Why did the author choose to use Alias as his prime example, when that game has crappy facial animation? I agree with him, the characters in that game close-up look like shoddy mock-ups of their real-life counterparts, but there are a plethora of games/movies/art with much more realistic-looking humans than that game (or any of the other examples he mentioned). How about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, or the Flight of Osiris? Those come amazingly close to realistic without looking creepy. Or how about Half Life 2's Source engine that makes facial animation look real? If the author was only going to use examples that supported his point, he may has well have used Space Invaders as an example.
I really doubt this game will spark any sort of controversy, as it's set in a post-apocolyptic future, ala Mad Max. The vehicles are more like tanks and buggies, not SUVs and sedans, plus they're mounted with weapons, so I don't think people are going to be able to think this is going to promote road rage, unless of course people have started mounting assault rifles to their cars...Grand Theft Auto did a good job at letting players simulate road rage in contemporary vehicles in a contemorary setting, and hence that's why that game sparked controversy. More likely GTA's name will be brought up as an example of videogame violence.
I'm not trying to flamebait anyone on, but I've noticed people (not just on this newspost) like to say that the Xbox is ruining the PC market because of cross-platform development. Besides Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows, both of which were developed by Ion Storm mind you, can anybody name another game that was hurt as the result of this? I think people are mistaking Ion Storm's poor choices in development as some sort of nasty plot by Microsoft to cripple the PC market, because they certainly wouldn't want people to go out and buy PC's that run their operating system, heh.
I don't believe that the Xbox is failing. Just look at E3 this year, and you can see that Xbox exclusives like Halo 2, Burnout 3, Jade Empire, Fable, etc were walking away with a lot of awards, not to mention Xbox Live's success. I'm not trying to say that Xbox is the best system, because I think each of the big three systems has their own strengths, and I own them all. I think it's outrageous to compare the Xbox to the 3DO, though, as to this day I couldn't name you a single game for the 3DO, whereas the average gamer is probably aware of Xbox's lineup.
No, it's not too much like Hitman, except for the stealth element. In Manhunt, your goal is basically to get to Point A to Point B without getting killed, which involves killing others along the way. Hitman is more "Kill Person A, Kill Person B, Get Out". So basically, the goal in Manhunt is to survive, the goal in Hitman is to assassinate.
Once you get past the novelty of Manhunt's gore, there really isn't much to it. There are much better stealth-action games on the market.
First off, let me say that I have never been a fan of Vin Diesel's work. Fast and the Furious was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, XXX was cheesy. I've never seen Pitch Black, and had no intention of seeing the new Riddick movie, but after playing Escape from Butcher Bay, I'm probably going to go see them. Here's why:
1) It tells a part of the story of Riddick not found in the movies. This game is a whole new part of the story of Riddick, and an intregal part, as it explains how Riddick got his night vision. Since this story is exclusive to the game, the developers had more freedom in what the player can do, and therefore the player isn't limited to the constraints of what happens on screen, a common problem with movie-licensed games.
2) It's visually impressive. This is one of the best-looking games I've seen on the Xbox, with lighting only rivalled by Splinter Cell.
3) First-person brawler. It's funny that it took ten years since the invention of the first-person shooter for developers to start making first person games that use one's fists in a more realistic manner than Goldeneye's karate chop. While Escape from Butcher Bay isn't the first to try this, it's probably so far the best implementation. Snapping somebody's neck in first-person is very satisfying, as well.
4) It's immersive. Escape from Butcher Bay really makes you feel like you're Riddick as you play this, and not just because you're playing through the eyes of him. The game has a very immersive, cinematic feel to it, similar to Half Life or Call of Duty. As you first get walked into Butcher Bay with the opening credits on the screen, you can look around, hearing fragments of prisoners' conversations as you walk by, hearing screams of prisoners getting beaten in the distance, you can see the dried blood and filth on the walls, the flies swarming around the trash...you feel like you're in Butcher Bay.
Although not the longest game in the world, it's incredibly enjoyable, and I suggest everybody with an Xbox at least go out and rent it. I think a lot of development companies can learn a lot from this game, especially those that develop movie-licensed games.
