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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.'"
Just FYI, KOTOR 2 is an Obsidian game. Bioware only made the first game in the series.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
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.
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.
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..
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
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
"...(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.
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
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