Icemael

When it comes to sitting behind cover and shooting, no game has done it as well as the old Gears of War games. Their cover shooting was and is without equal. If Gears 4 is outdated it's in its refusal to integrate cover shooting with other kinds of mechanics like platforming (e.g. Uncharted series, recent Tomb Raider games -- the single best example I know of is the part in the 2013 Tomb Raider when you're assaulted by countless soldiers in a huge area with a tall temple neighboured by a shanty town that's packed with multi-story buildings to climb, run through, hide in or jump between, as well as with ziplines and explosive barrels; it's by far the most complex and visionary third-person shooter level I've seen and makes everything else in that game and its sequel seem narrow-minded and pathetic in comparison), stealth (e.g. The Last of Us, Uncharted series, recent Tomb Raider games, recent Splinter Cell games, Metal Gear Solid V), melee fighting (e.g. Resident Evil 6, by far the most ambitious and groundbreaking game when it comes to the integration of shooting with melee, with a combat system that deserves to be picked up and refined by a better developer in a more focused game), high-speed dodging and dashing (e.g. Vanquish) etc.

The future of third-person shooting is a game that has you seamlessly and dynamically transitioning from MGSV-like stealth to Gears-like cover shooting to out-of-cover movement that combines Tomb Raider's climbing with Vanquish's dodging and boosting to melee fighting that's as integrated with the shooting as in RE6, all in a massive, complex environment in which you have to outmaneuver your enemies. In other words, the future of cover shooting is its integration into a more complete species of action game of which it will only be one small part. Those are the kinds of games we are moving towards and that's why Gears of War seems dated. The addition of a cover system to third-person shooting was a step in the direction of a more complete kind of action game back in 2006, but to take further steps in that direction you have to keep adding more systems -- which is exactly what other games have been doing for years (to varying degrees of success). Which is not to say that Gears of War 4 won't be good. I'm looking forward to playing it and won't be surprised if it's excellent. But an excellent Gears of War game that's more or less like the previous installments is inherently less impressive in 2016, not only because we've seen it before, but also because the formerly visionary concept of cover shooting has been made part of more expansive game design visions.

There is only one long-term solution and it's moving. If they were playing loud music in the middle of the night it might have been possible to complain and have them change their behavior (and risk getting thrown out if they don't), but with children and a dog there is nothing to be done.

Sound kind of like Limbo. And the fact that you get people saying "no you don't get it it's so simple it's an allegory for game development" and then others come along and say "no you don't get it it's so simple it's an allegory for social uprising" and then others yet come and say "no you don't get it it's so simple it's an allegory for abortion/the 2016 U.S. elections/the struggles of being a teenage girl/whatever" tells me that it's probably not an allegory for shit -- not in any meaningful or well-realized way, at least -- it's just a story that's vague and simple enough that you can imagine it to be an allegory for any number of things. Kind of like how if I threw paint at a wall you'd be able to see all kinds of figures in the splotches, not because I'm a super talented artist telling deep stories with my deep symbolism so allegorical man whoah, but because a splotch of paint is a big nothing on which you can consequently project anything. If the supposed value of a story is that I can sit down and imagine x number of different things that it could possibly be an allegory for and then feel smart about "getting it," then that's not a good story. It's a worthless story, a big nothing of a story. Animal Farm is a good allegorical story and guess what, you could appreciate it without even understanding that it's an allegory because it is quite simply an excellent story by an excellent writer with real talent and real skills.

The visuals look sort of cool so at least that's something.

Carbonated water tastes like death.

The beneficial effects of fluoride toothpaste have been documented in several scientific reviews, e.g. "Caries‐preventive effect of fluoride toothpaste: a systematic review" by S. Twetman et. al. It has also been shown that brushing with fluoride toothpaste twice a day is better than once. I'm pretty lax about it though and typically just brush once a day (and once or twice a week I end up not doing it at all due to my less than optimal sleep pattern).

Shampoo is not really a health product though (apart from specialized variants used to treat specific conditions, like anti-fungal shampoo), it's more about making your hair look and feel good. And from personal experience I find that my hair looks and feels significantly nicer when I don't use it at all. Doesn't smell either.

Define what is meant by "purest" in this context and it should become a very easy question to answer. Until then any discussion will just be rhetorical flexing.

@kyle_laflamamocha:Thanks! Really appreciate it!

Just played it. The environments don't look as good as in the 2D games, but nicer than I expected. The main character model isn't terrible either, though the animation could use some work for sure. Enemy models, on the other hand, just look plain bad (especially the boss, where not only the modeling but also the basic design itself is awful) -- and it's not just that they look bad on their own, but they have this really cartoonish shading that doesn't gel at all with the background art (the main character has that type of shading too, but somehow doesn't look as out of place). The movement feels fluid and responsive, so that's good, but combat feels a lot stiffer than in Order of Ecclesia. The fast, rhythmic attacks with the dual-wielded weapons in that game felt fantastic, and this is a big step back in that regard. And even aside from the lack of speed when attacking, hits just don't feel very impactful.

Not very impressed with this overall. The game will probably be decent, but there's a lot that could use improvement.

@kyle_laflamamocha: I'd love to try the demo out.

You can read any number of great books for free at the Project Gutenberg website. Alternatively, you could bring a physical book to read during downtime.

Having two bonfires close to each other after a boss (as in your example) makes perfect sense, because it lets you start from the beginning of the new area instead of walking from the room of the previous boss each time. It felt a bit weird at first because these games haven't done that before, but it's smart design.

That being said, there were times in III when I felt bonfires were a bit too close to each other. But in one respect I actually they didn't go far enough with bonfires -- I mean bonfires before bosses. Boss runs are one of the worst parts of these games. Running past enemies in an area is really easy when you know the layout, and having a 1-2 minute eventless jog to a boss every time you die is terrible game design. They might as well have a 2-minute load screen every time (that would actually be an improvement, because with a load screen I could do something else for a couple of minutes instead of sitting there holding forward on the analogue stick). It doesn't make the game more challenging or memorable, it's just shitty.