I sure hope they revamped the gameplay for the new Mechwarrior game. Especially the awful AI in MW5: Mercenaries.

I really wish anybody but Ubisoft had been given this title. Because -pretty as Outlaws is- it looks as hollow as any of their other open-world games; an experience that is superficially pleasing but lacks a satisfying progression. A game where the gameplay is grindy and repetitive, with awful storytelling and uninteresting characters. Maybe Outlaws won't be all I fear. I really hope it won't; I'm a sucker for a good Star Wars game. But Ubisoft's reputation -and the trailer above- do little to reassure me.

(and don't even get me started on how Ubisoft makes their single-player games dependent on always online connections that they shut down at whim and steal your games away from you. Even IF the game was great, still I'd hesitate to buy it from them).

MacLeod wrote on Jun 9, 2024, 18:00:
So is Doom Guy being a Space Marine completely out the window now? What about the lore of his rabbit being killed?

It's still intact, I believe. From what I recall, the "Doom Slayer" originally arrived in the fantasy world, in strange armor, battered and blooded as if from a war, and amnesiac; the implication was that he was the original "Doom Guy" teleported to a new realm after the end of the second game. His supreme (perhaps supernaturally endowed) fighting abilities had him rise to prominence from prisoner to war-leader. This new game apparently is telling that part of the story.

So, yes, the death of Daisy remains canon.

Wow. That game looks so... generic.

And where are the voxels?

Suicide Squad: The Movie had a budget of only $185 million. Just to put the sheer insanity of the game's cost into comparison.

Do we really need -or want- games with such a huge budget? So many games I play these days are made on a shoestring budget by Indies that I find incredibly satisfying; the AAA games that cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars don't justify their cost with gameplay or presentation that in anyway matches their price tag.

Scale it down, developers.

Original Doom + Brutal Mod is all I need. The solid gameplay of the first game and the over-the-top gore of the mod keep the game fun even thirty years on (but skip the mod's campaign mode)

Doom 3 was fine, but it wasn't Doom. It was atmospheric survival horror (if a bit heavy on monster closets) and I enjoyed it most after the first game, but it feels the least Doomy of the bunch. Even the DoomRPG felt more in tune with the game's style than Doom 3.

I didn't hate the new Dooms but I don't love them either. The push-forward and pinata enemy mechanics just don't jibe with my preferred game-style. I mostly played the games for (of all things!) the story. Although that end-boss in the expansion pack can DIAF.

Shock wrote on Apr 23, 2024, 17:23:
What possible value could the Infogrames name have? Will anyone old enough to remember it actually have a positive association?

I think it's less that Infogrames has a specifically positive association to it, and more the fact that they've poisoned the Atari brand. "Look, we're Infogrames; you can trust that our games aren't crap, not like whomever it was that released Days of Doom or Qomp2."

Burrito of Peace wrote on Apr 17, 2024, 11:55:
AC peaked with Black Flag. Everything since then has been huge maps stuffed with pointless "activities" to pad out the game length with no meaningful improvement to the core experience.

To be fair, padding out the giant map with pointless activities has been a core part of the Assassins Creed series since the first game. That one had you doing timed races and collecting flags from the start.

When it comes to cleaning my laptop, I always refer to Clean The Fan for instruction. Catchy and surprisingly accurate.

eRe4s3r wrote on Mar 27, 2024, 18:22:
Is Callisto Protocol worth getting nowadays then?

For what it's worth, I think so. But know what you're getting: it's a "Dead Space" clone. It's not original, and it hasn't quite the degree of polish. It's an okay game, not a great one. It won't wow you. It might sometimes annoy you. But - especially if you love the genre - you'll have fun with it.

Oh, thank god it isn't CRYPTO-currency support. That's what first ran through my head when I read the headline... but apparently even that is still one bridge too far for ActiBlizz.

Well, this probably explains the weird problems I was having with 7Zip outputting corrupted archives (and some unusual game crashes). Testing to see if the proposed fixes work...

> Embracer CEO says layoffs are "something that everyone needs to get through."

Everyone except CEOs, he means. They can tank a company and still walk away clean.

Firings are for little people.

God, no. Tags on steam are practically useless already, what with people assigning them willy-nilly based on the flimsiest of reasons. Allowing developers to game the system with even more ridiculous options (allow "Dwarf" today, and we get "Creed", or "Duty" or "Pokemon" tomorrow). Valve needs to crack down harder on misuse of tags, not become more lenient because the developers are 'fun'.

GinRummy wrote on Jan 30, 2024, 18:41:
Is this the game where you attack some distant enemy troops and... (SPOILER) Oops, you just committed a war crime by mass slaughtering a bunch of civilians? Props to the shock and tough emotion hit of that.

That's the one. You're locked into an area and are forced to drop white-phosphorous on them, burning them alive. Unfortunately, the impact of this decision is greatly reduced because you aren't given an alternative; you are forced into the act because you cannot progress in the game otherwise. It's was pretty much the game's equivalent of Call of Duty's "Press F to pay respects" moment. Sadly, the rest of the game was pretty similar. It had some good ideas (exploring how the actions of video-game heroes are actually ridiculously cruel), but the implementation and the lock-step reliance on military FPS tropes made it a lot less effective than it could have been.

MW3 will always be Zipper Interactive's Mechwarrior game to me...

Oh man, "Renegade: Battle for Jacob's Star"; that was a classic. It came out against "Wing Commander III" and by every particular, it was the inferior game...but it was still a lot of fun and had a rocking sound track. I still have my original CD-ROM of the game, but I think it would be worth to invest in a GOG digital release, if only for ease of install and play.

Is "Alan Wake 2" even out for PC yet? I don't see it on Steam...

Instead of Amazon /expanding/ their marketplace, I really wish they'd first take the effort to reduce it by certifying (or maybe even taking responsibility for?) all the scam and fraudulent goods and resellers on their website.

How long before somebody pays for a Hyundai and receives a "Huyndia" instead?

czarsquid wrote on Oct 12, 2023, 12:16:
You first Kotick cause I'm not letting Elon direct access to my brain.

I'm not particularly sanguine about giving Kotick access either.