toxicitizen

Oh, I got that. I was saying that your preference is wrong.

Oh, I'm sure E3 will disappoint in ways both old and new. I mean, Square Enix just announced they're also having a conference. That should be something... All I'm saying is there's no way Bethesda would bother having a presser if all they had was Doom. But yeah, my line-up is pretty much a best case scenario.

I don't think you could be more wrong even if you tried! Besides, it's too early for TES6, I think. I'm pretty sure I remember Pete Hines or whatever saying they intended to alternate between TES and Fallout. Also, the last time I tried to get back to Skyrim to finally play it all the way through, it was boring as all hell and I just kinda stopped after a few hours. That kinda killed my excitement for a potential TES6. Maybe I should give it another shot. ... and just like that it's currently downloading on Steam. Damn it. I seriously doubt they'd actually be holding a presser if all they had was Doom 4. They kinda have to have some kind of line-up to reveal. Personally, my money's on Doom, Fallout 4 and Dishonored II. Probably a new IP or two.

Dishonored? I thought it was fucking great. It's basically Thief meets Deus Ex, so pretty much a combination of two of my all-time favorites. Everyone is looking forward to Bethesda's E3 conference because they expect Fallout 4, which is cool and all. But Dishonored II is what I'm most excited to see a reveal of.

That seems like the most likely explanation, yeah. Apparently the character is modeled after some actor whose name I can't remember but he could've easily been inspired to pick someone who looked similar to Head Doctor.

So, have you guys been following the latest insanity surrounding MGSV? If you haven't, here's the gist of it. Someone on NeoGAF pointed out the strong resemblance between the doctor from the initial MGSV reveal trailer and that crazy head transplant doctor that made the news recently. Of course, this being Metal Gear, the borderline psychotic fanbase assumed it was all a ruse by Kojima. Because that's pretty much the only logical conclusion to draw from any given piece of information for them. The weird thing is that the coincidence doesn't stop at mere physical resemblance. Apparently, the guy actually specializes in some kind of treatment therapy for pain related to phantom limbs. Which... is admittedly a pretty goddamn strange coincidence. Also, that head transplant procedure? He calls it HEAVEN. And don't get me wrong, this kinda stuff can be really fun to theorize about but man, this fucking fanbase sometimes. The initial thread got locked after some guy found the doctor's contact information and some assholes actually called him up. Which seems completely fucking insane to me. I mean, we're talking about a guy who has published medical papers going back years. How delusional do you have to be to believe he's actually involved in marketing a fucking video game? To say that it's incredibly unlikely would be a massive understatement. Then again, I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising since this is the same fanbase who still thinks that Kojima getting fired is all a marketing stunt because "Oh, KojiPro getting killed is just like what happened to Big Boss with Mother Base and stuff!!". Yeah, no. That shit actually had negative financial impacts for Konami, to the point where they actually had to backtrack on that whole removing Kojima's name from everything deal. Now Kotaku UK has an interview with the doctor where he mentions he's considering suing Konami and shit. At one point the doctor even asks the interviewer if he knows how much MGSV will be worth and starts laughing when told the estimate of 4 million copies at 60 euros a pop. You just can't make that shit up.

Oh, right. Well, I got what you meant anyway so it's not like it makes much of a difference but yeah, good catch. I still don't think fourth wall is an accurate way to describe it even then. The audience is never addressed specifically, it's always an in-game entity or there's an in-game context to justify a character addressing the camera directly, like Desmond being in the Animus. But whatever, I'm probably just being pedantic. It's not like I fundamentally disagree with what you're saying or anything. But yeah, there's definitely a player metaphor in there. It's kinda hard to miss. That's what I was referring to in my spoiler tag above. My point was that they're not really using that metaphor to do or say anything beyond just having a surprising plot twist. Like I said, I definitely see what you're talking about. I'm not saying it's not there or that it was a bad use of the concept. I guess shallow would be a better way to put it? I just think that to be considered a great example of it it would need to actually be using the concept to achieve some kind of thematic goal rather than a purely narrative one. The meta aspect of The Bureau didn't really add anything in the sense where the story was about something beyond the narrative itself. As for Bioshock Infinite, yeah, I very deliberately chose my words when I said it was "at least trying". Personally, I'd rather a game try and fail than not try at all but yeah, that can backfire and cause it to fall flat on its face. Anyway, you're right, we should probably leave it at that before we spam the thread any more than we already have. But I find this kind of analysis to be fascinating, so it's kinda nice to get the chance to have this kind of discussion every once in a while. It's certainly more fun than just watching video essays about it on youtube.

