Erkki

I didn't read Emily Short's piece yet, but to me it seemed essential that in this game the house should be an actual space that the player can explore. It's much more satisfying to put together the clues yourself and the spacial dimensions add another layer of detail to everything. It would not be as interesting (immersive?) if details like that were spelled out as text in more notes or represented in other concrete artifacts without having to do the actual exploration.

Man, this game is bonkers. I've been playing all the Flatout games since I got my 3D projector set up, but I hadn't tried this one before. It's totally batshit crazy. Of course, if you know Flatout, it isn't THAT different from FlatOut 2, of which it is a remake, but everything seems improved. I am ignoring the "Carnage mode" and any extras, but the races are pure fun. The way the physics work in this game seems so fine tuned -- your car takes damage from crashes but it almost never slows you down to the point where you have no hope of getting to top 3. I guess it's possible to get destroyed before reaching the finish, but hasn't happened to me yet. Crashing into barriers at sharp corners still gives you a way to keep driving while slowing you down a bit. Crashing into other cars is a valid way to overtake them (e.g. by turning them around) and crashing into them in corners is sometimes a good way to keep a good speed coming out of the corner. The destructible objects are also fun (especially in 3D). In the first FlatOut games, there were still a lot of objects that were fixed to the level geometry and crashing into them would stop you, but in this one almost everything (except trees and concrete walls and metal barriers I guess) is destructible so you don't have to worry too much about what you hit. The way the game or physics engine tends to keep you going after a crash means that all kinds of emergent-seeming shit is possible and sometimes you just hold nitro down, drive through 5 crashes, narrowly miss a tree, and miraculously end up in the lead. The beginning of the race almost always starts with a huge crash (and a huge dust cloud, depending on race) when the 12 cars reach the first corner and somehow it is still usually possible to pass through that retaining some momentum, while getting pushed this way and that. Usually I am 6th or so after the first crash. Sometimes a car that has been pushed (or just drove itself) off the road will try to ram you from the side and hilarious stuff will happen. I don't think the game has rubber banding, but seems well balanced so that most of the time you always have some other cars close that you can try to keep from getting past you or to ram off the road. The only problem I have is that upgrading a car can totally ruin the experience -- pick the wrong upgrades and the physics go off balance and ruin the driving fun (to be honest, this was more of an issue in Flatout 1, haven't really tried if same applies here). Pick too many upgrades and you'll easily win races with possibly several laps driven without any competition. Unlike Burnout Paradise (from what little I've seen), Flatout doesn't pop up UI messages all over the place to let you know what awesome combos you are doing! Ramming into your opponents is only for better position and your own satisfaction. At the end of the race it may give you extra bonus points for smashing and wrecking, but I usually just click through those score screens without reading any of it. Also an improvement from Flatout 1 I think is that if you go out of track for a bit, you can still keep going and return to the track at a point further ahead -- in Flatout 1 you sometimes had to reset or drive back. Also reset doesn't lose you as much as in Flatout 1. It really feels like a rather systems driven game (or maybe I'm exaggerating a bit): a race here is a very physics-driven system that lets 12 cars loose and tries to maximize interaction between the cars and the environment, by making them crash into each other as much as possible while also keeping them moving forward. The AI also seems really fine tuned to try to crash into you occasionally, and to drive just well enough that it gives you some challenge. And the nitro also works brilliantly: earn it when you take part in crashes or smash the environment, which lets you then get away faster or smash into things with even more force. 10/10 This game is the Far Cry 2 of Tony Hawk's Pro Skaters! Man I didn't think I'd write so many words about a racing game (I could write even more though)

I realized that this thread has my subjective opinion of the game, which not everyone might agree with, so I wrote an objective review.

That ending spoiler makes me sad I bought this.

I'm assuming there won't be a lot of inventory-puzzles if the trunk works like an inventory? Otherwise when you get stuck the last resort of try-everything-on-everything turns into a horrible nightmare...

