RPG has always been a term that covered a multitude of sins, though. My own experience of pen & paper or tabletop gaming is relatively limited (though by no means non-existant), but I can't help but feel that you are romanticising things here (and being a bit hard on CRPGs). I have certainly participated in pen & paper games that have been nowhere near the depth or sophistication of something like Dragon Age (or even of the average Final Fantasy game in some cases). Epic free-roaming campaigns do exist, but they're the exception rather than the norm and require a hugely committed DM to make them work properly. Most DMs I've known are basically content to follow the script of whatever module/campaign book they're using with only minimal variation, and the ability of players to change the course of the plot is limited at best.
And within the sphere of CRPGs... well... there's certainly variety, and the main different streams the genre has divided into each have their own tags. The closest to the traditional pen & paper RPG is found in some of Bioware games, and in spin-offs from Bioware properties. The NWN games spring to mind here, particularly some of the third party modules. Then you have tactics RPGs (turn based strategy games with upgradable stats tagged on), JRPGs (highly linear, plot heavy) action RPGs (simple action-games with upgradable stats and gear) and so on. I don't particularly see the problem with this; when I buy a game, I know what I'm getting.
Yeah, but it's not prominent - you have to click into stuff to get it - and it's not a big number that shows up against somebody's profile on your friends list by default. It feels tagged-on, whereas on on the 360, your gamerscore feels like an integral part of your account. Not saying either system is better, though.
I... sort of like achievements. I try not to get obsessive over them, and generally think that I succeed. However, I do wonder whether there's a bit of a slippery-slope effect. I don't have the largest Xbox Live friends list - just a few people I know in real-life - but it's hard not to get a bit competititve. Given that I tend to only give most games a single playthrough, there's a great temptation to be moderately completionist on the first playthrough, just so you don't miss any low-effort achievements. This does mean I tend to use walkthroughs more than I used to. It also means that as an owner of a 360 and a PS3, if there's a cross-platform game and both versions are functionally identical, I'll plump for the 360 version. Yes, the PS3 has trophies now, but they don't all add together into a single big, clearly visible score.
The weird thing is that I recently went back and played a PS2 RPG that had been sat on my shelf for about 18 months without being touched. At first, the lack of an achievements system felt irritating, but the further I played into it, the more liberating I found it to be able to just sit back and enjoy the game without worrying about chasing down achievements.
So yeah, on balance, they're kind of a mixed blessing from my point of view.
I think the biggest problem for movie adaptations of video-games in the mainstream is that such movies are basically marked from the start as "video game movies". Like it or not, video games remain something of a culturally divisive issue. Those who play them (who are a growing segment of the population, but still nothing like as large as "those who watch movies" or "those who watch sports") are usually prepared to accept that they can have decent stories and characters and that, in a few rare cases they can become art (Shadow of the Colossus, Portal, Eternal Sonata, I'm looking at you). To those who don't play them, they remain "kids' stuff".
I suspect that what this means is that when you attach a "video game adaptation" tag to a movie, you instantly guarantee that a large proportion of the population isn't even going to give it a chance. The people behind the movie feel relieved of the need to actually try to produce something worthy, and go for what they see as the safe option of putting out something pretty-but-braindead. If you look at the games which receive mainstream movie adaptations, they're all action titles, which themselves borrow themes and styles from Hollywood action films.
Sorry, I think I'm not being particularly clear here. But I think what I'm trying to say is that even if some Hollywood studio decided to pick up the kind of game that really doesn't fit the classic video-game stereotype; let's say Heavy Rain, which is inspired by crime thrillers rather than action fare - they would still end up doing it as a big-guns-no-brains action adaptation. After all, once fans of crime thrillers found out it was based on a video game, the assumptions would kick in and they'd lose interest. The studio, knowing full well that this would happen, would pitch the movie towards what they see as the classic video game demographic and turn it into an action movie.
However, I think this is only half of the problem. To see the other half, it's best to look away from Hollywood and towards the other main producers of video-game adaptations (albeit for TV rather than cinemas); anime studios. There are different social factors at work here; with the exception of a small number of franchises, almost all non-kids anime is pitched at nerds (look at the Japanese TV schedules if you don't believe me; prime-time anime is close to non-existent). With many of the games that are adapted also pitched at nerds (in the Japanese market, it tends to be RPGs that get adaptations), there's no clear mis-match between the market for the source material and the market for the adaptation.
And yet... leaving aside visual-novel adaptations like Higurashi for the moment (where the source material doesn't really count as a game to begin with), anime adaptations of games tend to such at least as hard as, if not harder than, Hollywood movie adaptations. Time after time, studios take games which should be dead-cert hits as anime adaptations (given how anime-like the games often are) and produce something awful. Take Disgaea; quirky tactical role-playing game with strong characters, a wickedly subsersive sense of humour and a deliberately anime-like structure (right down to next-episode previews every couple of missions). The anime adaptation is a boring, badly thought out mess, which bears little enough resemblance to the game to annoy the hell out of game fans, but requires enough knowledge of the characters and universe that it's going to put off people who come to it fresh. Or take Persona: Trinity Soul, which appeared between the (wildly successful) 3rd and 4th installments of the game series. The third game had all of the ingredients needed for a decent adaptation, but instead we got something incomprehensible, which again was off-putting to both game-fans and any fresh audience who might have given the anime a go. Valkyria Chronicles I'll be slightly kinder to; they turn an awesome game into a fair-to-middling anime; but they do lose a lot of the game's charm in th
They're ok-ish. Diablo clones, basically, whose only real distinction is that you get control of a full party, rather than the usual individual (with possible AI follower) that you get in the genre. However, I note that this is allegedly going out the window in the third game, so you'll be controlling a single character, as in umpteen other games.
I played the first game to completion, and about half of the second game before I got too bored to continue. The first game started out well, and the whole "no loading screens" thing felt pretty novel at the time; walking into a building or dungeon and having the game transition seemlessly felt pretty novel in the days before WoW (and even WoW has loading screens when changing continent or going into an instance). Early on, it felt pretty fun, with lots of changes in the environment and the terrain. Unfortunately, the game's mid-section is tedious in the extreme, with some very long, highly repetitive dungeons which just seem to go on forever. Things improve somewhat again towards the end, with a few large and extremely epic boss fights, but I'm not sure how many players would make it that far. The game also had a few balance problems; in particular, it was very hard to keep characters levelled up in nature magic (the healing-build) at the same rate as your other characters would be advancing in the offensive skills.
The second game I found it much harder to get into. Despite a generally better and less generic plot, it seemed to have a lot of the flaws of the first game, but amplified further. The early combat areas were monotonous, and maybe it's just me, but I found the difficultly level extremely steep (and while nothing special, I'm not generally bad at this genre). One thing common to both games is that you'll get more out of them if you have somebody to play them co-op with.
So the third game... I don't think I personally will be bothering. It's not a genre I'm head over heels in love with, and with the full-party-control apparently cut, I'd probably wait for Diablo 3 if I wanted to play a click-fest.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but isn't the summary a bit misleading? It's not ownership of the copy of the game you've bought that's being contested; it's the right to play it on Blizzard's own servers. Now, admittedly, the game isn't much use if you can't connect to those servers, but it's not as if you didn't know that when you bought the game.