I get what you're saying but I can't say I completely agree. Just because it's something that's not done very often (or very well) doesn't necessarily make it one of the greatest. I'd say The Bureau is about on the level of AC, where it's just kinda there. It's not actually saying anything with it nor is it used to achieve any kind of point. In AC it was used for shock value more than anything else: and in The Bureau it's more along the lines of In both cases, it amounts to little more than a neat plot twist. Which is fine, I love me a good twist as much as the next guy. But I wouldn't call either of them "one of the greatest" at doing this when you have games like Spec Ops, which is actually using its metanarrative as a way to make a commentary. It's sarcastically asking the player "Aren't you awesome for murdering all those people??" to highlight the disconnect between plot and mechanics in modern shooters. Hotline Miami also kinda does more with the idea when it asks the player, indirectly through Jacket, "Why do you enjoy hurting people?". And hell, even BioShock Infinite is at least trying to talk about how pointless binary player choices ultimately are. But honestly, this all kinda boils down to semantics, I suppose. It really depends on how you define "greatest".

You're fucking killing me here, Polygon! After Remedy released the message to the fans above, I went back to the original game, cleared all the achievements and uninstalled it for good. I accepted that the sequel was never coming and I moved on. And now Polygon decides that, for once, they feel like doing some actual fucking journalism and single-handedly undo all of that by digging this up! Seriously though, it's an interesting read for any fan of the series and that prototype looks pretty cool. Some elements were clearly used in American Nightmare, which kinda retroactively makes it even more of an unsatisfying experience... But I have to admit, it's good to know that Remedy is at least still thinking about the series. I'm not super optimistic that another game will ever happen but man, I've never wanted Alan Wake 2 more than I do now. For now I'll just stick to hoping that Quantum Break eventually comes to PC...

Nope, no phone. I still live in the dark ages. And that's just a regular stereo system. It's a few years old but it does the job, so I never felt the need to get proper PC speakers. Besides, I don't remember the last time I actually used it to play CDs so I'd probably never use it otherwise. Oh and you can't really see it but there's also a subwoofer under the desk. Hey, I'll have you know I played a game on my Vita last year!

My setup is sadly still the same but my sexy new tower alone justifies an update. I also tried taking a picture of my dog since some of you guys are into that shit, but that little asshole likes to sleep behind a big chair, which made it too dark for my Vita's camera. So the pic was too shit to post. It's somehow even blurrier than this one.

Another 10-ish hours "speedrun" later and... Finally got Foxiest of the Hounds! Turns out the game isn't too long if you beeline the main objectives and ignore most of the side-quests. I could've probably even cut that 10 hours down a bit since I got sidetracked quite a few times to get some Praxis kits. I'm still not sure where I screwed up the first time. The only thing I did differently this time around was focusing on ghosting more, I never took out anyone unless I had no choice. I probably only knocked out half a dozen people or so throughout the entire game. I have to assume that's how I got screwed over last time. I must've left a body somewhere I shouldn't have and it triggered an alarm when I was too far to hear it. Oh well, that definitely scratched the Deus Ex itch the Mankind Divided announcement gave me. The wait should be a bit more bearable now.

Yeah, The Bureau doesn't break the fourth wall at all but it was close enough that I didn't bother correcting it. It's really more of a player stand-in character, I think. Spec Ops: The Line does break the fourth wall a little bit, though. It addresses the player directly during some loading screens. I mean, most games do that with loading tips and whatnot but in Spec Ops it was quite a bit more blatant and thematically relevant, which arguably makes it part of the plot.

