Roderick

Have fun! If I were in the vicinity, I'd be going as well =)

I liked the demo. Although I'm still a bit apprehensive at the prospect of some of the combat scenario's (I'm generally not much of a brawler fan), the stealthy sections appeal to me.

It also happened that I was suddenly viciously attacked by none other than Brotherhood of Nod leader Joe Kucan Kane, on the EA stand. (Which apparently made me pull a Weird Face)

AND ALSO... Brütal!!

Gah, that's a great question, actually. Or maybe also an irrelevant question? What I mean is, it obviously shouldn't matter whether or not it resembles something else, but I did raise that expectation by saying it was familiar. But now that I'm thinking about it, I can't really find any particular example that it reminds me of. Rather, what I meant with Brütal Legend's multiplayer feeling familiar was that it is composed of all these well-known strategy tropes and the mechanics themselves are pretty basic. So it feels like something you already know, you instinctively understand it. But also, again, that doesn't cause it to feel stale or anything. Whether it's fun, though, is really anyone's guess until it's in our own hands.

Actually, I don't know how much has already been written on other blogs and such, but I'll just put some of the impressions of the multiplayer demo here. First off, it's a pretty familiar, pretty standard affair, but executed with the dazzle that inspires all of Brütal Legend. You play skirmish battles against another person or an AI opponent. You can pick from three factions: Eddie Riggs and his heavy metal crew of headbangers, electric chicks and what-have-yous. Then there's a gothic metal crew lead by a really cool designed woman (I believe Ophelia was her name?) that appears to float. She's kinda Morticia-esque and has a gothic band of followers like Medusas and gravedigger zombies. The third party I'm unfamiliar with as it wasn't demoed, but it's a 'demon' themed faction. Now, it's an action/strategy affair, with your upgradeable home base being a stage somewhere on the map. Geisers of 'fans' act as resource points that you can capture and defend. As you collect more fans you can upgrade your stage, buy new units and generally sway the tide of battle. The battling itself is done pretty much automatically by your crew, or so it seemed (perhaps when playing it that becomes clearer). You always directly control your lead character (Riggs, Morticia, the demon dude), walking and flying over the landscape and targeting things for attack. You've got your standard attacks and, just like in the game, you have double teams where you use one of your minions for a special attack, for instance throwing a Medusa onto an enemy, thereby taking him over. Then there are also insane cars and vehicles you can buy to terrorize the enemy. That seemed really cool. So, it's pretty overseeable and familiar, but it's really the rock theme that makes it fun and fresh. Whether it'll be awesome, only a playthrough will tell, so I'm awaiting the opportunity (perhaps the demo will already shine some light on that). But already a ton of nice details and touches became apparent. For instance, say that your stage is under attack and you've got nowhere to go; you can then take control of the actual stage lights and try to blast your enemies with them, serving as turrets. Also, one of Morticia's (not her real name) vehicles was the 'Mamakazi', a coquettish little perambulator that you drive to a designated spot and then let it crash into it, causing an explosion. Fun!

Additionally, because they've made the character creation options a lot tighter and more restricted (you're not able to sculpt noses or mold convex cheeks or some such), this will be the first Bethesda[-published] game where your character will actually look really nice and well-designed, no matter what you do. It really shows that more choice in this field actually hampers the player instead of helping him. Better to have a limited set of well-designed elements than having endless options where nothing really looks great.

That's a good point. I understand this system works quite well in that respect. It doesn't take away my own gripes with it, but then this has always been a matter of preferences. In any case, I for one also welcome new systems and experimentation. I think we fully agree on that. Let's see how it pans out in future games that feature these kinds of things, and review the situation from there.

Yeah, I mean, basically my argument is that I'm incredibly weak.

That's another great example of what's wrong with the game judging your actions in any shape or form. It will almost always push you into going to the extreme, either for the sense of accomplishment, the achievement or just because it's 'there', because it's a mountain to climb, a bar to max out. I think the best argument Chris has given so far for keeping the bars is so the player can check on his progress because it will eventually give him more dialogue options. But Mass Effect already had a way better system for this: the skill bars that you could distribute points to. As I review this thread, a slight majority hinges towards 'remove them', whereas the broad opposite side doesn't see the bars as a big problem, but won't necessarily miss them either, provided their small benefits get funnelled through some other system. Man, this is a great discussion though, including the tangent of how attractive achievements are (or rather, irresistible). It made me decide that I'm going to try to find a way to deactivate them on my 360. Is that even possible? I want to regain the ability to simply enjoy games for what they are and offer, because I notice I fall into the achievement trap almost every single time. And as long as it's there (and in my face), I won't be able to resist. (Tangentially, I brought up the point of the binary judgement system this morning on the Gamescom while interviewing a producer on Mass Effect 2. There wasn't really time to delve into it properly, but he did mention it wasn't a point that he had heard often in discussing the series. That might mean that I am completely off track with my ideas, or perhaps that most people have already accepted it as an unquestionable trope of the genre. In any case, I was happy to have been able to bring it up.

