Posts by Puddy

Beck: Word! You cannot hold your hand near the gaps surrounding the cylinder. Gas WILL escape! Anyhow, now it's time for...

Battle Rifles/Heavy Assault Rifles/Designated Marksman Rifles (take your pick)

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From left to right: FN FAL --- SCAR H --- M14 --- Dragunov (american copy)

What I learned: These guns, which fire full rifle cartridges (7.62×51mm NATO for the first three and 7.62×54mmR for the Dragunov), pack a seeeerious punch. Getting quick follow-up shots is much harder as the sights jump up quite a bit after each shot, much more so than regular assault rifles. Some of these weapons support full-auto, but you need to be an experienced shooter to control it and even then you will likely opt to stay in semi-auto. Most of these weapons are older and were designed in the 50's and 60's, which is noticeable as a lot of the sights, mag-release buttons, levers and/or handles are a bit clunky and don't have that modern touch. The exception here is the SCAR H which is very user-friendly and is pretty much a beefed up M4. The way games portray these weapons hit the mark for the most part, except perhaps in some games where their full-auto mode is a bit too controllable.

Review: Of this batch, my favourites are the the SCAR and the Dragunov. The SCAR works really well because it's a modern rifle and it just feels right at home in your hands. The Dragunov is an AK-derivative that is remarkably timeless and I thought it handled well. The M14 was pretty nice too, but the reload is a bit trickier, I like it's character though. I absolutely hated the FN FAL as it had the most annoying iron sights I've tried (which were hard to even use when you were wearing hearing protection) and the reload, safety and fire selection felt really clunky and outdated.

Okay, while I'm digesting my lunch I'll get to part 2:

Assault Rifles[/b]

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From left to right: M4 (tested with ironsights, red dot and ACOG) --- IMI Tavor (red dot) --- Steyr Aug (red dot)

What I learned: Assault Rifles are really, really easy to fire. The weight and ergonomics of the weapon help you to keep it lined up and helps control the recoil. Of the three rifles above, the two on the right, the Tavor and the Aug, are bullpup assault rifles. This means that the magazine/firing mechanism is behind the trigger, which leads to a shorter and more compact weapon (without sacrificing barrel length). You instantly realize that ergonomically, this is not ideal. The weapon becomes rear-heavy and very clunky if you want to hold it with one hand (during a reload for example). Furthermore, reloads are slowed down cause the magazine is a bit awkwardly placed near your armpit. More knowledgeable firearm experts have the same sentiment. In game balance terms, bullpups should probably be balanced to be better at being more maneuverable and accurate (compact size with long barrel) with their weakness being reload speed primarily.

Review: The M4 has to be one of the best weapons ergonomically that I have tried. It is very easy to grip and aim with and reloads are super-smooth. I tried aiming using iron sights, a red dot sight and the ACOG sight. The red dot sight made it incredibly fast to aim the weapon and get a clear target picture. The ACOG, which is a scope, was incredible easy to use. You did not have to try and find the "sweetspot" where things aren't blurry, you immediately found it and saw everything crystal clear. Of the bullpups I was more impressed with the Steyr AUG. It was pretty comfy to use even if the magazine was a bit clunky to load - but it wasn't too bad (the Tavor was terrible). Oh, and the fucking recoil on the AUG. It was very peculiar. It wasn't a sharp, jerky recoil but more of a smooth movement that was very easy to control. It was very, very strange and everyone who tried it commented on it.

More coming!

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Oh hey there! Didn't see you come in. So you want to spread freedom? Well, you came to right place. I wanted to spread freedom too, so I went to a gun club with a few of my coworkers while I was in America. Here are my weapon reviews. In all seriousness, a lot of us make action games and it was actually really helpful to handle a few guns in real life. I can definitely recommend it - even if you are like me and don't necessarily want to make "realistic" games. I'll start with a handgun review and get back with the heavier artillery later. :cool:

Handguns

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From start to finish: P226 --- Glock 19 --- Beretta 92FS --- CZ75 --- S&W 357 Magnum --- Colt .45 Variant (don't know exactly... what am I, some nerd?)

