Promethean

Have you tried Max Payne 2 with the cinematic mod?

Guess I just joined at the wrong time then. I just followed a couple people here from NeoGAF.

Console gamers seem to loathe thinking, if we want to play that, heh. From what consoles have done to my beloved Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, I can pretty much say games do get dumbed down. They have to appeal to a broad market after all. It started because the Xbox brought in PC devs to consoles. Controllers are much more limited then the kb/m setup, so games are streamlined. The console also cant handle the same kind of games as PC can. An obvious example would be Thief III. They upped the graphics, but in order to fit it on Xbox, the level were smaller, more linear. A PC could have handled that jump in graphics while retaining the larger areas of Thief 1&2. Though that doesnt explain crap like Deus Ex 2. That was just stupid design decisions that they thought would work better for a console audience, but no one ended up liking.

I haven't played Bloodlines, and I don't remember Arcanum's writing well enough to compare (although it not being particularly memorable isn't a positive indicator). But at the very least, FO3's writing is a ****ton better than the alleged writing that went into ToEE. That game's dialogue and storytelling was memorable for all the wrong reasons. ToEE was bad. I dont know what they were thinking. Arcanum is good as far as it wouldnt cause you to groan like, say, the intelligence skill checks in FO3. Bloodlines as wonderful dialogue and characters. Its also comes with the best facial animation I've seen in an RPG thus far, at least for expressiveness. Plus playing Malkavian gives you completely different dialogue and a fair bit of different responses from the vanilla text. Nosferatu also have a bunch of different dialogue choices and responses. The other clans get some here and there but Mitsoda mostly concentrated on Malks and Nosferatu, since they had obvious reasons to get different choices and response. So it makes replaying highly rewarding.

The fact the ideas were never implemented doesnt make FO3's good. Also keep the narcissism comments to yourself when you put up an air of superiority. I'm amazed you cant grasp the idea of liking things in one unpolished product (Bloodlines) while disliking things in another unpolished product (FO3). I can be demanding of Bethesda since I'm a consumer and because they spout enough PR bullcrap they dont deliver on that it would foolish not to be critical of them. I dislike what they pander. I did like the things Troika did. The fact that one has commercial success and the other didnt has little bearing on me except I'll keep getting the thing I dislike until something changes. Though I do have interest in AoD, since it seems to have a similar design as Fallout. Plus its not like I can criticize Troika anymore as they are gone. It wouldnt do any good. So all I can do it enjoy the stuff they did do. Beth is still around. They made Daggerfall and Morrowind, games I liked. So I'll criticize until they start moving back towards stuff that doesnt reek of a dumping pile of ideas that were poorly implemented. With Troika, I knew I was getting at least one really well done and enjoyable aspect (Arcanum with C&C and character building, ToEE with combat, and Bloodlines with a bunch of things). With Bethesda lately it just seems to be lets throw **** at a wall and hope something sticks. Its Deus Ex done completely wrong.

Thats because the Codex is hate central. It probably like a conduit of unholy inspiration for him.

I enjoyed all three troika games. And regardless of whether the plot was hokum or not, it was still far more interesting than FO3 plot. And it had many ideas I would have liked to see attempted. Yes, I had more fun reading the design docs for Van Buren than actually experiencing FO3 main quest line outside of Tranquility Lane, one of the few well designed quests in the game. It, at least, was different and somewhat creative. I also wonder why you are bring that sales post up again when I wasnt talking about sales. Or why you are bring Arcanum up again when I told you the first time I didnt play that game for the plot. I said it wasnt bad, but thats not why I played it. Unlike you, I did enjoy its C&C and complex quest chains, as well as the character building. Unlike Fallout 3 were I disliked all major aspects of it. I feel you are half arguing with my post and half arguing someone else in the thread, as if I'm some avatar or symbol of old Fallout love.

This is also one of the standard easy escapes a la Codex/NMA. Of course Van Buren would be perfect.. in your mind. It was never made. It might have been crappier than Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel or it might have been the greatest game ever made, we will never know. My guess would be the former, otherwise it might have actually gotten made. But it's very convenient to take an unmade game as an example of the perfect game. Thats wonderful logic. Or a lack therefore of. And I'm sure Interplay's legendary mismanagement had nothing to do with it. And dont act like I'm saying Van Buren would have been hot ****. Its not like Dark Alliance and CoN turned out to be good. It plot and ideas were definitely more intriguing than FO3's retarded water plot though.

I'm betting ES V gets a spring release, like IV, in 2011

Hey thats sounds like another game I know...

You playing light side, dark side, power gamer side?

Everyone except you, kirottu. Dunno what you did but he wasnt happy.

I disagree. It's much hard to write an okay 70k story than a good 10k one. I'd bet that it takes more effort and resources to create 7 unique but only decent animations than 2 unique and very good animations. I'd guess that Fallout 3's spread out world took more time, money, manpower, and other resources than Fallout 2's more compact but better quality world. If quantity is so easy, why do we get 15 hour games? Anyone could merely hack out an extra 30 hours of content, after all. Because plenty of people like shorter games especially since a lot of gamers are getting older and dont have as much time to get through games. Dev costs and asset creation time keeps rising, and there is a trend in the industry towards putting MP and coop in every game. That development is no longer on the single players game. Just take a look at RE5 vs RE4. RE4 was a massive action game, 20 hours a playthrough is no joke. RE5 is less then half that, but it has coop and MP. Plus there is increased pressure to churn out games on a yearly or biyearly basis. Not a condusive environment towards longer games.

Bethesda employees are masters of hype and bull**** PR. They know how to sell a product.

But that wouldnt allow for the instant gratification the masses want.

A direct stab at Fallout 3 (and KotOR)

I agree with this. Thief 1 and 2 were two of the only games I ever played where I found the very linear mission approach really well done. And it was. The missions were just fantastic and I looked forward to each one and what they would reveal. Can this quality be repeated though? Wouldn't place money on it. I wouldnt place money on anything in game development these days unless is was for them to **** something up

There will always be a market for games I want to see. Its just tool and asset cost need to go down first for a medium level indie scene like in cinema starts up.

Well thats really what the games in that model are all about, that being the quests and the myriad of ways to solve them. And the fact that there many ways to play through the game. Its not about deep, philosophical characters or battles of wits with NPCs. Yes, the writing isnt great. But to call it horrible is either to not know what horrible game writing looks like or horribly pretentious. Not every game is trying to be an Avellonian deconstruction of ideas and cliches.

I dont see what was so bad about Arcanum's writing. The companion were dry sometimes but not offensively so like FO3. Comparing it to ToEE makes me question your mental facilities. Also you exaggerate the mod scene. Usually there is a big key mod or fixpack and then superfluous patches surrounding that. And why are you adding o's and extras s's onto things. It makes you points more annoying to read.

Right because the only good patches are official patches. I find that rich given this is an Obsidian forum and RPG centric. The world of Arcanum was plenty interesting especially since it did a better job of reacting to your background, race, gender, profession and actions then any game I know of. And it actually made you play a role unlike plenty of other games that call themselves RPGs.

They fixed a **** ton of stuff in Arcanum. They've even started tackling the interface issues.

It take a lot longer to go 20-30 then 1-20

Mediocre gameplay. Reminds me of another RPG dev I like...