Dr. Proton

Yes! I can't wait to play this again. Grim's probably my favorite Schafer game. Saying goodbye Manny is one of my favorite gaming experiences.

I really couldn't get passed the fact that Clementine sounds like a grown woman doing a terrible impression of a child. Talk about awful casting! I never had an emotional reaction to The Walking Dead. It all felt too contrived and manipulative. I guess the property just isn't for me as I disliked the comic, tv show and game.

That's a pretty awesome trailer. Their Geocities inspired site is awesome, too. http://www.strafe1996.com/

The wi-fi on my PS4 is absolutely shocking. I wonder how many people will just run the game before the patches have finished downloading? I've done that with other games, Mordor is a recent example, though it ran fine without the patch. There is an amazing story behind this game. It basically boils down to what the developers wanted and what Bethesda wanted. Arthur Gies was talking about it on a podcast the other day. I hope that story surfaces at some point. I really wish Bethesda didn't make their internal studios use id-tech. Arkane Lyon is having to use it for Dishonored 2 because Bethesda doesn't want to pay for licencing fees.

I rented it and thought it was basically the The Expendables of survival horror. All the tropes are here, but there's no understanding. I really didn't enjoy it at all. Made it to chapter 7, and had to put it down. Resi 4 is one of the best games I've ever played. Love, love, love it. The Evil Within just feels rushed and awkward in comparison. I absolutely hate the Saw/Hostile meets Inception world building. That Tango thought it was a good idea to include a sloppy stealth system to the Resi 4 formula boggles my mind. I just did not enjoy the moment-to-moment play of game. In my limited play experience there weren't even any particularly memorable set-pieces. TEW is just a bunch of rehashed horror vignettes. The insta-death scenarios are tedious rather than stressful or exciting. Movement feels clumsy. Having to line up exactly to get through a window or to climb a ladder slows the game down. The presentation in general leaves a lot to be desired, which is especially grating considering there are giant black bars covering a decent chunk of the screen. It's the first game I can remember giving me motion-sickness in maybe a decade. It plays like a fat man running up a hill on the PS4. Jank-city all around. Glad I only rented it.

Holy ****. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-prepatch-evil-within-we-hope-you-will-never-play Absolutely shocking. Even though day-one patches are standard, it's unbelievable that Bethesda let their new series ship in this condition.

Hmmm, it still looks pretty uninspired to me, like Derivative Horror: the video game. It seems to be banking on the developers pedigree, rather than doing anything new or interesting. I saw it at FanExpo in Toronto. Pre-release and all, but it ran like crap and didn't demo too well. Then again, I didn't like the new Wolfenstein, so I'm probably going to be an outlier with this kind of stuff. Also, holy cow at the pc requirements! 4gb for graphics. According to Steam, less than 2% users have a 4gb card.

I feel awful for the Irrational members who lost their job yesterday. Levine's press release is ridiculous, although I wouldn't put it quite in the same league as Bethesda's ludicrous Prey 2 update.

Great episode. Tom's right. Blood is the best shooter ever! Everyone should check out The Crate and Crowbar podcast. Tom Francis, PCG and RPS staff discuss the latest pc games. It's awesome. http://crateandcrowbar.com/

Whoops, double post. Super sorry!

I love the previous Thief games, and I understand that a lot of the criticism directed towards the reboot can come across like the NMA crowd and Fallout 3, but the key difference is the latter was an awesome game. Thief has all the hallmarks of a disaster. It's been rebooted 3 times (it began life a direct sequel, the aptly titled Thief 4, then became a third-person open-world Assassin's Creed-style adventure and now is a first-person stealth game) and clearly lacks an identity. My biggest concern is that while original games were basically about taking a systemic approach to environmental navigation, Eidos Montreal have opted for a contextual approach for the reboot which seems to be missing the point. It could be a neat stealth game but it won't be Thief. Instead of being able to place a rope-arrow on any wooden surface the City now has a silly ordnance has predetermined spots ready for Garrett. Thief has loads of gadgets but most of them boil down to being differently skinned door openers. It doesn't have any of the stand-out abilities or powers that Dishonored or HR had. Dishonored, to me, is a game that builds organic environments and gives the player a selection of tools and abilities that can use at their own leisure. So when you analyse an environment and think about how you'll handle it, get through, take out dudes or whatever, there's a high level of experimentation and agency driven problem solving to your behavioral choices. You're not sure what you can climb or where you can blink to but you'll damn well try anyway and in most cases succeed. Thief feels very precisely designed in play and structure. You can only climb/grapple specifically designated ledges/vents/ropes. Your inability to jump or lean or haul over obstacles without being in the right spot and pressing the contextual does feel like freedom of control has been somewhat taken from the player. I think maybe they've over contextualised your functions, even if you can do them often, for the sake of giving you a visually impressive full body awareness and presence in the game world (which is really excellent in in Thief), but the actual control and play has nowhere near the sense of freedom and agency of Dishonored. I loved Human Revolution, but that was a different internal team. Previews are usually chock-full of superlatives and it's pretty rare to see folks so down on a game. I'm trying to be optimistic but when I see sequences like this it's hard not to think that Eidos Montreal have a disaster on their hands. Skip to 12:23 for the worst offender. What's Thief's hook? Why force unskippable, full-body awareness animations if you're going to constantly take control away from me to cut to third-person cutscenes? Being able to customize the UI and difficulty states is neat, but only in terms of artificial restrictions and limitations; having Garrett fail a mission if he's seen or takes damage might make for a much more difficult experience, but not a more interesting one. Thief was an amazing anecdote generator back in the day. I don't think that will be the case this time around. It used to, and could be, so much more.

Another great episode! It's always a treat to hear Randy Smith's thoughts on game design. He's got a real talent for articulating "immersive sim" theories. He was such a huge part of the Thief series. I fear the next installment is suffering from a lack of direction. My biggest concern is that while original games were basically about taking a systemic approach to environmental navigation, Eidos Montreal have opted for a more contextual approach for the reboot which seems to be missing the point. It could be a neat stealth game but it won't be Thief. I feel sorry for them having to follow up Dishonored.

That makes sense. I forgot that the AVP 2 team was absorbed by TRON 2:0 and NOLF 2 productions and I guess as the scale of production and number of resources required to make a game increased some of that personality suffered a bit in recent years. I wish BlackPowderGames all the best. I enjoyed the first segment of Betrayer. It's a super atmospheric first-person adventure. I'm always keen for more of that! Awesome interview! The next episode is another person I've always wanted to hear interviewed. Really looking forward to it.

That's so cool! Monolith always struck me as an enigmatic studio. I mean outside of being first-person and having detailed, memorable environments, there's not a lot in common between Blood, AVP 2, Shogo, TRON 2:0, Condemned, FEAR and NOLF. As an aside, I wish someone would attempt a Shogo-like game again. It basically plays like a story-driven counter-strike, with about a third of the game taking place in a giant mech. It's brutally difficult. Since you can die with a single shot, when you get the chance to squish the formally formidable foot soldiers with your ridiculous mech power-armour, it becomes an incredibly satisfying experience. It's such a cool contrast. You can use skyscrapers as cover, turn into a vehicle, and there are nice hub-style areas where you can explore, receive side-quests and chat to npc's before returning to the shooting.

Monolith had a ridiculous run between 1997 and 2005. Though the NOLF games are incredible, I think Blood is tied with Duke 3D and Doom as the best shooters ever made. Wish there was source port. Awesome to hear Craig Hubbard reminiscing about the early days. What a legend!