Sno

"I hated this game, but if i kept playing it, would i have liked it?" is basically the question you're asking, and i don't really know how to answer it. I would say that TES games generally try to present entire, realized places. With regards to Oblivion, individual NPC's may not have a lot to say, but most will have a few lines of distinct dialogue. They all reside in detailed environments and have detailed routines, such that the place as a whole is believable. (As opposed to generic NPC's in Fallout 3 or other RPG's, which may not even have unique dialogue or any routines to follow.) If you want to know what i think is the most enjoyable way to play Oblivion, i'd say start that game, get out of that introductory dungeon, pick a random direction and just go. Don't stick around in one place trying to grind through all the quests there, keep exploring. The thing i always loved about TES games is that pretty much regardless of where you go, you will find something interesting. They're the kind of games that encourage you to explore and stray from whatever seems to be the intended path. You can kind of build your own narrative out of random experiences you happen upon as you wander.

So where is everybody at, do we push forward?

There's undoubtedly going to be a lot of busted stuff people won't like, especially with expectations flying so awfully high. Keeping a more critical mindset, I don't really expect to be wowed by the visuals on a technical front. It sounds like they're still trying to cram it all onto a single dvd for the 360 release, and i expect the other versions to be reflective of that. Those nice screenshots they've been releasing, the character models certainly look much nicer, but there's a lot of blurry textures in those environments. It's like something had to give to get the detail in the places you want it. I mean, and Oblivion fitting on a single DVD was already a minor miracle in its own right, with its some sixty hours of spoken dialogue. Not if you make an area-effect fireball spell! Anyways, yes, some accuracy is necessary. The combat is all real-time, but you can pause to go into menus to drink potions, select spells, poison your weapons, etc. Some other actions like changing weapons have an animation lag, they won't happen instantly while paused. There's also no lock-on or anything. (I actually feel TES games could really use a lock-on, it can be awfully easy to stab a friendly NPC in the back if you're fighting the same target. That's a pretty rare incident though, TES games are almost always solo, you almost never have a party.) I don't rail against Oblivion as much as some people do, i still really liked it, but it does have some problems. I think the biggest thing is just that Cyrodiil as presented isn't a very interesting place, the landscapes and locations aren't nearly as unique and diverse as Vvardenfell was in Morrowind. That loot and enemy scaling is also truly ridiculous in Oblivion, especially when random bandits all start running around in complete sets of what is supposed to be incredibly precious and rare glass armor. Skyrim is supposed to be more diverse than Cyrodiil, but the scaling mechanics are apparently more in line with Oblivion and Fallout 3 than Morrowind.

If I was on this list, I would be #5. But I'm not. I am not on this list.

I also greatly appreciated that they weren't missables, the fact that you could go back and track them all down at all. I hate missables in open-ended environments, that's bad design, booo.

I don't know what you mean about the Build engine being put to death quickly, there were a lot of games built on that technology. Blood is a game i have fond memories of, Shadow Warrior wasn't so bad either.

It's nowhere near the kind of back-tracking that goes on in Shadow Complex. ITSP has a very small game world and a very detailed map, it took me maybe thirty minutes to track down the last few items i didn't have when i was getting ready to go fight the final boss. Seriously though, is this really a thing people hate? Hunting for that 100% item completion is a good half of why i like playing games like this. Even if you don't like doing that, i don't know why it would bother you here, the things you're searching for are not exactly meaningful in the context of the game. (Hey, want some low-resolution concept art?)

I am so confused by Toblix's complaints.

Wait... What? Are you serious? I thought that was the best part of the game.

Egh, you're reading too much into it, the comparisons really are just coming out of those being popular examples of the genre. There's no so drastic differences between Metroid and Shadow Complex to warrant one comparison over the other. Shadow Complex is really fantastic and had a few cool tricks like the foam gun, but it was very clearly a direct design homage to classic side-scrolling Metroids. (It's more similar to the GBA Metroids than Super, actually.) In contrast, there aren't really any clear parallels between ITSP and those games outside of the general framework of the genre. In actuality, ITSP is actually doing a lot of things that are fairly unique, at least as far as the Metroidvania space is concerned.

The rumors i've been seeing are that EA plans to have the Origin store built into their games as a mechanism to sell DLC, bypassing Steam on Steam, while Valve wants EA to sell their DLC through the existing tools Steam already has for DLC. This reminds me of that whole X-box Live/EA thing, really. EA trying to bully a platform holder into allowing special exemptions for EA games. In this case, i suspect it'll all depend on how successful Origin is, will Origin make up for the sales lost by not being on Steam? EA might budge before Valve does.

