I remember someone saying in here about how developers are forced to optimize the games they produce to the consoles' hardware, and it doesn't happen with PCs. I think it was right on the spot. We see titles with some better graphics on the PC, but have fun at upgrading your hardware often to put up with it, while having a console means you can stick with it for a while without the need to fork money over just better graphics.

I think we had enough of movies where we see everything getting destroyed by whatever entity that is not under our control (be it aliens or cataclysms) and yadda yadda.

How about a movie about warfare/technology development, a possible third world war and that's how we face destruction, seeing us doing it to ourselves? I'm pretty sure a lot of people see it as how it's all going to end, plus it could bring some good discussions around the subject. Far more interesting than watching entire towns being destroyed by earthquakes again...

Maybe it's better if you just get a console version,if you have one that is.

Many ports recently seem to be half assed/not optimized enough.

To be honest, few games possess an "organic, living, breathing world".

It requires way more than a huge landscape in my book.

It is a nice game for a 20 USD hack'n'slash title, there are some small improvements, like being able to sell loot from anywhere with the "send pet" option, the buyable "lost" dungeons where you can't use portals in them, simple fun.

It's funny how TL completely crapped on similar games like Titan Quest.

Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy VI

Half-Life 1/2

Dungeon Keeper

Shadowrun

System Shock 2

Deus Ex

Zelda ALttP

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Metal Gear Solid

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

No One Lives Forever

Grim Fandango

Psychonauts

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by Routver

I always thought CoD4 had plenty of balance problems regarding perks, grenade launchers and more. I personally enjoyed games like L4D way more.

 

I don't really agree with grenade launchers being overpowered. It takes a second to switch from normal gun fire to your grenade launcher. On top of that, it's very unreliable.

I never saw the point of the underbarrel grenade launcher. It's less accurate and slower.

Hmm, actually there are plenty of videos there showing how easy it is to rack up kills with it at youtube. Just point at bottleneck parts of the maps and bam. Oh yeah, and unlike frag grenades they explode in contact so there's no way to run. Balance surely wasn't in the top of IW's priorities list, they could have done it harder to use or something.

I always thought CoD4 had plenty of balance problems regarding perks, grenade launchers and more. I personally enjoyed games like L4D way more.

Few games nowadays add full directional swings to melee combat. I really think this idea can bring a lot of diversity as a melee combat mechanic, as a prime example: Mount & Blade felt awesome by using concepts such as momentum, even with low production values. If any company picked this kind of idea and improved it greatly (or if M&B developers do it themselves), we could have a game with melee fighting that is more than trading blows (yes Oblivion I'm looking at you).

The Jedi Knight games also featured directional swings, and they were pretty fun games. Too bad I don't think there will be a sequel for them.

The lack of it might be because it would add more complexity to a game, making it less accessible and more frustrating to the mainstream audience. But still I would say this kind of approach is, sadly, underused. Of course implementing it is not an easy task, plus balancing, adding other variables such as parry/blocking. But if well done, the results could be way ahead of most games we see today in terms of gameplay.

"  Police helicopter shot down in Olympic city Rio de Janeiro

Drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter in a gun battle between rival gangs on Saturday, killing two officers, as the Brazilian city was engulfed in a renewed outburst of violence two weeks after winning its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Bullets ripped into the helicopter as it hovered over a shoot-out between police and drug traffickers in the Morro dos Macacos, or “Monkey Hill”, slum in northern Rio de Janeiro. The pilot was hit in the leg, causing him to lose control and crash.

Two officers died, while the pilot and three other policemen escaped after the aircraft hit the ground on a football field and burst into flames.

The pilot and an officer suffered burns and bullet wounds while the other two officers were burned, one seriously, said Mario Sergio Duarte, the head of Rio state’s military police.

Officials did not know whether the gangs had targeted the helicopter or whether it had been hit by stray bullets but the event underscored security concerns that have dogged Brazil’s second-largest city for decades.

Despite the mayhem, officials defended Rio’s ability to control violence ahead of the Olympics, as well as before 2014, when Brazil will host the World Cup, with key games in Rio.

“In choosing the city, they already knew about the work that’s being carried out and will continue in the area of [crime] prevention,” Tarso Genro, the Justice Minister, told the state-run Agência Brasil news agency.

The governor of Rio state, Sergio Cabral, told reporters that Rio’s security challenges could not be cured “by magic in the short term” but he said that money was being poured into programmes to reduce crime and that authorities were prepared to mount a vast security presence at the sporting events to ensure safety.

“We told the International Olympic Committee that this won’t be an easy thing and they know that," Mr Cabral said. “We can put 40,000 people on the streets — federal, state and municipal police — and pull off the event.”

Mr Duarte said that it was unlikely that traffickers fired an anti-aircraft missile at the helicopter, although such weapons have been found in the hideouts of Rio’s drug traffickers, along with other heavy, military-grade arms such as grenade launchers and .50-calibre machine guns.

Police said that ten presumed traffickers were killed during the fighting in the slum, including three suspects found dead inside a vehicle. Officials gave no details on how the other seven died.

