CaptainFish

Dude, whatever the cast is always great. It's an axiom. They've had elucidating conversations about game design and hilarious joke combos. What more could you want? "Jake (as though reading a fax): Remember the airfield?"

I agree, besides the fact that there are humans, elves and dwarves, Ferelden has some interesting traits. All the races have strange class structures with weird quirks. The elves aren't the high, respected magical creatures they usually are in Tolkien. Likewise, the treatment of magic as being more of a corruption than a blessing was refreshing. The darkspawn does basically mimic the style of the orcish hordes in the Lord of the Rings movies though. I even liked the idea of the Grey Wardens, this cult that has to defend the world from a force so rarely seen that the wardens are treated as rumour and people lose reverence for them in the interim. I haven't played DAO (Daaao, dey like come and me want go home!) since launch and haven't beaten it yet, but I liked the concepts, even if I can't comment on the full execution.

If you want less badass, just choose Good or Nasty.

Despite how hilarious all the open world stuff in the original was, NMH 2 is more playable by far and has a great retro style. I did find myself wishing for more minigame variety because I'm the type of dude who has to buy every single new piece of clothing. I must've played that pipe mania and bug game a zillion times each.

I finally read the RPS articles and I understand the AI partner now. It seems like a cool idea. I also like what they're doing with aggro mechanics. By the end of Bioshock, I didn't actually want to kill any of the Big Daddies and I never killed any lone ones. It wasn't because it was difficult, but because they never attack you unnecessarily. The specific example they use of a western style barroom is particularly cool. It also seems like the scale of the fights will be a bit bigger. You certainly face a lot of splicers in 1, but it's more of a steady stream than a huge mob just turning on you. Looking forward to it. I realize this is a lot to infer from one super-early interview, demo and trailer, but, one thing that struck me was the implication that Bioshock Infinite might be less diverse than Bioshock. I really enjoyed the diverse cast of main characters in 1, it wasn't just interesting, but it actually helped to have a variety of accents when most of the story and background info is being given by VO. That's not the only way to differentiate characters' speech, but it is an easy one. It obviously makes sense for the setting they're proposing and the anti-immigration sentiments, so I'm glad that it'll be for in-game reasons. I don't think this actually will have any bearing on it's quality of the gameplay, it's just a weird thing I thought of when reading the article.

You don't have to earn anything because each project will have it's own audience. There are tons of people who, if they read Idle Thumbs, would be lost in the game discussions because of the lack of disclaimers. But those people will never read it. Idle thumbs doesn't have to earn it to those readers, because there are readers that will appreciate something because they have the prerequisite knowledge, or the wherewithal to find out. I certainly don't think Idle Thumbs is obscure because it falls within my niche of video games enjoyment, but for every work of art there will be a certain group that enjoys it, be it because of language barriers, subject matter, depth, genre or whatever. That group won't care if it's obscure, because they enjoy it. Some groups will be larger or smaller than others, but if the creator is happy to have people appreciating their work, no matter the number, they won't care whether or not they "earned" said obscurity. Has that been confirmed, because I've heard this idea suggested from the way the trailer was. I'm wondering how they'll deal with it. Is it just a way of representing plasmids by having someone you order to do a specific move? Will the left hand of the first game, just become this second character with the same amount of control? Or is it more of an autonomous creation like Sheva? Irrational did make SWAT 4 which is very much about commanding AI dudes to win a mission. That game also had co-op though, so I'm wondering if that will also be an option.

It's hard to comment on nobility. Most mass-media is accessible, but I don't think most people would call Stephanie Meyer's ability, to make an easy to sell read book, noble. Sometimes accesibility can oppose artistic intent. The Waste Land comes to mind. It's a poem with a shifting structure filled with allusions to several different cultural texts. There's even Sanskrit in it. It's supposed to feel like a cacophony of references that zero people would recogize all of, without the steady rhyme and rhythm that makes poetry easy to read. It's like a junkyard of culture. For Eliot to set out to make that work, and then think about accessibility would be absurd. However, I still think there's some overall worth to be gained from reading it even without knowing all the ins and outs. I'm not an artist so I don't know, but I'm assuming it's hard enough for most to come up with compelling content in an interesting form with a distinct style that conveys a message. To suggest that every artist can make sure that most audiences can easily enter that work without sacrificing the prior aspects is difficult to swallow.

