Zekhariah

@castiel: I'm a bit late to the party but.....

I think there is a large market of games that do come across as very European. While they have some popularity in the West, stuff from Piranha Bytes (Gothic/Risen franchises), CD PROJEKT Red (Witcher), EYE Divine Cybermancy, all the German style point and click adventure (Book of Unwritten Tales), and S.T.A.L.K.E.R / Day Z / Dead Island are all more oriented to those areas. Something like a Gothic 3 is entirely different from a Morrowind.

It might not seem that way because they verge pretty far into American tastes at times. But those games are much more the thing outside of what you would normally see out of EA type titles (aside from FIFA... definitely a Euro thing.....).

Edit: To be more specific, look at the sensibilities of the world in Witcher 2 or Risen 2 - especially relations between genders (for recent ones). The difficulty and intense focus on survival in STALKER (Chernobyl is a clear reference). Not to mention the art style and setting in the adventure games like Book of Unwritten Tales (Setting is clearly not early America). Or the general complexity and craziness with EYE Divine Cybermancy.

@shevar: Eh, enthusiast press is not really the same thing as journalism (kind of like AVWEB is to aviation). Not something to worry about. If your really concerned find a reviewer who kind of has tastes along the same lines as yourself.

@alexglass: People have different priorities for what they like. I'm not sure it matters that much in the grand scheme of things, but I know that 720p images look kind of dirty and blurred compared to 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. My preference for graphics is in terms of a crisp and clean look - I like the visuals of Quake II - in the KMQuake II replacement engine - rendered at 1080p over Killzone 2, Halo 4, and Remember Me on PS3 (as recently played examples).

Not that one preference is correct over another, but you will see different priorities - and because this is the internet you will see to much enthusiasm applied at times.

@jimmyfenix: Depends on your preferences in shooters. I went back to KZ2 recently as I was considering a shadowfall pre-order. My issues with 2 were:

1. Bad controls (unresponsive and slow once moving - See Space Marine for good "heavy" controls)

2. Really narrow field of view (it made me very motion sick, it feels like you are looking at the world through binoculars).

3. Dark (difficult to see what is going on in the scene, ended up running around areas pressed against the wall to find hallways you are supposed to go down).

4. Boring encounter design (Enemies mostly stay behind cover, wave based fighting, lacks any exciting action or stealth element).

It was probably seemed better in 2008/09. Kind of like Uncharted 1 in 2007.

It feels weird playing a game with such nice artwork, and a solid attempt at establishing a world and story.

But the combat is just, ugh. Did Capcom go to the developer and say "hey, we need these controls to feel laggier. Make sure the fights and environments lack any sense of place and action."

Mass Effect 4?

@luciddreams117: Just pick up the first Dark Souls. If nothing else you are only out $10-$20 dollars if you end up hating the gameplay vs. the $60 on II.

@CommanderGarrus: If you don't want to fight with anything just pick up a "X360 controller for windows" kit off newegg (it comes with a receiver to plug into the PC, etc).

Mice mostly meet whatever spec they have listed. Pick up something with 2400dpi or so sensitivity (I don't think more than that is particularly helpful vs. human capacity for precision). I'm pretty fond of the Gigabyte mice for decent ones at a lower price. E.g. this one is on at newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826146033. I think audio is more of a preference thing - I'm a bit of a Audio Technica fan for headphones, and Plantronics for headsets, but most of them are fine.

As an aside - I kind of wonder how many people are really weird ed out by seeing hard core gamer as a personal description. Not many hobbyists stick "hard" as a extra-emphasis for being an enthusiast in whatever they are into (e.g. hardcore dog show lady).

Big projects get delayed, and it is not unique to videogames (public work projects seem to have the worst time of it). My experience has been that schedules are picked assuming some level of resources, but other issues crop up on other projects leading to slightly fewer warm bodies than expected on the bigger item. Overt optimism can also be a pitfall, but that seems pretty rare with experienced people who know what they are aiming for.

Anyway - schedule items that are short term (or for videogames you are not a investor in or developer on) are not worth being worried about. I'm sure you'll get to play the sequels for those games (and maybe a couple clones) 1.5 year from now.

Maybe 20-30minutes in a week. I tend to like podcasts while I'm working, but I mostly do not care about most of the video stuff.