SomTervo

Yeah, I don't care about FPS at all as long as it's 30 min. But forcibly limiting the performance against what a platform could achieve is dang stupid. Though I'll admit, they may have saved quite a lot of man-hours in deciding to target 700p/30fps instead of anything higher. Like it must take (relatively) weeks of extra work to optimize up to those standards.

Yeah, I'm continuing to enjoy Destiny too whenever I play it. But having dropped full price on it, I can safely say that Shadow of Mordor and Alien Isolation are (almost literally) a million times more worth owning for that price. I could easily not touch Destiny again until Bungie have added more shit (for free, because if they don't I may never play it for long again.)

I could see that- i guess the whole potential drama set up at the end of the first season doesnt really get resolved at all. Ive been getting fully into Rick and Morty... Tiny robot: How can I serve you, master? Rick: Fetch the butter. Robot fetches butter. Rick: Thank you! Robot: Master... What is my purpose? Rick: To fetch butter. Robot: ... Oh my god... Rick: Join the club, pal.

That Southern Reach series sounds interesting. I'm halfway through The Sisters Brothers. Brilliantly written and really enjoyable, but the overall plot is so limp that the amazing characters and prose don't really drag you through it. There's no mystery/energy to the plot. Just "they're going to the West coast to kill a guy. Mainly they're just meeting random folk on the way". Mainly I'm reading The Elegant Universe. The non-fiction science informative book on string theory, general relativity and quantum mechanics. It's a mind blowing and fairly difficult read for someone who doesn't have much background in science beyond very keen interest. Like... I thought the "4th dimension is time" thing was a myth. I thought HG Wells made it up for The Time Machine. But he didn't. It's legit science fact. At any given moment your movement through the universe is on a relative ratio between X, Y, Z and Time axes. If you're at complete standstill floating in space, 100% of your movement is thru time. If you're moving at half the speed of light on the X axis and 0mph on the Y and Z axes, you'll be moving at 50% on the Time axis... So you will literally experience time at half the rate of everyone else on earth. As seen in Enders Game, etc. We all experience time at 99.998% speed due to the earth's rotation etc. What the fuck. One of those books where you read a couple of pages then need 10-15 minutes to digest what you've read.

From the US thread: Ethan and I discussing what IS' remit is, then him informing me: "No, they're forming a state, they collect taxes and issue license plates." I said: That's crazy and good to know, nice one. Apparently IS also pay an insanely good wage (relatively) for soldiers, and offer a lot of employment benefits to people who otherwise would just be working barely-arable farmland. Even if an impoverished Muslim doesnt agree with them, the best thing to do for his family and welfare would be to sign up. Horrifyingly effective recruitment rhetoric.

Great stuff, thanks pals. Are states split by geographic location into the 10 circuits? That was actually the main thing I didn't get, haha. The term 'circuit' doesn't give much away. Like Ethan you mentioned "the 10th Circuit also encompasses Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming". So that works by geographic location, right?

Edit: what Ethan said. Both of these games, so far, seem 100% worth full price. And by paying so you support those developers, so do eet. Unless, of course, you can't afford it. The don't. Edit edit: also the free roaming improvisational AI of the alien is to this game what Nemesis is to Mordor. It's really a game changer. The only glitchiness I've seen can easily be attributed to the alien trying to weigh up its options and not being able to decide what to do. Like it'll hang in one place/ corridor, swinging back and forth repeatedly. Doesn't come across like a glitch though, just like it feels like it hasn't covered the territory. This game's literally like the best bits of Deus Ex, System Shock, and Dead Space all rolled into one, with the perfectly designed milieux of the original Alien. So, so amazing, despite some narrative stumblings. @MH: Imho, any decent horror game with modern VR technology would just be too much. The thought of PT with Oculus or Morpheus just... I can't take it. For y'all's information, I made a short video demonstrating an amazing bit of not-very-spoilery gameplay, to convince people to buy it. Will have it up properly tonight. The video shows two drastically different approaches to the same situation. It's like a stealth-strategy sandbox rivalling Deus Ex and Thief's best bits.

How much shit do Bungie have to fuck up before they realise they have to start making serious changes to this game? Specifically mechanics like that. No reward if you fail? Come on. You can only get away with that if you provide a viable alternative. Which they havent- if the queen missions are gone now? There was some news article recently about how they had gone back to the drawing board with some of their ideas. Hopefully that means the game will improve soon, cos as it is it's almost not worth owning.

What is the universe, alien Edit: yep, there's only one, but there might as well be three for the amount of ground he can cover insanely, horrifyingly quickly

What is the defenition of these 'Circuits'? Never heard that terminology before.

I am also in the camp that I definitely don't think console gaming is better than PC gaming. Just a whole lot less energy required for 80% the same experiences. Although obviously there are some incredible experiences which consoles will never capture fully and are relatively commonplace on PC. Among other things like KBM being a far better control input option for certain games. Edit: I should add that, if you have a powerful PC rig which works perfectly, then I'd quite happily concede that it probably is the best gaming platform. Especially if you can use a controller like the DualShock 4, then that's set in stone. The caveat of cost in time and effort as well as money just takes a big ole mallet and hobbles the advantages PC offers in many cases. Frankly it's not the fact of these issues which is offputting- but the risk of these issues coming up. I'd rather stick with console where I know I won't have to do any fiddling/much extra thought to enjoy experiences which are largely the same.