It's also worth noting that inaccessible (in non-game art) doesn't actually mean that. There usually a superficial (not the right word, basic maybe?) enjoyment that can be taken from just the plot of a book or the beauty of a piece of music or art, even if you don't understand all the embedded themes and allusions. For that deep understanding it usually just requires some extra knowledge beyond the text itself, that can be found out with some effort. That knowledge is also a benefit as well. If someone wants to experience a great art, but is completely unwilling to learn the prerequisite info, you can't really blame the artist. Especially now when what you need to know is probably well documented on the (capital I) Internet. For games, it never even means any effort outside of just learning the mechanics or using them in new, creative and interesting ways. I guess there are beginning to be games like Braid and Limbo that are more interesting in comparision to early work like Mario and Another World, but that is never required to enjoying the game itself. It would be kinda cool if there were games that required intense knowledge of a genre, or a certain developer's games, or even a historical period or specific literature or art.

See, now I'm wondering if it's just me having bad taste or lower expectations, but I rewatched that specific scene in question (the high quality cg one), and while it's very movie trailer-y (and Zack Snyder-y), I don't find anything reprehensible about it. Is it the monologue/dialogue, the whole prophecy angle being clichéd, the way the scene is an action scene/conversation? With what that cinematic is trying to set up, I'm not sure how they could've made it less dumb. I guess I could've checked out as soon as they start mentioning prophecies, but it's mostly just a rehashing of what was already foreshadowed/said in SC and Brood War. Although I did have problems with parts of it, I overall liked the story stuff of SC 2, but with these strong reactions against it, I'm starting to worry that I'm giving it a free pass because it's Starcraft.

As someone who lost his save near the end of Neptune's bounty, and recently restarted and got past that point, I would say try to push through. The game gets great after all the elements are introduced, and the gunplay improves because it's also linked to a few RPG systems. I like the game, but the way they slowly give out the systems can be frustrating, especially when you're trying to take out a Big Daddy with just bullets. As for emergence, you might not do a single thing that seems emergent, but you can definitely set up fights so that you are combining the environment, weaponry, traps and plasmids in interesting ways.

Bioshock has enough unique mechanics for those mechanics to define what it means to be a Bioshock game. It could be very possible that Irrational only wanted to make games with a similar mechanic set in lots of fantastic places. They didn't make the return to rapture, so it's not their fault that people instantly think a Bioshock game has to be underwater. It's a lot like Assassin's Creed, or at least how I thought Assassin's Creed would be, until the anouncement of Brotherhood. No one's going to bat an eye if the next AC takes place outside of the 3rd Crusade or Renaissance Italy.

Well looking at the trailer (thanks JonCole) this game is definitely Bioshock. I was more worried that it wouldn't have any of the same feel of Bioshock in the new setting. Whether or not they should've made another 'Shock is kinda unknown until we see the final product.

Hmmm... Bioshock infinite? Different time, different setting, similar gameplay? I'm wondering how Bioshock this will be. The trailer is available from the main page download section, if you're having trouble with the streaming like me.

It does look like a great homage to the River City Ransom style game, which hasn't really been iterated on at all. That doesn't make me want to play this game more. In fact I think it makes me want it less.

The game definitely had a critical path that Batman or Oracle would set you upon. It had an openness without having that open world filler that I so detest.

I agree one hundred percent, Forbin. Playing on hard, and doing those achievements often requires you to go outside of the basic "battle plan" and it is rewarding as it will weaken the enemy greatly. Also, the order of missions and which upgrades you choose has a strong effect. Playing outbreak as your second mission (which I did in my first playthrough) and playing it after getting siege tanks and perdition turrets (which I did in my second run) makes a huge difference. I didn't use the mercenaries at all in my first playthrough because of a strong upgrade focus, and my second playthrough depended on them, almost exclusively in several missions ( ). I did really like that everyone says that there is so much variation between games, even just in the realm of RTS. However, Rob (?) took that to mean that Starcraft 2 is less deserving because it represents the roots of RTS, which was weird. It burns me when people forget that SC was the pinnacle of asymmetrical RTS of that original style. I do think that the alien upgrades aren't really balanced in strengths. In every instance in my second playthrough that I changed my mind to choose the "cooler" option I instantly regretted it because it isn't as useful. A lot of them seem like traps for people who haven't played a lot of SC. They may have a use for people with different playstyles, but I doubt it. As for the story, it's kinda indefensible. If you're looking for great storytelling with subtlety and literary devices (outside of foreshadowing every second), it's probably not going to be in a blizzard game. We're talking about space truckers, klingon paladins and Kerrigan Ex Machina. There's no nuance there. However, I did like the quality of the presentation, and did not have the same problem with the voice acting as others. It has less plot than the original SC, and most games of similar length and that's a big plus.