They said that at least eight buses were set on fire in nearby slums as the shoot outs raged. Television images showed motorists fleeing for cover as automatic weapon fire crackled in broad daylight amid the worst violence that the city has seen in months.

Images broadcast by Globo TV showed flames shooting from the helicopter wreckage, leaving little more than charred pieces and a tail.

Rio police frequently use helicopters to take on the gangs that dominate drug trafficking in the city’s more than 1,000 slums, but were unable to say whether this was the first time that one of their helicopters had been shot down.

The crash happened about five miles (eight kilometres) southwest of one of the zones where Rio’s 2016 Olympics will be located. The city was picked over Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo on October 2 to host the games but it was highlighted for security concerns ahead of the International Olympic Committee vote.

The downing of the helicopter happened amid intense firefights involving rival gangs in the slum as one tried to seize a rival’s territory, authorities said.

Police moved into the area before dawn, although gunfire continued throughout the day, barricading terrorised residents inside their homes as bullets ripped into apartment buildings. Mr Duarte said late in the day that the areas were under control and television images showed people emerging into the streets at dusk.

Despite increased policing efforts, Rio remains one of the world’s most dangerous cities. The violence is generally contained within the slum areas, although it sometimes spills into beach neighborhoods and periodically shuts down the highway that links the international airport to tourist destinations.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other officials have played down the threat of violence for the Olympics, saying that Rio has repeatedly demonstrated that it can pull off big events without risk to players or spectators.

Rio held the Pan American Games in 2007 without major incident, deploying more than 15,000 specially trained officers to keep the peace. "

Source : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6879786.ece

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by left4shaman

Every one will have blonde hair, blue eyes, light skin and tall.

 

You think?  I do not think so.   I think it would be a lot more diversity than what a lot of people think.    :)

And how will diversity work when people start neglecting undesired genetical traits? It's not just about your skin tone or height.

I think it's very selfish to pass judgement on this before it's even released. By all means they could pull a vastly improved game, or who knows, even postpone it, it's Valve.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

I lost respect for the award when the head of a terrorist organization, Yasser Arafat, won it.

Beat me to it. In the second they gave a Nobel Peace prize  to a man with blood on his hands, it lost all credibility to me.

I had similar thoughts when playing Oblivion.

Combat is flat out boring. Melee makes me sleep, archery doesn't really feel "authentic" (lacking a better word), and magic is bad as well , they all could use more diversity. I would suggest directional swings, momentum, and way, way more spells (even though you can create your own, I never felt overwhelmed by the options in any school of magic).

Even though it's nice to have an open world and all that, it was just way too much predictable. I'm not sure how to counter that, maybe random events? Exploring and cleaning dungeons is still fun, though.

The inventory system could have used a bit more of work, it's a mess when you have plenty of items. Also, more hotkeys would be welcome when you're a magic based character, for example.

Animations aren't very bright. When I first jumped after changing to third-person perspective, I acknowledged it would be wise to stick with the 1st person view for the rest of the game.

A number of quests are linear, going against the whole freedom aspect of the game.

I also enjoyed BioWare's games way more than Bethesda's (NWN was very good), but it got nothing to do with being linear/open ended really. I had a lot of fun with Mount & Blade, which feels way more sandbox than the Elder Scrolls series.

In short, I always thought Oblivion could have been way better than it actually was for me.

So OP, don't worry about not liking a game, don't let others dictate what's good or bad for you. I had my share of fun with Oblivion, but wouldn't consider it a top notch game myself.

Final Fantasy VI/Chrono Trigger

Having played FFVI right before VII totally screwed up the sequel for me. While the former was impressive, FFVII was just bland, boring and had a terrible story.

Nope. But violent people might look for some games because they allow them do unleash their fantasies in them without any consequences.

Originally posted by Briansho

Its an unfortunate side effect of a linear leveling system. You have the dedicated powerlevelers who have unlimited amounts of time burning to max level. You would think after 10 years developers would innovate a skill/exploration/substance environment that concentrated on immersion games instead of the level treadmill task management item collecting stat management Pokemon race to end level stuff thats out now.

Pretty spot on...

With a different kind of progression, something more open and flexible, the game could feel less frustrating since it's not the same old path getting more boring at xx level due to the lack of content, or how the first 20 levels felt awesome compared to the rest of the game, and so on.

Could anyone please point out  what's so great about Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series? I was going to make a thread at gaming section but oh well, lazy.

Morrowind never felt really amusing to me, I just stopped playing because many aspects were boring (combat and quests made me snore).

Oblivion had the same problems more or less... NPC interaction was poor, same for quests and combat was just a little better than in ES III. Even though there's all this open world hype I never felt I could try anything else than following the same path.

With that said, no I don't think it would be a good MMORPG, unless they really get some interesting new gameplay ideas there.

From all I have seen, I'm not impressed. And I do like BioWare games.

They were talking about some ultra fun innovative combat... But so far the TOR video looks like a beefed up KOTOR combat, I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking, but also not a carbon copy. So much for the hype!

I'll try it if it's possible, not holding my breath anyways.

Yes, the style gets old real fast. What happened to games like Final Fantasy VI and the ones before it? I know it's not a MMORPG but it felt way "less asian" than anything else.