Slowtrain

I kinda thought he was joking around at first, but then I decided he was being serious. I could be wrong either way.

It's just amazing to me that a game that is skill-based gets a write-up that's somewhat negative because the skill choices you make actually matter and that you can't just ignore your skill choices and do whatever you want with equal effectivenes. *shakes head*

Some of that was completely stupid: How old are these "reviewers" and when did they start playing games? Last year?

With the costs involved with making movies, I have a hard time blaming the producers for finding ways to offset the costs. I understand if it is done badly, but he had a beat up early generation iPod that looked the part. I found it easy to believe. Would you rather he sport a Walkman? While I understand your point, I also think it's completely appropriate for a person (namely me) to be repulsed by the degree to which advertising and product promotion has insinuated itself into our daily life. The sheer volume of product images I am exposed to on a daily basis is completely out of control. Happily, it just irritates me, which I think is a mostly positive reaction. Nothing I (or we) can do about it anyway but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be commented on periodically.

The crazy thing about Bethesda is that with their open-world approach to gaming, they shoudl be pushing the unpredicatable and dynamic nature of their worlds so that the world stays interesting. One of the big problems with open world games is that they tend to become boring and predictable if things don't change within the world. Level scaling just intensifies the predictability of the open world experience, which would seem to be something open world developers would want to go out of their way to avoid.

Linear games have less need of level-scaling though since it is easier for the developers to control the player characters development. As Purk says level scaling is more of a way to hide incompetent game design than anything else. It's an easy out for developers who can't be bothered to balance their games properly.

I agree with both of you. A first time player wouldn't stay level 1 in the first place. hmmm. I see that point.

That assumes that the financial cost of one's gaming habit is more significant than the time commitment cost. time = money? That's a good point. My recommended solution to wanting an easier, less intense game is still the same though. Difficulty = easy.

*shrug* OK, that's fine. So that's either a game balance issue or a type-of-game preference issue. There are other ways to deal with either than turning the whole game into a level-scaling fest. I'm not saying that some games don't have problems with grinding and difficulty. I'm saying that level-scaling is a crappy, cop-out solution to the problem.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. If you own a game is doesn't cost anymore to play than you already spent when you bought it. Anyway, no one, especailly me is saying you have to spend 20 hours suffering. If you just want to play for the experience of the story or world or whatever that's fine. Just turn the difficulty down. That's what it's for.

Sure, I agree that more subtle level-scaling is preferable to more obvious, but even still. FO3 was better than Oblivion but it was still assinine that spawning molerats were all replaced with deathclaws as you leveled. How incredibly dull and predictable.

It is much harder to become Arena champion at level 1 than level 20. Agronak gro-Malog is a set level 10 character. My point there though is that Oblivion has so much level-scalign going that there is almost no point to actually leveling your character since you stretngth relative to the world remains the same. You're better off doing "tough" fights at low-levels when the bosses are weaker. That's a crappy design paradigm for a crpg, imo. People use all sort of metagaming gimmicks to do weird things with games. I find it highly unlikely that a first time player with no meta-knowledge could beat either game at level 1. Generally speaking, if you want to make it to the end game of either, you have to do some work in character development, both stats and gear.

I'd say scaling is even worse for strategy/tactical games. Total rookie can kill experienced mob in Jagged Alliance 2 or Xcom so there's absolutely no need for scaling. One of the worst things in Jagged Alliance 2 was the fact that there would be infinite spawn of gray mob (most experienced) troops that Queen could send all over the country. There should have been 1-3 elite groups (plus all the non moving ones at the fixed areas) at the most, who'd investigate latest location you successfully invaded. I think the idea in Jag 2 is that you meet better troops with better gear as the conflict intensifies, and while Jag 2 does have some balance issues with gear vs player characters stats and skills, facing 20 elites is a heck of a lot tougher than facing 20 yellow shirts. Also Jag 2 does not use level-scaling exclusively. It blends level-scaling (technically progress scaling since the scaling is not directly tied to a character's level but what you have accomplished to that point in the game) with area based diffculty. DOn't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the level-scaling in Jag 2 either, but it makes more gameplay sense to be facing better troops later then it does to be facing a mouse that has 2000 hitpoints can kill you just as easily at level 20 as it can at level 1. Or viceversa an endboss who is only level 2.

If buggy=flawed then all games are flawed and it has nothing to do with being made by a Russian or any other developer. No game works perfectly, but STALKER is no worse than any other.

Yeah, I totally disagree with this. If there is an End Boss to a crpg (doesn't have to be though), it should be set in stone how tough that boss is, not up to the whims of the player. Otherwise you end up with absolutely ludicrous **** like in Oblivion where you could be come the Arena Champion at freaking character level 1. Preposterous. The entire point of a crpg (one of them anyway) is to develop your player character from a weak noob to an ass-kicking machine. It's part of the job of the developers to make sure that the game is balanced so that most player characters will be tough enough to meet the various challenges along the way, while still allowing them the freedom to get it over their head or beat on some cannon fodder, as the player sees fit. If you as a player don't want to go through the process of growing your character, you probably shouldn't be playing a crpg.

Except STALKER wasn't actually flawed. Buggy, yes, but the gameplay and level design is pretty solid. Clear Sky was a bit flawed with its malfuncting Faction Wars though.

New predator trailer is out Hate to say it, but it looks all right. Actually feels more like Alien/s then Predator.

I love respawns and hate scaling. Scaling especially is the antithesis of the crpg experience. Its OK in games like Jag 2 or XCOM, but it completely defeats a huge chunk of the point of playing a crpg.

Even better is running by them, letting them start chasing after you, then start dropping frag mines. This works best in narrow spaces, buty even outside they have a tendency to fall in directly behind you if they can. Gleeful fun with mines is the best part of FO3's combat. Also the flamer.

I think we mostly said the same thing anyway.

Deus Ex was not singularly great at any one aspect of gameplay, but it was one of the best at combining a multitude of approaches, along with a very strong level design and an interesting story (for a computer gane). To some degree, similar to Half Life, I think DX's impact has been diluted over the years as games have followed (or attempted to follow) in its footsteps with varying degrees of success. AT the time, again much like Half Life, Deus Ex was a pretty phenomenal gaming experience. And even to this day, I don't think there has been a Deus Ex-style game that has come close to succeeding as well as DX did.

One wonders how it went from being an awesome game that the devs were totally fired up about it for the first year or so to something that they were (apparently) glad was cancelled. On the surface, based on such comments, a guess might be that the devs failed pretty badly and SEGA did them a favor by axing the whole thing. Or maybe not. But it was hardly a cry of developer outrage that something great had been terminated prematurely.

No argument that it had some major problems, including a variety of balance issues. In that sense it was a standard Troika game. But it was a very strong game in some areas as well. Sometimes, I think it gets overlooked for all the stuff it did do well. To some degree, I agree. A lot depends on how one defines a crpg however.

I actually think Arcanum was a lot like Fallout 3: Some very good bits badly compromised by some really brain-dead bits. Overall though they were both fun game experiences as long as the flaws in either don't particularly trouble you. Arcanum had great worldbuilding and roleplaying. The cities and towns and inhabitants were the highlight of the game. But the combat was horrible and the tech system crippled to near worthlessness. Fallout 3 had great exploration and some aspects of combat were fun, but the ciuties and inhabitants were very poorly done and generally uninteresting

You missed one of the most crucial and involving points around NPC interaction in the game.