The reason I stated that I dislike EA Sports games is because I've played them, as have many of my hardcore gamer friends.

You never said that in your original post. You simply made the reference that people

continue to buy EA's lousy sports games

. Like I said in my post, you and your harcore gamer friends may not like the EA sports titles (though you seem to have softened your position on them a bit), but that doesn't make them lousy games. You have to admit that calling EA sports games lousy is, as I said, a really dumb statement and is certainly not a fact as you seem to put it.

If you look around, you'll see very few sites willing to really take a stab at EA games.

I really don't buy this. It is possible, but the idea that low revenue (and that's what pretty much every website is) sites would bow to a publisher for no reason is ridiculous. Again, the numbers may not gel with your opinion, but that does not mean that the sites are kowtowing to EA.

Well, almost no one here agrees that Enter the Matrix was a good game, but that sold didn't it?

This is irrelevant. I am talking about EA sports titles. But God help us if they make another one of those games...

Will people buy the next NHL and NFL games despite that they're paying $50 just to get an updated team roster and slightly improved engine?

I think that is the nature of sports games rather than a lack of innovation. You cannot really "reinvent" or "innovate" too much in a sports game. It is simulating something from real life, not making it's own story, environment, creatures, etc. A great number of people simply want to play with updated rosters and stats. Who really wants to play with last years players? It would be nice to have a $10 roster expansion, but EA makes enough changes year to year to force an upgrade.

I don't know anything about Tomb Raider, so I am not taking issue with those comments. But your bashing of EA sports titles is unfounded. There have been plenty of games that I didn't like, but realised they were good games (Freedom Fighters comes immediately to mind, along with FF XI or whatever the online one was called). Well made, good technical elements, received well by reviewers and other gamers, but just not my thing. Are EA sports games not your thing? Maybe. Are EA sports games lousy? Definately not.

Have you tried tetris?

Haha, nice.

Deus Ex Invisible War is the only game on the market (that I can think of), that allows for such open-ended gameplay and complex problem solving.

Have you tried tetris?

------
Leading the "Support our Arrow keys" movement!

There's a little sequence where two Order Seekers try to kill a pair of scientists. While you can shoot them down easy enough, you do have a few seconds to come up with some other solution. Here's mine: I rolled one of the gas barrels to the base of the nearby stairs and then placed a proximity mine right next to it. The first Order Seeker was killed by the blast from the mine. The mine also had the effect of blowing up the gas barrel and enshrouding the second seeker in poison gas. Going to those lengths to kill the seekers was totally unnecessary, shooting them is far simpler and just as easy, but it was far far more satisfying.

I actually tried that. The first time the computer decided to hiccup and froze for a few seconds, by which time I recovered and found 'ole Alex a puddle of goo on the ground. I think it was quite satisfying the second go though.

I admit I love when people try and argue at innane points, but everyone needs a hobby. Yay for the internet, three cheers!

Or irriate, annoy, agrivate, subjugate, be belligerant, resentful, hateful, disrespectful, cryful, whiny, argumentative, or just troll-like in general...

This comment was edited on Mar 1, 03:06.

I admit I love when people try and argue at innane points, but everyone needs a hobby. Yay for the internet, three cheers!

Deus Ex Invisible War is the only game on the market (that I can think of), that allows for such open-ended gameplay and complex problem solving.

Agreed, it's just unfortunate that the level design and difficulty balance didn't choose to exploit IW's greatest strength. There is no situation in the game where it is necessary to come up with a creative solution to problems, the easiest way is always shooting or activating the cloak biomod. This weekend I've been playing through IW yet again, only this time I'm playing around with what you can actually do with the game systems and am having a whole lot of fun with it. Two examples from the Tarsus Raid level:

There's a little sequence where two Order Seekers try to kill a pair of scientists. While you can shoot them down easy enough, you do have a few seconds to come up with some other solution. Here's mine: I rolled one of the gas barrels to the base of the nearby stairs and then placed a proximity mine right next to it. The first Order Seeker was killed by the blast from the mine. The mine also had the effect of blowing up the gas barrel and enshrouding the second seeker in poison gas. Going to those lengths to kill the seekers was totally unnecessary, shooting them is far simpler and just as easy, but it was far far more satisfying.

