Diogo Ribeiro

CLUAConsole:CreateItem("killsw01.itm") FTW!

Shadow of the Colossus. Tears of joy.

Guess that answers it

1UP pointed out that as usual, we're screwed: For some reason, Sony is reminding me of Sega in its final days.

How's the role-playing, jerk?

OH SNAP!

Old franchise. EA. Consoles. Can't go wrong!

At the risk of repeating myself, how good is Company of Heroes?

^How good is it?

That kind of flaw has more to do with amateur fanfiction than of not trying to be believable. I explicitly mention the Hydra and the Minotaur because their actions do not shake the screen constantly, but what little is there still manages to give the feeling they have an impact on the environment. I didn't ask for the two giants to simulate earthquakes, either.

Finally managed to finish God of War. Easy and Normal mode are done, currently playing Spartan mode trying to get ready for God mode (the hardest difficulty setting). Pros: Fluid combat with dozens of combos to learn and master; Good graphics with no slowdown; Pretty dynamic and multitiered boss fights; The ability to kill certain types of enemies in a specific way will reward players; The game is rewarding wheter you're a neophyte or a combo master. Cons: The presentation is hapzard across the entire game:Characters in movies have jerky, unnatural animations and characters generally look like stereotypes made to please 12 year olds. Voice casting and acting is all over the place: Kratos' anger comes as over the top all the time; while a scarred, half-burnt and disfigured temple watchmen who lives an empty and lonely life sounds has a rather common voice as opposed to raspy, sorrowful or apathetic. Ares sometimes sounds like he is talking to a wall or practicing in the mirror. The story while not being particularly new is still sound, but has its fair share of WTFs - mostly from vague story sequences or poor level design as the game progresses. "Little details" such as:the game having text for in-game character speech but lacking any kind of subtitles during movies; inconsistent level terrain with the typical invisible walls blocking one path but not blocking another, etc.; the game allows players to spend points in fighting styles or magic attacks. I finished both Easy and Hard with but one style fully maxed out, but during the end of the game Kratos a huge point boost - more than enough to finally max everything out. This ruins favoring one style over another we may not have fully developed yet because there's no point - by the end, one way or another, it seems everything gets maxed out regardless. Note: this may change if it proves to be different in Spartan or God modes; you can (and sometimes have to) perform minigames during combat - pressing a couple of buttons or sequences to either avoid being killed or to kill enemies faster or more brutally - but these sequences have no challenge as surrounding enemies wil just wait for you to finish. doesn't do much to stand out from the "must place puzzle or tricky jump sequence to make up for lack of content" formula, though it's definitely a step up from games like Soul Reaver. the later stages feel rushed, but thankfully there was still time to include unlockable Behind the Scenes footage, trailers, and a message telling us Kratos would be back. Pretty minor to some, but hey, all the other bosses were pretty consistent in that regard so why not here? 7/10 - Good but there's a ton of room for improvement.

Or troop morale. Or destructible environments on the same scale. Or the ability to intercept enemy ships. Or funky weapons. Or land and sea combat. Otherwise, just like Fallout: Tactics!

She had one. In Irenicus's experiments

Not sure if anyone has seen this: it's an example of combat against gryphons while in flight. Unfortunately it's a bit on the low quality side. http://videos.sapo.pt/cw7RbAUzdT1WuARl9wIz

But even using it as an actual mechanic eventually becomes less of an issue, no? A player who physically adapts to the environment and grows better has lesser chances of failing, and so does a character whose skill training increasingly reaches a point where a check is easier to succeed. Of course, I see what you mean and don't think you're wrong - simply pointing out that I find there isn't much, at least from a glance, that makes statistical probability worse. Flat stat checks may be an artifact we can do without but would their removal work in every case? Could we do the same with dialogue to a satisfying degree and let it be based solely around previous interactions with NPCs, as Deus Ex did?

Josh also has a new post.

