SomTervo

Not at all, man. The comparisons I made are: 1.) It seems like it might be Capcom trying to make a rival to Demons/Dark Souls, but it's not really that similar at all. 2.) There are a few structural things, an emphasis on quality sword/magic play, and RPG/item systems look very similar. Aside from that, Dragon's Dogma looks like it's more large scale scrappy battles, adventure and hack 'n' slash. Not hardcore enemies, hardcore health/mana/item management, and hardcore level knowledge. The guy is against lots of enemies sometimes in that video, but you have at least 2 NPC's on your side (with what looks like pretty good AI, they even seem to behave like humans some of the time), and he seems to take a lot of hits and be absolutely fine. I don't think this game is going for a 'hardcore' crowd: it's just a very large simulation.

It is open world. Positively. As I said, the scripted sequences are like periods at the end of main story arcs; full-stops to dramatically resolve an Act of the game's story. Outside of these few missions, which are by ar the minority, the game is open world. Read any preview/review and the developers are constantly going on about how proud they are of their open world, and how much work they're putting into it to make it better than FC2's.

Seems worth it, contrary to a lot of reviews that said it was a short play through. I'm nearly at 8 hours playing time and haven't finished the story mode: probably because I (unlike reviewers/ non fans) listen to and watch every radio and tv, read every item, and explore every area. The universe is rich as fuck. When you start doing this there's a lot to hear about, that build the universe in really important, unique ways. Really liking it. Some of the new enemy types now are great, too. Some minor plot things from the very start, you know them by the end of the first level: REALLY interesting if you're wondering about the end of AW1, and not too spoilerey. It's all really good stuff, and is added to constantly throughout the game.

Hate to necro on this (nearly a year ago when this thread was last posted on, Christ) but this video shows some pretty promising elements. And it's an hour long, so comprehensive as fuck. I love how it seems to be consolidating lots of big things in the fantasy game genre: hack n slash action of DMC etc, open world/ universe of elder scrolls, RPGS/ strategy elements and level design of Demons/ Dark Souls, mixed up enemy types and mechanical elements of Shadow of the Colossus and Zelda/ generic fantasy fare. Not to mention odd little details like base-jump style moves when falling from great height, like Just Cause 2. I love the bit where he grabs on to a harpy (or something)'s legs, it flies him away, then he tries to drop from great heat onto the troll/ cyclops thing. That leg-grab move is ripped straight out of Shadow of the Colossus, but employed in a totally fresh way.

A recent, big Edge preview was really great, and puts that 5 minute video in context. Certain story-missions in the game end with these sorts of scripted sequences. Uncharted'ey bits to mix up the open world stuff. Most of it is like FarCry 2, roaming about, approaching situations however you want, but story/ plot climaxes end in these sequences. There'll probably be a few in the game, but most of it is like FC2, as I said. Also, they detail a playthrough of the sequence seen above in which the guy approaches stealthily with sniping.

Anybody played American Nightmare? Playing it through right now. Might review it. Really, really enjoying it. It adds more freedom to the adventure, which I felt was missing from AW; the three areas a pretty open, and it feels much more immersive and emergent because of this. The writing has also improved a lot and it has a good balance between contemporary writer/thriller writing and B-movie schlock sci-fi.

Good.

It's mostly the facial hair thing that makes me think that. Don't think I've ever seen Brillis with a beard.

DP: Anybody notice that bald-Max looks rather a lot like bald Walter White from season 3-4 of Breaking Bad? Possible influence there?

That's a good point, L.A. Noire would be a really good structural comparison for Alan Wake. And Alan Wake would be a lot more fun with the day/night cycle and Taken attacking you in dark areas/ darkness.

Ja this would be goodly. Never played it online, actually

Yeah true, Uncharted's definitely left it's mark. They'll probably let it lie for a bit. Ja Connor, they're prolly just going a different artistic and stylistic direction to keep their minds fresh.

