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The People's Republic of Clogher
Anyone else ever trick the butler into getting locked in the freezer? Goodtimes.
Aye, he was a bit of a predator, wasn't he? Probably on a register somewhere now.

I was listening to the PC Gamer podcast a few days ago and they made some great points about the Tomb Raider reboot losing a bit of identity.

You really had to sit down and plan your route through some of the early games' environments and pressing jump a fraction of a second too early or late meant death. It's a lot more forgiving now.

She moved like a circus acrobat first time round but now she moves like a rock climber - More realistic but much less fun. I've not found any secret key presses for swan dives or fancy handstands when pulling up to a ledge either.

Lara's only motivation in the new game is 'not dying' and it does get wearisome after a while. I'll cut them some slack though, because it's a scene-setter - Hopefully she'll have some fun next time round.
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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan



Finished FC3 last night and chose to join Citra which didn't turn out very well (felt it was my only chance to rebel). Crappy ending to a disappointing second half, and from what I hear the alternative isn't much better. Overall I'd give the game 7/10.

Taking a break from Fallout GOYTE for a while as I still have L.A. Noire, Alan Wake, and Deus EX: Human Revolution in my to play pile.

Any recommendations from those three?



The People's Republic of Clogher
Not a big fan of Alan Wake, other than it's one of the few games where the lead character is called Alan. We need some heroes called Ken or Mervyn or maybe even Dave.

Deus Ex 3 is great and, I think, not far from being as good as the original.

I really like LA Noire too. They nailed the vibe (it's basically LA Confidential) ... but don't expect anything approaching a sandbox game. The city might as well have been a series of menus for all the actual use driving around it is.

It's a lovely looking city though.



In the Beginning...
Not a big fan of Alan Wake, other than it's one of the few games where the lead character is called Alan.
You may have talked about it before, but anything in particular you didn't like?

I thought it was disappointing in the sense that it wasn't as open-world as I had imagined and didn't have much in the way of mystery-solving gameplay, but it felt like a pretty solid game nonetheless. Pretty good level design, nice art direction and atmosphere, solid gameplay. I'd play it again.



The People's Republic of Clogher
Maybe I got the wrong idea when the game was in development but I was expecting something a lot more varied and cinematic. At the time it was being talked about in the same breath as Heavy Rain but when they were released the two games couldn't have been more different.

Alan Wake's a beautifully made action game which held absolutely no appeal for me once I'd played it for a while. Bought the PC version a few years later when it was cheap on GOG but my thoughts didn't change - There's nothing much wrong with what it does but I think they could have set the bar much higher.



Yeah, the way they talked about it early in development made it sound like some kind of new adventure game, and not the quasi-shooter it became. I was super bummed. I went from hotly anticipating it to not even bothering to play it at all.



In the Beginning...
Yep. And I remember it being in development for a long time—long enough that people started wondering if it was even real or likely to be cancelled. That probably contributed to the disappointment, too. It didn't really seem like it needed such a long development period, but I'm sure the financing had something to do with it.

My impression is that the concept started really high level, but over the course of the development the team realized it was simply too ambitious and expensive, so they had to re-assess. If that's true, I'd argue that what they turned out is, in a way, pretty impressive. These kinds of "shift gears" issues typically result in a mess, and Alan Wake could very well have been a similar case.



The People's Republic of Clogher
I guess it worked out for them financially because they came up with the American Nightmare standalone expansion.

I read an interview with one of the Bioware guys recently - A lot of us wanted to believe that the simplification of the gameplay in Mass Effects 2 and 3 was something to do with their paymasters, EA, trying to appeal to Gears of War fans.

Nope, apparently it was always Bioware's idea...

Dragon Age 2 turning out so shoddy was apparently due to pressure to release the game within 12 months of DA Origins' success. If they'd taken their time we might have seen more than one dungeon design but the rpg dumbing down probably still would have remained.

For a while I was pinning my hopes on Dragon Age 3 being a return to form but I'm slowly losing interest. Bioware have invented the Chat 'Em Up.



The People's Republic of Clogher
I'm thinking about a new GPU. The 560ti has served me well but it's a couple of years old (EDIT - It's actually quite a bit younger, now that I think about it but my thoughts still hold true) and is starting to creak - I could play all new releases on Ultra a year ago but now I'm having to pick and choose settings with Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite. I'm not a total graphics ho but with Bethesda's announcement today, Fallout 4 looks to be on the horizon and I want to be able to play it on something other than Medium.

My first thoughts were to go for a direct upgrade - a 660GTX or ti - but the more I read the more people seem to favour the ATI 7870 at that price point. I'm in two minds: My old 4870 was the best card I've ever owned but the few months I had with the 6870 were BSOD torture. Faulty card and faulty drivers maybe but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I've got a load of stuff up for sale on eBay and if I get the prices I want I might be tempted to move this week.



