Tedious.   

To be fair that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game, just that it appeals to a very specific demographic (not me).  There is only a story in the very loosest definition, basically there is a big evil thing, kill all these smaller things so you are strong enough to kill the big thing.

Playing solo you are going to spend between 20 minutes and an hour fighting a single monster.

In a way I would say it has a similar appeal to that of the Dark Souls games with a similar, although maybe not quite as bad, difficulty/learning curve.  If that sounds like your thing it might be worth delving into, otherwise I would give it a pass.

Do you ever get the ability to jump higher?  I see lots of blocks that I probably COULD get to if I wanted to work for it but I’ve held off because it seems like something that might happen soon.

Weather is interesting but it’s not quite right yet.  Part of the problem is caused by other problems in the game (See pathing is terrible).  In one game I played I had my tank roll over my fire pit going backwards instead of heading forwards like I had asked.  As a result my infantry started to freeze to death because I couldn’t rebuild it.  There are talks about adding other sources of heat, like use a Flamer to light a tree (or tank) on fire for warmth until it burns out.

This makes weather sound more of a hassle rather than adding anything fun to the gameplay. is it?

I actually do like it because it offers some new strategic elements but right now the implementation is a bit clunky.  One of my favorite additions in the game is ice over rivers.  When frozen, tanks and infantry can drive over it but a well-placed explosive or artillery barrage will collapse the ice and sink the tanks.  I’ve taken to planting TNT on ice wherever there is heavy traffic.

That said there are a number of ways they can improve weather, they just need to pick one and carry through with it.

Also, there are summer maps as well as winter so you don't always need to use the same tactics.

I’m also in the beta (12 hours of experience so far); some of the writer’s statements are blatantly incorrect.  The game actually supports 4v4, so 8 players at once.  

The zoom level is also perfectly fine in my opinion.  There is a world zoom option that defaults to 133% for me for whatever reason.  I turned that off, maybe he did not.

The game IS overwhelming.  You will be at least three games in before you have any idea what you’re doing.  Even now there are some things that I don’t know how they work or which unit is better in a situation but that is standard for any Relic RTS.  

Some legitimate complaints:

Vehicle pathing is terrible.  This was bad in DoW2 but they somehow made it worse here.  This is supposed to be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Weather is interesting but it’s not quite right yet.  Part of the problem is caused by other problems in the game (See pathing is terrible).  In one game I played I had my tank roll over my fire pit going backwards instead of heading forwards like I had asked.  As a result my infantry started to freeze to death because I couldn’t rebuild it.  There are talks about adding other sources of heat, like use a Flamer to light a tree (or tank) on fire for warmth until it burns out.

If the system has been designed to operate only with a network/Internet connection you can't just change that in a month or so.

Unless you’re Simcity, in which case you just need to alter one line of code.  

The rumors seem to imply that that it is just a programmed cutoff time.  If that is the case it would be possible to remove it or at the very least extend it.  The only reason I can think that that wouldn’t be the case is if MS did something where part of the game or OS is actually streamed to the user.

[Spoiler]

Speaking of the Lutece siblings:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I kept waiting for an explanation that they are, in fact, the same person.  IIRC, most of the vox tapes referenced only one of them for a long time. I'm missing 3 tapes, so it's entirely possible that I missed it.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I believe the missing tapes you are looking for are in the Lutece Lab.  If I recall there were two there.  One explains what the Luteces are and the other explains a bit more about the relationship between Sir and Lady Comstock.  The lab is more or less across the road from the graveyard.

I don’t think the gore has to do with trying to be mature so much as giving the player a clear cut representation of combat.  Gore as used in Infinite makes the combat feel more responsive.  If a person’s head explodes you know instantly that they are dead and you can switch targets.  It may only be a couple seconds different but it’s enough to change the flow and feel of combat.  This is actually something that bothers me in FPS that don’t use some form of damage modeling.

You should be able to purchase from any computer with internet access.  You can have your copy of Steam on as many computers as you want as long as you are only signed into one of them at a time.

