baeuchlein on 1/1/2009 at 00:47
Quote Posted by Harvester
Grim Fandango. The setting (skeletons in the land of the dead) just didn't seem like a lot of fun to me
Ah yes, now I remember. "Funny looking dead people? Bah, about as interesting as a dead fly", I thought. I had not been a great fan of all the "oh-so-funny" adventures (mostly with rooms and people both bent and stretched in a
very exaggerated, but not very funny way) that came out the years before and did not even bother to give
Grim Fandango the finger. Only playing the demo
and seeing that
Grim Fandango was already down among the budget games concerning prices changed my mind. The fact that it ran nicely on a comparatively old PC at that time helped a bit as well.
Another game which would not be mine had it not been a budget game at that time was
Gabriel Knight 3. Even the demo would not transport me immediately into the next shop. I needed some time to get acquainted with the strange idea of giving the player full control over the camera, up to leaving the camera in places where it did not make much sense. I'm rather a fan of a camera that is automatically positioned in a good way (although several games prefer to position it in
bad spots most of the time). Having to send the characters around
and having to push the camera after them as well still sounds stupid to me even today. However, the graphics were better than I thought they would be, and the story was interesting as well. So, once I had played the demo twice, the game had been placed in the budget range of games, and I had a computer which was modern enough so that the game spend most of the time running instead of loading something, I decided that
Gabriel Knight 3 was worth my time. And it was. For a full-priced game, however, it would still have been some kind of letdown.
Concerning
Vampire: Bloodlines, I have not made up my mind yet - I have not played much more than the introduction yet, and at the moment, I have other things on my mind.
Matthew on 1/1/2009 at 12:01
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
I blind bought Painkiller Gold off Steam yesterday morning. I was caught off guard by how fucking awesome it is.
So did I! It's quite a fun blasterfest.
And dethtoll, it should be - it was bought from a Yank on Ebay. Bastard didn't mention the lack of manual and box though, then shafted me on the refund. I can't bear to look at the fucking thing.
gunsmoke on 1/1/2009 at 16:45
I have the Painkiller:Black edition on PC (basically both Painkiller and Battle out of Hell on DVD) and LOVED them. Hell they run well on PCs w/an FX 5200. Just a fabulous engine. So, anyway, I bought PAinkiiler:Hell Wars for XBOX, thinking it was a console expansion. Nope. It is simply the best parts of Painkiller and Battle out of Hell (Ends up to be around 3/4 of the total maps.)
It looks and runs great. It was one of the last XBOX games to be released (several times delayed and almost canned), so they had mastered the platform. One surprising thing:the load times mimic the PC in speed.
Zillameth on 2/1/2009 at 08:05
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
It looks and runs great. It was one of the last XBOX games to be released (several times delayed and almost canned), so they had mastered the platform.
No, they hadn't. The team had never made an XBox game before. They just had a working PC game and kept throwing unimportant content out until the console version worked.
There's a lot of things in the original version that use up a lot of resources but don't make a huge difference. One programmer told me there are some breakable windows in the Venice level, for example. In the XBox version, 3/4 of those are unbreakable. Nobody seems to have noticed. :)
Painkiller just had very good art direction. It's four years old now, and it still looks pretty.
Sulphur on 2/1/2009 at 08:46
Yup, Painkiller's art direction was pretty good for the most part. It's interesting to notice that games from some years back still look really good today, without a hint of being 'dated'.
I guess we reached the turning point some time ago (around 2002, maybe?), where 3D video game tech transcended its limitations, so that the biggest thing holding a game back from looking amazing now is not so much the polygon count as it is the art direction.
Zillameth on 2/1/2009 at 09:46
It depends on how much a game insists on trying to look like reality. Painkiller is deliberately over the top, so even though many things are simplified, they don't look out of place. In contrast, Fallout 3 does look to me a bit "dated" at times, even though it's a new release. When you're trying to be "realistic", it's easy to make something stand out because it has just a little too few polygons or too small texture, or whatever.
But I agree, generally. Tech-wise, I think normal maps and mocap/lipsync made a lot of difference. The sad thing about this is that I'm not seeing all that much of good art direction in newer games. Most of them are still mimicking that old "B-class SF" style. Only the light patterns on protagonist's helmets keep changing. When Half-Life 2 was released, I was amazed by the quality and sophistication of facial animations, and I thought there was a revolution in game narration just around the corner. After a few years, it turns out HL2 doesn't really have any competition.
Sometimes I get the impression that what we really need is a generational change. I mean, maybe the veterans need to make room for people untainted by the technical revolution of the 80s and the 90s. We have the tech, we have the skills, but we don't have the will to make really progressive stuff. Maybe what's really holding us back is lack of fresh perspective.
Sulphur on 3/1/2009 at 07:08
I agree with what you're saying. I didn't find many instances of FO3's design that jolted me out of the gameworld, though - most of it had to do with the NPC design sinking into the lower reaches of the uncanny valley. There were a few blurry textures/engine limitations apart from that, but they didn't really destroy the overall immersion for me.
Also, I totally agree about the fresh perspective required. But apart from the will to make the progressive stuff, audiences also need to buy 'em, which is one hell of a challenge.
Taffer36 on 3/1/2009 at 22:25
Another one for Fallout 3. It's weird that I like that game considering that I HATE Rpg's. There's still a bunch of things in that game that are traditional RPG game design which I can't stand, but regardless of them I'm enjoying the game.
I mean, DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY ENJOY MANAGING THEIR INVENTORY?! How the fuck is that fun?
Also, Mass Effect was pretty good too.
Koki on 3/1/2009 at 22:28
Quote Posted by Taffer36
Another one for Fallout 3. It's weird that I like that game considering that I HATE Rpg's.
Bah... too easy.
Zillameth on 3/1/2009 at 22:43
Quote Posted by Taffer36
I mean, DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY ENJOY MANAGING THEIR INVENTORY?! How the fuck is that fun?
Some people do enjoy advantages of having an inventory.
