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Yikes, I was going to say that Flashback still looks fine but then I pulled up a screenshot of it. To be honest I'd rather have an HD 2D remake than a 3D one.

I could go on forever about the movement mechanics in Q3, they're really something else. Because a lot of them are bugs they're so different from anything that a designer would intentionally make and yet they have almost all the qualities you look for in a movement based game. They're extremely nuanced which allows players to be expressive and they have an almost limitless skill ceiling. Even just strafing in a straight line has a skill progression as large as going from the easiest level in Super Meat Boy to the hardest one (I'm serious). It's so fascinating to me that such a great game mechanic follows from how Carmack decided to do some vector addition code. Here's a movie showing off some advanced techniques: For example, at 0:50 he does an overbounce (one of several types) which allows you to redirect your vertical velocity, usually forwards. At 1:28 he does a teleporter jump, intentionally falling into the teleport trigger. When coming out of the teleporter you're pushed which disables ground friction for something like 200ms allowing you to accelerate a lot ( ). 6:24 is another telejump, but this time jumping into the teleporter and then jumping immediately again, resulting in a doublejump that gives twice the height. At 10:41 & 10:54 you see a gazboost which involves falling towards the ground and shooting a plasma shot beneath you right before you land. The knockback from the plasma has the same effect as the teleporter, removing friction for a fraction of a second, but it's very hard to time right. Too early and you will spend too many frames falling to take advantage of it, too late and you're knocked off the ground.

All those things you mentioned can turn out differently. Well the last one doesn't happen like that it's more indirect.

I played through this over the last few days (started a second playthrough even) and had a lot of fun with it. The weirdness of it is what makes it work. You've got Big Bo (who defies description), a nonsensical (in a good way) conversation system and over the top bosses with surprisingly good designs. It all adds up to give the game a weird but irresistable charm. After playing through the opening I thought I was going to dislike it because it seemed like another Japanese game that takes itself too seriously and has too many idiosyncratic gameplay mechanics and systems, but it gradually won me over it feels so refreshing for a game to do that. Importantly, the Japaneseness doesn't get in the way. There's a big emphasis on boss battles but the vast majority of them (I'd say all but 1½) never get frustrating like you would expect. When you get revived and watch the standing up animation the enemies don't shoot you etc. It avoids falling into the trap of having its Japanese idiosyncrasies be frustrating and so it remains a very playable game. It might not have been intentional but with all the comic relief and general absurdity (like the quips your squad shouts when you're doing well in combat) the game has a very light hearted feel, despite some very serious story moments. I think it helps that you're shooting robots instead of people. Since they're robots they also break apart in interesting ways and the combat is really fun when you upgrade your rifle a bit. Also, the bosses: when was the last time giant bosses in a shooter were actually fun? I can't remember them ever being. As a Steam sale game I strongly recommend it, it's not the generic shooter you'd expect.

Is it me or does JP look a bit like mr hot scoops?

For me it's DayZ, I don't think any other game, with the possible exception of EVE, comes close to producing experiences as memorable as the ones I've had in that game. It's such a great game for sharing cool moments with other people.

Soldier is by far the least interesting class to play in my opinion. The only active ability you use is Adrenaline Rush and so it plays just like a cover based shooter. Mass Effect 2 has a great combat system but the game fails utterly at teaching it to you or putting you in situations where you have to explore its depth. On my first playthrough I also played a Soldier (on Normal) and even after I beat the game with some 30 hours played I didn't have a good feel for which of my squad's powers to use when, or even which squadmates to bring to a mission and I don't think I ever had to use the pause feature in combat Second time through, based on advice from other people, I played as an Adept in Insanity. It was quite off putting initially (I wouldn't recommend it to others) but when I got a better grasp of the mechanics I started to really enjoy it. On the two highest difficulties there's a quite fundamental change to the encounters, which is that every enemy in the game has at least one additional protection layer (Armor, Shield or Barrier) so using the right abilities against the right enemies, in the right sqeuence becomes critical (as well as picking the right squad members). You also have to start comboing biotic powers, another thing which I don't think the game explains to you. It's really a different game when you're pausing constantly and putting much more thought into how to deal with each encounter. There is a great combat system hidden in there, they just tuned the difficulties in such a way that most people will never see it. I honestly think the game is kind of broken on Normal.

I think you could simulate language, it just comes down to which language you pick. Simulating an English speaker would of course be very challenging, if not impossible, but I remember the game Tibia having Orc NPCs you could only interact with by typing out words and simple sentences in their made up Orc language. It was very primitive in that game, but I could easily see it being expanded to a more complex system. The reason it works is because in an entirely new language you don't prioritze grammar, proper phrasing etc. It is much like trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak your language in real life. In those situations you resort to more direct and primitive communication, something that's a lot easier to simulate. It's something I've been meaning to try out for a long time but I never get around to it.