SomTervo

An insight into Dean's mind

He doesn't seem very bad at all in comparison with a lot of creative directors. Even Jon Blow is at least twice the prickage. I can't say whether it's worth it yet, but the game's pretty damn unique. It has a lot of minor glitches which were really unexpected (lots as in, literally most times you go through a doorway and it loads another part of the level) but the level design is great and the later puzzles (which I am not at yet) are apparently a real challenge. Some of the ones I've done currently are pretty tough. The platforming is very satisfying.

You're right: I read an article with a pretty good breakdown of how things have worked. GTAIV had a trailer released one year before alleged release, March 2007, and he marketing push exponentially increased towards release. It came out April 2008. 2009 had almost nothing, the two GTA DLC episodes. A year before RDR, a trailer was released. Same pattern as GTAIV, which released May 2010. A year or so before L.A. Noire, trailers came out for it. Same pattern as before, came out May or so, 2011. So, for GTAV, the fact that the trailer came out in Nov 2011, and their trailers/ marketing push usually begin about a year before release, this does put GTAV in good stead for coming out Q4 this year. See what happens, eh. If it came out this year it'd be a godsend.

I agree with death of the author to an extent- but what I don't agree with is death of the industry. Whenever I buy a game, the largest proportion of my 'why to buy' justification is actually whether I want to support the game, by itself, in the eyes of the industry. In order to make such games look more profitable to the business of games; thus propagating the likelihood of more games like it being developed. = why I bought things like Alan Wake, Ico/SotC, Fez, I Am Alive, etc. So that when a proposal like these is brought to a studio, they think 'hey, we've made things like this before that sold well, we'll greenlight it'. So more good, and unique games!

Yeah it's kinda nice that it's requiring community work of some kind to even solve some of the puzzles. In a way that's refreshing. Reminds me of Demon's/Dark Souls with it's community puzzle solving and work. I'll keep playing through it while I have the time and pay a bit more attention to background images and patterns. I've been looking forward to it for years and have it, but don't have time to play it much right now.

Sounds like he placed the game's design a little too far on the wrong side of the 'confusing versus mysterious and satisfying' line. But just, thus far it's been pretty fun.

Codebreaking? I heard some of it's pretty intense, but does this mean it isn't solvable by just platforming and world rotation? That would be disappointing.

They don't look Inuit in either image, to me... But I haven't seen the show or film so I'll shut up, too. A more horrific thing to note, to me, is that the dude on the left is that idiot asshole from Twilight. God he's an asshole. God they're all assholes. Haha, there's still one more Twilight film to come, how about that? I was speaking to a friend the other day and we'd totally forgotten about it. Dragging this up a bit, but what were the paradoxes in Minority Report? I didn't get those. The only things that might not have made sense were things more simply mysteries to everyone involved (mostly the precog's odd speeches). I imagine there are no logical issues in the novel, at least. PKD is incredible.

It is possible I suppose. The informant guy (who was allegedly fired by Rockstar) said it only had six months of full development to go. That would put it out by October (which is also when San Andreas came out, and that's set in the same place.) It has been in development for years, too. I'm more skeptical in regards to how little they're pushing it. But I suppose GTAIV only had three proper trailers before release, one of which was about a month before release. So it could come this "holiday" season. It's also unlikely due to the multitude of large-scale games coming out this Q4, and Rockstar already having Max Payne 3 out next month. They would probably want to space out releases so they have one big release per year. However, they're a pretty unusual company, not to Valve standards, but they could certainly release it at the end of this year. That would make me so, so happy. Max Payne 3 and GTAV out this year... Man.

