Chris

The first game I played left me with severe burnout at the time, but since I got over that, I've pretty much had no downtime between games for the last few months, with no ill effects. This game has the potential to really stress you out, but once you realize that you don't actually have to constantly check it all the time, you realize you can take it a lot easier. That might mean a nonstop micromanager will get the better of you from time to time, but them's the breaks. Better to be sane.

PC was absolutely the formative platform for me, to absolutely nobody surprise. Some of the earliest games I played were SimCity, Civilization, and LucasArts and Sierra adventure games. I know I played a bunch of other PC stuff before that, but it wasn't as impactful or memorable. I went on to play pretty much everything LucasArts, Blizzard, and id made in the 90s, as well as plenty of other stuff. These days I predominantly play games on PC, but it hasn't been like that nonstop. In the late 90s I got a PlayStation, which was my first console other than a Game Boy. I didn't actually end up using it very much, though. I played a few Square Enix RPGs. The only one I ever beat was Xenogears, weirdly. I played a few other random things, like the first couple Legacy of Kain games, but for whatever reason they didn't make much of an impression on me. So, during that time I was still mainly PC. At that point I got really into the Quake multiplayer and mod scene, which was a big departure from what I'd been playing up until that point. Then Thief and Half-Life came out, and those were huge deals for me. It wasn't until the PS2 that I started playing much on consoles. I got a PS2 because of the Grand Theft Auto III series, which was similar to a lot of other people, except that I had already played and loved the first two GTA games on PC. For the next few years I waffled between PC and consoles, accruing an Xbox and GameCube over time, both of which I ended up using a lot more than the PS2, and during the height of those consoles I did much less PC stuff, outside of core PC developers. In the current generation I've gone back to PC heavily. I'm really starting to tire of having to think about four hundred million platforms simultaneously. In the last generation, I owned every single home and portable console, and this generation I do too (except for DSi), but that's just such an insane collection of shit to have to manage that it's caused me to bounce back in the other direction and just focus on one box. Obviously I'm more than happy to play console-exclusive games if they seem essential, but for the most part I feel like I'm done endlessly juggling discs and machines.

I haven't had any technical issues so far.

I've played various parts of the game on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, and I would have no reservations about recommending the PC version. For one thing, if you like using mouse and keyboard, you will really benefit from that in this game. I had a lot of trouble using the controller; I'm sure people who play all their games with analog sticks won't have as much of an issue though. Also, this is one of the games that REALLY highlights to me that we're at that part in the console cycle where, when it comes to most multiplatform games anyway, the PC is really starting to outpace the consoles in terms of basic graphical presentation. The cutscene team in Mafia II really loves to do closeups of characters' faces and hands using the same models as the more pulled-out shots, meaning on the console you often zoom in on big blurry messes of a fist, and things like that. I was pretty shocked when I first played the game on 360. On the PC it's still not the most mindblowingly high level of graphical fidelity, but it looks REALLY nice to have the sharper textures and higher overall resolution. Obviously if you turn down the graphics on the PC for hardware reasons, that advantage is not as strong. Anyway, to answer your question directly, no I can't think of any reason not to go for the PC version if you are used to playing games on PC.

To be honest, this is the kind of thing I would generally prefer to be handled by a fan if possible. I'd be happy to help spread the word if it's something people decide to take upon themselves, but I'm unlikely to personally spearhead it, for various reasons. I don't know about Jake; he might have the bandwidth.

Apparently you can play PSP games on a TV with a PS3 controller if you have a PSP Go. Can any owners verify whether that's the case? Apparently there's a video out, and the Go is the only model that allows Bluetooth connectivity of a DeulShock 3 controller. If this is the case, I might actually considering getting a Go. I don't care about playing PSP games when I'm out, but there's some stuff, like Peace Walker, that I'd like to play normally.

Well, I would hope the Assassin's Creed 2 discussion clearly demonstrates how much I would like to see more video games be grounded. I completely understand what Jake and Sean were talking about, because it's what I was talking about with AC2. However, I suspect the historical grounding of Driver will be a lot less strongly defined than the historical grounding of Assassin's Creed (I think it's more a case of "We think Bullitt was sweet and it influenced this game," as opposed to, "We exhaustively researched Renaissance-era Italy"), so Driver is losing a lot less by lifting off into video game land, especially since--unlike Assassin's Creed--it has a concrete gameplay reason to do so.

I completely agree with your complaints about in-game inconsistency. It's extremely aggravating.

Another positive sign:

How does their financial success have anything to do with anything being discussed? I really enjoyed both of those games, and Ron Gilbert developed nothing I was interested in during that time, or for the seven or eight years prior to that for that matter. I think you're taking these statements oddly personally. I think Ron Gilbert is a great guy. He's made some games I love, I've interviewed him many times and always enjoyed it, I think he's really sharp. And I'm sure his kids' games were really well designed. There are probably some kids' cartoon shows on Cartoon Network that are well made, but I'm still not going to use my time to play them. That's not to begrudge anyone else's enjoyment of those things, but it's odd that you would be so adamant about justifying away somebody's lack of interest. Well, Tim Schafer has been senior to everyone at his company for the last ten years, and he still writes almost all the dialogue for Double Fine, and serves as creative director, so I'm not sure that comparison is particularly meaningful. If "hating on" is the same as "hating" then it's I don't know how you're accusing anybody of doing that. Saying "this guy made some games I loved, then he went off and did other stuff that's less interesting to me" is not tantamount to hatred.

