not and what you checked out.

I much preferred Hanoi to Saigon personally, actually most of the north to the south, but that shouldnt stop you from checking it out.

Halong Bay was definitely cool, did you get to see the floating villages? And Kayak in that amazing looking water with all those limestone islands?

If you do go back, I highly recommend a few days up in Sapa, great little place easily accessible by train from Hanoi.

Also, I didnt get to Laos but you should alos go to Cambodia if possible, by boat along the Mekon (6 hrs) from Chau Doc to Phenom Pheng would be my recommendation, beats the bus anyday! 

Yeah, I did kayaking in Halong Bay, under the caves and stuff, and swimming - we got a really basic boat that didn't have a working shower, so in the morning instead of rolling out of bed and onto the deck, I climbed out the window from the bed and just fell into the sea. It was the perfect way to wake up. And yeah, the floating villages were cool, we had dinner in one of them.

I meant to do Sapa, but I was a bit pressed for time at that point, and the 8.5-hour overnight train sounded a bit gruelling. Definately next time though :}

Cambodia and Thailand are definately on my list too. 

Finally finished playing Fear and it's first expansion (I played it a tiny bit way back when but never actually sat down and played the whole thing).

I'm having a really hard time thinking of another game that squanders so much potential, and gives such an intense feeling that the developers didn't truly understand what they were making or for that matter what made it fun. 

combat was fun, rest was meh? That's how I remember it anyway.

Kinn,

great story! ALso, the train ride is not bad, except that the carriages are designed for midgets so you dont get much sleep really. 

finished and I liked it, despite numerous frustrating fights because all the combat in the game is based around the cover mode. I think it would have been better if ti was mixed up a bit with standard shooter combat and cover combat.

Looks wise its obviously quite detailed but apart from Chapter 3, none of it felt memorable. I think its because every nook and cranny and area is equally detailed, lessening the impact of set piece visuals a fair bit. 

Any config files I can edit to allow Mouse1 rebinding?? Or are Pirahana Bytes going deliberately for the "no chance of sale" option?? 

$3.74 on Steam. 

Coming to XBLA on July 4th.

http://spelunkyworld.com/ 

 

Reviewed 3 of City Interactive's 2009 shooters

Code of Honor 3: Desperate Measures 5.5/10
http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Battlestrike: Shadow Of Stalingrad 4/10
http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Armed Forces Corp 4/10
http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Bit of a chore, but all 3 games only added up to about 6-7 hours of gameplay. 

shittest performance ever. Tried a number of different settings but I barely get 5 FPS no matter what. 

What specs? I was tempted to get it the other day on Steam but I hesitated because my machine is about 3 years old now. What are you working with? 

A short free horror game in the vein of Amnesia and Penumbra. You have to find eight manuscript pages scattered throughout a dark forest while being chased by a mysterious man.

The official website http://www.parsecproductions.net is down at the moment, but the download links still work: PC Mac (~55MB)

NECROS, GO PLAY THIS!!!!!! 

Teaser video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bs...

NECROS, DON'T WATCH THIS!!!!!!! 

Not wearing my brown pants atm, so I'll have to take a rain check. 

a mysterious man.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slen... 

The link reminded me I should replay Yahtzee's Chzo series - which is somewhat Lone Survivorish btw. 

nuke it from orbit with fire good sir, fuck the ocaen 

Premise sounds a lot like this game, which was actually very cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EL... 

GTX 465 and AMD Phenom II X$ 965 3.40 GHz with 4 GB ram.

Like yours, not exactly new but this is the first game I have had this much trouble with. 5 FPS is ridiculous. 

Anyone got this? And if so, can you check to see if you can rebind keys as follows:

Forward: L Mouse
Backward: R Mouse
Attack 1: #
Attack 2: [

And in general rebind all keys??

Ta, X 

and I'm not downloading 11gb of game to check :D But off the top of my head, you can rebind keys. I used a 360 pad though, much easier to play that way! 

You know, google and stuff :)
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/qu... 

I did google, but couldn't find any indication that you could rebind MOUSE keys... 

+ Alice is cool.
+ The enemies are cool.
+ The environments are cool.
+ The jumping and dodging effects are cool.
+ The shrink mode and hiccuping are cool.
+ The lack of penalty for falling off things is very good.

- The worst example of consolitis I've seen.
- The umbrella bug sucks.
- The controls feel like ass, the mouse speed is fucked randomly changes all the time (maybe something to do with strafing (which is also fucked) but I can't find a consistent cause)
- The aiming mode that removes true 3PS is horrible.
- The focus mode that removes and semblence of a control perspective is even more horrible.
- The auto-saves are sometimes in utterly moronic positions.
- No normal saves.
- The section where you go into a retarded side-on perspective (why? truly awful), run through lots of crushing fist things, then have to fight lots of enemy in a tight space, with the autosave BEFORE the side-scrolling crushing bit is possibly the worst section of gameplay I've encountered in a game.
- Completely on rails with spoonfed progression.

Basically it is a pretty, stylish, shell of a game surrounding a rotten core of terribly- ported, scarcely QA-tested console turd where the charming effects and amusing enemy are drowned in a seething diarrhoeic mass of broken controls, broken autosaves, and general obtuseness. 

Is Tomb Raider Legends any good? just found it in a random pile of games left behind by an ex-housemate :p 

its insanely awesome. the game is a straight console port. no mouse pointer on menus, so you either use the wads keys or the arrows to move and choose the options.

steam has a demo, so i say try it. before playing though, there is an option to configure controls & settings. going there is a must because otherwise you'll get xbox controller icons for inputs instead of keyboard ones. you can also get change fov and the keys themselves and etc etc.

the game itself is a third person cover shooter, and its done pretty well. what i really liked is that, while it has those concrete barriers most third person cover games have, this one doesn't have them on every single fucking level. levels are linear, but fun and done well.

i thought the shooting itself felt really good. controls just like gears, spacebar to run & take cover. sometimes its used as a "action" key, though F is more of the use key but whatever. console games are weird as shit.

you can issue commands to your team mates, but its not a must. there are times when they'll comment on something or ask you a question and you'll have to answer and their friendship level will rise or lower depending on how you answered them. if they hate you, giving them the command to give you cover will be ignore and such.

the story is very good. i really liked it. some people say its b-movie good, but i find that kind of a bad comparison. its just a good game. very japanese [made by sega], and its crazy as fuck, and funny, and serious. its one of those games that doesn't take itself too seriously [unlike most western made shooters] so its fun and crazy.

wont go into details about the story because i am too shit to explain it, but watch the trailers and you'll get an idea. i think knowing the basics will be enough. i did that and i found myself getting into it more.

think of it as a a mix of blade runner & battlestar galactica [robots being human like & so on].

there are insane set pieces, and really fun boss fights. while they are the usual "shoot glowing part" i didn't it find it annoying or boring.

there are a few "turret" scenes, not really in a turret, but in a moving car shooting dudes out the window during a chase. even these parts i had fun, usually i hate them or i just want them to be over soon.

i had no issues with it technically, except for a fps drops when i killed a boss and particles everywhere slowed it down to like 5fps, but lasted like 3/5 seconds.

right now its $9.99usd on amazon.com. maybe wait for the steam summer sale to grab it if you live outside the us.

took me around 12 hours to finish it. the length felt just right. not too long, not too short.

i saw this trailer a few months ago - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPa... - and i got interested, then tried the demo and i was sold.

i drank three large 32oz coffees so i am hyper as hell right now, hopefully it wont make the text too annoying. 

Also, it's too long. 

scarcely QA-tested console turd

I notice testers tend to get a lot of flak for problems still present in games, whether its a bad console port or bugs. What if these people are doing their job, yet the ones in charge are simply not fixing them for whatever reason? (Time/Cost)

Just something that has been on my mind recently. 

Obviously the complaint is about the overall combination of the testing, the attention paid to testing feedback, and the fixes made on the basis of that feedback - or lack of any of those aspects.

In this case I presume the PC port wasn't tested at all. 

I wasn't pointing fingers at you specifically, it's just a thing I've noticed all over the web and that quote was an excuse to post my thoughts :p 

It is a fair point. Who knows where the fault lies, all we can do is make a general point and hope those responsible are wracked with guilt and shame. 

Read a few articles about how a lot of QA departments in studios are treated like complete shit, ie not considered 'proper' employees, kept in seperate buildings and stuff. 

and that is: whoever gets blamed for a game's shortcomings, will always pass that blame onto someone else.

Internally, the blame will be energetically punted up and down the chain of command, and sideways into other departments - until it ultimately runs out of momentum and rolls quietly towards the direction of the publishers.

The devs - now with their hands washed of it - get to their feet, pat each other on the backs, and happily start the next project - where they proceed to either make the same mistakes all over again, or a bunch of entirely new mistakes. Often both.

(Whatever the case, it's never QA's fault though). 

New trailer at Blues, much less of the futuristic stuff, much more explosions and nonsense. 

Reviewed Darkest Of Days from 2009.
6.5/10, definitely under-rated with a 51% on metacritic.

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere... 

Was really looking forward to it, but it turned out to be shit. Seriously, fuck that game. Glad I didn't buy it full price - seems almost everything on Steam gets a 50% discount after 2-3 months on sale, and I'm sick of buying full price. Managed to beat it, but it was a real trial to get through for the following reasons:

Rockstar thought they were making a fucking film. Rockstar are usually pretty good at putting a good story into their games whilst keeping the player in control most of the time. Here I was in control about 30% of the time if you ignore all the time I spent replaying the same sections because I died. Far too many cutscenes, far too many times when the controls are removed from you just to show a little fucking animation when it could have easily been part of the gameplay, and to make matters worse, you can't skip cutscenes half the time, or at least it seems rather inconsistent.

The gameplay is worse than Max Payne 2. I loved Max Payne 2, which felt to me like Remedy had taken the things people didn't like about the first game, and improved them no end, whilst adding layers of polish to everything else too. Rockstar clearly knew the source material well, as the gameplay doesn't stray far from the original, aside from the addition of cover (not very well implemented, however), but the things they removed, such as molotovs and grenades, spoil the game somewhat.

It's the most on-rails game I've played in ages. There is almost no freedom whatsoever. There are locked doors everywhere, and those that aren't usually get locked by some kind of mischievous door locking goblin after you pass through them in a fairly non-subtle way. Other scenes just kill you or your partner the instant you go to some area rockstar didn't want you to go to, which makes the game feel like they put up invisible walls everywhere.

Maybe I'm just super shit, but it's really frustrating. Enemies are constantly popping out from corners you don't expect and chipping away at your health, and death comes quickly even if you are turtling. Dying is annoying because there is almost always some little cutscene at the checkpoint that you must watch before you can get back into the action. If you die a lot, the game restarts you with more painkillers and ammo, which is nice. I wouldn't have finished it if it didn't.

Sometimes enemies die really easily, sometimes they just keep getting up. They definitely go down sooner if you shoot them in the head, but sometimes it seems like they are wearing layered helmets, because they just don't stay down. It feels shit when that happens. Again, could be that I'm just shit.

The game keeps auto selecting the pistol. The pistol is a really useful weapon, but you don't want to use it ALL the time. Usually when you come out of a cutscene, even a small one, the game has switched your weapon to the pistol. If you haven't noticed it can be really bloody annoying. Why they did this I don't know, but it seems like a shit design choice.

Bullet time isn't really any fun any more. Just feels slow and shit. There are some scripted events using bullet time that are kind of cool, but I think I would have been happy just playing normal speed. Bullet time does make the game easier though, so I used it a fair bit in the sections where I was dying a lot.

There is some kind of shitty full screen visual effect going on throughout the entire game that you can't disable. It's a kind of colour shift thing that I guess is meant to emphasise Max's whisky and pain killer addled world. It gets annoying pretty damn quick. The camera work in the cutscenes is often really over the top too.

It seems a bit buggy. Sometimes you can't easily pick up weapons, sometimes shit floats in the air, sometimes bad guys spaz out and sometimes the camera sucks and you can't see where you are aiming because Max blocks the crosshair. It's not too bad I guess, but there were a few things that spoiled my "enjoyment" somewhat.

I already wasted over 10 hours of my life playing the game, so I will stop wasting more on it and wrap up my little mini rant with don't bother unless you are a big Max Payne fan and want to follow the story. 

http://i.imgur.com/owkkQ.gif 

I AM a big Max Payne fan and I simply don't consider this related to "my" Max Payne at all. 

Sounds like a lot of issues that are oh-too-familiar with modern gaming. Lots of really fucking bloody obvious issues that would have been so easy to fix/avoid/not bloody put in in the first place, but games devs seems to have a habit of deliberately fucking things up when it would actually be easier not to do so.

Autosave points just before lengthy cutscenes = games devs should be ground down into dog food. 

Autosave points just before lengthy cutscenes

I'm astounded that this still gets done. I mean, people have complained about this kind of thing since the dawn of cutscenes. 

"Autosave points just before lengthy cutscenes"

This is usually done for several reasons :-
* The cinematic devteam want to have a save / spawnpoint close to where the cinematic is for testing and tweaking.
* Often the skip function for cinematic's is never added (or very late in development) because (often) the director wants the players to watch every cinematic. Think about the devs for a minute, they have to watch these things as well, except 100s of times!
* Cinematics cost a lot of time and resources to create and some people feel the players should see them all! Crazy attitude ... 

That is a list of why cutscenes should NOT be added to a game imo :)

If players want to skip the cinematics, then the cinematics are either boring or the game has failed to make the player care for the story in any way.

Funny that (imo) some of the best games with the best stories had no cutscenes. Half-Life series etc. 

Funny that (imo) some of the best games with the best stories had no cutscenes. Half-Life series etc.

Which makes me wonder: if they are so good, why are not most games like this? 

I get annoyed when, after sitting through all the loading logos, I then get the game logo with a "press any key" to get to the menu. WTF is the point of this? I know what game I'm playing, just put the logo on the menu! Which it usually is as well anyway. Then if I want to quit the game I get taken back to "press any key" to get to the menu so I can quit!

It's like turning on your television and you get a "press any button" before you're allowed to watch anything. No one would buy that tv. 

I then get the game logo with a "press any key" to get to the menu. WTF is the point of this?

Yup, another head scratcher for me. It's just one more extra click for nothing.

There are a lot of bizarre common practice things in games these days. I just don't understand what they accomplish other than mild annoyance. 

This is a technical requirement from both microsoft and sony. They won't let a game pass certification without it.
Why they want it like that I don't know.

Also; Christ, that is the most insignificant fucking pointless detail ever to whine about. 

I think that's why it's so annoying. I mean, there's no purpose for it at all and yet it's there. 

Haha yeah but it's just so pointless. At least with a save before a cutscene it's there so they can jam their cutscenes down your throat. It's done for a reason.

Anyway, review of Devil May Cry 4 (which was pretty bad at it's "press any key" and menu design, and overuse of cutscenes). But I enjoyed it 7/10.

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere... 

I bet there's a really subtle reason behind that. Like it confirms that the player actually does have a controller connected or something, on account of user testing having shown that this was something people did on a surprisingly frequent basis.

But for crying out loud remove it from the PC version of a game. 

A = Time it takes to whinge on an internet forum about the "press any key screen".

B = Time it takes to actually press the fucking key.

Anyone wanna guesstimate what A/B equals? 

*hugs Kinn* 

people enjoy whinging... 

