Oblarg

They're not incompatible, but the former is more important to the films than the latter. You have to focus more on the personal motivations than on the sinister neocolonialism.

I actually had the opposite response. This is why I think working on real-world games with real-world problems and themes is important. People are more likely to take games seriously if they deal with actual problems instead of vaguely displaced angst. Not that all games have to be serious (or be taken seriously) of course, but it would nice for a few of them to be. Yeah, but I don't think a "lone agent on the run" spy game really fits into that vein. If you're going with that theme, you have to develop the individual characters and their motivations above all else.

The AI looks really bad in that video. You blew up a propane tank, and the guy in the next room had no idea anything wrong was happening. Towards the end, mike was in cover and someone was just standing there with his gun pointed at the cover. Enemies should actively try to flank you when you're in cover. The AI is no better and no worse than in any other action-based game. In fact, I think the AI works just fine for these gameplay purposes. I just hope that when playing non-god, Thorton goes relatively fast down if he wants to play rambo, and enemies won't go down that fast. But I suppose for demonstration purposes, Matthew played it on Easy. The reaction time was abysmally slow, and they seemed VERY dense.

Fun stuff. Graphics look real good now, actually - everything fits together well. 02.00-04.00: First thing I notice about the gunfights is how sluggish/slow the enemies seem here - like they're pretty thick guys. They don't shoot instantly when they see you, and if you're competent with your aiming and reactions (like the previewer was) you end up taking them down quite easily even in gung-ho mode. Of course they're meant to be distracted by Sie's men, but you'd want them to be a lot sharper in anything more than default difficulty. Making the AI have a wild burst in your direction as soon as they get shot (i.e. you get shot from the left, you're going to spray some bullets looking left THEN see what's happening, not turn around, have a look then decide to shoot or not) would help. 2.30-3.00, 4.30-5.00: Interface looks clean, sharp and responsive. All good stuff. Wish it looked a little less sterile and with more personality, but ah well. That's a complaint I've had since the KOTOR and NWN series. 04.00: The hacking thing, where you're meant to pick out the right nodes that are on the end of twisted lines; cool, but once again the biggest thing about these minigames is, you want them to be in real-time. You don't want them taking up the entire screen, you want to be able to swivel your camera and see everyone still run around as you're trying to solve this puzzle; and if anyone attacks you you're interrupted. I think we can be 99% certain that time stops when you play these minigames now - and that's rubbish. I wonder what happens if you fail? Does the thing lock you out and you can never get past the door (or need to find another way)? That at least would be a redeeming factor. If you can try as many times as you want, then the minigames have zero positive contribution to the game. 5.00: A thousand African children spontaneously combust as our intrepid hero witnesses arrow markers for characters showing through walls. Nooooooooo 5.17: Probably what Will was talking about, nearly 2 seconds of the guy pointing the gun at your head and not firing. If that is not just for the press preview there will be bloody crates all over come October. 5.28: You can see one of the enemies on the tower get 'stuck' next to the railing, running against the railing on the spot while the scope swivels wildly. Not a big deal though, as he soon un-sticks himself. They still take longer to shoot you than the Americans take to issue green cards. 7.17: "R" to leap over. Jumping is not allowed everywhere, then? Hrmmm. 8.00-9.00, 9.23: Despite what some preview hinted at recently, health does not seem to regenerate automatically over time. Unless it only does when you're in cover, which would make.... not much sense. So hopefully none of that nonsense. Health kit use at 9.23 shows that the health bonus is almost instantaneous - and the menu where you choose it pauses the game anyway, so you can abuse health kits while being hit. 9.30-10.00, 10.45: You suspect that if you were able to turn off those markers and arrows, even with the torpid AI and easy difficulty in the preview, the game would be a lot more fun and exciting for the player - navigating trying to find them all. I'm sure it will be possible...hell, in 10.45 the previewer sees the red arrow behnd a door, waits for the enemy to kick it open and shoots him in the face. I like what I'm seeing with AP in general (okay, so maybe that's not so obvious from this post, but I do), but that is just plain retarded. 12.00-13.00: 'Boss fight' really is a boss fight, complete with special enemy maneuvres (flying fox) and a giant boss health bar in the middle of your face. I don't mind it that much, to be honest. 14.30: Good mission ending screens, stats are always good. I wonder if the mission shown here is indicative of how large or long other missions will be? It would be nice for some to be much bigger. Generally, same things that we/I knew would be silly are turning out to be silly - magic markers/arrows for enemies, minigames that freeze you in time, sluggish AI. Still looks pretty and fun. I think the arrows should be a special ability on a cooldown, maybe "awareness" or something like that. Definitely hope they aren't on by default. The boss fight doesn't bug me, either. The AI really needs to be better. Faster reaction times, less stupid, more active.

