Posts by Taylor

  • Far Cry 2

    Console editors are always about throwing down some random assets and jumping into the game rather than complex editors for anoraks. It’s just not the medium to do that on. I imagine the PC version will get the whole shebang.

    And I assume imported of assets wouldn’t be allowed on the 360 version, because Microsoft wants to verify everything that gets on the console. Ex: UT3 on the PS3 allows all custom modifications and maps, while the 360 version does not allow user modifications at all and additional content needs to be approved by Microsoft first.

  • TF2 Pyro Update THIS WEEK!?!

    As suggested, I stopped playing after they started the updates. Maybe when the Heavy update comes I'll give it a try, and it'll all suddenly make sense.

    To be honest I never saw the Medic and Heavy as underplayed... But hey, lets leave it here. I can see myself being piled on by TF2 fans like a fatty tripping in a school corridor any minute now.

  • TF2 Pyro Update THIS WEEK!?!

    Quote from Thrik

    It was intentionally hyperbolic to get the kind of response I was after. You have to admit that such a vague comment is going to be perceived as trollish.From the sounds of it you like your games to be very routine, maybe even repetitive.

    I'm not quite sure where you got that impression. It is clear from all my prior replies on this subject, including those in this thread, why I don’t like the class updates and I decided to go for something short and sweet rather than reiterating why. Though I can see already, that I'm going to end up saying it all again.

    Quote

    Would you like TF2 more if it just remained the same and stale for several years? I personally loved it when loads of people started playing pyro after the pyro update, almost like reaching the last level in a single-player game where there's hard enemies everywhere.

    TF2 wasn’t in any danger of becoming stale before these updates and the original TFC remained fun for several years without any major overhauls to the classes. Secondly, if a team of Pyro’s is "harder" then there's balancing issues, though I'm assuming this is not the case and you’re trying to find the silver lining in the game turning homogeneous. You can argue that after the update has ‘calmed down’ and everyone is geared up the game is better, but arguing the weeks of chaos after each patch are positive is never going to convince me.

    Quote

    I'm personally very appreciative of how Valve are staggering the updates. Can you imagine the sheer chaos of logging on and there being 27 new weapons floating around? And can you imagine how overwhelming it'd be for newbies if they weren't restricted from the extra weapons until they've become somewhat adept at the class?

    Not staggering the updates is the worst thing about them, I’m surprised you think it’s impossible to release them all at once effectively given how overhauls are handled in other games (especially other "class" based genres, like RTS, RPG and MMO). The biggest advantage being people would stick with 'their' class.

    Newbies having some kind of information overload is moot, because newbies will still exist after these updates have finished and be faced with 27 weapons to learn – not that it’s a particularly high or scary number. They also have the pain of unlocking the gear, while missing the brief window where dicking about on servers to unlock them is actively encouraged. One of the strengths of TF2 was dumbing-down the TFC formula to make it accessible, this is why we don’t have grenades anymore. So it’s rather strange in the face of this philosophy they’ve decided to throw in a feature that completely alienates new players, and requires them to meet the time and effort requirement of comedy unachievable achievements to start playing the game properly.

  • TF2 Pyro Update THIS WEEK!?!

    As a statement “finest multiplayer experience ever” is about as bold as it is subjective, so I’m not going to bother tackling that loaded hyperbole. However, I would never dispute its status as a good game.

    It also has nothing to do with pride, either. I am simply glad I’ve missed the frustration of another class update and won’t be compelled to log onto a server with 19 other heavies taking turns to kill with taunts underwater. I was going to go into unnecessary detail again about why these staggered, achievement-driven updates are bad for a team-based, classed-based FPS, but it's evident it would ultimately just serve to troll.

  • How You Got Into The Industry

    I’ve heard so many horror stories from Climax...

    Every games industry job above a tester will claim it needs industry experience, honestly if they’re not specific about what experience is required (ex: 4 years as a designer, MMO experience, shipped 2 titles), it’s often fluff and you may have success anyway – especially with tangible modification experience. And yeah, if all else fails go in at the bottom and work your way up. I’ve seen testers join towards the end of a project, and move up the ladder quite rapidly. Just realise that you won’t be bumped up automatically, and still need to promote yourself internally (where it’s much easier).

    My parents have always been supportive of working in the industry, but if I’d wanted to tarmac drive-ways for a living they’d probably be behind me all the way.

  • World War III anyone?

    This conflict hasn’t really been given much coverage all things considered. I’m always reminded of Stewart Lee’s darkly amusing commentary on the 9/11 attacks, where he was in Spain and didn’t know where they had taken place. I can’t find a good clip, so go from 8:20-9:14 of this one, if you care (seems a bit superfluous to use the youtube tags for this one, though).

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Quote from Mazy

    stuff!

    I was just surprised at the amount of rage my hardcore fighter buddies were putting out. Maybe it’s just they expected to steamroll over me, because they’ve played street fighter to a tournament level and I play that unmanly Guilty Gear

    I play Amy (duh, gothic loli with drills?) and my initial perception was she and the other fast characters had the advantage. However, at a higher level of play I don’t think this is true, her B&B is pretty predictable, all her significant specials but the rush are reactive to the opponent, and doing them wrong gets you launched or worse. Kilik and Cervantes are actually the two characters I have the most trouble with because they're so good at keeping me at range and rushing them is pretty stupid.

    The problem seems to be the characters move slowly, mashing is too viable and the blocking system is nonsensical. Where a move hits and where a move hits usually makes no sense at all, by which I mean it’s not rare for the animations to look like its hitting low when it needs to be blocked high, and vice versa. As a character that increasingly needs to learn enemy attack chains and punish them, it’s getting rather annoying.

    The character creation stuff is defiantely cool (probably spent just as much time in there as online), it looks very nice and soul calibur was never competitive anyway... so all-in-all it’s pretty solid in my book. It’s a pity you have the 360 version, or we could rumble

  • US WoW Players

    I played TBC beta and got the Warlock Imp nerfed...

    Quote from PogoP

    Why would you even want to play the beta? It would practically ruin the expansion for you on release...

    What's there to ruin? You get the experience before most players, and a heads-up on the quests/mobs/locations for the upcoming 96 hour grind.

  • What have you purchased recently?

    If I had Yoda in my copy I'd happy pay money for DLC that removed him.

    I don't want to derail this thread, but what's your opinion on the game? I enjoy it, but some of my friends who are really into fighting games get absolutely livid playing it. The fast characters seem to dominate pretty darn hard whenever we play - but I guess it's early days right now.

  • RAGE

    What id game has excessive levels of gore? Splashing a bit of red around (giant blood spurts, gibbing) is not very damning to a games rating, you typically have to incorporate levels or realism, torture or sadism before the rating folk bump you to adult.

  • THQ knows how to market a game

    It’s clear it was to cause a stir and the contents are attractive to the average gamer. Like I said in my previous post, it seems like the marketing stunt has been successful. My point wasn’t so much that it was ‘silly’ because it didn’t work, but ‘silly’ because it makes a very easy target for every ignorant politician, parent, news outlet and crazy fundamentalist looking to tarnish the gaming industry. And it doesn’t matter how tongue-in-cheek it may have been, people claim games responsible for murder, rape, reading dysfunction, apathy, blasphemy etc. and now they’re advertising games with porn stars...

    I don’t want to come across that I’m outraged; it was more of a verbal sigh at how irresponsible it was.