I can't believe what I'm reading. Are people here actually defending a useless start screen? Something that serves no purpose in a pc game other than adding another layer between you and the part of the game that you actually play.

And, Kinn, in your equation, B should read like this: B = Time it takes to actually press the fucking key * time it takes for the useless start screen to load * number of times you play the game * number of games you play that have a useless start screen. 

Are people here actually defending a useless start screen?

If someone complains, someone will defend, I guess. It must be like an internet rule or something. 

I think you're wrong, that isn't an internet rule at all. 

hahaha, touché. :) 

Ah the days of old Playstation games where loading menus took fucking ages, so those extra title screens were just there to piss you off when you left the room to make a cup of tea or something.

These days, far far more things to whine about than that shit. I just got back to playing some Hard Reset and holy shit you move so fucking slowly. Feels like you're waist deep in water. And you can sprint for about a second at a time (and the speed boost is shit).

Pretty game though. 

Get a trainer that has a sprint cheat ZQF. It might be cheating, but it'll make the game more fun. I can't stand slow walking games. 

make it non-skippable first time through if you want players to see the hard work and money, make it skippable for repeat attempts. 

Under "rocket science" or "brain surgery". 

had this feature, except it seemed to work for some cutscenes but not others. No idea why. 

what if players don't actually give a shit about your fucking story?

I actually liked the Max Payne story (well, it was ok), but in other games I have not given a rat's ass about the story and couldn't skip the cutscenes. I don't give a shit about the work that went into them, I just want to play the game. If there is some important info in the cutscene, then maybe it's ok to stop me from skipping it the first time, but I'm paying to play the game, not watch cutscenes, so any artificial restrictions on skipping cutscenes (non-technical, such as loading in the background) should be removed. 

I watched a housemate play Devil May Cry 4 once. I say play... 

scroll up to read how I played hl2 and how their method of story telling is fucking stupid (to me). 

This an old game that was re-released as a WiiWare title, and now has a proper PC release.
It's an old school metroid-vania style platformer, very hard and unforgiving, it's pretty good. Anyone who likes those type of games should check it out.
http://playism-games.com/games/lam...

RPS review :
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20... 

http://www.moddb.com/mods/nightmar...

This was released in 2010 but I missed it. Holy shit it's good! Very high quality production value, great atmosphere and good pacing. The final confrontation is brilliant.

It'll take you around 3+ hours to finish, I enjoyed every minute. 

missed that one. 

Finished Hard Reset. There is a lot wrong with the game, but it has nugget of awesomeness that you need to learn to tap and then it becomes a really rather unique feeling game. It promotes rapid weapon switching, weapon combos and crowd control over pure dodging or cover use (though it does still have a lot of both).

A bit like Fear in that I could natter endlessly about all the cool stuff the game has as well as really bizarre or annoying design choices. Hard Reset pushes an FPS into even more classic arcade territory, and in fact I think doesn't go far enough.

It also has surprisingly oldschool level design. Though it doesn't place enemies in specific positions so much, it does have linear but interconnected environments that flow around, and you feel like each space has interesting geometry and you get to see each area from multiple angles.

Basically, love it or hate it game in the end. I had to play through it once to realise what weapons were worth buying and using and what to not waste points on (fuck RPG upgrade paths, especially when you limit my choices early on anyway). After that, second play through, ton of fun. 

PS it's had some free DLC so the game is much longer than it was at release. Someone told me where the original ending was and I got why people complained it was so short cause damn, sudden final boss out of nowhere. 

 

 

Apparently, Samuel 'Kaiser' Villarreal wasn't so happy with his and others' work on the older Doom 64 TC, Absolution, so he went ahead and coded a custom Doom Engine from scratch for emulating the physics of the 64 port as closely as possible. Even though there are still a few graphical glitches here and there, it looks like he accomplished what he had set out to do. Now it's possible to play Midway's Doom II sequel in its entirety in hi-res and with mouselook support. I didn't know that this game was much more than a port - it comes with it's own megawad and uses all new assets, i.e. new sprites, textures, sound, music and all. Starts off a little slow but progressively gets better. The most striking thing is that it has a very different atmosphere than the source game, mostly owing to a bleaker texture set, gloomy colored lighting and the ambient score. I'm halfway through the pack and enjoying it immensely. Definitely recommended.

Get the 'Kex Engine' at from Kaiser's website and find yourself a rom of Doom 64 (which is needed for creating an IWAD from):

http://doom64ex.wordpress.com

Oh, and don't worry about the screenshots on the Media page - you can toggle bilinear filtering off. 

Having a bit of fun perfecting some Hard Reset levels :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ3... 

 

Yup it's definately a problem with the level design. Although it's flow is better it's still very similar to Serious Sam or Painkiller.

You'll get the odd area with some monsters placed on a higher platform sniping at you or something but usually it's just a flat room with obstacles.

It's particularly jarring when you're surrounded by so many tall buildings (or so high up you can't see the ground) but you never look up except to gaze at the skybox. 

I never would have thought it'd be possible to make a game about shooting robots with big guns mind numbingly boring, but the Hard Reset guys really pulled out all the stops to achieve it. Based on the demo, at least -- maybe they're saving the best for last, but I'm not paying to find out. 

Yeah until you get some weapon upgrades the game is pretty bloody tedious, and without the weapons to play with the game is so dull compared to, say, Serious Sam, which is fun when given just a shotgun.

In fact the hardest part of the game on high difficulty is probably level three or so, as it's the combination of tough enemies and few weapon upgrades, which is stupid.

It is a pretty crap video though, but I was having such shit luck trying to record something more interesting as my PC just collapsed with fraps + bigger fights :p 

Has hit version 1.0.

http://www.warsow.net/ 

Gonna check it out. 

I like twitch shooters, but Warsow just looks a little TOO fast to me. Dizzying.

Hard Reset looks okay. Level design looked average. I'd play it still.

Is it just me or is there a major lack of shooters and actions games on the PC so far this year?

I might make a list... 

Well that was 4 hours wasted lol. I updated my list of games to play:
http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Goes by year, worst to best as rated on metacritic.

2012 does indeed look pathetic so far. Even if the number of play-worthy releases doubles, it still won't be close to 2011 amount. Was 2011 the best year for PC gaming?

What's also interesting is the severe lack of first person shooters, and even third person. They're barely coming out now, not helped when critics give great games like Rage an average score. The vast majority of PC games seem to be strategy and adventure. Who the hell plays all these strategy games?

Oh and these are almost all first or third person. I don't play platformers or top down 

am I seriously seeing another Painkiller game in that list? 

Anyone ever play that?

The trailer looks kinda mint.

25% off on Steam. I'm semi-tempted. 

All these new Painkiller games are really just DLC's and expansion packs. At least the new one is only $10 on Steam. Although I wouldn't pay that, it doesn't look good enough for any money when it's only got 5 levels (and 4000 enemies wtf).

There's a Painkiller remake in progress too. The guys behind Necrovision are making it. Fuck knows why, all the crap Painkiller since the original must have ruined that franchise by now. 

I loved Fallout 3. 9.5/10.

Here's a review of the game, all DLC's and some worthwhile mods mentioned.

http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere... 

I've just noticed that Rogue Trooper on your review list does not have a release month attached to it. It is April of 2006. 

Oh yep cheers erc 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWx...
http://project-giana.com

Totally kickstarting it. 

Looks cool. Not really into sonic type platformers though. Too 90s.

But if they did a fps without that twist idea between dark/light - awesome!!!! 

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/...

It's really pretty crazy just how much better this game can look after you tweak the shit out of it with mods and by butchering the hidden NVIDIA profile settings, compared to the utter mess that is the state of "as shipped by developer". 

http://sharpenyouraxes.com/

Dead Island mod turned into a game. Two environment screenshots look very nice. Long way off of course. 

looks awesome. 2 screenshots and a basic blog for a website isn't a huge start, but could be good if it's finished, one day 

http://www.pathofexile.com/publicw... 

ftp://ftp.funcom.com/media/AOSound... 

And this:

http://www.bethblog.com/2012/07/13...

Means I will definitely buy it, for that reason alone. 

Cause you like Dutch menus? God, that looks painful. I bet it will be just as awkward to use as the Rage one. 

 

The Hand That Feeds

Those guys.... 

Here's a review of Damnation: http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Not as bad as it's made out, I gave a 6/10.
Bit of chore in the end though.

Anyone played Lord of the Rings: Conquest? I started the first level (training failed because it wouldn't allow me to pass the combo test), seemed to be pretty shitty gameplay where I died three times - the last time being because the enemies wouldn't move through the fucking door and I couldn't kill them due to a weird invisible wall, and suddenly it says I've failed the mission. No checkpoints and having to start the entire level over each time as well, so I guess it's a fucking shitty game. Might try again in god mode, the levels looked pretty cool.

Been playing lots of Fallout 3 mods as well.
Cube and Orion's game definitely worth playing. Lots of crap that doesn't work though. I've still got several more of the top ones to try. 

I really want to play http://www.nullpointer.co.uk/conte... 

Obviously no one played LOTR Conquest then, lol.

Here's a review of Avatar: http://www.etherealhell.com/ethere...

Pretty good actually, 7.5/10. Bit easy and a bit boring after 20 hours. Visuals are awesome though (modified CryEngine). 

Two years back when commenting on BL1 in this thread, I called it Bordomlands and criticized a perceived pointlessness of it all. However, I now realize I had just played it 'wrong'. It's was on singleplayer, but these games are focused on coop and that's where they shine.

I played through the whole of BL2 on coop with le Bal and rebb, rather excessively even, and it was a lot of fun, very enjoyable. It felt like good oldschool FPS action with strong Rage vibe in places, mixed with a crazy WoW-type of looting and item stats mess.
The graphics are cool, fairly crisp and a unique touch to the style, which is important, because otherwise many levels would look like the same old ugly brown from other shooters. Story, characters and humor are cheesy and dumb, but - and that's a major difference between my two BL experiences - on coop it doesn't matter. Most of the time, we didn't even care for any specifics as long as we had stuff to shoot.

I regret not having had a chance to play BL1 the same way - it surely would have left a much different impression. This time, however, it seemed like a right place/right time situation, because it's new and we were all psyched for it. Can't underestimate the value of a good coop team, which wouldn't be possible or be as much fun with random strangers. So GG guys and see you for True Vault Hunter Mode.. ugh :D 

http://f1classic.your-talk.com/t11...
lets drive online, icq/qip 259689233 

What's the score, bitches?? 

 

Haven't played so much yet, but it's looking really good so far.
But I dunno for you Shambler, if I remember correctly you couldn't get into Deus Ex right? Cause it's a bit similar. 

Yeah of course I got into Deus Ex, I just got a bit bored in Shanghai when there wasn't enough MURDERATION for my chosen gameplay path. 

You talkin bout Deux Ex: Human Revolution, you callit dat, you twats. 

I meant Deus Ex in general really. The first and third game are quite different, but the gameplay type is definitely fairly similar.

Shambler, well Dishonored is a bit like that, you can play fairly violent, or go more slowly and stealthy. I haven't come across so much town-type quests stuff like in Shanghai in DXHR thought, feels more like lots of action missions with minimal story development in between, but I've only played ~2 hours. 

Game rocks.

There are tons of people to talk to, books to read, and storyline to uncover, if you want to, or you can just head to the next level and murder everything in your way.

I knew it looked nice from screenshots but holy fuckballs there is some seriously impressive visual design going on here. They absolutely nailed the London look.

The levels are absolutely gigantic too, after 6 hours of play I've only assassinated 1 target, and spent the rest of the time just exploring around the place collecting all the things.

Shit's good. 

Gonna play at some point. 

Hello, Quake 2 called and it wants it's texture resolution back........ 

I don't understand all the whining about Dishonored's texture resolution, it looks fine to me (it's not crazy detailed, but it gets the job done).
Is this a bug or something? 

The textures look super-low res....the rest of the gfx are fine, lighting is good etc... 

From what I saw of the game, the seemingly lower-res textures look like they're actually part of its style. A slightly surreal semi-realism vibe or something like that.

If it bothers you, see if forcing 16xAF in your nvidia/ATI control panel improves the visuals to your liking. 

much faster game loading , that lost episode gameplay reminds that old classic doom

a bit bright though,

not sure about new pda interface 

After beating it on normal and instantly starting a new "Classic Ironman" game (essentially hard difficulty, and only 1 save that is automatically updated whenever you do anything, so no rewinds!) it's very easy to recommend this. I've been utterly hooked since my first play session :)

It's not perfect. There are lots of nagging bugs with things like camera views, geometry popping etc and a lot of the base management menu's suffer from consolitis, but the core turn based strategy gameplay is extremely well put together and the game has that deadly "just one more mission" impulse that has you lose all track of time... 

Path of Exile act 3 screenshot! http://webcdn.pathofexile.com/gen/...

Can't recommend this highly enough if you felt let down by Diablo 3. 

I really really liked COD: Modern Warfare (in fact I think it's easily one of top3 FPS games ever made), but I have been really dissapointed with MW2 and MW3 (each one while very enjoyable in SP, got progressively worse in MP). This made me steer clear of Black Ops when it originally came out about 2 years ago.

Being curious about Black Ops 2 (coming out in 3 weeks), I finally broke down and bought the original Black Ops on the cheap. Boy am I glad I did.

The single player is standard ridiculously over-the-top crazy COD fare (which I very much love), but goddamn they didn't fuck up the MP in this one! It's actually really really good and lives up to the high standards set by MW1. 

From earlier in this thread:

HOLY SHIT I'M DRIVING A CAR NOW oh okay i've jumped out and stabbed a russian in the tit AND NOW I'M ON A BIKE and i've got to shoot down a nuke? With a crossbow? THE PRESIDENT IS ON FIRE!! What the fuck is happening? I think I've been double crossed. By myself? 

Cod4 was the last decent cod. 

Was the last decent cod. 

*slaps table repeatedly*

// Involuntary non-verbal communication from a man sat completely alone. 

 

...if they used a different name maybe they wouldn't get spotted?

(You guessed it, I'm bored) 

http://f1classic.your-talk.com/t11...
forgot reg last time, login is
petrolhead
secrettoken
pages 24, 25, 26 my screenshots 

Cool trailer from Outlast, survival horror

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x3... 

What happens to game devs when cocaine fries their brains dead: http://www.theastronauts.com/2012/... 

Interesting read though. 

.... :P 

News at 11. 

I think the point he was trying to make is actually similar to the classic rule of: before you make a game, you need to make a toy; i.e. something that's fun to fuck around with freely, but then you layer the gamey stuff (challenge/goals/contraints etc.) on top of that.

He just forgot to add the second part I think.

Or maybe he just really likes cutscenes. I dunno. 

 

What he is advocating for is 'interactive stories', which I think is fine in the realm of entertainment media and I'm sure there is a market for who want that sort of thing... just don't try and call it a game if you want to push the gameplay to the side. 

Legend of Dungeon
Check this kickstarter shit out. Pixel art rogue-like, but it's got swanky normal-maps and lighting. Looks rad. 

http://www.dungeonlegend.com/index...

looks like warcraft icons..? 

btw, obviously not what starbuck is talking about, it just caught my eye. 

Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El... 

they will turn down the retardedly colored lighting 

anyone wants a dota2 beta key? i don't care for it, but i got one.

i'll send you an email if you have it written on your account. 

