entrerix

if AOD doesn't suck I will be amazed. don't get me wrong, I want it to be awesome, but really, who are we kidding here...

but the initial decision to take out friendly fire was because it was decided that people were too stupid to figure out how it worked?

i'm still not sure I understand Dagons complaint... 1. you were upset that you were ordered to kill the BOS by NCR 2. instead of trying to find a way to have the BOS team up with NCR (which is actually possible and is included in the game) you joined up with yes man 3. then when yes man turned out to be a real bastard you got upset about that too? (even though he was programmed at the will of Benny, the most two-faced bastard in the whole game? so it shouldnt have been surprising at all when yes man began making some ... decisions for you) if you loved the BOS so much why didn't you try harder to make them allies with the NCR? I think the only person you should be upset with is yourself for failing your allies, or the character who lied to you and told you that the BOS had to be wiped out. could obsidian have made the game without any characters in it who betray you and/or lie to you? sure, but the game would have been worse for it.

the only game i will buy on DAY 1 is diablo 3. just because I feel confident that it will be worth the full price i'll most likely get mass effect 3 on day 1 as well, i've come this far, and I loved ME 2. all the other games I will wait for some reviews first. just to make sure I don't pay full price for a half baked game. I'm glad i bought and played alpha protocol, but it only cost me $7.50, not $60.

just finished battlefield bad company 2. quite an enjoyable lil shooter for $7. I tried the multiplayer for about 30 minutes, it feels just like battlefield 2, and I played that for a few weeks back in the day but don't feel the need to do more of it. if i ever get the urge for a shooty session i'll probably play some more of it, or just go back to team fortress 2. Side note: bad company 2 campaign is absolutely better than CoD world at war, but is probably not quite as good as CoD: MW or MW 2. played just cause 2 for a few hours, verdict: a little too mindless for my taste, its really insane when you think about how big the world is and how crazy it feels to fly around it and parachute around etc, but the actual "game" part was uninteresting to me. Red Faction: Guerrilla did a MUCH better job in creating a compelling experience. played FEAR for a little while. nice atmosphere, boring levels/enemies. i need more compelling reasons to play a fps than what were given to me. I just didn't care about what was happening and the game wasn't fun enough on its own to make me keep playing it, i'd rather replay half life or something. note: I am experiencing severe deja vu right now, and in my deja vu (sp?) i said these exact comments about the same games last year, which is impossible. just started another game of dragon age. I got the ultimate edition because I wanted to try awakenings and it came with all the dlc included so what the heck. I'm going for an elf peasant rogue, and will probably take leliana (but use a mod to make her a mage), morrigan, and either alistair, sten, or dog. I've played once with alistair in party already, but I actually like his dialogue and sten seems a little dull.

this is becoming less and less true every year though. Cliff bleszinki, shigeru miyamoto, hideo kojima, etc, and some studios are getting the same type of recognition as a named director of film might, ie bioware is getting a major reputation amongst mainstream gamers because of mass effect. its not hard to imagine in a few years a studio like bioware getting the chance to make a riskier game because they can sell a certain % of copies simply because the box says "biowares next game" on it.

i'm really hoping they do 3-5 decent dlc packs that tell a sequential story and then bundle that together as an expansion pack. would be neato. preferably with another big area to search through ala point lookout. also, i want confirmation that obisidian is going to make fallout 4.5 so I have something to look forward to playing in 4 years

new vegas is by far my favorite rpg of the year, then ME 2, then AP/demons souls can tie for #3. ranked by hours spent you get: new vegas = 176 mass effect = 41 Demons souls = 37 AP = 8

that ign review is totally strange, from reading it I expected the score at the end to say 8 or 9, since it sounds amazing, and then he whines about some bugs and gives it a 6.5 that site seems to be going downhill, ive noticed a few writers there getting lazy or sloppy, and some of the new hires are just plain bad journalists.

thats the whole point though, I do care, but I don't know why, and was curious if anyone else felt similarly. obviously you don't (probably too cynical to care about anything...

