Helz

My experiences are pretty much the same. Steam has done well by me, the only complaint I have is that offline mode isn't always available. Origin annoyed me in both games I've played that used it (DA:O and ME2), but it wasn't terrible. I avoid Uplay because I don't actually want all these services on my computer, but I can't speak for it one way or another except that I wish it would go away. If a game came out on Uplay that I wanted enough, I'd probably buy it. OTOH, GFWL is garbage, has ruined two separate games of mine, and I have boycotted every game that has used it since Batman: AA.

There is more than one type of 2D. FEZ springs immedietely to mind, with its unique 2D-3D world, to show that there many ways to go 2D. 2D flattened ("sidescroller") pixel art is very cheap to produce. Anyone with hand drawing skills can whip up some shapes and then animate them. Read about how Jordan Mechner produced Karateka's and Prince of Persia's fantastic character animation back in the '80s. To do something similar in 3D, you need motion capture (mocap) suits, a batch of specialized middleware, animation blending etc. etc. = lots of work hours and money. Isometric 2D is actually 3D with a fixed camera angle and distance and eliminated perspectivic shrinking (which is okay to human eyes if the distance between foreground and background objects is not too big). The backgrounds can still be created by 2D artists, instead of the 3D compositing: meshes, maps, shaders, etc. which takes a lot more work. Testing out 3D meshes for proper movement is a lot of QA time, so that you can't go anywhere you're not supposed to (falling through cracks, going through walls, etc.)* Since 2D movement happens on a single plane (purple shape in the video), it's a lot easier to test. About revival -- 2D RP games have never really went away, just got confined to the indie niche. There is Spidersoft's Avernum and GeneForge series. RPG Maker games were continously created, and some of those are enjoyable. There's Knights of the Chalice. And even though most people sneer at browser games, there are a few really good ones: Ge.Ne.Sis, TCT RPG, World's End series, Legend of the Void series, Mardek RPG series, Monsters' Den series. I've had more fun with the free Monsters' Den games than with Dragon Age: Origins (though that's not saying much). I appreciate your response, it was interesting. I don't personally consider a handful of indie games a significant number of 2d titles though. For the last decade, isometric games of any type have been rare and they seem to be getting a revival of their own thanks to Kickstarter. I think it was a mistake for a lot of those developers to use 3d rendering for everything, because its both uglier (subjective), and I have to believe its a lot more cost effective to use 2d. The cost of game development has skyrocketed with the advent of 3d rendering, and I think it would be in the best interest of a lot of developers to bring that cost down. Of course, I could just be wrong and developing in 2d the way Obsidian are doing PoE isn't any cheaper.

I'm curious how the developers feel about working with the 2d images. I personally prefer 2d for isometric games. I feel like 10-15 year old games done in 2d are prettier in a lot of ways than the 3d isometric games being developed today. I would like to know what the advantages are in doing it 2d from a development standpoint. Is it cheaper? Faster? Easier? Or have all the great looking lighting effects that you've been able to create made it actually more difficult than it would have been if you were using 3d rendering? I hope there are advantages, because I'd love it if you guys brought on a 2d revival.

I spent half of last night watching old interviews from this guy. He's talked to a lot of really interesting people. The Lord British and John Romero interviews were especially good.

I bought Crusader Kings 2 yesterday. I'd been wanting to try out a Paradox strategy game, and I picked this one over Europa 4 because I read it was a little more intuitive. I spent about an hour going through the tutorials until the combat one bugged out, tried to start a new game anyway, got confused, got bored, tried to marry my mom for the lolz but wasn't allowed, tried to court my brother's daughter but she took all my money and refused to visit, so I gave up and played Black Mesa for a while.

Streaming over the internet has a lot more potential for lag than streaming over a home network. I'm among the many who don't actually need this, but I think I'll give it a go on my laptop just to see how well it works.

Having played BG2 recently, I can say that the biggest thing that caught my attention was the number of dialogue options. I don't think there was ever a time I was limited to the 3 that are the standard these days. Usually it was closer to 10. That made RPiing my character so much more fun. Also, I played a Wild Mage which I can say is the most fun playthrough I've ever done. It kind of reminded me of playing a jinxed character in Fallout, except better. I made a rule that I couldn't reload due to any unintended magic bloopers (except the sex change, that was too much) and it lead to all sort of unexpected, hilarious, and sometimes sad consequences. "Save scumming" is a ridiculous term made by people who play their games on easy or exclusively use overpowered builds they copied from somebody else who figured it out through save scumming. An encounter isn't much of a challenge if you already know how to beat it the first time through.

