Assorted movies and trailers

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Just been to Gametrailers again.

Counterstrike: Source - A runthrough showing one of the desert maps.

Silent Hill 4: The Room - Gameplay featuring fun with monsters, and that weird-ass double baby headed one.

Half-Life 2 - Familiar medley of scenes, but still nice to see in anticipation of the release.

Fable - This one's over 40 minutes so grab a drink and relax; Peter Molyneux talks, and so does his team.

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent - Rene Morel (Final Fantasy: Spirits Within CGI characters), Sir Ken Adams (Bond movies production designer), and Takushi Sato (Silent Hill series characters), worked on this one. :deadman:

Vampire The Maquerade: Bloodlines - Seductive E3 trailer.

[Marek]

Fable - This one's over 40 minutes so grab a drink and relax; Peter Molyneux talks, and so does his team.

Yeah, Molyneux is pretty in that video, but whatshisname David Carter is nice to listen to, since he tells things really enthusiastically.

[Thrik]

Downloading the Fable one, shall comment later. ;-*

Is the HL2 one the video that was released on Fileplanet within the past week? I got that one, it's such a shame that it didn't come out a year ago. After playing Doom 3 and all that, it totally doesn't look that hot anymore. Although I am looking forward to getting my Grim Fandango map onto the engine so it can be all pretty.

[Marek]

Yeah, HL2 is so ugly now

The video Trep linked to is a re-encoded version of the 60 MB bink executable that was released not so long ago. Did anyone notice the alien being taking some kind of rod or case from Eli Vance and putting it in a machine? (Look in the background when he welcomes Gordon.)

[Erwin_Br]

I find the environments in Half Life 2 much more appealling, even though the engine may not be as advanced as Doom 3's. I don't care much about Doom 3's level design, it's horror/gothic theme and general art direction. Personally, I find it a bit boring and everything looks more or less the same to me.

From what I've seen, I expect Half Life 2 to be much more versatile both in level design and gameplay.

--Erwin

[Thrik]

I didn't say it looked ugly, I said it isn't impressive. As in, I don't go "Dude." when I look at it anymore.

To be honest, the old movie that was posted in like E3 2003 made it look a lot better than it really was, due to the slightly blurred low quality nature of the video. Seeing it as a full-screen bink executable (sounds like we're on about the same video) as if I were playing it myself allowed me to see that it isn't really as super detailed and incredibly radical as it initially looked.

But with that said, people have done some incredible stuff on the Half-Life 1 engine, so I'd imagine that the HL2 engine will to be stretched to its absolute limits with some stunning maps. It's mainly those open city maps in HL2 that bother me, the buildings look flat and fake to a degree that it really irritates me.

Hopefully they've got some rock-solid architecture that hasn't displayed in the trailers. It's not like I don;t want this game to look and be awesome.

[Marek]

I think that's more a result of the E3 2003 levels being really extremely polished to give a good first impression. Other stuff they showed later had a bit less variety in textures, isn't quite as densely populated with objects, etc. I mean, it still looks good, but they just haven't crammed as much assets in there as those first scenes the public got to see.

It's not so much the video compression that makes the difference. Have you downloaded the bink exe of the E3 2003 demonstrations too? Looks just as impressive (or moreso) than their shakycam counterparts.

[Erwin_Br]

That tech demo (very good quality movie) with the shiney roofs and that one alien didn't look disappointing to me either.

--Erwin

[vimes]

Well, I'll let aside Silent " When are they going to stop " Hill 4 and GoldnEye "I'm raising good looking producers" Rogue Agent.

Now for the rest.

Half Life 2... man, I've been watching videos and trailer for x years now. I'm tired of looking at stuff without knowing if the game will integrate them in the end [ remember the DirectX 9.0 Demo ?].

Vampire The Maquerade: Bloodlines. A Troika game made with money, THAT looks interesting. I just hope they didn't sell their souls to the FPS devil and applied their knowledge regarding RPGs.

There were a bunch of video ( 5 if I'm not wrong) quite detailled about the gameplay and interactivity and seems to need some adjustment/tweaking.

Now, Fable ... an ambitious game by Molyneux. Hey, doesn't that really sum up the whole idea ? Anyway, as it has been out of Molyneux's hands for three years, it seems that Fable has become a real game and gained in "matters" (dunno if this is the right word) and we can hope that it will be more fun than Black & White. Anyway, this video is pretty interesting (I didn't get everything though) as it shows a team that seems pretty cool AND realist. Both the Carter guys develop opinions about video games that pleases me a LOT and they do it with quite a sens of humour : it's really nice to watch people talking clearly about features ingame without making a fuss about it. What is also quite impressive is that they all seem to be eager to play to the game they've been working on for 3 years. Question is... will it be realeased on PC?

[Marek]

That tech demo (very good quality movie) with the shiney roofs and that one alien didn't look disappointing to me either.

Which one is that?

[vimes]

this one : http://www.gamershell.com/download_init.shtml?hellID=3360&mirror=5&a=27121828058055.1

[Lindset]

I still think Half-Life 2 looks great. Especially the character animations and lip-sync. Looks a lot more realistic than wooden figures with bad lip-sync like we've seen in so many games. The graphics aren't as groundbreaking as they were when the game was announced back at E3 2003, but it still looks good. I love the look of the game even though it may not be technically superior to some of the other engines on the market (Doom 3, Far Cry).

