Every time a director/writer/company includes content in their work that many people find objectionable, everyone screams "if you don't like it then don't watch/read/play/buy it!!" So if you don't like if a company excludes certain content in a game I have some advice for you: if you don't like it then don't buy it.

I vastly prefer OCD title capping to OCD leveling which is why GW is perfect for me. When I finish achieving a title I get a sense of accomplishment and can then move on to a new one, all the time feeling like I have reached the peak of my power in-game and only skill and strategy remain to be improved. Whereas with high level caps I never ever feel like I've made it to the top. It's a subtle difference, but it means that I have played GW for almost 4 years and will never play WoW.

haha Creston you and I are almost opposites. But I think we can find some common ground.

I like the cover system most of the time and gears does it well. I like it BETTER than the damn "lean out" button that many PC games had for a long time; that now feels like a half-hearted try that the cover system finally took to its logical conclusion. However, I also like the control that Call of Duty gave you with its Stand/Crouch/Lie system dynamic.

Moral ambiguity: Yeah sure it's fun to be evil sometimes. Only if the story is good however.

You're right, achievements do suck when they are just counts of common actions in the game. However, good achievements reward you for attempting difficult actions or actions that you wouldn't otherwise think of, like Untouchables and Crownd in L4D. I'm not going to admit how many attempts it took me to headshot the witch til I got her

Yeah that bit about Halo co-op was kind of ridiculous, although to be fair it did bring co-op to the masses. But Serious Sam: the Second Encounter and Sven's co-op mod were soo much fun way before Halo. And Time Crisis

Open world gaming: usually sucks to me. But I do like exploring large worlds, as long as I have an ultimate goal to play towards.

1. space captain, you're pathetic. Way to run the thread into the ground.

2. While many old school gamers will not like the changes listed in the article, that doesn't make the article inaccurate. These new gameplay ideas have changed the face of gaming forever and you don't have to like it but that's a fact. It's sad that many of these things are not really improvements. I'm bored as hell with most open-world environments. I like story-driven games, and when you read a book you are not particularly free to wander wherever you like in the book's world. Because gaming can give you that freedom many people like it, but I like experiencing a story more than I like wandering around aimlessly in an alternate reality.

I'm neutral regarding achievements. On the one hand I really enjoy achievements in games I like (e.g. L4D). However, if I am playing a crappy game and I don't like it, I won't spend one extra second on the game for the sake of achievements.

One change I do enjoy most of the time is the cover system. One of my favorite arcade games back in the day was Time Crisis 2. It was a co-op shooter with a foot pedal that was specifically dedicated to taking cover and reloading. I could not get enough of this and played that game with friends endless times. I don't know why the author doesn't give it any credit as it predates Killswitch and Gears of War by a few years. I did enjoy Gears but there was something visceral about the arcade pedal that is lost on console. However, I did dislike cover in RE5 because it was poorly implemented, felt a bit out of place (honestly, taking cover from zombies???) and hindered my game (I would take damage most often when trying to get off the stupid wall I got stuck on to run away from a rapidly-approaching threat).

So life changes but we all stay the same, what else is new.

This comment was edited on Apr 23, 2009, 16:59.

You could say exactly the same thing about cocaine, alcohol or caffeine users. Recovery from an addiction due to geographic displacement does not mean that the addiction did not exist or will not recur.

Your scorn doesn't change the very real impact that videogame dependence has on many children across the nation.

This comment was edited on Apr 20, 2009, 15:51.

sweetness, especially on the storage bag and the HoM

p.s. The henchman AI and skill utilization has gotten drastically better due to numerous updates over the past four years. Heroes can be extremely powerful (and in virtually all cases preferable to a retarded human player). There is still the occasional area where you need advanced human tactics (the crystal-running mission, many bonus objectives). But you can easily play through the entire game with occasional help from one other human player. I've never had trouble finding someone, even as a random pickup.

I love this game, and to date it is the only MMO-style game I have played long-term. I will definitely be logging back on for the anniversary events, and I'm looking forward to GW2 someday!

Actually, there ARE ways to determine the influence of each of these things. That is what social scientists do. It's not simple, but it can be done, and such projects are ongoing all the time. We all know the difference between video games and other types of media is that video games allow the player to have an active influence over what is occurring on the screen. Thus it is a very interesting and relevant question as to whether or not this media in particular has an effect on those who experience it. The answer remains to be discovered.

The crucial difference that this author fails to understand is that the exploration of violence by high art is not focused on the violence itself as an act of entertainment or of experience. Rather, high art uses scenarios or acts of violence as a means to explore the human condition and let us walk away with a new understanding of our fellow man, rather than merely allowing us to feel good partaking in violence. This is why it is called "high" art. "Low" art is all about the experience of violence, thereby whetting the lust for more violence. This is all quite independent of the MEDIUM itself as well as the subject. This is why one photograph, movie or game is pornographic and one is not not even though both contain nudity. So, the question you must ask yourself is, "do video games serve as a medium for 'high' art or 'low' art"? Then you will begin to understand the social context, unlike this editorial writer.