So you can stunlock an enemy and then chain sneak attacks on him? Nice :D

Yeah, after thinking about it some more, its the perma-glow effects that I personally can't stand. Short ones (like 1-2 seconds) are fine. On that note, I also hate when weapon effects are permanent. I ended up modding out the weapon glows in DA:O because they annoyed me so much.

I used to rant about full voiceacting back in the days when it first started to become mandatory. I still get riled up about it. It costs lots of money, and makes games worse.

I like the symbols that appear for a short duration over their heads and agree that they should stand out more. I personally can't stand when my character stays lit up like a Christmas tree though, and think they should use the afterglow effects as little as possible.

You've already been very clear about your preference for burly dudes in loincloths. The fact that you see "gay" everywhere you look says a lot about you. Great update! All of the overlapping class abilities should really lead to tons of viable parties. And they're all different enough to remain diverse from one another. The chanter is the first rendition of a bard class that actually sounds like fun to play.

I just bought Shadowrun Returns off GoG, so I'll probably load that up next. Banner Saga was last game I purchased recently. I like it, but it just hasn't grabbed me. I don't have a lot of time for games these days, and if they're not blowing my mind they tend to gather dust. As far as what's on the horizon, Wasteland 2 and PoE are the two I'm most excited about. The Divinity game is also on my radar, but I'm going to sit back and see how it goes after release. Further out, Fallout 4 and more than anything else, Mount and Blade 2.

I downloaded Warsword Conquest, a Warhammer total conversion mod for M&B: Warband last night. Its in beta, but its really stable and there's a ton of unique content. The factions are all very different from one another, and so far seem pretty well balanced, something most of the conversion mods fail to achieve. Its definitely worth checking out if you have Warband: http://www.nexusmods.com/mbwarband/mods/5890/?

I played all the Gears games on Co-op with my wife as they were released on the xbox. The first was our favorite. The second wasn't bad, but we actually got in screaming fights with each other while we were playing some of the co-op parts. "Both of you grab one end of a box and carry it around together. Have fun spinning in circles for 5 minutes!" Also the rail gun fights got old fast. The third one was basically one long cutscene as your AI partners ran through the level ahead of you and killed everything. It was the only game I've come across that actually played itself. We got bored eventually and never finished it.

Got Shadowrun Returns for $5.

I've got 500+ for L4D and about half that in L4D2. It was all about the Versus mode for me. I eventually burned out on it, but all the people I played it with still play it regularly.

I wouldn't worry about it. All preorder crap is guaranteed to be unlocked by some crafty modder within days of release.

I loved the Hexen games. Preferred them over Quake/Q2. They were a bit earlier then Unreal though. Here's a shot in the dark: Battlezone 2. It's a hybrid of RTS and FPS, but it had cutting edge graphics like Unreal, there were alien worlds, and it received critical acclaim but no sales. Probably not what you're looking for, but it was a great game.

So after being reminded both how awesome HL2 episode 1 and 2 are, and how short they are, I was somewhat depressed. Then I remembered that the Black Mesa mod had come out a while back and downloaded it. I hadn't at release because I live in Nome, AK, and that was my internet for the month. Anyway, played through the first hour or so, and what a mind-trip. So far its easily the best remake of any game ever. I'm swimming it nostalgia atm, its like I'm in 9th grade again. If PoE nails the IE games, I imagine I'll feel something like this.

I can't say I agree, but then I still remember how excited I was to play a Source game at the time (it was released the same day as HL2). It was buggy to the point of unplayable, unfortunately. So maybe you're right after all, lol. I played the first time through as Malkavian. I was disappointed when I did a replay with another character and realized that every class didn't have a unique dialogue option.

This is my biggest problem with the Elder Scrolls games. It doesn't help that I'm a Mount and Blade fanatic, and playing any other game's melee is just painful now. Still, I suspect the controls feel like crap to you because of the horrible input lag that the game has out of the box. You can find some tweaks online to remove it and make the game feel a lot crisper. I finished HL2:Episode 1 yesterday. Man, its so intense. Just one frantic moment after another until its over. About to play Episode 2 for the second time ever. Replaying all of these might not have been the best idea, because I'm starting to crave HL3 very badly.

You know, I've almost played this so many times and never got around to it. I'm going to buy it next time its on sale now, thanks for the recommendation.

I just finished replaying Half-Life 2 for the first time in several years. I was really struck by how a 10 year old game makes better use of physics than any FPS I've played since. I think its a glaring omission in game development. Just reinstalled HL2: Episode 1. I beat it at release, and haven't touched it since so it'll pretty much be like new.

I was actually listening to an India(n) on the radio the other day speaking of Hinduism. He argued that the belief of reincarnation and infinite lives leads to a people being more passive and accepting of their fate. That contrasts with Christians who believe they only have a single life to live, and are more driven to make their mark on the world.