Slowtrain

Far Cry was the first game I ever played that showed me how graphics could make a game better. Prior to Far Cry I had been in the graphics don't matter camp for years. After playing Far Cry, I left that camp for good. As far as content goes, eh, FC is a pure shooter. Either you like them or you don't. It does combat well; it has some good level design (some bad ones as well), the mercs are good enemies (the Trigens less so), the stealth part, while unneccessary, is well implemented and works, if you want to use it. And the enviornment graphics are the best I've ever seen in a game as far as putting you SOMEWHERE and really feeling like you are THERE. Which even more modern games like Crysis and Bioshock fail to accomplish nearly so well.

I don't think you can say it is a broken system, since Bethesda most likely intentionally designed it that way. SO it is working as intended, ie not broken. However, I would certainly wonder why one would spend time developing a skill system and then make design choices that render that skill system meaningless. If you don't want gamers to be limited be a skill system fine. Lots of great games don't have skill systems. But then why spend time devolping and implementing one in the first place?

Far Cry was one of the better pure shooters I've ever played. Much more enjoyable than Crysis.

Interesting news, indeed. Thank you.

Wouldn't it be awesome if Bioware manages to revive the pc crpg not once but twice? Go Go Dragon Age!

I don't even think a crpg needs that. Or should have that. I just think that in a crpg decisions should have tangible in game consequences. You do realize that in FO3, you can start with a base 25 skill in small guns and completely max the skill without ever spending an actual level up skill point on it.

I'm not defending any one system or way of doing it over another. I've played lots of different games that used different battle systems and a lot of them were fun.

This is an absurd statement and true of any game that lets you save anywhere. Not really. In a crpg where party members can die, you not only have to win through an encounter, you have to win through keeping everyone alive. Unless you are willing to just write them off and move on. Which is always an option, but not one many are going to take. Plus eventually you'll run out of party members. In a gamer where party members can't die, you no longer have to concern yourself winning and keeping everyone alive, you only have to concern yourself with winning. Combat becomes much easier in that situation, and difficulty becomes less of an issue. That's quite a stretch from "there's no penalty for failing" compared to "not having to worry about party death makes the game less difficult." It is still very possible to fail in Dragon Age. And most games for that matter. There's no penalty for your party members dying in Baldur's Gate. You just reload the game. Just like there's no penalty in Dragon Age when your party wipes out. You just reload the game. Jagged Alliance 2 would be a much much easier game if after a battle where 17 mercs "died" they were all better again afterwards. Reloading a game and having to replay through a major battle again is a lot more difficult than just being able to plow while losing most of your party members in the process. Understand, I'm not in any way criticising Bioware or Dragon Age here. My guess is that they know what they are doing and it will be a fun game.

This is what I don't get. This is Bioware we are talking about. The longtime king of mass market userfriendly crpgs. Don't you think they've thought about this issue?

Maxing all skills isn't even the problem really. More generally its the plethora of skill points and the fact that skills don't have a huge impact on the game, both of which work to reduce the value of skill choices, which is pretty counter to the idea of a crpg. Personally I think bethesda woudl be better off just making exploration shooters and drop the whole concepts of skils and levels and dialogue and role playing. I think that focus would make their games better and it appears to be what they do well.

No one knows how hard it is. Or how people will react. Some games are hard, some games are easy. That's the way its always been. What I said was in response to alanschu, who has actually played it. Ah OK. Sorry, without a quote I wasn't sure.

I believe they cut back on some of the graphics options because the maps are bigger and more complex. I haven't played the game yet of course, just what I seem to remember from my trips to the forum during development.

No one knows how hard it is. Or how people will react. Some games are hard, some games are easy. That's the way its always been.

This is an absurd statement and true of any game that lets you save anywhere. Not really. In a crpg where party members can die, you not only have to win through an encounter, you have to win through keeping everyone alive. Unless you are willing to just write them off and move on. Which is always an option, but not one many are going to take. Plus eventually you'll run out of party members. In a gamer where party members can't die, you no longer have to concern yourself winning and keeping everyone alive, you only have to concern yourself with winning. Combat becomes much easier in that situation, and difficulty becomes less of an issue.

There's really 2 Bethesdas though. The Pre and Post Morrowind Bethesdas with MW itself acting as sort of a transition point. Although MW has more in common with the older Beth than the new one.

Nope. Stealth works very well if you want to use it, but its not required in the least and in some places impossible. the game does get harder later, especially as you enter the second half. I recommend just keeping it at normal. Its quite a decent game overall.

New crpg archetype: Magetank.

I would say the last crpog I played that required thought in combat was IWD2. But that was mostly due to the one single Call To Arms feature where you would get swarmed by every hostile nearby. It was challenging in its own way, but not a lot of fun. Mostly due to the repitive nature of the combat gameplay vs any problem with the concept of the call to arms thingie.

He is probing us for exploitable weaknesses, isn't he. Someday, in the near future, I am going to open a game box and find some sort of bio-mehcanical pod inside that will attach itself to my face and force Myst 7 into my brain.

Those are both valid points. I certainly don't like having to play something over and over again just to get it right. As a matter of fact I hate it. But as you say, we still don't really know how difficult the game is. Is it challenging? Or unplayable? Has Bioware misjudged the difficulty balance? WHo can say at this point. I just not too worried. Bioware isn't new to the idea of game balance.

Well, my flip and snide answer would be that in this day and age game reviewers don't inspire in me any great confidence that they are knowledgable, reliable, have any idea what they are talking about, etc. So I'm not going to put a lot of stock in what they say. My more thoughtful answer would be that maybe Bioware wants the game to be hard. Maybe they believe that given the current game systems, the difficulty is what they want to be. Again, if characters don't die, the combat has to be harder to provide a challenge. Such would seem to be the logical thought anyway.

Well, I would say that generally speaking, people enjoy a particular game because it has certain features that appeal to them. When a sequel comes along that uses the same game title, they expect those features to be present in the sequel. If those features are not in the sequel then of course they are going to be sad, annoyed, upset etc and so forth, because those features are what they liked in the first place. If somebody makes Jagged Alliance 3 and drops, mines, sectors, dyanamic campains, merc stats, militia, etc and so forth, of course I'll be annoyed because those are the feautres I liked in Jagged Alliance 2. If Jag 2 hadn't had those features, I wouldn't have liked it to begin with. Developers of course are not under any requirement to adhere to feature continuity through sequels, but it shouldn't be any great mystery why gamers react the way they do when their favorite game gets a reboot or a sequel which is nothing like the game they loved to begin with.

Eh, I don't really want anything, per se. Especially since, as far as games go at least, what I want has no effect on what I get, it seems kind of pointless to look at things that way. I take what I am given. As always. Do you seriously believe that Bioware isn't smart enough to have considered the possible effects (or lack thereof) of difficulty on sales? I mean, maybe they haven't. I don't know. It just seems unlikely.

I think what he is experiencing is the vested interest in a game's profit vs say me, who has no interest in such at all.

Bioware has made enough games that one has to assume that if the game is balanced to be extra hard there's a reason for it. I'm not a Bioware devotee in particular, but they've got a long history of game development behind them. I'm going to assume for the moment that they have some reason for doing what they do.