I find it funny that for two weeks that people have been talking about this game with comments ranging from "It's awesome" to "It's pretty good, much better than DX:IW at least," and the second somebody find this non-showstopper bug, everybody's like "This is an outrage! I demand that Warren Spector come to my house and apologize to my face! We should sue Ion Storm and burn down their office!"
It took the public nearly two weeks to catch onto this bug...basically every Thief fanboy in the world, probably playing it nonstop, and it took them two weeks. Now imagine if it were just a handful of playtesters...probably not as likely they would have found this bug. I'm not saying that it's OK to leave bugs in a program, but Ion Storm honestly probably wasn't aware at all. After all, it is pretty hard to distinguish a guard with "expert" AI from a guard with "normal" AI if you're sneaking behind him in the shadows.
So, A) It's not really that big of an issue, just play it on "hard" difficulty and make it a personal goal to get 90% loot instead of 60%, 3 special loot items instead of 2, and don't kill any non-combatants, and for all sakes and purposes it's expert mode, B) Stop being such drama queens, sometimes things in life don't go the way you want them to, and you just gotta accept that, C) It's still a fun game on even normal difficulty, if you demand a challenge go play Ninja Gaiden on hard mode.
The author seems to feel because Halo 2 is only going to have 16 people in a game at once, it's on the same level of Quake. I guess he's right, when you look past the better graphics, ability to wield two weapons at once, grenades, vehicles, and voice support, then yeah, I guess they are exactly the same game.
I bought Morrowind for the Xbox, and it played great. Of course, the major drawback was that you couldn't create your own content. And as everybody has said already, that's going to be a major selling point for PC games until console games are capable of that.
To me, PC gaming has been dead since companies like LucasArts and Sierra gave up on making adventure games like Monkey Island and Kings Quest to make first person shooters.
There's a good chance that in Japan it would have been called something other than "True Fantasy Online," being the title would probably be in Japanese and all.
Although I was hoping to see True Fantasy at E3, I was more disappointed at Microsoft dropping Psychonauts and Stranger. Tim Schaeffer is a legendary game designer, and it will be a travesty if another publisher doesn't pick Psychonauts up.
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Why did the author choose to use Alias as his prime example, when that game has crappy facial animation? I agree with him, the characters in that game close-up look like shoddy mock-ups of their real-life counterparts, but there are a plethora of games/movies/art with much more realistic-looking humans than that game (or any of the other examples he mentioned). How about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, or the Flight of Osiris? Those come amazingly close to realistic without looking creepy. Or how about Half Life 2's Source engine that makes facial animation look real? If the author was only going to use examples that supported his point, he may has well have used Space Invaders as an example.
I really doubt this game will spark any sort of controversy, as it's set in a post-apocolyptic future, ala Mad Max. The vehicles are more like tanks and buggies, not SUVs and sedans, plus they're mounted with weapons, so I don't think people are going to be able to think this is going to promote road rage, unless of course people have started mounting assault rifles to their cars...Grand Theft Auto did a good job at letting players simulate road rage in contemporary vehicles in a contemorary setting, and hence that's why that game sparked controversy. More likely GTA's name will be brought up as an example of videogame violence.
I'm not trying to flamebait anyone on, but I've noticed people (not just on this newspost) like to say that the Xbox is ruining the PC market because of cross-platform development. Besides Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows, both of which were developed by Ion Storm mind you, can anybody name another game that was hurt as the result of this? I think people are mistaking Ion Storm's poor choices in development as some sort of nasty plot by Microsoft to cripple the PC market, because they certainly wouldn't want people to go out and buy PC's that run their operating system, heh.
I don't believe that the Xbox is failing. Just look at E3 this year, and you can see that Xbox exclusives like Halo 2, Burnout 3, Jade Empire, Fable, etc were walking away with a lot of awards, not to mention Xbox Live's success. I'm not trying to say that Xbox is the best system, because I think each of the big three systems has their own strengths, and I own them all. I think it's outrageous to compare the Xbox to the 3DO, though, as to this day I couldn't name you a single game for the 3DO, whereas the average gamer is probably aware of Xbox's lineup.
