Diogo Ribeiro

Hopefully crafting in the game is going to be more involved and reliant on character skills rather than having to find a couple of items for some dwarf in a backwater village to forge an

Speaking of which, nearly all the Resident Evil titles had a Gamecube version, right? From the main Nintendo site which-won't-let-me-create-an-account-because-I'm-not-residing-in-the-US-die-die-die: What are Zero and Deadly Silence all about? By the title I assume Zero is a prequel to all the zombie shenanigans.

It did have something to do with Umbrella, what with Wesker in the background trying to restore Umbrella. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You people should be marking spoilers. You all annoyed me and now I'm gonna sue!

The power is yours!

Metroid Prime! Without a memory card yet, though.

Doesn't lessen the fact that it's still taking away a human life.

If you're somewhat sure of what the thread was like, you can try the Wayback Machine.

I wish I had the design doc for Final Fantasy VII so I could learn the exact formula required to make 40% of the gameplay hours consist of random encounters and summon effects. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> C-C-Combo Breaker!

They'll stuff them all into NPC's basements, along with D&D geeks.

Explanation. In other words, it's here! The Cube I ordered got here yesterday, so tomorrow I'll be picking up Metroid Prime, maybe some other title depending on availability. The GB Pak and Memory Card will likely only arrive sometime next week, though. Speaking of which, I heard about a way of playing import titles trough the use of a cheat device, is this true? :ph34r:

The singleplayer campaign is shaping up to be pretty interesting, although it's still on a "I'll believe it when I see it" stage for me.

It's a great game to explore, to discover locations, and small details of the gameworld. The lore of the gameworld is also surprisingly good and deep. Character creation is great in the sense that you can create very varied characters. Unfortunately, nearly all NPCs are vapid and are nothing more than walking encyclopedias to which you can ask for the same topics: lore, directions, other NPCs. Most of the skills are more often used for rising in guild status in a passive way than actual quests, and most quests are pretty bland, one-sided deals. Combat is also boring and repetitive, there's little to no challenge to be had. I suggest playing it first if you have the chance, but if you're interested in buying it, try to buy it as cheap a possible.

Hence, once again, why I suggested it for the game I was talking about. It works for that game because those are mainly the only two constant elements which are shown, and don't necessarily need to be shown. It's pretty obvious it wouldn't work for any of your other suggestions, or any other which needed more information on screen. No, it would have to do with what games it may be applicable. First, the suggestion didn't have anything to do with the game using stealth or not; it had to do with the game's interface. Second, you can figure out if the same idea will work on a game or not depending on how much interface is required to be shown. Unsurprisingly, it is going to work better in games that don't use many on-screen information to begin with. You wouldn't expect this to be implemented in a game that requires information from more than a dozen different sources. On the other hand, I'm sure a couple of firstperson shooters wouldn't suffer by including an inventory presentation like that of, say, Grim Fandango. That basically answers the question, doesn't it?

Who claimed it was "easy" to begin with? This isn't a contest. I and others have said already, it doesn't necessarily work with all games. In fact my inital suggestion wasn't even for a firstperson shooter; you were the one to bring up the implementation of that into firstperson shooters and then, apparently oblivious that I wasn't talking of FPSs to begin with, seemed irate that I would suggest it for FPSs! If you were expecting the suggestion to apply to all games in existence or to FPSs when it wasn't meant to - as obviously each game is different in design - then you only have yourself to blame for the disappointment.

Not really, Wookie, no. I expected what I was saying to have been clear enough, but I guess I wasn't able to express it properly. My suggestion is basically to make it so the information is still visible and just as compact, but instead of being conveyed trough a conventional interface it is instead presented trough the game's models. In short, turn something which potentially looks like this: Into something that, again potentially, would look like this: Minus the bad graphical quality of late night Photoshop rush jobs. Notice the difference? The 'floating' top left health bar and the top right ammo bar were transposed into the models. The ammo counter was placed on the weapon, the health bar was placed on the character as some gadgetesque display. Now, would this work for all games? No, I never said otherwise. It is however, very possible to do and if properly implemented can outdo the need for conventional interface displays.

Is a hell of a drug -- Rick James

I'm waiting to be able to buy Psychonauts. With all the money dumped into going back to consoles, I'm kinda short on t now.

It's a nice game that basically uses the Silver Age of Comics as a theme complete with corny one-liners, outrageous costumes and stereotypical characters, but it's done in a very charming way. Every hero that becomes available to you will have an introduction vignette, rendered in a Jack Kirby style. Basically it's a squad-based tactical game. Initially you play just one superhero, Minuteman but as you progress more heroes join your cause against commies, robots, monsters and all else that's evil. It plays out in realtime but you can pause the action to issue orders. Every hero has different types of powers available to them but the core types are melee, projectile and area-effect. One of the highlights of the game, although it isn't used as good as it could've been, is that the environments are very interactive. Want to hit four thugs at the same time? Rip out a street lamp and whack them. Don't have the power to jump to the top of a building to bash the thug firing at you? Kick the building down. Does getting trough an obstacle take too long? Pick up a taxi... And throw it at the obstacle. Another nice touch is that depending on how you complete mission objectives, you'll gain prestige points, which you can later use to 'buy' other heroes to join your cause. This happens because not every hero will immediately join you, and you have to recruit them to your team. The only RPG you'll get from it is the ability to customize your heroes via experience points awarded after each mission, where you can then improve statistics or purchase new powers. Haven't played it yet so I can't comment, but going by what I've heard it's pretty much an update on the first game in terms of graphics and control, while gameplay supposedly remains the same. This can be good or bad depending on what you felt about the first game, obviously.

