CyberClaw • Comments
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The quest for Shadow of the Colossus' last secret
Introducing the secret seekers and their eight-year quest
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Sid Meier's cultural victory
"If there's anything in reality that's not fun, we will change it."
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Capcom defends on-disc DLC
In the end they can set the price they feel like, they have that power, they are making the product they can sell it as cheap or expensive as they feel like it. But we as consumers have some power as well, to vote with our money. Don't buy the DLC. I won't.
Personally there are a couple other things that pisses me off more. The XBox 360 version was unfinished. The whole online guest deal, where they tried to blame MS because they either didn't have time, or are just plain dumb to implement the feature. That and the online sound bug, which they dubbed a feature. Those kinds of blatant lies are just throwing dirt in our face. Much worse than the DLC issue in my opinion. Reply +3
MS issues bans for XBL Marketplace Theft
The bans only affect XBox Live though, you still keep your downloaded content in your hard drive. And nothing stops you from playing it. You loose your MS points though... Cheesecakebobby might help by clarifying that. Reply +1
Achievements were recorded and eventually uploaded to XBLive when you connected date-less. Didn't do it since, because (he) did it more out of curiosity than necessity (wasn't interested in Metal Slug to begin with, played the last 300 kazzillion to death in Arcades), and it'd quickly become an hassle (plus no XBLive features). I was genuinly afraid right now that they were going to ban that account for that. They didn't.
But just to clarify, when Metal Slug XX was released there was a glitch that allowed you to use a COD game to launch some trial arcade games in full mode offline. No need of modding, hacking or whatever. All doable from your controller, just by doing a "routine" (something along the lines of launch arcade game, launch cod, go to some section in COD, open mini dashboard, launch arcade game again). I could hardly believe it myself until I saw it in action. o_O Reply +2
Dragon's Dogma
I don't get it. Based on what experience, because honestly, I'd say it makes no difference (I've had 3 player games in Demon Souls, and never found the combat simplistic, whatever that means). Reply +2
Burnout Crash!
XBLA scam costs Microsoft $1.2m
This isn't simple piracy. By using those stolen points, they are directly wasting MS money. Reply 0
In this case MS created a "currency", with which one can buy 3rd party non MS products. When that product is bought with MS currency, MS pays a fee to the developer. If the MS points are stolen, and used, MS still has to pay real money to the developer for the buy.
So this is more akin to stealing money and buying a legitimate copy of a game, than stealing a digital copy of a game.
XBLive is a two edged sword anyway. I love the system, but MS reign and rules over it is always directed torwards buying extra content (developers have a limit of free DLCs they can offer for example). Kind of reminds me of those cyberpunk futuristic utopias (Equilibrium for example), where everything looks great and clean, but some Tyrant is in power =) Reply +2
20,000 support disabled gamer's plight
Synthesized speech often provides players a spoken, play-by-play narration of the action in a game. Sound effects can be used to offer a simple cue (imagine the sound of coins hitting a table in a poker game) or can be crafted to communicate the three-dimensional position of an object moving through a virtual world." Reply 0
And if they really do (with an automated process for example) they do it for some games (again, most recent NFS is a good example), doing for all games since it was automated would be no trouble. Reply +1
I think developers are just trying to baby proof gaming. They are always coming up with clever ways on how to remove menus, and make the experience more interactive and imersive... Some of those ideas work, and even become industry standard (remember back in the day when you could tell your health not by the redness on the screen but by the number in the corner?), yet others are so lost in "design" that completely forget (or ignore) function, managing to alienate and bother million of gamers in the process (again, Burnout Paradise pre-menus patch, and pre-race restart option, but you see the trend in other games, Fable 3 for example, although I found Fable 3 "non-menu" actually good for a change, at least compared to Fable 1, & 2 real menus lol). The stupid thing is that developers will remove game menus so we can have that real awesome experience (no menus in life right?) - and then do something that boggles the mind and even ends up being distracting, for example having breakable windows, and no drivers in the driver seat...
I just complain because they are good games though ;__; Reply +2
Oz lawman "at risk" from gamer mob
His perception of 18+ games, is as accurate as my perception of how dangerous wild animals are Australia, the only difference is that I'm being moronic on purpose. Reply +4
Slow PS3 start was down to stock - Sony
Or maybe they oversupplied Portugal and forgot the rest of Europe has gamers too?
Or maybe this guy is talking out of his ass (checks job title) Sony Bigwig? Out of his ass, definitely =)
PS3 is picking up momentum, but trying to smudge lies on our eyes to hide the incredible fail that it was the PS3 launch, it is just... I was gonna say wrong, but on a 2nd thought, it's just Sony. ;) Reply +12
Bungie reveals Halo project trailer
They refer to it as a new Halo 3 campaign experience ;) Reply 0
Bungie to unveil Halo project today?
