Games for 2009... And BEYOND!

[Laika]

Combat system on the other hand look less elegant as compared to previous games, shooting part doesn't give you that satisfying feeling anymore. Of course, Bioshock is not about that.. With announced games to come out, this one should be a GOTY.

[Xocrates]

Not sure whether I would call it less elegant (combat in the previous two was rather clunky), but certainly less versatile and less interesting.

It was weird. It felt like they couldn't quite decide whether to commit to the two weapon system or not, so ended up with a bunch of conflicting design regarding combat.

[Laika]

less versatile

True, I prefer your choice of words.

Also, economy is overly tight. I barely had enough money to buy ammo, never even close for those magical upgrades.

[Xocrates]

Also, economy is overly tight. I barely had enough money to buy ammo, never even close for those magical upgrades.

Don't know what difficulty you were playing on, but on normal I ended with about 2000$ spare. It's reasonably easy to upgrade everything you actually use, though trying to upgrade everything is foolish.

Of course, that's one of the problems I had with the two weapon system: it conflicted with the upgrade system since the upgrades encourage you to stick with just a few guns, or upgrade stuff you won't be able to use for long stretches of time.

[shinygerbil]

I played on Hard, and had enough to fully upgrade shock and partially upgrade a few weapons. Money felt tight for most of the game.

Hard seemed like an artificial difficulty increase only, though - more HP, less ammo, etc. Occasionally I felt satisfied and rewarded when playing well, but more often than not it was just frustrating. Add to that my own imposed difficulty - playing it on High graphics settings because I wanted better graphics - causing poorish framerates and occasional half-second (or longer!!) stutters while the engine streamed some obvious asset that should have been stored in memory already. (Usually my other weapon, or something trivial. I often found my PC freezing whenever my shield recharged and the little yellow HUD cracks appeared. Unreal Engine 3 is bad.)

In retrospect playing on Hard adds little to the game, and I reckon I would have been happy enough playing on Normal. I agree that from a purely gameplay standpoint, the game has flaws - but unless something INCREDIBLE comes along, this is my GOTY for sure. It's exactly what I look for in a single player game - a fully-imagined, fully-realised world with great care and attention to detail, and a compelling story and characters.

As soon as I reached the bit with the barbershop quartet - and suddenly turned to watch them as I realised what they were singing - I knew I was playing something special.

I'm also now going to replay Bioshock, probably 2 as well, and then probably Infinite again too.

[Laika]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/20 ... ng-genius/

[Mas Tnega]

So I got Monday Night Combat as part of some indie bundle or something.

Why is the single player so aggressively dull?

[Xocrates]

Got the same bundle, though mostly for Knytt Underground.

Though I could excuse the crap single player from MNC if the multiplayer wasn't completely dead.

[shinygerbil]

You're not supposed to play the single player, silly.

But the multiplayer's dead, so--

D:


(i only ever played super MNC, which was better (apparently), but still not good enough to have a survivable playerbase. (EDIT: I thought it deserved a massive playerbase - I thought it was amazing. But the internets decided they didn't want to play it. (I'm also beginning to lose track of parentheses.)))

[ynbniar]

So it's difficult to avoid this Monaco thing now it's out...I've deliberately avoided it up to now, screenshots, videos, beta the lot...is it the messiah and is it easy enough to play with strangers?

[Feud]

I'm not sure. Don't Starve is what's on my radar right now.

[NeatNit]

When System Shock 2 came out on gog, they made a big deal about it. And rightfully so.

When System Shock 2 came out on Steam 3 days ago, I didn't even hear about it until I noticed the "update news" just now.

Bleh.

I didn't buy it either time, but I have to say I was closer to buying it on gog for no discount than I am now on steam for 30% off. (and yes they both have the same price)


A some point, Valve just became boring.

[trickser]

To make it sellable on gog, they updated the engine and added features, improved the level editor, not only for system shock 2, but also for thief 1 and 2. The executables have been leaked into public domain before the copyright holder of system shock gave permission to sell the game.
The excitement you felt was certainly the echo of those events. Another seller isn't as groundbreaking.

[NeatNit]

I'm basically saying: "Huh. Advertising works."

GOG's advertisements, including basically redesigning its entire front page, made me feel like I should get this game. Valve just threw a discount at me. I don't remember the last time Steam made any game stand out. They just want you to get ALL of them.

[shinygerbil]

Apparently the Steam version is buggy and not as playable as the gog version, too.