Posts by Serenius

90th century. Well done, Google.

Couldn't you port your maps to Source? How different is it from Goldsrc?

I kid, I kid. This actually isn't so bad. I love the dev textures for everything. Decided to start with Half Life 2 since Portal 2 seems to require a fair amount of Hammer knowledge before jumping in.

WTB English translation.

Downloaded Infamous and Dead Nation. Who knows when I'll have time to play them though.

Quote from Bunglo

I've been wanting to learn Hammer and get familiar with the source engine for some time now, what would you guys recommend I focus on? Aside from the obvious of learning how the editor works. My goal at the moment is to make basic maps with it and eventually throw my own content in it. I'm comfortable with the UDK and CE2 but as an aspiring environment artist, I've never focused on making maps in them, just getting my art in engine and setting up materials, lighting, etc.Hopefully the question isn't too vague. Perhaps a better way to rephrase it, knowing what you know now, what do you all wish you learned when you first started?

After sitting down with it this weekend and stumbling through how instances work (or more accurately - do NOT work), I'd recommend heavy drinking.

Unfortunately the game doesn't really hit its stride until about 3-4 hours in. It's like they put the majority of effort into the middle and the beginning was a little lackluster. Too bad for the devs since most people won't give it enough time to really shine.

Quote from Bunglo

Why don't they just release the demo publicly instead of pulling this gimmick bullshit!!!

Builds hype and pre-order sales. Gearbox ain't no slouch when it comes to the hype machine.

At Quakecon they demoed all 3 versions simultaneously. The PC version really shows off the megatextures way better than the 360 version, which is what you see in all these videos.

Alright, about 6 hours in and I just completed a massive, 4 hour dungeon crawl. I haven't been that satisfied with exploring the depths beneath the surface since the Deep Roads in Dragon Age Origins (good thing!).

I was rewarded with this outdoor area, sporting a rather scenic view. Yes, the graphic quality of the game seems to get better the further along you get.

Also, I haven't had this much difficulty in putting a game down and going to bed since God of War 3. You know a game is fucking fun when your wife has to remind you to go take a smoke break.

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Don't worry guys, they'll inherit a chunk of next year's Call of Duty game and push this one back again.

Alright, so I spent about 3 hours with this game tonight, and here are my initial impressions.

Keep in mind I started the game on the highest initial available difficulty (there's an unlockable harder difficulty), and I've spent most of the game playing as the melee fighter, Craddoc.

Gameplay:

1) Melee combat is very God of War-ish. You have light and heavy attacks, and can block with a shield (that eventually breaks). I don't recommend this style of play unless you have some kind of dual analog stick game controller (I have a wired 360 one). Melee combat with the mouse and keyboard feels really wonky, but melee combat with a gamepad feels natural.

2) Ranged combat (playing as the female Elf) is very Gears of War-ish. It's not quite as polished and smooth as Gears' game play, but it's a step up from Mass Effect 1 or 2. I didn't experiment with this mode of play much yet, but since you can switch characters at several points per level, I'm sure I'll try it out more later.

3) Overall, the game play is very fun. It's not quite up to par with either God of War or Gears of War, but certainly better than a number of other similar titles out there to either archetype.

Presentation:

1) I love the art style and how they actually do get the "dark fantasy" feel right (whereas Dragon Age just uses fantasy and calls it dark). The color palette generally strays from your standard orange/blue or red/teal lighting schemes, so you're in for some pretty unique visuals here.

2) Graphics and sound quality are very inconsistent. The intro area looks horrible (noisy textures galore), but the graphics quickly improve as you move into the meat of the campaign. You can tell there's good design work behind the visuals at a high level, but on close inspection, it's obvious they don't have the best artists in the industry. I'm ok with this though! Only major gripe I have here is that there are a lot of times when it's just too goddamn dark to see!

3) Story seems a little average at a high level, but the banter between the two characters has been good enough to keep me chuckling regularly. They put a nice twist on what could have been stereotypical character design by making the brutish guy the cool-headed thinker, and the elf female archer the brash, impatient fool.

4) No major issues with enemy or ally AI thus far. Both characters seem to behave properly when playing solo. No real issues with enemy AI outside of one spawning area that bad dudes where getting stuck on.

5) Music is above average, but hasn't jumped out and grabbed me by the ears yet. It's good enough to not notice as a detriment.

I have yet to play coop, but the game seems pretty well-designed for a true cooperative system where you are reliant on each character's abilities from what I've experienced in solo play so far.

