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Gears of War 3 Released
The third installment of Gears of War was released yesterday, ending the story arc that began almost five years ago. Early response to the game has been favorable, and most reviews agree that it's the best of the series. The Guardian's write-up says the story and the voice-acting got some needed attention this time around. Eurogamer praised the improvements to multiplayer and highlighted the intensity of the action sequences, but also mentioned the "annoyance" of being rather rigidly limited when it came to exploring and deviating from scripted events. The Digital Foundry blog examined the tech underpinning Gears of War 3, finding all the advances you'd expect out of a big-budget title, and a few spots where it bumps up against the hardware limitations of the aging Xbox 360.
I just got back from the US on Monday morning and, having the rest of the week off work, I've been catching up on the three big console shooters that were released while I was away (or immediately after my return); Gears 3, Space Marine and Resistance 3. So far, I've sunk about 3 hours into each of their campaign modes (maybe a little more into Space Marine) and it's been interesting to note some of the similarities and differences.
What really struck me about Gears 3 so far is the insane level of polish that's been applied. This isn't a game that has given any indications (so far) that it plans to do anything that Gears 2 didn't. Weapons, situations, characters and gameplay mechanics are all changed in only the tiniest and most subtle of ways. What's happened, however, is that each of them have received a few little tweaks and minor improvements. Whereas the first Gears of War felt like a really good idea in need of polishing, the third installment is all polish and no ideas. That's not really a criticism - this is an excellent game - just an acknowledgement of the limitations inherant in what Epic decided to do.
Space Marine, on the other hand, is trying really hard to throw some new ideas into the third person shooter space - or at least to do away with some of the recent conventions of the genre. There's no cover button - indeed the game generally seems to regard cover as for wusses. As befits the fiction it's based on, the correct playstyle seems to be based around near-rabid levels of aggression. There's some really neat stuff in there; the transitions between ranged and melee combat are flawless, the animations are excellent and it's nice to have intelligent, articulate characters in one of these games rather than the usual grunting troglodytes. That said, there are also problems; despite the aforementioned animation, the graphics are a bit basic in places. Worse, there isn't really much variety to the enemies and combat tends to feel quite samey - not helped by the generally imprecise feel of the ranged weapons.
And Resistance 3... if Resistance 3 had mouse and keyboard controls and a quicksave button, it would be an old-school PC shooter. Seriously - its an fps where the player character has a high movement speed, can carry as many weapons as he wants, has a health bar that doesn't regenerate until he grabs a health pack and umpteen ludicrous secondary fire modes. I love it. This is Insomniac at their insane best - rather than Insomniac trying to force themselves to be sensible (which ruined Resistance 2). If the game were on PC, it would be near perfect.
What's really amused me is the review scores controversy that Gears 3 has generated. I mean, you do expect fanboys to get upset over review scores for games which are strongly identified with a single platform (it's not just on the MS side - check out some of the Killzone 3 review comments). But CliffyB really does come over as a prize arsehole through those comments. Particularly since the Eurogamer review in question felt... well... perfectly fair to me.
Obviously, I can't score the games properly myself yet, having not finished any of them. But on the basis of what I've seen so far, I think I'd say that Space Marine is a 7, Gears 3 is an 8 and Resistance 3 is a 9. What playing all three games side by side has really brought out to me is how desperately the industry needs to shed some of the cliches that have dogged shooters in recent years. Gears 3 is the absolute embodiment of those cliches - 2 weapon limit, regenerating health, cover based combat - but it feels to me like that's about as far as that particular subgenre is going to evolve. I'd love to see a Space Marine sequel that brought some more polish to the first game's new ideas. And I'd really love it if more devs could follow in Insomniac's footsteps and allow themselves to just go crazy a bit.
"Sony to include Unreal Engine 3 in PS3 dev kits
Published: July 21, 2005 11:01 AM PDT
by Punch Jump Crew"
http://news.punchjump.com/article.php?id=1118
Epic demonstrates Playstation 3 power (video)
Published: May 16, 2005 8:02 PM PDT
by Punch Jump Crew
http://news.punchjump.com/article.php?id=803
This is what should have been Gears of Wars for Playstation 3.
Unfortunately, Microsoft took over the role as the publisher, and one doesn't have to be too surprised that the PS3 was no longer pursued.
Those 2005 images from the video just screams that Epic should have pursued an all platform strategy.
Too bad that there is a Microsoft around.
The video itself http://downloads.punchjump.com/videos/epicgamesps3demo/Epic%20Games%20PS3%20demo.wmv
Interestingly enough, when I pointed out to my son that Gears 3 was out his comment was "I really can't get into a game where all the characters look like they munch steroids for breakfast, lunch and dinner."