A little later you come across a room with two Seekers patrolling it. I used the Bot Dom mod to possess a spiderbot patrolling a nearby airvent and then manuevered the thing into the center of this room. I then went back to a previous room and grabbed a flask and then threw it near where the now disabled spiderbot had been parked. The two seekers went to investigate the noise and when they got close to the spiderbot I fired a round into the bot causing it to explode. Both seekers got caught in the blast and died.

I'm having a blast replaying different sections of the game (that I've already gone through four times) but playing around with the game systems to create unique solutions. This is why I like this game.

No - DXIW was designed for the XBOX as much as people deny it. The whole design progression of dumbing down the game says CONSOLE all the way.

Tiny levels are another giveaway.

Invisible War is a pretty good game... it's still the only game in town if you want to actually use your brain to solve problems in innovative ways besides just shooting people.

Call of Duty is a great game - but you only have to orient your mind in one direction - killing bad guys. Deus Ex Invisible War is the only game on the market (that I can think of), that allows for such open-ended gameplay and complex problem solving.

"The only people that had a truly "open mind" about IW were those that hadn't played DX1 and had no expectations. That sums up a lot of the Xbox crowd and the game didn't do well on that platform."

I played Deus Ex 3 times and I just finished IW and liked it quite a lot. So you can completely retract your comment.

And yes, I'm yet another person needlessly replying to something someone said about ths game as if I think it would actually make any difference. Sigh...

Edit: and of course the game being DE:IW, not the game this news item is about.

This comment was edited on Feb 29, 20:36.

I would contribute to this discussion, but Eidos don't release the game here till friday. (yes, I'm very very very bitter that I get to listen to all this without being able to try and make my own mind up on if it's possible to see past the flaws).

Judging from the demo, there's one or two overiding issues (dumb-acting AI, unified ammo) that I would assign blame higher up for, but mostly issues that I'd lay on the doorstep of their QA department, a number of which smell of too little time testing the PC version after working on the Xbox version. As project director, I think HS dropped the ball a bit, something I'm willing to put down to inexperience at being in charge of a whole project.

I think things would have turned out better if WS had been more involved in order to bring his experience to bear to help deal with developing for multiple platforms. That sort of project management experience isn't something you can go to someone and get the ok for.

Spector is to video games what George Lucas is to Episode 1-3

You demand a better analogy however, and I will grant you that one.


Warren Spector is to gaming what shit is to stink.

Haha, what? Neither of those analogies make any sense. Warren Spector is to gaming as George Lucas is to film would be appropriate. The second analogy is meaningless; shit creates a stink, and so Warren Spector creates gaming? Huh? Better brush up before those SATs.

~Steve

You'd actually have to have some fame before anyone could go about defaming you, Noname. Your illustrious reputation as Blue's noisiest troll since Fredster isn't the sort of thing that's going to get your name in the newspaper.

And off come the gloves!

http://www.depechemode.com/

Congrats on coming up with one of the single dumbest statements I have ever read on this forum.

And thanks for that intelligent response. The reason I stated that I dislike EA Sports games is because I've played them, as have many of my hardcore gamer friends. Are they all that bad? Not really no. But the fact is that they do not garner the ratings that they are getting. The fact that a number of game sites give them similar ranking is irrelevant. I earlier used GameSpot as an example, for the fact that they give just about every EA title (not every one, but most) high ratings. Most other sites do too. If you look around, you'll see very few sites willing to really take a stab at EA games. And when EA releases a game that's so bad or unpolished that they just can't give it something near the top (and this does happen), they still give it a rating that's low, but higher than the title deserves. NFS Undergound and Nascar Thunder 2004 aren't bad, but they aren't that great and neither are the other EA titles out there. Many publishers are guilty of pushing out unfinished, untested garbage or just trying to milk a long-standing series, but EA has consistently been the worst at this. Many modern gamers buy titles purely because of reviews (though many won't admit it; these are usually the casual gamers who fall into this category) and when they spent a lot of money on a highly-rated title that they now can't return, they'll learn to like it. I personally believe that if a lot of large publisher games out there got more realistic ratings, they would sell more relative to what they should based on their quality.

