I like GTAMars better than the other GTAs because you can actually fuck shit up and there is a reason you're doing what you're doing. But I think the open world / sandbox thing needs to take a break. I think think anyone has nailed it since Vice City/San Andreas. I'm struggling through GTA IV, I'm at least 10 hours in and I don't give a fuck about any of the characters and it has no direction.
I felt much the same way. To me, GTA 4 was a technical achievement more than anything else. I don't think there is a more realistic or believable urban setting in any game before or since it came out. If you look at it as a digitized version of NYC that you can run amok in and terrorize and destroy it's an amazing thing and huge in terms of the area to explore. I love how there's hardly any wasted space. I liked to just drive around listening to the radio and check out the city design. I'd be hard pressed to think of a game that had a more visually interesting city. But as a game, what with the 20 hours of tutorial missions and the horrible relationship system, it fails. I hate that it made me feel like I should be devoting all this time to taking my cousin out but I just couldn't give a fuck. Once the entire city was unlocked and I had good weapons I kind of forgot about the story for a long time. San Andreas had a great story and characters but in the end you could just ignore it and do what you wanted, and the world had such varied geography it just felt more open. Sandbox is great if you do it right. Consider Minecraft. If GTA 4 had more elements of a true sandbox it'd be amazing. Like destructible environments, more vehicles and weapons, an even bigger map. As it is it tries to toe the line between that and a game with a strong narrative and it just falls slightly flat on both counts. But you know, it made a pile of money
Agreed. The resemblance of NYC, attention to detail, and incorporation of seemingly every demographic was remarkable. It also helped to know which neighborhoods contained what. If I wanted to steal a nice car and not some piece of shit, I'd go to Leftwood or Firefly Island. If I wanted to know where to find a hooker to kill for fun, I'd hit up Chase Point after dark. That's one thing I can say they did better than the Assassin's Creed games. In AC, every city in Italy or every district in Rome felt very much the same; in GTA4, each borough had its own unique flavor, so things weren't so homogenous. My favorite aspect of GTA4 was undoubtedly the radio. Sometimes, I would just flip stations and sit there listening to the commercials and talk radio programs. They're fucking brilliant. Easily one of the most overlooked parts of the game. Other than that, the story and characters (other than Niko) were terrible. Brucie was the worst. God, I fucking hated that prick.
My favorite part of GTAIV was Brucie. In retrospect it didnt have the depth of San Andreas, how they took a step back in gameplay but a step forward in detail is beyond me. Most of the side missions just seemed uninspired and like it has been mentioned, the friendship thing sucked donkey nuts. Were the expansion packs worth it? I barely cared enough to go back and finish the last mission of the original game after it froze mid-jump onto the helicopter (it screwed up the file and wasnt fixed until a patch came out later). That being said I wouldnt mind if they decided to release a new one. They still have a solid record and just need some minor tweaks back to their winning formula for a great game.
The final Rift open beta started yesterday. I've spent about six hours on the game now. -The class system is innovative and a delight to those who enjoy character customization. They have taken the blizzard talent trees and pushed the concept to the next level. Instead of 1 class, you get to choose 3, all within a certain archetype. For instance, I had a rogue that I started as a marksman, then added a second ranger class, then added a bard class. As I found myself playing I realized that I enjoyed the bard abilities and talents far more than the marksmen ones, so I just started building more points into the bard tree. I didn't even have to respec. And that's not all: You can save up to 3 "roles" at any time, and each role can have completely different classes and point specializations, as long as they are in the same archetype. So you could have a PvE role, a PvP role, and a farming role, for example. Moreover, they can be switched in and out of when not in combat with a 1.5s global cooldown. I truly believe this system is the future of mmo games of this type. -With that said, this system is a nightmare to balance in a heavily PvP-oriented game like rift. I've been doing some of the battlegrounds and found that even at mid-level (15, out of a 10-19 bracket) I was raping face vs. casters via my sustained dps and finishing abilities but getting 2-3 shotted by assassin and and tank heroes that got anywhere near me. It seems to take 3-4 dps'ers to provide any meaningful damage on a tank, and if there's a healer, there's literally no chance of bursting him down. This is typical in most games but the incredible damage output of most of the bruiser types makes it frustrating. -Quest centers are kind of like WoW-style minihubs. Instead of a hub where you go to get quests over 4-5 levels, there's one where you go for 1-2 levels then move on through this sort of linear narrative that reveals story background. I'm not much for mmo lore so I kind of just blew through it, but from what I did see the story is relatively lame. -The graphics are supposedly beautiful if you have the comp to run them on high. I don't. -Combat is fun and