JonCole

I still think the most troublesome thing as it pertains to gaming is how Prison Architect is still an early access game but seemingly not being treated as such. Especially as it pertains to this: I'm in agreement that the third type of response is a bit shitty given what things they are regarding with "It's just a game, we won't do that." I still think the first two are fine, especially granted their early access status. Regardless of your opinion of what early access means, how it's being used liberally or how it's easily ignored, there's still something to be said when the developers clearly state it's an unfinished game and responses to constructive criticism are "we are or are going to integrate that into the final product".

I thought Judgment was actually quite good, I just think it had some plot missteps - relying on a shit final boss instead of leveraging the narrative established in the first two acts as well as making Baird, a character most players don't care about, the protagonist - and a lack of Horde Mode that didn't make it particularly memorable. Plus, it came out at an odd time in the year that pretty much disqualified it from GOTY categories that it might have had a shot at given greater proximity. So I'd personally posit that it wasn't a lack of CliffyB secret sauce that made it the latest GoW entry less than a stunning success, and MS/Black Tusk has a good a chance as any to make GoW good this generation. That said, GoW was huge in the multiplayer department in the first two iterations and really lost steam in 3 and Judgment, so they'll need something quite compelling to reel in people from COD/BF and Titanfall/Destiny. Just being a notable franchise doesn't seem to do it anymore, especially when you look at how poorly Halo 4 did in the long run as far as multiplayer numbers go. And to address #2, I think Epic at some point announced that Epic Poland (PCF) is helping Epic US work on Fortnight. No idea what Chair is up to with Infinity Blade on the outs.

I definitely get the feeling that they're not particularly interested in an accurate representation of prisons, but rather a mechanically diverse and nuanced simulation. I didn't love Paolo's ideas about the potential for lobbyists helping alter laws to your benefit mostly because the effects of laws or something would probably just result in a modified value like more prisoners, generally shorter sentences, etc. I guess that if that political aspect of the game could actually make meaningful effects on the actual gameplay, it would be meaningful, but I personally can't imagine it being anything but another toy with a story reason to exist and few mechanical reasons to exist. I generally felt satisfied by the video, mostly because I think that their stance that prison "pop culture" is driven by the American prison system so any simulation they try to make would either be blatantly national or accidentally American. As a result, I don't think they should be faulted for not accurately representing American prison systems because that's not what they intended to do. That said, they should try to integrate elements from the "real world" of American prisons since the perception of players is that those elements are missing. It also didn't particularly convince me that drug crimes should be as minimally represented as they are. Re: drugs, I really like the idea of addiction having deep gameplay implications on the mood of inmates. Not only should a drug crime positively indicate drug addiction, but I also think it'd be interesting for inmates with a multitude of petty crimes to have a higher chance of prior drug use. It'd be interesting to consider that while someone may not have gotten busted for doing drugs, drug use could have driven them to commit other crimes and they find themselves jonesing after getting busted for stealing someone's car after breaking into their house.

It's neither. I don't have a problem with the people saying the value of the franchise is lost on the game, because frankly I know very little about it and it won't make a difference to how I play the game. However, it seems that the trailer is fairly honest about the ambitions behind the mechanics and I don't think they're completely undoable. It's just odd to me that everyone seems to think that it's going to be impossible to pull off - sure a healthy dose of skepticism is fine, but the tone here seems like more than just that.

LET'S TURN THOSE FROWNS RIGHT SIDE UP WELCOME TO THE LET'S THINK ALL NON-BESPOKE GAMES AND LORD OF THE RINGS GAMES THAT AREN'T LOYAL TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL TO THE LETTER ARE BULLSHIT THREAD THE FOLLOWING THOUGHTS ARE OUTLAWED: THOUGHTS THAT SYSTEMIC STORYTELLING CONTENT CAN BE ANYTHING BUT BULLSHIT THOUGHTS NOT BACKED BY ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE OF LORD OF THE RINGS THOUGHTS THAT ASSASSINS CREED OR BATMAN GAMES ARE KINDA GOOD BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT THANKS AND PLEASE ENJOY YOUR DREADFUL CONVERSATION

Yeah, I dunno. I guess I'm still hopeful that a game like this can succeed. The negativity around this game throughout this thread is kinda depressing.

A whatmaiden?

Probably something like a ZBOX equipped with the latest Kabini APU or Haswell HD 4400 would be more than sufficient for that much, and it wouldn't break the bank at $300-ish.

Yeah, it could really go either way. I'm personally not so worried about it being different from game to game or from one person's experience to the next, I'm instead hoping that each rivalry/history/whatever actually manages to feel different instead of "fuck you ranger guy, you [burned my face/chopped off my arm/scarred my chest] and now I [dislike/hate/actively hunt] you". If they can do that, as well as give a balanced effect of each terror thing, like assassinate should not be incredibly more compelling to use than the terrorize or sacrifice options, I feel like the whole history thing could actually pay off.