Initially Alan Wake was going to be open-world, so it wouldn't have been shoehorned at all. If you find the map of the area in the game, it looks like it'd be goddamn playable as an open-world level! If they stuck with the idea, sure it might have meant sacrifices in the storytelling, but I think that'd be worth it for the unique experience the game would have provided itself. The gameplay would have been improved a lot, and would be scarier, if open world. Much more tense and survival horrorey. Plus they had all sorts of cool shit, like with the amazing lighting system, the day/ night cycle would mean that enemies would appear in shadows as the shadows would appear. And getting the power back on in certain areas would be actually practical. And all the traversal options would make sense... The whole thing just sounded great. It's still a great game, but I always feel it's missing that something. Re: Mirror's Edge for the same thing, Mirror's Edge didn't even do storytelling well, it should definitely have been open world. Though yeah, it would have been an unprecedented amount of work to get the traversal good enough and detailed enough to work all over the area of a city or something. In games where traversal is emphasised, there's no better situation/ medium for traversal game mechanics than running away. In Mirror's Edge, whenever you get to the end of the level, it just peters out. The momentum goes. If it had been open world, like at the end of a GTA mission, you'd still have to improvise a route to escape from the cops, which would have been so thrilling. Anyway. The best we might have will be Prey 2, which looks like it will cater to this fantasy a bit. Prey 2 looks so goddamn good.

Enslaved was definitely good, could have been a lot better though. I hope they go for more violence and grit in this. And survival game mechanics. I <3 survival game mechanics. Just loaded Minecraft up for the first time in months the other day, and when I saw they added a 'hunger' system honestly nearly creamed my pants. Also, this isn't the end of Uncharted, is it? I'm sure they said they planned on more iterations in that series, this just seems like a parallel other series.

Ja. I remember thinking, playing the first two games as a 13 year old or somesuch, that Max Payne could keep going forever, the series will only get better as the simulation improves. All the mechanics have a totally solid foundation in real life, but the graphics/ simulation were too old school. The closer the simulation gets to real life, the more immersive and fun it'll be to play. And the better the story could be. I love the sound of multiplayer in the game, too. I can't wait for them to release videos of it. Each round, with a different gametype in each, contributing to a story/cutscene that develops over the course of the match? Ingenious. Each game will be our own little crime saga. Also, the 'perks'/ abilities (can't remember Rockstar's quirky Max Payne-y name for them) sound great, line-of-sight based slo-mo, removing IFF HUD elements from enemy team's screens, etc. Sounds so fun. With all this animation too. Mmmm.

Totally. I meant to mention this in my semi-rant up there. As you said, American Nightmare looks like it's adding a bunch of enemy types, and a bunch of weapons, and adding a combo/ time limit system. So it'll be actually fun to just PLAY, instead of adventure through. It's gonna be fun. I'm just hoping this is a side-project while they work on actual Alan Wake 2. Which really, honestly better be open-world. Alan Wake and Mirror's Edge are the only two games I've ever played that wouldn't just have benefited from being open world, but would have been fixed.

Hey, I adore it, too! I'm with you on this. I think people found it repetitive because they were paying attention to a NEW action. They did the same thing in Max Payne, but Max never stopped you from killing enemies if you didn't use bullet time. This is the only real problem with the game for me. Alan Wake's game mechanics are weak. Incredibly weak. The story, atmosphere, framing, and engine are incredible, but what you can do is actually thin as diarrhoea. The game introduces the idea of using a light source to damage enemies (the only variation within this is area-effect or aimed light), and shooting enemies to subsequently kill them, and doesn't innovate on this at all. Driving feels pretty redundant a lot of the time, but it's really nice. And those are the only three gameplay mechanics. NPC's fighting along side you barely makes a difference to the gameplay at all. There is no emergence, which is the key to great gameplay. If they had added fire, which would hurt you as well as the enemies, and spread unpredictably like in FarCry 2. or random killable groups of townfolk who fought with the Taken as well; ANYTHING that would have added more to the mix, it really would have brought so much more to the table and made the experience more emergent, pleasing and surprising. That's why I think the DLC episodes are so strong; the word-spawning stuff is the biggest gameplay change the game makes from start to finish, and it's really pretty thrilling (i.e. when a spawned barrel explodes and sets of another word which spawns another barrel and spawns another item, etc. etc.). Like Half-Life 2: at the gameplay mechanic level there's not much; shoot guns, drive vehicles. But on top of this are three different enemy factions that are mixed up, and more and more enemy types added throughout (Alan Wake has two, three enemy types at most. Half-Life 2 has tens), and types of weapons that interact in very different ways, where Alan Wake literally only has the light/guns mechanic. Still, I love the gameplay from an adventure/ story standpoint. Which is incredible.