Star Wars: Masters of Ter

Precisely. I would enjoy it either way, really, but why wouldn't this make the gameworld more immersive to some players? It can potentially make gaming artefacts and conventions much more tolerable.

It's the same as trying to call up any other function that potentially needs to be used during combat. Why are you complaining about the would be inadequacy of this feature in firstperson when the example was not given with firstperson or Oblivion in context? I'm neither, really. Although I know my playstyle and I know that I tend to not look at health or ammo displays because I'm generally more busy dealing with opponents than I am consulting that information. In fact, trying to read information during those times spells death to my avatar most of the time. I place more emphasis on performing outlandish maneuvers to survive than I do keeping track of health while the avatar is being shot. I've said multiple times that I suggested for it to be called up or toggled. You wouldn't have to keep calling it up if you toggled, obviously, just as you don't need to keep pressing a crouch button if you are toggling it. Because of this, the health display could be shown permanently if you so wanted to, except not using a conventional interface. Hopefully, it was the last time I had to repeat that... ...but I guess not. The point is to remove the interface from the visual area but to make the information still present. To do this I suggested the information to be displayed trough in-game methods. You would still have the information at your disposal, wheter you called it once or toggled its display, but still there. The only changes would be: Instead of a floating bit of interface, the information would be visible directly off the models in the game. Ammo would be displayed directly on the weapon model. Health would be displayed on the character model - again, check the wrist watch example to see if you can figure out how exactly it could still be permanent. Instead of a permanent display of the information, players could choose to call it on demand or toggle it On or Off. What is there to complain if the different "tools" are, or can be, visible all the time? What are you complaining about if my suggestion allows you to have your health levels displayed at all times if you so wish? From everything I've been (repeatedly) typing what exactly am I not being able to convey? Tell me. No, the fact remains you're somehow attributing a notion of realism to a suggestion that is poised to lessen the idea of playing a game rather than a gameworld. How can you even suggest I'm pushing for more realism when I'm not basing anything of what I'm writing in reality; and suggest I'm pushing for less gameplay (?) when gameplay remains virtually unchanged? As I said before, I don't check it that often. Even when I played online, such as in Quake 3 Arena or Medal of Honor, I focused almost always on sensing surroundings, opponent movements and tactics. I barely looked at my health or ammo levels.

I feel the same way personally, in the sense that I care more about the gameplay and how consistent and credible the gameworld is than I do with how much the interface keeps telling me that I'm playing a game. I'm not making these suggestions because I think the interface would solve any and all problems which might crop up in regards to immersion, because as I've said before it's not exclusive to interface. I believe that if a compromise between both is worth it then there's really no problem; I'd take an issue with such a thing if the in-game mechanics that tried to take the place of the interface were badly implemented or became too cumbersome. Transposing these kinds of options into valid and credible counterparts in the gameworld can be great, but it shouldn't be done just because. I haven't played Quake 4 (don't think I will either) but I have seen images of what you're talking about. If the weapon is going to have that kind of feature, I think the weapon readout should be turned directly at the player rather than placed at that angle. Point taken, and I agree; as I've said before I don't think it should be done just because. It should be properly designed. The way I see it, this kind of feature could in fact help in turning them into a better storytelling artform. When you're experiencing a gameworld, I feel the interface is, or can be as damaging to the overall experience as small liner notes would be when reading a book, or hearing/seeing notes about a movie as you watch it. It doesn't mean that it can't work seamlessly but more often than not it negatively contributes to it all.

First they called it turnbased, now it's partially realtime. Again I'm reminded why I never went to their website again.

That's because you're comparing between the gameplay mechanics themselves, when you should be comparing the ability to toggle or activate a function instead. In other words, no, I'm not saying sneaking is the same as looking at a health bar; I'm saying activating the health display would be just the same as activating a function like sneaking. Or reloading. That's why you'd be able to... Check it! Which part of "they're different", "I don't care for realism", and "immersion is independent of realism" do you require me to explain better? 2 extra keys, for expressing two functions most players can't deal with when in intense firefights. That hard to control?

Or maybe I play enough of them to suggest something that doesn't require any out of the ordinary maneuvers, as well as allowing players to keep paying attention to the action. Unless you have the ability to switch between first and third person. Like Oblivion. I can't fathom how you go from 1 button to 3, then 50. Before your next post mentions my suggestion requires 14 keyboards, 5 mouses, and 2 DDR Dance Pads, look up the part of my post where I said it only needs one button to be activated on demand, or toggled. With 1 button. If you don't find executing that action hard, you shouldn't consider checking your health in the same manner hard. Nicely put, IF. Go check that line you quoted. I said my suggestion allowed players to retain the ability to keep seeing all the action and interacting with surroundings. When I say they'd still be able to see the action, I'm clearly not refering to the HUD, I'm refering to the action that is occuring, ie, gunfights. In other words, the player would have the ability to call up the health display in the suggested manner, but doing so would not negatively impact on his ability to keep interacting with the rest of the game. By association, this also means he'd be able to switch between seeing and not seeing his health displayed without this becoming a problem when used in the middle of a confrontation because it's not on a separate screen or anything; it's displayed on the same screen as the rest of the game, while the action is taking place. If you have to, consider it close to going about your business and suddenly lifting your left hand to check your watch to see what time it is. Except in the game, you'd be shooting every stinking hippie down the street. I'm glad you know more about the system than I do, especially considering it doesn't exist. 'Actual combat' is unpredictable. Given you play FPSs, you should know no combat situation is ever the same, and different actions may be required to survive or advance. This is especially true of online shooters where there'd be a whole deal of frustration if stealth or crouching was only done before any combat situation, rather than when it's required.