Posts by Furyo

  • Top games of the last 10 years?

    In no particular order, my own top games since 2001 goes something like this: (I expect they will be your run of the mill picks)

    Half-Life 2

    Left 4 Dead

    Portal 2

    God of War I through III

    Uncharted 2

    Assassin's Creed 2

    Shadow of the Colossus/Ico

    Darksiders

    GTA Vice City

    Mass Effect

    Bioshock

    Batman Arkham City

    Guitar Hero II

    Deus Ex HR

    Might be forgetting a few now, but that's the jist of it

  • Batman: Arkham City shots

    So I'm guessing this wasn't at the top of everyone's list this year? This thread never really picked up and faded in oblivion rather fast.

    I'm finishing up the riddler's quest now, having already finished the game's story. I've really enjoyed this game a lot, not noticeably more than the first game mind you, but I found that everything they added in was neatly tied together and thought through. Catwoman plays very well considering she'd only be an afterthought of an NPC in many other games, the riddler challenges are tense and greatly varied, but a nice new mechanic comes in to reveal their location a la Assassin's Creed. Navigation is flawless for Batman, they really nailed the controls and cameras.

    Has no one played it here then? (I'm running behind on every other game, Uncharted 3 is not even mine yet, no BF3, no Skyrim with my crappy PC, etc)

  • Steam Forums Hacked

    Don't worry about anything Steam related except your credit card activity possibly. No Steam accounts were compromised.

    The main risk is if you were a Steam forums user and used the same password on other websites. You should change those.

  • Steam Forums Hacked

    As a side note from the regular conversation happening in this forum, please heed Valve's advice as follows:

    November 10th, 2011

    Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

    Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

    We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

    We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

    While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

    We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

    We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

    I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

    Gabe.

  • State of Game Design 2011

    I had to look that one up on Youtube cause I frankly couldn't remember it.... And what I saw was nicely tied together, but from a gameplay standpoint it was your run of the mill 3 strikes combat like every single boss fight Nintendo seems to make. And since everyone copies the big N in that field....

    1) Introduce structure weakness (i.e. means to kill Vlad) + the need to dodge projectiles via opening cutscene : Check

    2) Show where to shoot by having a strong contrast between the metal structure and the hinges : Check

    3) First Strike: Shoot 4 hinges that stand out (they are far apart) : Check

    4) Second Strike: Now that you've shown you've learned what to do, do it again but this time with a little more precision: Closer together, the contrast disappears : Check

    5) Third Strike: Now that the boss is exposed, please have fun and enjoy putting that last bullet in his brain : Check

    6) Conclusion: Enjoy the final cutscene that brings resolution to the entire game/chapter : Check

    If it was Nintendo, the only thing different would have been the precision would have been brought by having the enemy move more quickly or further in the environment (i.e. the spider boss or Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time for instance) and you would have gotten a Heart Fragment while watching the body disintegrate because "blood is against our family values"

  • State of Game Design 2011

    I think Laurent hit the nail on the head for the most part, with the first assumption that "gamers don't want innovation" being a way too large brush stroke that, as they do, overgeneralizes things.

    For my part, I think gamers love innovation as long as that doesn't imply input and otherwise gameplay mechanics. They love to be SHOWN new things, but not to have to LEARN new methods. i.e.: Click in a shooter, gun shoots. Click in Portal, gun shoots, portal opens. Or Minecraft: Click to bash a shovel and destroy blocks is a given. Mastering the tool bench is more akin to "Hey guys, how do I make xxx" on teamspeak than anything else.

    Gamers, and players since he makes that distinction want to enjoy their experience by playing it rather than learning it. And we designers need to provide ways for them to learn things without ever taking them outside of their playful mind. Playful education. Valve are widely known as the very best in that field.

    Back on original topic:

    I'd like for the industry to master, if possible, the art of camera placement in third person games vs environment design. We've had everything from high above the hero to the shoulder cam and the boot cam while running in Gears. My issue with it is a matter of scale. It seems to me than in a few games, Arkham City comes to mind, designers are changing cameras during production without taking into consideration the scale of their environment, and end up with rooms and spaces too small for the camera to properly display the immediate surroundings of the main character and the different gameplay options offered to the player. It doesn't help that we no longer allow for cameras to enter geometry.

  • What are you playing now?

    Just started playing SotC HD, defeated 3 colossi so far. Can't say that the 3rd brought anything the first 2 had not covered mechanics wise, so I didn't feel like continuing on to the 4th...then I went out and got myself Arkham City finally. I think I'll start on this now...

  • Rainbow Six: Patriots

    It's a cool PR move, congrats for that. As for what was shown...it's a very narrow line to tread between obnoxious BS that offends people and culturally relevant controversial subjects. I fear all of the controversy will be so watered down by Ubisoft after Walmart and Best Buy see this that they'll cut to the chase and go BOOM-explosions-everywhere-how-awesometastic-was-that. Because at the heart of this is precisely the point. If you want controversy, you need to build up to it. You need to explain why it's controversial, and take your time to have your player expect certain behaviours and then surprise them. Which goes almost entirely against action and intense gameplay where number of inputs and things happening on the screen take precedence.

    Knowing how Ubisoft works and how certain topics are absolute no-go due to the visions of some of the key people in the organization, I can see a huge plot twist getting turned sideways 1 month before release and fucking all the tension out too...