RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Oerwinde]

I liked the last Final Fantasy for the PS2. Might have been 12? It just fit my preferences.

The one made by the FF Tactics guys? I never finished it, they made me fight 2 gruelling boss fights in a row for some artifact only to have the bad guys show up and take it from me as soon as I was done so I rage quit.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

I liked the last Final Fantasy for the PS2. Might have been 12? It just fit my preferences.

The one made by the FF Tactics guys? I never finished it, they made me fight 2 gruelling boss fights in a row for some artifact only to have the bad guys show up and take it from me as soon as I was done so I rage quit.

 

 

To be honest, I can't recall the specifics of the game -- it's been a while.  I just remember liking both the open exploration feel, plus I liked the characters and story.

[Majek]

FF12 is quite good indeed, but 9 is better or so i remember. :S

[Sarex]

http://www.pcgamer.com/best-pc-games-2016/

[Sarex]

Btw, for all you Cossack fans out there. http://www.cossacks3.com/

[Fenixp]

Btw, for all you Cossack fans out there. http://www.cossacks3.com/

I feel happy.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Hmm, will have to try this, since Total War took a dive into the septic tank after the first Medieval.

[Fenixp]

Cossacks and Total War have just about nothing in common

[GhostofAnakin]

FF12 is quite good indeed, but 9 is better or so i remember. :S

 

I kind of want to play FF12 again, but it's only on the PS2, and my PS2 is ... I don't even know where I put it.  My TV has the newer generation consoles hooked up the wazoo.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Cossacks and Total War have just about nothing in common

Why do you say that? Both have tactical combat and base building. Is the combat that much different?

[sorophx]

Cossacks was more similar to Age of Empires, from what I recall. 

[Wrath of Dagon]

"A large-scale historical strategy on great battles of the XVII-XVIII centuries." from Cossacks 3 website.

 

Kind of sounds like Total War, but I've never played Age of Empires, I thought it was something very arcady, like Civilization.

[Bartimaeus]

Age of Empires is much more similar to the WarCrafts and StarCrafts and Command & Conquers of yesteryear: no turn-based stuff, much more micro focused than macro (although the latter shouldn't necessarily be minimized, mind you), and extremely fast-paced - to the point of the limits of human reflexes and thinking speed at the higher levels. The Total War games are basically the opposite on all of those...so if Cossacks is like AoE as sorophx said, don't expect too many similarities.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

Age of Empires is an RTS game.  I'm not quite sure how Civilization is arcady, it is a turn based strategy game.  

 

Total War games are kind of hybrids, turn based strategy with real time battles.  Although I wouldn't classify those battles as RTS, as you aren't building units and managing resources in combat.  

 

I've never played Cossacks either, but if you are building, managing resources, and armies all in real time, it would be a RTS game more like Age of Empires or Stronghold.

 

edit:  Bart beat me to it, but you can have an RTS game with more focus on the armies and troop movement.  It seems like Cossacks might fit that mold.  

Edited January 5, 2016 by Hurlshot

[sorophx]

Age of Empires was a reskinned Warcraft 2. Cossacks was just a bit different (more units present on-screen simultaneously), but the mechanics were the same. didn't look like a Total War game at all, because it didn't have the strategical map, and you controlled individual units, not groups of units.

 

actually, come to think of it, it reminds me of Stronghold a lot

 

EDIT: jeebuz, I'm getting old and slow. beat by two ninjas, not one...

 

I actually searched YouTube for Cossacks 2 videos, and that game did have a strategical map with player and AI taking turns. so, it was very similar to Total War. the thing is, the new Cossacks 3 screenshots look similar to the original game.

Edited January 5, 2016 by sorophx

[Bartimaeus]

Age of Empires is an RTS game.  I'm not quite sure how Civilization is arcady, it is a turn based strategy game.  

 

Total War games are kind of hybrids, turn based strategy with real time battles.  Although I wouldn't classify those battles as RTS, as you aren't building units and managing resources in combat.  

 

I've never played Cossacks either, but if you are building, managing resources, and armies all in real time, it would be a RTS game more like Age of Empires or Stronghold.

 

edit:  Bart beat me to it, but you can have an RTS game with more focus on the armies and troop movement.  It seems like Cossacks might fit that mold.

 

Even the real time strategy bits of the Total War games are quite unlike AoE - the TW games are very slow-paced and take a more generalist approach with its use of giant unit clumps and unclear combat conditions (no hitpoints transparent to the player(s), semi-random projectile usage, vague/fluky mechanics like stamina and morale, etc.) which makes micro-management pretty limited at best compared to the games I mentioned earlier. Strategy and general tactics therefore become much more important, whereas speed and micro-management are much more important for games like Age of Empires and WarCraft.

 

I actually searched YouTube for Cossacks 2 videos, and that game did have a strategical map with player and AI taking turns.

Hm, so a combination of TW's strategic turn-based map and AoE's fast-paced RTS gameplay?

Edited January 5, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[sorophx]

no, it looks like a Europe-flavored copy of the original Shogun, with a few minor tweaks (you can sack villages on the tactical map, for example).

Edited January 6, 2016 by sorophx

[Wrath of Dagon]

"Grandiose battles of up to 10,000 units on the map."

"Realistic physics of bullets and cannonballs."

"Considerable influence of the landscape on battle tactics."

 

So it doesn't sound like a click-fest.

[Raithe]

pcgamer - Deus Ex Mankind: Power and choice in cyberpunk Prague

 

 

 

Deep in a theatre in rainy Prague, bionic commando Adam Jensen is trapped in a closet. The door is the only exit, and that’s guarded by a bipedal robot loaded up with machine guns. There must be a way out; Deus Ex is all about choice.