Is a high quality HL2-EP2 mod that you definitely want to have a look at if you like "The Thing".

Very much a horror puzzle/exploration game, only played about an hour of it and its excellent. Very creepy with tense moments. No combat so far but never say never.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/black-sn... 

here's the key if anyone wants it. being dota2, you need steam to activate it.

VVQXJ-DIKHN-WF0D2 

The textures still suck asstacularly. But that's about it.....the rest rocks so far.

They've blended what Crysis etc did so well with making gameplay fun, with some of the stuff that worked in Deus Ex (but not so anally retentive) - dump you in a mission with a million paths through it, give you lots of toys to play with (including movement options on the fly) and let you get on with it. It's the polar opposite of the ghastly interactive turd hand-holding military-shouting bore-a-thons of COD - actually allowing a player to PLAY a game and making most of the options fairly natural to do so. Blink is bloody awesome and one of the most fun things in FPS gaming for a long time.

Aside from that it does exactly what it promises on the tin (of pickled hagfish). Just watch the Youtube videos and play the damn thing. 

http://redrogue.net/

A computer game, a side-scrolling roguelike-like

For Linux, Windows and MacOS. 

And quite nice. 

Seeing rogues mentionned just wanna bring to attention for anyone that missed it DoomRL is available with puuurdy tiles since Feb this year : http://doom.chaosforge.org/ 

 

.. you are not on #tf, so stop this please ! 

Man this is some old shit :)

Oh man those logs are still around. Hilarious stuff indeed

On topic Hawken is cool, Blacklight Retribution is even better.
Cool stuff all this. No time to play much though. 

Meant Blacklight Retribution got even better since launch... 

Path of Exile act 3 screenshot http://www.pathofexile.com/public/... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World...

http://worldoftanks.eu/

I like it. It's relaxing. 

 

although who knows when I'll play them.

Mark of the Ninja
Driver San Fransisco
Fallout New Vegas
Darksiders II
The Witcher II
Batman Arkham City 

I just finished Darksiders 2 the other day. I preferred the original in just about every way. It's not a bad game but has a lot of excess baggage and takes forever to get going. It felt like the first 15 hours (!!!?) were the tutorial.

Arkham City is next. Started it the other day and I'm totally hooked. Fantastic so far. I have a few problems with the combat system, mainly because I suck at using gamepads and usually am not quick enough to press buttons (im looking at the pad to see where the buttons are lol) before getting hit :P 

started Mark of the Ninja, quite cool and there is nothign really wrong with it but I have rediscovered that stealth games arent really my cup of tea (will be interesting to see how I find Sock's ITS mod).

Love the art style and atmospehere though. 

played it a bit on a friend's ps3. Didn't like it at all, because it's such a new-style xbox-kid game, with sequences, big boobs, no challenge gameplay, dumbed-down controls, etc. Win all fights by pressing just triangle (I heard it gets 'harder' later).

also, ham. 

They will be the death of my newly acquired credit. So far, I've bought Hard Reset, Skyrim + DLC, Serious Sam Gold Pack, Serious Sam 3 BFE, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution + DLC. Hopefully nothing else that's good goes on sale. 

I've got a growing list of games I'll probably never play.

Like it's a service I'm paying for :( 

But sometimes it crashes :(

Seriously great thought 8D 

I just picked up FTL, Hotline Miami, Rage expansion, Home, Awesomenauts, and preordered Company of Heroes2. Got some gaming to do!

Only played FTL so far, I love roguelikes, and this also reminds me of another favorite Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (and it's followup Weird Worlds), which was designed by Iikka Keranen.

CoH2 is what I'm mostly looking forward to (when it comes out). The first was my favorite RTS game for a long time, because it made cover and supply lines relevant again like old turn based wargames. Also, cuz I like cool tank battles. 

Seriously this game is really well made, and looks beautiful. The combat is fun, the island is fun to explore. The guns feel good, the RPG elements are well executed. There are loads of different types of animals running around, and they feel like a good challenge to hunt. Flying around on hang gliders is wicked-awesome. I was tearing my hair out for ages because of the random crashing, but I found a great fix that works. So if anyone else is having the problem of CTDs, BSODs or hard-locks, here is a link to the fix (it's dead easy)(The first one):

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.p... 

A friend of mine told me about the DLC for DS and I bought it for the PS3. I think only this game could get away with hiding the DLC half way through the game and making it unlockable by doing unrelated tasks on opposite sides of the world! It took me ages to complete all of the prerequisites and then actually find the entrance!

The DLC is part of a patch (1.07) which you unlock which is a bit sneaky because I did not want to patch the game. As always the developer has nerfed items to try and balance the MP which is stupid because most MP players know all the tricks (low level runs, item swapping) already.

One interesting idea they have done is take an existing part of the world and create a reason (background story) to go back in time so they can re-use the existing assets! Most of the landscape is taken from the original game but they have added slightly modified new monsters.

The boss fights are crazy hard, especially the first one to even start the DLC content. Luckily the first boss is right next to a bonfire so when you die (20 million times) you don't have far to run back. Some of the later bosses are similar to Demons Souls which is nice because some boss formats do work really. They even allow existing items (Dragon Slumber ring) to work properly and do not mysteriously make them not work because it interferes with some of the boss mechanics.

As always DS really shines with the boss fights and how they set up all the different stages so that each boss feels different. (I know from personal experience that boss fights can often take the same amount of time to create as an actual level!) The way they visually defined all of the different moves so if you are observant you will know what move is coming next, makes the fight satisfying because it feels like you are learning new tricks.

One thing that is such a cool feature of DS is the ability to cut various parts of bosses off (during the fight) and claim them as new weapons. Working out how to do that is often tricky and actually coaxing the boss into certain move types to get access to body area can be frustrating and very difficult.

Overall a nice addition to the DS universe (especially the background story) and the extra items you find are very cool because they can be upgraded to a much higher standard than the original one's. 

Got both Weird Worlds and FTL... they're both like crack, and have stopped me playing other games.

FTL is slightly better than Weird Worlds - I think for the greater sense of purpose.

Both would benefit from expanded missions though. 

http://www.piratehearts.com/blog/g... is a really nice free (of cost) platform in CRT style. 

I bought Killing Floor (omg yes I payed for a game) ages ago already. Now its unplayable due to bug with German nogore pussyversion which I am bound to my Steam account being Germany localized. Zeds are invisible.

Cock. Wanted to get some Coop action on last W/E
Even without a bug I hate the shit out of no gore versions.

Any other DE residents get around this somehow on Steam ? 

Get someone to gift you the non-german version on steam, that works it seems (negke does it). 

This works on my German Steam account ?
Maybe I should create a UK steam account from UK VPN with bollocks UK address. 

A game purchased on a German or Australian IP will be a cut/low violence version (if there is one), even if you install it from elsewhere. If you get a game from another country/IP or as a gift from someone in a non-restricted region, it'll be uncut regardless of which country you're in.

As for Killing Floor, apparently there's a trick you can give a try: open the game's config file in the corresponding Steam folder and add bdevgoreoverride=True in the [Engine.Engine] section. 

holy shit THE EYE is so good! 

Awesome thanks Negke the bdevgoreoverride=True works lovely.
Also found a working clot only mutator. Hordes of easy fickle rotten flesh to mow down gleefully! 

New game from Dustforce guys sounds pretty interesting, sounds like a speedrunning game.

http://hitboxteam.com/mystery-and-... 

but let's see. I sense failure: The one screenshot they're showing is a box room with no vertical variation :-). Also, "Reach the top of a tower" doesn't seem to be interesting... even to me. 

The previous game sure demanded some dexterity to play right, so making something good like this seems up their alley.
And the visual style looks good, a bit of a Zelda Windwaker feel. 

so i'd say let's hope it will be a good game :D 

I wonder if they will add occulus rift support!

speaking of which, is anyone planning to get one early? They have announced developer versions for people who DIDN'T sponsor the kickstarter will be available to pre-order soon.

http://www.oculusvr.com/

Anyone planning on doing a Quake port? :) :) ;) 

 

so I guess it will be $300 or less.

Seems fairly reasonable. If they can get it down further I will definitely get one, but even at $300 I'm probably in assuming there is reasonable game support (or if someone does a port of Quake) and it's easy to dev for. 

<Chillaxingbler> dragonborn dlc out next month whoot woot
<Chillaxingbler> new area to explore 

Hi I need some advice. I want a game to play on my laptop when I'm away from my desktop.

I've got a fairly basic / small laptop and I generally don't like the keyboard / small mouse with it, so I need something that is not too twitchy / super-fine-control based, i.e. probably not a normal action FPS.

I was thinking something like an older RPG or slower strategy game. Not sure what really. Fantasy/sci-fi definitely. No side-scrollers or boring real-world-sims.

Any ideas?? 

(Point'n'click) adventures
Fallout 1 & 2
Gothic 1 & 2 (older RPG)
Popcap games :P 

 

 

Mark of the Ninja, really liked it once I got the hang of the stealth mechanics. Cool story, cool atmosphere and nice non linear gameplay. 

How powerful is the lappy?

Will it run XCom? Have you layed XCom - I liked it, but it's turn-based which makes life easier if you have a slighly less powerful rig I guess....

I'd recommend XCom to anyone who hasn't yet played it. 

that is. 

 

Fallout 1 & 2 - could have potential.

XCom - similarly, could have potential.

Was wondering about Diablo3, Dungeon Siege (2), or similar?

Grimrock looks like shit. Gothics maybe too control-based.

Computer is i3 2.27GHz / 3 GB Ram / integrated graphics 128 Mb - 1 Gb memory. 

is totally I game I would recommend on a laptop. Its very replayable and would run on a calculator these days.

Torchlight 2 is optimized for laptop use I believe, and is a pretty fun game. 

Ultima 8 is another nice old RPG with easy controls - mouse-only if you want. 

Willl look into it....Torchlight2 sounds good to me, I remember looking at that.

What else? Ultima8 sounds a bit old? Prefer less mouse usage than more tbh. 

Diablo 3? 

Its online only! (Stupid blizzard)
Go with Torchlight2, at least it works when you want to play it! 

FTL - not twitchy at all but a solid roguelike space captain thing. http://www.ftlgame.com/

Here's a point and click adventure:
http://www.sizefivegames.com/games...

Give Hotline Miami a try if you've got a mouse.

Grimrock is pretty good actually. Need to see if they've released any new content since I last played.

And there's always minecraft, if building scale models of monuments out of matchsticks is your thing. Sounds like it's become more interesting and adventury in recent times though. 

Minecraft can be fun if you set yourself limits to how you play. Like survive 5 nights without building a shelter or simply just keep walking east and see how long you can survive without building shelter or hiding up poles! Obviously if you die, then game over ... 

Forgot to mention, needs to be offline-compatible.

What are the chances of me being able to install steam on my laptop with the same account and run it offline?? Hmmm??

FTL and Minecraft don't appeal. 

http://www.puppygames.net/
http://www.introversion.co.uk/

and there's always GOG.com ...

Steam should be able to run anything in offline mode. I haven't had any trouble with it anyway. 

Downloaded n installed Torchlight 2. Will give it a try later. Thanks for advice homiez 

Play Path of Exile's Open Beta on Jan 23.

Path of Exile will enter Open Beta on January 23, 2013. This is also when the last ever character wipe occurs!

Path of Exile is an online Action RPG being developed by Grinding Gear Games in New Zealand. Created by a group of hardcore gamers, Path of Exile was designed with an emphasis on character customisation, a strong item economy and deep game systems. View the new trailer here! ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDF... )

The Open Beta version of the game (patch 0.10.0) introduces hundreds of changes including Path of Exile's third act - the City of Sarn. Act III includes 8 new tilesets, 18 completely new monster types and over 90 monster variations. When the Open Beta starts, all characters will be reverted back to level 1 so that it's a fresh playing field. After that point, we will never wipe characters or items again.

In April 2012 we launched a crowdfunding campaign on our website where users can purchase Supporter Packs with prices ranging from $10 to $1000. So far the community has contributed US$2.2m to the development of the game. This support has allowed us to grow our team and to polish Act III to a level we are very proud of. Thank you so much for the generous support!

We'd love to encourage you to join us for the Open Beta of Path of Exile. You've already got an account (the email address is the one that this email was sent to), so just download the game client from www.pathofexile.com and join us on January 23!


Last chance to buy Kiwi Supporter Packs.

The Closed Beta "Kiwi" packs are only available for a few more days!

If you'd like to receive an exclusive Kiwi bird pet, a Closed Beta supporter forum title or the best value option for designing a custom Unique Item, now is your last chance! We're changing how our supporter packs work once we enter Open Beta, and the existing ones are only available until then. We've put together a YouTube video explaining what each pack entitles you to.

We'd like to thank our community for their continued support - it's helping us grow Path of Exile into the game we've always wanted to play ourselves. 

I started looking into Path Of Wanxile and then realised it wasn't out yet. 

put on your slightly larger glasses. 

What is exciting to look forward to?? Preferably in the FPS/3PS/RPG/RTS genres...

Crysis 3 (?)
Bioshock Infinite
SC2: Heart Of The Swarm
Skyrim: Dragonborn DLC
Dishonoured: unnamed DLCs
Dead Space 3
Tomb Raider reboot???

Googling reveals a lot of turd and not that many others?? 

I played the last Tomb Raider game and was very pleasantly surprised. It was one of the few games which I finished, and it was great fun. So I'm most excited about the new Tomb Raider game. 

Is basically the only game I am excited for in 2013 

Real-world warfare games don't count i.e. the glut of Modern Shitefuck: Bolloxfield 4 etc etc....except since COH is RTS then that's fine. I did try the original COH and it seemed okay but I doubt it will drag me away from HOTS... 

Old school RPG, fantasy, easy controls, ability to pause anytime during combat and issue orders by pressing Space (BG style):

Drakensang: The Dark Eye. Great game IMO, more fairytale like than grimey and dirty, but well made.

Don't confuse with Drakensang Online which is a MMO. The original Drakensang is a singleplayer RPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate, only in 3D.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (not technically a Tomb Raider title, more a sort of isometric puzzle offshoot that generally got relatively good marks).

Both of those have demos. 

Also coming: Amnesia - A Machine for Pigs, Aliens- Colonial Marines (probably best not to expect much), GTA 5 

Aliens : CM
Survarium
Metro : last light
Bioshock Infinite
Batman Arkham xxx (whatever it will be)
Half-L.. oh who am I kidding.

Aliens:CM will probably end up being very disappointing for me because it looks like a very standard CoD style fps set in the Aliens universe rather than a tactical squad based based fps. We will see I guess. The "press X to survive alien attack" bullshit can fuck right off... meh.

Survarium and Metro are obvious choices. More tasty post-disaster soviet wastelands to explore :) Metro 2033 had its share of issues but it was one hell of an atmospheric game.

Bioshock infinite just looks fun. The combat reminds me of quake quite a lot. Lots of fast movement and broad range of weapons.

I'm hoping for a new Batman game, Arkham city was excellent however I think I enjoyed Asylum slightly more. Hard to say why, probably a better story in the 2nd half.

Half-Li...hahahahahahahah yeah right. 

...it looked like ass in the trailer.

Ooooh Metro looked cool in the trailer I saw and 2033 sounded pretty good, nice choice. 

