come anticipate a TS w/me: infamous Vs. prototype Vs. I am alive

rolling thread for incoming sandbox-em-eps '09

new infamous gameplay video...
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44185.html

infamous looks like crackdown in liberty city. i like.

plus Assassin's Creed-style running-all-over-everything gameplay too!

Prototype is by the guys that did Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, which by itself is pedigree enough for me. Very excited.

i am alive trailer is gorgeous

I didn't realise I am alive is going to be an FPS when I started this thread : /

I thought it was going to be in the style of raw danger/SOS: final escape

: ///

so uh Infamous

I haven't played the demo since I'm an inveterate pleasure-delayer but everyone who has says it's the greatest thing since sliced bread

There's a demo out?

sort of. you have to enter a code to dl it, but since the code is infinitely shareable foax are just passing it around.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=360892

btw I actually think this inconvenient-ass process is an uncharacteristically (and most likely inadvertent) brilliant move on Sony's part - word-of-mouth hype around this game has gone through the roof ever since they launched it.

http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/800208/sucker-punch-project/videos/infamous_vdr_051109.html

Yeah, IGN's text review was practically orgasmic. They tend to inflate a bit (like all gaming press) but this still looks fantastic. Between this, Prototype, Uncharted 2, Brutal Legend and (maaaybe) Batman Arkham Asylum, this looks like a fantastic year for action games on the PS3.

Oh hey soundtrack by Amon Tobin! Used to love that guy, I'd been thinking about digging out his albums lately...spooky.

I don't suppose anyone's got a copy of the HK account info from that NeoGAF post? They've apparently decided that we lowly gmail users can't be allowed in their precious, precious forums.

Dear Everyone Who Doesn't Own A PS3,

http://www.thevancouverite.com/pictures/nelson-muntz.gif

Sincerely,
Sucker Punch Productions

dear jamescobo

prototype looks like it pwns

sincerely

coz rrod. en

Prototype does look fantastic. But Infamous, at least so far (I think I'm about 30% in) is the bee's knees. Aside from the inevitable PS3 jaggies and the surprisingly poor facial animations, no complaints at all, and it's filled the all-important super-compulsive Ratchet & Clank niche for me with the side missions, clearing the streets, hunting for blast shards and dead drops, etc. Do wish the shards were a bit more challenging to climb to- most are just jabbed into the sides of buildings- but the sheer OCD completist aspect is quite fun.

WAIT SHIT I do have a complaint- the fuckers on truck-mounted turrets are ridiculously hard to deal with before you get the Precision power. The regular machine gun nests can be approached from outside their angle of fire, the guys with riot shields are vulnerable to ambushes from above and Sockwave, but the assholes on truckbeds have a 360 degree field of fire, reacquire you in a split second if you try to sneak around a building, and pretty much have to be taken out with headshots, which is only really possible with Precision's slow-motion sniper zoom.

I'm seriously psyched for Prototype - I still throw in Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for silly sandbox fun with arbitrary goals (can I wreck every light source in the city; can I do laps around the island by chaining super jumps; can I take out attack helicopters only by throwing soldiers at them; can I make it around the city by only landing on moving vehicles).

The demo for Infamous (I refuse to do the silly punctuation) left me more frustrated than excited. I hate proximity suction sticking - sometimes I'm trying to go past that obstacle, you know? Also, aren't we past the auto-find enemy detection stage? I'm three blocks away, behind buildings, circling around and they shoot me as I round a corner from the opposite direction I disappeared from their view. Bull.

I played Infamous. Parts of it are pretty awesome, but the basic combat of the game is pretty unsatisfying to me. That might change when you finally get some of the powers. But the way you move around is fantastic.

I'm semi-enjoying Infamous. The technical issue take me out of it a bit, particularly the horrible civilian programming, weird behaviors and clipping issues. The city just doesn't feel alive enough, particularly a year after GTAIV - yet it's not cartoony enough or as polished as Crackdown - it's sort of stuck in a weird middle ground. Missions so far are okay - occasionally so short as to be comically pointless (I've beat several missions in under fifteen seconds!). Combat is fine for me so far - I enjoy the lightning powers and jumping from tall buildings. Also weirdly enjoying healing downed civilians. Not super far into the game yet (still on the first island). The storytelling, especially early on was surprisingly clunky

^^^. I've been thinking while playing it what a COMPLETE RIPOFF it seems like that I didn't even enjoy GTAIV that much but that it's completely ruined for me other openworld games that could otherwise be a lot of fun. I think the combat's fine, but I feel like there should be some sort of a lock-on, even just for melee, and I can't understand why there isn't, especially since every single bad guy in the game can hit you 95% of the time, no matter what you're doing, unless you're hitting the "evasive manoeuvre" button. The story is surprisingly terrible and poorly-told. And--and I don't know why this bothers me so much--I keep wanting to be able to pick up and throw people and objects and it seems like a terrible injustice that I can't.