However, Blizzard is not talking about going into anybody's home and taking away their physical copy of the game, or requiring them to delete it from their hard drive. People like to say that piracy isn't theft because it doesn't deprive the rights-holder of their original copy of the software. Ok, I can buy that. It doesn't mean that piracy isn't A Bad Thing (TM), but I can agree that it isn't theft. So by the same token, Blizzard isn't contesting anybody's ownership of the game - just the right to play it on Blizzard servers.
As a former WoW player (quit cold-turkey 6 weeks ago due to needing my life back) I'm supportive of Blizzard. Stuff like Glider just ruins the experience for legitimate players and I'm glad they take steps to guard against that.
Random level generation in fpses has been around for years and years. The first big example I can remember would be Rise of the Triad (a Doom-clone from 1995), which had the ability to create randomly generated levels in large batches. The levels had to pass basic checks to ensure they could be finished (eg. you can't have a key needed to open a door locked away behind said door).
They're nothing new in RPGs, either. In terms of action RPGs, they're a staple feature of the Diablo games and most of their imitators. Even in terms of "proper" RPGs, they're not unknown; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (and 4) had random dungeons, and I believe earlier installments in the series might have as well.
I think the biggest problem with randomly generated content, and the reason why you don't see it used in more games, is that it just isn't as fun as pre-designed content in most scenarios. The Diablo games are perhaps an exception, being designed for large numbers of relatively short playthroughs, but by and large, a random generator can't match the design skill of a human. If you look at a dungeon in something like Dragon Age, you'll see complex puzzles and rooms designed to create specific tactical challenges. You won't find that in Diablo or a clone.
You can perhaps see this best in games which combine randomly generated content with pre-designed areas. The Disgaea series are good examples. The "item world" dungeons are randomly generated, and often feel bizarre or unfair. The pre-designed "plot mission" are built around specific challenges and are much more fun to play. The randomly generated levels are ok for padding out the game, but if it were made up of them entirely, the game wouldn't be much fun.
I was outside of the warrenty, pretty sure the machine wasn't repairable, and the value of content I'd bought online was lower than the fee I was quoted to take a look at it. They do generally make these things more hassle than just getting a new machine (and they're not alone, MS require you to write off via snail mail for a transfer kit).
I wish I had mod points right now, because this is an excellent summary of the current state of play. To my mind, the Nintendo model is the worst/least ethical, due to the require to repurchase content if your console dies (and this does happen - I've had a Wii die on me). However, Sony do now seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom. It's ironic, given MS's usual reputation and the controversy that surrounded the launch of Steam, that these two systems are actually the least offensive of the current DRM systems for the end-user.
Now if only Valve would finally put their foot down and ban 3rd party DRM from their network, mainstream PC gaming could be in for a serious resurgence.
I'd agree with you on Gears of War. The sequel was more polished, flowed better and had better integration of its co-operative play into the campaign. I'd disagree on Mass Effect. The sequel felt overly restrictive and I cannot find words to describe how much I hated a) planet scanning and b) the move to an ammunition-based weapon system.
I would definitely agree with what I suspect was your main point; that the grandparent is talking rubbish. There are plenty of sequels, both classic and modern, that have bettered the original (even when the original was very good in itself). To list but a few in no particular order:
Star Control 2 Ultima Underworld 2 TIE Fighter (assuming X-Wing as the prequel) Descent 2 Final Fantasy sequels (not a straightforward progression from worst to best, but all of the sequels are better than the very first Final Fantasy game) Baldur's Gate 2 Fallout 3 (controversial this one, I know) Warcraft sequels (the original Warcraft is pretty dire) God of War sequels
Same here. I've found that as I get older, climb the greasy pole at work and generally find myself with more cash but far, far less leisure time, my interest in competitive online gaming wanes. Back in my student days, I pumped hours and hours into Counter-Strike, playing the game, getting heavily involved in the UK community, running first a clan and later a relatively major league. There were plenty of irritations due to dealing with cheaters, whiners and the generally immature, but I put up with these because it was a good way of getting a fairly decent amount of fun from a very small initial outlay. I puchased Half-Life with money I got for Christmas in 1998, and that £35 provided the platform for the majority of my gaming over the next 5 years.
These days, I just can't be bothered with the whole online scene, even though I know it's a great way of extending the value of the games I buy. Even online "anonymous" co-operative play is starting to wear thin with me. I don't like running the risk that I may end up wasting that portion of my leisure time I give over to gaming putting up with some foul-mouthed kiddy.
Increasingly, I find that my gaming is tending towards single-player experiences and multiplayer (mainly co-operative) with people I actually know. And in the latter case, my circle is tightening. I play WoW at the moment, because most of my time playing is co-operative with my guild. But even there, I'm getting sick of dealing with idiots I don't know well. Come the next expansion, I'm out (quitting at a new expansion release minimises the disruption to your guild-mates, as all of the gear they've helped you acquire is obsolete at that point). The only way to avoid aggravation is to play with people I know in real life (where I'm lucky to have a few friends and colleagues with similar taste in games).
Back when I was a student, the idea of paying £35 for a 10 hour singleplayer campaign would have been fairly hair-raising. These days, I just don't mind it so much. There is a point at which I feel it crosses the line into "just plain silly" - Modern Warfare 2's singleplayer campaign was *too* short (and ended too badly) to leave me feeling anything but ripped off. But the GoW games? Yeah, they were fine. I was perfectly happy with my purchases (and the co-op play is among the best around).
They do have a weird look for these games, don't they? If you've seen the artbook that comes with the collector's edition of the first game, you'll have seen how they witter on about "destroyed beauty" and all that gumpf, and how they wanted to create haunting environments and stuff. In fairness, if you look at some of the location art in the game, they do a fairly good job of this. Many of the locations do feel like a plausible interpretation of the ruins of a culturally advanced civilisation.
And then they go and populate the world with men the size of small trucks wearing huge armoured suits and carrying machineguns the size of a cow with a huge chainsaw bayonet, whose primary methods of communication are grunting and fist-pounding. I did wonder at times whether the environment and character art teams had ever even met each other, let alone actively collaborated.
I guess if they were aiming for anything, it was probably "Warhammer 40k without all of the religious symbolism". That's not necessarily a bad thing; there are elements of the WH40k aesthetic (from what I've seen in the video games) that are appealing, but they just go ludicrously overboard on everything. GoW also goes overboard... just to a slightly lesser degree.
Ok, maybe you weren't trolling. However, I think that the lack of ability to run (or rather, sprint) and shoot comes back to the same point - the presence of a "physical body" in the game. GoW's "sprint" is just that - heads down, arms tucked in, running hell for leather over a short distance. Your chances of hitting anything at all with a gun in that kind of posture is almost zero. People occasionally do it in movies; but generally only in silly action movies aimed at the "box of popcorn and no brain" crowd. Gears doesn't aim for realism (far from it), but it does aim for verisimilitude - something that has the outward appearance of being realistic. The traditional PC fps ignores this (though a few more recent examples have moved in this direction) and allows you to bounce around hell for leather at full speed while shooting. That's one way to play and some people like it. However, it's also valid to have a style of play that restricts the player and forces them to make choices within a tightly defined rule-set.
I remember a clique back when I was at university that held the Quake games up as the absolute paragon of gaming because they basically applied almost no restrictions to the player's movement. This always seemed to me to be missing the point. It was like saying that Chess would be better if any of the pieces could move in the same manner as a Queen, without all of those pesky restrictions.