Definitely re: the retailers. I guess it could come out this year; they have been working on it for a loooong time. End of the year could happen (I remember they released San Andreas in an October.) I forgot to mention, some of the multiplayer suggestions are cool. It sounds a lot like they've taken some leaves from APB (R.I.P.); i.e. you can make a 'gang' (basically a Posse from RDR) and do 'crimes' (instead of 'gang hideouts' like in RDR.) You don't get XP for your posse, but you get reputation. 'Crimes' are like robbing places of different notorieties or breaking into more high security places etc. Something unclear is whether by 'gangs' the informant meant 'Crews', as Crews have been confirmed by Rockstar and sound like something similar, though they may be something different, more like clans. The idea of popping into 32-player free roam with some friends, making a gang, then going off to do crimes... Certainly something. Not to mention that the 'gang leader' can set more specific objectives per-player. Imagine telling one of your friends to be the getaway driver, another to provide backup, another to commit the actual theft, and someone to simply cover his back. Sounds maybe too far fetched. Could well be completely false. My main worry now is whether Rockstar can pull any of this stuff off on our current hardware. In terms of disc space AND console power. Disc space was very tight on GTA and RDR, IIRC, and if this is so much bigger... Not to mention the world being a lot more to realise. Also 32-person multiplayer may be a bit much, as their networking tech often seemed to struggle with various things, NAT and such. I guess lag was rarely an issue, I found, but 32 is still a big number.

IGN has a bunch of rumourey things. While a few of them are ridiculous (it's positively not coming out this year, that would just make no sense, though it would make me very happy), the majority of them, I think, are very likely, some even obvious. For example, I think it's blatant that the middle aged guy in the trailer, who's face we see the side of, is the main character. Blatantly. He's the narrator, who is obviously the main character. The fact that it's only a one-playable-protagonist game is obvious too. The point of GTA games is to see the world, and experience it, through one (usually jaded) character's perspective. DLC games have their own story, so a different character, approach, and experience. But the retail releases are always about one protagonist's adventure. Other stuff I think is likely; all the wanted stuff I can imagine being right. The size being really big I can imagine being right. Most of the multiplayer stuff would be great, though turf war-ey things sound a bit far-fetched. Things that made me soil myself in anticipation (but could not be true, though I think there's a high chance they will be): - If the game is 5x bigger than GTAIV's Liberty City. That would be fucking incredible. LC was about the same size as San Andreas state in SA, so it'd be properly goddamn huge. This size has been achieved in other games; but none with the quality of ground-level simulation of GTAIV. Imagine Skyrim's world but a contemporary city, with euphoria'd people, cars, police, etc. The amount of adventure on offer if the game IS this size would just be incredible. However; map size estimations are almost always exaggerated. In reality, it'll probably only be a bit bigger than Liberty City. Disc space alone would probably keep it that way. - Customisable weapons (and vehicles, to an extent). Adding silencers to your guns, etc. That just sounds fucking good. The lack of silenced weapons has always disappointed me in GTA games (except SA, where the engine was so wacky stealth wasn't a great simulation anyway). And being able to make your gun yours would just be awesome. - An underworld economy. So you can actually buy and use drugs in the game. And sell them. Including guns, weapons, clothes, etc. So you can contribute to the economy (and make money). From a gameplay standpoint, this is an obvious (and incredible) evolution. However, being able to use drugs etc. could be a little bit racey- imagine how far the media will run with this. - More realistic gunfights. The only suggestion of this in the rumours article is shakey aiming when shooting from cars. But tbh, I think this is likely considering how much of an issue gunfights have always been in GTA. - Better police/ wanted level action. So for obviously (probably extremely) speeding, and smoking weed in the street apparently, you now get 1 star. If you have 4 stars and you evade the police, they will keep searching for you for 24 in-game hours. 5 gets 48 in-game hours searching. 6 gets 72 hours of in-game hour searching. (Imagine getting a 6 star rating, managing to evade them, then laying low in your apartment for three days, watching the TV and listening to the radio just to lose them. And sleeping for the 6 hours at a time to make it go faster. This sounds incredibly emergent and immersive to me and I fucking hope it's the case that Rockstar go with this.) EDIT: Just thought, the economy-based stuff and an economy focus in the game is probably very likely. This game is offspring of the recession. We already saw evidence of that from the trailer; people selling houses, lots of poverty, etc. Even the dollar bill in the game's logo. GTAV will probably draw ironic parallels between how the public economy is collapsing, but the underworld economy is thriving (which would suggest that, yes, there will be a big underworld economy that the player will be able to manipulate and use.)

