seannao

Carver's motivation is all over the map.

The cutscenes all totally reek of "Oh yeah, Carver's here, too." or Carver awkwardly ambling onto the scene, or having scenes where Carver might possibly be wanting to protest a dramatic turn of events because a twist happens, but only Isaac speaks out.

The game was fun though, had a few technical problems on my friend's end (he was using some joypad program to make a PS3 controller work on the PC, but the hard-crashing rarely occurred until toward the end of the game, even crashed in the credits).

Flamethrowers attachments/mains seem pretty nuts for damage output.

Surprisingly, shotgun attachments/mains have been very useful for the majority of the game, moreso than the cutter was.

Will have to keep experimenting.

I have a feeling that odd combos like a Shotgun+stasis w/ ForceGun knockback or really *any gun* +stasis/ knock will end up being useful for Impossibleruns/solo-runs.

I feel like I fixated way too much on the marketing revolving around the drop in, drop out co-op and even some of Brad's mention of cutscene point of view, which to me, seemed mostly like "Oh and Carver's here, too" most of the time.

As a video game, it's solid, as a Dead Space game, it.. I dunno.. It's lacking the spooks.

If you don't mind sweet stuff, try a beer called WILD BLUE. It's a little on the expensive side, but it tastes pretty much like blueberries. They do other versions too like blackberry.

The last thing I had to drink was over Christmas. Some Bombay Gin and Tonics. Simple simple mixers are usually among the best. Pick up a few recipes that might appeal to you.

There are some bloody mary mixes that include things like cayenne pepper and barbeque sauce and they are *FANTASTIC* with a meat-heavy dinner.

TL;DR Version_> The win condition in either game is an illusion, Planetside 2's win conditions from holding Tech/Amp/Bio Bases and Continent-Locking need to be made to feel more meaningful to the winning faction.

BF3's pacing is a result of map design entering into the realm of vehicle balance, where in 1942 and BF2, were more open to the terror of vehicles. Ticket limiting put a distinct win condition per map. Planetside 2's map size causes ambushes to appear more often. Player count causes a lot of stalemates and prolonged battles that will endure for as long as the attackers or defenders maintain interest.

BF3 has bad leadership/teamwork functionality. PS2 provides a lot of it, but is still unintuitive to use and most of it is behind an unlock hurdle.

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BF3 fell short for me because of how they shed off a lot of the systems from BF2 and 2142, namely the commander system, and the how map design evolved following games like Battlefield Heroes and Bad Company, where vehicles were made to always move into claustrophobic areas, hilly areas around control points that were so advantageous to infantry that the only vehicle that could advance on them had better be in the sky or be relegated to long distance support.

Also... BF2: Spec Forces had some of the greatest ideas and it was sad not to see them return in BF3. Grappling hooks man. Map access and verticality. Amazing.

BF3 dropped in-squad chat and loads of squad functionality. This was the absolute biggest bummer for me. Back in BF2....Even in public games with complete strangers, I would scour the scoreboards for people to invite to my squad and play with, kick people out who wanted to go snipe somewhere on Wookie Mountain, and have people who were actually interested in playing together and having a good time. Even in defeat, a well fought battle would be a rewarding experience.

It could've benefited enormously from dynamic waypointing in the 3D HUD/3D Spotting System because quite frankly, the Q-Spotting system doesn't provide a simple way to tell your squadmates *persistently* that there's an enemy bad-man over there behind the cover because 1) Q-spotting has ADHD and fades out almost immediately. Bad Company solved it with their recon 007 spotting grenade. For me, as a player in BF2 and 2142, I would as a leader place an ATTACK HERE waypoint by staring at the location in the world, bringing up the communication rose, and selecting attack. POW. A permanent waypoint appears for my squad. Even if I don't speak, the Sword and Smoke and Waypoint might appear on their field of vision and catch their attention. If I keep doing it, it becomes a habit that makes them trust me and maybe a skill they'll take away later to enhance everyone's fun.

2142 made a mistake by only making the SquadLead's wp's reward points if they were control-point sensitive, which is miserable when it's more intelligent to use it for a variety of reasons instead of blindly charge the flag.

Does a game need a win condition?

Philosophically speaking: No. Looking at Battlefield and thinking about it, the conditions for a victory are much smaller.

However, the map resets and a new battle for the same territory is fought over and over again. Why is it upsetting to have that reality plainly shown to the player in Planetside 2, that the territories they're fighting over will not have ultimately been won?

The conditions for victory in Planetside 2 are very lackluster, with the majority of longer-time players saying that the continent ownership bonuses provided don't impact their game almost ever. The exception would be Indar's infantry bonus, and the hard-to-notice impact that holding your own bio/amp stations has on the course of battles (it typically doesn't impact it given that vehicles aren't affected by the loss of either). Even losing a Tech plant isn't a huge deal on most maps, nor is holding it.

So as the game continues to be developed, hopefully they'll have a wider array of bonuses to provide so that bases aren't seen as simple Cert Farms, and as tactically important, emotionally important.

@NTM:

I suppose you have to keep in mind that graphically from Cry 1 to Cry 2, the devs were quoted from their own press releases (videos I think) that they were hitting the ceiling constantly with console hardware.

I'm not sure what engine Cry 3 is running on opposed to Cry 2. It might just be a refinement of Cry2's engine. It might just be a consequence of their somewhat cut and dry, cold, mechanical, no-nonsense art design (except on the alien weapons and futuretech gimmick guns) but yeah, the pallet they're using is like. Urban. Chrome. Gunmetal. ... some laser sights here and there...

It's visually limited even though it doesn't have to be.

I imagine it is fairly indicative of the final game. You can look back at Crysis 2 and get a good impression of what to expect, I think anyway!

I probably will skip out on Crysis 3 since I already play Planetside 2 a whole heck of a lot and I wasn't too thrilled with Cry2's storytelling or multi.

LEVEL 1 FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The multiplayer is pretty pick-up-and-play. Not that much different from Crysis 2 so far except for some new, more intuitive suit perks and that they've separated the meters for Armor and Stealth instead of having them share the same meter.

Very fast paced and about the same "time to kill" as Cry2 MP. A lot more gimmick guns strewn about the levels you can pick up, even a GIANT STEEL PIPE. So that's actually a very good improvement! Always felt that the Cry2 MP was kinda stale from the lack of gun selection and having alien power weapons helps mix it up.

@Seppli:

Everything published on EA is gonna be on Origin now, I 'd guess... :( Sad.Face.

Also yes, it's on Origin. I'm downloading it at this moment.

The pre-order stuff is a lot of cosmetic things and multiplayer head-starts.

I imagine Battlefield 4 will have head-start packs, too, when the time comes.

@kadash299:

I have no idea. I guess not since that's what I was about to say.

It has red blood and the so-called muslim chanting in the Fire Temple and everything!

I've a friend or two to play the game with, and this will likely be the death knell game I'll play before minimizing my presence on Origin. Battlefield 3 was a huge let down for me and the way various things were handled by DICE throughout its lifespan doesn't really make me look forward to other titles that might've otherwise kept me on board the Origin boat.

Sadly, a lot of my doubts about Dead Space 3 stem entirely from it being hosted on Origin. It's an action horror game. I am legitimately interested in the story. What is sad, however, is that I am likely to not play the game's campaign multiple times. I just have way too many other games, a few of them multiplayer, to do over one of them "to 100%".