henke on 28/3/2012 at 09:22

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Yup. That's how I roll.

edit: you know what, that image deserves better than to be buried at the bottom of page 2.



That kid knows what he likes and he's not being influenced by what anyone else thinks. We should all strive to be more like him.

DDL on 28/3/2012 at 15:58

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It doesn't really destroy game balance, it just..eliminates one of the more engaging resource management aspects of the original. You'd tend to hoard GEP ammo because it was relatively rare and so useful, and splurge 10mm and buckshot like it was going out of style because it was plentiful. You had to think about how much ammo you had for each gun, and what ammo usage was most appropriate for the situation. Plus you could run out of individual ammos, forcing you to try novel approaches you might otherwise not have considered ("whups! No 10mm left...let's clear the room with...uh..flare darts and a PS20!"). You could also accumulate ammo even for guns you weren't holding, so in extremis you might have to pick up an enemy's gun to use for a bit.
And of course, if you found you were basically never using GEP rounds because you were just THAT good at hoarding, you could splurge a few in a gratuitous display of overkill, just for shits and giggles.

Ammo choices, and by extension weapon choices, felt more meaningful.

In IW it all comes from the same pool, so you miss out on the OOH SHINY glee of finding a cache of WP rockets (or whatever), plus you tend to be more conservative: you can't fire off a rocket for the hell of it, because that rocket could've been ten pistol shots, and on balance, ten pistol shots are far far more useful. There's no desire to grab an enemy's weapon to use up surplus ammo for guns you don't use, because there's no such thing as surplus ammo anymore. You never have to improvise due to ammo-limitations, beyond "Currently have ammo" vs "Currently do not have ammo". There's no ability to hoard special ammo, because there is no special ammo anymore.

If you're like me, you pretty much just end up pistolling through the whole game because that's far and away the most efficient ammo-sink, with a bit of mag-rail thrown in toward the end as the armoured templars turn up.

Pyrian on 28/3/2012 at 20:14

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DDL: That's all valid as far as it goes, but IMO it just doesn't go very far, as ammunition in all three games is relatively plentiful (aside from a few of the special ammos in DX1, whose IW equivalent is basically the special weapons). Indeed I know I ran out of ammo in IW a few times (for while supply was abundant, you can blow through your capacity pretty quick), but never did in DX1. Something like only using the pistol for its ammo efficiency seems a bit ridiculous to me, it's like, you clearly didn't have to handicap yourself like that so why do it? Specialty ammo was removed, but instead you have specialty weapons and relatively interesting weapon mods. Finally, running out of ammo in IW is IMO more interesting than in DX1, as you have to rely on stealth, grenades, mines, and augs rather than simply switching weapons and continuing to blaze away.

I can certainly understand why any given person might prefer the old system - verisimilitude alone is enough for that - but the sheer vitriol generated by that one feature seems inordinate. Does anybody complain about universal mana?

Jason Moyer on 28/3/2012 at 22:21

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Tong tennis?

SubJeff on 29/3/2012 at 07:40

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DX4: Tong Tong Tennis