IMHO, part of a good game experience is immersing yourself in the fantasy and identifying with the characters. If the characters are too far removed, it makes it harder.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I like the Gears series, but still can't get over the fact that they don't wear helmets?!?! (yes I know real life special forces don't wear them so they can hear better). One bullet to the head and they should be finished.
You're like listening to some who celebrates Michael Bolton's entire catalog...
You fail at gaming.
So, which of my trolls are you? I always feel so sorry for you, hiding behind your mask, afraid to come up and join in the conversation, resorting to posting flyers about "have you seen my sense of humor" and so on.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
they do have this annoying hardware limitation of the current generation of consoles being 5 years old
Comparing older hardware to newer hardware and saying that what is being done on the older hardware is absolutely embarrassing compared to the newer hardware?
This must be the games section of Slashdot.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
I dunno, some of us never really got into Mario, though I can't say I ever got too philosophical about why. It could be the moustache ;)
And, again, some of us don't find stupidly oversized weapons to be a turn on. In fact, some of us have donated a bunch of free time to make more realistically sized weapons for some games. E.g., for my part, stuff like the arming swords or Japanese weapons for Oblivion/Fallout 3/New Vegas. Though I'm probably not the best example, check out Adonnay's weapons for several games for some much better quality weapons.
And a bunch of people download such realistically sized weapons.
Don't get me wrong, though, I have occasionally done oversized stuff for lulz too, but still nowhere near such silly extremes as the Buster Sword or the 2 ft broad "Zanbato" in a certain anime. (Never mind that a historical Zanbato was 1.25 inch broad or so.) Think more like a 4 inch broad Zweihaender instead of 2 inch, for what counts as comically oversized for me. And more importantly it's supposed to be mostly a parody, and named and described appropriately to indicate parody intentions, and usually indicating in the description too that it's not historical and why. I don't see anything like that in the JRPG series you mentioned.
But at any rate, no, some of us don't find gigantic swords awesome, and some of us even spent many many hours modelling meshes to make more accurately sized weapons.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
But if it's fun, who gives a shit? Is this a game or a Powerpoint presentation at Siggraph?
I recall someone back in the 2D era saying to test your game, replace all the sprites with simple squares and circles. If it's still fun, you're on to something.
I don't remember user names I remember signatures...
I think I'll stick to TF2, the game that's STILL barrels of fun four years later, and never, EVER gets old.
Ya'll console people don't know what you're missing. :)
Since I don't have the time (or the extra money) to try every new game that comes out, I've tried to use reviews to give me an indication. Let me explain: 1. Games that get good professional reviews are usually the large-budget "blockbusters" that often disappoint the actual gamers. When I see a game with high professional reviews, but low user reviews, I tend to steer clear. 2. Games that get terrible professional reviews but good user reviews, tend to be the "hidden gems"... hidden because for some reason the critics didn't like them (were they not paid enough?) but gems because everyone who actually plays games for fun tends to like them. These tend to be cheaper than the blockbusters. 3. Once in awhile everyone seems to love a game (Portal 2 for instance.) Even though I don't love Portal 2 that much, I can't say it was a bad game. so these are usually a safe bet too. 4. And then when everyone hates a game... it's probably a safe bet that you will, too. Seems to me that Gears of War 3 falls into the first category... which probably means that I'll skip it. Seems to be the same complaints against it that REALLY annoy me in modern games (mechanics, linear, scripted, etc...)
Dude, the Unreal Engine can do a whole lot more than you can see in a console game like Gears. They just aren't going to do better than the consoles on the consoles.
What the Unreal Engine 3 apparently cannot do is good online multiplayer, that netcode tends to screw with game balancing due to its lacking lag compensation. In some games that means you can pretty much nullify hitscan weapons by staying on the move, most players cannot adequately compensate for the lag themselves so they miss a lot of shots, greatly lowering their DPS. The saddest part about that is how the UE2 used in Duke Nukem Forever doesn't have that problem.
And before you blame the consoles, I've seen the fucking WII do proper lag compensation in Golden Eye.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Motion plus does nothing to the pointer. If you are getting Jitter you are probably in a room with too much light (sunlight's the worst) washing over the front of the Wiimote. The sensor bar is nothing but 2 lights the wiimote uses as fixed points to calculate where it is in relation to the screen, if there are too many lights near it (or a window), the wiimote can't properly distinguish where those points are an jitters.
To test this Try playing a Game in complete darkness (only have the TV and Wii on), and stand between 3-10 feet away and watch how smooth the pointer is. From there look at anything that's generating IR light like a window, candles and other light sources. Not knowing your setup, I'd assume you have too much sunlight in the living room. My parents have a Big BAY window that needs the curtains drawn to be able to play anything.
Hopefully that helps, and even though I haven't played golden eye a FANTASTIC FPS game to try on Wii is Metroid Prime 3 (or the Conduit, or Medal of Honor Heroes 2), the controls are tight and it's well worth a play. happy gaming.