 

I search for a vent, because there’s always a vent. But with the exception of a big bin, the room is empty. I have fled into the most featureless and poorly ventilated space in the Deus Ex universe. I consider my abilities: my electric dash will get me killed slightly faster than ambling into fire. Cloaking isn’t going to help either. I press a button to bring up my gun. From here you can switch ammo types, add silencers and tweak your scope. No armour-piercing rounds. Damn. 

 

A frag grenade! Robots hate frag grenades. I open the door, toss the egg and close it again as the robot opens fire. WHUMP. I use my augmented vision mode to see through the wall and spot the robot lying still on its side. I crack the door. There’s a terrible whirring noise. The robot stirs, righting itself in a hideous tangle of legs. It’s not dead. It’s not dead at all. 

 

I retreat into the room. This is Adam Jensen’s life now, this room. It’s an incongruous end for a man who has dedicated the two years since the events of Human Revolution to becoming the perfect walking weapon. Human Revolution Jensen was the improvised, slightly buggy prototype who could only punch two people before having to recharge his batteries. Mankind Divided Jensen is colder, harder and deadlier. Eidos Montreal refer to him as Jensen 2.0. 

 

 

Jensen 2.0 has just come up with a very stupid plan. With the right upgrades Jensen can lift huge objects, like the massive bin sitting in the corner. I open the door and grab the fridge-sized object, hugging it against my belly for dear life. The robot opens fire, and the bin soaks up the bullets—it’s working! I bump the robot backwards. The robot’s guns fire point blank into the bin as we perform an absurd rotating waltz into the corridor. I’m a genius. I silently thank Prague council’s commitment to bin sturdiness and slowly back away. I make it fi ve steps before the bin breaks. I’m an idiot. 

 

I’m also dead, but laughing. In Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, even a tiny and almost featureless room can create moments of emergent absurdity. “That’s exactly the kind of story that we look for,” gameplay director Patrick Fortier tells me. “We really believe in the strength of spontaneous moments. They’re really powerful, and we believe that they’re as exciting for players as the big scripted moments.” 

 

I’m inclined to agree, and happy to discover that Mankind Divided is a solid continuation of the Human Revolution formula. In Mankind Divided Jensen flies all over the world as a special forces expert working for the Deus Ex equivalent of Interpol. The world is still reeling from Human Revolution’s techno-virus outbreak that turned augmented individuals into frenzied cyborg killers. Now augmented people are oppressed, segregated and treated as an underclass in what Eidos Montreal awkwardly refer to as a “mechanical apartheid”. Jensen wants to track down the Illuminati members responsible for the state of the world, and punch them with his big metal hands. As executive narrative director Mary DeMarle puts it: “he wants to meet the puppeteer, he doesn’t want to just be the puppet anymore.” 

 

The new hubs will be more populated and detailed than those of Human Revolution.

 

Mankind Divided will play out over a collection of hub zones, although Eidos Montreal hasn’t confirmed how many yet. The Prague level I explored takes place in one corner of a sizeable area—roughly two or three city blocks in size. The rest of the zone was locked off so I couldn’t explore first-hand, but the new hubs will be more populated and detailed than Human Revolution’s, thanks in large part to Mankind Divided’s new engine. 

 

“It’s definitely a bigger monster than Human Revolution was,” says audio director Steve Szczepkowski. “In Human Revolution we could put maybe twelve people on screen that were moving, and then maybe another six static that would just sit and do their occupation. Well, that’s doubled.” The amount of dialogue has grown as a result. “I don’t remember what the total actor count is, but I know we’re already way over a hundred. And that’s with unique characters and all the factions we have so there’s a lot of voices. We’ve done a lot for the acting economy here in Montreal.”

 

[sorophx]

this is way off-topic, but I finally figured out what Raithe's sig means after watching All The President's Men

[Raithe]

What, it's simple Latin isn't it?

[sorophx]

doesn't convey the actual meaning. I knew the words themselves, but they just wouldn't form a coherent sentence in my head

[Nonek]

Cossacks: European Wars? As I remember it was visually the spitting image of AoE though more detailed and accurate to the smaller timeframe, while combat played out quite similarly to Total War, in a far more realistic manner than AoE. One could form lines of musketry to beat back opponents with massed fire, form square for defense against cavalry and marching, the standard tactics of the period with an emphasis on that Swedish chap who revolutionised warfare of that age, and obviously terrain played an immense role as always. Very challenging game however even on the lower levels of difficulty for the beginner.

 

The naval battles were also very good, the line actually worked as well.

[Blarghagh]

Geeze, the consumer Oculus Rift got priced. In the US, it's about 600 USD. Where I live, it's 700 Euros + Shipping which translates to 800 USD. That's insane. As someone who got to use the DK2 on a regular basis and loved it, I still wouldn't pay more than 250 bucks for it until there were at least some solid products for it - right now it's a gimmick.

[Keyrock]

Geeze, the consumer Oculus Rift got priced. In the US, it's about 600 USD. Where I live, it's 700 Euros + Shipping which translates to 800 USD. That's insane. As someone who got to use the DK2 on a regular basis and loved it, I still wouldn't pay more than 250 bucks for it until there were at least some solid products for it - right now it's a gimmick.

I was already going to wait several years to even think about jumping on the VR bandwagon, now I have even more reason.  Wait 3 or 4 years, they'll have time to iterate on it once or twice, the technology will be better, they'll be a lot more games out that support it, and it will cost half as much.  That's my plan, anyway.