Totally reminds me of Quake. It's like Q1.5 almost. I hope Irrational got clearance from iD or have a good anti-plagarism lawyer.






















DAFUK??? 

Forgot about that...

This looks to be right up your alley Shambler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq... 

Dunno how to break this to you










but I think your enter key is repeating 

About Aliens : CM. They are coming true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl7... 

"We're not just fighting for the human race, we're fighting for the title of baddest motherfuckers in the galaxy - that's a fight I intend to win"

The writers probably take Starship Troopers and the Colbert report at face value. 

is it just me or do the graphics look pretty dated in that video? it looks a lot like chronicles of riddick. 

Thought the same, necros. 

Thanks for the recommendations. Played 6 hours or so of Torchlight 2 on various train journeys this weekend, definitely helped to pass the time. The style of the game definitely suits the laptop (even though I had to turn graphics settings down and my craptop doesn't allow anti-aliasing on it JAGGY YUCK), lots of dicking around with inventories, simple left and right clicking (my tiny mouse is a bit annoying tho), and classicly addictive time-sink RPG bollox. As far as the game goes, it's nothing special, mostly standard stuff (although as an Engineer with a fucking big cannon and a pet bulldog, it does have some character), but good at what it does, and pretty much exactly the sort of thing I was after (albeit a bit cartoony). 

Yeah I thought the graphics looked a bit dated as well. Could be just the low quality trailer and the fact the whole thing is fast paced action scenes. Show some motherfucker scenery from the planet. It better not be all steel corridors.

Gearbox though, so must be good. 

it looks like i have five copies of dota 2 to give away, if anyone wants a copy post here, etc etc. 

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/b...

Says it all. 

Like typical xbox stuff. The graphics are a bit dated, but more than that the animation looks pretty crude..

The aliens in the films move like lightning fast mercury, here they look more like stop motion. The marines as well look pretty wooden.

The formula for the gameplay has been done quite a bit, (in the same series, and by others like Natural Selection)so should be pretty solid. 

a good trailer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRj... 

 

Was just about to post that Daz, damn right, it looks very cool, the whole style and theme is really intriguing. Even tho it looks scripted to fuckery....could just be the trailer tho. Either way....excited. 

the scriptedness is a major turn off for me also.
I have friends who love that kind of stuff, I just feel like a rat in some experiment. You know, like daily life... 

( then again, it certainly scores major points for breaking out of the typical FPS rut ) 

I quite liked the scripted sequence in the first one where that guy challenges to break your conditioning, but you don't.

Nicely illustrated a plot point, and without any quicktime in sight. 

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...

...kinda...

/me sets bloom from 250% to 10% 

those were nice... except the sheep look like they were from Hexen2 with some normal maps stuck onto them. 

That's not bloom, that's glare. 

I know it's passe to whine about bloom and lens flare but it's hard to resist in this case. Post processing has finally gone full retard, they've put anamorphic flares on a fantasy setting RPG. That town looks like a fucking Rihanna video.

I'd like to have an opinion on the engine / art assets but I literally can't see either. 

my OCD took over and I tried to approximate what those shots might look like if the grading was done by a rational human being...

boat
town
cool pub 

but the other two look better.

I quite liked Witcher 1 looks wise, havent seen 2 but this looks too candyesque. 

http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/art...

Two fallacies in this:

Firstly confuses graphical design with gameplay design and doesn't distinguish between the two for the main points.

Secondly fails to realise that beyond a certain point graphics are relatively irrelevant in RTSes because you can't play the game zoomed in enough to see them, nor slowly enough to see them. You need a broad viewpoint and quick playing speed to play the game. SC2's graphics are often excellent but there's no time to see their true quality when you're actually playing.

Future of RTS I dunno. Innovative gameplay ideas, strong themes, mixing with other genres. 

The article buys in completely with the technology arms race ideals - you splash out on brand new hardware and need games that push the new technology, to justify spending the money in the first place.

I like RTS games a lot, and the more macro format experimented with by Relic in DOW2 was pretty cool. I think they went overboard on the RPG stuff and storytelling - it was nice I suppose, but untenable as a long term venture.

Something like that but more stripped down (no FMV story, RPG mechanics made optional), with a campaign generator and, maybe, an editor, would be the mutts nuts. 

We have done everything we can within 2 GB of memory and 2 cores

That is literally the most ignorant thing I have ever read. 

In large-scale RTS, clarity is by far the most important aspect of graphics. Being able to identify a individual unit as realistic is hugely secondary to being able to identify which units are yours, what type they are, and what they're doing. Functionality is far more important to the art style than graphical realism.

For most cases, isometric (blah, axonometric) projection is better than having a vanishing point when most of the action takes place in a 2d plane. Sorry if that seems quaint, but it's true.

Planetary Annihilation is a great example of when a regular 3d perspective is the right choice. The combat is 3d, you can run all the way round a planet and launch bombs from the moon. 2d wouldn't work. Congrats to them on developing such a clear and attractive visual style also.

It really grinds my gears when MORE REALISTIC GRAFIXX and BIGGAR SCOPE AND MORE TANKS are accepted as non-retarded premises for making the best RTS. What interesting tactical depth do you uncover by making a player struggle to spin a thousand plates at once?

...and when will anyone learn that graphical realism should match the realism of the game behaviour and not just be increased because we can? No one complains when Minecraft isn't realistic, because it never oversells the complexity of the game world.

Of course that cube pig is going to act like a fucking idiot, and it's not jarring at all. They can mate (whilst being of undetermined gender) and babies appear, and you can hit them and they turn into pork chops, but if a guard doesn't recognise you in Skyrim and their dialog tree gets repetitive, it sucks because that guard looks 90% like an actual human. We used to hang out bro! Don't you remember when I teabagged that dragon? 

I do agree with MOAR TANKS!

Or preferably BIGGGER TANKS!

I'm a total gfx whore but RTS is one genre where you can't appreciate MOAR GFX per se....although you can appreciate certain aspects (worlds, themes, art direction)....and there will be aspects of graphic realism that can be appreciated at super-fast-blink-n-you-miss-it speeds... 

I did write that and think... um, MOAR/BIGGAR TANKS sounds pretty sweet actually. To clarify, I mean, commanding a increasingly huge number of units isn't of itself good. 

been playing this for a evening or two and it comes with a massive gold star of recommendation from me. I might even award the Captain Janeway hat of general space game achievement.

It's quite like Star Control, if you remember that. You captain a ship with a few crew members, and warp jump from point to point on a little map of a sector until you get to the exit. Graphics are super basic, basically a top down view of your ship, and maybe a top down view of an enemy ship if there's one about.

Sounds pretty lame I'm sure, but the gameplay is balls-out fun. You command your little crewmates to man the shield room, or the weapons room, and when the baddies turn up you can board them with teleporters, or disrupt their shields and target life support. You can breach the hull and send in firebombs that kill the crew, or escape by light jump if you're losing the battle. Tactics so far seem really adaptive, and do a fantastic job of making you think like a real ships captain.

There's a lot of scavenging of scrap and using that to build upgrades to your ship, building new rooms, trading to get new crewmembers and weapons, or robot drones that can repair your ship or board another.

The roguelike element works pretty nicely, as the game is short but very hard. It's a great time to try out different approaches, and luck of the draw of what items you pick up has created a pretty unique set of playthroughs. I suck at this game though, and expect I will for a while.

When I do get a small victory and have lead my ship well though, I feel like an absolute badass. Sometimes I pretend I'm Cap'n Reynolds from Firefly. And then I get an erection. In space no one can hear you cream your pants. 

We have done everything we can within 2 GB of memory and 2 cores

That is literally the most ignorant thing I have ever read.

I think I've got some sort of waxy mental build up which blocks such internet shit from registering in the forebrain now. 

made me think about how awesome a Thunderbirds FPS would be. 

I guess it's a trailer? Anyway SOE added the ability to hide your hud + weapon in the latest patch which makes this game ridiculously filmable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO... 

And I liked it!

It taste like cherry chapstick. 

Seriously, though: No wonder this game gets such poor ratings. The graphics are fairly dated, but that's not even the problem. It's a mediocre military/sci-fi shooter that has Alien models instead of soldiers, typical generic gameplay and a ridiculously bad AI. It would probably pass as one of those games, but it since it takes on the Alien franchise and thus carries a lot of baggage, invoking expectations which it fails to satisfy, it has to be judged on different terms.

The strength of the Alien theme, the idea of facing a superior species, uncompromising and extemely deadly, is reduced to absurdity. Here, they are slow and weak fragbait that you can push away and QTE to death. Or maybe just walk past if the AI decides not to notice you. And what about the acid blood?
Admittedly, the other Alien FPS games, especially the latest AvP, weren't particularly masterpieces either, but this one manages to set the bar to the lowest possible point. I didn't expect much, especially after that dumbass trailer, and was ready to blame it all on contemporary console bollocks/decline of the industry blahetc, but this game doesn't even seem to live 'up' to that standard.

A proper Alien game needs the tension and suspense of being alone in a dark maze-like sci-fi environment under constant pressure; always having to be 200% aware of the surroundings and a single fuckup means instant death. Perhaps something along the lines of a blend between Stalker and Amnesia. Unlikely to happen, though. 

This one was okay. No improvement over DS2, but not worse, either. It probably could have used more variation in the environments. Apart from that I don't really have any negative impressions or complaints - though neither do I remember any part of it as special or outstanding. Gameplay was fun in parts and mostly routine. The game seems to lack one or more clearly distinguishable or definite 'highlights'. At least it concluded the story (unfortunately still with a backdoor for sequels).

Making some levels optional missions was a good choice considering the overall picture. Those levels reminded me of the side missions in Rage, they consist basically of grinding for loot and a few bits of background story.
Surprisingly long play time overall.

So metl, which levels did you work on? There were a couple of Rubiconish areas!? 

I think A:CM is quite good. I found one reviewer that gave it a 4/5. The graphics are a little dated, but the AI is quite good if you put the game on hard, and the level design is decent. Very decent.

I can honestly say that I don't regret paying £30 for it. The graphics in AvP we're a little bit more modern looking. But not by much. But the characters and story in A:CM is better. The voice acting is better too. The musical score is well implemented.

I don't think it's bad at all TBH. I've been enjoying it. I've heard that the 360 version looks bad or is buggy or something. But playing it on the PC here (with Anti Aliasing forced on the GPU which runs nice and smooth too), it seems perfectly OK to me. And the levels are pretty, well designed, crafty in places and BIG.

Maybe I'm biased. I like Aliens. 

like Aliens? 

I built prologue and chapters 14-15 start to finish, but i also did the LD block for 10, 11, 12, 16, and parts of 17 & 18, but those levels were handed off to other LDs after that. 

http://i.minus.com/i212wUcwcU0eE.g...

Fail cake! 

I got killed by one at least three times.

:( 

I thought the gay Alien was Ricky playing in DM... 

http://gifsound.com/?gif=http%3A%2... 

By the way; http://www.indieroyale.com/

SS3 for $6 and a few other indie games thrown in. 

oh. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annot...

I still can't believe that a developer did this, it looks like all the dynamic lights and lots of the decals were removed from the final game. Maybe it was some performance pass because it was a multi-platform release. The demo looks amazing, the final game is worse! 

Now there's talk of an 8GB patch. That's crazy - the game is only 6.8GB or something. Still - maybe it will put a bunch of things back in that have apparently been stripped.

I must admit that Sock's video shocked me a little. You don't really notice that stuff but when you see it side by side you realise what you're missing.

It's like they accidentally gave everybody else the WiiU version, and just canned the PC version completely. And now they apparently are cannign the Wii version completely. 

maybe they decided to not to risk falling into the doom3 trap where everyone hated how dark it was. the demo was much darker.

hadley's hope was completely ruined though. 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vi... 

I would guess it's performance / multi-platform woes. I think it's common to run your tradeshow demos on a beast of a PC and sort out the performance later. The art looks damn good, bring on the next console generation and hopefully the rendering / post-processing will stop letting the side down. 

that was in response to the comparison video, obvs 

So I don't play any modern shooters; here's some firsrt impressions.

Too many mechanics, some good most not, diluting each other.

Sprint buttons suck.

The bullet storm style melee insta-kill button is meh. Especially when there's a satisfying weapon (hammer) that does the same job.

Iron sights make it harder to aim.

Enemy design is varied, some are great... but again they threw in a generic shotgun trooper who could be from any game for no particular reason.

The bigger an enemy is the better it's AI needs to be - not the case here :[

Where are the hordes?

Spiders are cool, although the larger version is made pointless by the melee instakill.



Despite all the niggles the game isn't broken, just has rough edges and seems to have lost some of its soul (hordes). Still the core mechanics feel good, and there's plenty of variety in the things to shoot at. 

Hordes are back, all is forgiven.

The melee mechanic now makes sense although sprint is still meh. 

aka Dead Space 3.

Only about 2 hours in so far but daaaaamn son dis shit is off da hook yo. Etc etc.

The weapon system is just fucking awesome. Seriously whoever designed that needs to be given the videogame equivalent of an oscar. So many hilarious combinations and I'm sure I'll unlock more as I get further in.

Gameplay wise it's pretty much standard DS so far. Don't think I've seen anything particularly new added there, aside from the weapon system.

It's the constant tense atmosphere that really makes the game shine, it's done so brilliantly just like the other two titles in the series. There are moments of horror but mostly it's a slow burning dread that permeates just about activity in the game. Pressing a button in this game is scary, haha.

So far things seem super easy on normal difficulty. I've got health kits, ammo and stasis packs coming out of my arse and can craft 300x more if needed at the work benches. I think I really should have picked hard! I decided against it as I'm quite slow playing with a 360 pad, but in hindsight I think I would have been just fine. Tip for you lot! :)

Now go map Quake metl :) 

Visceral Games just need to make an Aliens 3rd person survival horror game and I'll be in heaven. 

http://www.gamefront.com/destiny-n...

studio’s co-founder Jason Jones reasoned that the PC would not be a suitable platform for the first person shooter simply because nobody plays shooters with a mouse and keyboard.

Is the PC FPS market really a thing of the past? 

even if it is, that's still a flimsy reason not to develop for the pc since you can plug any usb controller into one. 

Online shooters are evolving, even for the PC.

Look at Blacklight, Planetside and Natural Selection 2. All better than Halo, all modern shooters, all on the PC, all played by skilled players with keyboards and mice. The dude is obviously high on glue. He probably owns an iPhone..... 

...a fucking bellend. It's demeaning to even consider replying to someone who is so self-evidently wrong, but Far Cry 3, Crysis 2, Rage, Dishonoured, Deus Ex, MW3, BLOPS2, BF3, TF2, Quakelive, etc etc DAFUCK.

So they made Halo shit and dumbed down and consolised, well done. Fucking choads. Mouse and kb is still the proper control system. 

http://xkcd.com/386/

rage and quakelive are commercial failures. and the others are consolised games anyways. 

 

As Spiney suggests, what he's really saying is "we lose money on PC".

But crediting your customers with intelligence is a no-no; they only care about teh awesome, not facts.

Considering he's pitching the comment to XBLA trolls, I spose that's fair enough. Just makes him sound like a high on glue ... self-evidently wrong ... bellend to anyone with even half a brain cell. 

Jason Jones: "We can't compete in the PC FPS market."
CEO: "You're fired." 

Seriously.

Last time I looked those games we're doing pretty well. Fuck controllers! 

