Game Releases for the Week of 10/17/05: <liljon>HEYEEAAAAAAAA</liljon>

[Sky]

I have developed a dislike for fps that is rivalling my dislike for rts. Except some online shooters like BF2. But I really dislike single players games that are just about shooting people and my interface with the world is a gun. *yawn* Goddamned Wolfenstein 3d.

I'm cranky today, I've deleted a bunch of posts :P

[Shockeye]

I'd just like to say that I'm upset that Cricket 2006 is only for PAL and not NTSC. Thank you.

[Sky]

Aw, man. Don't get me started on foreign development....whether it be Silent Storm disappearing from store shelves (luckily a gold version will appear soon!) or Gothic II's expansion not being developed in English (well...there was a patch for the German version giving it English subtitles...and then the devs finally released the long-promised English version...in central europe...and it only works with the UK executable...this was just in the new PC Gamer, one of my longtime gripes - Gothic II rocked).

BAH. You did that on purpose.

[Fabricated]

I forgot to mention this because I almost never used it - Yeah, the Slomo thing is mostly unnecessary and felt like a case of 'oooh we need another feature!'.  I mainly used it to kill turrets and those fucking laser flying triangle things, otherwise I forgot it was there.

If you didn't really like the demo maybe you should wait until it drops a bit in price.  I liked the demo, I thought the full game had a pretty similar feel.  The A.I. isn't so impressive early in the game, but really shines later on.

Storywise, first half or two thirds is slow.  The answering machine messages were pretty boring/uninformative and the lackluster voice acting didn't help. 

Damn, I abuse the slomo at every opportunity. When I think something spooky or dangerous is going to happen I hit the solomo and go around corners or through doors. It's almost like cheating though. I've taken down 5-6 replica soldiers in about 1 second apiece before just by charging a room with solomo on and jacking all of them at point blank with the shotgun, one shell apiece.

The voice acting was above average in every respect if you ask me. A bit hamfisted, but I'm only deathly offended by engrish level acting anyway. I thought the abundance of phone messages were pointless until this one (note: Not really a spoiler, it doesn't explain a fucking thing):

[Raging Turtle]

I forgot to mention this because I almost never used it - Yeah, the Slomo thing is mostly unnecessary and felt like a case of 'oooh we need another feature!'.  I mainly used it to kill turrets and those fucking laser flying triangle things, otherwise I forgot it was there.

If you didn't really like the demo maybe you should wait until it drops a bit in price.  I liked the demo, I thought the full game had a pretty similar feel.  The A.I. isn't so impressive early in the game, but really shines later on.

Storywise, first half or two thirds is slow.  The answering machine messages were pretty boring/uninformative and the lackluster voice acting didn't help. 

Damn, I abuse the slomo at every opportunity. When I think something spooky or dangerous is going to happen I hit the solomo and go around corners or through doors. It's almost like cheating though. I've taken down 5-6 replica soldiers in about 1 second apiece before just by charging a room with solomo on and jacking all of them at point blank with the shotgun, one shell apiece.

The voice acting was above average in every respect if you ask me. A bit hamfisted, but I'm only deathly offended by engrish level acting anyway. I thought the abundance of phone messages were pointless until this one (note: Not really a spoiler, it doesn't explain a fucking thing):

*snip*

I prefered to lean around corners with the shift-aiming thing, or use cover from across the room, and use the assault rifle or the penetrator.  Or the Skeletizer, as I like to call it.  Man that thing is fun, especially if you can get the replicas to line up. 

I was really only complaining about the voice acting on the answering machines - thought it was weak and mostly pointless.  The realistic swearing was a nice touch, I admit.   

[Daeven]

Fear has an office cube with a red stapler and a T.P.S. Report.

Insta-gaming gold.

That and the slo-mo makes the game playable for us non-ridalin addicted 'older folk' who still like to try these things on hard.

[Fabricated]

Fear has an office cube with a red stapler and a T.P.S. Report.

Insta-gaming gold.

That and the slo-mo makes the game playable for us non-ridalin addicted 'older folk' who still like to try these things on hard.

There's a fat programmer NPC with a big belt buckle that says "RTFM" too.

[Sairon]

Just played some F.E.A.R, easily GOTY material imo. I'm enjoying it way more than enjoyed HL2 ( which didn't even finnish ). I love bullet time, so that is all good. If they would've thrown in a couple of more weapons in there I think I would've enjoyed it even more.

[Azazel]

I'd just like to say that I'm upset that Cricket 2006 is only for PAL and not NTSC. Thank you.

There's always the PC version?

[tazelbain]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GC):
My reasons for getting this are twofold: It's a tactics game and I need to keep validating the existence of my gamecube. It's a psychological thing.

Taking a break from Civ4, I picked this up. Got to chapter 7, had to restart because I don't have people to finish (3 people had died and 2 characters left).  I didn't realize until after I saved that the game was permadeath. I hate that.  It basically forces you into "flawless victory or reset."  Not fun.  But otherwise it pretty good if not linear, I am hoping that will be opening up more soon.  They seem to be taking the philosophy of very slowly easing you into the game.

[Jain Zar]

That's every Fire Emblem game for you.  Its a shining beacon of complete and utter UNFUN that would actually be a pretty good fucking game if they removed permadeath.

This was a short blast towards the game I did when it was only 1 title ass raping my turn based loving soul: (GBA version but should apply to the GCube one too.)

