AwesomeOcelot

Still playing Fly'n, this game is one of the most infuriating I have ever played. The control is so twitchy, there's no precision but it's asking you to do Meat Boy level platforming. Physics is a bit suspect as well, sometimes you fly off walls and others times you stick to them when using the black and orange powers. The visuals are great but don't help the gameplay, there's white on white platforms, and there's two different types of red clouds but only one will kill you. The game zooms in and out making it hard to judge exactly how far you can rocket yourself to. The puzzles are more solved by perseverance than thinking as you can't really see what's going on at the limited view you get. On that note, things off screen can kill you instantly, like falling debris and toxic walls, and there's no signs whether something is an infinite pit or what machinery is going to do half the time. There's also a nasty habit of things like the wave of doom flowing in sync with how you progress, like in Sonic games, where it can suddenly start to go way faster as you reach a certain point, and if you hadn't anticipated this you're dead. The gameplay contains the mechanics of Giana, switching worlds, floating, and bashing, and 2D Sonic Colors, pink wisp and orange rocket (also Sonic Generations, and sticking is also in Gish). It's a stunning, charming, challenging, varied game, and if it wasn't for the crippled movement I could forgive the other flaws, it would be among the top 2D platformers.

Game companies would never ever force you the consumer to register their products online before you can play them, neither Sony or Microsoft have any form with that kind of thing at all say with PC games and music.

No, they're tying discs to online accounts. They could also tie consoles to online accounts, and discs to consoles, but no one thinks they're planning this.

This has been rumoured for a long time that Microsoft and Sony will clamp down on second hand games, they will be pushing their stores and online services more. I don't see anything in that article or diagram that suggests this is any difference to a pass phrase type system, it just uses a tag on the disc, therefore it can and will be cracked, but it will most likely be a similar case to the Xbox 360, cracked consoles can't go online.

Small, wireless, powered by the TV, that's a great combination, being able to just stick it in your pocket and carry it around is convenient. I played Plants vs Zombies and World of Goo on my PC even though they're mobile games, I'm sure there are some android games that would be fun to play on it. I'd love it if they could port Win/XLA/PSN games like Super Meat Boy, Closure, Braid, Sideway, Mutant Blobs Attack, Gish, or Cargo Commander. Fun games are fun games. $20 less than the OUYA? Not sure that's worth it.

Yes, there's a lot of boss fights with QTE, even more than Legends. The beginning is too combat heavy, but the end of the original was combat heavy as well. The tombs, exploration, platforming, and puzzles are there, a lot of it is ported directly from the original. Sticking QTE in the game a bit like firing a paint ball gun at Mona Lisa. Legends has a crap tonne of boss fights and QTE, lots of combat, hardly any tombs or environments to explore, and the puzzles were simple and boring. Underworld doesn't have QTE, it has less combat, and the only boss fight it has is right at the end, and you don't fight, you just avoid and platform. Underworld has as much combat as Tomb Raider 2, maybe even less. The Guardian of Light is my third favourite 3rd person 3D platformer, behind the original Tomb Raider, and Sands of Time. It's designed for co-op play, but can be played in single player, although I haven't yet. There's a lot of twin stick combat like Renegade Ops and Zombies Must Die.

Tomb Raider franchise on sale. Not sure I'd get the whole thing. Pretty sure every Tomb Raider game has camera issues, Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld being the worst offenders, those three also have platforming bugs that can be infuriating, especially Anniversary which is quite a bit harder than the other two. The combat is pretty basic, I'd probably prefer it if it wasn't even there, since it's simple and repetitive. Some great environments and puzzles in the series. The platforming is unique, you can't find anything like it anywhere else, there's exploration and having to think your way to different places, lots of going down to go up. Tomb Raider I consider one of the best games ever made, probably my second favourite 3D platformer behind Sands of Time. Anniversary, the remake, is extremely faithful but it has horrendous bugs on PC, QTE coming from every orifice, and they tried to change Lara's character from a total badass to a wuss. Tomb Raider 2 has its moments of great environments but I didn't enjoy the platforming, puzzles or story anywhere near as much as the original. I feel like this game was a rushed sequel to get more money with fancier cut scenes, more costumes, more narrative, and not as much thought put into the design. Vehicles were pretty clumsy. Tomb Raider 3, I don't think I even finished it, it's pretty much more of the same from Tomb Raider 2, they were definitely milking the franchise by then..4, 5, and 6 I haven't played. Legend has the bugs and QTE like Anniversary, also incredibly bad puzzles, environments, story, characters, and vehicle sections. Underworld is fantastic, none of the PC port bugs, nearly as good as the original in most respects with better combat, incredible environments great vehicle segments, no QTE, and it's a good looking game.