Here you go again with your hyperbole. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to mention The Bureau in the same sentence as the words "gaming history". It's a decent but very derivative tactical third-person shooter with a neat twist. The problem is the twist is pretty much the only memorable thing about it. I seriously doubt it's going to remembered by many ten years from now.

I thought it was confirmed for 2016 but I can't find anything right now. But yeah, I doubt it's a 2015 title.

Yeah, that's most likely the case. I simply didn't remember it being this bad. Mind elaborating on that? I've heard a lot of complaints that the DC actually looks worse in many ways and reintroduced some bugs, like they built it using an older, unpatched build of the original game. The main draw was the "fixed" boss fights but I looked it up out of curiosity and turns out it's only a little bit of optional hacking throw in there for some reason. I'll wait until I see actual gameplay to comment on how Mankind Divided looks, but on a more general note I really wish people would stop complaining about color filters. I seriously don't get how games are supposed to look "so much better" without them, like so many people insist. A color filter can give a game a really unique visual identity when used properly (like in DXHR) but, as it tends to do with everything, the internet just goes full retard and indiscriminately shits on the entire concept without any consideration to how well it was actually used. Same thing with lens flare and chromatic aberrations. Both effects can add something when used properly, but as soon as they're there some people will just complain no matter what. I don't want devs to hold back their artistic vision to cater to graphics snobs, those assholes can usually mod that shit out anyway. Besides, I'm not convinced a perfectly clean picture looks necessarily better. Imperfections like chromatic aberration can actually help add a subtle illusion of photorealism to it. I mean, I never really noticed it in Alien: Isolation unless I was actively looking for it, but I thought the game looked better for its inclusion.

Yeah, the side-missions were the best part of Thief, unfortunately. Most of them were smaller but more open maps and felt like you were actually robbing a real place. More in line with the old games. And the Bank Job DLC was straight up the best level out of the entire game. It was nowhere near the brilliance of the Bank Heist mission from Thief II but it's the closest the new one ever came to recapturing that.

If we're thinking of the same thing, it's more of a bad ending/joke game over. Nothing really happens, credits just roll.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution + The Missing Link DLC. The Mankind Divided hype got to me and I decided to finally go through with the replay I had been meaning to do for a while. I was initially going to do it with the Director's Cut but at the last minute I decided to stick with vanilla instead and do an achievements clean-up run. That meant playing on the highest difficulty, non-lethally and without any alarms. I'm still not sure where I screwed up on that last one. I was so careful... I got everything but Foxiest of the Hounds, which is the no alarm achievement. I have like a couple manual saves I made at various points throughout the game but without knowing for sure where I screwed up I'm really hesitant to start over from either of them. For all I know, I might've done something wrong in the fucking tutorial mission. Same thing happened with Missing Link, too. It wasn't planned ahead of time but when I got to the part where it takes place, I said fuck it, quit out the main game and reinstalled it. Spent 6 hours replaying it only to not get the Factory Zero achievement, which is for not using any Praxis, weapons or explosives at all. Again, not sure where I went wrong. But at least Missing Link is short enough that I was able to do quick speedrun of it in like an hour and a half to get it. I'm not sure I have the willpower to go through the entirety of HR again right away. I mean, even a speed run ignoring all the side-quests is gonna be at least a 10+ hours time investment... But anyway, Human Revolution hasn't aged very well visually. It looks much worse than I remembered. Some of the character textures are downright awful and the conversation animations can look really awkward at times. And my main criticism of the game stands, not enough conspiracy in that shit! There's more talk about the Illuminati than I remembered but it's still nowhere near the level of the original. Deus Ex was pretty much The X-Files with a Matrix coat of paint. It had aliens and MiBs and even fucking El Chupacabra. I mean, the final level was Area 51, for fuck's sake. It doesn't get any more classic conspiracy than that. I really hope Mankind Divided brings some of that back.

Well

I think that was the entire point. The game was implying that I'm with you on the execution being sub-par, though. But I liked the twist. It seemed weird at the time but I can see what they were going for and I can appreciate that they tried to do something original with the story.

Yeah, it's pretty much the same formula as the Telltale games, only better. If you enjoyed any of Telltale's series, you really can't go wrong with this one.

Yeah, definitely. The best thing they could've done would've been to strip it of the XCOM name and let it be its own thing. I can understand why they wanted to use the XCOM brand when it was first revealed as an FPS and was the only XCOM project. But after Enemy Unknown became a thing there was no need to slap the name on it anymore. A lot from that video was actually recycled into The Bureau's plot. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I kinda feel like that says a lot about how little they actually gave a shit about the story. They rebuilt the game from the ground up into a different genre but barely tweaked the story. Or shit, maybe I have it backwards. They had their own story and were forced to change genre and make it tie into Enemy Unknown, so they half-assed it. If that's what happened, I kinda feel for the team at 2K Marin. I can imagine how much it would suck to have that happen to a project because of another studio's project. What sucks is, given how secretive the industry tends to be regarding these things, we'll likely never know what truly went down. :/ And I feel like it's a story worth telling, if only as a cautionary "Here's what not to do if you don't want another Thief/The Bureau/Destiny/etc..."

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. It's actually not that bad. Once I managed to get it to stop crashing every 20 mins, it became pretty enjoyable. Having to completely disable PhysX was a huge bummer, though. I was pretty happy to have something more demanding to throw at my new GPU and some of the effects looked great. But yeah, it's a decent game with some genuinely cool ideas in it, including what I thought was actually a pretty clever "player integration" plot twist. Unfortunately, it has a lot working against it, especially if you're a fan of Enemy Unknown. The story is your typical sci-fi shooter fare and the 1960s setting makes for a really cool backdrop for the plot. The gameplay is basically Mass Effect. I'm not even joking, the combat is lifted straight out of ME. It feels and plays the same, right down to the stiff running and cover animations. Also, dialogue wheels. The XCOM base even kinda feels like the Normandy when you're walking around in it between missions. Holy shit, now that I think about it, there's even a stealth loading room where you're stuck in a "scanner" kinda corridor for a few seconds. Overall, it's nothing particularly impressive or interesting but it gets the job done. The main problem is that the story simply doesn't make any sense when you take into account Enemy Unknown. They try to set it up as the origin story of the XCOM program, and I think the ending was implying a more direct prequel connection, which is cool in theory. But here's the thing... The characters keep insisting that "We're keeping all of this under wraps!" and "The public will never find out about any of this!" and I'm like "Are you people fucking high?!" The aliens terraformed entire fucking towns with gigantic machines, put these big-ass towers all over the goddamn place and infected hundreds of people with a black goo virus. Even when taking into account the limited means of communication of the time, the aliens weren't exactly being sneaky here. I do not buy for a fucking second that any of this happened "outside of the public eye". Like, how fucking stupid do you think I am? And let's not even get into how retarded it is that these assholes developed laser and plasma weapons and did a bunch of research on the aliens only to conveniently "forget" about all of it when they come back 50 years later. There was a lot of potential here. If they hadn't felt the need to go all-out action with it, it could've been a really cool smaller, slower X-Files kinda story with more of a thriller/mystery tone to it. That would've been awesome. Making more of an effort to better tie in with Enemy Unknown would've been a good idea, too. Despite being a completely different genre, this could've been a proper chapter in the universe established by Enemy Unknown. Instead, it's this derivative tactical-shooter with a plot that barely makes any effort to not contradict EU. If I had to guess, I'd say they probably had this story planned out long before Firaxis started working on Enemy Unknown and simply didn't feel like putting in the effort to properly tweak it once a real XCOM game was actually happening. Overall, it's a decent game, just not a very good XCOM.

You're much kinder than me. When it's the gaming community AND is on the internet, I just assume they're fucking idiots. Especially when they're losing their shit this intensely over not only video games but also what's pretty much a non-issue.