[Luigis Mansion: Dark Moon]

Strangely enough: Luigis Mansion: Dark Moon.
Runner up: Bioshock: Infinite.

Biggest Disappointment: The Cave.

Yep, level in the 2nd area is also a time attack.  I found all the Boos through normal exploration but I agree, I wouldn't go out of my way for it.

I’m about half way through now and still having a blast.  This has really taken me by surprise and is now probably my favorite game on the system. 

I can also confirm that getting all the “Boo” ghost in one game hub will unlock an extra mission in that area.

Monster Hunter, Lego City, and in Japan they had a new Dragon Quest.

The left mouse button controls the weapon in your right hand because that makes perfect sense.  Oh, unless you're using an X-Box 360 controller, in which case it's the right trigger.  These fucktarts really put the "irrational" in "Irrational Games!"

That is actually a legitimate complaint I have.  It seems like every FPS in the last few years that allows duel wielding has done it.  Thankfully, it’s easy to remap.

WiiU actually had a shockingly good upswing last week.  In one week they apparently doubled the amount of units sold since launch.  Amazing what happens when you actually release games on a new console. 

People buy something other than crispy strips at KFC?  Learn something new every day!

As for the Voice Actor:
I for one can not remember the voice from the Thief title i played on the Xbox 1(Deadly Shadows),but as someone who is upset from no David Hayter in MGSV,i can certainly understand why people are upset by it

Garrets original background. A bit more of his original voice.

No focus on multiplayer is very good news.

Stupid excuse from Eidos, but I still don't think it's that big of a deal.  The amount of internet handwringing and "OMG they've RUINED the Thief series!" seems awfully silly to me, but to each their own.

A large part of it is that Garret was not an anonymous protagonist.  His personality made the game just as much as the stealthy game play did.  Actually, I would say even more so since Thief3 already saw a departure from elements of the originals (not for the better in my opinion) and Russell’s performance played a large role in holding it together.

Now Thief 4 might be a great game on its own merits but a lot of what they have shown so far points it as a very different feeling game and a different feeling protagonist.  This begs the question, why set it in the Thief universe at all?  And if you are determined to for marketing reasons, why not just choose a new protagonist altogether and maybe give Garrett a cameo?

Stupid excuse from Eidos, but I still don't think it's that big of a deal.  The amount of internet handwringing and "OMG they've RUINED the Thief series!" seems awfully silly to me, but to each their own.

Ok, Gratch gets the Garrett voice actor that sounds like the Hamburglar.

Eidos explains reason for new voice actor.  

Web/graphic designer.  SEO Specialist. Blogger.  Animator. Other random crap my office makes me do...

This is what I meant by graphics problems. 


Character models look fine (aside from the weird head/shoulder clipping thing that occurs on occasion) but if you look at the edges of any of the scenery there is an obvious lack of antialiasing going on.  The size of your TV is going to make a huge difference here, you can see them in the screen shot but on a 60 inch TV they are huge.

Part of the problem with the game pad is the pace of the game.  In ZombiU having the map there was perfect because it was a slow paced game and it functioned as a motion tracker as well.  Here if you look down at the map while driving you’re probably going to drive into something.  A mini map on the screen would actually have served better in this case.   

Also, with the touch pad they have nearly unlimited access to buttons and yet the game reuses the same buttons on the controller to do multiple things.  That’s just a missed opportunity. 

Just something that displays in the lab.  Video spoiler.

Also, apparently if you find all the Boos you get a bonus mission.

Finally downloaded my copy.  That…took a while on wireless. 

Gameplay is fun but nothing spectacular.  I’m a little disappointed with the usage of the WiiU pad.  At this point I compare everything to ZombiU which used the pad perfectly but here it feels more tacked on than useful.  On that note, the scanning mini game is annoying.