I've got to be close to the end, 8 hours into Tomb Raider Underworld, and it's so much better than Legend it's unreal. The story, the puzzles, the combat, and the setting are way more like the original Tomb Raider. You get to actually explore ancient tombs that are big and look cool, with massive set piece puzzles. No QTE so far, no horrendous on rails vehicle sections. None of the game breaking bugs that only effect the PC ports of Anniversary and Legend, so that's great. It still has the daftest camera system I have ever encountered. Want to climb a wall? Well you can't because we're going to shove the camera so far up Lara's arse you won't be able to see daylight. Want to dogde axes and spikes coming out of the wall? Tough **** because we're going to inexplicably suddenly change the camera angle in the middle of it making you run at a 90 degree angle from where you were running. Legend and Anniversary had this camera system too, I really wonder how developers think it's completely fine. The platforming engine is just incredibly buggy like Legend and Anniversary, bad grabs, stuck in the falling animation on flat land, not doing the animation that tells you which way you're going to jump, not jumping, it's all there but they're obviously bugs (which never got fixed in the 6 years the engine has been around). The thing about the camera system is that someone actually thought it was a good idea, mentally deficient people, people who want games to be "cinematic". It's a pity Tomb Raider (2013) looks so ****. On the official Giana forums, I think some of my suggestions made it into the patch, I must have attempted the last boss close to 200 times, I imagine most people gave up.

Most achievements are a waste of time, and only their so that developers can keep track of how many people get to a certain point, also games with choices have them so that they can keep track of those. Achievements are also a handy tool for completionists. There are a few achievements that are for strange challenges like "Little Rocket Man" and unusual things you can do that are evil or funny, I like them.

I would have never completed Giana on a keyboard, I used a 360 pad as I do with all platformers except Dustforce. I didn't have much trouble apart from the last boss, which was all kinds of unfair. I completed it, but I just ended up alt tabbing and taking a break, complaining about it in the forums, because the way random attacks stacked made it almost impossible most of the time, but they patched it later. Been playing Fly'n today, it has the same mechanic as Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams but so far it's not as good. The control isn't as precise, and it's hard to see the transitions. Also there are mechanics that aren't intuitive and aren't explained to you at all. It looks absolutely fantastic though.

Finished Quantum Conundrum, the puzzles are perhaps too easy but they're fair, the games a bit short but I felt they were stretching the game out more than the gameplay could support as it is. Executing the solution to the puzzles can be a bit difficult. It's a great game, one of the best puzzle platformers. I was a little disappointed, hoping for the next Portal. I tried playing The Witcher today, I didn't like the combat at all, the many cut scenes I endured didn't grab me at all, seemed highly generic fantasy setting but I didn't play long enough to get any idea of the plot. I hate rhythm and QTE, it bores the **** out of me, that's not gaming. I started Tomb Raider: Underworld, so far its great, it has some of the problems of Legend: insanely bad camera, many engine problems like constant bad grabs, clumsy interaction, and annoying side kick characters. I was stuck on a puzzle when I knew what to do, I just hadn't been told the correct button to throw the block. The camera is fine floating behind me, under my control, when suddenly the camera is placed so I can't see or judge a ledge I'm meant to be going to. The game suffers from graphic fidelity, ledges and things you interact with blend into the level, making them way more difficult to find than the original Tomb Raider games or even Legend. Not getting as many issues with the port that I did with Anniversary and Legend, no enemies clipping through the floor or graphical errors. I haven't run into stupid puzzles, QTE, and horrendous vehicle sections yet, I had such a bad experience with Legend I've been afraid to try this game.

This is one of the reasons why I'm backing Kickstarter games and just waiting for publisher released games to come down to below $10. That and every game has to have QTE now, something that can be added to the game without any effort, as if I want control taken away from me every 5 minutes and have to repeatedly press a button that I'm told to, which is obviously for brain dead people who don't want to or can't play games (hello The Walking Dead/Heavy Rain fans). I'm not a conspiracy theorist but someone is definitely buying shares in gamepad manufacturers, because that's the only explanation I have for the amount of games that tell me to repeatedly bash the X button. Assassins Creed is terrible anyway, I could only play it for a couple of hours, it's highly repetitive and the story is filled with as many tired tropes as possible that are pretty idiotic (genetic memory, Templar conspiracy, not again). I installed Assassins Creed II the other day and it launched this Uplay thing, that also installed a plugin in every browser without asking me, so I quickly uninstalled it. Ubisoft are such morons, I'm not going to buy another one of their games until they stop this bull****. GFWL is buggy and game-breaking (Bioshock 2), but when it works (by manually installing it) you just sign in once and forget about it, the same with EA's Dragon Age Origins and Crysis 2, login once, forget, unlike Uplay.

