Hell Kitty

The only thing I think about when it comes to suns and exploding rockets is sending those damn Klingon speakers to a firey death.

And no GC either? You poor, poor boy. What are you, a cowboy?

Colour is irrelevant for a rocket that will be flown into the sun, but if it has to be a colour I choose rainbow. Anyway, how about that RE4?

It's a third-person, over the shoulder view, much better than the old fixed camera angles. If you haven't played this game you should be put into a rocket and flown into the sun, along with all those who speak Klingon.

In Trespasser you health was displayed by looking at the heart tattoo on your left breast. The HEV suit was definitely wore of a character then Gordon Freeman, but then Gordon Freeman is as much a character as Doom's Space Marine.

It did have something to do with Umbrella, what with Wesker in the background trying to restore Umbrella.

This is what I mean when I say that a comment like "This game is immersive" is a worthless as "This game is good." There is no right answer, as it comes down to personal preference. Some players might find a particular part of the game adds to the immersion, while others will find that same thing works against it. Developer: "Even though everyone working on this game agrees that feature X would be bad for immersion, we've decided to include it anyway because some players out there might find it immersive". The developer can only include or exclude features based on what they['i] think will work for the particular product they are trying to make.

Something I've always liked about the Metal Gear Solid games is that they've always been happy to acknowledge the fact that they are just games. Take the lightgem in the Thief games, which indicates how deep in the shadows (and therefore hidden) the player is. There is never an attempt to justify it by giving it some in-game reason for existing, it's simply a tool to deliver information to the player. Would the game be more immersive if we were told the lightgem is actually a magical ring Garrett wears? I always find attempts to explain the hud only ever screams "HELLO I AM A GAME BUT LET'S PRETEND I'M NOT OKAY".

Jean Reno is awesomeness filled with awesomeness and wrapped in awesomeness.

You have to install the official patch to be able to complete the game. The unofficial patches don't fix problems so much as they change things more to the patchmakers liking.

I agree with that. I sure GLAAD are fighting those bigger battles, though we'll never hear about it on these boards. I don't think this critic was out to promote some anti-gay agenda, though I do think the comments may be due to subconcious homophobia. Kinda like when people claim to be the most tolerant person on earth, but the moment a gay person hits on them they freak out in a way they never would if someone of the opposite sex hits on them.

So do I. The sequel, however, is a mess.

The reason people get up in arms about comments such as this is because they fear it will influence people in a negative way and further harmful stereotypes. For example, a man beats up a gay man because "He came onto me which means he is a sexual predator, therefore he had it coming." They get up in arms because they hope to change such views. I've seen you on these boards get pretty "up in arms" over some negative comments concerning religious folk. Of course the problem with getting up in arms about issues, be it anti-gay, anti-religious or anti-American, is that often you only ever end up preaching to the choir.

I really don't know how to define immersion any more, as it seems to mean different things to different people, and now saying that a game is or isn't immersive is as worthless as saying it is or isn't good. Forced failure is how the DX devs stop the player from breaking the game. Whether vital characters are immortal, and don't respond to my attacking them (FEAR), immortal and automatically kill me focring me to reload, or placed in areas that forbid me from attacking them - it's all the same to me, even if one of these things is more acceptable to you than the others. As far as breaking the game is concerned, I think the worst thing the developer can do is allow the player to carry on after they have broken it. Like if you permanantly discard a vital item, or if you kill a vital character and are allowed to go on even though there is no longer a way to progress. You are allowed to screw up - you can start a fight in the bar, with the consequence of your actions being your death. I too would prefer to be allowed to screw up, the difference is I can accept a game over scenario as a consequence to my screwing up. I have no problem with the consequences of my failure meaning game over.

