Slowtrain

I don't think they stopped working; they just didn't always show the best/quickest path.

Josh or Matthew, or anybody really, When will you guys be able to answer specific questions about changes (or lack thereof) to gameplay mechanics?

Nothing wrong with that. The internet has plenty of hate to spare. This place is pretty laid back and rational compared to many other public forums.

The assumption that you DON'T, WON'T and CAN'T have enough ammo makes for a more interesting game. And the assumption that you may or may not have enough ammo depending.... is even better.

awesome.

AT least they had a new enemy.

JA2 has regen health. Outside of battle on the strategic map, you can doctor your wounded over a period of days and they will regain lost health, but that's not the sort of regen I'm referring to.

OK. DIdn't realize you were comparing only to STALKER. *shrug* I didn't say the game will be standard, just that the trailer doesn't do anything to tell me that it won't be.

I dunno. I did all that in Half Life, many years ago. It was kinda new then, now it's pretty much standard generic FPS action. None of it is bad, you understand, its just not interesting enough to be noteworthy anymore. To me, anyway. If there is well-implemented stealth that could be interesting; stealth was pretty poorly done in STALKER and somewhat weakened the game, or at least lessened what the game could have been.

Where did you see variation in that trailer? I agree. On the surface Winged Demons seem a odd choice.

I dunno. At this point it's beginning to feel extremely generic. Hard to tell though. For whatever reason trailers tend to focus on the most generic and uninteresting aspects of games.

This is a good thing? Seems rather dull to me. Imagine designing an encounter. It has a particular amount of difficulty, carefully calibrated by enemy types, environment, stuff lying around, et cetera. Now imagine that you start that encounter with 8 out of 100 hit points left. It will be tooth-grindingly painful to make your way through it. Haven't you ever had that experience? Running around in HL1 with your hitpoints in the single digits, wearing through your hard drive making saves every few seconds? It sucks. *shrugs* I've been playing games for a long time. Never had a problem with limited health in gameplay. A good portion of my best gaming experiences have occured when low on either health or ammo or both.

Amen!

This is a good thing? Seems rather dull to me.

I just hope that if your character is responsible for the destruction of an entire city, it actually has some gameplay conseqences, other than just getting your flat in a different location. edit: and no parent quests!

meh. I really think that the entire concept of DRM = anti-piracy is pretty outdated. ANd was probably never really true to begin with. Misdirection at best. DRM is about controlling and leveraging the game asset, and its aimed mostly at legitimate paying customers, not pirates. If it has the added benefit of making a game harder to pirate that's great, but its not the main reason. @purk: I'm the only one with the next-gen hate going. Credit where credit is due please.

Which is the best thing that can be said about the current of crop of "next-gen" games.

Meh. Does the world need a streamlined realtime XCOM remake?

If someone can't play the first 2 XCOm games because they are ugly that's your loss. They are still 2 of the best video games ever made, which when you think about it, given almost 20 years of technological and gameplay advancement since XCOM was released, is pretty ****ing sad.

If you beat your friends with a baseball bat every time they visit you, then no matter how they like you they're going to stop visiting eventually because their desire to not be hit with a baseball bat will eventually be greater than their desire to visit you. You don't punish the people who already like you and support you. They'll tolerate it for a while BECAUSE they like you and support you, but that tolerance will eventually run out. edit: missing words

I don't disagree. I think DRM is much less about piracy than it is about power and control and ultimately money. Publishers don't want games to be a product that you buy once and use as long as you see fit; they want games to be a service that you subscribe to on an ongoing basis and pay for as long as you use the product. It is a much more consistent and exploitable revenue stream. Whether or not that's OK with someone is pretty much a personal choice.

But you said specifically, "punishing your consumer base". People don't like to be punished, especdailly when they did nothing wrong. if you punish them enough for doing something they like to do (play games) eventually they are going to stop doing that and go do something else, because that's how punishment works. edit: as has been stated countless times before, DRm doesn't punish "the bad guys", it punishes the people who supporting you and helping you. Its a completely non-sensical approach.

How does it work out slightly better than nothing? Pushing the customers who are OK with a drm scheme until they are NO LONGER ok with it because it has become so intrusive and OTT, seems pretty stupid to me.

I am not sure if this is a distrubution only agreement or more but Namco's own DLC policy makes me a bit worried: ALthough that article contains some interesting thoughts and examples of how bad DLC can (and probably will) be, it was such a one-sded rant that it loses some credibility. Does NAMCO develop any games?

generally, i've beep pretty tolerant of DRM as well, but really, the thought of being forced to make an account with a publisher and give up personal information of any sort just to play a game doesn't sit well with me. It will probably never happen actually. If it were my bank or insurance company, maybe. But some random game company? No way. edit: The interesting thing about DRm is that the more extreme it becomes the more people will be bothered by it and consequently the greater its negative effect will be. Not everybody is bothered by the same things in DRM systems. For example, I don't particularly mind limited activations, no reselling, or being online in order to play, but other people do.. The more seperate roadblocks that DRm puts up the greater the chance that someby will be annoyed by the DRM and not buy the game. However, as long as the publisher plainly labels the box with the DRM requirements, so that no buyer is taken by surprise and can make an informed decision, I can't really say the publishers are doing anything objectionable.