However! Lots of fun, and it really pushes a lot of my buttons. And the grind where you beat an NPC unconscious and then heal them for the EXP is hilarious. I think the karma evens out for beating them and healing them, too. I did it for like an hour.

could we discuss crackdown 2 on this thread, too?

antexit, did you play Lost & Damned?

No, I'm banned from XBL, so I wasn't able to grab it, but I hear there are some big improvements. I'm waiting for that standalone disc in October.

you know, it's starting to seem a little too de rigeur for games to have a karma/reptuation system. if it doesn't affect the gameplayer and/or play to an appreciable degree it's kind of annoying, maybe because if the game is faux-sandbox then it just highlights the fact that you only have the illusion of free play. just thinkin' y'all.

In this case, it's particularly dumb, because you have to choose a side early on and then stick to it unrelentingly if you want to unlock all the abilities-- many are only available to the higher levels of goodness or badness. More than once I found myself inadvertantly slipping back onto the good side and had to spend a tedious couple of minutes walking around slaughtering people.

I'm having the opposite problem as of 60 percent into the second borough. I try to stay good, heal up injured civilians and cuff surviving baddies after every fight, etc (it's weirdly satisfying to clean up like that), but end up getting slightly evil karma at the end of some missions because it's impossible to avoid massive collateral damage and the mission ends before I get a chance to mop up. It doesn't help that half the time citizens have no sense of self-preservation and would rather stand around taking pictures while I fling cars at a 30-ft tall trash robot instead of, oh, I don't know, RUNNING AWAY.

How is I Am Alive similar to the other games?

Oh, that's right - it isn't.

I didn't realise I am alive is going to be an FPS when I started this thread : /

I thought it was going to be in the style of raw danger/SOS: final escape

: ///

― ur bisexual btw (cozwn), Friday, 9 January 2009 18:16 (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh, that's right - 4 months ago

BAM

anyway, I guess we can add crackdown 2 to this list. prototype is supposedly out next week?! no reviews and no demo yet

apols I'm still just sour that I am alive is another FPS :((((((

I've hit a game-breaking bug about (I think) halfway through Infamous. Starting to think maybe the decision to push the release date up a week wasn't the best one, because this is making it completely impossible to progress and happens 100% of the time whenever I attempt the story mission that's the only one I have left. I've emailed Sony's customer support with all the relevant details, but it's 72 hours into their promised 48-hour response time and I'm starting to think no fix is incoming. If they end up emailing me back with advice like "restart your game and hope for the best" I will be fucking pissed.

wth are the reviews for prototype?

I'm guessing most sites didn't get their copies soon enough before E3 to get enough time with it to review. However, it could be one of those "embargoed till releases date" deals, which rarely bodes well. I'm tempted to just pick it up because I love Hulk: Ultimate Destruction so much.

Definitely getting a weird vibe from the lack of reviews. Then again, the (review-les) IGN page for the game did have a little "editor's choice" banner on it when I checked last night, which given IGN's standards at least indicates it runs properly and doesn't have anything massively, obviously terrible about it.

Meanwhile, I managed to get myself un-stuck in Infamous, and it only took an hour and a half of repeated attempts, trying every little variation I could think of, finally ending when a combination of totally unintuitive behavior and luck managed to keep the game from seizing up long enough to complete the mission. I feel like I should tally up my time spent and send a detailed invoice to SCEA; if I'm going to be a QA tester I'm goddamn well not going to do it for free.

Heard from a reliable source that there was an Activision embargo on Prototype reviews. That is not a good sign...

None of the retailers in my area had it today, and even Gamestop didn't expect to receive it until tomorrow. Which means I won't be able to check it out until next week as I'm heading out of town. Grr.

Is that like not screening a film for critics? Oh dear. Definitely not a good sign.

The other possibility is that they didn't want reviews lost in E3 coverage. I mean, how many people would notice if a review came out last Thursday? Kind of surprised they wouldn't want it out Monday night though.