That's not all that's needed. They'd have to change gameplay (attack range, events at longer ranges), graphics (create new models, shaders, filters), and UI. There has been a range of tablets with keyboards, some available for over a year, and mouse support isn't unavailable. Sophisticated gaming doesn't exist on a 8" netbook or UMPC. Lots of people will be playing games at 2560x1440 in 2015, no one will be playing new PC games on 8" netbooks, only ports of them that have been heavily modified. I own Magicka and it's isometric fixed view. Show me the 8" netbook with a GPU that's close to a Geforce 8800/Radeon X1900. Also Magicka does not have anywhere near as detailed models or complex shaders. It was also released at the beginning of 2011, not the end of 2014. If you turned off water animation it would look bad, if you turn off lighting and shadows the game will not function graphically, it will cease to be playable. Project Eternity will be using 3D real time rendered character models and objects, characters will consist of 3000 polygons, not sprites. It also will be using maps for lighting and shadows for the 2D backgrounds on top of 3D shaders.

Even 2D games vary in how intensive they are, you can't really say what specification is required from a game being 2D or 2.5D, some fully 3D games will require less resources than Project Eternity, the characters are 3000 polygons, that's more than some games entire maps. IE games are old, they were designed for 640x480, Project Eternity is going to be released in 2014, it makes no sense referring to IE games in terms of performance required. That's not what's happening. Obsidian has seen that 2560x1440 screens are going to be common enough in 2014 and beyond that they warrant support and it's not a lot of work from 1920x1080 (the most common PC gaming resolution). Any higher than that and the screen doesn't get special support, people will just be able to see more of the map, as what happens with many old isometric games when they get unofficial high resolution support, there's very little extra work in terms of assets or engine to make that happen. Netbooks are dead, they're being replaced by tablets and ultrabooks, 10-13" (or 9.6" to 13.6") running at 1280x720 or higher. How much more practical are 8" screens vs 10" screens? Some tablets will be released that are 8" or under, but who is gaming on them? Which ones could conceivably run Project Eternity? What resolution will they be running at in 2014? Age of Wonders is a 2D tile based turn based game? That game does not face the challenges Project Eternity has, for example, in a turn based game you don't need to worry about real time attacks at ranges beyond a small resolution on a small screen. It was designed for resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768. Project Eternity is designed for 1366x768, 1600x900, 1980x1080, the most common resolution for gamers (and 2560x1440 which is the near future). That old games can run at higher resolutions than they were designed for is not a logical argument for new games being able to run at lower ersolutions than they were designed for. Need for 3D acceleration should be limited compared to Far Cry 3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Magicka are isometric games with high minimum specifications even in regards to desktops, let alone 8" netbooks. You don't know what kind of models, textures, normal maps, shaders, filters, shadows, and lighting Project Eternity is going to have. It's going to be very different to IWD/BG2 in terms of technology, there's going to be intensive procedures that you can't just turn off.

Netbooks and UMPCs aren't for gaming, they don't usually have a powerful enough GPU. We don't know the minimum specifications, Obsidian probably doesn't either. The new netbooks are 1366x768, any UMPC you'd consider running Project Eternity on has a resolution of 1280x720 or higher. We don't know whether smaller screens are feasible considering the gameplay and ranges. Truth is you can't develop a game for 800x480 and 2560x1440 easily, there's already been sacrifices without supporting resolutions no one will use.

I wasn't interested in the Fallout MMO when it was the Fallout MMO. Christopher Taylor and Mark O'Green were part of the team that made my favourite game, and they were a part of Black Isle, so I wouldn't discount what they do. Not interested in Interplay for a long while and this isn't Black Isle.

Yes but it wasn't ported by BioWare. I know ME1 wasn't (Demiurge did that), but I thought JE was ported by Bioware. Ah well, limited loss, I was curious what it was about though. Edit: Looks like I'm not alone. It's the most popular suggestion from google search, when search for "jade empire con..." Jade Empire was ported by LTI Gray Matter. You would think porting a Xbox game would be easier than porting a Xbox 360 game. Also I was wrong Mass Effect PC was released after Jade Empire PC.

