Slowtrain

Interesting read. So, hypothetically speaking, would I get my money back if I bought AP because of what this preview says is going to be in the game, but then turns out either isn't in the game at all or deson't work as I was told it was going to?

There's that you're responding to what you've decided they mean, not what they've actually said thing again. Exaggerated realism, the type of stuff you might find in 24 or the Bourne films or Bond, isn't the same as fantasy stuff like Hellboy or Riddick. OK, fair enough. I will amend my statement: "AP is beginning to appear to be becoming more of a fantasy game than it was originally planned to be when development began" . And I am not saying that is a bad thing either!

Oh come on. Imagine launching a large bullet filled with angry bees at your enemies. It pops open on impact and out comes a bunch of really furious bees. That is just too sweet. Sure why not. Gunther had some sort of skull gun, didn't he? We never learned too much about it, but maybe it fired bee-filled bullets!

lol. You better be careful with that line of reasoning. The devs have already said that the intial vision of realism was too boring and is now pretty much out the window. AP is beginning to appear to be more of fantasy game than not. ISn't there some kind of dual wielding teenage ninja girl in there or something?

Didn't Q branch make a living out of concoting absurd stuff like that though?

Hellboy used absurd bullets in an absurd gun and it was prety cool. Special Unit 2 had a lot of absurd weapon stuff. I love that show. So as a convention it's pretty common and not neccessarilay a bad thing at all. Frankly, I think firing a bee-filled bullet at a bad guy is kind of neat.

I don't disagree. I think that's an absurd thing, too. Again, for the record, I am not knocking on infinte ammo. I am just saying it is absurd and so is a bee filled bullet and so is clanking around with a shotgun, an assault rifle, a rocket launcher, a pistol, a knife, a crowbar, and thirty six medical kits. I don't find any of the above genuinely desireable in an ideal game. Alls I'm saying is that a bee filled bullet is absurd and so is infinite ammo. Infinite ammo is allready in so I wouldn't worry about putting bee-filled bullets or incorrect rifle names or other "absurdities" in the game, really.

I'm not denying absurdity here. I'm saying it is absurd and that's OK. I like absurd things just fine. Other people are denying the absurdity. edit: when you use the word abusrd to many times in a post the actual word itself becomes somewhat absurd. weird. *head explodes*

No, I was just curious how you can get past the locked doors of the UNATCO hq if Anna is still alive at that point of the game. I didn't realize you could and I'm interested in knowing what the method was.

Is this game about eating or going to the bathroom? No, as far as I can tell. So your point is meaningless. Its about spies and shooting. So weapons and ammo become an issue.

Is that in IW or the original? There's no UNATCO or Anna in IW.

Having bee-filled bullets is no more or less absurd than infinite ammo. Again, there is nothing wrong with absurdity. It can be quite compelling and entertaining. But you would be better off embracing the absurdity rather than tryign to make some weird differentiation between 2 impossiblities as being less or more absurd.

How does one get out of the Unatco facility without killing Anna? Edit: Or at least without her being dead. I used to kill her in the plane sometimes. But either way dead is dead.

One of the finest games ever. Maybe game developers should use a little originality and make inventory management a mini game. lol. Awseome.

I'm not saying all games need to complex. I'm just thinking that more of a choice would be nice. Some games work very well as relatively simple products, but complexity has its rewards as well. Game development at the moment basically seems to be a hive mind approach however. There seems to be a greater choice in other areas of entertainment such as film, books, music etc than there is currently in game development.

I love a good inventory!

Those are all on console. Too complicated for the PC crowd. I'm not putting down the console in any way. I'd get one or two if I had the money. Bigger selection of games to choose from if nothing else.

On what are you basing this? For all appearances, many of the niche market games in computer gaming that existed a few years ago are pretty much gone. European developers which up until now have really been the last developers of niche type games seem to be moving toward the same develpment paradigm as US developers. Flight sims, racing sims, sims of any sort, TB games of any sort, hard crpgs, have all apparently been deemed too complicated for gamers to enjoy and are therefore dropping or have been dropped altogether. I'm not terribly optimistic that the current trend of reduction (aka streamlining) in games is going to end or even slow down anytime soon.

DOn't get me wrong, Krezzie, I am not saying either game is NOT going to be good. I am just saying, "wait, what?" People get down on Codexers for being blatantly anti-FO3 without any knowledge of what the game is going to be like. WHich is totally fair. They're making statements which have little if anything to back them up, other than that they hate FO3 by Bethesda. WIthout even playing it or even knowing someone who has. But by the same token, praising a game with little info and almost 0 gameplay demonstration to back it up is equally empty. Especially games that are still very much in progress and have already apparently undergone serious design changes from when they were first announced. I hope both the Alien CRPG and AP are good games. That would be awesome. But at the same time I'm not lauding empty praise on something I know so little about, however. 's all I am saying.

I wouldn't have brought it up directly. I was merely commenting on the somewhat ironical nature of your statement. From where I stand it seems rather silly to talk about realism with guns and ammo when great strides have already been made to reducing the whole thing to a cartoon. Nothing wrong with cartoons of course. They can be very fun and entertaining. But its not really neccessary to go to great lengths to make them believable. SO I wouldn't worry too much about firearm realism at this point. Just my take obviosuly.

...and why would that be? erm. hmmm. Well, if you can't guess, there's no sense in me pointing it out. :|

More ****ing beards than ever any game ever before! w00t! To be fair to Todd though, crappy beards were a big complaint of many Obilivion players. So at least the devs are listening!

lol. I can't believe you said that with a straight face.

lol. Now that you mention it, they do look similar. I just took it as an odd-looking shotgun with a drum magazine that one of the devs invented by googling some reference material. SOmethign intended to be cobbled out of left over parts, perhaps. I figured the drum magazine might be an in-game upgrade. edit: They are similar, but appear to have different dimensions between the trigger guard and magazine. In the screenshot the magazine appears to mount further down the barrel. It is a little hard to tell though because the extreme foreshortening in the screenshot makes judging the distance somewhat difficult.

Todd answered a few more questions yesterday: http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=856489