Most gamers at some point develop feelings of shame around the hobby, either shame that it takes up too much time, shame that the hobby is so often childish, or shame that they spend too much money on frivolity. well this thread is a place to voice such feelings and more my own personal shame is a weird one, it's the shame of not liking a game I feel I SHOULD like, either because it looks like my kind of game, or because I have heard so many great things about said game. How is it I can feel pressure to enjoy something when the only people saying I MUST enjoy it are online blogs and gaming sites? is this something wrong with me or do others feel the same way on occasion? Here are the games which I feel most wrong for not loving. In no particular order: Okami: I love zelda. flat out love it. one of my favorite games of all time is Zelda OOT. I bought okami on release, got halfway through it, then put it down and haven't picked it up since. I just got bored with it. Yet I cannot compel myself to remove it from my backlog of "must play games", because I hear it referenced still as being a wonderful game. God of War: I actually beat the first game and when it was over thought to myself "this game kinda sucked, why is it so popular?" sounds like the end of the story right? wrong! I proceeded to buy part 2, never play it, and now have part 3 on my amazon wishlist. Devil May Cry: I loved the first one. now I have part 4 and can't bring myself to play it for more than 5 minutes without shutting it off in frustration. the game is not fun at all, its boring as hell, just mashing attack over and over again against badly designed enemies. why do I feel this way? how come everyone talks about this game like its awesome? Alan Wake: I JUST got this, played it for 3 hours, and am already insanely bored with it. I LOVE silent hill 2, its one of my favorite horror games. Alan Wake just feels lame and simplistic, shadow enemies that need to be flashlighted to death? sounds kinda neat right? wrong it sucks. but I really want to experience the game because I love horror stories so much... I SHOULD love this, I love stephen king, i liked the xfiles (seasons 1-3 anyway), and I love silent hill Persona 4: am I the only person on the planet who gets hella depressed playing this?? the main character juggles time between studying, playing games, making friends, karaoke, and saving the world. I meanwhile am just sitting in front of my screen watching this guy experience a full life. This game makes me want to stop playing video games. the strange part? Persona 2 is one of my favorite rpgs. Dawn of War 2: this game is boring. I played it for about 10 hours and am just bored to death by how repetitive it is. I LOVE warhammer 40k, it rocks, I really liked company of heroes. Why don't I like this? CoD: world at war: unplayable dreck. I love CoD 4 and Modern Warfare 2. LOVE THEM. I bought this game a few weeks ago and can't play it for more than a few minutes without wanting to stab myself in the eye. the level's are so linear I can't even flank the people Im fighting against. Why do I only notice it here and not in ANY other shooters? I don't even notice linearity in ME2 and yet in this game it is incredibly distracting. The Longest Journey: ok, this one is a bit different, the only adventure game I had ever played was the recently released monkey island remake. I really liked it but relied heavily on the hint system cause I don't have the patience to figure out some of the very random obscure pixel hunting trial and error puzzle solutions. well, longest journey was intriguing to me for about two levels when i got frustrated by how ridiculously complex something as simple as getting a cop to turn around for 30 seconds so I can walk into any alleyway is. It didn't feel realistic or immersive at all, instead it felt arbitrary and forced. interest was totally lost. and now for the king daddy of them all: Metroid Prime. This game is considered by many to be one of the best gamecube games of all time. I hate it. the controls suck, the levels are ugly and repetitive, and the story is non-existent. I don't want to explore these ruins because I have no reason to and they are not nearly compelling enough on their own to inspire me. I feel like I'm speaking blasphemy though when i read about other people's thoughts on the game. Resident evil 4 was a gamecube game that I played nonstop for hours and hours and loved every moment of it. metroid prime? i think i lasted about 6 hours before giving up on it. and one counter example: Halo. I have played halo 1-3. I hate them all*. The level design is uniformly bland or outright bad. the colors are garish, the designs for enemies is either silly or uninspired. the rest of it feels like a ripoff of other sci-fi stuff that i actually like. I used to feel strange for not liking halo, now I don't care, I have given the series WAY more than a fair shake, and still hate it. So now I am guilt free in my dislike for Halo, and only felt a MILD compulsion to buy reach, which i was able to overcome by buying a bunch of other games that I can now feel guilty about not playing for a year while I chip at my backlog. * ok hate is a strong word, i just think they are the very definition of mediocre console fps gaming. The only thing I genuinely like about halo only applies to the first game, the advent of regenerating health in fast paced action games. I think it moved the genre forward and a little to the side. i'm sure no one has answers for me, as this is all very much my own problem and is built around very subjective thoughts, but I figure that other people here might have similar feelings about some games and maybe some discussion of the phenomenon would lead to some catharsis.