The level of interactivity also looks good so far

[Intrepid Homoludens]

You know, for all this talk about Doom 3 and it's grandmother's dog being graphically superior to Half-Life 2 (I agree, but only on D3's technical merits), I still will shell out my $50 for HL2 over Doom 3 anytime. And it's because, at least based on my experience of the first HL, I think I'd feel so much more involved in the HL universe. The experience, I predict, will feel more integrated and consuming.

[Thrik]

Of course, the gameplay is likely to be top notch. It's a shame that these days people seem to be going for games purely on looks. If I were to go onto IRC and be all "D3 or HL2????", most people would say Doom 3 because it has the graphical edge.

I think HL2 is going to come out tops regardless. As well as them having proven that their gameplay is top notch, they have a cracking engine that will almost certainly provide years of mods. Hell, it *already* has a strong mod community, and it isn't even out yet.

My original point was just that it doesn't graphically stun people anymore, which *is* a shame because it'll have a less of a "Holy shit" impact on people than it could have. I'm thinking purely of the game's success here, like.

Also Intrepid, what is that damned thing in your avatar? I've seen dodgy gifs of it and stuff too in places.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Of course, the gameplay is likely to be top notch. It's a shame that these days people seem to be going for games purely on looks. If I were to go onto IRC and be all "D3 or HL2????", most people would say Doom 3 because it has the graphical edge.

Evidently those people have never experienced picking up a stunning stranger at a bar and ending up with a dud in bed and regretting not chatting up instead the average looking stranger who licked their martini glass oh soooo suggestively.

Also Intrepid, what is that damned thing in your avatar? I've seen dodgy gifs of it and stuff too in places.

Ask Marek. He's the one who wants to commit obscenities with it, bless him.

[Simon]

I wasn't sure whether Fable was going to be a great, or an ambitious failure. Often the games that promise oodles of open-ended gameplay are ultimately quite shallow - for example, Daggerfall was massive but after a few hours play you had pretty much done everything of interest that the game had to offer. All the quests and towns were the same, and it got boring fast.

The video is promising stuff though. These guys seem to understand that you can't just give a player 'freedom' in a big game world, there's got to be structure and all the interactions in place to make it a varied and interesting experience. I agreed with all their ideas about RPG design and admired their arrogance in doing it their own way and not drawing inspiration from other games. Molyneux seemed to be constantly apologising for reneging on various promises/ideas and the game not being perfect, but hopefully that's just modesty - rather than him secretly knowing it sucks and trying to curb hype.

If I get Fable, I'm really going to try to play it evil. I wanted to do that in KOTOR but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Not me. I plan on playing the good guy - with an edge. A hero who at first seems evil but a bit into the story perhaps makes amends but not quite. Too many times people want to play evil, and I for once prefer to avoid that. I'd rather not be a walking cliche with a sword and horns. That's so....predictable for a gamer now.

When does Fable release? September? October?

[Simon]

I think it's mid-October, not certain though.

I think the idea of Fable is that whatever hero you end up being, you'll have an edge and be unique to your game, because, as they showed in the video there's so many different variables of how people view your actions etc. At least that's the idea of it. It's supposedly far from a basic split of good or bad, which is neat. I think KOTOR dealt with good & evil choices very well, but this sounds even more sophisticated in that respect.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

...this sounds even more sophisticated in that respect.

And subtle. Which is why I want to play good guy with a questionable past - made enemies, killed a few innocents, then turned around and started on a path to righteousness but with some lapses here and there. Might make for an interesting turnout.

[Lindset]

I'm going to be a bad guy, just like in real life, killing everyone I meet :bleh:

Seriously though, I don't know why, but I always have problems with being a bad guy in RPG's. Perhaps it's because I'm afraid of missing out on something only good guys gets.

[SiN]

Molyneux seemed to be constantly apologising for reneging on various promises/ideas and the game not being perfect, but hopefully that's just modesty - rather than him secretly knowing it sucks and trying to curb hype.

no, no, its just modesty. i havent watched the video yet, but molyneux has been known to say "i think that all my previous games suck". he's very critical of his work, and his companys work. he likes to get everything done perfectly, which is why most of LH's games take ages to develop.

needless to say, Fable WILL be a kick-ass game!

EDIT : oh yeah, and its out on xbox in september.

SiN

[Farbror]

If there's one thing I've learned from the gaming scene, it's "Don't judge it until it's out, or, even better, don't judge it until it's been out for a year".

[Marek]

I think it's hilarious that Fable has a giant database of thousands upon thousands of case-dependent dialog lines, with things like "if player has pants down and is drunk and just killed 5 chickens in town, old man will respond thusly..." and "if player has pants down and is drunk but previously gave money to the orphanage, farmer will respond with..."

Okay, so I pulled those out of my ass, but the amount of AI-driven dialog they crammed into that game is hysterical.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

< Marek gets drunk, sleeps with a block of cheese, and pulls some plausible thoughts about Fable out of his ass. Idle Thumbs forum members respond thusly... >

[toblix]

I think it's hilarious that Fable has a giant database of thousands upon thousands of case-dependent dialog lines, with things like "if player has pants down and is drunk and just killed 5 chickens in town, old man will respond thusly..." and "if player has pants down and is drunk but previously gave money to the orphanage, farmer will respond with..."

Isn't this the exact opposite of real AI driven dialogue? I mean, if the dialogue was AI driven or AI generated you wouldn't need such a database, would you?