And the cover system? Well... again, it comes back to verisimilitude. Since the invention of the repeating rifle and the fragmentation shell, real-world combat has invovled a hell of a lot of use of cover. Most action games, including GoW, are actually ludicrous in the sheer amount and pace of movement they encourage from players. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (it makes for a more interesting game in some cases). But as games that look like they're realistic become more popular, it's inevitable that cover mechanics will become more important. That said, I do agree that Mass Effect 2 went a bit too far. I felt that a lot of the level design in that game felt quite aritificial and "overly convenient". GoW has generally been more subtle, I think.
To be honest, I've never assumed that GoW on the PC has ever been anything other than a second-rate consolation prize for people without a 360 (I don't think the second one ever came out on the PC). Certain genres work better on certain platforms. If there's a cross-platform fps, then I'll generally get it for the PC, unless there are truly hideous DRM issues. If there's a cross-platform third person shooter, I'll go to a console. I played Dead Space on the 360 and enjoyed it; later, I had the opportunity to try the PC version and found it utterly rancid. This often gets down to "nasty console port", but the fact is that some genres do work better on consoles (just as some work better on the PC).
I think this is decidedly harsh (and probably just a troll, as has already been reflected in the initial moderation). I'm not necessarily sure that having a new tech engine is required to make a sequel. I also disagree with the implied assertion that anything which isn't a PC run and gun fps is inferior.
I quite like the Gears of War games. I'm not a massive fan; I don't like the online competitive multiplayer much (but I don't like the online competitive multiplayer in pretty much any action game these days), but I've played them both through in single-player and co-op and had plenty of fun with them. They're third person shooters (not fpses, like you say) and they make good use of the mechanics of the genre. If you want fast, free movement, then you probably want an fps, and there are plenty of good titles on both consoles and PC. Third person shooters generally lose some of the pace and precision of an fps. However, what they bring to the party (when done well) is a sense of physical presence. In the Gears of War game, you are controlling large guys wearing heavy armour - and it feels like it. They have inertia. Actions - even turning around - take a bit longer than they might in an fps. You need to think a littke bit more about your immediate surroundings, and be aware of your character's whole body. This can make for a very fun experience (when it's done well - and the GoW games do it well), but it's not comparable to a Quake-style fps.
I actually find third person shooters substantially more intuitive to play on a console than on the PC (with the reverse applying for fpses). We have an expectation that mouse controls will translate into very rapid changes of direction - with a quick flick being enough for an instant 180 degree turn. This is disconcerting when controlling a "heavy" character, who is actually designed to turn relatively slowly.
Actually, it feels like I'm seeing far more games running on the Unreal engine these days than I am on anything id have put out. Gears of War games, Mass Effect games, Bioshock games, loads of stuff from Square-Enix, god knows how many others... they're all on the Unreal 3 engine. By contrast, the only vaguely recent game I can remember on an id engine was Wolfenstein. And frankly, that looked pretty mediocre compared to the competition.
In fact, yes, looking at the "list of games that use this engine" on wikipedia, it's fairly clear that the Unreal Engine 3 is being used for a huge number of commercial games, while id's engines are starting to look distinctly niche and only seem to be used by developers with strong historic links to id.
The original was a pretty novel game. It took what should have been a fairly straightforward run and gun shooter and made it genuinely scary in places. The engine was good by the standards of the time, the gunplay felt solid, the enemy AI was extremely robust and there was a convincing atmosphere of lurking horror. It wasn't perfect; it could have done with a wider variety of enemies, and the plot got a bit incoherent towards the end, but on balance I very much enjoyed it.
FEAR 2 didn't create the same impression. It felt technically primative by the standards of its competitors when it came out, the AI felt as though it had taken a step backwards (something I also felt happened between the original Half-Life and its sequel, to be honest), the weapons felt weedy and unsatisfying and the game was relying on the same tricks as its predecessor for its shocks and scares, with the result that it was markedly less effective. The plot was an absolute disaster; it was far from gripping to begin with, and it had one of the worst endings I've ever encountered in a game. It just felt like the writers had written themselves into a corner and couldn't think of any way out, so they just stopped and ended the game there.
To be honest, I don't think the franchise is one I need to see continued. Sure, the original was fun, but I'm happy to let it (and its stupidly capitalised and punctuated title) fade away.
There's a degree of truth of this. I've noticed that if I research any purchase online, I always have to employ a mental "negativity filter" to reflect the fact that by and large, it's unhappy people who post on these forums. My "fat" PS3 has been updated (reluctantly) for several days and has had no problems (touch wood) - unless you count the loss of functionality that I had never used, but had liked knowing was there.
However, firmware updates do genuinely seem to have a habit of causing problems with the current console generation. I've had a 360 and a Wii both brick on me after firmware updates (the 360 booted up once, then RRODed within 60 seconds, the Wii just refused to give anything other than a blank screen) and looking around my immediate circle of friends (excluding myself), we've had a PS3, a PSP, a 360 and two Wiis brick immediately after firmware updates. There was a further 360 that RRODed without a firmware update.
There does seem to be a serious problem with the current console generation (and I do mean all three machines here). The failure rates are way above what I'd consider acceptable. I live in mortal terror of my PS3 dying, as it's an imported US original 60 gig model, so if it dies, I don't just need to get a new PS3, but also to import a new PS2 (or check out how good the emulation scene is these days, I guess). By contrast, there's an old Commodore 64 in my parents' attic which still more or less worked when I fired it up the Christmas before last (though the 2 missing keys on the keyboard make it difficult to use, and the tape drive was erratic at best) and a 286 which still works if you give it a smack on the side at boot-up to get the HDD spinning.
If you fire up Dawn of War 2, you are only ever controlling a small number of units at once. However, each of these units is highly sophisticated. They can be tweaked extensively between missions and, depending on the tweaks you make, have access to a wide variety of special abilities and powers during missions. They have more in common with a character from a party-based role-playing game like Baldur's Gate than with a traditional RTS unit. When you're actually deployed in the mission, the terrain is highly complicated and the environment has many interactive elements. Securing an area (provided you aren't on the easiest difficulty) will involve careful micromanagement, use of cover, and co-ordination between individual units. Thus the game compensates for the depth it loses by stripping out the traditional base-building and resource management elements of the RTS genre.
If you fire up Supreme Commander 2, you are faced with fairly generic units, most of whom have no special abilities or powers, and which are normally only capable of moving and attacking (though exceptions exist). However, you are managing hundreds of units at once, often fighting on multiple fronts (one set of units defending your base, while an expeditionary force goes on the offensive, with both teams containing hundreds of vehicles). You have little capacity to micromanage individual units without losing control of the wider battlefield, but the depth here comes from managing your economy, building up your base, and controlling a large combined-arms force.
Both of those approaches to the RTS genre are entirely valid and I would have no qualms about recommending either of the above games. They inhabit different ends of the RTS spectrum, but ultimately, the genre is richer for containing both of them. Some will prefer one approach, some the other, and some, like me, are happy with either.
Then we get C&C4. You are only controlling a small force at any one time (slightly larger than in Dawn of War 2, but not by a huge margin). However, the units within it are generic, cookie-cutter stuff. Only a few have any kind of special abilities to micromanage. For the most part, they just move and attack. At the same time, there is no economy to manage. You have a mobile base that can deploy, quickly build a full force of units (with no resource cost) and then pack itself up and move around again. You can slightly influence the course of battle through micromanagement, but with your small army being so easy and fast to replenish, there's relatively little point. It's better just to wheel up near your target and keep pumping out a combination of two or three unit types until you win. That's all there is to it really; no depth, no strategy, no fun.
