Posts by Alf-Life

  • Respawn Entertainment's - Titanfall

    Double jump/jetpack looks fun, I was a teeny bit disappointed when I saw the trailer, but holy shit the gameplay video was amazing!

    I wonder how the MP-SP thing will play though, Frontlines Fuel of War gave it a good go but it felt like it couldn't play to the scripted strength of an SP map nor to the replayability of pure MP.

  • Splinter Cell: Blacklist

    Yeah, I get what you're saying.

    I don't like to 'sneak past people', so my preference is non-lethal takedowns. DX3 was great for this - darts and melee takedowns are pretty much just mechanically replacements for 'shoot with a gun' or 'hold for brutal melee'.

    There were instances in Conviction when I'd go out of my way to hold someone hostage just so I could knock them out, because some of them seemed to be mere security guards, and I would've preferred the option to knock them out with a button-press rather than snapping their necks.

    One of my friends described his style as "lethal stealth" - he enjoyed playing DX3 with the silenced pistol. For me, that's the old Splinter Cell - maybe they did a good job of making the bad guys Really Evil, or I was just younger but playing lethal stealth didn't bother me as much as it does these days.

  • Splinter Cell: Blacklist

    Really nice!

    I just recently played through Conviction, and I really missed the ability to be non-lethal - I played through DX Human Revolution non-lethally first time through and it felt really satisfying... dunno if I'm just getting old though I vaguely remember having no issue snapping necks in Splinter Cell 1.

  • Batman Arkham Origins

    I'm sure this will be good, but I really am disappointed to see devs/pubs trying to replicate Activision's Call of Duty 2-dev leapfrog strategy of yearly releases.

    Maybe I'm naive but I would prefer devs to do what Naughty Dog has done with the move from Uncharted to Last of Us (they are still a largely 1-team studio with 2 smaller 'core' teams evolving the core concepts, aren't they?). Try to create two hit franchises and rotate them.

    Then again, I guess consumers needs to vote saturation with their wallets - I'm guilty of buying every COD, but I don't know how long before I pass on them. I read an Activision guy saying the numbers show COD isn't saturated despite what their critics say, but look at what happened to Guitar Hero.

  • Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

    Quote

    ' timestamp='1367693932' post='331280']

    Hopefully, this will open the eyes of publishers that developers ARE creative, and their creativity is at it's best when it's not monitored every day by suits.

    It's funny but all the innovation that [for lack of a better word] 'AA games used to bring' seems to be coming in the form of DLC and this which is pretty much a 'Total Conversion' and reminds me of the Quake/HL TC days.

    Same with COD; don't touch the golden SP Campaign, but feel free to create Spec Ops or Zombie Mode or whatever off to the side.

  • just a quick reminder

    I mentioned this just the other day at work when watching a colleague play the end (he never finished it... stopped at the Strider literally 10 minutes before the end). Wow.

    Funny thing that came up: back then, 4 hours of authentication problems; SimCity comes out nine years later: 4 days of server problems.

  • Bioshock Infinite - Spoilers thread

    Quote from PogoP

    One thing I thought was incredible, was when you see the Barbershop Quartet singing a Beach Boy's song. That's such an awesome nod to the idea of tears; it left me wondering why the hell they were singing a 60s hit in the 1910s... But of course, it all makes sense. Comstock obviously found a tear into the modern day, heard the song, and took it back with him. Really clever!

    There's a little floating building in Emporia with an audiolog that explains Someone Finkton (Finkton? Fink?), Finkton's brother basically used the tears to hear and take back music with him, and made a living out of it. Like a time-travelling Simon Cowell.

  • Bioshock Infinite - Spoilers thread

    Wow, just finished it about an hour ago. Got to the 3rd Deck of the airship very late last night and didn't want to sully the last hour or so by playing it too tired.

    Amazing game... phew, need to let the story wash over me.

    Steam says 19 hours, and I missed just 2 audiologs

    The structure was pretty strange (in a good way), more Arkham Asylum than Bioshock 1; I kept thinking I'd be able to come back to some areas later, but it seemed almost like a linear Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2 adventure. Also, despite being 20 hours (for me ) it felt really short, I guess because it didn't feel padded out at all. I also had trouble just saving and quitting as the level starts and ends were much less obvious than Bioshock 1's which were bookended by Bathysphere rides. But I thought that was a good thing.

