Cl_Flushentityhero

ARMA 2 is pretty good. It delivers on what you would expect for a realistic shooter, and I've had fun with it. That said, I'm still looking forward to OFP2. Why? Because it promises to deliver tactical gameplay in an accessible package. ARMA 2 is rough around the edges; and not in an innocuous way. It puts a lot of strain on your system to draw relatively simple environments, your squad will ignore orders, glitches in mission scripting are the norm rather than the exception, and once the enemy AI has "seen you," it gains subhuman reaction times. Fortunately the same applies for friendly AI, so I "win" about half my engagements without seeing an enemy. OFP2 sounds like it's still hardcore, but hopefully in a less glitchy fashion. Lack of lean or cover functions is very disappointing, but I'm planning to get OFP2. First review score sounds a little . . . ambiguous though.

He said people expect it, not that they actually get it

You can get a refund from steam, you'd just lose Space Siege as well as the AP preorder.

Yeah, I don't think the "lack of competition" excuse is valid at such a distant date because it's unclear what will release next summer.

See? Delaying AP makes even Sam Fisher cry.

Color me skeptical on the quality of Risen. I'll go with Demon Souls though.

Are you kidding? That's all going into Napoleon

I'm offended by your mention of him mentioning you mentioning your pre-order cancellation. Cease and desist!

I think unless Obs was going to do something spectacular in those intervening months, it would not bode well for commercial success. The visuals would continue to age, Splinter Cell: Conviction is likely to set the bar for what people expect in a sneaking & shooting game in February, and the basic concept isn't getting any fresher with time. Unless they're dedicating that time to a complete reworking of the CQC, in which case I agree

People on this board pick some of the most unusual things to have a strong opinion on.

I suppose it depends on your willingness to powergame. I, for one, find the DDS games quite difficult.

I think it's important to distinguish between W(estern)RPGs and J(apanese)RPGs in such a discussion. JRPGs such as Demon Souls often are, and have been since the days of yore, ball-bustingly hard. Many of them also get good reviews in the states. That said, the core game design is typically very different from the sort of open-ended choice-based gameplay found in titles like Fallout and Baldur's Gate (prototypical WRPGs). With WRPGs, there really aren't that many of them by comparison. We get at most a few each year, which makes them kind of a specialized market to begin with. If somebody targets an extreme within that already small market such as difficulty, it could be such a small slice of the pie as to be commercially unsuccessful even if the game itself is good.

I could *maybe* see a market (however niche) for extremely challenging WRPGs, but I'm not sure that a mechanically ambitious shooter-RPG hybrid by a smaller developer still trying to stay afloat is the best place to start. That said, I think there's a pretty competent if nonstandard (among games) argument to made for a difficult first mission. I'm guessing he was referring to the one where MT wakes up disoriented with no idea where he is or what's happening. I could see deliberately making such a segment overwhelming in difficulty (compensating with frequent checkpoints) to put the player in the experience of being a rookie who is basically getting hazed.

I wasn't aware that playing a game 'meant something' in the greater scheme of things. Maybe it's different for you; and that explains why contrived difficulty imposed by the developers is okay but contrived difficulty imposed by players is not.

A) Play on a different difficulty B) Don't use your level-up skill points. The game will get challenging soon enough.

You can always play a cripple with no skills or stats.

Er, the same reason people make release countdown threads for games with clearly-defined ship dates?

I think it's still a little early to report sighting the four horsemen. That was a couple months ago, and I believe Sega put up the supposed Oct 6 date on their website *after* that meeting. Personally, I'm still holding out for an Oct 27th release until we either hear something or the date arrives.

I think free-roam/sandbox is a concept that, while in theory ideal, is somewhat overrated. Unless there's something to do in it, exploring a huge area has lost its novelty for me. It also consumes substantial developer resources for a gameplay feature that doesn't directly improve character or story in any way. I also note that they've axed the "leveling up makes your bullets stronger" mechanic, which I applaud.

This board was put in place for "speculation and discussion," and that's what they're doing. You can tell them to stop all you like, but you've given them no particularly good reason to listen to you.

Are you a console player by chance?

I read that they were looking for one for TW2.

Yeah, I've recently enjoyed playing back through (most of) the Witcher now that I have a computer that can run it well. As far as I'm concerned CDProjekt is the rising star of WRPGs (sorry Obs) as long as they can find a publisher.

Why does Geralt have a ponytail and a worse voice actor? From what I've seen the AP animations look pretty good, moreso with the canned stuff liked takedowns and jumping than with the standard movement/shooting/punching, but that's usually the case in games.

It's not true, it's not true! The only thing harder than waiting for AP's release date is realizing on the day that you have to wait almost another month