so dark its like it pre-exists existence.

also guns blazing IS a totally valid playstyle if you are liberal with the gep gun and grenades.

dude, you were fighting hell demon nazi's on mars. darkezzt game ev0r!

yeah ok, i might agree on doom, unless you consider the novelizations canon.

yes and no. combat was hard in that ONE mistake meant you were dead, which is rare in modern games (but oh so common in games of the past) so yeah quicksaving would have been great because that mistake would mean you wouldn't lose tons of progress everytime, but it would still mean you were dying with some regularity, or at least were almost being killed at every turn.

much earlier some of us were theorizing a potential hd update to the game and how awesome that would be. deus ex is king of the shooter/rpg hybrid. the only games that come close are system shock 2 and now new vegas, but new vegas feels very different as its more focused on open world exploration. i'm going to play deus ex for the millionth time the week before the new game comes out, so i can judge the new game fairly without too much nostalgia-goggle effect.

i agree with purkake. and with people who said diablo is darker than diablo 2. this is facts. also i do not agree with people who say diablo is all about multiplayer. I've put probably 100-300 hours into diablo 1, and at least that much into diablo 2, and i hate multiplayer in those games. the only times i move my character into an online realm is to trade, which i wouldnt even be forced to do if they let you share a stash between your own characters. nonetheless diablo to me has always been a very atmospheric action game with rpg stats and more loot than all the loot ever before the creation of diablo. its like what D&D is to a powergamer/munchkin, a chance to kill monsters and collect loot. to me, the single greatest thing about diablo other than the insanely fun/addictive gameplay, is the music and design of diablo 1, unfortunately it looks like that game will forever remain unique in that regard as diablo 2 was a multicolored explosion of pixels, and diablo 3 is forsaking gothic gloom for varied landscapes in hopes of pulling in a larger audience. i mean come on: the entire first game took place inside a church corrupted by evil, each level was one level deeper into the bowels of the church cellars and catacombs until you found a literal crack in the floor which leads you to hell. games don't get any more dark than that.

not at all. you essentially control a single fleet of ships for the entire game. I don't want to say more for fear of spoiling it, but suffice to say its one of the best pc games ever made.

to niten: i have a feeling that is the future of gaming actually. games with top notch writing, shooting, and stealth, all optional. (ok maybe not top notch writing) don't like a conversation? hit the right trigger to shoot whoever is talking, cue firefight. don't like shooting? its ok you can sneak and/or talk your way through the whole game? want to mix and match? no problem. i mean, deus ex did it first, but the formula seems so obviously awesome that its bound to be where gaming goes, genres are already smashing together like crazy, levelling up in CoD, fps style shooting in bioware "rpgs". mark my words, in ten years most blockbusters will be like this. if you want an actual niche genre game you will be forced to buy indie. everyone will believe me when the next big CoD type franchise (probably not an existing one, will be a new IP) will be like CoD but with some dialogue and choices to make in the game

i think the main think that would stick out about deus ex today would be the ai. assuming the graphics were updated then some people might whine about how they can't hit anything until they level up the shooty skills, but i don't think anyone would play it without questioning the enemy ai

i like the alpha protocol and deus ex method of calculating aim and accuracy and damage etc based on skill points, but i also like how it works in new vegas, raising the skill raises primarily the damage, and your ability to most effectively use the better guns in the category. I think its one of the best ways i've seen the problem handled, because it also makes it so the gun skills aren't always 10x more worthy of skill points than the non-combat skills, since you can still be effective with a low skill in the weapon. ie: the pc starts out good at everything, but can choose to become a master of only a few. instead of 1) the pc starting out as crap at everything and then choosing to become OK at everything, or 2) master of a couple and still crap with the rest

i agree, previews nowadays read like press releases instead of the impressions of the previewer.

after reading all that explanation I am 100% ok with the change. it was done for very clear and logical reasons.