Except probability will always be a factor wheter we're discussing an abstract or direct control method. There's always a probability that a character will fail his Stealth check in NWN, just as there is the probability that I will fail to properly navigate surroundings and hide the avatar in Thief. Letting a player take over instead of an electronic and limited DM isn't much better when it's also prone to error - if not moreso. Now, I can understand the appeal of immediacy in certain aspects of gameplay; I certainly have a lot more fun sneaking in Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell games than I do in any CRPG. But I'm of the mind that part of this happens not because of the control method and its immediacy, but because the stealth mechanics of these games renders overall stealth in computer role-playing game obsolete. The CRPG genre is hailed as one of the best-selling genres which rose from basement geekdom to international superstardom, but it's vexing to see how limited it still is. It's being abused by developers and publishers who try to shove all possible technological novelties into it but it's still largely a glorified dungeon crawl. On the other hand, games like the Grand Theft Auto series have probably pushed for more methods of character development and gameworld interactivity than any best selling mainstream CRPG in the last years. I find it's a remarkable and ready-to-use role-playing template with a host of features which are indigineous to the CRPG genre, but is forgotten in favor of an overabundance of licensed titles, generic settings and simplified gameplay which only hurts the genre. I have no qualms with a more direct method of character control, so as long as player skill and character skill are not concocurrent to the point of deafeating each other. Curiously RPGWatch recently wrote an article about that concern of mine. Since I've already talked about this on Obsidian's forums I won't repeat them here, but I think they apply somewhat to your blog entry so if you're interested you can read them here. I guess in the end I don't disagree with you. But while I enjoyed your brief foray into that subject I think a more important theme of discussion would be - how do we get there? How do we shift the genre in positive ways while not forgetting the importance and fun that some of the 'traditional' elements still have? By the way, you definitely should get someone to kiss.

Just replayed and refinished it recently. Great game. Though, be prepared for the awfully bad designed way of getting a certain Heart Piece later on. My advice: start investing in Mysterious Shells early on and buy all of Carlov's figurines before beating the game.

How totally not extreme of you.

More than likely it's going to be a veritable tour de force only surpassed by the excellent artistic creativity and acting excellence of movies like Tomb Raider and Alone in the Dark!

I don't think it's really a case of hatred. More like absolute frustration with gaming sites assuming that every technological novelty or gameplay gimmick is a revolution that will face the change of gaming when aside from very specific cases, gaming is still very much the same thing. Just as an example I still remember the hype about Geomod during the development of Red Faction, and how destructible environments were all the shizzle and would allow for new ways of interactive environments. Red Faction came out, the system was largely a gimmick, and the concept itself hasn't really flourished a whole lot in games. In terms of shooters, you're still largely forced through a given path and destructible or interactive environments are arbitrary. Hopefully games like Crysis can change this tendency of gameplay being far behind design. In the case of facial expressions, it's not only technically unimpressive - even Fallout did this and it's often decried as a game lacking in graphical power - they're not doing anything that simple dialogue or dialogue combined with statistical modifiers can't do better. I suppose some people find it hard to understand a character is happy when they say it, but find it much more intuitive when they smile. Right. Getting rid of dialogue and statistics to understand an NPC must sound pretty rad, but when you remove a PC's ability to infer a character's true intentions by such statistical methods as insight, perception or wisdom, how do you transmit the concept of characters who can hide their emotions? How do you allow players to divine their true intentions by simply looking at them? What happens to dialogue options that were specifically created for PCs who managed to see through an NPCs lie? To me this suggests two scenarios: either every NPC will need to be terribly obvious in their intentions so as to allow gamers to "understand motivations instinctively", or there will be dozens of dialogue options per NPC that can make up for every possible appraisal.

Recovering from surgery, I'm currently playing Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for Gamecube and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance for PS2. oh dear god its heaven

True. Of course it's not unreasonable to assume the Brotherhood would have the means to secure it - but the pre-Tactics Brotherhood avoided any kind of connections or contacts with the outside world, which would lead me to believe there wouldn't have been many opportunities to find these resources... Unless they'd try to negotiate or trade with some communities, but how many neighbouring regions had fuel or would trade it with them? Even during Tactics, there's not a whole lot that supports that scenario - in there, it just seems a magical commodity that's always available. Judging from what little one can gather from the first titles the Enclave seemed to be in a much better position to acquire those resources.

It wasn't a European restriction, I think, because I could have my PCs kill children with no problems but ocasionally - probably for story reasons? - an unkillable one cropped up.