Posts by FrieChamp

  • Gears of War 2

    I thought YOU know, that Germans (me included) can sense sarcasm as well as the Queen can dance Schuhplattler, so bare with me please

    I don't know.."more of the same" just doesn't cut it for me anymore. I guess it's the same with "blockbuster" movies and pop music, or maybe I'm just getting old

  • Gears of War 2

    Quote from Taylor

    Forgive me; my post was kind of alluding to Farcry and Crysis.

    I don’t understand what the problem is, it’s as if capitalising off something different is a bad thing. You never seem to get this when the next FPS comes out, using the same formula that’s been there since the dawn of time. Another shotgun? I call cliche and gimmick.

    The way you generalize FPS games shows how little you apparently know about the differences between the individual games.

    On GoW: Have you watched the series "The road to alpha" about the development behind GoW at Epic Games around E3 2006? It was a 4 episodes documentary shot by MTV, part of the promotion for the game. When you hear Cliff B. talk about how the rifle and the chainsaw is like "chocolate cream and peanut butter combined", the epic games president raves about "how the entire game came together in the creation of this weapon yadda yadda circle jerk etc" - I feel like they are making pretty big promises for a weapon that's basically your standard shooter assault rifle and your doom1 chainsaw taped together.

    Of course, it is violent, something they were striving for during the entire development of the game, but I think that's a pretty weak argument to make it the trademark for your game.

    If you look at other games with plenty of arsenal, you also often have a weapon that stands out - but in most cases I feel like it deserves the attention because it's an original idea or because of the opportunities/tools it gives me as a player. Gravity gun in hl2, customizable weapons in call of duty 4, crysis that i can adapt to my playstyle/tactic etc.

    The rifle-chainsaw weapon in GoW is a neat gimmick, which had me giggle the first few times I used it, but then it bored me, because it was the same "run up to a guy, press the button, watch the animation" over and over again. It is this "Oh my god dude I like totally chainsawed that guy LOL" mentality which is fun for a while but kills your braincells when overdone. Apparently this doesn't stop the marketing people from MS to put this "chainsaw rifle" stamp on the entire franchise, which is why it is now in the teaser for GoW2!

    Maybe I'm going a bit overboard with this rant, but I got a cold and I'm lying on my couch right now and I got enough time on my hands to present my thoughts this thoroughly. Believe me, I played GoW, it's a highly enjoyable experience. It may not be the most intellectual experience you can get from a game, but which 1st/3rd person shooter is really? And at this they have done an excellent job, but why do they need to artificially dumb down the game so a 16 year old in Oklahoma picks up the game at Wal Mart to play it in his parent's basement, because "OMG it has that chainsaw move"? Because this way they think they can get the most money out of it.

    If publishers would present their games in a different light, who knows, they might even convince people that games aren't just for kids and nerds or promote violence!

  • EA to take over Take Two...?

    It can surely put a higher price tag on the company, as the take 2 chairman says himself (in regards to not entering any acquisition talks before april 29th/the gta4 release):

    Quote

    "We believe this offer demonstrated our commitment to pursuing all avenues to maximize stockholder value, while we believe that EA's refusal to entertain this path is evidence of their desire to acquire Take-Two at a significant discount, whereas we believe this value rightly belongs to our stockholders."

    All this acquisitioning and merging is getting worrysome...

  • Gears of War 2

    Quote from Cybbe

    Yeah, doing the same thing again with better tech is really shameful...

    lol BURN

    I'm not sure if you were actually implying something there, maybe Cybbe has better antennas for this than me, but good that we agree...I was more aiming at the entire marketing boiling down to the rifle-chainsaw combination though.

  • What Are You Playing '08 Thread

    Quote

    Most of the time I'm playing Call of Duty 4 multiplayer. It's got its good and bad points. If the community of players wasn't so deplorable I'd have far more happy memories of it though.

    Please elaborate! I play on one specific "hardcore" server most of the time and beside people constantly calling each other "n00b" it's pretty awesome. We just play "search and destroy" and some of the players on it play amazingly well. It really makes a difference what server you play on.

  • Britains yob/drinking culture

    I miss the flatrate parties...

    I repeteadly heard from English people, that they were amazed about how few fights they see in Germany at night. In bars, clubs or outside. Many middle/eastern and northern european countries have a reputation of drinking a lot and whereas the closing times might be part of the problem, I think it's also a cultural thing. I have no idea what it's like in Sweden, but the expectation to fight when being drunk seems to be a lot higher in Britain than in many other countries