"no one bought our Halos on PC" 

you're totally right, tf2, fc3, dishonored, bf3, etc are totally consolised. 

Have console versions, but if you play with a controller on the PC version, you're gonna die. 

is there some way to increase the amount of terangreal to carry with you?

For example there are only 30 or something that lavaballs things you can hold to your inventory the same time, picking up additional lavaballs it's a waste of ammo

and the monsters are fecking brutal 

Yeah, I really did not enjoy that game. Unreal bot AI monsters + weak weapons + low health...
Loved the maps, but had to cheat my way through it. :S 

Heh, the book was so naff and cheesy (I only read the first one), it kind of put me off trying that game. 

The multiplayer on it was super fun though, there was so much fun tricks to do with the different powers, for instance you could throw yourself in lava, and shoot a switch-place thingy in mid flight to take an opponents place, so they'd suddenfly find themselves drowning in lava.
Wish I could play some more of it, was quite original and different from your regular multiplayer FPS.

The single player seemed fairly average though yeah, like the books. 

Great game, good gameplay, cool environments, cool atmosphere, was really nice to have a proper fantasy "shooter" at the time (still a rare breed).

No problems with the gameplay on normal skill either. 

some of the maps made that game, Shadar Logoth is still one of my favorite settings in a game (think Willem was responsible for it too).

First few maps are a bit meh though from memory. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXN... 

what story?

(Cant access the video at work so if the video is not serious, thent touche) 

LOLOLwhoamIkidding.

No chance of that.

Does look prettier than usual tho. Even tho the marine shuffling screen fuck does make me want to barf my coffee up. 

angry birds star wars is fucking awesome! 

The tie fighter (?) bird made me laugh - tap and it starts blasting the scenery with lasers. 

Willem sometime ago about WOT; he's the man behind that game. Level design is pretty sick. The most inspiring i've seen to any game 

yeah the first time I played Shadar Logoth (that's the blue town right) in the demo was awesome. fantastic for it's time and something i'll probably always remember.

it was a few years later I got to play the full game, must have been around 2000/2001, but the levels in the game got a bit blander as it went on. a bit hard too, i had to cheat i think. 

Probably best to wait until the game is out for a while - SimCity Day 1 

So, got this as a gift from someone with a duplicate.

A lot of fun. Possibly the first game where I preferred using the controller to the keyboard/mouse.

The levels look nice and have good level design, with some nice logic puzzles to solve midst the shooting stuff.

The enemies aren't so great - their AI is pretty weak and they're a bit samey so far, will see if this picks up. The good point here is that (playing on hard) it feels challenging and yet fair. Doing something stupid kills me pretty quickly, but doesn't leave me feeling cheated. So the overall gameplay is pretty good.

The nice thing about the game is that its not trying to be ten different games at once. It's just a straight forward top down shooter/puzzler. There are upgrades and extras, but I haven't bothered with those and don't feel like I need to yet.

The secondary weapons are kind of tacked on as well - I kill almost everything with the spear.

Will have to try the coop mode. 

It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it's refreshingly unpretentious. You were right, it's just a big dumb shooty shoot knife knife game, and that's fine. 

I wish this was true, I have been waiting for a very long time. 

Looking forward to that, hope they stay true to the Thief gameplay.
It must have been rough for them when the Dishonored marketing started up, and then when it came out, definitely seems like they were going in a similar direction in some aspects of design etc. 

When is always online crap going to die? :\ 

i.e; never! :D 

Maybe when they realize everyone pirates the game just so they don't have to deal with the stupid DRM. 

ha. if anything, that'll just make them squeeze tighter until they've alienated everyone. 

Well, there's your awnser :P Unfortunately there will always an influx of younger customers who don't know any better. It's kind of depressing really... soon it'll all be old hags complaining about this kind of stuff while the younger generation unknowingly embraces it. Digital distribution is only accelerating the process. 

When companies realise that in this day and age, internet use is a rarity and very few people are connected to it, let alone with permanent cable/broadband/DSL. 

Yup that's "2", I'm behind the times.

Pros:
+ Graphics are good.
+ Cityscape well done, if empty.
+ Gameplay works well as usual in CryX series.
+ Fog / hazy effects particularly good, and enhance atmosphere.

Cons:
- Extremely consolised as follows:
- Linear levels boring.
- Too few options to explore around
- City setting is less interesting than island stuff, less involvment too.
- Suit voice is very annoying.
- Tactical options on HUD are silly handing-it-on-a-plate nonsense.
- Too broken up with cutscenes, intermissions, transmissions, etc.
- Lots of things to pick up and fuck all you can do with them.
- Otherwise limited and haphazard interactions i.e. can only shoot half the lights, can't shoot infected, etc etc.

Hmmm. 

in Crysis 1? 

Crysis 2 was like being trapped in a Michael Bay film. Let's never do that again! 

The suit specialization mechanic is like the worst gameplay idea ever. I don't get why they build an entire game around such a dull gimmick. 

because you could do whatever you wanted in whichever mode you preferred. 

Definitely a great gameplay mechanic. Even if it becomes a bit easy to rely on cloak.

The suit works almost as well in Crysis2. Power (Speed/Jump) is used automatically by default, Cloak and Armour are toggleable. Armour is a nice effect. Heat-vision also uses suit energy. Doesn't feel quite a slick switching between the 3 main ones but it's still good. 

Crysis 2+3 were streamlined for consoles. Easier controls (controller), combined suit powers, smaller levels (memory footprint), less AI (slower processor)

The Metacritic ratings for 2 and 3 are lower, but I think that is partly to do with franchise fatigue. Crytek are quoted as saying they think 3 is their best version. Personally I preferred the raw level design of the first game. One thing that is always consistent with Crysis is that it looks really beautiful. 

I enjoyed Crysis 2 quite a bit, a solid shooter and had some nice flow during the firefights. And the aliens weren't frustrating to fight against unlike the first Crysis. Sure it's not nearly as open ended as once was, but they still offered a number of choices in the large arenas. Until you find out the cloak makes things way too easy of course! Crysis 2 felt less like a corridor shooter than other titles and the aliens made combat refreshing, since I'm not just shooting humans 99% of the game.

Then again, I don't expect much from the FPS genre anymore these days. 

*other titles outside Crysis 

I really enjoyed 2 & 3.

If you go in expecting more Crysis 1 (Which of course is reasonable!) then it's probably disappointing. But as a stand alone game I think it is just fine.

Of course there is stuff in there I dislike (most of which Shambler covered) but the moment to moment shooter combat and the way the levels are laid out are quite excellent. There is always a different approach you can try and it's very simple to completely change up your play style in the middle of a firefight.

I personally never really understood all the remarks about the "freedom" the first game allowed you. Sure you could come at a base from any direction, but if you decided to pick a direction and start walking, you very quickly find yourself in an un-authored wilderness with absolutely nothing to do. I agree that some (if not most) areas in C2 funnel you into them from a specific direction at the start but you always have the option to cloak and essentially pick where you want to engage.

I also truly prefer the implementation of the suit in C2, it's effortless to get into the mode that you need and making strength/speed modes automatic is a great idea. While I do miss the super-speed from C1 I think everything else was handled much better. 

The Seth 'soldiers' are really cool, IMO they look smarter and scarier than the robotic enemies from Crysis (which looked like the sentinels from the Matrix). And Crysis isn't really less linear than Crysis 2. 

No offense but you need to think more before offering opinions.

Crysis is a LOT less linear than C2, that's a simple fact. C1 had more open levels with more directions you could play through them and approach targets and objectives. Whether that's a problem or not is a different matter but that's how it is.

More:

+ Aliens are pretty cool and a good challenge.

- Chopping between different locations with no sense of continuity really sucks. 

crysis "1" was a bit step down from far cry already. 

Have to agree with mega, wish they'dd just improved upon Far Cry -- which is also rather so-so at times.

Crysis universe feels really bland to me. Far Cry was outright silly but at least it was somewhat original in it's weird way... etc etc, blah ...

Maybe if you could use a suit power for more than 2 seconds it could be fun. Having to crouch behind a tree waiting for your battery to reload every 10 seconds gets boring fast. It's a bit like having to switch to the flashlight in Doom3 because you can't see shit 50% of the time.

Any more works of art to bash? :P 

Brilliant games. Rare combinations of looking damn cool and getting the gameplay to work and flow smoothly. Suit energy running low is all part of it. 

is that it kind of feels like "oh, here, we consolified the game, but you can choose what we consolify!".

Or maybe i'm just really disgusted by the way modern games often make you ridiculously powerful in a shitty, super hero way. I think that's something that's commonly misunderstood: I don't want to be the hero of the game, i want that my decisions/actions make me the hero.

Just let my gameplay actions speak for themselves. In the same way a hardcore quake player rips you apart when you join the server.

And the suit gives you super hero status, for free, for a limited time. Everything i do with it is just because of the free super power. that just feels bad, and nothing like hitting triple air rockets (in q3, because rockets are fucking slow there).

And don't do it in the story, please. I can't stand that shit. That was probably the best thing about max payne, he wasn't the hero in the story. He just did ridiculous things during the gameplay. Of course they fucked it all up because they portrayed him in such a 16-year-old "wow that's a cool guy!" way, but yeah. 

WTF are you talking about?!?! Smables?!?!!

Non-Linear:
GTA
T.E.S.
Fallout
Far Cry 2 and 3
Dead Island
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Linear:
Crysis/Warhead
Crysis 2
Crysis 3
Far Cry (1)

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but they are linear as fuck. Some of the areas are pretty big, but the game is certainly linear. You have to complete the objectives in a linear order, you cannot go back to areas you have already been to once you have left an area.

I mean Crysis is no less linear than CoD games for example. 

I mean Crysis is no less linear than CoD games for example.

Balderdash. "Linearity" is not a binary property. You have to talk about the granularity-of-the-linearity'ity, and I think everyone can agree that in terms of mission/story-progressionity, Crysis is linear in the sense that CoD is linear, but when you look at lower levels of granular titty - e.g. consider a typical combat setpiece in either of those games - it's obvious that Crysis gives you more options, more space to navigate, just more ways of slicing that particular sausage than CoD does. 

On some level.

But Crysis 2 has massive areas too, that you can approach the objective from multiple angles. I just don't see how Crysis 2 is more linear than Crysis 1. 

I think the cityscape just throws more vertical walls at you. It compensates with z-axis up to a point. You also can't sneak through bushes all the time which give cover even in a fairly open environment.

Maybe I need to replay the games before being too judgemental. But they're just not my cup of tea I'm afraid. Pretty though, no denying that. 

lol. Linear Game is not the same as Linear Gameplay. 

Nitin has a point, there's different levels of granularity. Having a long corridor with baddies jumping out at you is different from having a square with buildings you can clear in a different order. Likewise you can have linear levels but a non-linear overworld, etc... 

C1 you play through the levels in a linear order, but the levels themselves are relatively non-linear.

C2 you play through the levels in a linear order, and the levels themselves are fairly linear (due to small size and city landscape).

Maybe the "massive areas" appear later on in the game though... 

As in most levels have a couple of parallel paths that do pretty much the same thing...

...but also pretty cool too. Definitely ramps up throughout the game, both in the spectacle of the ruined city and the intensity of the gameplay. Some of the alien fights are pretty fucking hard....in the Central Station Walker boss fight I felt anything but a god-like superhuman. As Crysis Of Duty 2 on rails shooter it works pretty damn well indeed.

Also had a great moment when I nearly got jumped by a Seph on a rooftop and got alerted by his shadow from the evening sun and shot the fucker in the face before he buttraped me....don't thnk I've had such a good demonstration of the possible gameplay benefits of a pure graphical enhancement before... 

Some of the alien fights are pretty fucking hard....in the Central Station Walker boss fight I felt anything but a god-like superhuman.

Ugh, that was probably the most frustrating part for me too. Forgot how many times I died there... 

That, exactly that.

There might be a challenge or 2 but I hate games where your super kinda overpowered superhero.

It just feels like a whole setup to offer cheap easy thrills - which are great and probably work well enough if your new to gamers / a young kid but it really makes it feel like a total waste of time playing the game.
No challenge, or artificial moments of simple challenge which boils down to a little timing. Hardly any skill input, just like following a formula to advance to the next "scene".
It has to be wrong if I don't feel like i got any better at the game. To me the fun of playing games is always somehow getting better at it personally - that is what allows to match the increased difficulty coming up, a failure to improve becomes a failure to progress without cheating.
And thats fine, thats what we call a GAME. Games are to be won or lost. Not just won and thats it. OMG that makes me think fuck Prey so hard for its death/respawn system. I puked a little at that.

If you want something else may I suggest a movie ?

And if you cant take the defeat then cheat. Please don't just make all games feel like they are on a constant cheat mode just to not irk some dysfunctional people...


/rant over 

It was a bit too much IMO, compared to elsewhere. The second Walker you fight in a better arena with only 2-3 Seph appearing through the fight, compared to the "fuckloads" in the station. Switching from zoomed in RL to zoomed out machine gun at the same time as switching on and off armour mode to let it recharge enough and dodging while it recharges, jesus. 

Just FYI this kinda negates Killes point above, not as an argument but the suit is not OP in the last half of the game. 

 

 

Agreed, it's quite brilliant, but mgah is it hard. 

Its not really hard, try the previous title Demons Souls if you want to play a hard game that constantly punishes you! Dark Souls has lots of new mechanics to forgive mistakes. I still play Dark Souls, I rarely play games much after completing them, but the first half of the game is just so good and the boss battles are awesome. 

i have both dark souls and demons souls for the PS3 still in their cellophane. Never did get around to playing them. :{ 

Play Demon Souls first, the second game Dark Souls is easier. You should hurry up because part of the enjoyment of the games is the co-op aspect for boss fights and the servers will not be around forever! 

Dark Souls is hard, but it is hard in a way that is totally possible to master.
You'll probably get fucked up by a balder knight the first time you meet one, but after a while you handle them easily. Not because you're necessarily stronger, but because you know how they work. Because they'll still fuck you up if you make a mistake.

I haven't played it that much to be honest, just about to go to gaping dragon on my first playthrough, but so far there has been nothing that has been really unfair to me. I lost about 4000 souls right before gargoyles because I got invaded by some prick in a top hat, that's the most unfair thing so far.

I have been watching a Let's Play alongside, so I kinda know what I can expect. I know how the game goes and what I should be doing, and I don't really mind having that "spoiled" for me, because I'm mostly here for one thing:

The level/world design is just A M A Z I N G!
Just stop and look for a moment how Firelink Shrine goes into Undead Burg, how that loops back and forth on itself, how you get up on the ramparts, where the drake bridge connects to the burg (even just the tiny detour on the bridge with the rats is brilliant!) and then to the Parish, and then how the Parish is literally sitting on top of Firelink Shrine...
And how the lower Undead Burg is intertwined with upper, and where the Capra Demon and Depths entrance fits in, and how Darkroot Forest winds around the moonlight butterfly bridge, and the tower with the dead blacksmith butts up against the burg, going to Sen's Fortress and realizing where Anor Londo is and how the entire world is sort of terraced like that...
And all of this just flows together completely naturally and seamless, I could go on and on gushing about the Dark Souls world.

My biggest wish for my "career" is getting to work on something even half so grossly incandescent with excellence as Dark Souls! 

