Slowtrain

lol. I thought Farcry, thought it had problems, was overall one of the better shooters I've played. We may have reached some sort of fundamental impasse on what makes a good shooter.

How did you like the game compared to Crysis the FIrst? I enjoyed the first one but am concerned that the changes may make the second game very different, rendering my previous enjoyable experience with Crysis 1 moot.

Thanks. My memory was better than I thought. Definitely prefer the bounding box plus text lable over the fiery glow.

Its not the end of the world, but it seems a bit heavy-handed. Less is more.

How did object highlighting work in DX? Was it a bounding box in the HUD around the object with a text description? Or was that System SHock 2? Or something else. I can't remember.

Your positive take leans me more back to picking this one up. Still unsure though at a 50 USD price point. I enjoyed Crysis mostly because of the sandboxy world and because I enjoyed fiddling around with the suit functions. And it sounds like these are the two areas that have been most changed in the sequel. That sort of variety woudl be nice.

I've read comments that the suit systems are less interesting and more automated than in the first game. For example, not only do you automatically acivate the suit's speed system when you run, but you can't run WITHOUT the suit automatically activating, and that running with the suit enhancement isn't particularly fast to begin with now. What's your take?

A large number of player comments on Crysis 2 seem to fall into 2 camps: PC gamers: meh or bleh Console gamers: Greatest game ever So I don't know. I was going to buy it, but now not sure. If its just a mediocre experience for thos who have familiarity with the pc-centric traditon of fps games then I'm not inclined to buy it at full price.

I used to buy games at release or pretty close to it, but I got tired of so many of them being buggy messes. I'd rather just wait a bit and see if the game gets fixed up or not (or even needs fixing). In the end, I can always buy it down the road for 2/3 or even more off the initial release price, so I figure I've got nothing to lose by waiting. If I had a lot of money, probably wouldn't be a big deal since I wouldn't care so much.

Regadless of whether the PC development is outsourced or not, I'm still waiting until I hear what people on this forum think. Unless one is flush with excess money, waiting a few weeks on a major release until the initial dust settles, is always worth it.

I think the more stuff, however trivial, that can be interacted with in a gameworld the better. However, resources are always a factor and there may indeed be better ways to spend them in the pursuit of a more open and interactive world.

But that is the single biggest problem with the game industry right now. FOr the most part they ALL try to appeal to everybody. Bware is just being a little more obsequious about it then say Bethesda. And this whole mass appeal thing won't end well. FOr anyone.

It would. Or at least reduce the combat to very specific gameplay bits. The combat was nto well-integrated into the game regardless. But PS:T is a bit of a rare gem, no? Anyway, there's plenty of room for combat free games. If BWare wants to go that way, it would probably suit them well. They seem mighty infatuated with the singular brilliance of their writing.

EVentually BIoware will no longer make games; they will make "experiences". VAseline-smeared Fantasy experiences festooned with pointy ears and sexmance. They are actually pretty close to this all ready.

I'd added Vivec to that list. Maybe even the number 1 spot. Bethesda gets a lot of things wrong in rpgs, but that one they nailed.

Interesting. What if Anna was unkillable at that point in the game, much like Gunther is when he captures JC at the BAttery Park subway station. You were given the choice to kill Lebedev or not kill him. Either way he dies, either by JC or Anna. How would you respond to that as a choice? It's not the killing or not killing of Lebedev that I would consider a false choice. He's removed from the game either way and your version of JC gets to make moral stand. Not that the moral stand has any effect on gameplay, but at least you get the satisfaction of doing would you feel is right for JC to do. I always felt the entire slaughter them all vs prod them in the back moral choice that is presented throughout the game was somewhat under utilized in any meaningful way.

Bioware does seem to like making it into a sex/romance minigame, but a lot of their fans really seem to enjoy it, so its hard to criticize Bioware directly if they are simply providing what their fans desire.

Well, in bioware's defense it's a pretty pragmatic way to deal with complaints about which character's can romance which characters and what not. Just make everyone romancable by everyone. Problem solved. It also shows that Bioware does put a pretty high imporatnce on the romance aspect of their rpgs now, which one may or may not think is a worthwhile investment of developer time.

So, if a game like Deus Ex all ready allows you to express your character by combining, augs, skills, items and mods, which I agree it does, then is adding choices that have no significant impact in the game really neccessary for expression? DX, as an example, is a game that is programmed to respond pretty well to your choices of augs, mods, skills, and items. Isn't adding false choices that the game isn't programmed to respond to just kind of a waste of time that could be spent elsewhere? edit: And if Harvey SMith had actually added in the C&C that he said was going to the strength of IW, he probably would have been able to get away with dropping the skills and whatnot becasue there would have been other ways for gamers to express their character. I'm not disagreeing that gamers want to express their characters in the gameplay, I'm just wondering if false choices like in DX really are a good way to do it.

It's really really not. A large part of choices is to express your character. Not simply to get his ends. The means and the ends can be different. Hmmm. If expressing your character results in no significant changes from the gameworld does that expression have value? I'm not saying that they have to be good changes; they could be negative or punitive. The downside being that having to spend dev time implementing false choice is dev time that could be spent elsewhere. False choice doesn't take as much time and effort as real choice, but it c oulc be argued that false choice has significantly less value. I never thought otherwise. OK. I just wanted to make sure.

I didn't either. When on a subsequent playthrough I discovered that by staying and fighting MJ12 at the hotel, whihc I just did to see what would happen, it was pretty cool to find out that Paul lived. And then it was pretty disappointing to find that nothing much changed afterwards. I'm not really sure how I feel on the subject. Certainly the appearance of C&C, even fake C&C, makes a decision in the moment more interesting, but if nothing significant comes of the choice then maybe its worse than not making a decision at all.

It is an interesting question actually. Fake C&C vs genuine C&C. Genuinue C&C obviously being very rare and pretty difficult to do. I would have liked to have seen saving Lebedev actually SAVE LEBEDEV and open up some new avenue or resource in upcoming missions. Likewise, saving Paul gives me the warm fuzzies but doesn't actually change the narrative or gameplay in any meaningful. I find it a bit dishonest, in a narrative sense.

DX had little significant reactivity to player choice. Even actions that seemed signifcant on the surface such as killing Anna on the plane and letting Lebedev go didn't alter the gameplay or narrative flow in any meaningful way. DX has an undeserved rep for being strong in reactivity and consequnces when in fact it wasn't. DX great strength was giving people large levels to explore and allowing players to come up with clever ways to combine items, skills, and augs to achieve their opjectives. If DX:HR has ANY signifcant choice and consequence it will be a step up from DX. edit: One of the reasons IW failed was because it removed skills, dumbed down items and augs, and had smaller less complex levels, but didn't add anything, such as meaningful c&C, to replace the loss. Hopefully HR will not make same mistake.

Unless it doesn't let me pick up chairs, then it can go **** itself. I was joking about the trashcans on the tables. :/ Deus Ex was a ****ed up and broken and simplistic game on a lot of levels. I welcome changes.

To me its like having a giant glowing arrow pointing at objects with a big glowing text box: "Hey, you can touch this!" SUre, it doesn't ruin the playability of the game: I can get used to anything if I see it often enough, but its pretty distracting. And so unneccesary. I'm intelligent enough to figure out what I can interact with, without the big glowing halo.