Its too hard, too unfair, too unfun. PERMADEATH IN ROLEPLAYING GAMES IS NOT FUN ESPECIALLY WHEN YOUR GAME IS DESIGNED AROUND KILLING PLAYER CHARACTERS INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS!! How this game could have been so well reviewed and so well liked blows my mind. It sucks. Could we have cost the player money or character xp/levels for being defeated in battle? Sure. Instead 0hp=go bye bye and the game's AI is based around killing you. It doesn't use tactics or any genuine strategy, it just tries to kill the weakest unit available. And not to mention the bosses are all juggernauts capable of killing your entire party. Yeah. I want to play a scenario where I have to kill over 60 enemies only to die to the boss. Such an awful, awful game, and it all comes down to the permadeath..

Not to mention the things I didn't list like how it ACTIVELY saves every action so you can lose out to simple bad luck.  Like having a spear guy attacking my 31 HP Axeman hiding in a wood square.  Attacker has a 33 percent chance to hit, will do 11 damage, and has a 5 percent critical hit chance.  He hits and crits, killing my guy in ONE FUCKING HIT.  Since its permadeath, time to start the mission over again.

You can lose entire missions due to BAD LUCK.  Skill doesn't even apply in this fucking shithole game series.  And as I mentioned, some fights have over 50 enemies plus a super hard to kill level boss.

And character advancement is limited and random.  All stats might go up a point (HP is a stat in this game.  You can level up and not get any more HPs!), or you might gain 1 whopping point in a useless stat.  You can only gain 40 levels per character.  2 classes and you need to find items to advance for the 2nd 20.

It has that shitty rock paper scizzors nonsense so many Japanese strategy games have a hardon for. 

Weapons have limited uses and you have to buy more.

There are limited replacement characters, and the game being a class/level/use (you get better with a weapon the more its used) system, after a certain point replacements stop being worth taking.  Meaning the more people you lose, the more impossible the game gets. 

Fuck this game.  Fuck it right to hell.  Fuck its designers, fuck its fans, fuck anyone who let this series progress with its shitass permadeath that fucks an otherwise solid title right into the land of sheep sodomizers.

Alongside Gradius and its checkpoint powerup system which means you have to pretty much beat the entire game on one fucking life since no powerup=die...

[Shockeye]

I'd just like to say that I'm upset that Cricket 2006 is only for PAL and not NTSC. Thank you.

There's always the PC version?

I don't like playing sports games on the PC.

[HaemishM]

Cricket is a sport?

[HRose]

I rarely buy games if it isn't about something special but this time I got Civ4, Dungeon Siege 2 and Quake 4 all at once. And I'm really happy.

The most deluding one was DS2, the biggest surprise Q4.

Civ4 is a really solid game, with a good interface and generally rather polished and functional. It doesn't really seem to have any weak point. The engine does the work rather well. I'm pleased and satisfied, but not surprised.

DS2 was deluding because I'm not getting the controls right and it changes some functions that I loved in DS. The dialogues/story are silly at best. But the graphic is incredible. It really looks great and it's also rather fluid. It feels WAY MORE Diablo 2 that the first DS, which isn't really a compliment. It seems to have the exact same fonts and the big health bars of the monsters at the top of the screen. It really tries *hard* to be D2. Instead I believe the value was in some aspects that it got better than Diablo.

It still seems a rock solid and damn fun brainless action RPG. The longevity should be high but it's also the type of game that you could find boring right away. But then it really looks pretty. Animations, monsters, characters and environments are very high quality. The game has some really talented artists. I couldn't praise the graphic enough. And it's not just because it's really pretty, inspired and detailed. But also because it has its own personality and consistence. It looks unique compared to the generic fantasy setting of some games. Every little item is finely detailed.

Even if it's repetitive I like the combat gameplay and I'm going to enjoy it.

Q4 is a surprise because I didn't expected much from it. I only played it for a little while but.. wow. There are two things that the games does right: the feel of the weapons and the graphic. It is the D3 engine but it has vibrant colors and is overall more bright. It's definitely not "brown", nor too dark, nor feeling as D3. All the weapons have flashlights on and the feel of the shooting is absolutely great, sounds included. The production value is really high and it feels like being in a good CG movie. I simply love the shooting, it feels great. This is all about the "wow factor". Way, way better graphic than D3. Both the monsters and the characters are so much better than those in D3. It's the best graphic I've ever seen and is head and shoulders above HL2 and D3. It isn't "realistic" but it looks truly insane. Especially the textures are really well done. I could basically repeat the comments about DS2. The combat feels great, it's just fun shooting at things when the weapons feel so absolutely good, the environments are incredible and the sounds so damn right. So, even if it's going repetitive, I will still enjoy the straight gunning.

Graphic and sounds here are great. I like less the silly setting. I also run through some of the MP maps (alone) just to notice that the textures are again very good. The "feel" of the weapons is less consistent because they removed some effectis in the MP (like the camera shaking as you shoot), while they boosted the speed considerably to make it as twitch as Q3. So it's nothing new for the MP. Just so much better graphic and sounds, while heavier to run (but the maps are rather simple compared to the rich details of the single player zones).

The only problem could be that the single player part is rather short. I believe the D3 was really bad PR for Q4, because I think the game is good.

In short. Single player: probably short, intense and feeling great and immersive but also repetitive if the running and gunning isn't enough for you. MP: good graphic, controls and sounds, but nothing new to offer. Much heavier on the hardware and bandwidth.

Btw, while I had to crack Civ4 and DS2 to play without having to swap the CDs, Q4 seems to work without any problem. And the DVD is in its box (but then I'm playing the UK version).