I could do tonight or tomorrow night with you whippersnappers. The other half's on late shifts, so I'm free till 2320GMT or so. I'll be playing Alien Isolation or Shadow of Mordor otherwise, so just drop me an invite if this is going ahead (although recently PSN has stopped notifying me of party/game invites...)

I love your whole post, MH, except the bit about PCs being easier. From my experience of building computers (several times in the last 12 years or so, though I fully understand it's improved since then), I'll get all the hardware, get all the software, put it all together and it won't work. Something won't, at least. And I won't understand why. This is with strong base research and friends who are ridiculously knowledgable about computers. The friends won't know what to do either. Things just won't work, even if minor/irrelevant. I'll be able to run some games and not others, I'll get random errors or things won't work the way they should, or performance won't be as good as it should be by-all-accounts. And this chat about consoles needing more install time now is bullshit. When I got my PS4, I unpacked it, plugged it all in, spent about 20 seconds booting it up and answering a couple of basic questions, then I was playing games. Fully, probably one minute set-up. The games were up and running within 20-30 seconds, too. Installs are fully automatic and take literally seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me PS4 had some SDD memory sitting in it, the installs are so fast. I fully understand PCs aren't far off this nowadays. Probably a couple of minutes set-up too. The problems on PC for me always come further down the line, be it half an hour down the line when I try to install/run a game, or months down the line when something stops working or I get a new game which doesn't work. Even if I don't have any show-stopping issues on PC, in almost every experience I've had, I'm left feeling that the games are incomplete or not ideal because I have to compromise on settings. Like I remember fiddling with Far Cry 2 loads- I could have High textures or Low environment, or Low environment or High textures, etc. etc.- but would never be satisfied. I always find it the same on PC. The crux: I've never had the money to buy a PC which will give me everything out-the-box, so I'm just left feeling permanently dissatisfied, compromising on how I'd like things to look best. It never feels right. I'll enjoy a game for a few minutes then some terrible bit of lighting or rubbish texture or bad jaggy will jolt me out of it and I'll remember "I'm playing this on PC. It's so not ideal." Consoles, while far weaker, usually have a bunch more optimisation work put in by the devs, so even if games on console will never reach PC highs in terms of performance, they are always consistent, look very together on-the-whole, and require no fiddling/compromise. Edit: Also, a huge boon with consoles is being able to pack them up in a few seconds, and truck them off to friends'/family's houses, plug it into their TV in a minute and have a great time all together. With a PC it's not too much more hassle, but the size of the thing leaves it more vulnerable to damage and difficult + risky to move, and the TV has to have relevant inputs. Plus having a few controllers for a console is a lot easier than managing controllers on a PC. I've had recent experience of this, playing 3 and 4 player games on PC at a friends' house.

Lol yeah i saw that in another thread, my bad, wrong end of the stick, wink wink nudge nudge I dont know yet re staleness. I dont think so, but i'm someone who really takes their time and soaks in a game's atmosphere and level design. If the level design holds up and the game mixes up its scenarios enough (which looks very likely judging by what ive seen), then i'll have no complaints at 15-20 hours

Seen nothing of the sort. I don't get any of the complaints I've seen about the game so far. But I'll play more tonight and get back to you. Seriously at this stage of my experience it would possibly beat out Bioshock. The gameplay and vibe is that good. The closest I've been to seeing buggy AI would be the fact that it sometimes does the same movement loops repeatedly. But that's not a bug- it's because it knows you're somewhere within these two or three corridors and it keeps checking them for any movement. Every time I've been killed it's been a logical and disturbingly efficient attack animation. Incredibly minor spoiler: Offtopic: you're totally missing out on Mordor. Easily worth $50 at least. So far I'm enjoying it more than Batman: AA, AC, AO, or any of the Assassin's Creeds.

Better get on the glucosamine supplements there, Ethan. I've got dodgy knees in the family too, if I go running too much they get real creaky. Then after I started taking glucosamine, the creakiness and any cracking/discomfort literally disappeared overnight. You have to keep taking it, daily, forever, but it seriously cancels any problems out. I endorse this product