Played some more Infamous last night. My friend is farther along in the game. I like the flow of the game when you're running from rooftop to rooftop, using your power on wires and to float and etc. In a way, I kinda think Infamous does everything Mirror's Edge does, but better (but doesn't look as cool, and is third-person).

the early consensus on prototype is tht it's basically just a new hulk:ud and if you loved that, you'll love this

early reviews trickling out

http://www.gamepro.com/article/reviews/210743/prototype/

That review makes me pine for the quality writing of IGN. Serious sub-message board English usage.

haha

sadly the quality writing of ign has yet to show itself for this game

can I say 9bargo again?

hulk is exactly what the game store guy said about it when people (inc. me) were drooling over the demo

I bought this because of you fools. Ive been needing a new game to play since I finished off Fallout 3 for good. Started playing WoW like a crack fiend during the 10 day free period and Im glad I can walk away from all that.

which one did you buy, infamous or prototype?

More Prototype reviews are in, all in the 90+ range so far (though none of the major outlets or my personal favorite, Eurogamer, have weighed in yet).

Infamous is still coming along; in the Historic District (third island) now and my god, the First Sons conduits are fatherless bastards. Some fun climbing to be had, though; it seems like they're making the buildings higher and more complex with each island. My favorite part of the game so far has been climbing Transient Tower- come to think of it, I would buy a game that was just climbing if it was at a budget price and they could come up with more interesting challenges like that.

I loved the demo of RF:G- does it keep up that kind level of fun?

I didn't like the demos of either Infamous or Red Faction, so I'm glad Prototype is working for me. I'll take a brawler over a shooter any day. Though I need to do more missions and less goofing off - I've bought all the stuff I can at this point and have 1.2 million points for future use.

Well I'm near the end of infamous now, and I've done most of the side missions too. Whilst it's been a fun run, I don't think it has any replay value as has been mentioned there isn't actually anything much to do and the climbing novelty has soon worn off.

gta still rules the sandbox, for me.

Telephone - I still haven't got very far into Red Faction (my attention is really divided this month), but I've enjoyed what I've played (just got to the second town). It's very similiar to the demo so far - just a lot more - not sure if that's exactly a good or bad thing yet. While the game is packed with content, so far it does have a bit of that samey feel to all the content that lots of open world games seem to get. Of what I played, what I like most is the SF atmosphere, design work (different vehicles are great) and of course, the super destructability - which is really what the game is about - blowing shit up. Also the guy who gave you orders in Crackdown is the guy who gives your orders in this game. Unlike Infamous or Prototype, the game includes a fairly robust multiplayer suite (which I've barely tipped my toes in, unfortunately) as well as some party modes (like who can blow up the most shit the fastest). Overall, it just seems really solid to me, if not quite GREAT.

ugh Prototype is ugly, feels really cheap compared to Infamous. Might take some getting used to. Also manages to make NY look reeeeally dull.

called it

Loving, loving, loving Prototype. Seriously cannot believe the amount of crap that can appear onscreen with no slow down. The story is striving for mediocrity, but I like the Web of Intrigue stuff - completely unnecessary but adds something to the game, much like the additional dialogue opportunities in the last Prince of Persia.

If I like the mayhem and silly anarchy of this should I give Saints Row 2 a try? I've stayed away because I don't like the GTA series, and I know the first SR was maligned as a poor version of GTA. Saints Row 2 never even made my radar.

I have now gotten to the point where I have more powers than I can possibly remember. Annoyingly, one of the most useful moves in the game so far, the elbow drop, is an absoute bastard to pull off- you have to hit triangle (or Y I guess for teh Xb0xors) WHILE wallrunning. Not while in the air, or immediately after a wallrun. Which means you have to cope with the camera staying locked on your target while you wallrun (because trying to acquire a specific target in the middle of a run is damn near impossible), and since this target is usually a tank trying to shoot your protoplasmic mutant testicles off it can get quite stressful.

yeah the controls/camera seem rough, but its pretty damn fun.

Hammerfist Elbow Drop has totally replaced my need for the regular elbow drop, and you can pull it off from a simple jump. Yay! Meanwhile, the plot keeps getting dumber and dumber, which is a shame because the "web of intrigue" thing is a really neat storytelling device that deserves a better plot than this stuff.

the flying kick thing is really annoying and counterproductive like 90% of the time.