Yeah, sounds like a movie in the making. You should tell them you are secretly doing a documentary and maybe they'll even volunteer shooting it with their phones.

I wonder if a serious site could actually do reviews like this, then have author's subjective comments on the sideline as thought bubbles or something. Readers could also switch the author if the same game would be reviewed more than once and the main text would remain objective while the thought bubbles change. The score would be on the sideline that has the thought bubbles and would also change when you switch authors. (Just voiced a dumb thought, it's probably too difficult to write reviews like that)

Yeah, so it's an oxy moron.

I stopped eating fast food several months ago, but I occasionally still get a burger or something. There is only one true burger to rule them all, though, from Vesivärava Grill in Tallinn. http://streetfood-tallinn.blogspot.com/2013/03/vesivarava-grill.html

I wonder what an objective GOTY would look like

1:59 here

In that case, I hope your job seeking works out and then you'll be able to swim as much as you want.

So what's the problem? No swimming pools around? Hard to believe.

Misspellings of Baldur's Gate are one of my pet peeves.

Oh man, I'm writing one now and it's so fun! Strangely, I rarely ever wanted to write game reviews before this, but now that I can do it objectively, I'm loving it!

+1 for the separate credits page.

Yeah, me too

top secret but quite googleable https://www.google.ee/#q=objective+game+reviews+style+guide [edit] seems like a great style guide. I'll try writing something today evening just to see if I can even do it

I could write something NOW (ok, tomorrow, not RIGHT NOW). But on the other hand if I plan to do some unpaid writing just for fun, I have also an expectation that I could pick something I want to review, not just getting handed something. I'm ok with critisism or even rejection -- sometimes it's worse to write something you know is not as good as it should be and have it published anyway... Do you have any priorities of what to review -- new games you get review codes for? old classics? Something else? How would assigning/picking a game to review work?

Does it really do less? It's a PC and I imagine it has at least a very good browser installed by default.

I always though I wanted to become a game developer as well, but there just weren't any in Estonia (besides some crap mobile game development, but it's probably better now) and I wasn't motivated enough to look for opportunities abroad. But anyway I've found that programming something else works for me as well, and pays well. I wasn't really happy with my previous jobs, though, until I found a company where I could work on products rather than information systems. It's funny that dev times can be even longer (well, infinite) than in the case of games (constantly improving a product) and sometimes you might have an idea you had 2 years ago finally implemented by someone else since you moved on to working on some other part. Occasionally it's very exciting stuff and there are also times when it's totally boring, but I'm happy so far (3 years).

Damn, my brain sounds so economical and smart*... *dumb

Yeah, I'm managing so far, it's just annyoing. It might also help if I threw away the snus I still have left in my fridge. I thought it would suck to just throw it away and I'll give it to a colleague who still uses it, but might be best just to throw it away. Also, you know what's funny. I went to the cinema, but the movie I wanted to see was sold out so I went to see Snowpiercer (don't recommend), which is about a goddamn perpeetum mobile train that drivers around a frizeb Earth in a year amd holds the last survivors of mankind. I was still feeling the need for cigarettes in the cinema and then the movie had a goddamn scene where someone was smoking the last cigarette in the world. Fuck that movie. PS how are you doing?

Oh man, I thought quitting would be hardest the first 3 days, but today is the worst. I'm very cranky and have a constant craving for nicotine. Also I'm sick of using alcohol as consolation so that stopped helping

So excited about this game: http://www.nextfrictionalgame.com/ Didn't like Dear Esther much, but I think it's an important experiment and I can't wait what comes from thechineseroom's collaboration with Frictional Games. Although, a game from Frictional having a good title will probably jinx it and the game itself will suck.* I think this Joystiq piece has the most details on it so far, and there's some interesting stuff on sound design in their forums -- the game will have "a wide dynamic range in the soundscape" which means loud things will be really loud. Should be interesting considering it's a horror game. * disclaimer: I'm kidding