One of the biggest suprises of the Gamescom was Brink, the new Bethesda/Splash Damage first person shooter that manages to incorporate some sort of Team Fortress-like RPG-light systems. It looked very impressive (wasn't playable on the floor yet), most of the appeal coming from its bright, colourful visuals.

I was present at the EA conference and after that had Tim demo the Brütal Legend multiplayer component for me and a couple of other journalists. We shook hands! It was such a thrilling, longawaited moment, I was beaming =) Just came back from Germany, by the way, so I'm completely messed up and won't be anything like a valuable fount of information for the next couple of hours at least.

I understand that, and I agree that without an achievement system (which is very much present on the Xbox of course), there's less of a pressure to follow one path. But then I can't help but wondering what the point of offering this stat is in the first place? Why bother? Just to track how much of a paragon or renegade you've been? Surely this is still a silly simplification of the amazing depth the game wants to present to you? Also: HOLY SHIT, I never noticed until now that the facial hair I drew on Karl Lagerfeld's face in my avatar resembles your king of the cosmos avatar to a creepy degree!

Those are slight improvements, but in the end it's still a crude, binary system. The problem with these is inherently that you're going to choose a path for yourself at the beginning of the game, which you're then motivated (through achievements or personal fulfillment) to proceed on for the duration. This effectively nullifies all the decisions and moral choices you're going to make, because you've already made your 'big' decision in the beginning. Imagine not having that. Suddenly, EVERY choice becomes a new moral dilemma, where your decision is based on your own feelings and the context of the scenario, rather than which bar you're already filling up. Perhaps you've got the ability to disconnect this, Chris, but I certainly don't. It's a trap I continue to fall in, and I would suspect the majority of players.

Yeah, that's horrible. Mass Effect would've been great though, it NEVER judges in-game. That makes it all the more appalling that the system then artificially does tack on such a value. Well, there's still the sequel! If I manage to catch some Bioware exec or dev on the Gamescom, I'll be sure to raise the point.

The world isn't as nuanced as you think, you know!! (Actually, I recently decided that I hate the binary way in which games process morality. Thunderpeel had that article on Molyneux that basically summed it up, but I never really thought about it since most of those games are so flawlessly black and white. Only when I was playing the brilliant Mass Effect did it really hit home. Mass Effect doesn't do the black and white thing at first glance, instead giving you a wealth of nuance. No choice is the 'bad choice' (or so I thought), so every choice I made felt really important, meaningful and roleplayey. Then I discovered that there actually WAS a tracking thing in the interface which was just a bit hidden behind all the details. And IMMEDIATELY the game changed, because now it became so transparent and obvious that there was 'bad' and a 'good' choice. And I hated it to bits, because I now got entangled in the 'I want to play a good guy because I'll get the 'good' achievement!!' syndrome. Whereas before, I would carefully judge each scenario and decide based on my mood, the context, everything. That felt so wonderful, so genuine. The latter half of the game, after my discovery, unfortunately became basically the same as Fable: choosing because I wanted to fill some bar on my stats. That's a fucking shame. Developers, get rid of the judging aspect of morality systems and just let it flow naturally from the player, and the gaming experience is increased 1000-fold.)

Well, I'll be going tomorrow, so... goodbyyyyye! =) I'll try to throw a whipped cream pie onto Molyneux' face!

An RTS from Molyeux might be nice, a throwback to his earlier years. Anything's better than another heavy-handed morality RPG.

That's a great quote! I fully endorse that shit. I'm always looking to diversify my skills, get good or at least adequate at everything.

Oh man, I'm totally looking forward to The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Andersen's newest pic. It shows everything that I love about him so far, that incredible sense of character depiction, the original camera angles, and this thing is stop-motion animation? Holy shit! /does the Mr. Fox whistle-click-click The Life Aquatic is great though. It's long, but very charming. Murray is excellent. And what's wrong with the ending? Man, I tear up every time I see that last submarine scene.

http://www.lionhead.com/ In six days, that man is going to do it again. I'll be there at the Gamescom in Cologne, so hopefully I can witness it firsthand!

Now don't get me wrong, I love a good internet debate gone wild, just like the next man. But I just feel that the both of you have exhausted this thing, whittled it down to its scraping bones, and now there's nothing left but trying to drown your opponent in the trickle of marrow poring out of the cracks. Sad sight, that. Better to call it quits and preserve your dignity.

I'm having trouble defining the concept of 'free time' at the moment. When you've the star of your one-man creative company, everything you do at some point is work and hobby at the same time. It's dangerous, but rewarding as well. But basically, I do everything and anything that has to do with storytelling. Writing scripts, making comics, drawing animations, envisioning games, journalism, the works. So far it's not making me rich yet, but hopefully that day will come!

What the hell? Is this some kind of marketing probe that enables publishers and producers to know exactly when the audience if laughing? Of course, this man isn't laughing. I'm not at all familiar with the emotion he is displaying with his devil face.

Hey, hey, HEY! Guys! I made this topic to whimsically mock Molyneux as a team-building exercise. Not to bash in each other's brains. Now you've made little baby Molyneux cry.