I replayed Q2 the other day, and started playing D3 (after figuring out settings so it wasn't 800x600 and autodetecting 'low quality' graphics...)

god help me. hitscan. hitscan everywhere 

The Z-sec and chaingun commandos were such obnoxious enemies. Partially because of the doubling effect when you take damage. Though I also hated that the chaingun commando's chaingun had no spinup, but mine did.

Q2 did have a ton of hitscan, but they took longer to transition into firing, like in Doom, so you could do something about it often. 

double the run speed scampie, doom3 is way more enjoyable when you're not crawling around 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18refFZ8FoI 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/25/virtual-nose-purdue-university 

Complete with working oven, I see. Banned in Germany! 

http://www.absention-game.com/

UE4 indie game, set in a nice lake house, but there's some scaryness that comes and kills you. You relive the same day again and again Groundhog Day style, and try to survive. Looks sexy, monster looks awful. Pre-alpha though. 

monster looks awful.

maybe their art budget ran out after making that one room. 

I decided to replay Half-Life after years (might be a decade by now). It is still such a fantastic game and well worth all the praise. I did not remember so many secrets/optional places. The flow is great, although I remember it feeling much slower when I first played it, probably because I could not aim nor move and "used" everything. Played up to the introduction of the military for now.

Especially the sounds, their use and the environmental effects are impressive. I would even say, they are a huge part of the atmosphere.

The "seamless" world still feels great, probably better nowadays when loading times are just single seconds. 

I started up Unreal for the first time since the 90s, the other week. Using the unofficial 227 patch, it runs a dream now on a modern computer, and you can re-enable the original sounds.

It's pretty great, although you kind of have to grit your teeth through a lot of the incredibly obscure level progression "90s charm" that the game suffered from.

I remember back in the day I thought nothing of walking down to HMV and picking up one of those game guide books to help me through when I got stuck. How times change, hehe. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2kd7F3YFz8 

Can't argue with that. More DX:HR done equally well would get my vote.

Main character still has the personality of a turnip though. 

... looked graphically excellent but I was hoping to hear a musical score that was as good as those for the previous Deus-Ex titles. I thought the DX-HR soundtrack was very fitting for a dystopian near-future vision and the excellent Icarus theme (if I got that right) was in the trailer for it. I like when games have musical scores that feel like they were crafted to contribute to the game's character instead of going with something that could be part of any big budget Hollywood action flick. 

He's alive... 

I thought the DX-HR music was great, and it's the same composer on the new project (Micheal Mccann), so I'm optimistic. 

I care, a lot. Especially for the 15 seconds before I find the audio settings and turn it down to 20%. 

"Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 deploys players into a dark, twisted future where a new breed of Black Ops soldier emerges and the lines are blurred between our own humanity and the technology we created to stay ahead, in a world where cutting-edge military robotics define warfare. With three unique game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies, providing fans with the deepest and most ambitious Call of Duty ever"

They must be trolling by now... 

My Facebook feed was lit up with Black Ops 3 love yesterday and I don't want to be a dick but ... really?! 

They're unique from each other.

It also has thirty unique weapons! For very narrow values of 'unique.' 

 

http://dodgeroll.com/gungeon/ 

.. this Arcade game style. Cool link ! 

If a bit epileptic. 

You're onto something there, even if you were just trying to be glib. If you pay attention to the marketing copy of CoD games, they only talk within the scope of the franchise. They don't care if other games have done X feature or used Y tech, they care if a CoD game has. CoD has a distinct player base in games, namely, they have a lot of players who don't otherwise play games. They have the metrics on this and know that their primary competitor is themselves. They need each release to be different enough from previous ones to justify a purchase, but not so different that it doesn't appeal to their unique column of players, the ones who only play their game.

This is part of why other companies, especially EA, are so silly in trying to make a CoD Killer. How do you convince people who typically don't play Other Games, to play Your Other Game which doesn't look that different from what they've already got, but it is on untested grounds? As one YouTuber put it, the CoD Killer is the game that is nothing like it but appeals to CoD players. Minecraft thus far is the only thing which has posed a threat.

Now as for "unique weapons", that depends on the goal you have in implementing weapons. I wrote this almost two years ago, but it still applies: http://scar3crow.com/2013/04/am-gun-will-travel/

Now, I wouldn't call myself "excited" for Black Ops 3. But I will keep an eye on it, because Black Ops 2 was by far the strongest entry in the franchise, and this is the first time that development team has had a three year cycle to work with. It will still be Call of Duty, with all the faults that implies, but I've always found it interesting to observe how these teams balance the demands for change and the requirement of familiarity.

I will say though, if you play Black Ops 2's multiplayer for a few hours, and you don't feel the difference between the weapons - to the extent that you develop particular favorites, and find your play style adjusting to them - then I would argue that CoD is actually too involved for you. It isn't a good game, but it is, when on point, a game about focused differences and applying them correctly. 

I would love to know how the game modes of Campaign Multiplayer and Zombies are radically different to all the other previous CODs that includes Campaign Multiplayer and Zombies (the latter in DLC), and how the cutting-edge military robotics are a huge conceptual progression over the previous COD:AW's cutting-edge military robotics.

Basically, they are cocks.