I just tried the demo, and I don't know why all of you are whining so much about the external camera. This game definitely feels like an arcade style game, not a sim, so don't buy it if you want a sim. With that said, the external camera is a lot of fun and definitely my preferred way to play. Yes it's not a terribly EASY view to use, but isn't that exactly what you sim guys want? It kind of brought me back to the early days of MS Flight Sim, I would use the external view whenever possible...

Creston, judging by your posts you haven't played GW in what, 2 years? Pretty much every single thing you complain about has been changed. Runners aren't being nerfed anymore. Heroes and the party window make partying very easy. And yes, ArenaNet finally caved and even disassociated PvP from PvE. They went even beyond that and RESTORED some of the nerfed skills for PvE (this was huge for me as my single biggest frustration with the game was having my favorite PvE builds nerfed for the sake of PvP balance). The expansions have decent storylines and are fun to play through. The only thing they have not changed (and I am glad of it) is that the lvl cap is still 20. I have said it before and will say it again: I am not opposed to removing a lvl cap and having a char lvl that reflects XP gained (and therefore the age and experience of your character) but I do NOT want a leveling system in which your character becomes indefinitely more and more powerful. This would ruin GW as we know it.

Diablo III isn't even close to looking like the game mechanics of Guild Wars, and presumably GW 2 will be an advanced iteration of the GW gameplay. D3 and GW2 won't really be direct competitors regardless of when they are released.

Would have been nice to play GW2 sooner rather than later. Oh well, I guess this is a good excuse to get back on GW1 and play more often instead of sitting back and waiting for GW2

I was given this as a gift for Christmas, and I have been enjoying it surprisingly much (I refuse to play any style of FPS, pseudo though it is, without a mouse and keyboard). Of course, when I found one day that it wouldn't start up, I uninstalled it trying to fix the problem, and because of the IDIOT Windows Live functionality, which is required to be able to save your single-player progress but apparently saves your progress client-side rather than on the server, I lost all my saves and will need to start again. I'm not planning on reinstalling for a while.

The Utah professor didn't actually backpedal; the gaming media is merely REPORTING that she backpedaled. However, her statements were consistent from the beginning: that her study shows correlation not causation, and that further study is recommended, which is exactly what any good scientist investigating anything would say in this instance. It is the gaming media showing ignorance and bias in this particular headline.

The primary flaw in the widescreen article is that the author criticizes widescreen displays for displaying less vertical information but fails to link this to vertical pixel size. For instance, if the author had a 4:3 with 1600x1200 and then moves to a widescreen 16:9 that is 1920x1080 then he is correct that he is losing vertical real estate. And for some people who either depend on vertical dimensions or who don't need horizontal dimensions, that is a negative change. However for someone moving from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 (16:10) there is no loss of vertical resolution! There is only gain of usable space! Likewise from say 1024x768 to 1680x1050: huge gains in every dimension. So yes, it does suck to go from 1600x1200 to 1200x800 but that is a foolish "upgrade" anyway, and the solution is to get a bigger widescreen, not to criticize widescreens (duh).

With regards to vehicles, Onslaught is THE reason I still play UT2004 and the vehicles are an inseparable part of that. They are PERFECT and UT without them would be just another well-balanced blah FPS.

P.S. Sauron, with the addition of heroes it became very feasible to complete the main storyline solo, although there are certain areas where having at least two players is very helpful.

I loved Guild Wars, and still play from time to time, although professionally I have gotten too busy for sustained play. I disagree with you Creston.

1. Level Cap of 20

I loved the idea of a level cap. Not the cap itself per se, but the idea that once you hit level 20 you were on par with everyone else and that there was no one in the game more powerful (i.e. higher level) than you who you could NEVER catch up with because you didn't have the time (or money). My least favorite times in the game were as a lvl 15 trying to get up to lvl 20 so that I could actually play.

In actuality I would have no problem with infinite leveling as long as it was merely a reflection of how long you've been playing (i.e. linked to your XP) but did not give you any additional power. For instance this could work by having character leveling awarding attribute points until lvl 20, but lvling further would not gain you more attribute points. Thus, a lvl 70 char would be the same as a lvl 20 except that the character's higher lvl would reflect his additional XP. If GW 2 has a lvl cap of 99 and each lvl becomes more powerful than the next, I will not play it.

2. Loot

I was totally fine with the loot system. Good loot was either expensive or came from difficult areas of the game. It didn't make you more powerful, it just looked awesome. Perfect system. It meant that I had fun actually PLAYING GW rather than farming loot, since it didn't gain me that much to do so.

3. Separate PVP and PVE

OK I agree with you here. While in principle I liked the idea of keeping them linked, as a PVE player I got constantly screwed with all my favorite skills getting nerfed b/c people liked to abuse them in PVP. Keep these separate!

For GW 2, don't screw up persistent areas! Don't make it so that only high lvl characters can have an influence on what happens in the persistent world! Polish character and spell animations and make the game a little more...exciting. As fun as the game was, I rarely played spellcasters because I was never that excited about the spells. It didn't seem like much had happened after casting other than seeing the target's health bar drop.

And last of all, keep the character designs classy and beautiful, not like the ugly blocky cartoony WoW characters. (although with the Asura as playable characters, that will be hard to do.)

This comment was edited on Jan 16, 2009, 14:32.

LoL at sliv, that brings back so many memories! Return To Zork is one of my favorite classic games.