This demo made me finally figure out the xinput emulator I had, so I was able to use my game pad. After playing the demo a few times, I'm totally used to driving on both the keyboard and controller, but the shooting is much better on the mouse. The speed limiter is a cool idea. It's a great way to let you get to missions without causing a shitstorm. I was getting an average frame rate around 35 fps, with some big drops for the fire effects and explosions. Weirdly, changing the settings all to low didn't actually help in the benchmark at all, maybe because the fire effects seemed to be just as intense.

Sweet, jpeg shock. Honestly, I'm really curious, I love pretty much every Irrational Games game.

I had trouble with the driving on both regular and simulation modes, and the game didn't pick up my non xinput controller. Handbrake turns were always full circles for me, but using the normal brake did a decent job.

Got some leaked information from Game Informer Via SA Via NeoGaf Via Giantbomb Via Me. Edit: Spoiler tags for those who want to go in cold. Edit: More info, I removed the story stuff because most of it is mentioned above. Overall this seems cool. I love the idea of starting with all the gadgets from the last game. I hope they put in more, not tutorialization, but something to encourage you to do different take downs in the stealth sections. I played through all the challenges and wished I had known about the versatility there. Taunting a dude sounds dumb, and I probably won't do it outside of getting an achievement for using all moves in a single fight. The only thing missing is how you'll get around the larger environment. I hope they think of something cool, although if there are actual high rises you might just grapple around.

Ain't nothing wrong with some ROTT.exe. Gonna bust out some flame wall. Or get a god mode pickup and actually become a god. Sometimes you would shoot dudes and they would play possum. ROTT was sweet. Where's ROTT Forever?

No discussion of the Cosmic Osmo steam release? I'm disappointed.

CaptainFish - 954 - NA I pretty much only play protoss, and team games.

Have you guys actually played the original starcraft recently? The broodwar zerg campaign turns into the worst slog through base after base after base at full tech. 6 of 10 missions are just: build a big base, fight against an enemy that already has several huge bases, but none of the forces to really back it up. The campaigns for the other races have that as well, but at least they're only 8 missions long in Brood War. It's as though they wanted to tell more story for the zerg, but had less actual compelling level design. It's boring. The plot was also very guilty of plot twist extravaganzas and god moding. If Kerrigan can mind control one of the eldest protoss leaders, how is she not just enthralling the entire universe by this point? I'm much more glad that they decided to focus on small scale character interactions and one shot mission stories with a major plot related finale. Of course a lot of those interactions are against a backdrop of lame jokes and references and the worst credit song imaginable, but there's still some quality there. Also, it's explained why most missions don't have a lot to do with the major plot, and even then they still end up having an effect on the world state. Only the Dr. Hanson and Tosh missions feel like they are unrelated and won't matter in later games, and Blizzard could prove me wrong on that. As for the multiplayer, they managed to make each race seem even more like that race while improving the playability a lot. Even with all those changes it still rewards those who are able to micromanage their troops more effectively. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I can't really think of any changes to make at this point, that wouldn't just make the rewards for better micro insignificant.

Well SWAT 4 already had that complex menu for ordering your troops, that was also contextual. The options changed based on where the cross-hair is pointing. I can imagine changing that to control dialogue wouldn't be that hard. Figuring out how it would effect suspects and innocents would be more involved I suppose. The SWAT 2 strategy game had a fair bit of negotiation involved while you were setting up your teams to save the day. It also had a battering ram, helicopter and rappel options. Anyway I'm glad to see so many people like SWAT 4. It is a lot of fun in co-op multi-player, but I was never able to get more than one person I know in game at a time. The game is hard enough that we couldn't do much past the 3rd mission or so. I think that a sequel would benefit from a L4D-like strong focus on co-op, because the things you can pull off when you coordinate a room clear with real people are amazing.