Humor is good in a corny slapstick sort of way.  I’ve found myself laughing a number of times already.  Graphics are actually a lot worse than I was expecting.  On my 60inch TV the jaggies are VERY noticeable, more so than in any other WiiU game I’ve played. 

On the whole though it seems solid enough.

Not horrible…but not Thief. 

I don't think there really is a benefit.  If you collect all the gems you get a Luigi statue.  Not worth the trouble in my opinion.

Unfortunately, that is correct.  Most missions can be completed in about 15 minutes so I haven't run into any problems so far but that is a definite weakness of the game.

War for the Overworld: The Democorn.

_{I kind of want them to put it in the game for real now...}

I think gems on the auction house ruined the game more than anything else for my group of regulars.  One of my friends would just buy a huge stack of flawless gems and hand them out to us.  They were so cheap and common that we never even bothered to recover them from an item before selling it.  They also made crappy items with sockets better than any of the named items we found in the game.

1075-0742-5539

I'm willing to give it a try.  My only experience with multiplayer on the 3DS was a few rounds of Mario Kart against random people though...

-Added you as a friend-

Oh and I guess the new Wii U "pro" controller is like this too. Well, Nintendo used to understand this anyway.

Eh?  The WiiU pro is like a 360 with the right side inverted.  It's actually pretty comfy.

Just finished the game.  I stand by my complaints but the last third of the game is brilliant enough that I would still recommend the game whole heartedly. 

The tonal shifts that occur around the halfway point make me wonder if they went with the intro section as it was because they were afraid of scaring people off.  The Patriotic ideology really doesn’t fit with the rest of the game and if they had gone with a pure religious tone I think the game would have been stronger for it.

I had actually been expecting the ending revelation for quite a while.  They still handled it in a clever and satisfying fashion so high marks to them for that.

Are you dead set on a 360?  This seems like an odd time to be picking one up.  Even if you don’t care about next gen the price of the system is bound to drop in a few months.  My personal opinion is also that the PS3 beats the 360 in almost every way.

As for the size, mine has a 120GB and it’s about half full from light usage and the occasional downloadable game.  If you intend to use the marketplace at all I would go with the larger hard drive.  The price difference isn’t much and you never regret having too much space but if you ever run out you will be kicking yourself.

Looks like the closed beta will start next week.

I know I’m overthinking an Independence Day sequel but wasn’t the point of the aliens in the first one that they are like locust and move their entire civilization from planet to planet, use everything up, then move on?  If we committed mass genocide on their race who is responding to the distress call? 

Backed.  I was really looking forward to this one. 

I picked this up during the $30 sale.  Only made it through one mission but my first impressions are very good!  My only real complaint isn’t the games fault so much as the system and that is the number of jaggies on characters and the environment is a bit distracting.  Zelda did something where turning off the 3D applied a sort of anti-aliasing that I wish they had done here.

That is a very minor complaint though; if you own a 3DS go buy this now!

just out of curiosity, are you using the 'alternative' post processing setting?  I hear that one is screwing up the details on close-up objects.

That one I'm not sure.  Will have to look into it when I get done with work today.

I'm not using alternative and some of the textures are pretty bad.  The roses are a good example.  It's like 95% beautiful and 5% bad.

Running at Ultra Settings, 2560x1440 resolution.

I didn't have alternative turned on but I was curious what it would do so I just tried turning it on. Doing so broke even more textures!  The door texture next to where I was standing wouldn't have looked out of place in a 10 year old game.

Actually, I remember news about a tasting robot  that reported that humans taste like pork...

just out of curiosity, are you using the 'alternative' post processing setting?  I hear that one is screwing up the details on close-up objects.

That one I'm not sure.  Will have to look into it when I get done with work today.

[Spoiler]

L9, do you have everything set on ultra? Because while the rosebushes while I'm playing aren't high detail, they definitely look better than that.

Yep, just doubled checked and everything is set to ultra.  Certain things just seem to have really crappy textures. 

Another shot of the rare and blurry Pixel Roses.  Open the image full screen for the full effect.

Spoiler for Hiden: