Video game news and reaction

[Agent 333]

Beat the Portal 2 Co-op campaign with a friend of mine. I liked it, though the end was a bit anti-climactic.

After, we played a bunch of the new Mortal Kombat. Seems like a decent fighting game. Similar in feel to MK vs DCU, but on a 2-D fighting arena. Teleporters (notably Scorpion and Smoke), as usual, have a huge advantage, at least when it's me & my friends playing, not sure about in the grand scheme of things.

[Crafty_Pat]

Call of the Dead trailer: Full respect.

[Nepenthe]

Mass Effect 3 postponed to q1 2012

Impersonal analysis: They want to make sure everything is tip top after the da2 brouhaha.

Personal comment: FUCK!

[foproy]

i don't mind, i have to many games coming out this year.

[TheTSKoala]

http://www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com/

Zombies, Turn Based, X-COM-esque.  Indy.  Hmm...

[VisualStatic]

Mass Effect 3 postponed to q1 2012

Impersonal analysis: They want to make sure everything is tip top after the da2 brouhaha.

Personal comment: FUCK!

That or one of the following:
1) they are pulling guys over to SWTOR to get it finished
2)they don't want the competition between the two properties having them come out about the same time. Alot of speculation timing might be an issue with Bioware doing both and both are slated for about the same time.

Just my 2 cents.

[MilitiaJim]

Those Mass Effect 3 hypothesis are not mutually exclusive...

[VisualStatic]

Those Mass Effect 3 hypothesis are not mutually exclusive...

I give it 60% timing, 40% polish.

[vardeman]

http://www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com/

Zombies, Turn Based, X-COM-esque.  Indy.  Hmm...

What's not to like?  I'm looking foward to this!

V

[Nepenthe]

Mass Effect 3 postponed to q1 2012

Impersonal analysis: They want to make sure everything is tip top after the da2 brouhaha.

Personal comment: FUCK!

That or one of the following:
1) they are pulling guys over to SWTOR to get it finished
2)they don't want the competition between the two properties having them come out about the same time. Alot of speculation timing might be an issue with Bioware doing both and both are slated for about the same time.

Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, I'd let myself forget SWTOR (since they still don't have a native OS X client announced, and there is no way I'm getting involved with an MMO that requires me to boot to a different OS every time I want to play it).

My annoyance is mostly due to the fact I need to stay another term at the uni, and I'd managed to console myself with "at least I can take 2 weeks off to play me3 and nobody will notice" for the past few weeks.

[MilitiaJim]

I can't call myself a diehard, in spite of playing 1, 2 & Tactics.  I may not qualify for enjoying Tactics.  But I think Obsidian did a great job, and kept the tone very very right.

I enjoyed Tactics as well, even if I was vastly irritated by Ma Deuce's inability to hit a super mutant through a corrugated metal wall.

The "departures" from canon were not bad, but they needed a better engine, one that could destruct the scenery at least.  Why must I go around a fence when I have dynamite?

How much would you pay to have Fallout 1 and/or 2 built on the New Vegas engine?

[glimmerrat]

Now, I may be behind the times on this, since I picked it for £10 in the supermarket, but has anyone here played Alpha Protocol?

It just SCREAMS spycraft.

[Nepenthe]

Now, I may be behind the times on this, since I picked it for £10 in the supermarket, but has anyone here played Alpha Protocol?

It just SCREAMS spycraft.

Yes. It was discussed here back before it came out, but due to the lacklustre reviews it got, it was mostly forgotten. It's a lot better than the 6s it got, a flawed gem like pretty much all Obsidian games.

[Antilles]

AP is pretty awesome, yeah. It also very replayable, since all the little choices actually matter. Like if you consistently use one reply for half the game, and then greet a character with a different reply, they'll comment on how you're not what they were expecting. Or that characters will react to how you're dressed, like if you show up to a meeting in combat gear they'll think you're a gun-ho cowboy american and so on. And the ending... you can play the game five different times and the ending plays out differently each time.

[Crafty_Pat]

AP is pretty awesome, yeah. It also very replayable, since all the little choices actually matter. Like if you consistently use one reply for half the game, and then greet a character with a different reply, they'll comment on how you're not what they were expecting. Or that characters will react to how you're dressed, like if you show up to a meeting in combat gear they'll think you're a gun-ho cowboy american and so on. And the ending... you can play the game five different times and the ending plays out differently each time.

Yup. Played it roughly 2.5 times, partly to score all the Achievements (except hardcore - which I never bother with anymore), but mostly to dissect the narrative stream. It's a really interesting case study, as its development economy is extremely frugal for a story with so much variety. They got a lot of mileage out of reusing certain content in several slightly different contexts, and it's not something the average gamer will notice unless they're hyper-attentive to these sorts of things (like I am) or intentionally digging in with this in mind (as I did).

The dialog choices are also interesting in that they don't follow the traditional pattern of altruism-ambivalence-self-interest, but rather portray three (modern) espionage archetypes: Bond (flair), Bourne (professionalism), and Bauer (aggression). The happiest side-effect of this is not IMO genre emulation (though the game succeeds pretty well on that front as well). It's that conversations flow much more naturally than in most (read: nearly any other) video games, and the conscious choice to demand a steady stream of responses from the player - which initially seemed punitive to me - was clearly made to support this.

AP is indeed one of our inspirations for Spycraft Third Edition, though I wouldn't put it in the top third, primarily because the lessons it teaches don't translate incredibly well to the analog medium. That said, I do expect to apply some of the narrative highlights to.... a little something new we have planned for the brand.