highly dynamic. Most of the abilities have pretty low cooldowns and I have twice as many abilities as on any other game I've played, even by level 15. Learning when to use the feats and talents in each of my three trees is difficult and produces a nice skill curve for pvp and pve. -Rift has taken Warhammer's public quest system and overhauled it to provide unique rewards. The public quests are also not confined to particular areas and are thus more spontaneous and exciting. When a "rift" opens, there are waves of several weaker mobs that pyramid toward the boss in about 5 waves. At least in beta, everyone comes running to finish quests that have to do with the rifts and to get the rewards, which are handed out via a contribution style method like Warhammer's keep sieges. Overall, I don't think this is the WoW killer. Only the very best computers are going to access the top-tier graphics and for everyone else they will resemble WoW or be only slightly better. The class system is cool but the difference between a Bard/Marksman/Ranger and a Marksman/Ranger/Nightblade is not as significant as the hype suggests. Definitely worth a download and play though, for no other reason than to keep up with the evolution of the industry. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.riftgame.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.riftgame.com</a>
Been playing a lot of NBA 2k11. Getting used to the shooting system, so I shoot a whopping 35% now. I've also been a LOT more careful with my passes. No long outlet passes at all. I wish the AI on my team would shoot and play defense like the AI for the CPU team though. My teammates miss a lot of fucking point blank shots.
Dragon Age II comes out right before my spring break. I officially know how I'll be spending every single day that week.
Note to self: When creating a character in an NBA game, never make that character a PG. If I keep playing this game, I'm going to be a full blown alcoholic.
Pick and Roll. All.God Damn. DAY. On the lower settings, you can basically spam the shit out of the computer with this and kill on the roll. The key is to not use the screen. Just sort of hesitate up top and wait for the roll, set up a decent angle, and dump it in. Every now and then, you can get a wide open midrange too.
Haha, trying being a 3 or 4 in that game. You either have to be a C or a SG. Otherwise it is a pain in the ass. At least you can call plays as a PG, but the whole grading system will fuck you over.
My PC is pretty beefy, and from what I remember playing the last beta briefly, the graphics were pretty impressive for an mmo. I'm probably going to play a bit of this one this weekend, and I'll play around with the graphics setting to see how high I can run them. I really like the way they are handling the classes in Rift, it gives you so much more freedom in how you want to play your character. Like you mentioned, though, I can see this system being hell to balance. That's one of the things that is so great about WoW (although there is a ton of bitching and whining to the contrary) is that their classes are for the most part balanced extremely well. I'm still playing WoW a lot right now, but this is one of the first mmo's to come around that has the potential to be really worth playing to me. Of course I'm about burned out on mmo's right now, so I may wait until the game has matured for a few months before I really give it a shot. What I need to do right now is finish AC:Brotherhood before Dragon Age II comes out.
I'm giving this Rift Online thing ago because its free and its here. I could never buy the game based on the fact the big bad guy is named...wait for it...wait for it...Regulos. Can't do it. Can't fucking do it. Terrible name.
My friends was able to get me a couple games for free at his work, since he's allowed 2 free rentals for working there, but he never uses them. So I got Borderlands and Mirror's Edge. I've heard mixed reviews about both.
Mirrors Edge has fucking amazing music and is unforgiving. I'm pissed about what they decided to do with the cutscenes, because they were going full CG at first, but then decided to do this retarded comic book style animation. The game is fun as shit, but is unforgiving, that was the main complaint. You had to do everything perfectly or you were going to lose. I just beat it just over a month ago and I felt great about it. I love the game, I love the idea behind it, and I wish they were officially working on a sequel. To follow up on P Stations Rift Online Review, he's mostly right. I haven't gotten into the PvP but the game has copied a lot from WoW and has improved on a lot. The game will fucking make you know, without a shadow of a doubt, it is an MMORPG. The world events that cause the world to turn dark and basically disable you from doing anything but participating are epic. I loved the experience, as it pulls everyone together no matter what. Having large groups of people roam the world to achieve whatever was pretty awesome. The concepts of the game are solid, if they can execute and get a respectable frame rate out of the game on medium setting, they have a solid fucking game. The only problem I have with the game is the fact the bad guys name is Regulos, which I think is retarded. The lore of the game is just dandy, it explains why you are technically special and starts off the game on a premise few other games execute well. They also set the game up for future factions and expansions to happen easily because the two factions of the game aren't the only two factions that control every single damn thing in the game. Will update more on this once the beta event is over.