No, it's not too much like Hitman, except for the stealth element. In Manhunt, your goal is basically to get to Point A to Point B without getting killed, which involves killing others along the way. Hitman is more "Kill Person A, Kill Person B, Get Out". So basically, the goal in Manhunt is to survive, the goal in Hitman is to assassinate.
Once you get past the novelty of Manhunt's gore, there really isn't much to it. There are much better stealth-action games on the market.
2) It's visually impressive. This is one of the best-looking games I've seen on the Xbox, with lighting only rivalled by Splinter Cell.
3) First-person brawler. It's funny that it took ten years since the invention of the first-person shooter for developers to start making first person games that use one's fists in a more realistic manner than Goldeneye's karate chop. While Escape from Butcher Bay isn't the first to try this, it's probably so far the best implementation. Snapping somebody's neck in first-person is very satisfying, as well. 4) It's immersive. Escape from Butcher Bay really makes you feel like you're Riddick as you play this, and not just because you're playing through the eyes of him. The game has a very immersive, cinematic feel to it, similar to Half Life or Call of Duty. As you first get walked into Butcher Bay with the opening credits on the screen, you can look around, hearing fragments of prisoners' conversations as you walk by, hearing screams of prisoners getting beaten in the distance, you can see the dried blood and filth on the walls, the flies swarming around the trash...you feel like you're in Butcher Bay.
Although not the longest game in the world, it's incredibly enjoyable, and I suggest everybody with an Xbox at least go out and rent it. I think a lot of development companies can learn a lot from this game, especially those that develop movie-licensed games.
I find it funny that for two weeks that people have been talking about this game with comments ranging from "It's awesome" to "It's pretty good, much better than DX:IW at least," and the second somebody find this non-showstopper bug, everybody's like "This is an outrage! I demand that Warren Spector come to my house and apologize to my face! We should sue Ion Storm and burn down their office!" It took the public nearly two weeks to catch onto this bug...basically every Thief fanboy in the world, probably playing it nonstop, and it took them two weeks. Now imagine if it were just a handful of playtesters...probably not as likely they would have found this bug. I'm not saying that it's OK to leave bugs in a program, but Ion Storm honestly probably wasn't aware at all. After all, it is pretty hard to distinguish a guard with "expert" AI from a guard with "normal" AI if you're sneaking behind him in the shadows. So, A) It's not really that big of an issue, just play it on "hard" difficulty and make it a personal goal to get 90% loot instead of 60%, 3 special loot items instead of 2, and don't kill any non-combatants, and for all sakes and purposes it's expert mode, B) Stop being such drama queens, sometimes things in life don't go the way you want them to, and you just gotta accept that, C) It's still a fun game on even normal difficulty, if you demand a challenge go play Ninja Gaiden on hard mode.
If I had mod points, you would have them all for that comment. Good work, sir.
I was wondering why even on expert difficulty, the enemies seemed pretty clueless...oh well, it's still a fun game even at normal difficulty.
The author seems to feel because Halo 2 is only going to have 16 people in a game at once, it's on the same level of Quake. I guess he's right, when you look past the better graphics, ability to wield two weapons at once, grenades, vehicles, and voice support, then yeah, I guess they are exactly the same game.
The sound issues you speak of are what the old-school LucasArts games were like, which this game is trying to emulate.
I bought Morrowind for the Xbox, and it played great. Of course, the major drawback was that you couldn't create your own content. And as everybody has said already, that's going to be a major selling point for PC games until console games are capable of that.
To me, PC gaming has been dead since companies like LucasArts and Sierra gave up on making adventure games like Monkey Island and Kings Quest to make first person shooters.
Bloodhound Gang's "Mope," in which there is a skit where Pac-Man smokes crack.
There's a good chance that in Japan it would have been called something other than "True Fantasy Online," being the title would probably be in Japanese and all.
Although I was hoping to see True Fantasy at E3, I was more disappointed at Microsoft dropping Psychonauts and Stranger. Tim Schaeffer is a legendary game designer, and it will be a travesty if another publisher doesn't pick Psychonauts up.