Actually, I really liked C&C3. It was pacey, well produced and captured more of the "feel" of the original C&C than any of the other installments in the series. I think Westwood were in some ways the authors of their own woes; I know C&C2 and Red Alert 2 have a cult following, but they were way behind the competition at the time they were released and their wider reception was fairly dire.
After the false start that was Generals, I'd actually felt that EA were starting to get the series back on track with C&C3 and, to a slightly lesser degree, RA3. Unfortunately, C&C4 has gone and proven me wrong.
I've been stung by this one. There was little (or in fact no) warning in advance of release that the copy protection would take this form and, as this was an EA rather than an Ubisoft game, I didn't assume that it would. So, like a fool, I went and placed a pre-order with an electronic-only retailer.
Of course, the release day comes and various forums explode with news of the DRM. I had already made a decision not to buy any games with Ubisoft-style DRM... and now find myself accidentally in breach of that. I try to get a refund... and fail.
After a few days of unsuccessfully trying for a refund, I give up. I say "ok, I'll see for myself just how bad this is". So I pass up any lingering hopes of a refund and download and install the game. Just getting the launcher to start up is a hassle, as there are assorted known issues with it. Eventually, I figure out that I have to manually update the EA Download Manager (an entirely separate piece of software) before the game will run. Having done all of this, and created an account, I click the button to try to play the game. And get told that the DRM client "cannot connect to the internet". I check my net connection; no problems - I've had an IRC client running the whole time with no interruptions. Ok, maybe it's a router problem... nope, everything's fine there. I check a few forums and find that the solution is "keep trying, it works eventually."
Ok, so I do this. On the 7th or 8th try, it succeeds in logging in (so yes, it's just an inappropriate error message). The game starts, and I marvel at how retro and primative everything feels. Yes, it's defaulted my graphics to 800x600, despite the fact that pretty much every other game around these days will default to my desktop resolution and take a stab at estimating my graphics settings. Ok, no big deal, it only takes a few minutes to change things.
So, time to start the game. I'm only interested in the singleplayer campaign. I don't tend to play non-subscription games online these days; I've long since gotten sick of tolerating the 14 year old pottymouths who infest pretty much any other kind of online play. So you can imagine how delighted I am to find myself in a chatroom full of said lowlifes... on the singleplayer campaign menu. Yes, while I try to read the mission briefing, I have a window open below it full of idiot children amusing themselves in the usual way. Clicking past that, I get into the mission.
I knew from the pre-release reviews (none of which mentioned the DRM) that the C&C gameplay had been radically altered; that base building had gone. I hadn't been massively enthused by this, but I'd decided to give it a go. After all, I got plenty of enjoyment out of Dawn of War 2 and its expansion, even though I would have preferred they stuck to the traditional RTS approach. Anyway, the first couple of C&C4 missions are tutorial type things, which is fine. I'm already starting to worry that we've lost some gameplay depth, but now I've committed my money, I'm determined to give it a go. The first two tutorials are over very quickly. I get into the third, and notice that while it's still a tutorial, it's a good bit longer. 15 minutes into it... disconnected from the server... progress lost.
Fantastic.
It takes me 10 minutes to manage to log into EA's servers again (and this isn't launch day, but several days later). When I get back in, I manage to complete that mission. I then get into the game proper, and choose my faction. Starting the first proper mission (for the Nod faction) my worries about the gameplay really start to grow. There's no robustness to the micro-level combat. You're just dragging a force around from one waypoint to the next. Mid-mission, my objective changes abruptly, from conquest to escort. Before I've really cottoned on to this, the vehicles I'm supposed to escort have wandered off and been destroyed. So I revert to a mid-mission save, and go again. This time, I'm ready for the objective switch. I escort the units across the map. Just as they're a
Not quite true. Both of the PS3 games you tried are old games which pre-date the trophy system, so they work fine. Newer games that use the trophy system would not run, even though they can, under normal circumstances, be run just fine offline on a system that has never been anywhere near a net connection.
The advice to leave your machine off also had a good basis. The more messing around you did while things were broken, the less likely it was that you'd be able to just get going again with no problems the next day. I'm certainly hearing accounts of people who spent a while trying to fix things yesterday morning before they knew this was a worldwide glitch, who have lost savegames and had to redownload/reinstall data as a result of their own actions interacting with the glitch.
This is weird, it feels like I'm defending Sony, because I'm confirming the value of their advice, but in reality, I'm pointing out that yes, their screw-up really *was* that serious.
If this a hardware/firmware issue, then I hope to god for Sony's sake that there's a quick and easy fix that users can apply at home. The problem is that even if they offer everybody a free trade-in to a PS3 slim (which would be cripplingly expensive), then a lot of users, self included, won't accept this. Trading from an original 60 gig PS3 to a PS3 slim is not an upgrade. It's a downgrade.
Why? Because the original first-gen PS3s had full PS2 back-compatibility, while the more recent versions don't. People like me, who got rid of their PS2 when they picked up a PS3, are not going to be happy in the slightest if it turns out we need to start hitting Ebay for PS2s.
I didn't mind AvP too much (and yes, I've played AvP2). I thought it was adequate, although it was frustrating to see that some of the flaws in the older games hadn't been fixed.
On the plus side:
+ The first half of the Marine campaign is extremely scary. + I like some of the rebalancing they've done. Making the Aliens you encounter in singleplayer slower, but more resilient, works fairly well. I like that you can take them down easily at a distance, but once up close even one of them is a serious threat. + The audio diaries and the like were pretty well done. + I like the way they used some of the visual motifs from Alien 3 and AvP. Yes, those two films sucked in general, but they did have some neat visual elements. + The new melee system works well for the Alien. + The stealth elements when playing as the Alien or the Predator work better than in the previous games, and feel less random. I particularly like the lighting mechanics in the Alien campaign. + The jumping in the Predator and Alien campaigns is still irritating, but less so than in the older games.
And on the negative side:
- The Marine campaign is still the best of the three, but is way too short. Shorter even than AvP2's. And even so, the second half feels like it's run out of ideas and is far less scary than the opening sections. The pacing in general feels a bit odd; the fight that feels like it should have been the last boss actually occurs about half way through the campaign. - The Marine is limited to two weapons and a pistol. I'm sorry, but in anything other than shooters which deliberately aim for realism, this mechanic annoys the hell out of me. - Not enough checkpoints and no quick-save option. - The Predator's melee mechanics should have been kept simple, and he should have been kept as a primarily ranged combatant. As it is, playing as the Predator starts to feel like playing one of those old Microprose flight sims which use the entire keyboard along with shift, ctrl and alt combinations. - The Alien campaign still feels too much like an exercise in "hunt the breakable grate" rather than the joyful rampage of destruction that it should be. - The graphics are better on PC than on the other platforms, but are still well behind the curve.
So yes, the game has flaws, but many of them are also present in AvP2. Overall, it's a kind of 6 or 7 on 10 sort of game. I'm hoping that Aliens: Colonial Marines isn't vapourware and that it manages to do better.
