Trenox

DooM

And in more recent times: Rage (visuals), Bioshock Infinite ending, Broken Age act1 ending.

The Human Revolution trailer is one of my all time favs so this one had a lot to live up to and its largely repeating a lot of the same beats, because why fix what is not broken. However this one doesnt do it for me in the same way. Its simply a bit too cheesy and over the top. No weight in the action at all which the original had sadly. But it still looks promising and really well done overall.

My feelings on the game however is that we will largely get the same game as human revolution but with amped up gfx and improved mechanics. HR was super janky even for its time. But the main problem with HR was that the game was very limited in scope and didnt present a large believable world like the trailers would suggest. This made the upgrade system make very little sense because you didnt have a game world to really express your character outside a few tacked on special cases. I fear this will be the case again with such heavy emphasis on story and graphics. My hope is that Cyberpunk 2077 can give me the experience i really want rather than a souped up AAA ride. But i hope im wrong about Mankind Divided!

Quick, someone make a joke about how this will cause Konami phantom pains

So this is what it looks like when Hollywood disappears up its own ass?

I remember vividly playing the unreal tournament demo for a month and then the quake3 demo hit and i never looked back. But i also did prefer quake before then. You have way superior flow/movement in quake - in unreal i feel i lose momentum and doesn't get the same flowing rhythm.

The weapon load out for quake 3 is still the best for competitive imo. I can understand why some would prefer unreals double weapon functionality and its a nice gimmick but honestly not much more than that. it also introduces some overlap in functionality. Quakes weapons are so clean in their design and each has its specific use in different combat situations. Even the default weapons are sometimes the strongest. Unreal suffers a bit from its single player legacy and doesnt really commit to the idea of competitive mp IMO.

They wont announce any games im sure.. and dont even begin to mention HL3 that train has left the station along time ago..

When they announce games it will be multiplayer only. Nothing else makes sense for them.

It is incredible ignorant to suggest that because reviewers didnt love the narrative in the Order they should then hate all other narrative driven games by default.

The whole ordeal with the game being short began before it was even out. Since people hadn't played the game yet it was the only concrete thing they could latch on to when trying to gauge it. So this became the center of the discussion. Fair or not.

People then finally got the game and played it and were largely disappointed. Blaming the length is very easy and quantifiable parameter to point out. Honestly i dont think length matters as much as people make it out to be. The game has other and bigger problems it seems. If the game play had been amazing, the story had been interesting, emotional and well paced I doubt people would complain this much (or even at all) about length.

My take aways from this so far:

1 - The piece by RPS has the journalistic integrity of a tabloid magazine.

2 - Theres a fine line between being "a dreamer" and a conman and giving PM a free pass because he seems likeable sets a scary precedence that needs to be acknowledged.

3 - Developers on Kickstarter should never make stretch goal promises about huge game changing features (such as multiplayer).

4 - Backers on Kickstarter should be more knowledgeable about whats realistically achievable as goals down the line.

5 - Kickstarter should have more transparency about the real budget of a project vs the developer goal. If the point of Kickstarter is to avoid publisher intervention and make the games "for the gamers" this double dipping need to end.

6 - Alex' tweet has the added meta commentary that it makes the assumption PM will do more interviews thus breaking his promise not to do more interviews. Well played!

7 - On one hand i feel bad for Peter because i know how difficult it is to make a game but at the same time developers need to treat Kickstarter with more respect and not look at it as "free money/marketing" up for grabs. This is your base and your biggest fans. Dont fuck it up.

Narratives in games work best when it creates a meaningful context for the game play (what am i doing in the game and why?). Narrative for the sake of narrative (telling of a plot) often results in a futile exercise that gets in the way of me playing the game. Sure, the story and characters can be compelling by themselves but what happens during cut scenes is that im no longer playing a game - im now watching a movie - and often not a very good one. Trying to spice it up with "press X to do stuff" makes me feel like om just going through the motions of the game. There's no agency in pressing X. The order seems to have visuals of 2015 but game design from around 2008. Trying to pull this off with a brand new IP that seems to lack any real USPs (unique selling points) is setting themselves up for failure IMO.

The order really leaves my puzzled as to why these devs are even in games and not just making a movie - except for the fact that it would never get green lit as a movie in the current studio environment, but thats a whole different issue.

When people try and defend these narration heavy games they usually come up two positive examples: Naughty dog games and Tell tale games.

Naughty Dog are more or less the the ones that developed and refined this sort of game design to the point where everyone wanted to be like them. They were/are the Pixar of tripple A. Problem is that not every studio has the same amount of talent and ethos of ND or Pixar. ND knows that in order to pull these games off you need main characters that are likeable, universal and relatable. The get the human element right. You also need to balance the story telling carefully with exciting gameplay and balance it out so the player doesnt burn out on either. They have been masters of pacing their games ever since Crash Bandicoot where they developed rythmes for "how much stuff should the player do before a break". Basically they understand why it works and others try to imitate them and fail. Yes the NDgames are more heavy on narration than i personally like but i can respect them for their craft and effort and its no a surprise they have succes.

Tell tale are in a different ball game completely. Ive enjoyed the walking dead despite it being all about narrative and almost no mechanical game play. However when they DO introduce game play its designed to convey tension for the scene your in. Their games are borderline movies but are very upfront about it. they dont have any action sections just to pad the game.

Now back to the Order: From what Ive seen of the game it seems to lack everything that make the ND games work. their characters doesnt seem likeable universal or relatable. I have no reason to believe this game will achieve any emotional connection with the audience what so ever. They seem to pad the game with soulless shooting shooting and pressing of X for the heck of it. The art looks crisp,realistic and expensive but also dry and uninteresting and uninspired.

Now i could be totally wrong about the Order and its GOTY.. But it sure aint the last of us.