I think, in hard mode at least, health pools should be vastly lowered or damage vastly increased, for both Mike and his enemies. I hate being able to soak 15 bullets to the chest, or shooting an enemy in the face 20 times before he drops to the ground. In addition, hard mode AI should actively search for Mike when alerted to his presence (looking behind cover, etc.), and actively try to move to get an open shot if they know his exact position. I hate passive AI that stands there waiting for you to do something.

AI needs a good bit of work.

This can be alleviated by having the awareness decline as you get further from the action in a continuous manner, and having alertness to Mike's presence not equate to knowing where Mike is (which it seems is already a feature).

Its stated that that is one of the early levels in the game which the enemies have much poorer range of sight and hearing in comparison to later levels. Which I think its alright as I believe that the first couple levels of the game shouldn't be too punishing for a new player as they still need to adjust to the gameplay style. Though I think that at the train yard scene where MT had to move the crane, there is a sense of breaking illusion as he uses a non-silenced rifle to take down enemies in the same area yet the ones on the second level in plain sight were not alerted to it. I hope Obsidian would continue tuning it since its simply still in Alpha stage. This really bugged me, along with the aforementioned obliviousness to the tank exploding, and the enemy during the fight with SIE who just sat there staring at Mike's cover when he could have been able to shoot Mike had he moved a few steps forward. It seems to me that there are some arbitrary boundaries between "sections" of enemies, and you can only alert one section to your presence at a time with one action. I don't like this design scheme. Also, when the enemy is alerted to Mike's presence, they should actively start looking behind possibly cover in an attempt to find Mike. If they know Mike's position in a firefight, they should try to get an open shot rather than waiting passively for Mike to pop up. I also hope that the demo was in easy mode, and that you (and your opponents) can't soak 20-30 bullets on hard difficulty, it really breaks immersion. Overall, the combat looks fun, but needs some polishing.

The AI looks really bad in that video. You blew up a propane tank, and the guy in the next room had no idea anything wrong was happening. Towards the end, mike was in cover and someone was just standing there with his gun pointed at the cover. Enemies should actively try to flank you when you're in cover.

Yes, they can. Pistol scopes can be mounted on revolvers or semi-autos and typically have a much lower magnification than rifle scopes. Pistol scopes are often used for hunting. They look incredibly goofy. Will we have the option of a simple laser sight mounted under the barrel?

That's what I thought, as well. But it's not.

This is why desaturating colors in Russia to make it seem more "cold" is a bad idea.

During one of the gameplay videos, the weapon mod was named "pistol laser sight" or something like that, and it was a scope on top of a pistol. That's just silly. Pistols don't use scopes.

It looks kind of goofy, I think. I hope they're not incredibly good, because I'd rather not use one, it would make me feel silly.

I don't know who or what Stardock is. Somebody mentioned online activation for patches, though? Well that's no better than any other form of online activation, is it? I'd certainly call that intrusive. But I also think Steam is intrusive (for exactly the same reason). I really don't like the concept of online activation. You wouldn't accept it for a music CD or a movie DVD, now would you? You don't need the patches to play the game. At all. The patches are just balance changes and sometimes new content. In addition, once you download the patch, you still don't need to authenticate to play the game. The fact is you can install SoaSE and play no matter what. There is virtually no DRM, yet it still sold tons of copies.

This is true. Only two weapons can be brought into a mission. Are there any situations in which you can only bring a pistol, say, meeting someone at a public location?

Co-op simply does not work with the plot, you'd need an entirely different story. A deathmatch mode for a RPG is simply dumb.

Sounds like it was leaked. That's not the fault of DRM. Sins of a Solar Empire is one of the most successful recent PC games, in terms of both copies sold and reviews. It has no DRM. If I am not mistaken, Sins of a Solar Empire requires players to log in and validate their copy of game using their Impulse software to download patches for the game. It wasn't always this way but I believe was added for one of the big patches. EDIT: And as I upgrade my Impulse Client, it tells me I need IE7 for it to run properly. Yes, you need to validate for the patches, but then again, I'm sure a really devoted pirate could pirate the patches. The simple fact is, you can use a pirated version, or even just a friends disk, and play the game without any sort of validation whatsoever, and yet SoaSE has still managed to be a very successful game. Stardock's view is thus: People will pirate, and the goal should not to be preventing piracy so much as selling games, and in that respect DRM hinders more than it helps.

No.

Ew, dragonforce. at least it wasn't Through the Fire and Flames so sick of that damn song.... Dragonforce gives power metal a bad reputation.

This game is as similar to Mass Effect as Mass Effect is to Gears of War.

KotOR3, if only... not happening ever, sadly.

I must say, those menus are sexy.

This is by far the most epic post I have read in a forum today.

Seconded. The main problem with the demo footage was that it looked far too easy. I want to have to use cover and be smart about fighting to win.