Thrik

Haha. You spoon.

I don't think it's actually going to be that much different. The trailer implies that there'll still be plenty of traversing towns and cities engaging in traditional Ass Creed behaviour, it's just that the naval stuff will be around for more of the game. In terms of sheer setting I think pretty much anyone with a Mojo/AG background is going to appreciate AC4's more than AC3's, which tempts me to just skip the latter. That way, the game is likely to feel like a much bigger leap forward and it'll be set in environments that I pretty much love. I want to be going around proper Pirates of the Caribbean towns and settlements, and treasure islands. OK so I guess I'm missing out on a chunk of the Desmond lore, but I pretty much don't care at all about that.

God damn this forum needs a like button.

I'd be making prompt use of my balcony.

What really gets me about this is it's coming out this year. I was really fatigued after Brotherhood and Revelations and didn't think I could take any more, but then their marketing did the whole 'this is the REAL sequel the other team has been working on in the background for the past few years alongside Brotherhood and Revelations, it's going to be amazing' and I perked up, and am still kind of looking forward to playing AC3 at some point. So what is AC4 going to be then? They can't have been working on that for years too, so is it going to be another expansion-like sequel to AC3 whipped up in a year like Brotherhood/Revelations were to AC2? Are they only calling it AC4 because it's a new protagonist? What is going on?!

Hahahahaha. It's shit like this that totally sells me on this game. It all sounds so, well, real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H9VClRhU404

I don't know, I found the whole one location thing in Brotherhood pretty boring after a while. A large part of AC2's appeal for me was that it introduced this vast, wonderful Italy and let you explore all sorts of cities, each with their own character. I know they attempted a similar thing with Rome but, honestly, it still feels pretty samey throughout. Also the story and what drove you to those different locations captured my imagination far more in AC2. Of course there were some genuine improvements and the out-of-town missions were a highlight, but I think you're likely to appreciate those more after experiencing what AC2 has to offer. Also getting into the story from Brotherhood isn't something I'd have liked, whereas AC2 in some ways assumes the player never touched AC1 (probably because it didn't do so great). It's a good standalone game, Brotherhood... less so.

Just got back from a few days in London. Lightroom pretty much had a heart attack when I tried to import them all, but I've been quite brutal about cutting the number I actually share down to a minimum. Only got like a quarter of the way through so I'll probably post some more when I have more time for processing later in the week.

AC2 was great, a huge step forwards from AC1 which comparatively felt like a tech demo. Just a through-and-through great game that pretty much saved the franchise after a stumbled start. Brotherhood and Revelations were just more of the same, expansion packs that happen to take as long as a full game to complete. AC3 is an unknown quantity to me but I suspect the few things it did bring to the table were already (partially) done in the expansequels so they were less interesting.

I just realised I never posted my thoughts on this game in this thread, so I'll splice this in from the 'recently completed' thread last week: Ah man, just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I think that was literally the best sci-fi game I've played since Half-Life. Absolutely amazing, and unlike a lot of games nowadays it just gets better and more epic right up to the very end. I am a total asshole for not playing it until now, talk about missing out. One thing I didn't expect was how Metal Gear Solid-esque it is for huge swathes of the game. While a lot of it involves navigating open city hubs, even more time is spent in isolated facilities that are easily on par with the likes of Shadow Moses and Big Shell in terms of size and feel (in some ways you could imagine them being inspired by them, actually). And in these sections, the games' extremely refined stealth mechanics — patrols, alert timers, balanced-feeling enemy awareness, reliable cover system, etc — are about as good anything MGS has thrown at me. This game is so beautiful, and features some of the best cityscapes I've ever seen; I was further delighted to see the perpetual night setting change up during the later half of the game, along with wildly different environments to what was seen earlier. Its soundtrack is an absolute killer too. The only technical fault I was really surprised made it to release was the relatively stiff conversation animations, considering how good the cutscene and in-game animation is. Possibly my absolute game of the generation. I can't think of a single other game that I've been as hopelessly addicted to, burning through 30–40 hours in a couple of weeks. The really is a completely accurate depiction of what the game delivers, minus the pre-rendered graphics.

Deus Ex movie: Fuck. Off. Human Revolution sequel: I am literally jizzing at the idea of a next-gen successor to this game.