You want to post like me?
The lag in Rocksmith is ****ing ridiculous! My friend was playing all the chords to the song correctly and it recognized none of them. When you slow down and play 3 chords every 30 seconds it's alright. Useless piece of software when it runs on TV speakers, which is all I have. I'll try it through a headset but I've lost some jacks for it. ****!
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You want to post like me?
All the guides are like 'make sure your console matches the resolution of your TV'. No idea how you do that. It's like a trail guide saying 'make sure you go the right way' and then he falls off the cliff and dies.



The People's Republic of Clogher
All the guides are like 'make sure your console matches the resolution of your TV'. No idea how you do that. It's like a trail guide saying 'make sure you go the right way' and then he falls off the cliff and dies.
Your TV's native resolution, I'd expect. A lot of '720p' TVs are really 1360x768 instead of 1280x720. 1080p TVs should be 1920x1080 - not heard of them differing.

SD TVs, I dunno. 640x480 or something.

Meanwhile, it looks like we're not getting the follow-up to LA Noire. Link

Shame that, but I'd not realised how much strife was going on in the studio when LA Noire was in development. Maybe it's for the best.



I don't remember asking you a ******* thing!
I finally played Half-Life 2 for the first time yesterday. My verdict...it's nowhere near as good as people say it is. The story's nothing special, the combat's functional but uninspired, the vehicle controls are TERRIBLE, and the AI is in a special class of brain-dead. It's got very good visuals and great animations and very good level design, but...that's about it. Even Gordon Freeman bugs me. He's a silent protagonist that you barely see. Why bother giving him an iconic appearance and backstory? Makes no sense to me. It's by no means a terrible game, but I do consider it highly overrated.



Spore for $4.99 on Steam? Sure. Creature creator alone's worth that.

Meanwhile, it looks like we're not getting the follow-up to LA Noire. Link
That's a real bummer. I was very excited at seeing them take another crack at the concept, and the setting sounded like it could've been atmospheric and engrossing, too.



The People's Republic of Clogher
Yeah, although if the reports of working conditions in the studio are correct, it's perhaps best if Team Bondi quietly fades away.

I've got Spore on disc somewhere. Never really got into it but I've been meaning to try Darkspore.

Any thoughts on Bethesda wrapping up work on Skyrim? The nerd rage on the Nexus is reaching stratospheric levels (they're now almost cheesed off ) but I don't see what the fuss is about.

Game developer announces start of work on development of new game... And people are up in arms?

Morrowind had 2 expansions, Oblivion only had 2 real ones (plus a number of mods-by-another-name) which is the same as Skyrim (if we're counting Hearthfire as an almost-mod).

I bet Fallout 4 is a lot further along than we're being told (ie: we've not been told anything ).



Any thoughts on Bethesda wrapping up work on Skyrim? The nerd rage on the Nexus is reaching stratospheric levels (they're now almost cheesed off ) but I don't see what the fuss is about.
I dunno what this refers to. I shall have to investigate.

I bet Fallout 4 is a lot further along than we're being told (ie: we've not been told anything ).
Yeah, I was just saying this to my brother the other day. I'll bet it comes out before the end of 2014, maybe sooner. Which has me crazily excited. It's one of a very, very small group of games I would buy immediately and not wait for a sale on or anything.

I really hope most of the stuff from Skyrim doesn't find its way into Fallout 4.
Zuh? I rather hope some of it does. At least, the leveling system, which seems like a nice compromise. What parts do you hope stay out of it?



You want to post like me?
The leveling system. In Fallout, it's impossible to play the build you want in the beginning, since you just don't have the equipment. Try playing a sneaky sniper right out of the gate - not gonna happen. You need a stealthboy and a scoped hunting rifle. Meanwhile I might have found an energy pistol that I like using for now, but that does not mean I want points in energy weapons.
It also encourages stupid behavior, like sneaking everywhere and casting the same healing spell over and over, or jumping constantly like I was doing in Oblivion.
I dislike the leveling system in Skyrim because it takes control away from the player. In Fallout I dump points into the skills I want and I shape my character directly. In Skyrim it's much more complicated, because you have to use the stuff you want to level up in. However, you might end up in situations where what you've planned just isn't feasible and your character starts to broaden out in other directions and as a result he becomes weaker.
Just because I like throwing dynamite and grenades in the beginning of New Vegas does not mean I want my explosive skill to go up. I could be all out of conventional ammo and have to resort to big guns, so now my character is all of a sudden big gun-centric with a knack for blowing stuff up.
I don't believe Skyrim's leveling system would work in a world where everything is scarce and you don't always have the choice to deal with your enemies the way you want. You wouldn't shape your character, the game would.



The People's Republic of Clogher
Jumping constantly does nothing in Skyrim fortunately - They removed Acrobatics as, as you say, it was so easy to spam. Same with Athletics.

Smithing is far too easy to spam though, same as Sneak.

Fallout won't have anything like the TES levelling system, you can quote me on that. I like both systems - It seems logical that you get better at something the more you practice but it's open to abuse if you *want* to unbalance your game.

All F4 will share with Skyrim is the engine, and even that (I expect) will be pretty heavily modified seeing as it looks like it'll be a next-gen title. Who knows, PC players might even get DX11 options and console owners might get a Playstation version that actually works. It'll be a first for Bethesda.