Video Game Thread #4 - Summer 2005

http://i.walmart.com/i/p/00/72/26/74/70/0072267470000_215X215.jpg

Has anyone played this game? Because it sounds AMAZING.

...Forget about the big-beat techno music that used to permeate SSX, that is so 90s. This year it's all about rock n' roll or as EA put it - "becoming a black diamond rockstar."

EA has yet to nail down the licensed tracks is it will be using but expect an assortment featuring the new stars of rock and roll along with some hip hop tracks...

http://ps2.ign.com/objects/681/681173.html

I just threw up in my mouth.

So. Should I get an xbox/ps2 or should I wait for the next-gens?

then wait for the new consoles to be out at least a year, so enough quality titles are there, and so that even the new consoles are available at used prices.

We were too busy competing for the "Master of Obscure Batman Trivia" title to remember to argue about Star Wars.

mount and blade: http://www.taleworlds.com/

KATAMARI DAMACY!

In other news, I stalled out on the pirate ship stage of Fire Emblem and haven't picked up the DS since Ally moved in. Where do I go to find a decent looking desk for less than $$$$?

It IS a small internet after all.

I'll give you a clue, it's San Andreas.

Errr... Ikea maybe? What do you mean by "decent looking"?

Also, Double Fine is hiring, which is always a good sign.

Am interested in playing Metronome, that game sounds very interesting. Battling people using sound as weapons!

i'm not moving to SF, either. PDX is fine for me.

http://img228.echo.cx/img228/4093/dogen7fj.gif

???

It's pretty interesting (=life destroying) to me right now. How does the PvP improve things? I always figured that it made guilds more of a neccesity, because if you can't go out to Ashenvale without getting youur head stepped on, then you'll need some backup for your party.

also, the boss battle with the theater critic is just hilarious.

That's pretty much it; the contested areas are CRAZY with the ganking and ambushing. Also, thanks to said ganking and ambushing there's much more of an incentive to level (hence me doing my first complete Deadmines run on the PvP server).

I've also discovered the the crafting professions are completely gimped when compared to the supplying professions. My PvP warrior is a lvl 21 skinner/miner and before I drop 10g on a blue two-handed axe last night, I was sitting on 25g that had been generated with very little effort (skin/mine/instance/AH). Also, zipping through the lowbie areas and skinning everything there is good for at least 1g per run.

also, the mental baggage scenes are cute and kinda creepy.

Psychonauts sounds vaguely entertaining.
Is anything else good on the horizon? Ever?
Am I the only person interested in turn-based tactical crap like Front Mission or FFTA or Phantom Brave etc.?

Back to reading thesis papers on Gamasutra.

also, the G4tv video that was shot at E3 is equally hilarious. Especially when they send some little clueless pneumatic blonde to interview the guys at Lucasarts' E3 booth.

DAY-yamn!

FARRRK dont start me on the representation of women in and around the industry argh. If I see one more ATI Radeon card ad, or online RPG game, with a chick with enormous knockers and unfeasibly small garments, I will scream. Bitch, please. Theres plenty of women gamers out there, and we would like to see some cool looking normal women in our games k thx bye.

oh yeah, and have we mentioned the chick who'd best be described as "gamer slut/camwhore" that IGN found? She doesn't know jack shit about anything beyond really superficial gaming matters, but, like, she TOTALLY licks a PSP!

it's even in the fuckin' headline: She does exist... a gorgeous woman who loves videogames, manga, anime and licks the PSP!

http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1952

it's some gameplay vid from japanese TV

I have yet to play the first one, after selling my PS2 to another ilxor last summer.

since they'll all be GTA/Max Payne clones, and are movie-licenses, smart money is on "not much."

i mean, i think the problem with some of these games is that the majority of the money gets poured into the licensing elements at the cost of gameplay and design; they'll put up the dosh to get Marlon Brando in there, but they will only have minimal focus on the actual "game" part. This is why licensed titles suck the ass. The companies that can afford the license tend to expect the titles to turn a profit on the license alone, and all that other shit ain't necessary.

i mean, Vice City did pretty much anything the Scarface game could ever do; will the added superficial elements("Look! You're actually PLAYING Scarface! Here comes a character that actually looks like Robert Loggia!") cover the hole in enjoyment from not having a top or even competent gamedev work on the thing?