OK I really wanna try Dark Souls now.
Guess i must of passed a Steam sale or 2 for Dark Souls but still.

Hadnt payed too too much attention but the more I look... 

http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?ta... 

 

The design of the world is good but the actual combat mechanic is what Dark Souls is good for. The way each weapon works and how combat can evolve with different tactics is awesome.

There are plenty of different enemies and they all have key features which makes them deadly if you screw up and make a mistake. The best feature for me is the boss battles because they have phases, good attacks and have unique areas which makes them interesting to fight.

The RPG elements of weapon upgrades, special boss items and stats is fantastic because it gives you so much to play with.

One other key feature, your actions have consequences, the world changes based on what you do and if you are idiot and try to kill everything then your game experience will reflect that play style. 

I'm way underpowered to kill him, so for now Firelink is off limits for me :( 

http://youtu.be/OHhgjKaLHJw 

Just went into Open beta http://www.warframe.com/

It's a fairly old-skool style 3rd person ARPG with randomly generated levels using tilesets.

It's made by Digital Extremes and there is certainly a dose of Unreal Tournament style movement and combat feel while playing the game.

I've been having a blast with this in the last week or so and recommend it very much. 

You can pay the merchant in the bell tower to remove your sins and it will de-aggro Lautrec.
The first time I played the game I accidentally hit Laurentius too hard when I freed him, so I thought I had to kill him (then I found out about the sin guy after I did the whole playthrough without access to the pyromancy spells). 

 

I did enjoy it. By the end, the consolised hand-holding, disjointed progress, gung-ho vocals and tedious immersion-buggering map scenes were annoying me far more than the linearity - but were in turn well compensated for by the gameplay, reasonable diversity, graphics, and spectacle of the city. Sure it is so much COD-like I could feel by brain rotting each time I played it, but as a shooter it's pretty fine and I'm definitely going to get C3.

Continuing with Space Marine...

The clunky controls and utterly on-rails progress (it's like a FPS side-scroller as far as lack of interaction with the cool backgrounds) are still annoying, the visceral combat and excellent level of violence are still good, more so now I've got the Melta too. 

Crysis 3... it's kinda like Far Cry 3 on rails. Great graphics, though. 

TYS 

http://youtu.be/QKuKKBWnPtE 

Play Demon Souls first, the second game Dark Souls is easier. You should hurry up because part of the enjoyment of the games is the co-op aspect for boss fights and the servers will not be around forever!

Hmmm. So the predecessor is even more brutal and unforgiving than the sequel? Mgah.

Is the first game a match for the second in terms of quality? Or will it be a bit like playing a lesser game? I'd be tempted to leap straight into the second game to get the full wow factor.

I guess it's a bit like why I could never really be bothered with Skyrim after playing hundreds of hours of Oblivion. I mean Skyrim was good, but all that time spent in Oblivion completely took the "wow" factor out of Skyrim for me, and I never did play more than a few hours of it :( 

These are painful :) 

Heh, lighting is for losers

:smug: 

The first game "Demon's Souls" is brutal! It certainly not a lesser game but more a rough diamond with raw game mechanics. You will need way more patience to play the first game than the second.

Key differences of first game:
* No checkpoints, no bonfires, if you die then the whole level resets and you are back to the beginning of the level.
* Levels are self contained, no streaming, you teleport to each level.
* When you die your health is halved. You need to use Stone of Ephemeral Eyes (These are rare items) to gain human form.
* Each world has a Tendency scale of white (easy) to black (crazy hard) and plenty of levels of grey in between. When you die this meter goes towards black, so the world gets tougher. Certain events only happen at white or black levels.

Summary: When you die the game gets harder!

* If you attack ANY NPC in the game they are hostile until next game+. There is no way to reset them to be friendly.
* There is a one NPC that has some really cool items and if he dies early it can affect how you upgrade certain weapons.
* It is extremely easy to screw up a whole game and have to rely on game+ to reset events.
* The levels can be occupied with dark shades and they are extremely dangerous and tough.
* Most boss fights in the first game are tough and unforgiving. Plus you often have to fight through a whole level to get to them without dying first. (example - Tower Knight)

If you play the second game first you will dislike the first game because it is tougher and more challenging. I found Dark Souls easier (especially up to Sen's Fortress) but I poured 200+ hours into the first game and think the second game was toned down. (especially after all the patches)

The Online WIKI is a must read for the first game especially if you want to upgrade items. 

Thanks for the info.

So, if I'm reading you right, the game was designed by an insane masochist who was probably locked up in a small dungeon for his entire childhood with nothing but an old Nintendo and a copy of Ghouls 'n' Ghosts.

Hmmm, as much as this sounds like something that I would probably have had a crack at 5 years ago, these days I don't know if I can afford to sink much time into that sort of gaming commitment any more :( 

Haha, that's sort of where I land on those games too. Who has that kind of time? :P 

Got this image of Willem yellin at em to get off his lawn, rolled up newspaper in fist. 

And the unemployed - I did Viewtiful Joe at 100% like that. 

I think it's more that as I age, I tolerate frustrating games less and less. I find a lot more fun in romping through Tomb Raider than banging my head against a wall in Dark Souls.

Nothing against that game, it's not my thing anymore.

I'd rather tour content than retry the same encounter over and over. 

The game is tough, it does not pander to modern gaming conventions and is clearly not designed for everyone. It is extremely easy to forget playing many modern games because they are too busy rushing (on rail shooter) you to the end instead of being a challenge.

Is the game for masochists? Games with high learning curves are rewarding in different ways. There are no safety nets, no easy skill levels, it is designed for players who understand risk and reward strategies. The game unlocks as you learn, what you learn actually matters and Dark Souls is similar but toned down instead. 

I know what you mean. I don't have the patience for losing anymore - I think modern games design has spoiled me.

Not a bad thing necessarily, and there are many casual games which are predicated on constantly losing - temple run + clones, trails, angry birds etc etc.

The problem happens when designers try and avoid killing the player at all. I see this a lot and it always mystifies me. If there's no lose condition then victory is meaningless, and you just made a bowl of porridge, not a game worth playing.

Many games also took advantage of the Game Over to do cool stuff;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnA... 

I can enjoy an insanely tough game if the design is so good that I want to keep playing it. For something as tough as Demon's Souls, I would say the game would have to be like crack cocaine in order for me to not just get frustrated with it.

To be honest, I can't remember the last game I played like that, but I know I have been in situations where I'm so into a game that the ludicrous difficulty doesn't bother me.

In general, I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. I tend to hate the modern "knife-through-butter" school of game design, where giving the player "an experience" seems to take priority over giving the player any sort of meaningful challenge.

On the other hand, I am so bloody busy in general that I don't get more than a few hours a week of actual "playing games for fun" time, so any game I do pick up probably shouldn't batter me with too many brick wall situtions... 

Dark Souls 2 will be "more straightforward and more understandable" than its predecessor, as a pair of new directors take over the series. 

If Dark Souls 2 is going to be more straightforward and more understandable then it will be the death of the franchise for me. If I want to play generic stuff I can easily find endless Marine/Soldier games for that. Dark Souls is good because it is a memorable game experience, painful at times but rewarding. 

sock

I'll give you that modern games are generally too easy. They are films in disguise, really, with the barest amount of player interaction and thinking they can get away with and still be called a game.

Gears is as guilty of this as any other franchise. I think we hold the players hand way too much... 

In other words: QTE. 

Why did those even became a trend? It boggles my mind. 

Because some devlopers want to make cinematic games, and they don't want to be constrained by their own game systems. QTE allows you to make any old "epic moment" you want, and not worry that there is no system for players doing the activity depicted in the cinematic. Just throw a button prompt halfway through your scripted movie so players think they are still playing a game. 

Right, and most are completely pointless. If you don't hit the button, the game doesn't adapt or change to reflect that result. No, you just get to start watching the cut scene again and try to do it right this time. It's busy work. 

i'm happy with easier games and the way games are now. games that are too hard just piss me off, i don't have time to replay shit over and over because it's too hard.

dark souls sounds off-putting so maybe i'll just put cheats on when i do eventually play it. 

Like Dragon's Lair started the trend.

Justification of technology, reducing the interactivity of the game as a side effect.

Things like Heavy Rain are sort of justifying the genre I suppose, but I don't have the patience to play it for more than 30 seconds. 

I'm with the rest of you old-timers RE: having no time for games, and pining for my lost childhood.

For me, difficulty isn't a problem though. I like the idea of rock-hard roguelikes. A massive 30 hour campaign is daunting, but 90 minutes and then either winning or starting a new game isn't. I haven't played Dark/Demon's Souls, but if it's possible to sabotage a playthrough of a full-length game by angering an NPC, then it's not my cup of tea. 

I bet Demon's/Dark Souls also has a "permadeath" option, right? 

Dark Souls currently 50% off on Steam, btw.

Praise the Sun.
Amazing chest ahead. 

 

bit expensive for me to get right now but screenies seem to support what czg said above re design. Will definitely put it on the list to get. 

Hmm wondering if I should play Dark Souls on Xbox360 or PC...

PC : graphics better ok. Xbox360 : couch, large screen.

As the game is recommended to be played with gamepad...which I dont really like...

Anyone played it through with mouse keyboard ?

Besides graphics PC has no other extra features right ? 

Nitin, Dark Souls is half price on Steam right now. 

Doh, didnt read up, sorry. Can delete that 

Mouse and Keyboard is very possible, i finished the game with it ( not started NewGame+ yet ).

You do need a mod to improve the mouse movement and some other things though : http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~petska/

The PC Version has the Artorias of the Abyss DLC ( new areas, enemies, bosses etc ) already included which i believe you have to buy separately on consoles. 

Ever since I discovered this shared virtual world I've been into it like Dracula into a throat.

Sure, it hoovers up memory and the graphics are relatively pants compared with modern games, but the people and building tools are quite nice. Sometimes they're sane.

Mind you, I spend more time as a DJ on there than a builder. I've got a project on but the scripting is making me bonkers.

(Here's a pic demonstrating some old building I did a few months ago, as well as referencing the DJ business.)

Yours from the unfashionable end of the Interwebs,
Martien Pontecorvo, Precipitate Flood & Maku Ibn-Selat 

 

http://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/... 

And in an ironic twist, it turns out that Shambler is a legit viagra salesman. 

 

Why would we need viagra when quake already makes our dicks harder than damascus steel? 

just finished this lengthy game (17 hrs). at first it was hard to get used to good old xenomorphs again, but after a while the game started to go smooth. very detailed and atmospheric levels, proper no less epic ending and of course curved corridors by metlslime.
recommending this game! 

Apologies! I iz teh fail! :C 

+ Ruined forgeworld background is good
+ All weapons useful, satisfying and characterful (apart from GL)
+ Bomb squigs very cute, Bloodletters very cool
+ Violence is great- lots of blood and flying bodies
+ Very true to 40k universe
+ Intense gameplay, requiring a good mix of aggression and caution.
+ Progress and missions pretty smooth and natural.

- Very clunky controls and running screenshake annoying.
- Utterly on-rails progress (it's like a FPS side-scroller as far as lack of interaction with the cool backgrounds)
- No interaction with anything nearby either.
- Graphics strictly previous generation and quite bland.
- Checkpoints often before cutscenes / a long way before tough fights
- Save points at boss battle so bad I didn't complete the game
- Voices boring and Ork voices grating. 

SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE! SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE! SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE! SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE! SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE! SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE! SHPAACE MURINE! spaaaaace marrrine! SPACE MARINE!

I agree though Shambler. Amazing melee combat all the way through, but aside from that and the 40k licence its a pretty bland 3PS. 

I think. The core mechanics look excellent, I saw people running through it at the office.

Tempted to grab a copy, but only just freed myself from Shad'o (indie tower defence, looks like viva pinata, good overall, but then again I have no defence against TD).

...and finished Hotline Miami. At least, saw the credits once and played motorcycle guy's story. Now I just have a load of achievements to grind through.

But for now going to sip my triple distilled jamesons and read.

What was I talking about again? 

 

we got an argument here at work regarding dead space, what engine it uses? some people say it uses frostbyte, is it so? i always thought it uses its own. please clear this super important matter :) 

it does not use frostbite. It uses its own engine which Visceral developed over the years, and goes back at least as far as the first Godfather game. 

looks pretty...

http://youtu.be/U8HVQXkeU8U 

sure does look good. I didn't like most of the gameplay in BF3 SP though... maybe i should write a full review here. 

like a pretty girl. What sort of engine tech is going on there? 

engine is frostbite 2 

The same engine as battlefield 3?? Surely they've added some features... lighting in particular looks really impressive. 

yeah, I'm sure it's been evolved somewhat. Plus if you get more experienced with the same tech you can do better work with it. 

http://t.co/MX4V74eOmP 

heh, i was about to come back here and say that wikipedia says it's actually frostbite 3 :) 

This made me giggle a little.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20... 

It's impossible to think anything other than: it's a multiplayer game! Why aren't you showing us that? What is this for?

When metlslime said BF4 has a SP campaign I laughed, no one really cares because it will just play like CoD, but with different graphics. The BF franchise has always been about the MP experience, EA certainly like to shoot themselves in the foot ... "Press E to proceed and cut leg off" 

that looks awesome, epic cinematic sequences.

so is it just bf 3 and 4 that have proper single player? i think i tried to play one of the original ones, bf1 maybe and the sp was shit. just felt like a bot game. 

BF4 looks indeed awesome: I am just wondering whether SP campaign will really be good or not... and I definitively need a new computer :P 

has always been a bit of a joke. I don't know why DICE keep on doing it, it must take so many resources to get the game to look that good and it's all wasted on a single player campaign that no one really cares about. It's battlefield for fucks sake!

BF3 sp was utterly beautiful, and utterly shit. More scripted and on rails than call of duty (if thats actually possible).

At least from what I can tell from that footage there is at least some choice put into bf4 as you can order your squad to suppress the enemy while you flank around. Or tell the helicopter to attack etc.

But really, if they put all this crazy effort they are using for single player into making the multiplayer better then they could probably create something fantastic. Why can't I hold onto the side of buildings while a helicopter explodes below me in MP? Wouldn't experiences like that be worth 1000x more in a multiplayer environment where its totally unscripted? 

Also has a decent single player campaign. 

Only Battlefield game I ever played was 2.
I bought it on Steam for 2 bucks but they gave me an invalid serial number making online play impossible ...
I also found out EA customer support is just as nonexistant as people told me -- classic case of the circular blame-it-on-the-next-guy. Maybe it's better now, at least I hope so.
I only liked the smaller maps anyway. Too much walking around 90% of the time and getting sniped from 10 miles away 10% of the time on the larger maps :'(

Actually I played the first one with some friends back in 2004 or so. But it's so slow. Most of the time spent moving around rather than fighting. I was into UT2004 Onslaught at the time, which is like a night and day difference in those regards.

Guess I prefer MP to be as chaotic and spammy as possible for whatever reason. I'm not even sure If I actually like FPS games as a genre, playing Quake with a good chasecam mod feels just as good to me. To me it's more about hurdling projectiles at each-other and dodging stuff. That's very different from pop and stop kind of games like Counterstrike. So I'm not even sure if the first person perspective is the defining factor here. The ability to dodge weapon fire makes a huge difference. It seems more as if FPS and 3PS should be split into 'projectile shooter' and 'hitscan shooter' or something among those lines. I kind of like to think of it as Romero-fps and post-Romero-fps in historical terms. Altough that might be giving a little too much credit :P

Not that this post should be yet another one of those 'the good old days' kind of things, but I feel like that difference is very fundamental and not recognized enough in mainstream reviews. 