Are you using the lock-on? (B-button for nearest target, d-pad to cycle through multiple targets.) As long as there is a possible line of sight the lock-on will orient you to your enemy, then you can then fine-tune your aim with the analog stick. It's a big part of being able to react quickly and have more time to aim carefully.

The game does not have especially great bosses, but they usually boil down to a simple trick. If you're having trouble with them, you're probably trying to over-complicate things. Killer 7 does require a good degree of accuracy, i suppose. I didn't personally find either part of Sunset at all difficult, I think the giants in Cloudman are the first part where the game can be kind of a bitch. (In fact, i'd recommend using Kevin to just stealth past those things. Really, don't forget the character abilities! Coyote and Kevin have charge shots that are totally practical for normal combat.) Also, counters need to be timed, but down attacks don't. So at least for enemies with legs to shoot out, you can do that and just keep spamming on the A button as they approach. In fact, in general, don't get too hung up on trying to score criticals all the time. Destroying limbs will still earn you a little bit of blood, even when finishing them off with a non-critical kill. Don't run blindly into rooms, it's often already too late to save your ass if you only react once you start hearing the laughter. It's kind of weird and counter-intuitive trying to feel out the safest spots to scope out a room from when you're locked to rails, but Con's super speed and Kevin's invisibility can really help out with this. You can heal at will, in case you missed this. Spend vials on the pause menu, even in the middle of combat. If all else fails, use Mask De Smith, but make sure you don't fall behind in blood collection. This is the third time i've played through Killer 7, and i've never had an easy time following what the hell is going on in the Sunset levels. And... i... You know, i just here had a thing written out trying to explain what i think was going on in those two levels, but honestly... Dude, i don't fucking know. I thought i had it figured out, but once i read what i had written out, i realized it didn't make any sense at all. This game is so hard to follow. I think the missiles at the end are supposed to be missiles sent to intercept other missiles that were targeted at Japan. *Shrug*

The scrolls thing, you mean? I seriously can't imagine that will stand, it sounds like somebody pushing paper somewhere is trying to justify their job, but given that there's been so much dumb stuff with trademarks lately, who knows.

Go talk it through with somebody, get it out of your system and have that external perspective. Keep yourself busy too, try not to ruminate on it, at some point you're just driving your own anxieties to be worse. Don't stress out over things you have no control over. Medicating it is a bad road to go down, i wouldn't want to see somebody go that path unless they really had to. But whatever.

I don't really want to get too into it on a public board, but I never really got a clear diagnosis. I had a bunch of doctors and another half dozen specialists telling me that i was a medical mystery. The MRI was to monitor enlarged lymph nodes and an enlarged spleen, which are both settling down.

I just realized that like 90% of the original ITSP trailer is different from or missing entirely from the released game. 975Zw8BJ3Vg ^ Original trailer. -9r6J0b-2BI ^ Final trailer. Anyways, i finished it, and i still feel conflicted about this game. It is really small, but it's also just filled off with tons and tons of interesting one-off design, constantly throwing at you weird scenarios and cool visuals that are repeated nowhere else in the game. I can't decide whether it's a laudable example of tight and concise design, or if they needed to flesh out all those individual ideas more. The Lantern Run co-op mode was actually a lot of fun, i played a few rounds of that online.

Oh, i almost forgot to update this week. Shit though, you guys are all delayed for different reasons, so fuck it. We're still on Cloudman, new deadline is the 13th.

How about some good news? I got results back from my MRI, and it generally tells the story that my health is continuing to improve.

If i can be the shameful super nerd for a second, it's supposed to be a statue of Alduin/Akatosh, one of the most important figures of the series lore. Just sayin'... As for the price, i generally agree, there really is no ground from which one can defend these grotesquely over-priced 150-dollar CE's that have become increasingly prevalent. Especially a bummer when considering Bethesda had previously, all the way back to Morrowind, been doing really cool CE's that were actually kind of a relatively good value.

I'm not going to lie, i really want this Skyrim CE.

Oh man, i love Carmack's keynotes.

And the article that serves to reinforce that, yes, this is real.

Robotrek? .

I've been playing this some, and yeah, it does seem like a fairly small and focused game. Not too sure what i think about it so far, but i'm having fun. There isn't a really strong sense of progression, i haven't had a moment where any of the new abilities have made me go "wow, that's pretty frickin` rad." I think the best thing i can say about it is that it does a great job of capturing that kind of lonely ambience you want from a game like this. There's a good opening-of-super-metroid type of mood throughout.