They'll all look VERY pretty, no doubt. And have all the proper music/voice acting/etc. The superficial elements will be represented more than adequately.

I'd favor The Warriors as having the best chance at being worthwhile, but i wouldn't put money on any of 'em. More than likely, all three titles will wind up somewhere in the range of "enh" to "not too bad; i played like half of it before i got bored."

but hey, weirder shit has happened...

and who doesn't want to play Adrien Brody in a video game?

two clueless "thirtysomethings" rag on about Xbox Live for several hundred words.

I liked how, when we finally started, I was killed within eight seconds. Then I came back to life in another part of the game … and was again killed within eight seconds. I don't think I ever survived longer than 20 seconds.

LOL! WE'RE SO OLD! THEY CALLED US "FAGGITS!" etc

Haha way to tackle the problem, guys!

http://members.home.nl/saarloos/images/osmdtankpic.jpg

WOW

Amen. But the game itself is awesome.

-over on ILC, Huk posted the link to the demo for "Out of Boneville", which the game from Jeff Smith's Bone series. Note that the crew who worked on this are all ex-Lucasarts folks who were doing the 3D Sam & Max game until the execs cancelled it last year. They've also worked on Grim Fandango.

-here's some ultra-high-res shots of Metal Gear Solid 4. Note that Otacon now looks like a slightly-less bloated Bono. No word yet if he's still a whiney bitch.

Also, Snake has completely turned into Nick Fury.

would we have enough interest/traffic for an "I Love Games" (or somesuch) board?

Couldnt get the hang of the chat system either, and a friend of mine /w ing me didnt help, I had no idea how to reply just to him.

Then I started on Evil Genius. Now, this one is fun! Its very very much like Dungeon Keeper. The only real flaw is it isnt terribly intuitive, and again, the controls werent ideal, plus my poor laptop was just a bit too slow. Will have a go on my fast games pc and see if that helps.

To reply to someone directly, hit the enter key to bring up the chat window and type "/r " OR hit the R key when the chat window is closed; that will reply to the last person who sent you a private message.

Various chat commands:

"/s " = Say; the general chat command that talks to everyone in your vicinity
"/w [name]" or "/t [name]" = Whisper/Tell [name]; this is a private message to a specific player
"/r " = Reply; sends a private message to the last person who sent you a private message
"/p " = Party; sends a message to the people in your party
"/y " = Yell; sends a message to everyone in your current zone and is highly annoying so never ever ever ever ever use it
"/(number) " = Chat channel number; sends a message to a particular chat channel

The point of WoW is doing quests and grouping with people; if that aspect of the gameplay didn't grab you, it probably won't. Give it another chance, though; most of the character classes aren't that interesting until you hit level 10, which you should be able to do over the weekend. (I'm actually surprised you have up at level 3! Also priests start out VERY slowly; try a rogue or a warlock if you want to blow through the newbie levels really quickly.)

yeah, this game had issues. i heavily enjoyed it, but the system reqs are a bitch.

RFC: "Who up in this bitch wants an I Love Games?"

Priests can be fairly dangerous by themselves, but they're designed for use in a party, where they keep everyone healthy and at the top of their game so that there's less time waiting to eat (or waiting to find their corpse). If you get up to a higher level, you'll be very popular, though you're playing a female in WoW, so you've probably been "popular" enough at one point or another.

How long did you actually play for? If you type /played, it should tell you.

Dan's right though. There's more in the game beyond hitting things and playing with others (and the dozen things that 30 minutes more play might bring one), but there's not a hell of a lot more.

You know how I was going to level my warrior up to 60 no matter what? Um. I got bored and started up a priest. He's at level 19 now and I have to say that playing the healer of is really, really fun... WHEN YOU ARE IN A PARTY WITH PEOPLE WHO CAN PLAY. I was in a group yesterday that was trying to do the Deadmines and our tank was a lvl 23 dwarf warrior whose idea of running the instance was to aggro everything in sight and then run back to the casters begging for healing. Fucking dipshit.

I think the same would be true of Ragefire Chasm, except it's a lot easier to find a higher level character to power through the instance after someone goes AWOL.

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newquestions.php?board=99

we're open for business

(yay! re: ILG)

My priest is level 22 now! He is slowly becoming awesome but I need to park him in an inn and get his rested bonus up, so perhaps I'll grind out a few more levels with my 44 warrior for a while.

This is the first World of Warcraft thread for ILG