    I did like the Emporia level as that was the only one that reminded me of the more hub-based Bioshock 1 levels - after clearing the square, before going to Comstock House I immediately explored the gardens, found the graveyard, and then went back to the [then empty] bank. I loved being able to explore 'later' areas out of order, for some reason I find it really immersive that the world is 'all there', did the same to the nth degree in Deus Ex 3.

    Speaking of Deus Ex (and Batman), I did like that the levels in this felt more like real places than the labyrinthine levels of Bioshock 1 and 2; the police station was just the main lobby, and a few side rooms... the shops in Emporia were just one or two rooms deep. Even the bank wasn't toooo "Tardis"-y.

    Back to the story; not really what I expected, but also kind of what I expected.

    Not the game's fault, but I completely forgot Daisy got stabbed by Liz and kept wondering what had happened to her. Cool scene, though with her stabbing Fink, I kind of expected that Fink WAS me, and I was all these different characters in different timelines. Was expecting to see that scene from the POV of Fink and get stabbed by Daisy.

    At one point, I think when I saw the first Booker audiolog, with his thin facial hair... I thought Damn... he's going to be Andrew Ryan! But I'm glad they didn't do that.

    The walk through Rapture was very nice, just very emotive... but I've been mulling it over and I kind of wish it had made more sense or had some hook into BS1's story than simply being fan-service.

    When I first saw the previews, with the Twins rowing you to shore, I thought of Shutter Island... then playing the Asylum I thought of Sucker Punch... then when she was talking about her mother's memories I was thinking of Cobb conjuring up his wife in Inception... I think I was expecting some 'it was all in his head' twist, like you were in an asylum all along; I guess the chair in the lighthouse being the same chair in the asylum was just asset re-use? :s

    /Unorganized Random 1am Thoughts

  • LawBreakers

    He reminds me of every annoying self-promoter I've met in this industry... you guys are crediting him with GoW but I've read articles where he was - for example - taken off developing the Cover system, etc

    ....but it's hard to hate because whenever I've heard him talk in interview or podcasts he does seem to know his stuff and even going back to Jazz Jackrabbit, you can see a good grasp of quality design.

  • Bioshock Infinite (Spoiler free thread)

    Late to the party with 2, I played it about a year after it came out - expecting it to be really bad. It was actually really really enjoyable!

    They tried to take small gameplay steps forward, I absolutely loved the Big Sister fights and the Defend gameplay of gathering, setting traps and whatnot. There were some killer maps, the Museum and

    Quote

    Playing as a Little Sister

    come to mind.

    There were also some awful maps later on which - moreso visually than gameplay-wise - just weren't up to par and felt rushed (Dionosys Park, I think?).

    I also didn't think the story was anywhere near as bad as people say, it was just in a better story's shadow. Lamb's whole story became more and more interesting but always felt like a tacked-on sidestory to Andrew Ryan's main event.

    MP also felt unnecessary - I can't remember who said it, but if you have a 20-30 hour SP campaign you don't need MP. If your SP is 5 hours, then your MP better be good.

    I played a few hours and it was more fun than I thought it would be, but I got frustrated by higher-level players being able to easily dominate moreso through the parks/Plasmids they had than what I perceived to be skill. But, like I said, it was a year or so after release that I played, so maybe the matchmaking was screwed because of fewer active players.

  • Moving to another country

    Having moved to three different countries in the last 6-7 years (none of which I spoke the language of prior (and post )-move), I can tell you that [once you get the job ] you have nothing to worry about - the HR people I've dealt with have always been tremendously helpful, and since there are always people in the same boat (or who recently were in the same boat) you can really get lots of information and help.

    I think in your particular case, what you have to consider is your family, which is a more personal matter. Can your partner work abroad? Does she want to? Do you want her to? Will she be happy there? Will you be able to afford it? These are only questions you (and she) can answer.

    What I can answer in that regard is that because there are so few games companies, most are internationally-staffed, and there are tons of living examples for almost all walks of life; with many examples of people (with even more complicated circumstances) who have already done what you want to do.