@dudeglove: Geralt has an American accent because main character. All the witchers too have American accents, and Dandelion most likely has one as well, especially evident with his narrator voice.
From what I've seen, the planets don't look to be planet sized. Maybe 10 miles in diameter at the most. That's still friggin' huge for a video game world, ignoring the fact that there's a gajillion more just like it.
@devil240z: There's nothing wrong with posting your thoughts and knowledge about a game in a forum. There's no binary choice between "regurgitate what the press chruns out" and "keep silent". Even if your thoughts turn out to be wrong or misguided, they still came from something and people can relate or debate it. Providing others a link or two to relative coverage is always a much better strategy than telling people to "google it". Telling others to inform themselves with coverage that you don't think is verifiable yourself won't impress anybody.
At the end of the day, it's likely that many of these people posting about their uncertainty about what the game is about are likely saying in disguise "I don't know what the game is about, but I'll find out on release day when it matters."
@devil240z: Then they're posting such thoughts into a forum like the Giant Bomb forums in hopes that a fellow user would deal out such information because they trust a Giant Bomb user more than they trust the devs and press. The legwork isn't in finding the coverage; it's in trusting it. In a risk-averse world, many people would rather wait and see if a game is any good than research everything an unreleased game has offered only to find out that the game isn't good after release. If they're looking for game coverage from a freaking forum, they want your thoughts, not others'!
@christoffer: The "procedurally generated universe" thing has been done before No Man's Sky was even a thing. Space Engine is a program (made by one guy) where you can go into space and land on randomized planets and --mostly you take photos of pretty landscapes--. It's not nearly as sophisticated as No Man's Sky looks to be, but the underlying framework isn't far-fetched these days.
@devil240z:It's easy for us crazy people to miss, but most people don't really follow games coverage. They might look at what's going on at E3 or PAX (if they attend), but other than that they aren't checking every day to see if there's something new out related to a certain game. The coverage that a game receives more than a month before release is for fans of the medium, like us.
Most console or pc gamers look at a trailer or two and then either wait for reviews to come out or look at a youtube video of somebody other than developers or press playing it before making purchasing decisions on games. We may be dedicated (and some of us more than others), but most people aren't willing to spend time searching for coverage and/or discussing about video games far before they're released.
Smash Bros is a good idea, I'd say. Everybody knows what Nintendo is, and the design of the game is such that anybody could start jumping around and hitting people.
Anything you pick that is instantly easy to pick up and play would be fine. Keyword is 'instantly'.
Ultimately I'd choose frame rate, but that depends on how consistent it is. If a game runs below 60, but it doesn't ever dip or rise sharply, then it's fine. A consistent 45 is better than a 60 that stutters down to 50 frequently. In those cases, I'd choose frame rate in a heartbeat.
I always run games fullscreen, so dropping resolution isn't a good idea for me. I'll drop whatever effects it takes to achieve 60 if need be.
Of the ones I've seen, Europa Europa stands out to me. All the awful shit Solek goes through and lucks out on is so memorable and sad, and it's that much more mesmerizing that much of it actually happened.
Might be too late. Even if it is just a rumor, the PR damage has been done.
The PR damage was done a long time ago when Tom's Hardware and PC Magazine consistently sided with Nvidia in all of their results, which led to most gamers purchasing Nvidia (and Intel, for that matter) products over AMD/ATI, despite much greater cost, so that they could have that extra 1% of performance boost.
My suggestion to the OP is that if they are really concerned about market competition that they vote with their wallets, as simple concern over having a healthy market is not enough to ensure a healthy market. For my part, all of my PCs run AMD hardware and will continue to do so. We have far too many oligarchies/monopolies in the tech world these days...
Spending money on the weaker of the two gpu oligopoly companies also isn't enough to ensure a healthy market. An oligopoly is an oligopoly no matter where your money goes. If more people decide they want to buy Nvidia products than AMD products, then whatever. Supporting the underdog for the underdog's sake is a strategy only employed by fanboys with too much money lying around. That's not real competition. If you want to play your part as a consumer, you either buy something that you think will be good enough for you or you don't buy anything at all. In the world of market capitalism, sometimes not voting is more powerful than voting at all.
Oligopolies can be a shit-show, but they're probably the ultimate option in a high-cost industry like computer hardware. We've got oligopolies in car manufacturing, cell phones, and airplane manufacturing, but that's okay because these industries are extremely competitive. The gpu industry is also very competitive, which is why we should worry when something goes wrong at AMD. The onus to restore AMD to a better, more competitive state, however, should not be on the consumer. It's AMD's job to get AMD back on track, and if they fail and go out of business then in time some other company will challenge Nvidia's monopoly and arguably do a much better job at it.
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