Ray Marden wrote on Jun 3, 2011, 18:51:
It is nice to finally be playing this, but I still question some over the overall decisions.

Upfront, the graphics are tad outdated, but that is expected. Old or new, though, I do not get the obsession with making games look ugly. I do not want motion blur. I do not want film grain. I do not want everything outside of my immediate focus to be covered in vaseline. And when I do want to turn off this crap, I want to be able to individually select it, not lose every graphical enhancement.

Playing the demo, two thoughts spring up - one, they need to work a bit on the options/control/feel and, two, a lot depends how how much the final game opens up.

For the former, it is all the little things - it does not properly support 1920x1200, I want to tweak the FoV, Duke walks a little slow, running is overly exaggerated and has a split second delay, I do not like how the mouse input is handled, the scripting is a bit wooden, the animation feels a little stiff, weapons feel a bit weak, you're confined to only two primary weapons, the contextual use command is a little flakey, Daikatana taught us long ago that shooting small toads suck, I wish the kidk feature was there for opening crates, etc.

For the latter, I am coming into this game looking for the fun and over the top aspects. From the demo's perspective, at what point was I really free to run around everywhere, explore for secrets, and create havoc? These were relatively linear, confined sequences. Looking back to just the first level of the prior game, I was using a jetpack, finding secrets, looking for cracks in the walls, playing in the arcade, screwing with the projector, going through an air duct, finding a secret via the cash register, etc.

I am mildly intrigued and need to play it again, but it really depends on what the final game is. If this style of gameplay - confined, linear areas with few special areas - is what the game is about, I would argue both developers failed at making a Duke Nukem game. So long as there are more unique or just improbable situations - the alien is in the building; go kick its ass! - in the final game, it has the chance to be fun. Even then, though, they really need to tweak some things to bring back the sense of speed and power.
I must be naive, but I see the possibility. I just don't think they did it.
Betting the driving segments will be the weakest portions of the game,
Ray

Slashman wrote on Jun 2, 2011, 22:42:

NotOneOfUs wrote on Jun 2, 2011, 22:16:

17. Islamic–themed and similar textures have been deleted and/or replaced.

Buh?

I second that...what the heck?

MuzixMon wrote on Jun 2, 2011, 20:42:
I agree on Republic Commando! I read up on the supposed sequel but it was cancelled a long time ago. Not to mention the game was going to be called Imperial Commando and that alone would've gotten all the old school Star Wars fans interested... ooh well...

Moog wrote on Jun 2, 2011, 18:32:
> Entrance into this club requires having preordered Duke Nukem Forever or ownership of the Borderlands Game of the Year Edition

So if we supported Gearbox and bought Borderlands when it was released and then bought the DLC when they were released we don't get shit! Nice!

OldScho0l wrote on Jun 2, 2011, 13:45:
DLC - Developers Leaching Cash

Cutter wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 20:43:
Um, why would I preorder to try ther beta when that's what's going to give me an idea wether to buy or not.

Riker wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 20:34:
My impressions are much the same as Dades'. Deus Ex is my all-time favorite game, and the leaked press demo has met and exceeded my expectations, which were actually quite high.

I've had good vibes about the game throughout its development, and I'm happy to say that the silly nit-picky criticisms from some really don't enter into the equation. It's Deus Ex at its core, with better AI and better-feeling combat, with the various Deus Ex trademarks intact and improved-upon. If I had to point out one nit-pick, it's that yes, the color palette isn't terribly exciting.

I pre-ordered last month, but if I hadn't yet done so, this demo would have certainly done the trick.

Frijoles wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 20:02:
I've had Settlers 7 not load save games. After a few minutes of searching Google for issues (meaning I do have a network connection), it starts to work again. It's the only Ubisoft DRM shitfest I've bought, and I only bought it because I thought it was gone. So same as above, if it has DRM fuck it. Otherwise I will most likely but it since it's Might & Magic.

Verno wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 15:35:
They have a plugin where if you hit another teammate, you take like 1 damage per hit so people are pretty careful. Same thing with flashing teammates. It's very chillax and no one takes it very seriously, just enough to enjoy yourself without being all "ALPHA DELTA BRAVO GOGOGOG" weird about it.

World at War is honestly much better than people give it credit for. Treyarch went all out for it too, dedicated servers, mod tools, etc. Some of the maps were brilliant. It had a shit SP campaign so a lot of people just wrote it off for some reason.

Dades wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 17:55:
I couldn't resist the leaked press build, I'm a sucker for anything Deus Ex and this is what they're demoing at E3 anyway so I will sleep fine tonight.

It is really good, for all that we mock the french these guys sure can make a fucking Deus Ex game. Bigger levels than I thought, good deal of NPC interaction, both stealth and combat approaches to what little I did see. The story seems mature and its well told, the voice actors are very good, the music itself is amazing and nails the Deus Ex universe. I am very excited, I haven't seen this kind of gameplay since the original. It's almost like the best elements of Mass Effect and Deus Ex collided. I stopped playing because I don't want to spoil everything for myself so I don't know if the way you play out missions factors into the story like the original.

It is a bit rough around the edges technically. DX11 mode is broken, DX9 has some stuttering and the game has mouse smoothing on. That's all to be expected from an alpha state press build though. The game was pushed back for polish so I expect most of this stuff will be ironed out. Someone finally made the Deus Ex game I've been waiting over a decade for. I think this will be one of three games I've ever preordered in my life.

Jerykk wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 17:31:

Console version looks like complete a$$ which is dropping my expectation this will be half decent..

You do remember that the original DX wasn't much of a looker either, right?

Acleacius wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 16:11:
Pretty sure that's the console version, effecting the graphic quality. Still waiting on some player reviews before I get this game. Square religiously uses high quality cutscenes to oversell gameplay quality.

Here's hoping they don't here. It's clear they spend a massive amount (guessing 20+ million) on video/cutscene. So if the quality of gameplay or stability suffers in anyway, at least we'll know the reason.

Drayth wrote on Jun 1, 2011, 12:27:
The performance issue was if you had ever run the Stereo 3D setup wizard, The Witcher 2 was pinging the wrong part of the driver to see if 3D was enabled which caused a massive slow down in performance. The solution was to disable the Stereo 3D service, or uninstall the Stereo Driver portion of the nvidia drivers.

There's still a bug that causes massive slow down in indoor portions of The Witcher 2 when running stereo.. that fix is coming later this month.