Looks very pretty outside. Destructible stuff looks cool.

Gameplay looked boring and skipped through most of it.

No sale. 

I'm a few hours into Bioshock: Infinite, and have been creaming my pants to an infinite degree. I think... it's my favourite game..? Ever?

Weapons: yes. Powers, yes. Setting, yes. Artwork, yes. Soundtrack, yes. Yes. 

How to make Spirit quit a game and delete it after 5 minutes:

* Constantly change camera angles (skipping the axis)
* Have one cutscene animation after each fight
* Have one cutscene animation after for health refresh
* Change camera when the player does some special action (anything that is not just walking)
* Make all those camera changes not ignore/reset the mouse camera control
* Randomly change the angle after aforementioned animations and have the player run into a wall 

Yes.

It is the business. 

http://youtu.be/dO2rM-l-vdQ 

awesome. design and art looks incredible, but I suppose it doesn't really show much from the engine, apart from size and detail. 

but I suppose it doesn't really show much from the engine

I dunno, it looks like it's prerendered. No jaggies in sight, great reflections. Motionblur is very convincing. UE4 has an amazing realtime lighting system (voxel cone tracing). 

gaaaaammmmeeeepplllaaayyyy.

(seriously tho, if anyone has evidence that the "next generation" of tentpole action games aren't just going to be even shorter, even dumber versions of what we have now, I'm all ears...) 

Close-up quick time events where you see sweat running down the named protagonist's face, blood on his bulky armor and slow motion death cameras that rotate closely around models. 

We can't sell engines based on gameplay videos. How would that work? Here's an innovative and amazing game idea! It ... comes with the engine?

:) 

That said, here's a video showing what you can do with the new Kismet system in UE4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?featu... 

Damn nice looking movie engine there, too bad Unreal Engine won't be used to make games anymore.

:P 

We can't sell engines based on gameplay videos. How would that work? Here's an innovative and amazing game idea! It ... comes with the engine?

Completely disagree. As a designer, I want to see what possibilities the new technology provides for player interaction with the world.

I want to see what sort of awesome physics is possible. I want to see new possibilities for dynamic environments and procedurally generated content, to name just a couple of things.

All that demo showed me is improvements in real-time rendering in a cinematic sequence.

That kismet system looked wicked cool tho, for non-programmers to make some game logic I guess. 

Gameplay does not sell games, visuals and brand names sells games. People love pretty screenshots, full cinematic cut scenes. Obviously there are exceptions like retro/pixel art but they have to still look good (yes there is bad pixel art).

If you make a game which does not have the latest bling or a tried and tested brand name then it will be a huge mountain to climb to get anyone interested. People love shiny stuff! 

"All that demo showed me is improvements in real-time rendering in a cinematic sequence."

Right, and that's what we're offering you. The potential for top end visuals with a great tools pipeline and a fantastic scripting system in the Kismet/Blueprint features.

The gameplay is up to you. 

Spiney said it really. Lighting looks spectacular and everything looks super smooth, no jaggies, no sharp stencil shadows. Looks completely pre-rendered. It's achieving that weird x-factor where I can't work out how it's being rendered. Uncanny valley here we come! There are exciting times afoot with the next-gen consoles round the corner methinks. 

yes it does. The game industry just lost all the customers that actually cared for it years ago? 

His point is more that sex sells. You can't attract customers with gameplay. You can, however, attract them with great graphics. Then once you have their attention, you can show them your gameplay. 

it totally doesn't work for me that way. I never would watch graphics-/cinematic-only trailers if i wouldn't actually be doing CG for a living.

Gameplay videos actually attract my attention. If there's something E3-like, I watch gameplay videos, as well as the top 5% of the graphics only stuff (but i would never buy those) 

it totally doesn't work for me that way. I never would watch graphics-/cinematic-only trailers if i wouldn't actually be doing CG for a living.

They would for me if they weren't filled to the brink with Hollywood cliches presented as pubescent power fantasies... 

Besides what has been already said is how fulfilling and rewarding succeeding feels in this game. After finally getting past area XYZ or killing boss ABC, its not like "oh well, okay" like I feel in most other games, it's more like "HOLY FUCKING SHIT YEAH BITCH" and literally almost jumping from joy. 

As long as it works for enough other people who care more about eye candy than they do about the graphics. Come on, this is obvious. Also, I think Willem was saying that they're trying to sell their engine more than they're trying to sell their games. 

Graphics are important. People chase the next big thing in computer graphics. If you are making a game, then regardless of what you want the gameplay to be like, you want the graphics the be good. You also want the tools to be good. So this video shows that both the graphics and tools for the engine are awesome. Seems like a win-win to me. 

SleepwalkR

Right now, yes, because we're not promoting a game. :) We're an engine provider as well as a game studio so this demo is to get people interested in licensing the engine. Which everyone should! It only seems right... 

all I see in those videos is a trillion dollar artist budget. I'm not at all familiar with the unreal technology (is it still called that?), but..

Where are the new rendering techniques? Where are the "simple art" test cases that show the pros and cons, where are the performance breakdowns? Where are the awesome features your engine has that nobody else has? Voxel cone tracing maybe? But where are the details of what is actually implemented there? When does it break down? How does it handle near-field? I heard there are problems with that... in the original paper. What about your implementation?

If I would have to make a decision about spending a lot of money on engines, those would be what I want to base my decision on. All I see in most engine videos is more particles, more deferred lights, more post processing, etc., and of course, lots of artists. Those don't come with the engine, I heard =)

Maybe that's my academic view, and that's because I see the papers a long time before an actual product uses that stuff. Maybe managers just buy stuff, because they don't even know what engine vs artist means. Or it isn't even about them, it's about the public that in turn buys everything with unreal engine "because it just has to look as good as the tech video".

oh, and i didn't even watch it, just the graph ui advertisment. :-)

okay, i just did. the glossy reflections look indeed nice, but there does seem to be only one type of glossy material (puddles/wet) that actually uses it. Why's that?

What else is there? Nice volumetric lighting, but not enough time and bad video compression to actually see what the problems with it are. Or how fake it is. Then... there's lots of particles, lights, artist budget :-) How many "VPLs" are actually hand-placed? Model/Animation of the main character with dread locks looks really bad (the joints?!), but I'm not sure if that's just artist fuck-up (but how did it pass QA then, if it was easily fixable? See the problem?) What shadowing there is looks really nice, but some stuff doesn't seem to cast any.

And it's all really pretty. 

what's your code quality, how easy is it to modify stuff, plug my own stuff into it, what abstractions are there... I'd like a video about that =) 

I expected some nice honest advertisement but that natural and spontaneous infomercial made me cringe. So much bullshit bingo phrases. I swear I was able to do what I want and let the creative energy flow into the code and leverage the intuitive interface and feel unleashed with that FPS creator thing that was advertised in magazines in 1996. You can be a game designer too! But only with this new product. Not any of the competitors. It is so new and innovative! 

It's a marketing video, yes, but look at what's being shown. That's no bullshit. Shane created all of that stuff entirely on his own and he knows nothing about coding. He's an artist, through and through, and he's making games entirely on his own in UE4. 

They did release some paper last year:

http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/...

Also some walkthrough of the editor and some tech info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOv...

And yes, million dollar art budgets and such. I totally agree. I also tend to get more excited about NPR and innovative art direction nowadays. Nevertheless, impressive stuff.

One thing I wish would get solved once and for all in this generation is transparency. 

I hope something is coming out of that Samaritan demo ;) I loved the noir cyberpunk setting. 

Come on, those "engine ads" are actually aimed at general public to support the brand and make the "build with WHATERVER tech #" a selling point for the gamers. And execs too of course.

Cryengine Flow Graph > Kismet all day btw. 

"Cryengine Flow Graph > Kismet all day btw. "

Have you played with UE4 Kismet/Blueprints yet? It's a LARGE step up from UE3. 

what Unreal3 tech games officially have map editor and custom maps support? 

GoW and UT3 are the only two I can think of off the top of my head. 

I've always loved the Unreal Editor, the kismet system shown is really impressive. It's great to see that Shane still works at Epic, he seemed to drop off the radar somehow. Remember the days when the guys making the games were really at a kind of celeb status? Not really like that so much these days (except for guys like Carmack or Miyamoto). 

Remember the days when the guys making the games were really at a kind of celeb status?

Haha, I remember the nineties too. It's great until they try to make you their bitch though, then it all ends in tears. 

ok that video was nice. the debugger looks amazing. 

the ad markets exactly what it says (engine) but you guys want it to market something else (game).

That would be when Epic pimps the next GoW or Unreal?? All your where is the gameplay comments would be valid then. 

I just read the Epic Siggraph 2012 paper. I understood some of those words. Actually really awesome reading though, thanks Spiney.

The voxel cone nonsense seems mad cool. I thought this video by Cyril Crassin (the author of the original paper) does a great job of demonstrating it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?featu... 

http://maverick.inria.fr/Publicati... this is a paper :-)

Nice slides nonetheless, i didn't know they had a siggraph talk. 

I thought it was a paper, I might just have remembered wrong :P 

.. pdf is electronic format, till you print it, then it becomes paper...

/you ignorant !! 

Why? because I'm not a clever man. Why must everyone insist on pointing this out? 

said paper. 

Wait, what? Out of all the hundreds games that use UE3 only 2 Epics own titles have editor/custom map suport?

Quick google couldn't find much relevant info.
Does it have much to do with everyone selling DLCs instead of letting users make their own mods or what. 

Yeah, it's kind of depressing...
I know there's workarounds for UDK that work with some titles, but nothing official. 

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_... 

Now make a cyberpunk Skyrim in the video setting, with Crytek-esque gameplay.

Thanks!!! 

Very cool roguelike with story and stuff: http://teleglitch.com/ 

Awesome! It's like a top-down Doom/Quake with perma-death and crafting!
Definitely recommend playing, I saw it on TIGSource ages ago! 

Thanks for posting that! It is like an amalgamation of all things I love about gaming. You made my day. 

 

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/...

This one reminds me a lot Lord of The Ring: a mix in between Sauron and Balrog >E

This one is interesting too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO2...

Note that it is not image synthesis, but really Unreal engine 4. Nevertheless, it is precised that the engine run 4 times slower that normal speed, exploiting 100% of GTX680 processing capabilities. Hence, to run the game with its full power, it would need four GTX680 to get a real time playable demo

After small calculation it means "basically" and roughly just 12 Terra Flops a 14 billions of transistors... just a "small" GFX setup 

wow, teleglitch ironically has really nice graphics. i really like the visibility system they implemented. 

One thing for sure, compared to the System Shock and Thief series, Quake is really newbie friendly to install. 

Crimsonland rougelike yay! 

Yeah, I have always liked the .pak system of Quake series (or similarly, .wad format of tech1). Tidy, simple and easy to figure out. I hate those games where thousands of files lay out in the open, in too many damned folders. 

The melee combat in teleglitch is seriously pissing me off. It is super hard to aim and apparently you have to actually hit the drunk monsters with your 2 pixel end of arm? 

Aren't PAKs essentially folders that cannot directly be accessed by the OS? The distinction always eluded me somewhat. I've never seen the big win in it to be frank. It's just as messy and complex, just hidden in a custom format. 

@Spirit: Yeah, melee is near impossible. I think it is not supposed to be used at all. By level 3 monsters are already attacking in swarms, so it is best to form a Trinailgun as soon as possible and use it as the fallback weapon instead of that puny knife (since you can also produce nails by scavenging).

@Spiney: Fair point. It might be a personal thing but I like .pak's better. Besides, you don't have to overwrite original stuff to utilize custom content - that may be the advantage of the system. 

What was great was the day I discovered that the Quake3 PAK files were ZIP format. Blew my mind... You can open them in any standard ZIP file editor. 

The overwriting can still be done by simply renaming the folder PAK2 etc. But I can certainly see why some people would prefer it. I think the difference is purely psychological. 

File system access is relatively slow; pak and other such formats allow you to open one file handle with the OS and then just read different chunks out of it. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YP...

Other than the tiny player-to-level scale, this looks like the dog's bollocks. 

That looks surprisingly fun.
I love how they kept those floating circular platforms, they make no sense at all in that warehouse level, who would use antigrav platforms where you can just have normal stairs, that's great. :)

ROTT is the first game I mapped for, plenty of fond memories from it. 

i like how you pick out the floating platforms as what's unrealistic. To me that entire level looks like any deathmatch map with industrial-themed textures with arbitrarily placed bridges and jump-pads and i had to go re-watch the video to see that it was even intended to look like a warehouse :) 

Apart from from tidiness and easy managability, having all files in containers speeds up access (no defragmentation) and (de)installation. Copying/moving a large number of individual files takes considerably longer than the same amount of data in few container files. 

No "fragmentation" obviously. 

Yeah I agree, I just picked out the floating platforms because they were an important part of the original ROTT (you could only create any kind of vertical gameplay by placing them).

Honestly the level itself (layout, design, etc.) is pretty generic and doesn't look very good as far as deathmatch levels go, those random diagonal bridges made me cringe... 

with 1997 brushwork and layouts is not a good look. It looks like a retexturing project. Gameplay looks nicely oldschool though. 

Meh. There's a very nice deal on Amazon.com today (and only today): All Borderlands 2 diginal codes are off 67% - unfortunately only available to US customers. If some charitable Americano reads this, go buy me two keys for the BL2 Season Pass, would you ($9.99 each)? I can pay you back in USD or BSP. :>
And while you're at it, go grab the game for yourself, it's a lot of fun in coop. 

Looks dire in pretty much every way. 

-fast oldschool gameplay
-$100 mln art budget

choose one 

A valid criticism here is that the map layouts do actually look like pimply 1997 box-map arse.

Nothing to do with the "art".

I mean, really - the layout for the first map in that video is about as primitive and ugly as you can get. 

Scale is totally wrong, it looks like a shitty Quake1 engine putting way too many 'realistic' shaders on flat geometry, and even 'old school' gameplay wasn't '1 hit kills constantly'. Not to mention the level design is a shitty gimmick map that were played out even when RotT was new.

Sorry, making an 'old school' game doesn't mean 'make absolute shit'. 

the second map looks far better though. 

you can buy games from Amazon even if oyu are outside of the US by putting in a fake US delivery address.

As what you are buying is digital, there is no issue with delivery obviously. 

Digital items are only purchasable with a US billing address unfortunately. 

never had that requirement when I bought from Australia, I've always just put in a US shipping address. 

Thanks to whoever mentioned it first. I'm enjoying this game a lot. 

Shipping != billing. Those digital items are not available for people outside the US. It even says so on the page. I tried to buy the code myself, but to no avail. Physical items are another thing, they typically work fine.

Or do you mean you registered a credit card with a fake US address? 

Those arguments make sense, good reasons for using PAK files then :) 

You can also easily patch by simply adding new higher numbered files without having to overwrite older versions (needs more space of course). Quake 3 used that.

In-file filesystems can also be tailored to your needs and do not care about the filesystem they are on. Eg you might be on a case-insensitive filesystem but inside your archive you can be.

You can compress them.

You could encrypt them (half-assed).

Big files still fragment btw.