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RPG has always been a term that covered a multitude of sins, though. My own experience of pen & paper or tabletop gaming is relatively limited (though by no means non-existant), but I can't help but feel that you are romanticising things here (and being a bit hard on CRPGs). I have certainly participated in pen & paper games that have been nowhere near the depth or sophistication of something like Dragon Age (or even of the average Final Fantasy game in some cases). Epic free-roaming campaigns do exist, but they're the exception rather than the norm and require a hugely committed DM to make them work properly. Most DMs I've known are basically content to follow the script of whatever module/campaign book they're using with only minimal variation, and the ability of players to change the course of the plot is limited at best.
And within the sphere of CRPGs... well... there's certainly variety, and the main different streams the genre has divided into each have their own tags. The closest to the traditional pen & paper RPG is found in some of Bioware games, and in spin-offs from Bioware properties. The NWN games spring to mind here, particularly some of the third party modules. Then you have tactics RPGs (turn based strategy games with upgradable stats tagged on), JRPGs (highly linear, plot heavy) action RPGs (simple action-games with upgradable stats and gear) and so on. I don't particularly see the problem with this; when I buy a game, I know what I'm getting.
Yeah, but it's not prominent - you have to click into stuff to get it - and it's not a big number that shows up against somebody's profile on your friends list by default. It feels tagged-on, whereas on on the 360, your gamerscore feels like an integral part of your account. Not saying either system is better, though.
I... sort of like achievements. I try not to get obsessive over them, and generally think that I succeed. However, I do wonder whether there's a bit of a slippery-slope effect. I don't have the largest Xbox Live friends list - just a few people I know in real-life - but it's hard not to get a bit competititve. Given that I tend to only give most games a single playthrough, there's a great temptation to be moderately completionist on the first playthrough, just so you don't miss any low-effort achievements. This does mean I tend to use walkthroughs more than I used to. It also means that as an owner of a 360 and a PS3, if there's a cross-platform game and both versions are functionally identical, I'll plump for the 360 version. Yes, the PS3 has trophies now, but they don't all add together into a single big, clearly visible score.
The weird thing is that I recently went back and played a PS2 RPG that had been sat on my shelf for about 18 months without being touched. At first, the lack of an achievements system felt irritating, but the further I played into it, the more liberating I found it to be able to just sit back and enjoy the game without worrying about chasing down achievements.
So yeah, on balance, they're kind of a mixed blessing from my point of view.
I think there are two main factors at work here.
I think the biggest problem for movie adaptations of video-games in the mainstream is that such movies are basically marked from the start as "video game movies". Like it or not, video games remain something of a culturally divisive issue. Those who play them (who are a growing segment of the population, but still nothing like as large as "those who watch movies" or "those who watch sports") are usually prepared to accept that they can have decent stories and characters and that, in a few rare cases they can become art (Shadow of the Colossus, Portal, Eternal Sonata, I'm looking at you). To those who don't play them, they remain "kids' stuff".
I suspect that what this means is that when you attach a "video game adaptation" tag to a movie, you instantly guarantee that a large proportion of the population isn't even going to give it a chance. The people behind the movie feel relieved of the need to actually try to produce something worthy, and go for what they see as the safe option of putting out something pretty-but-braindead. If you look at the games which receive mainstream movie adaptations, they're all action titles, which themselves borrow themes and styles from Hollywood action films.
Sorry, I think I'm not being particularly clear here. But I think what I'm trying to say is that even if some Hollywood studio decided to pick up the kind of game that really doesn't fit the classic video-game stereotype; let's say Heavy Rain, which is inspired by crime thrillers rather than action fare - they would still end up doing it as a big-guns-no-brains action adaptation. After all, once fans of crime thrillers found out it was based on a video game, the assumptions would kick in and they'd lose interest. The studio, knowing full well that this would happen, would pitch the movie towards what they see as the classic video game demographic and turn it into an action movie.
However, I think this is only half of the problem. To see the other half, it's best to look away from Hollywood and towards the other main producers of video-game adaptations (albeit for TV rather than cinemas); anime studios. There are different social factors at work here; with the exception of a small number of franchises, almost all non-kids anime is pitched at nerds (look at the Japanese TV schedules if you don't believe me; prime-time anime is close to non-existent). With many of the games that are adapted also pitched at nerds (in the Japanese market, it tends to be RPGs that get adaptations), there's no clear mis-match between the market for the source material and the market for the adaptation.
And yet... leaving aside visual-novel adaptations like Higurashi for the moment (where the source material doesn't really count as a game to begin with), anime adaptations of games tend to such at least as hard as, if not harder than, Hollywood movie adaptations. Time after time, studios take games which should be dead-cert hits as anime adaptations (given how anime-like the games often are) and produce something awful. Take Disgaea; quirky tactical role-playing game with strong characters, a wickedly subsersive sense of humour and a deliberately anime-like structure (right down to next-episode previews every couple of missions). The anime adaptation is a boring, badly thought out mess, which bears little enough resemblance to the game to annoy the hell out of game fans, but requires enough knowledge of the characters and universe that it's going to put off people who come to it fresh. Or take Persona: Trinity Soul, which appeared between the (wildly successful) 3rd and 4th installments of the game series. The third game had all of the ingredients needed for a decent adaptation, but instead we got something incomprehensible, which again was off-putting to both game-fans and any fresh audience who might have given the anime a go. Valkyria Chronicles I'll be slightly kinder to; they turn an awesome game into a fair-to-middling anime; but they do lose a lot of the game's charm in th
They're ok-ish. Diablo clones, basically, whose only real distinction is that you get control of a full party, rather than the usual individual (with possible AI follower) that you get in the genre. However, I note that this is allegedly going out the window in the third game, so you'll be controlling a single character, as in umpteen other games.
I played the first game to completion, and about half of the second game before I got too bored to continue. The first game started out well, and the whole "no loading screens" thing felt pretty novel at the time; walking into a building or dungeon and having the game transition seemlessly felt pretty novel in the days before WoW (and even WoW has loading screens when changing continent or going into an instance). Early on, it felt pretty fun, with lots of changes in the environment and the terrain. Unfortunately, the game's mid-section is tedious in the extreme, with some very long, highly repetitive dungeons which just seem to go on forever. Things improve somewhat again towards the end, with a few large and extremely epic boss fights, but I'm not sure how many players would make it that far. The game also had a few balance problems; in particular, it was very hard to keep characters levelled up in nature magic (the healing-build) at the same rate as your other characters would be advancing in the offensive skills.
The second game I found it much harder to get into. Despite a generally better and less generic plot, it seemed to have a lot of the flaws of the first game, but amplified further. The early combat areas were monotonous, and maybe it's just me, but I found the difficultly level extremely steep (and while nothing special, I'm not generally bad at this genre). One thing common to both games is that you'll get more out of them if you have somebody to play them co-op with.
So the third game... I don't think I personally will be bothering. It's not a genre I'm head over heels in love with, and with the full-party-control apparently cut, I'd probably wait for Diablo 3 if I wanted to play a click-fest.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but isn't the summary a bit misleading? It's not ownership of the copy of the game you've bought that's being contested; it's the right to play it on Blizzard's own servers. Now, admittedly, the game isn't much use if you can't connect to those servers, but it's not as if you didn't know that when you bought the game.
However, Blizzard is not talking about going into anybody's home and taking away their physical copy of the game, or requiring them to delete it from their hard drive. People like to say that piracy isn't theft because it doesn't deprive the rights-holder of their original copy of the software. Ok, I can buy that. It doesn't mean that piracy isn't A Bad Thing (TM), but I can agree that it isn't theft. So by the same token, Blizzard isn't contesting anybody's ownership of the game - just the right to play it on Blizzard servers.