That's nice at least. Some old school difficulty is good. Reminds me a little of Super Meat Boy in that way- but rather than a basic test of sheer skill, this is a basic test of sheer brainpower. Re: music: I hope I don't start to get annoyed with it. I'm a real fan of ambient and chillwavey shoegazey stuff, so I really like Fez' music, which is basically that genre but chiptune, as well (which I love). I haven't heard anything too grating yet, and I love how it mixes with the environments.

Holy shit. I didn't think I could care about this game, but I think both of these things are excellent ideas. May well get it after all. Spec Ops is basically Firefight, but better, tbqh. It's the only reason I nearly bought MW3 (which I didn't, BF3 is simply a better game), i played Spec Ops at a family member's house, and it is absolutely fantastic. Singleplayer and multiplayer were still weak.

Triple post, but distance in theme and time, so here's another trailer. As I said in my status update, it looks fucking amazing. I am waiting for the singleplayer SO HARD now. Recommend fullscreen and 720p for the trailer.

Totally, with more focus on a tyrannical or dictatorship government. Thief was never about governmentey things. I meant to say above, apparently some of the team making this worked on Thief, too. Not that this means anything, particularly.

Btw, Dee, that avatar. Good choice.

While the story is pretty basic, I was still surprised by how solid what he's written actually is. There are some great themes of time/space and computing in there within what appears to be a very organically-stylized game. Pretty legit theories about spate/time being merged into a crazy platformer thing. I'm really enjoying it, though it does feel like something's missing. I'd have liked some form of combat at least (unless that comes in later in the game). The main thing I'm enjoying is the game world, it's emergently large once you look at the world map, and pretty fun to explore/ solve. After thinking about it, the real thing I'm actually enjoying the most is the music. It's fucking excellent. http://disasterpeace.com. Some really really awesome stuff, think I'll actually buy it.

With you, FDS. However, I'm still shocked that nobody's mentioned Thief. Imho this trailer looks nothing like Bioshock, a tiny bit like HL2 (with the stalkers, same art director after all), a lot like Assassin's Creed (though from info in gameplay previews and actual shots, the game is nothing like this), but hugely like Thief. The same droning music, focus on sheer darkness, a more Renaissancey feel, and even a guy with a voice exactly like Garret's, albeit slightly higher pitched. But anyway, to my mind a comparison with Thief is infinitely higher than any of those other games. Makes me feel a little more positive about this. The actual gameplay sounds fun in theory (read from a few large previews) but I don't feel confident it'll be very solid. Sounds scrappy and messy overall, chaotic in a bad way. (Playing through Thief: Dark Age for the first time currently, and going to replay Thief II and Deadly Shadows, and man have those games aged well.)

Re: Round Three: Shaner's burns are a wee bit keener, but Six takes it with the sheer quality of rhymage and metre.

Re: what I said exactly about Lazarus pits (don't think this warrants spoiler tags as it's nothing mentioned in the game at all), they're basically highly magical and mysterious and chaotic pits, which often seem to function almost as links to parallel universes. A lot of the time when they're used the person who's inserted comes back insane, or completely different, or (obvious to the reader) a version of the character from another universe (i.e. zombie, evil villain rather than hero, chaotic good rather than lawful good, etc.). You basically don't know what you're getting, it's always a huge risk. However, having said that, in the game

I found the combat in City incredible. Sure, it adds a lot of layers, but it adds so much complexity, it's so deep. Just learning all the stuff you can do is incredible. I found the 'perfect combo' achievement in AA fun, Yant, but in AC... It's way too intimidating. @Rocky: I definitely think AA was a tighter game, a game nearer the label 'perfect'. But I think AC is a bigger, more fun game. AA might have captured Batman better, though; it's so tight, it's so exactly what Batman's about. City is a bit too faffy.