pmp10

There was nothing adult or mature in Doom/Quake that would not be found in Doom3/Quake4. Games have always been aimed at youth as they are by far the largest audience.

Rushed through Kingdoms of Amalur. Started of nicely but never got anywhere fun. With setting that's MMO-level of dull and a combat system which never evolves past the tutorial I wouldn't recommend it.

He just described effect of a random spawn on narrative. I'd say Levine has a far better point. Games have become so predictable in their pandering to player egomania that reversing the trend makes for a great shock.

Epic Games working on a PC-exclusive title. At this point I can only imagine that it's Unreal Tournament remade into f2p browser game.

I'm all for discussing cultural exposure but take issue with the notion that we can 'experience' cultures and events from the past by the means of any form of entertainment. The experiences we are presented are tailored for mass-consumption and as such will never make a serious attempt to present reality - it's all good to have fun with them as long we don't confuse them with the real thing. And I think the way such thing are presented is very educational in and of itself. You can clearly see our own biases and prejudices when you look at all the topics that are 'no-go' in a computer game.

The whole anti-used games rumors suggest that both consoles will feature some kind of online checks. I just don't understand how MS hopes to implement it - they sell thousands of consoles in countries that are not supported via Live. Maybe those rumors are for dev-kits only?

Pre-order bonuses? There's nothing in the game (apart from the Missing Link mission) that you couldn't get for free with some version of the game day1. In fact, in most of Europe, all preorder versions included all bonuses. So that's fine for those that bought preorder versions in Europe. The rest has to pay extra to enjoy remotely detonated explosives and automatic unlock devices. Since the former should help with badly done boss-fights and the later with absurd over reliance on hacking mini-game I consider their lack a serious omission.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Surprisingly solid despite few obvious blunders. What is worrying however is that devs felt the need to remove useful in-game items and sell them as DLC. Hopefully that trend won't catch on as it clearly impacted overall quality and balance.

Now that's confusing. I thought Obsidian was thinking on kick-starting a project of their own.

Aneutronic fusion temperature reached. Pretty interesting but don't believe any of the garage generator nonsense.

New Vegas Complete Edition - could finally finish the remaining DLCs. I'd essentially agree with reviews - DM is repeatable, LR tedious, HH interesting but short. Only OWB is forgiven all it's faults due to writing and humor. And while on the subject of writing - what's going on with MCA character design lately? Some of his NPCs are starting to feel artificial - like some sort of proxies for a philosophical debate with a serious dose of pathos and fatalism. I've caught myself thinking repeatedly that the 'right' thing to do would be to mercifully put them down as they can't possibly survive in a world such as this.

Good to see that NIF is having some success with the laser. Too bad the whole "fusion" thing isn't working out for them.

Dose that even make sense given that payments supposedly stopped months ago? The project was being developed for not-yet-existent console. It was always bound to be a risk - no need to look for a conspiracy behind it.

Saints Row the Third. It's still fun as a sandbox and PC port is reasonable this time around. Sadly the whole storyline/mission aspect took a major turn for the worse.

Consider this: the Borderlands PC version sucked. People hated it (the port, not the game). This is just as much sending the message "We won't screw it up this time" to people that have played the first title. Also those kind of features are getting increasingly less common. If that was their intention it'd be much better to promise push-to-talk and FOV control instead. Vsync comes close to text chat in the list of features PC gamers took for granted.

There was Return to Krondor and Betrayal at Antara. And as much as I love BaK I doubt you can make a remake work as modern wrpg. It simply had no place for the choice and customization that (supposedly) are essential today.

For one thing they singlehandedly brought down FASA which was huge back in the day. Apparently it has something to do with Microsoft corporate culture - it was heavily criticized by former FASA director as hostile to development of any entertainment. The lessons of that debacle apparently resulted in Bungie running away rather than suffering similar fate. It's been considered for weeks now so I imagine Obsidian knows what would be their choice for such a project. The inxile kickstarter didn't even include a single piece of concept art so the only barrier I can see is in the realms of finance.

Quite surprising that it would be Microsoft - Obsidian should be aware what their track record with developers is. Stranger still - no kickstarter announced. You'd think this the perfect time to cash-in on internet sympathy as well as gamer nostalgia.

Any hints who the publisher was supposed to be? It'd be interesting if it's THQ considering the South Park situation.

So you mean that FPP games (thanks to denying player information he should not posses) can actually induce tension and perhaps even fear in ways 3rd person games can't? Logically then they are far better at conveying any stealth/horror experience.

Can't say I found the games all that similar. Gothic/Risen is the typical PC attempt at the sandbox with unrestricted saving/loading. Dark Souls is like an mix between console adventure game and an MMO - one screw up and hours of progress might need redoing.

Good that the PC only guys will get to play this. Especially if your a masochist. If it gets quicksave it'll be much easier. This is a game that quite deliberately lacks a pause option. Something tells me that quicksave is not in the plans. A good trainer could help it tho.

He also added another line: "In my mind video games need to have the goal of educating people, entertaining people, or at least being artistic[...]" You'd think that the entertaining part pretty much covers all games made today.

The problem is that those mechanics either evolved or died off - and it happened for a reason. I see no good reason to scorn modern game design or avoid wider audiences available today. If anything it should be preferable to update the mechanics and keep the best parts of older games intact - then they can appeal to both groups.

Nice try but no gaming system required learning the complexity that was juggling various types of memory on a DOS PC. Amiga users had the worst case of all to call anyone "intellectually challenged". And while we're at 20 year old system wars the king was always ZX Spectrum.