Haven't tried playing with the built-in dungeon editor yet, but I can tell there will be a big investment of campaign play to unlock everything and really dig into it.

tl;dr - So far I'm really liking it.

Quote from D3ads

OHMYFUCKINGGODYESYESYES!

I agree with the sentiments relayed by the quoted poster.

I just hope the game play is as good as the visuals and atmosphere this time.

Oh, and release an editor, you bastards!

Makes me very glad that I only care about SP content, although I'm sure this will be another 6 hour hit it and quit it campaign.

I just saw a review on MetaCritic stating they give you the option to build your own levels.

This one didn't get a lot of marketing attention, but was my personal best of show from QuakeCon last year. Looks like a cross of God of War and Gears of War with a dark medieval setting.

Love the art style of this game, especially the color palette selection in the media releases they've done so far.

For the console haters, it's available on PC as well. Going to pick up my copy today!

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Maybe it's a corporate America thing, but any positions that aren't customer service or bottom-tier entry level positions require more than 40 hours a week. Just going up one rung in the ladder from where I am ups the amount of time spent working from 40 hours to 60-80 hours. The guys at the top are pretty much always in work mode unless they're on vacation. With that in mind, I'd happily work crunch any time it was asked for if it meant making games instead of something far less gratifying.

Quote from Campaignjunkie

Serenius: I like that the car didn't go through the gate, even though I would've thought it would. I don't quite understand why the button on the roof would make the gas station explode -- and if the explosion was enough to destroy those strong-looking metal props, why it didn't blow a hole through the ground and such either.

Between the pipes and the turbine on the roof, I was hoping to clearly convey that pressing the button turned on the flow of gasoline. Unfortunately, the gas spraying out of the pipe by the burning car was covered by the smoke from the fires particles and I didn't have time to fix it for the final submission (was out of town all weekend). The lack of a crater in the ground was also purely from lack of time to meet the deadline.

Quote from Mr. Happy

serenius - nice progression, I like how you tricked the player a couple times as to what would happen when doing the different actions. Also the cans are a nice cue that you need to kick the car.

Thanks! That was what I was hoping for. Also, you were way too hard on MrHappy. I thought he did a good job!

Quote from bluedude86

Serenius, maybe this is what you were going for but I felt more frustrated that everything kept falling short of blowing that door up (and I so wanted that door to blow up). If this is what you intended, great job! It was awesome that Marcus Fenix, a badass locust fighter, couldn't open a door.

Frustration was definitely not the goal - comedy was. Especially with the deadpan way the propane tank fell out and the gate fell at the end with a simple nudge after all the dramatic events.

Whoa!

Really enjoyed this competition, and there are some great entries here. Some thoughts on my favorite entries here.

• [*:245vz8p7]bluedude86 - The Door: Loved the Prey-style playing with gravity you used here. I was also a fan of the mini-story going on this one (

Quote

especially the part where you commit suicide by completing the puzzle

). The puzzle to open the door wasn't too difficult to figure out, but figuring out how to actually get through the door was quite the challenge. Good job!
[*:245vz8p7]insta - Decoy: Hilarious as always, dude! I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when the trick to open the door actually worked.
[*:245vz8p7]CampaignJunkie - Secret Mission: This was the most unique entry. The "meta-style" game of physically setting up the scripting to solve the puzzle as the player was awesome and incredibly creative!
[*:245vz8p7]Puddy - This is really dope! You not only made a fun door puzzle, but created a good-sized level complete with story and a custom dialog system. I was afraid of getting lost trying to figure this out on my own with how large the level was, but you put enough clues in to keep that from happening. The atmosphere you managed to create without adding complex visuals was also most excellent. Put some art detailing on this, and it would be an awesome portfolio piece! If you were to expand on the idea and make it a standalone game/TC, it would be excellent.
[*:245vz8p7]Chimeray - The Vault: This one was pretty damn funny, and a great twist on the idea by letting the player walk right through the door with no real problems from the onset, but then adding in a tense sequence to try to get back OUT through the door.
[*:245vz8p7]Soleval - The Door: This one was surprisingly amazing, as the screenshot really doesn't do this level justice. Download and play it, or at least watch the video. I loved how you mixed elements of God of War/Tomb Raider with the block puzzles, Geared, and first-person platforming. The art style had a great vibe to it, and the atmosphere was very chilling (a nice contrast to the pleasant starting area). If you turned this into a standalone game, I'd play the hell out of it.
[*:245vz8p7]JamesKing3d - Daedalus' Revenge: This one had a great God of War feel to it, and I can definitely see the influence from the Sisters of Fate palace in this one. Really cool custom effect with the ice melting!