Architecture

The shotgun is best when fired from the hip, and has more range than you're going to expect. It's not as deadly at SMG range, but if you can remember to HALO jump after you fire your first round, it'll throw the enemy for a loop and your second or third blast should crater his face. If you're point blank, one good shot to the upper torso is instant death.

I sometimes feel like I'm the only person who found The Last of Us' combat to be immensely rewarding and fun to play, even if I had to restart an encounter three times or more. I played through on hard, and it felt like exactly the kind of challenge I wanted. It had a much more open, adaptable approach to third-person stealth than we've seen since probably Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. I never got tired of bottling an enemy from behind cover, rushing him and braining him with a lead pipe before sniping his buddies in the square below.

You have a typo in the last graph--features should be featured.

This game is one of the sloggiest slogs that ever did slog. I started the game on hard and progressed about 70% through it before hitting a difficulty spike so maddening I wanted to castrate Ken Levine. Stupidly, I restarted the game on normal and played through to its conclusion. There is absolutely zero player agency (the game has one of the most linear paths I've seen in a game not named Call of Duty in probably a decade). There is no choice--even the lottery sequence (Shirley Jackson asks for you to not bite her shit, Mr. Levine) is a false dichotomy, as both choices have the same exact outcome. Furthermore, you're forced into combat scenarios and given no control over the engagement, which is a massive step back from the original Bioshock (wherein i would hack an entire room full of turrets before luring a Big Daddy to his doom). There isn't even an attempt to give the tactically-minded player a way to stealth around enemies, and most doors are gated until you've murdered everything. I don't want to ruin the "plot" for you, but most of your fears are well-founded. The examination of socio-economic and racial issues is merely window dressing for one of the least interesting (and nigh-incomprehensible) "twist" endings in a game ever, and the interesting elements go largely unexplored. This game was a cynical, unfun turd.

This was one wacky game. The entire section in Africa (Somalia?) where you're partnered with a child gunfighter is just absolutely bonkers. Played better than Heavy Rain, but some of what I appreciated about that game got lost in the process of sanding down the oddities of the gameplay. Worth a Redbox rental.

These aren't analogous except from a cost-to-time ratio. This smacks of Konami wanting to recoup some of the money they've sunk into MGS 5, which has most likely been in development in one form or another since 2008. I get the impression that there were a bunch of big, nebulous ideas and some great tech in place but no real game to speak of. Ground Zeroes is a tech demo that they are selling you for $30.

It should probably be free.

We needed new hardware because the PS3 only had 512MB of RAM. As I mentioned previously, the game is running at sub-720p (probably somewhere around 540p; that usually was the sweet spot for CoD games on PS3) and even then there is plenty of frame-rate stutter during more demanding sequences (pretty much anytime anything explodes and you get a ton of guys on screen).

My roommate rented the PS3 version from Redbox. I will probably play a little of it this afternoon. It looks pretty nice even on the PS3, thought it's clearly running at a sub-HD resolution. The texture detail is muddy, but the lighting effects are still mostly present and it has a good look to it for an 8-year-old console. I still find the pricing structure to be absolutely egregious, but it's probably worth a spin if you can find it via Redbox. I'm honestly surprised that Ground Zeroes hasn't been more skewered by the press for being a $30 demo.

I posted it on a small board without comment and the first response was, "that's stupid."

Yeah, I Googled it after my post and realized there had been a patch with balance notes & bug fixes. I must've missed the game update the other day (sometimes I'll boot up the game and head downstairs to grab a glass of water or a snack while it loads). It wasn't another 50GB, that's for sure. Either way, I'm disappointed that they ended up curbing the XP for defense as much as they did. 75 XP might've been too high, but at 25 there's not enough positive reinforcement to keep players guarding capture points so now you see the points-minded players just jetpacking off after grabbing their 75 XP capture assist. Incredibly surprised there was no apparent balancing of the shotgun. The smart pistol got neutered a bit, however.

Did anyone else notice that you earn 1/3 the amount of XP you used to for holding a capture point in domination? You used to get +75, now it's just +25. I wonder how many of these kinds of game balances we'll see without a title update. Has anyone else seen changes in the XP values?

I don't think that's broken so much as the intended way to play. Aggressive players who only want to capture point after point instead of executing a solid defense may rack up kills, but hardpoint is essentially an XP farm if you stick to a single capture point. I usually race to the nearest point and hold it for the entirety of the game, occasionally taking time to reload my shotgun.

I like the shotgun.

It's also great for racking up minion kills. the damage guarantees almost instant death for enemy NPCs and is great once you're inside medium range to target.

Yes. The R101-C, G2A4, the B3 Wingman, the first SMG...

So I've discovered that the LMG is insanely powerful and requires next to no accuracy at point-blank range. It kicks like a sonuvabitch if you're trying to get any range out of it, however. I only played one game of attrition with it, but I didn't notice any movement penalty for carrying a heavier gun, perhaps they've adjusted recoil instead of movement speed this time around.

Load up pilot training and shoot at the same spot twice, once from the hip and once down the sights. Report back to me if you don't see a significant difference in where you two bullets ended up.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/xbox-chief-product-officer-leaves-microsoft What in the world is happening?

More like Marc Quittin', right fellas?

I hate the tightness of the sticks on a 360 controller. Really surprised they don't have native XBONE controller support for PC yet.

It's not meant to be a knock; I'm just bringing up the fact that Respawn's added aim-assist for the controller to help level the playing field for those playing with 360 controllers. I'm a diehard console shooter guy, but there's a grace to parkour with mouse & keyboard that I can't replicate with the controller. With a controller, you have to move your thumb from the stick to the A button to jump. With kb&m, you can turn mid-jump and totally change direction.

Is Mumble open mic? P2T sucks, my thumb's gotta stay glued to that spacebar.

Origin: Zapruder

It's more to do with the aim assist than your proficiency, I'd wager.