What's your concern?

While we've made no final decisions, we are looking at the panel as being in lieu of a Wizardmeet rather than in addition to one. We figure it will serve a similar purpose, in a more defined way.

Also, you set up interesting combat encounters with cover (which doesn't mean you need a cover SYSTEM), lots of enemies, varied geometry, different behaviors, and so on. I mean, easier said than done, but the way to ensure your game is ruined by headshots is just to keep sending a few guys at you two by two, which is what Singularity often does. If you set up an arena where the player actually has to think tactically, even if it's just on instinct, he's not going to have the time or the security to sit there lining up headshots one by one.

No, it shouldn't be tough to learn. When I said "complex" I just meant in terms of the variety of instrumentation and voice trading.

That's one of my favorite songs I did for Thumbs. However I think it might be a little complex to do live. I'm probably going to do Space Asshole since that whole thing can be done with an acoustic guitar.

Halo is one of the only games in which I enjoy fighting aliens. (I still DON'T enjoy fighting the mutant/zombie-like whatever-they're-called.) Not only that, it's probably my favorite overall combat in any shooter, at least in terms of the low-level tactical moment-to-moment feel. The weapon selection in that game is also unparalleled in my opinion when it comes to non-"real-world" weaponry; the variety and genuine utility of the radically different weapons really meshes well with the variety of the enemy behaviors. If you can't pull that kind of variety off, and the core of your game is just going to be "shoot at guys with assault rifle/shotgun/sniper rifle," don't fucking make me flail around with obnoxious little explodey guys flying at my face or big dudes running up to me and clawing at me. Don't pretend I'm going to do anything else than just line up headshots as much as possible, because that's what the arsenal you've developed is actually for.

Finished Singularity last night. The story never grabbed me much through the game but I thought they way they did the ending was sort of cool. I had fun playing it off and on, but it did really just confirm my existing distaste for fighting mutants in video games. I don't like fighting tough melee-focused leaping mutants, and I don't like fighting tiny little jerks that run up to you and explode. I never enjoy that. Probably the biggest overarching problem with this game, though, is that they have a TON of separate mechanics you can use and yet they almost never work together in interesting ways. They all just have their totally separate function. Your wacky Time Hand does a ton of shit to enemies and the environment, but almost every one of those things is just used as the most efficient way to kill a particular enemy, or a way to quickly deal with a melee situation, or a way to open a door, or a way to find your way into a hidden place with a weapons cache. You're never really synthesizing all this stuff into an interesting, varied gameplay palette, it's just "press E here because you need to get past this fan," or "press Q here because you need to age these vines." Since all of the time interactions are just directly scripted in, and there's no real consistency to when, the game doesn't feel systemic at all to me, which is a big drawback when you have so many goddamn systems. In what way? I find their systems inadequate to cope with the sheer content volume they seem to want to support, but what is it about the story specifically that limits the gameplay in a way that bothers you?

I don't mean to imply the story leading up to the ending was good, and then the ending ruined it. Pretty much everything about the story in these games is total garbage, except for the part how they're sort of set in historical settings unusual to games.

The ending was monumentally idiotic, and I didn't really have fun in the hours leading up to it, but I think in the end I prefer having completed another game instead of putting yet another onto the massive pile of unfinished ones.

Well, I completed Assassin's Creed II, for some reason.

For sure. The tedium REALLY started to sink in when I realized there was yet another city left after Florence, Tuscany, and Romagni/Forli, and then even more when I realized Venice is the biggest of them all. God.

I agree with that general complaint. Almost everything about AC1/2 is almost awesome to me, but not quite. The historical settings are awesome--except that they sabotage it with painfully stupid sci-fi conspiracy bullshit instead of just going for actual historical fiction. Running around from rooftop to rooftop is awesome--except that almost every time you fuck it up, it's not because you did something explicitly wrong but rather that the game's heavily context-sensitive mechanics misinterpreted your action. Being a historical assassin might be awesome--except that it's almost impossible to act in the way the game tries to make you seem like you should, because most of the time situations just devolve into hacking through a bunch of guards. The pseudo-recreation of sprawling historical metropolises is awesome--except that the game's relatively limited number of systems can't possibly support such a vast geographical area, and more importantly they don't work together enough in interesting systemic ways to allow for enough emergent behavior to make up for the lack of content variety.

This reminds me of tubgirl

Still not done with Assassin's Creed 2, somehow. after 30 hours. How the hell is this game so goddamn long. I'm pretty much enjoying it but their systems really can't support the sheer volume of geographical area and insane number of total missions they have here. No new gameplay situations are occurring any more at this point. No matter what happens, it's something I've already done. EDIT: So it looks like I've actually "completed" the game as it was originally released on consoles. For the PC release I guess they just incorporated the DLC seamlessly. I never would have realized that on my own, because it's a direct continuation of the game's storyline. I guess I may as well finish these chapters at this point, considering how far along I am.

Holy shit are you etc.