Well, not a problem, rather that there isn't any "right" answer. I think my view of discussing immersion has been soured by the old Ion Storm boards. I find placing story-critical characters in no-kill zones much more of an immersion breaker than unkillable characters, or characters that simply doesn't respond to your attacking them (like in FEAR, or Rainbow Six). On a number of occasions I have had Paul attack me, both in the beginning on Liberty Island and in the Ton, because I have accidentally hurt him. Either a stray bullet hit him or he was caught in the radius of an explosion I caused. In all cases it was an accident, and I don't think the developers should factor in every mistake I might make and alter the game accordingly. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should be able to do it and still continue on. Sometimes it's just game over. Killing someone is not the same as walking into a bathroom. It's easy to provide a consequence to walking into a bathroom, it's nothing more than a few extra lines of dialogue. A much bigger problem when a story-critical character is killed. Jock isn't that hard to replace, you could just have a UNATCO pilot that unlike Jock you never have any access too, but is it really worth it for the developer to put the resources into creating these alternatives based on the fact that the player might accidentally kill someone? What if the player accidentally kills someone like Tracer Tong? Say out here in the real world, an agent of some kind is on a mission to retrieve information, but he ends up accidentally destroying it, how does he complete his mission? He doesn't, he fails, game over. Or an agent is behind enemy lines, and he kills the one person willing tp help him escape because he mistook him for an enemy, how does he get out? He doesn't, game over. This is exactly how it is in games like DX, just because you can perform an action doesn't mean you can perform it without screwing yourself over.

I've only played the demo, but to me it felt like a mod for Silent Storm rather than a complete game, which is unsuprising considering that's exactly what it started as. I really love S^2 and S^3, so I want to love this too but I just don't know...

What was the cause of this gunfire that "emerged"? The problem with arguing about what is and isn't immersive is that it's different for different people. Like how everybody on the old Ion Storm boards seemed to think levels split into multiple maps was the worst "immersion killing" sin ever. Edit: CrashGirl: I agree with everything in your last post. The choices the player gets in DX are generally in how you approach completing mission objectives, while the story remains just as linear as a typical adventure game.

If there was a reason to kill Jock you would have offered it up by now. Your inability to do so answers my initial question in this thread.

But SteveThaiBinh, standing up for gay rights is just one step away from gay marriage which is just one step away from BABY KILLING FACTORIES and the decline of Western Civilisation!

This is completely ridiculous. It's like asking someone to prove the existence of a Christian god and having them respond "No, you prove a Christian god doesn't exist.". I don't have to prove a negative, the onus is on you to show that there is an in-game reason that the player, acting as the character of JC Denton would kill the character Jock. "I'm thinking outside the box", "I'm roleplaying" and "The developers gave me the mechanics to do so" are not reasons for the player acting as the character of JC Denton would kill the character Jock.

Being that I was responding directly to this: "Try killing Manderley or Jock, for instance: you just can't." comment, I did indeed assume this. There is no in-game reason to kill a character like Jock. It's got nothing to do with someone elses roleplaying principles being wrong. At no time does the character of JC Denton ever have a reason for killing the character Jock. The fact that the player is able to press a button to fire a weapon to kill an NPC standing in front of them, doesn't mean that the character has a reason to do such a thing.

What if a player doesn't want to find the water chip? If someone finds the main quest in Morrowind as interesting as you find the main plot in FO, does that mean it's plot is as strong as Fallouts? If a player has no interest in the main quest in either game, does that mean the plot is a joke? If the game allows for you to discover that Mr Stupid is a spy (as opposed to you know Mr Stupid is a spy because you've played through once before), then it will probably give you the option to deal with it, and killing him may not be a good option, even if it seems that way from the players eyes. It's only bad design if the game doesn't allow you to act on the information in any way.

Killing characters when there is no in-game reason to kill them doesn't equal "thinking outside the box". Things like being unable to kill Gunther is poor design, yes, but the game shouldn't accomodate my desire to kill everyone is in UNATCO any more than it should allow me to go to JC's home and bake cookies for the rest of the game.

That's ironic that you didn't exclude yourself. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm just being honest.

+ Mosquito bites + This thread + Everyone posting in this thread* * Except kirottu, I only ever have love for kirottu.