What comedi's you writing Hottie? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4D8XqOw1zs Hate this video, trying to be the Killers or something, but this seems to be the only version of the song on YouTube that's not a remix or not live. This whole album of theirs, You're A Woman, I'm A Machine, is just incredible, it's one of those "tune after tune after tune" till the end ones. P.S. Turn it up loud. Wish I could see these guys live. Hear they're reforming. Awesome choice.

Holy shit, imagine that. 6 people trying to survive against waves of zombies or some shit. Incredible.

Haha! "We need to split up!" "GET AWAY FROM ME"

Yeah, I think this looks really nice. Excellent call! I think that would work out really, really well: Leon's segments are being advertised here as more original Survival Horror with T-virus chaps, where Chris is more Resi 5 Action Man scenarios. Two seperate discs would be brillo, with two seperate stories that overlap like Resident Evil 2. Especially since 2+ disc games (on 360 at least) are becoming more and more common these days, as games get more ambitious on this hardware. Although this idea makes it unclear how co-op will work in 6, which I'm assuming will still be there. I imagined Chris and Leon as co-op, and the third guy as a seperate singleplayer campaign? On Kotaku there was an article speculating that the third, bald guy is actually Hunk, the secret character from 2 and 'other guy' on the chopper in 1 (IIRC). In Resi 2, as a secret character, Hunk was invincible. This suggests somehow the guy has an immunity to the T-virus, or viral stuff in general; which would explain the whole 'my blood' obsession thing in the trailer. Overall, I'm pretty excited. Especially about proper zombies on our current simulation capability, and survival horror'ey stuff with the new control scheme.

Damn straight. Some of the best sci-fi I've read in a looooong time. I'm not sure, I had a download with the 27 issues of the main story, and I haven't yet read the one with Batman or any of the extras yet. But I got the whole story. Incredible stuff. Oddly, a lot of the later concepts that become really relevant to the story are things I've been thinking about a lot for the last couple of years, and how they should be written into some sci-fi. Too bad Ellis beat me to it. He seems to beat everyone to everything.

Comic: Planetary by Warren Ellis. What a comic. Really brilliant. Will put it in the comics thread (if that's still kicking about). And just started reading Death Note which I've mentioned on chat already. Seems excellente.

Yeah I understand, I just felt it was the time and the place to throw down some sweet intellectual-radio-chat. You're spot-on with the narrator being interested in the surroundings; if you "suddenly wake up somewhere", you aren't interested in the fact that you just woke up somewhere. You'll be taking in everything around you in an extremely impressionistic, shock-like, hazy way. Getting your bearings. Getting into the thought process of a character in a situation like that would take some imagination, but not necessarily be difficulty (and the effect would be great). It's sloppy writing to use the "then I was here somehow" cliche. Something YA fiction would no-doubt rely upon frequently to generate a sense of mystery. Reminds me of a story idea I had years ago that I might still flesh out, where the main character is a guy who loses his memory after being told something traumatic. The reader doesn't find out what the traumatic news was till the end; and it doesn't really matter, it's about the guy forgetting everything and the journey of him rediscovering his life as essentially a different person. Probably a ridiculous idea for someone to lose memory from traumatic news, but would work well in a story and is better than "I bumped my head in the shower".

I liked that too. Funny thing is, I told my friend that during a particular bit as Catwoman "Go right instead of left. You'll know", leaving it as cryptic as that. Of course, he forgot I had said it, but his natural 'jerk sense' meant he went that way anyway. Ahhh, one of those. Yeah my best gaming friends are douche-players. I remember noticing it first back when we were teens and one of us got Black and White. I would help my people and have fun trying to complete the level in a roundabout way; the other two literally picked up the first settler they got their hands on and pitched him miles away. Then destroyed the village. That kind of singleplayer (and often multiplayer (yep, they grief)) behaviour continues in them to this day. Those guys.