As a former WoW player (quit cold-turkey 6 weeks ago due to needing my life back) I'm supportive of Blizzard. Stuff like Glider just ruins the experience for legitimate players and I'm glad they take steps to guard against that.
Random level generation in fpses has been around for years and years. The first big example I can remember would be Rise of the Triad (a Doom-clone from 1995), which had the ability to create randomly generated levels in large batches. The levels had to pass basic checks to ensure they could be finished (eg. you can't have a key needed to open a door locked away behind said door).
They're nothing new in RPGs, either. In terms of action RPGs, they're a staple feature of the Diablo games and most of their imitators. Even in terms of "proper" RPGs, they're not unknown; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (and 4) had random dungeons, and I believe earlier installments in the series might have as well.
I think the biggest problem with randomly generated content, and the reason why you don't see it used in more games, is that it just isn't as fun as pre-designed content in most scenarios. The Diablo games are perhaps an exception, being designed for large numbers of relatively short playthroughs, but by and large, a random generator can't match the design skill of a human. If you look at a dungeon in something like Dragon Age, you'll see complex puzzles and rooms designed to create specific tactical challenges. You won't find that in Diablo or a clone.
You can perhaps see this best in games which combine randomly generated content with pre-designed areas. The Disgaea series are good examples. The "item world" dungeons are randomly generated, and often feel bizarre or unfair. The pre-designed "plot mission" are built around specific challenges and are much more fun to play. The randomly generated levels are ok for padding out the game, but if it were made up of them entirely, the game wouldn't be much fun.
I was outside of the warrenty, pretty sure the machine wasn't repairable, and the value of content I'd bought online was lower than the fee I was quoted to take a look at it. They do generally make these things more hassle than just getting a new machine (and they're not alone, MS require you to write off via snail mail for a transfer kit).
I wish I had mod points right now, because this is an excellent summary of the current state of play. To my mind, the Nintendo model is the worst/least ethical, due to the require to repurchase content if your console dies (and this does happen - I've had a Wii die on me). However, Sony do now seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom. It's ironic, given MS's usual reputation and the controversy that surrounded the launch of Steam, that these two systems are actually the least offensive of the current DRM systems for the end-user.
Now if only Valve would finally put their foot down and ban 3rd party DRM from their network, mainstream PC gaming could be in for a serious resurgence.
I'd agree with you on Gears of War. The sequel was more polished, flowed better and had better integration of its co-operative play into the campaign. I'd disagree on Mass Effect. The sequel felt overly restrictive and I cannot find words to describe how much I hated a) planet scanning and b) the move to an ammunition-based weapon system.
I would definitely agree with what I suspect was your main point; that the grandparent is talking rubbish. There are plenty of sequels, both classic and modern, that have bettered the original (even when the original was very good in itself). To list but a few in no particular order:
Star Control 2
Ultima Underworld 2
TIE Fighter (assuming X-Wing as the prequel)
Descent 2
Final Fantasy sequels (not a straightforward progression from worst to best, but all of the sequels are better than the very first Final Fantasy game)
Baldur's Gate 2
Fallout 3 (controversial this one, I know)
Warcraft sequels (the original Warcraft is pretty dire)
God of War sequels
Same here. I've found that as I get older, climb the greasy pole at work and generally find myself with more cash but far, far less leisure time, my interest in competitive online gaming wanes. Back in my student days, I pumped hours and hours into Counter-Strike, playing the game, getting heavily involved in the UK community, running first a clan and later a relatively major league. There were plenty of irritations due to dealing with cheaters, whiners and the generally immature, but I put up with these because it was a good way of getting a fairly decent amount of fun from a very small initial outlay. I puchased Half-Life with money I got for Christmas in 1998, and that £35 provided the platform for the majority of my gaming over the next 5 years.
These days, I just can't be bothered with the whole online scene, even though I know it's a great way of extending the value of the games I buy. Even online "anonymous" co-operative play is starting to wear thin with me. I don't like running the risk that I may end up wasting that portion of my leisure time I give over to gaming putting up with some foul-mouthed kiddy.
Increasingly, I find that my gaming is tending towards single-player experiences and multiplayer (mainly co-operative) with people I actually know. And in the latter case, my circle is tightening. I play WoW at the moment, because most of my time playing is co-operative with my guild. But even there, I'm getting sick of dealing with idiots I don't know well. Come the next expansion, I'm out (quitting at a new expansion release minimises the disruption to your guild-mates, as all of the gear they've helped you acquire is obsolete at that point). The only way to avoid aggravation is to play with people I know in real life (where I'm lucky to have a few friends and colleagues with similar taste in games).
Back when I was a student, the idea of paying £35 for a 10 hour singleplayer campaign would have been fairly hair-raising. These days, I just don't mind it so much. There is a point at which I feel it crosses the line into "just plain silly" - Modern Warfare 2's singleplayer campaign was *too* short (and ended too badly) to leave me feeling anything but ripped off. But the GoW games? Yeah, they were fine. I was perfectly happy with my purchases (and the co-op play is among the best around).
They do have a weird look for these games, don't they? If you've seen the artbook that comes with the collector's edition of the first game, you'll have seen how they witter on about "destroyed beauty" and all that gumpf, and how they wanted to create haunting environments and stuff. In fairness, if you look at some of the location art in the game, they do a fairly good job of this. Many of the locations do feel like a plausible interpretation of the ruins of a culturally advanced civilisation.
And then they go and populate the world with men the size of small trucks wearing huge armoured suits and carrying machineguns the size of a cow with a huge chainsaw bayonet, whose primary methods of communication are grunting and fist-pounding. I did wonder at times whether the environment and character art teams had ever even met each other, let alone actively collaborated.
I guess if they were aiming for anything, it was probably "Warhammer 40k without all of the religious symbolism". That's not necessarily a bad thing; there are elements of the WH40k aesthetic (from what I've seen in the video games) that are appealing, but they just go ludicrously overboard on everything. GoW also goes overboard... just to a slightly lesser degree.
Ok, maybe you weren't trolling. However, I think that the lack of ability to run (or rather, sprint) and shoot comes back to the same point - the presence of a "physical body" in the game. GoW's "sprint" is just that - heads down, arms tucked in, running hell for leather over a short distance. Your chances of hitting anything at all with a gun in that kind of posture is almost zero. People occasionally do it in movies; but generally only in silly action movies aimed at the "box of popcorn and no brain" crowd. Gears doesn't aim for realism (far from it), but it does aim for verisimilitude - something that has the outward appearance of being realistic. The traditional PC fps ignores this (though a few more recent examples have moved in this direction) and allows you to bounce around hell for leather at full speed while shooting. That's one way to play and some people like it. However, it's also valid to have a style of play that restricts the player and forces them to make choices within a tightly defined rule-set.
I remember a clique back when I was at university that held the Quake games up as the absolute paragon of gaming because they basically applied almost no restrictions to the player's movement. This always seemed to me to be missing the point. It was like saying that Chess would be better if any of the pieces could move in the same manner as a Queen, without all of those pesky restrictions.