The fact is that you say my statement is dumb because people continue to buy EA Sports games. Well, almost no one here agrees that Enter the Matrix was a good game, but that sold didn't it? Will its sequel sell too? Yes it will! Simply because many gamers see the name and bought it. Will people buy the next NHL and NFL games despite that they're paying $50 just to get an updated team roster and slightly improved engine? Absolutely they will. I remember back in the good old days where you paid like $9.99 for a roster expansion disc to a sports title. You got the updated players that you wanted to stay current, but you weren't paying for the SAME GAME over and over again. That's where my problem is. People are willing to do that, but they are calling the Tomb Raider series dead after one game that didn't do so hot. See what I'm getting at? Probably not, but oh well, I tried.


Parallax Abstraction
This comment was edited on Feb 29, 19:23.

You'd actually have to have some fame before anyone could go about defaming you, Noname. Your illustrious reputation as Blue's noisiest troll since Fredster isn't the sort of thing that's going to get your name in the newspaper.

Currently yes, gaming is shitty. Even the greatest games so far have been a shitfest, the mitigating factor is they go to great legenths to cover this fact up. "Great" games do this, I should say. Of course I have very high standards, so it only appears like complaning because you do not understand my viewpoint.

I just get pissed off when someone defames me while at the same time defends a whore like spector.


And yes, i'm partially jellous and illogical about this, but pardon me if I happen to lament wastes of potential. I'm sure you each have your own stupid quirks so get the fuck off my back. If my dislike of spector bothers you so much then maby you need to worry about why you feel so much attachment to someone you've never met. Someone who's job it is to make money for companys who has shown he'll go to any legenth to acomplish this goal. I guess when you have low standards you have low standards, eh?

I should also point out that not all stink's are bad, its just the current one's are crap flavored.

This comment was edited on Feb 29, 19:14.

Warren Spector is to gaming what shit is to stink.

so you've got something against gaming or something?
why are you on these forums if you are just always bashing everthing?

Supporter of "The Only Good fredster Is A Dead fredster" fan club

The Former Leader and Victor of the rebel movement against the dark Lord Surewood and his fiendish cohorts(bunko)

You know you bitch about "trolling" like I give two fucks about anyone opinion other than my own. THEN you go and leave a remark like the one you did.


Hypocrits need not even bother trying to defame me, why don't you go back to playing The Sims Online and watching old episodes of Red Dwarf while masturbating in bucket of CodeRed, ya bitch.


You demand a better analogy however, and I will grant you that one.


Warren Spector is to gaming what shit is to stink.

"Spector is to video games what George Lucas is to Episode 1-3."

I know you're trolling, but your analogy isn't correct. There's a significant difference between a producer and a director.

You, on the other hand, have feverently supported this game against any and all criticism since long before the demo came out.

My support of IW before the demo was no greater than any other fan of the first game. My initial reaction to the demo was one of abject disgust, in fact I uninstalled the demo right on the spot. The feel was that of a lame console port: the laggy mouse movement, blurry graphics that made my monitor look like a TV, and just the general feel of a game that isn't on it's native platform.

I went to the Ion Storm forum to bitch but found a stickied thread detailing .ini tweaks that fixed some of the consolitis issues. I decided to give the game another shot (I had been looking forward to the thing since it had been announced after all), downloaded the demo again and then did the .ini tweaking. With some of my major complaints resolved I got into Deus Ex playing mode and played the demo for next hour or so and low and behold I had a good time. Was it perfect? Fuck no. Was it better than the first? Probably not. Was I enjoying myself playing a Deus Ex game? Yes.

I came real close to writing the game off as a casualty to multiplatform development. Had I not given the game a second chance I would be complaining louder and longer than anyone else here, Deus Ex is my favorite game of all time. The reason why I made the open mind comment was because I only enjoyed the game after I said to myself "lets give this another shot and take the game at face value". Maybe I did enjoy IW because I wanted to like it, I just know that I only enjoyed it after putting my fanatical love for the first aside and just played the damn game. The guy who introduced me to DX, who used to write for DeusExMachina.com, had a similar experience so I know this isn't me alone.

Spector is to video games what George Lucas is to Episode 1-3.