Back to Teleglitch. The line of sight effect looks great but since I know how it works, I always see how it works and it became super distracting. :( 

Second try (after first perma-death of course). Currently at the beginning of level 5. Detector comes handy to get ready for the upcoming swarms. Powerlegs make a great difference too. I only wish there was a button for unloading the ammo out of the scavenged weapons. 

My bad. It seems that picking up any weapon and dropping it back unloads the ammo that comes with it - handy! This little gem of a game gets harder, tenser and more enjoyable as the player progresses deeper into the installation. Great stuff, I don't remember being this thrilled with a PC game in a long time. 

yes fake US address (using one of those fake web address generators) entered as shipping address works fine for me. If it is not working for you, you could try ticking "billing address same as shipping address" to see if that works maybe.

Transaction goes through fine on my Australian credit card and no issues in downloading it because there is no physical shipping to my fake address.

Google amazon digital downloads outside US, quite a few links on different ways of doing it. 

Teleglitch is done (the stats screen tells that it took 362mins) ...and so are my nerves. Once you get your hands on experimental, energy-based stuff, you have a fair-chance against the metallic nasties that dominate the later levels. Though the transition is a bit brutal: I barely survived the 7th level. Still, it was worth all the trouble. I could have never imagined that such a lo-fi game would be this atmospheric and heart-pounding. Now, I wonder what are those few remaining items (or weapons) that I haven't figured out how to produce? 

"We made this game because we were missing the jitters and hardcore fun feeling that we grew to love years ago, playing games like Doom, Quake and various roguelikes. Because stuff like this is so rare nowadays, we decided to make it ourselves, and fill the empty space in our hearts with pixels, blood, zombies, robots and dark corridors."

MOTHERFUCKING FUCK YEAH FUCK ALREADY!!!!

And erc "I could have never imagined that such a lo-fi game would be this atmospheric and heart-pounding."
-You have now learnt tha the "fi" has fuckall to do with atmosphere and excitement.
Absolutely fuck all. 

I knew that already, growing up with a 2600. I guess my astonishment comes from the fact that I haven't experienced any of the deliberately retro-styled games of this day and age (apart from Cladun on PSP). 

Then you are missing out on a few more gems, if you have time... 

Sure, I have some to spare. Would love to hear your recommendations. 

Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story Cave Story 

No, I haven't. :/ It seems that you can't recommend it enough though. Looks like a Metroidvania, that's a big incentive - thanks, Spirit. Any others? Has anyone tried Lone Survivor, by the way? Looks interesting and stylish. I'm always up for survival horror. 

If you play it, make sure to not play the later released "+" one. It is like a bad Quake remake/model/sound thing from all what I have seen.

Cave Story is one of the best games I know and it's free! Don't spoil yourself reading, just play it and have fun. Best with a gamepad! 

Of course, I'll go for the original one -- YAY! A PSP port is available! :) 

Some neat retro style games that don't cost a penny!

You Have To Win The Game
http://www.piratehearts.com/blog/g...

Maldita Castilla
http://www.locomalito.com/maldita_... 

http://www.kickstarter.com/project...

I loved the previous games, and FTL had some of the same feeling of exploration. 

Many thanks! These two look great too, will try them in the near future. I remember playing 8bit killer from Locomalito guys, that was beautiful. 

You maybe heard of Hotline Miami. Don't Miss that.
If you feel like some Roguelike I highly recommend DoomRL, thats a Doom based Roguelike, with tiles now.

Pineapple Smash Crew seems like fun, did not get to play it much but what I did was cool. 

Killes, thanks for the recommendations, another sweet-looking two (Hotline Miami and PSC). I'll give them a try. I've had a round or two in DoomRL, back when it was ASCII based. It surely looks more compelling now. 

Another one worth trying if you haven't: The Binding of Isaac. Quite fun and addictive (ask onetrueijed about it). 

473 hours and counting. I planned on quitting once I hit the 400.0 mark but old habits die hard. 

is veritably amazing. So is Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf, though in a different way. 

Thanks guys. I'll add The Binding of Isaac and KDFW to my list. I plan on taking the ones with shorter campaigns first. Currently playing Cave Story (for the first time) and replaying Harmony of Dissonance on PSP (through a GBA emulator which works surprisingly perfect). Also had half an hour with Metroid: Zero Mission (via the same emulator). 

Isaac: 521 Hours, but I stopped playing some time ago.

Indie games not already mentioned;

Weird Worlds is indeed a great space exploration roguelike, it's nice to see they're working on the third version.

Another space explorer roguelike I can recommend is Faster Than Light.

Spelunky - an oldie but a goodie. Platformer roguelike player rape.

Desktop Dungeons - haven't looked at this in quite some time, but a limited space dungeon crawl roguelike where exploration regenerates you.

Cthulhu Saves the World - breath of fire style RPG.

And I'm probably forgetting many more. 

... can quickly become overwhelming! :D 

Any idea how simular Metroid: Zero Mission is to Metroid: Fusion? Because I loved that (until some boss that made my emulator crawl). 

Metroid Fusion is a lot more linear and directed, until the very end when you get to explore freely for some time.
There is an annoying NPC that you are forced to talk to inbetween setpieces.
Other than that the gameplay is still the same old good stuff, and there are some cool environments. 

xxx 

i liked zero mission more, fusion forced too much linearity onto the player. But fusion is still pretty good in other respects. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3L...

FUCKKKK!!! FUCKKK!!! oh my shit!! This is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen, including vaginas and the bugatti veyron. 

DAT TRAILER!!! OMG!!! 

That shit is fuuuuuuucked up.

Looks good though. But how come Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon has nothing to do with fucking teenagers and cheesy mexican drug barons? It's like a TC, rather than DLC..... 

http://teksyndicate.com/news/2013/... 

hope that doesnt mess up their sales. Really hope they get rewarded for being this wildcard. 

I got FC3 on release :) 

Many thanks. Those will be added to my 'check out' queue. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAM...

Does look nice :) 

Metro 2033 was a flawed but brilliant game with an awesome atmosphere. Very much looking forward to Last Light.

Shame about the stupid DLC nonsense from 4A Games though. They put the "nightmare mode" difficulty behind a DLC pay wall, and considering it's "the way the game was designed to be played" that's a pretty dick move :/

I'm expecting modders to unlock it for everyone pretty fast however :) 

looks awesome. i haven't played any metro's yet though. 

I haven't played any Metro games either, but that sure looks sweet! And Stalker is on my fav games of all time list. 

Then I think you need to play Metro 2033. Very similar atmosphere but a much more directed experience (read : linear levels rather than open world-ish that stalker had). 

But I hated Metro 2033. 

Metro was nice, but after playing Stalker, and reading a bit of the Metro book, it really makes you wish it was a bit more open-ended.
Still better than any silly CoD solo campaign.
Will probably get the new one myself, looks nice. 

Ranger Hardcore is the way to go if you want to tackle Metro 2033 the best possible way. No HUD, scarce resources and bullets hurt like a bitch. I played it like this on my first playthrough and had a blast. 

yay or nay? 

this is what a DOS prompt would look like if it were a horror game
http://www.datatragedy.com/wipmoab... 

Loading bar fills to 100 percent and then just sits there. Anyone else? 

But I don't know what it is. 

If you have a copy of DUKE3D.GRP somewhere in a long forgotten directory on your hard drive. DNF is out.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/duke-nuk... 

what games are the best for showing it off nowadays? First person to say Crysis 1 gets a pint of nanobots down the japs-eye 

Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, Witcher 2, Bulletstorm, Metro, Modded Skyrim, Modded GTA4... all different engines 

The thing that always bugged me about it was the purely flat ambient light. Made everything look fake. The SSAO just made it worse. There was also plenty of pop-in, weird looking clouds and strange noisy shadow filtering. The skin shading was also really weird looking, it looked like subtly backlit wax from all angles somehow. And all the hard surfaces have this plastic sheen to them. When Doom3 did it everyone complained about it, seems by 2007 everyone just got used to it.

Maybe if the art direction wasn't so bloody generic it could have worked. Crysis 2 was like being locked up inside a Michael Bay flick with the visuals. Latest Crysis really improved in all those areas, tough it all still looks abnormally slick to me.

Meh, screw realism, boring... 

With TressFX switched on. I get about 0.5 FPS that way, I expect you can do better :) 

With TressFX switched on. I get about 0.5 FPS that way, I expect you can do better :) 

Battlefield 4 isn't out yet... right? I imagine BF 3 would be a good bet though. I think Witcher, Skyrim, modded GTA 4 are all pretty solid choices too.

Hmm, nothing in there really sets my heart on fire though. Blame the current console generation, but PC graphics aren't really moving forward very fast are they?? 

What Spiney said...

But if you just want to see photo-realistic pixels patterns in realtime, rthdribl is my choice, until we get photon mapping in realtime. 

http://youtu.be/9k-N49P5N1I

uncludes download link.
my issue with it is that's it's really hard to make up foreground from background 

But yeah, it's hard to distinguish what's solid and what's not. The gunshots are hard to see as well, and they made a mistake when going through doors - they shouldn't move where your character is on the screen after going through them.

It's a bit odd as well - it looks like most of the work done was on converting the Q2 assets. Why not just make a game?

Maybe I'm being too cynical. 

Pretty awesome looking! I haven't downloaded but I shall. 

Judging from the videos the guy is mostly a coder and he generally takes other game stuff to test/show off his engine. 

http://openxcom.org/index.php/2013...
OpenXCom 0.9 (fully playable)

I hope it is ok to post in this thread as it is available for not only Windows but also MacOS, Linux, OpenBSD, Haiku and some consoles (handheld!). 

Well, I bought this during the Steam weekend special at half off. I was expecting to really not like it. I generally find 3rd person games to be awkward and difficult to control. I was right about that, but I ended up actually enjoying most of the game.

The QTE parts of the game can have serious problems on the PC. During QTE "combat" sequences the game often would not respond to the keyboard "button mashing". I also experienced loss of mouse control in several "escape" sequences. I found out that these problems mostly went away by temporarily using lower video settings and turning v-sync off. Unfortunately I didn't find out about this work-around until toward the end of the game.

The environments are very nice. The level design, texturing, etc. are all top notch. The models and animation are some of the best I've seen in a game of this type. For once Lara's chest is actually pretty normal. The storyline was good as were the puzzle parts and overall the game was interesting enough to keep me playing almost non-stop for days and actually continuing all the way to the very end.

I ended up at 91% completion overall (I gave up on trying to find all the exploration type items about halfway through). I played on normal difficulty for almost the entire game.

If it wasn't for the control issues I'd rated it 9 out of 10 stars easy. Even though those issues only occur in a few short parts of the game, it causes a lot of frustration and really detracts from the overall experience. 

and its fucking amazing. A bit on the easy side I suppose but fuck is it beautiful and well thought out and expansive. HL was my 1st love and this rekindles the flames and then some. If you have even a passing interest and a copy of HL on your computer, check it out.
Hopefully, unlike me, you'll have the time to absorb it in long sittings, instead of 30 minute chunks. Fuck. not like the old days. 

So far (1/3 the way through), I actually agree with Ricky about this, gasp.

QTEs are utterly irredeemably awful.

Oft-changing and randomly fixed camera perspective is very poor.

Constant switching between controlling Lara and just watching Lara is pointless nonsense.

^^^ all of the above are immersion-breaking bollox.

BUT:

Graphics, lighting, and effects are superb, environments and atmosphere are very good, characters are very well done, Lara in particular is portrayed convincingly, the progression in intriguing, and the actual combat gameplay is fair, slick and pretty good fun (and shows how good the game could have been if they hadn't spoiled it with QTE shite). Like Ricky all of those aspects are strong enough to keep me playing it despite the clear (and deliberate) control flaws. 

 

(probably) 

(probably) 

I wondered why he was actually making sense about the game! 

Actually, I'm the Rick that made Castle of Oblivion and Well of Wishes and Polygon Base for Quake (I made a few Doom 2 maps also). I'm still working (off and on) to finish a re-make of Well of Wishes.

I think Tomb Raider may end up as Game of the Year. It would be really nice if they'd patch it to fix the QTE "combat" buttons bug and the occasional issues with mouse control.

Some of the escape sequences where you have to run across floors and bridges, which are crumbling and falling away beneath you, are really hard to get past when you can't turn with the mouse.

The annoying QTE and buggy sequences probably only added up to 15 minutes or less of play time, compared to maybe 40 hours total, that's not too much of an issue considering how much I enjoyed the rest of the game.

I think I probably played through too fast. I may wait a few weeks and give it another go. Overall I had a lot of fun. The "Shipwrecked Beach" and "Mountain Village" areas are awesome levels full of tons of exploration. 

Shot from The Witness (the new game from Jonathan Blow of Braid fame)
http://the-witness.net/news/wp-con...

prettyyyy 

And a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?featu...

Wow. Might be the best looking game I've ever seen. 

Looks great. Though I think the vegetation looks too different a style to the rest of the scene? Color palette is somewhat garish at times (not unlike braid). But yeah, really good looking for the most part. 

Looks great, and the music makes you want to see the video again.

It's giving me lots of ideas for mapping. 

looks cute. like the music. hope it's on pc.

but I'd rather kill shit than solve maze puzzles.

reminds me of a happier myst. 

The nice thing about puzzle games is they're easy to make. With Quake you just open radiant and fuck around with triggers and moving stuff. You don't even need player models or a hud. 

YES!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20... 

A decade after my second playthrough, I have beaten System Shock 2 for the third time. I'm glad to say that it is still one of my favourite PC games. I installed Kolya's SS2 Tool which includes map fixes as well as a custom engine (NewDark) that comes with D3D9, supports modern systems, adds a bunch of subtle features and most importantly, works flawlessly. On top of that, top-notch third-party graphical enhancements really made the game shine - seriously, I have never been a fan of so called hi-res textures stuck on top of low-poly maps and haven't used any for Quake to this day, but the ones available for SS2 are much better than any I have seen. The following shots, which are mostly from Deck 5, demonstrate these packages (alongside a hint of bloom):

* SHTUP (object/decal-based textures)
* FourHundred (brush-based textures)
* Vurt's Space Textures (skies -- not shown)
* Vurt's Goo (new models for organics -- not shown)
* Vurt's Water (v5.1 with EnvMap)
* Tacticool (new models for Navy weapons -- two out of five shown)
* Eldron PsiAmp (new model for PsiAmp -- not shown)

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Also used ADaoB, a bug-fixing pack that also rebalances the game mechanics. Didn't installed Rebirth, since I don't think it follows the style as well as the above packs. All of them are definitely recommended, they will make the game run much smoother and look much sharper while staying true to the original feel and look.

Here's a handy link: SS2 Newbie Modding Guide 

Shadow Warrior remake. Cool. Although looking back on gameplay vids now on the original, god it looks awful. Did it have any story? Pretty sure I played it, but don't remember it looking so crap. Funny how those old games look better in your head than in reality. Not sure why they're bothering with a remake, other than a recognizable IP, but how many people that played that oh... 20 years ago, when it wasn't a popular game then, will still be gamers now. Apart from func locals. 

I just noticed System Shock 2 is on Steam with a one week special price of $6.99

I seem to remember playing it a long time ago but I know I never bought it. Maybe it was a demo or something. I might have to pick it up off Steam. 

but

http://www.gamespot.com/news/wolfe...

can't wait to play it