What I learned: Handguns are much, much harder to fire accurately compared to rifles. A pistol is held in front of you and it is up to you as a shooter to keep it steady and pointed straight (easier said than done - you'd be surprised). In a lot of games, the iron sights of a pistol are just glued to the center of the screen - even when moving. If I designed handgun mechanics I would consider putting more emphasis on weapon sway (similar to Last of Us) and maybe include an option to hold breath - which is usually reserved for sniper rifles in games.

Review: Most of the pistols were very similar in how they handled. There are a few subtle differences. The Glock, which uses a plastic weapon slide where the other handguns have a metal one, had a very jerky kick after each shot - it was easy to get back on target though. The 357 revolver was a lot of fun to fire but you were reminded that revolvers are highly impractical, with a low capacity and slow reload (reload animations for revolvers in games are consistent and fast, something I think is hard to do in real life and under pressure). My absolute favourite was the Colt .45, it just felt right. It had an easily-loaded magazine, but only holds 7 rounds. The kick was hard but manageable.

I'll be back with: Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles and Other Weapons!

Sniper pun

Give me the key

You should do something way smaller first, without a team. One step at a time. Good luck!

I should prob buy this for my PS4...

I wanna see it a third time here in the states, in Imax. But no showings.

I played a good bit of PS1 and the strength/weakness balance seems the same here. Second to second shooting is bland as hell because of lag/gun feeling but the macro scale battles and pushes can be epic as hell (running in a group of 20-30 troops is fucking amazeballs).

I will be in Overkills Walking Dead booth in west hall entrance, swing by!

Played some helldivers tonight and I was just really tired. Played with 3 random russians and I just started smiling uncontrollably when they called in 4 mechs (one for me too!) and we just ripped everything that attempted to thwart our extraction attempt. Our enemies didnt even manage to come onscreen most of the time. :p

Ah. Good times.

Like I wrote on PogoP's facebook, I find it a bit weird that the two leads are straight out of Interstellar. There's enough talented actors to go around in Hollywood and I feel that bringing in some fresh faces would prevent the massive and collective Deja Vu this movie will cause.

Can be a cool movie though but I skipped the second half of the trailer and I'm now gonna wait for reviews.

Kinda tempted to get the controller but I don't feel like it's urgent. I'm pretty happy gaming on my PS4 for now.

Just rewatched this again last night in a private cinema, was pretty epic. It's still very strong as a journey and an experience, but I found the plot to be even more problematic this time around. But damn, you almost forget about that shit and just enjoyed the spectacle. Overall though, Interstellar will go down in my personal movie history as a flawed film. But it's way stronger than the sum of it's parts.

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If the post-"cooper going into the black hole" part of the film was more elegantly handled I think it could've gone much further as a film. But yeah, I dunno. Also... The sequence starting from when Dr Mann betrays cooper until they succesfully dock with the endurance after matching it's rotation... must be the most butt-clenching exhilariting shit in the last 5 years of cinema.

Quote from Mazy

It's cool, but I wonder if they'll make exceptions for games that are actually under 2 hours long.

Yeah, a colleague of mine actually thought about this. How long is Dear Esther for example? That's kind of close to home cause it was made by a corebro.

Snake enemies are genetically modified probably. Not a species as such.

Quote from Sentura

Disadvantage: The money you spent goes into the steam system. You'll never get your money back, only "store credit"

Not true! You can get refunded to your credit card. I've already tried this.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/2/8711723/steam-refunds

Good move, I dare say! Valve probably figured that they could stack their money higher than Mount Everest and figured it was okay to allow a few refunds.

Mazy, I agree with you a bit on this. It's a very powerful premise to take control of Xcom on the verge of alien takeover and overcoming the odds of that etc. I guess they wanted to make a continuation and not a repeat. I mean, even if they tried making the second game about a new alien invasion, the "innocence" of humanity would be sort of lost and we would already have really cool guns etc. And a complete reboot might be a bit soon.

I kind of like their approach though. This kind of conspiratorial takeover of earth by the aliens is exactly the kind of premise you expect to find in a story involving "greys" (the kind of alien that sectoids look like). So I'm pretty optimistic right now.

Also... IT'S XCOM2!!!!!!!!!!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Looks interesting but the name is waaay too close to de_overgrown.