Haha, splendid. I did actually wonder if I might get sniped or something pointing my big camera at the place and taking loads of shots.

Well, it had to be done.

Ah man, just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I think that was literally the best sci-fi game I've played since Half-Life. Absolutely amazing, and unlike a lot of games nowadays it just gets better and more epic right up to the very end. I am a total asshole for not playing it until now, talk about missing out. One thing I didn't expect was how Metal Gear Solid-esque it is for huge swathes of the game. While a lot of it involves navigating open city hubs, even more time is spent in isolated facilities that are easily on par with the likes of Shadow Moses and Big Shell in terms of size and feel (in some ways you could imagine them being inspired by them, actually). And in these sections, the games' extremely refined stealth mechanics — patrols, alert timers, balanced-feeling enemy awareness, reliable cover system, etc — are about as good anything MGS has thrown at me. This game is so beautiful, and features some of the best cityscapes I've ever seen; I was further delighted to see the perpetual night setting change up during the later half of the game, along with wildly different environments to what was seen earlier. Its soundtrack is an absolute killer too. The only technical fault I was really surprised made it to release was the relatively stiff conversation animations, considering how good the cutscene and in-game animation is. Possibly my absolute game of the generation. I can't think of a single other game that I've been as hopelessly addicted to, burning through 30–40 hours in a couple of weeks. The really is a completely accurate depiction of what the game delivers, minus the pre-rendered graphics.

I played the demo and it was actually really good. Excellent production values and graphics, engaging cutscenes, and an interesting continuation of the Metal Gear Solid lore — looks like after MGS4 things move towards human-shaped robot PMCs, a logical next step after the partially organic ones in MGS4. While it's a side-story, I guess this is how Kojima envisions the post-MGS4 world so in that respect it's still interesting to see. The next proper MGS game(s) might not even take place after MGS4 so it might be the only glimpse we get in the remote future. A lot of work has clearly been done to satisfy the story needs of MGS's existing fans. All that said, I won't be buying it. The gameplay is completely along the lines of something like Bayonetta or the earlier Devil May Cry games, in that it's fucking hard. I don't mind hack-and-slash, but I prefer the more accessible approaches of games like God of War and Darksiders. This on the other hand is proper hard-as-knackers shit. The boss fight in the demo was so difficult I was practically in tears of frustration and turned the console off in a huff. So basically, if you love MGS's storytelling and hardcore hack-and-slash games, this is likely a great buy. Hell, even if you don't care about the story this is probably still a great buy. But if you're expecting anything even vaguely like the past MGS games' gameplay you'd better throw those expectations out the window.

Yeah it's so bad with some games. GTA4 was the first experience I had with this. IMO it's infinitely more visible that a game's being upscaled compared to a film because when a game doesn't have anti-aliasing (most games drop it for playable frame rates) the jagged edges are also upscaled. If a game were running at 1080p but didn't have anti-aliasing it's still look tonnes better as the jaggies would be at the pixel level.

I think that's pretty much the stock thing to say every time a new generation is launched ever.

You should make an ANIMATED spot the difference out of that GIF. Innovation right there!

Clearing the cache is definitely the first thing to try. I know from running an IP.Board myself that if the software is updated or some template changes are made, those won't necessarily be picked up by web browsers right away and can in the worst cases completely break things. I myself found the post editors not working in Chrome until I cleared my cache, so presumably something was done with those.

Part of me thinks they just don't care. You're still paying them, right?

Yes I think anything other than looking at two parallel images is pretty much full-on cheating. Gits.

Oh god no, I just run the site. I used to map a lot during the Half-Life 1 modding boom, after that I went into other creative areas. Somehow along the way I ended up running a forum packed to the rafters with industry artists; during the past few months I've been trying to take it beyond just being a forum, so been enlisting some of the members to contribute articles which has been going really well and I encourage anyone who enjoys them to thank them with a comment or something. I'd like to think it'll lead to a really good catalogue of content and be valued for insightful articles as much as a forum, but for now I'm just trying to get people motivated to help out and write. Hence the shameless pimping!

Man I hate spot the difference. I always feel incredibly stupid as it takes me ages. For those who like mapping: mapping article. mapping twat.

Haaaaahaha the face swap. I don't care how hard it is, this is a quality STD!