As someone who doesn't give a shit about Tolkien's universe, only really like the movies and enjoy AC games, this game looks dope! Probably the most excited I've been about the LOTR franchise as it pertains to games in a long time.

Very interesting, I imagine this'll work great for my HTPC. It's quite capable of playing most games, but I wouldn't want to play anything too CPU intensive as it's only running a Haswell Pentium. I'll probably try it with Metro: Last Light, which I've been wanting to play on my HTPC but not wanting to see how it'd strain the meager CPU. Also, it'll be nice to only download games once and play them in either place rather than download once per machine. Edit: Were your two desktops connected wired to the network? Do you have a gigabit switch/router? If wireless, was it N or AC?

Huh, cool!

I think it's a weird middle ground, because consoles have a postscribed (I don't know if this is a word, but prescribed wasn't quite right) shelf life; when the PS4 came out, the PS3's days were numbered. Not so with PCs/Steam Machines - sure, a Steam Machine may last 3-4 years with varying success on a game-by-game basis, but there's no guarantee in place like there is with consoles that all games will work. You might get lucky and still be able to play all games out there in three or four years, or an ambitious one could come out with a crazy memory requirement that wouldn't work with your machine. I guess what I'm getting at is that allowing for upgradability and even encouraging it will temper those expectations that a potential "console gamer" might develop when buying a box with a set spec.

Man, I'm still generally of the opinion that Steam Machines are a good idea, but Alienware sure is challenging my opinions - http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/alienware-steam-machines-are-un-upgradable-will-be-released-annually/0126990 "Sure a console cycle is like seven years, but just buy a new 'console' from us every twelve months!"

Oh no, not overly aggressive at all. Just quite assertive.

I certainly consider myself corrected.

I was actually about to make a remark about how a trademark must be enforced actively to retain its power, but this Polygon story that just hit basically describes it for me: http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/22/5335022/king-were-not-trying-to-stop-banner-saga-from-using-its-name I'm no lawyer, but despite them not having an active trademark on "Saga" it's probably in their best interests to assert themselves in the case of Banner Saga. While they don't have a trademark on that specific word, they have a number of trademark on games with names styled "Something Something Saga" with which The Banner Saga intersects. That said, it doesn't make them look like anything but dicks to the public eye.

... Congrats Nick Breckon, then?

Next thing you know, they'll sue Sega for having a name that sounds too much like Saga and they're "riding the success" of the Saga franchise.

It's better, but not incredibly better. If you disassemble the controller, you'll find that the actual interface on the controller is exactly the same with it's weird membrane buttons and the only difference is that the pudgy d-pad module on top is replaced with the transforming one. The directions feel much more distinct, but it still doesn't compare to a Sony d-pad or something like that.

Two-Face Remo.

God bless you for dipping a foot in those comments, that's a good one. I read a little past that and saw some guy arguing that the Transformers movies have strong female characters. That article kinda turned the tide for me, because I was definitely on the other side of the argument only a few posts up there. But it's now fairly clear to me that while I can maybe say that killing and blood paint a more visually clear picture of a game mechanic than maybe some animations of dudes beating up on each other, it's still worth considering the fact that the rules in places that facilitate daily deathmatches in these virtual prisons are saying something about the prison system inherently. I recently listened to a podcast (I honestly don't remember which one it was, maybe This American Life or some other NPR thing) where they talked about a prison convention, where prison owners/operators and in-prison riot suppression officers met and shared techniques and technology. I'd be really interested to see a deep simulation of prisons that communicate some of the stories I heard from that podcast, where one of the most dangerous things to prison staff are removing a single uncooperative prisoner from a cell and officers are forced to basically form a line of converging riot shields to beat the prisoner into the corner of the cell and drag him out. The podcast also talked about how American prisons much more violently suppress their inmates in a way that no other country really compares; a Chinese prison worker commented on how American tasers are far too violent for their needs, which for some reason was really shocking to me. I'd like to see a game like Prison Architect handle mechanics like that, maybe changing the rules based on the country in which you prison is built where prisoners act differently and the staff members do as well.

I believe PSN Store updates happen on Tuesdays, so Brothers might hit this coming or the following Tuesday. It hasn't gone up quite yet, but I believe all the other promised games have already cycled in progressively so it's up next.

Actually, if you let the demo run for the hour it'll basically become a shareware free-trial-expired type thing and deactivate the "purchased" tag on PSN so you can then purchase it. I did this with Persona 4 Arena when it was on sale - I had downloaded the full game trial and it wouldn't let me purchase the game (neither on the PS3 or on the SEN Store website). I played through the demo for an hour, at which point it shut off and said that to play more I had to buy the game. Then I was able to buy the game as usual, and my full game trial file unlocked and just became the full game. I have to assume that it works the same way for PS+ free games, as you're essentially "purchasing" them as well.

http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-one-controller-will-work-with-your-pc-in-2-1116870864 Sounds like drivers aren't ready yet for proper Xinput functionality.