Pixeldemon

@NTM said:

Oh crap! Dead Space 3 quick look... I hope they like it. Gahhhhhhh.

Brad's review will probably be up tonight or early tomorrow.

Dead Space was only really scary during the first encounter with a necromorph, when you're helpless and unarmed. After you learn the game's tricks, it ceases to be scary. However it does use tension and stress extremely well. It's a great action game in a great setting. I just don't buy into the "WAH it's not scary anymore!" arguments, because it was never really scary to begin with. It's always been an action game with a "horror" theme.

I understand your misgivings. On the bright side, there is theoretically a way that they could add co-op without destroying the solo experience. The question is, did they do it? Guess we'll know soon.

Patrick, the method you've used in Fire Emblem is more widely know as "save scumming". I think you are entitled to do whatever you want in a single-player game, but sometimes embracing a game's punishment ends up being more fun :).

However, for a permadeath-based game to work, it needs to give you a chance to recover. I have no idea if Fire Emblem does this.

@paulunga said:

@jewunit said:

Not Warren Spector! Where does he go from here?

Honestly, wherever he wants. He's Warren fucking Spector. He should join Ken Levine at Irrational and get to work on a new Thief.

Yeah, pretty much this. Spector has credits in some of the most loved games* of all time so it's a bit confusing that he sunk so much effort into this Epic Mickey stuff.

*Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief.

@MEATBALL said:

In 2011 it was Bulletstorm*, in 2012 it was Syndicate. In 2013 Fuse will be EA's high quality shooter developed by an external studio that they put out on the market to die in the first few months of the year. Then again it seems Insomniac really played ball and did everything I'm guessing EA asked - which is why we have Fuse rather than Overstrike, so maybe EA will put some marketing effort behind it.

(*well, EA did release a lot of trailers for Bulletstorm but they were horrendous and so half the internet were super angry about the game's existence and wrote it off :( )

(On that note, I know Fuse looks painfully generic compared to that original Overstrike trailer, but I really wish people wouldn't just write it off because of that. I'm sure it'll be a game of very high quality. Open your minds MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN)

Yeah, the promotion for Bulletstorm was a modern equivalent of "John Romero's about to make you his bitch." It was a really fun game though.

The number of people responding with anger, annoyance, or apathy to this article pretty much confirms the problem that the article is highlighting.

If you feel threatened by someone saying that a highly sexualized statue of a mutilated woman is sexist or representative of an undercurrent of misogyny in the community, then you need to grow up. This is not some radical agenda to tar all male game players with the sexist label. It is a response to an almost unthinkably stupid and insensitive marketing campaign that was dreamed up and approved by people working in the industry to appeal to what they perceive as their fans' tastes.

If there is no outcry, then this nonsense will keep happening over and over. If you are annoyed by the outcry, you should meditate on why you are annoyed. You don't have to participate in it if you don't want to, but it is pointless to hinder it with comments like "women gamers kill lots of virtual men all the time and don't care", as if these cases are similar in relevant ways.

@alibson said:

People flipping out about Deep Silver publishing a game where you smack people on the head with a giant pink dildo.

The hypocrisy is strong with these ones.

To be fair, a giant pink dildo is much more life-affirming than a butchered female torso statue.

Yep, this is definitely a video game related discussion.

@00 said:

Having properly funded and well regarded research on this subject can only be a good thing.

I think most of us know that violent media does not make you violent, but people that don't know anything about video games may not. Having science to back this up helps us.

Exactly this. A proper scientific study will support what gamers already know: violent games do not cause actual violence.

I have not played the high-Chaos ending, but I thought the low-Chaos play style and ending were very interesting for this reason: As Corvo you are essentially an unstoppable supernatural murder-machine, and yet you can choose to use restraint all throughout the game. Yes it IS unsatisfying, that is part of the point. Doing the right thing and not being a vengeful killer is hard. Many games botch the good/evil choice by making being "good" easier than being "bad". This is backwards, at least for people who are powerful. Being a complete scumbag in life is actually easier than being a good person, and this basic idea is reflected in the game mechanics. Yes it would be more fun to stab/shoot/explode everyone, and you CAN do that, but doing so is a corrupting experience that will impact the nature of the world (mainly just the ending, but that should be enough).

The story beats seemed deliberately low-impact, to the point that it approaches irony. In the final mission, you are on your way to deal with the people who betrayed you, only to find that Havlock has already killed the others with poison. He stole your thunder. The world ends not with a bang but with a whimper.

Emily, the future sovereign, has Corvo for a role model, and the implied difference between low-chaos and high-chaos is huge.