And the cover system? Well... again, it comes back to verisimilitude. Since the invention of the repeating rifle and the fragmentation shell, real-world combat has invovled a hell of a lot of use of cover. Most action games, including GoW, are actually ludicrous in the sheer amount and pace of movement they encourage from players. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (it makes for a more interesting game in some cases). But as games that look like they're realistic become more popular, it's inevitable that cover mechanics will become more important. That said, I do agree that Mass Effect 2 went a bit too far. I felt that a lot of the level design in that game felt quite aritificial and "overly convenient". GoW has generally been more subtle, I think.
To be honest, I've never assumed that GoW on the PC has ever been anything other than a second-rate consolation prize for people without a 360 (I don't think the second one ever came out on the PC). Certain genres work better on certain platforms. If there's a cross-platform fps, then I'll generally get it for the PC, unless there are truly hideous DRM issues. If there's a cross-platform third person shooter, I'll go to a console. I played Dead Space on the 360 and enjoyed it; later, I had the opportunity to try the PC version and found it utterly rancid. This often gets down to "nasty console port", but the fact is that some genres do work better on consoles (just as some work better on the PC).
I think this is decidedly harsh (and probably just a troll, as has already been reflected in the initial moderation). I'm not necessarily sure that having a new tech engine is required to make a sequel. I also disagree with the implied assertion that anything which isn't a PC run and gun fps is inferior.
I quite like the Gears of War games. I'm not a massive fan; I don't like the online competitive multiplayer much (but I don't like the online competitive multiplayer in pretty much any action game these days), but I've played them both through in single-player and co-op and had plenty of fun with them. They're third person shooters (not fpses, like you say) and they make good use of the mechanics of the genre. If you want fast, free movement, then you probably want an fps, and there are plenty of good titles on both consoles and PC. Third person shooters generally lose some of the pace and precision of an fps. However, what they bring to the party (when done well) is a sense of physical presence. In the Gears of War game, you are controlling large guys wearing heavy armour - and it feels like it. They have inertia. Actions - even turning around - take a bit longer than they might in an fps. You need to think a littke bit more about your immediate surroundings, and be aware of your character's whole body. This can make for a very fun experience (when it's done well - and the GoW games do it well), but it's not comparable to a Quake-style fps.
I actually find third person shooters substantially more intuitive to play on a console than on the PC (with the reverse applying for fpses). We have an expectation that mouse controls will translate into very rapid changes of direction - with a quick flick being enough for an instant 180 degree turn. This is disconcerting when controlling a "heavy" character, who is actually designed to turn relatively slowly.
Actually, it feels like I'm seeing far more games running on the Unreal engine these days than I am on anything id have put out. Gears of War games, Mass Effect games, Bioshock games, loads of stuff from Square-Enix, god knows how many others... they're all on the Unreal 3 engine. By contrast, the only vaguely recent game I can remember on an id engine was Wolfenstein. And frankly, that looked pretty mediocre compared to the competition.
In fact, yes, looking at the "list of games that use this engine" on wikipedia, it's fairly clear that the Unreal Engine 3 is being used for a huge number of commercial games, while id's engines are starting to look distinctly niche and only seem to be used by developers with strong historic links to id.
I'd agree. I didn't really enjoy FEAR2 at all.
The original was a pretty novel game. It took what should have been a fairly straightforward run and gun shooter and made it genuinely scary in places. The engine was good by the standards of the time, the gunplay felt solid, the enemy AI was extremely robust and there was a convincing atmosphere of lurking horror. It wasn't perfect; it could have done with a wider variety of enemies, and the plot got a bit incoherent towards the end, but on balance I very much enjoyed it.
FEAR 2 didn't create the same impression. It felt technically primative by the standards of its competitors when it came out, the AI felt as though it had taken a step backwards (something I also felt happened between the original Half-Life and its sequel, to be honest), the weapons felt weedy and unsatisfying and the game was relying on the same tricks as its predecessor for its shocks and scares, with the result that it was markedly less effective. The plot was an absolute disaster; it was far from gripping to begin with, and it had one of the worst endings I've ever encountered in a game. It just felt like the writers had written themselves into a corner and couldn't think of any way out, so they just stopped and ended the game there.
To be honest, I don't think the franchise is one I need to see continued. Sure, the original was fun, but I'm happy to let it (and its stupidly capitalised and punctuated title) fade away.
There's a degree of truth of this. I've noticed that if I research any purchase online, I always have to employ a mental "negativity filter" to reflect the fact that by and large, it's unhappy people who post on these forums. My "fat" PS3 has been updated (reluctantly) for several days and has had no problems (touch wood) - unless you count the loss of functionality that I had never used, but had liked knowing was there.
However, firmware updates do genuinely seem to have a habit of causing problems with the current console generation. I've had a 360 and a Wii both brick on me after firmware updates (the 360 booted up once, then RRODed within 60 seconds, the Wii just refused to give anything other than a blank screen) and looking around my immediate circle of friends (excluding myself), we've had a PS3, a PSP, a 360 and two Wiis brick immediately after firmware updates. There was a further 360 that RRODed without a firmware update.
There does seem to be a serious problem with the current console generation (and I do mean all three machines here). The failure rates are way above what I'd consider acceptable. I live in mortal terror of my PS3 dying, as it's an imported US original 60 gig model, so if it dies, I don't just need to get a new PS3, but also to import a new PS2 (or check out how good the emulation scene is these days, I guess). By contrast, there's an old Commodore 64 in my parents' attic which still more or less worked when I fired it up the Christmas before last (though the 2 missing keys on the keyboard make it difficult to use, and the tape drive was erratic at best) and a 286 which still works if you give it a smack on the side at boot-up to get the HDD spinning.
I can't emphasise this enough.
If you fire up Dawn of War 2, you are only ever controlling a small number of units at once. However, each of these units is highly sophisticated. They can be tweaked extensively between missions and, depending on the tweaks you make, have access to a wide variety of special abilities and powers during missions. They have more in common with a character from a party-based role-playing game like Baldur's Gate than with a traditional RTS unit. When you're actually deployed in the mission, the terrain is highly complicated and the environment has many interactive elements. Securing an area (provided you aren't on the easiest difficulty) will involve careful micromanagement, use of cover, and co-ordination between individual units. Thus the game compensates for the depth it loses by stripping out the traditional base-building and resource management elements of the RTS genre.
If you fire up Supreme Commander 2, you are faced with fairly generic units, most of whom have no special abilities or powers, and which are normally only capable of moving and attacking (though exceptions exist). However, you are managing hundreds of units at once, often fighting on multiple fronts (one set of units defending your base, while an expeditionary force goes on the offensive, with both teams containing hundreds of vehicles). You have little capacity to micromanage individual units without losing control of the wider battlefield, but the depth here comes from managing your economy, building up your base, and controlling a large combined-arms force.
Both of those approaches to the RTS genre are entirely valid and I would have no qualms about recommending either of the above games. They inhabit different ends of the RTS spectrum, but ultimately, the genre is richer for containing both of them. Some will prefer one approach, some the other, and some, like me, are happy with either.
Then we get C&C4. You are only controlling a small force at any one time (slightly larger than in Dawn of War 2, but not by a huge margin). However, the units within it are generic, cookie-cutter stuff. Only a few have any kind of special abilities to micromanage. For the most part, they just move and attack. At the same time, there is no economy to manage. You have a mobile base that can deploy, quickly build a full force of units (with no resource cost) and then pack itself up and move around again. You can slightly influence the course of battle through micromanagement, but with your small army being so easy and fast to replenish, there's relatively little point. It's better just to wheel up near your target and keep pumping out a combination of two or three unit types until you win. That's all there is to it really; no depth, no strategy, no fun.