They refer to it as a new Halo 3 campaign experience ;) Reply 0
But let's be clear about something, whatever this is, I doubt it's a stand alone product. It had a "Halo 3" stamp well displayed at the end (and if it was a stand alone, it'd either only say Halo so we knew it was in universe). It's some sort of expantion for Halo 3, that's for sure. Reply 0
Do we know anything about the S1 project? I don't recall anything from the books. Maybe they were much more mechanised than S2s. Essentially "robots" with a human brain or something. The "smiley" face made me wonder - it must represent some sort of a view point of an ichonic character, possibly our own. Reply 0
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Before Halo 1, every single FPS of recorded history, worked arround medkits. Bungie, thought about it, and found that being in a firefight with 5 health was boring. So they invented the shield and health system. Health needs medkits in Halo 1, but the shield will recharge fast, making it possible for you to take cover, and try again. The next 2 years, every FPS game adapted a form of "shield". Halo 2, took the shield concept further, and took away medkits for good. Now, both health and shield recharge, but at diferent rates - which is linked to diferent weapons (it was already in Halo 1). Plasma weapons are more effective on shield, projectiles more effective on health. Dual wielding, is not just 2 weapons of the same kind on each hand, like in every other FPS to date (except Golden Eye in SP, where you picked up a special weapon, or Opera in one of the betas), but you can mix and match the weapons to suit a strategy. A plasma gun fully charged can take the shield away, then aim with your SMG and take the health.
Then we have the weapon limit. In every other action FPS to date back then, you could take every damn weapon you wanted in your back. Tactical FPS like Ghost Reccon, limited your arsenal, but it failed where Halo succeded, because the weapons were simply tiers of the same thing. Some shooted faster, some had better range. You were basicly picking stats. In Halo, each weapon had good and bad qualities. The sniper had 10x zoom, but it left a trace in the air, as well as limited ammo. The rockets were very limited as well, but you could launch 2 back to back. The plasma rifle was fast taking of the shields, but it overheated... In Halo, not only were you encouraged to know how to handle each gun, but you were also encouraged to know how to combine each gun. In no other FPS to date, have I heard of deadly gun combos. In Legendary, for example the only way to make through the Elites, was to combo your plasma gun/rifle with a machine gun or pistol. In Halo 2, the plasma gun/pistol dual wielding combo was specially deadly for those that were good with headshots, and if they weren't, they could change to the battle rifle which was also headshot enabled, and shot in bursts.
The we have vehicles. When Halo 1 came out, some games had vehicles, but they all handled like crap. Honestly when I tryed driving in OFP and Tribes, I questioned myself, why bother... those games felt loose. Halo had undeniably good and tight gameplay. The vehicles were a tool, not a section of the game. In MP levels, you had jeeps you could take if you wanted. Each seat, had a function. If you wanted to drive, you'd seat in the driver seat.
Back then, you'd be faced with a microloading every 5 minutes. Think Half Life. Open environments were so barren, that honestly, the biggest problem was that it was boring to travel in them. Think OFP, Tribes, etc. Of course this is also because of hardware limitations, but Halo was the first to bring a huge loading at the start of the level, and then give you 1 seccond loadings in between sections.
Finally, Halo had coop. A very requested feature in every FPS, but because of laisiness, something that was left out ever since the days of Duke 3D and every 2d FPS back then. And coop was tight in Halo. It wasn't just thrown in, it was suberbly adictive.
You know what the Unreal series had different in the FPS when it came out, gameplay wise? What did it bring to the table back then? Double fire weapons. Each weapon had 2 functions. That's it. And it was praised for it.
Halo had vehicles that were actually fun and usefull (warthog run with flag carried), Halo limited your weapons, and emphacised strategy, instead of doing 10 wacky weapons with different firing modes. Halo had rechargeable shields. Halo had 1 big loading at the start of the level, and then close and open environments. This was all pretty much umpressedented, not at this level of finish and quality. It would send ripples through FPS games, to this day. I dare you to name one single FPS right now, that doesn't use some variation of the shield system Halo presented. Even in Call of Duty 4, you shake off the damage in a matter of secconds. Name one single FPS right now, that doesn't use a variation of Halo's limited weapon inventory. And I'm only talking about gameplay, not mentioning story or mythos, because that's very subjective (but then again, Halo series is the one and only FPS with so much "extra meat" in the story, and back in the time of Halo 1, FPS games didn't even have something resembling a coerent story, it was just levels stiched together with an intro text if you were lucky, and a message saying "Go bananas they are enemies" - even Golden Eye was like that).
Like someone said, the only FPS that didn't follow Halo's footsteps, was Half Life 2, that evolved on it's own.
You might not like Halo, because of all the exposure it receives (which is a silly reason not to like it, but I do know many people that try to mark their difference because artistically speaking now they don't like X band because it went comercial or something). But that makes you blind to how much it has affected the genre. Worst, it makes you sound like an ass when you try to opinate about it. Reply 0
Burnout Paradise
No splitscreen? No fucking sale for me. Burnout 3 was fun for 3 or 4 days in SP... the real fun came from splitscreen, and I still play it to this day. Not really looking for another SP game (still working on PGR4, FFXII and VF5 right now).
Their design drive of not having any menus, is just an idea. When the design idea gets in the way of enjoyment (for example, having to anoying tasks like driving back to the start line for not having menus), it just ruins the fun a little bit. Rockstar found that out in GTA3, and implemented in both squels ways of restarting the missions faster (taxis and menus), and it was an immersive streaming world. No menus sound cool in paper, but after the "oh so pretty" initial reaction, we are left just wishing there was a menu there so we could just change the f***ing car already, or restart the damn race.
I bet the next Burnout will feature menus, or will make bigger use of their small side menu (why oh why couldn't they put the restart race option there, next to the online options??). Just morronic in my opinion to commit to an idea to the point it makes the experience less joyfull. And they could easly make splitscreen tracks if they were inclined (by limiting sections of the free roaming city, like you see in the demo). Reply 0