Niten_Ryu

E3 shaky cam part 1 E3 shaky cam part 2 Looking good, even in this stage. I'm not sure about all those cinamatic takedowns as they interupt the flow of the game but I guess I get used to 'em.

Personally I'm not a fan of GUI elements in-game mode as for example in case of Spinter Cell, I'd play black and white game most of the time. We had black and white TV till early 80's and I'd rather not see that return

This is a good thing in my book. I guess you could explain it away with cybernetic augmentation, but still seems like unnecessary hand-holding in a game where stealth is just one alternative. I don't se how it's handhelding as it's basic GUI aid. Same way as health meter, armor meter, damage location, compass, friend / enemy targeting color, minimap, item quickslots ect ect.

After my lastest Alpha Potocl run, I started DeusEx run, for the first time in several years. While there's tons of problems in Alpha Protocols way of handling stealth, combat and skill mechancis, it's definately clear that several things in DeusEx wouldn't work nowadays. Augmentations drain juice way too fast. Most of 'em should be passive. Way the skills work are outdated too as there are no real special abilities gained from increasing 'em. Combat work way worse then I remembered. Stealth takedowns (before getting melee skill high enough or correct augmentation) are more of less unrealible. There's also no light / noise meter (I think Thief use 'em and later Splinter Cell) and thus it's sometimes frustrating to plan movement correctly. Targeting with ranged weapons is bad (funny, I used to think it worked just fine). First you're inaccurate even if you stay put and then you magically gain perfect aiming if wait enough. You can move your aim around and it won't affect the accuracy. If you move, then aim resets and it's inaccurate again. Also I could use modern ironsight aim when holding right mouse down or Alpha Protocol (and many other games) type of over the shoulder aim. Oh yeah, did I already say that levels of DeusEx are REALLY dark (and ugly, even by 2000's standards). Storyline, characters, setting, alternative routes to certain goal, music and voice acting still rock and could be used in remake without edits. And I've always liked the way they recycle levels in DeusEx and I'm glad that so many games today use it as cut cutting methoid.

Nope, just tons of generic MMOGs from Korea and some superhero crap. I don't know why people found it funny that KotOR Online might get good subscriber numbers. Good numbers don't need to be Blizzards scale, just one tenth of it would do just fine.

Today: Mirror's Edge 3,74

While MMOG players go thru content really fast, I doubt average subscriber will quit that fast, even if they only play it like original KotOR games (if it's true that there's enough content to make KotORs 1-9 ). I plan to play/level at least few characters thru the story, probably more depending on how unique different class quests are. Unless KotOR Online is really good multiplayer game, I don't plan to keep active subsciption while waiting new singleplayer storylines.

It's not Kotor it's ToR. And it has nothing to do with graphical quality, but art style... that cartoonish style just looks bad in my eyes, no matter how they wanna put it. It'll always be KotOR online for me Art direction is always a subject of debate but IMO it very close to the original KotOR games and I can't think of games from 2004 that would look good today (maybe otuside WoW).

KotOR online went with Blizzard route and smartly chose low poly models circa 2004. High poly models just don't work when there can be 100s of characters in the same area. Also it's vital that MMOG can be played on POS computers and laptops. For a PC gamer, this years E3 was absolutely horrible. KotOR online is 2011 release if their schedule hold and Warhammer 40k online is 2012. Most other games were casual / motion control crap that can't even be made for PC and other half was ya olde consoled FPS (that'll get bad PC ports). For example in eurogamer PC news there's barely anything. PC gaming is dead as disco. Also in this years E3 there were no Rockstar games, only Portal 2 from Valve (no word on episode 3 or next Half-Life). Blizzard of course skipped the event like they have done in last x years and even Bioware didn't announce any new games, just another crappy DLC for the Dragon Age.

FANBOY! Seriously, you talk like the serious flawed driving mechanic of GTA IV is an improvement. I can't take fanboys like you serious. Now could we please all agree with me, since, you know, I am right... (See how good this argumentation works? ) It's not actually what we players consider as improvements, but what developers and publishers think. Rockstar made only slight changes on how driving works from GTA3 to Vice City to San Andreas. For GTA4, they used focus group testing, different physics setting and spend a lot of time and resources to find out what could be improved. After the game was released (and sold over 17 million units so far), many players didn't like the changes. For some reason or the other, what developers thought to be improvement, turned out to be failure for the players. It could be perception issue, it could be learning curve or the fact that driving, for some reason or other, don't feel fun for 'em. Personally I can do amazing tricks in GTA4 and drive without geting damaged but majority can't do it. They prefer driving mechanics from the previous GTAs (or perhaps from some other games). All this could be said from shooting mechanics in FPS. In early days of the genre, there were huge fights what game actually did 'em best. When I played Quakeworld Team Fortress, most of the hardcore players didn't even consider moving to Half-Life's Team Fortress Classic. Personally I liked TFC better and moved to that game. Some still today play certain version of the original Counter Strike, while majority have moved to shooters like Modern Warfare 2 or perhaps to more recent version of the Counter Strike. To create perfect mechanic for the any system is really hard but popularity trends are relatively easy to follow. Thus going against the trend like Alpha Protocol did is very risky, even if developers manage to meet all their design goals. This time gamble didn't pay, both customers and reviewers noticed the flaws vs. existing combat and shooting mechanics.

