Gods, Assassins, and Dragons

I'm not really one to link to reviews or previews, but 1up is running pieces looking at three really, really interesting titles slated for next year. On the theory that at least one of these is going to interest you, I direct you to Matt Leone's look at God of War 2, Shawn Elliot's piece on Assassin's Creed, and the first preview, anywhere, of BioWare's Dragon Age. From that article: "Large-scale combat is also on the top of Greig's mind--no surprise for a game where here, one naturally assumes, there be dragons. 'Remember the cave troll fight in The Fellowship of the Ring? That's what our large creature combat is going to be like. You've got the party guys running out, one guy jumping up on the back and stabbing, the other guy ducking between the legs.' Objects in the environment can be manipulated in your bid for tactical supremacy: Knock over a table to fire arrows or shoot fireballs from behind cover, but only where it makes sense--emergence be damned, in BioWare's reckoning. 'There will be a lot of ways of going through combat, and lots of different ways to interact with the environment...but our philosophy is that handcrafted is always better than random stuff.'"

Comments

Interesting sounding...

[saxoholic]

That description of combat sounds very interesting. I would really enjoy more interactive combat in combination with more manipulation of environments... but I'm going to take this hype with a grain or two of salt for now.

Re:Interesting sounding...

[Fozzyuw]

That description of combat sounds very interesting. I would really enjoy more interactive combat in combination with more manipulation of environments... but I'm going to take this hype with a grain or two of salt for now.

I agree with you. It's always a 'fantasy' to have such 'real' combat. However, I distinguish the difference between a fantasy and a dream, by that we want dreams to come true. At least that's what I tell my girlfriend. =p I kid.. I kid..

but our philosophy is that handcrafted is always better than random stuff.

As they said, games that are often 'on rails' to some extent (meaning, have direction) are often more enjoyable to gamers than just 'open ended' games. Sure, you can toss tables over to shoot fireballs, or run through legs, or whatever. But, it's an option. Instead, most people will just run to a corner to shoot and not bother. However, if the games cut-screen showed your character tossing tables for defense, it gives the gamer more excitement of action. I imagine it's also not particularly easy to design AI to fight multiple people in open-ended environments.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Awesomeness, Crap, and Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, my name is KOTOR. Have we met?
Let me introduce you to my hot siblings, KOTOR2 and Jade Empire.

And, while GOW was a nice looking PS2 game, neither it nor its sequel is visually mind-blowing. Unless your mind is the size of a cashew.

Scooped!

[Anonymous Coward]

And what of the cryptic messages from the 21st century that pop up when Altair flubs his mission? "For the moment, all I can say is that, as you assassinate those responsible for the Third Crusade, you also uncover a plot with fartherreaching implications," Raymond reveals, "a conspiracy that touches on subjects relevant to you and me."

Assassin's Creed final boss is GW Bush! Confirmed!

Re:Scooped!

[SimDarth]

good stuff. so is the assassin eternal/undead or is GWB?

Re:404

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just you.

Re:Awesomeness, Crap, and Meh

[RsG]

Just FYI, KOTOR 2 is an Obsidian game. Bioware only made the first game in the series.

Assassins

[miscz]

I like the part where developer talks about how little we know about assassins and that they are sort of the good guys in the game. To my knowledge they were bunch of fanatical hashish addicts controlled by muslim fundamentalists that were so powerful that even Saladin was scared of them.

Re:Assassins

[reanjr]

Hmmm... history DOES repeat itself!

I think you just described half the militant groups in the Middle East...

Except now they export drugs for money instead of get addicted to them and the name of the ruler is different.

Re:Assassins

[Das Modell]

I'm anticipating a gut-wrenching amount of political correctness and historical distortion in Assassin's Creed. They should have gone with a different setting.

A good source of inspiration

[Anonymous Coward]

The recently released title Might and Magic: Dark Messiah has excellent environmental components. One can kick enemies into all sorts of objects, or kick objects like statues onto enemies. You can use sources of fire to light your arrows on fire, or throw a barrel down steps to knock down a wave of enemies. Also, taking a note from thief, you can shoot arrows that make ropes into wood, and stealth is based off of shadows, movement speed, and the material you step on.

It can be done, and when done right, is a lot of fun. It'll be a game I watch for.

Re:A good source of inspiration

[Aeonite]

With good reason, 1UP.com gave the game a 4/10 because you can overuse the kick, dubbing it "The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot Deathboot in the Land of the Conspicuously Placed Spike Racks".

My own opinions were mixed, though I fully agree that the seemingly excellent environmental components are actually quite silly. I mostly panned the game in my review of it at http://www.gamegrene.com/node/691

God of War 2

[Pojut]

While I am waiting for this with great anticipation (the first one was fantastic...not mind blowing, but fantastic) I think it will signal the beginning of the end for the PS2...

Unless I have been out of the loop on some amazing other games...

Re:God of War 2

[blahplusplus]

"...(the first one was fantastic...not mind blowing, but fantastic)"

You got to be kidding me, God of War for the PS2 *was* mindblowing, it was one of the first games that really did 'death moves' in real-time action/platform type game that really had visceral emotional impact, the camera work for those death moves was *excellent*, as a gamer who knows a bit about developing games I was pretty fucking impressed by GoW. The art, the atmosphere, the levels, it came together to make a mind blowing experience... if you weren't blown away by some aspects of god of war there is seriously something wrong with you! Some aspects of the story were 'oldschool' and 'gamey' (i.e. followed the cookie cutter formula) but the atmosphere of the game and the camera work were first fucking rate my friend!

Thats part of gaming is! To take all those great action movie experiences and sequences and then translate them into the game while keeping the visceral and emotional impact that those movie sequences originally created by the excellent camera work.

Imagine god of war with no good camera work on the death moves, it would still look cool, but the impact would be much diminished.

Re:God of War 2

[Pojut]

I meant as a whole it wasn't mind blowing. There were, however, some extremely memorable scenes in that game...looking down when on top of the temple and seeing the titan walking the desert...watching the city burn as the end boss was going apeshit...hell, even the sea-serpent first boss.

Never said it wasn't memorable or amazing. Just wasn't mind-blowing

Re:Awesomeness, Crap, and Meh

[ravenshrike]

Dragon age is solely PC based. Unlike for consoles, they don't have to limit themselves.

Re:Awesomeness, Crap, and Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Dragon Age sounds like something worth watching. Too bad the review wasn't really that in-depth - and some of the things the lauded are likely to be dropped by the end. We'll see.

I'm kinda more interested to see what Bioware Austin does with the HeroBlade engine for the MMO....

No, actually.

[ClioCJS]

The term assassin stems from "hashassin". It's true. It sounds stupid, but it's true. While pot is not physically addictive, and the use of the word "addicts" is circumspect, he's still closer to the truth than your apostrophe-less denial.