Even if Intel's prediction is right, think about how mature 1920x1080 is, how long its taken to get to 30% of gamers on Steam. 2560x1440 constitutes less than a percent on Steam. In 2015 we're talking a few percent of people with 4K resolution 21-24" monitors. To create assets for 200+ PPI screens like that would take more time, more resources, more people. I'm pretty sure I've completely understood this from the beginning. If you have a 15" retina display you won't want to play at 2560x1440, you'll want to play at a lower resolution. I'm fine with that, it's pretty much the only option for the way the game is being made, and the people who game on 15" retina displays are few and far between, they cost $1800, which if you're a gamer could be much better spent. I'm set anyway, I have a 1920x1080 display, I may upgrade to 2560x1440 in 2015.

People with laptops, who make up a non-trivial number of gamers. I probably should have phrased that, who want to spend $1800 on a 15" laptop to game on, referring to high PPI laptops. Rarely would a 13" have a GPU for gaming at any PPI. Why are you saying this? We're rendering out to 1280x720 and 2560x1440, with the horizontal pixel count being the important part. On a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina, you'll see an additional 160 vertical pixels of the environment. On a 15" MacBook Pro with Retina, you'll see an additional 320 horizontal and 360 vertical pixels of the world. On a 27" Thunderbolt display, you will see it at the target resolution exactly. Why am I saying this? Perhaps I don't understand. I was thinking if you try to display the same pixel for pixel image on a 27" monitor as you are on a 15" monitor, things are going to be a lot bigger on the 27" monitor, and a lot smaller on the 15" monitor. Full support for retina would be a 2560x1440 image that has the same scale as a 1600x900 image on a 15" monitor. Like on the iPad when it's not scaling low PPI content, buttons aren't bigger, they just have more pixels.

Yes but it wasn't ported by BioWare.

16:9 is a ratio, 1.77:1 is not 16:9, it's a pain in the ass to scale a non 16:9 resolution to 16:9 resolutions, that's why they chose 1280x720.

The 27" 2560x1440 display is only ~110 PPI. The 200+ or even 300+ PPI displays of the Nexus, iPad, Macbook Pro are unquestionably clearer. It's less certain whether it makes as much of a difference with games in motion. Even in 2014, i can't see there being a large amount of PC gamers with these type of displays. Who wants to game on a 13" or 15" screen? I can't see any high PPI large screens on the horizon and anywhere near affordable prices, the 4K TVs are ~50-80 PPI. A game would certainly look great on a high PPI screen, the interface would have the cleanest lines you've ever seen, but that's a lot of work for a tiny minority of people with small high end laptops that aren't even designed for gaming. So it's official retina resolutions will not be supported, I'm fine with that, it's a sensible decision.

Humble Indie Bundle 7 is out. I have every game apart from Snapshot, also InXile just gave me The Bard's Tale I already have, so it's been disappointing for me, but if you haven't checked them out now is the time. Closure is one of the best games I've ever played. Haven't played Shank 2 but the first one was good.

1280/16=720/9=80 1366/16=85.375 768/9=85.333 Josh has written they're going to be supporting retina displays that implicitly suggests they're supporting high PPI screens, although there's no detail about how broad support this will be, only 2560x1440 is mentioned in regards to high PPI. The graphic shows they're going to be supporting a wide range of resolution from 1280x720 to 2880x1800 at standard PPI 90-120.

Steam hardware survey says hardly any laptops run at 1280x720 (0.78%), most run at 1366x768 (18.69%) or 1600x900 (7.28%). Monitors are mostly 1280x1024 (9.25%), 1680x1050 (9.56%), and 1920x1080 (29.47%). It makes sense to extend the UI to fill the space left in 16:10 displays, because they're not very popular at all. Reason for 1280x720 is it covers 1280x1024 and 1366x768, since the aspect ratios for these resolutions are non-standard. They could probably justify a dedicated middle tier, probably 1600x900, although I imagine the amount of 1600x900 and 1680x1050 is going to start going down rapidly, all the top selling monitors on Amazon are 1080p, and all but one of the top selling laptops (a 13" Macbook Pro) are 1366x768. I doubt many people own 13" 1600x900 (unlikely to be gaming PCs anyway), 15" 1920x1080 rarer still.