load "deusexmaintitle.sid", 8,1 Put on a trenchcoat and fight some conspiracies. Get experience and level up abilities. Will you pick rifles or computers? Don't pick swimming because it's fairly useless. It's a shooter and a role-playing game. The levels are ugly and everyone looks the same. We're not the same Ion Storm that made Daikatana. Our games are good and they stay on schedule. We made a sequel that no-one liked 'cos we dumbed it down too much 'cos we're thick. Hopefully developers take time and study Alpha Protocol (as well as original DeusEx, Bloodlines and Mass Effect) and figure out what don't work in modern games. Other then that, I can barely avoid the hype. I should probably go play DeusEx2 to cool myself down.

Obsidian should high five everytime when Mr. Taylor says that and give him cake for being so polite.

Look, AAA quality games have about 20 million dollar budgets up to 100 million dollar (GTA4, Red Dead Redemption about 80 million). I have no idea about Alpha Protocols budget but it was in development for some time and was released more or less year too late. After retailer cut, console manufacturer cut, ads cost, research and development, about 17 dollars out of 60 dollars go to the potential profit. This means that if ads are balanced correctly and funding for next project is secured, they need to sell over million units to make profit (with 20 million dollar budget). With this info in mind, some of the features need to be in game so that majority of the gamers are at least somewhat interested of the game. Call it fast-food games or whatever, it's about survival for the developers and publishers. This don't mean that all games have to be cookie cutters or casual games, but if modern FPS shooters have certain features and (nearly) all work in relatively same way, deveoper takes a huge risk if they do things differently. They can do it differently, but then they have to be sure that it works at least as well as the "standard" or even better. Perception how something works is also important as well as accessability. For example GTA4 improved driving mechanics from the previous GTAs, but in general players didn't like the change.

Bethesda... Obsidian... Next Fallout games... idTech 5. Do it. I'd bet we'll see next Morrowind game and next Fallout (after New Vegas) with IdTech5. Heck, it's their in-house engine now

Modern gamers in general just don't get the combat mechanics where you aim at something and still miss even if your aim was 100% accurate. This don't mean that weapons skills would have to be removed complitely, but more focused on optional "skills" like auto-aims, bullet time, VATs, dead-eye, chain shot, faster reloading, ect ect. This means that base skill would be pinpoint accurate as in (nearly) all modern FPs, but players, if they so choose, could invest in skills that make shooting even easier. Shotgun would still be situational close range weapon, pistol silent, assault rifle a long range (short) burst weapon, SMG a short range burst weapon.

Good review. Mike is ultimate douchebag

No, it's not just you. I think in current IGN "best of show" crap there's 3 new IPs (Child of Eden, Rage and Epic Mickey) out something like 30 nominees.

Anyone have any PC news? With all the motion control madness, it really starts to feel like that PC gamging is already six feet under.

Visuals are absolutely horrible but that's not Obsidians fault (more like Gamebryo and facegen) and good thing is that players in general have already accepted 'em in Oblivion and Fallout 3 so hopefully that don't have huge negative impact on sales. New Vegas seem to be really empty, especially compared to more modern engine games like Assassins Creed (Anvil) or GTA4 (Rage). Too bad iD was bought bit too late, as it would have been awesome to get Fallout New Vegas on iD Tech5.

Plus thing is smart way to move slowly away from free service.

Yes, it is. Especially in real time first person CRPGs. As a old skool player, I can accpet the fact that I have to use 200 bullets to kill corporate drone, but players in general nowadays find it totally retarded. To apply dragon, supermutant or ultimate-robo-o-doom boss fight mechanics to characters like in Alpha Protocol, is a grade A design fumble. What do I care right? I can complite this game without item upgrades, with any spec or difficulty. It's not about us hardcore gamers anymore, it's all about those who play Halo, Gears of War or Modern Warfare. This means Obsidian, just like every other AAA level (or AA) developer, have to do certain things as good as in previous games or even better. We shouldn't compare Alpha Protocol to 2002 version of the Spinter Cell, 1998 version of the Half-Life, nor 1994 version of System Shock. Yet, Alpha Protocol still does things worse then those games in certain areas of the game. Design choice? Sure, but a bad one. Obsidian has alot to offer in chocies, characters and storylines. But those don't mean anything if base game and combat mechanics are up to date.

Heh... Blur's KotOR online video and that was it for the Bioware

Well, we're stuck on 2005 graphics because Xbox360. So art design and minor optimizations are all we can expect on Crysis 2.

Had to check mobygames... and Sims 3 was already released in 2009. Damn, I must be stuck in timeloop.

I don't get all these social / fitness / waste of time casual games promotions in E3. Do they think that casual gamers bother to check out what's coming in the near future. No way in hell. They buy it from their local supermega market, probably 6 months after it's released.