I can't believe nobody has replied to this thread yet! I played several hours of this last night. Hoooo boyyyyyy. Bit of a shaky start; Creative Assembly clearly aren't seasoned at narrative stuff. The acting is fantastically strong, but the characters struggle with a bit of a limp script. Amanda Ripley is a real stealth surprise: she's absolutely golden. Has a wonderfully unique, not super-human-perfect face with a few of Ellen's features. A really great voice too, though the actress tries a little hard to imitate some of Weaver's intonation. The problem is the first 2-3 hours are sort of like... Metro 2033 in space. It's not bad but it's a prett shoddy, shambolic first-person adventure. The vibe is always incredible, start-to-finish, and imho it outdoes Bioshock and possibly even System Shock in it's space station universe- but the character animations are all pretty bad and it overuses them massively. There's a scene where four people are standing and talking and it's literally like puppets with flapping mouths. The voice acting's great, but the facial animation made me shudder. And you're on a pretty lame linear track rocking too-quickly through various locales. Unlike the film, CA don't spend about 1 hour with no action to build the tension- they crack into the action pretty quickly, and it's very jarring. I wish they paced the opening more. Devs all seem bad at expositions these days, except perhaps Naughty Dog. But then, about 2 hours in, maybe more... The stealth gameplay kicks into gear fully. The levels open up. The pace slows to a crawl true to the original film. Several mechanics begin interleaving and adding up to really satisfying moments of 'ohoh I can use that to do this!' Then the alien shows up. And shit gets fucked. I've never seen AI this good. Literally the perfect balance between genuinely, horrifyingly hunting you down, and still not being unfair. I'm playing on Hard Mode too. It's so, so disturbing. Like just when you're about to creep out and make a (very slow) break for your objective, suddenly the thumping footsteps will emerge from the distance and you'll whip out the motion tracker and it'll be, with no warning, flying towards you. If you make a single mistake, you might for an instant get a glance at him out of the corner of your eye, but then you'll be dead. Even when you're staring straight at him, from inside a locker or something, he's still scary because you can see the intelligence. The way his head swings about, the way he suddenly changes direction to check somewhere he hasn't looked before. There's a clear progression here between Amnesia > Outlast > Alien: Isolation. Amnesia had spawn in/spawn out enemies who never really patrolled but would follow you a little. Outlast had slasher-horror psychos who would sometimes patrol an area, but were imbeciles, and only ever one at a time (still terrifying). In Isolation, sometimes there are multiple targets you have to evade, and they interact perfectly, but then when the piece de resistance is there, the Alien, it's like nothing I've seen before. He doesn't just patrol. He's hunting. More specifically, he's hunting you. The difference is really hard to put across in text.

Yeah I think there's high potential with Moria. Those giant chambers with pillars stretching hundreds of feet upwards, verticality going from valley crevasses to mountain peaks... Could be greatiest. Would make more sense for a game full of orcs, too. Like, full of em. Every bloody inch. It would be cool if there was a bit where you could fall into a hole in the ground then like fall through the entire planet and come out the other end all white and shit

Perhaps. Though it depends on if it's Microsoft or the publishers who are forcing the parity. If Microsoft/publishers are not forcing parity across platforms, then yeah, I guess that leaves the devs as the only ones who must have skimped on it... Which would be a bit disappointing indeed!

I get that, but it's still irrelevant in the big picture. Ie it won't change the actual quality of the game. The only person who really looks bad here is Microsoft who clearly have the worse hardware- are they still forcing parity for cross-gen releases? Other than that, it was a stupid PR blunder, but still irrelevant to the game.

Christ I couldn't care less. Seriously, even going back to like 800x600 framerates, one's eyes adjust to it within 5-10 minutes. Had this exact experience when replaying some Silent Hill and Spyro 3 with a friend. I played GTAV for the first time in a year the other week, and I was horrified at the graphics since playing so much new-gen stuff. I continued playing, and within 30 minutes I didn't even notice the jaggies or the dodgy framerate. People need to stop giving a shit. As long as it's functional and not showstopping, res/fps don't matter for shit. What matters is simulation/scope improving, and by god it looks like Unity is going to deliver in that department. That many thousand unique AI and that many unique animations and that many interior spaces over a massive city... Fuck res/FPS.

It would be great to play a dwarf. I wish they had more of a presence in this. I'm liking whatsisname in the later missions. The Scottish accent is like 70% there too, probably the best I've seen in a game. Maybe one or two words per sentence he screws up.

Every bad review I've heard of Alien: Isolation has clearly been written by people who arent stealth/horror/Alien fans (usually 2/3 of those) or dont know how to play stealth/horror games. I also played it at EGX in April and it was fucking sick. The alien AI is unbelievable- and that was clear from the demo, fuck reviewers who say it's repetitive/broken. The simulation was brilliant too, literally like a sci fi PT or first person dead space. I recommend it to anyone who likes the sound of that. Im preordering it tomorrow with no worry in my mind. At full price from a brick and mortar game shop because i love the existence of gaming shops and i want them to continue existing. Really nice local one next to my work, too.

Keep hearing good things. Sounds like that and Boyhood stole it this year 'It' being some kind of nondescript all-encompassing 'good cinema' award

May be in the 3rd or 4th story mission. The story becomes a little vapid quite quickly, despite some nice highlights. Worth not paying too much attention to. It's surprisingly great how well they tie it into the Middle Earth canon. I never read Silmarillion but know a little about it, so im in a nice place between 'cool i knew that' and 'holy shit he's THAT guy!' Same with the gf. She's read the Silmarillion and it's her favourite one, so is totally loving ShoM. Some of the collectibles are great too. The two Wizards who've seen too much and dealt with too many adventures and finish each other's sentences- Middle Earth buddy cop movie anyone?