Actually, I really liked C&C3. It was pacey, well produced and captured more of the "feel" of the original C&C than any of the other installments in the series. I think Westwood were in some ways the authors of their own woes; I know C&C2 and Red Alert 2 have a cult following, but they were way behind the competition at the time they were released and their wider reception was fairly dire.
After the false start that was Generals, I'd actually felt that EA were starting to get the series back on track with C&C3 and, to a slightly lesser degree, RA3. Unfortunately, C&C4 has gone and proven me wrong.
I've been stung by this one. There was little (or in fact no) warning in advance of release that the copy protection would take this form and, as this was an EA rather than an Ubisoft game, I didn't assume that it would. So, like a fool, I went and placed a pre-order with an electronic-only retailer.
Of course, the release day comes and various forums explode with news of the DRM. I had already made a decision not to buy any games with Ubisoft-style DRM... and now find myself accidentally in breach of that. I try to get a refund... and fail.
After a few days of unsuccessfully trying for a refund, I give up. I say "ok, I'll see for myself just how bad this is". So I pass up any lingering hopes of a refund and download and install the game. Just getting the launcher to start up is a hassle, as there are assorted known issues with it. Eventually, I figure out that I have to manually update the EA Download Manager (an entirely separate piece of software) before the game will run. Having done all of this, and created an account, I click the button to try to play the game. And get told that the DRM client "cannot connect to the internet". I check my net connection; no problems - I've had an IRC client running the whole time with no interruptions. Ok, maybe it's a router problem... nope, everything's fine there. I check a few forums and find that the solution is "keep trying, it works eventually."
Ok, so I do this. On the 7th or 8th try, it succeeds in logging in (so yes, it's just an inappropriate error message). The game starts, and I marvel at how retro and primative everything feels. Yes, it's defaulted my graphics to 800x600, despite the fact that pretty much every other game around these days will default to my desktop resolution and take a stab at estimating my graphics settings. Ok, no big deal, it only takes a few minutes to change things.
So, time to start the game. I'm only interested in the singleplayer campaign. I don't tend to play non-subscription games online these days; I've long since gotten sick of tolerating the 14 year old pottymouths who infest pretty much any other kind of online play. So you can imagine how delighted I am to find myself in a chatroom full of said lowlifes... on the singleplayer campaign menu. Yes, while I try to read the mission briefing, I have a window open below it full of idiot children amusing themselves in the usual way. Clicking past that, I get into the mission.
I knew from the pre-release reviews (none of which mentioned the DRM) that the C&C gameplay had been radically altered; that base building had gone. I hadn't been massively enthused by this, but I'd decided to give it a go. After all, I got plenty of enjoyment out of Dawn of War 2 and its expansion, even though I would have preferred they stuck to the traditional RTS approach. Anyway, the first couple of C&C4 missions are tutorial type things, which is fine. I'm already starting to worry that we've lost some gameplay depth, but now I've committed my money, I'm determined to give it a go. The first two tutorials are over very quickly. I get into the third, and notice that while it's still a tutorial, it's a good bit longer. 15 minutes into it... disconnected from the server... progress lost.
Fantastic.
It takes me 10 minutes to manage to log into EA's servers again (and this isn't launch day, but several days later). When I get back in, I manage to complete that mission. I then get into the game proper, and choose my faction. Starting the first proper mission (for the Nod faction) my worries about the gameplay really start to grow. There's no robustness to the micro-level combat. You're just dragging a force around from one waypoint to the next. Mid-mission, my objective changes abruptly, from conquest to escort. Before I've really cottoned on to this, the vehicles I'm supposed to escort have wandered off and been destroyed. So I revert to a mid-mission save, and go again. This time, I'm ready for the objective switch. I escort the units across the map. Just as they're a
Chavez does seem to have an ambition to turn "his" country into the new North Korea.
The sad thing is that the locals seem to be applauding him. Seriously, there will be comments on this thread saying "OMG THE US/UK IS JUST AS BAD".
No, they're not.
Not quite true. Both of the PS3 games you tried are old games which pre-date the trophy system, so they work fine. Newer games that use the trophy system would not run, even though they can, under normal circumstances, be run just fine offline on a system that has never been anywhere near a net connection.
The advice to leave your machine off also had a good basis. The more messing around you did while things were broken, the less likely it was that you'd be able to just get going again with no problems the next day. I'm certainly hearing accounts of people who spent a while trying to fix things yesterday morning before they knew this was a worldwide glitch, who have lost savegames and had to redownload/reinstall data as a result of their own actions interacting with the glitch.
This is weird, it feels like I'm defending Sony, because I'm confirming the value of their advice, but in reality, I'm pointing out that yes, their screw-up really *was* that serious.
If this a hardware/firmware issue, then I hope to god for Sony's sake that there's a quick and easy fix that users can apply at home. The problem is that even if they offer everybody a free trade-in to a PS3 slim (which would be cripplingly expensive), then a lot of users, self included, won't accept this. Trading from an original 60 gig PS3 to a PS3 slim is not an upgrade. It's a downgrade.
Why? Because the original first-gen PS3s had full PS2 back-compatibility, while the more recent versions don't. People like me, who got rid of their PS2 when they picked up a PS3, are not going to be happy in the slightest if it turns out we need to start hitting Ebay for PS2s.
I didn't mind AvP too much (and yes, I've played AvP2). I thought it was adequate, although it was frustrating to see that some of the flaws in the older games hadn't been fixed.
On the plus side:
+ The first half of the Marine campaign is extremely scary.
+ I like some of the rebalancing they've done. Making the Aliens you encounter in singleplayer slower, but more resilient, works fairly well. I like that you can take them down easily at a distance, but once up close even one of them is a serious threat.
+ The audio diaries and the like were pretty well done.
+ I like the way they used some of the visual motifs from Alien 3 and AvP. Yes, those two films sucked in general, but they did have some neat visual elements.
+ The new melee system works well for the Alien.
+ The stealth elements when playing as the Alien or the Predator work better than in the previous games, and feel less random. I particularly like the lighting mechanics in the Alien campaign.
+ The jumping in the Predator and Alien campaigns is still irritating, but less so than in the older games.
And on the negative side:
- The Marine campaign is still the best of the three, but is way too short. Shorter even than AvP2's. And even so, the second half feels like it's run out of ideas and is far less scary than the opening sections. The pacing in general feels a bit odd; the fight that feels like it should have been the last boss actually occurs about half way through the campaign.
- The Marine is limited to two weapons and a pistol. I'm sorry, but in anything other than shooters which deliberately aim for realism, this mechanic annoys the hell out of me.
- Not enough checkpoints and no quick-save option.
- The Predator's melee mechanics should have been kept simple, and he should have been kept as a primarily ranged combatant. As it is, playing as the Predator starts to feel like playing one of those old Microprose flight sims which use the entire keyboard along with shift, ctrl and alt combinations.
- The Alien campaign still feels too much like an exercise in "hunt the breakable grate" rather than the joyful rampage of destruction that it should be.
- The graphics are better on PC than on the other platforms, but are still well behind the curve.
So yes, the game has flaws, but many of them are also present in AvP2. Overall, it's a kind of 6 or 7 on 10 sort of game. I'm hoping that Aliens: Colonial Marines isn't vapourware and that it manages to do better.