The cannonball move is the shit, though- kind of disappointed I can't one-shot helicopters with it, as it seems to do only a bit more damage than a properly-charged kick, but it's such brilliantly stupid fun.

For me, Prototype is a clear game of the year candidate. It is mega-fun.

Me too - just taking my time screwing around. I Have no idea if I'll ever finish the story.

I'm close to finishing Infamous as a good guy. I've had a good time with it. I never finish games. I refuse to let myself buy Prototype until I've finished it. After reading about Prototype on this thread and hearing about it from friends, it's hard to imagine it being the type of game I finish.

I may finish it despite the fact that I rented it and only have six days to do so.

I finally beat Infamous last night. Tried playing as evil today, but quickly got bored of not having all my skills.

It's the first game I've beaten in years, btw.

I found Infamous to be really moreish, particularly the standard hand-bolt weapon. icing the reapers in the face is hella satisfying. Once I'd started on the side missions I couldn't stop.

Both games take themselves far too god-damned seriously. Prototype has you doing the most ridiculous stuff ever, and then some amazingly dour cutscene comes around and deflates all the fun. Infamous's story bits aren't quite as annoying, but it's also not as fun.

and yeah, I'm enjoying Red Faction: Guerrilla over either of the superhero games. Hammering a radio tower into oblivion on Mars may not be as purely awesome as elbow-dropping a tank from the top of the Empire State building, but at least you don't have to sit through increasingly humorless cartoons every ten minutes.

I skip all the Prototype cutscenes pretty much as soon as possible.

Also, I thought the story stuff in Infamous was way more annoying. Diff'rnt strokes I guess.

I found myself wishing there were no conventional cutscenes at all in Prototype (mostly because they're so, so very awful) and they'd expanded the Web of Intrigue enough to rely on it as the game's main storytelling mechanism. The Web cutscenes aren't any great shakes either, but it's harder to egregiously fuck up a choppy fifteen-second clip of interior monologue and generic sinister flashbacks, and it's actually fun to do- I found myself twice bailing out of helicopters hundreds of stories up just to get to those sweet, sweet blinking head icons. It's even more addictive than the shard collecting in Infamous was.

I ditch any and all missions for the orbs in prototype. I am almost through it and it definitely could have used more closed-in boss fights. the zero punct review was dead on: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/789-Prototype

Funny, I hated the closed-in bossfights, especially the first Leader Hunter- the Times Square fight with Greene was one of my favorite moments of the game so far (though I bet I wouldn't be saying that if I hadn't bought Air Groundspike Graveyard right before).

The groundspike is so satisfying.

I'm more of a tentacle explosion kinda guy. Great for just ruining the insides of military bases.

So it's safe to say there aren't really wrong decisions about which powers to train? More a matter of preference? I'd gotten the impression from some reviews that there were must-have powers.

The tentacle one is the most useful, for sure.

So it's safe to say there aren't really wrong decisions about which powers to train? More a matter of preference? I'd gotten the impression from some reviews that there were must-have powers.

There are some that are must-haves- you'll want to spend the bulk of your XP early in the game maxing out the movement and survival upgrades, and there are a set of upgrades helpfully marked as "core" that are pretty important.. But there are usually two or three ways to get stuff done, so once you've got those, just wing it and it generally works out ok.

I borrowed Red Faction: Guerrilla and then bought Prototype. I've been playing quite a bit of Prototype, though. Some of the shit you pull off is ridiculous. My overall impression so far is that it's pretty god damn fun. Getting into The Zone when fighting a ton of bad guys is so incredibly satisfying. Here are some things I don't like:

- Side missions are mostly boring and frustrating - especially the checkpoint race ones. I find myself avoiding them and just running around starting trouble with the military.

- I really wish I had that fucking elbow drop RIGHT NOW. I hate fighting multiple tanks oh so much. Doing slow ass combos with that metal fist power while getting bounced around by other projectiles is really frustrating. I do better when jumping way up in the air and coming down on stuff.

- Story is really generic. Like many people, I found the plot to Infamous a tad more interesting. And I really prefer the creepy homeless mutant gangs to the generic zombie-beasts in Prototype. Fighting the military is a fucking hoot, though.

I really love the stealthy elements, too. I like how you can go from total godlike destruction of entire blocks worth of Manhattan to creeping around a military base looking for one guy. The scale shift from being in the air drop-kicking helicopters, to quietly slipping behind some guy in the base is really satisfying for me for some reason. Would like to see more of that in games: From guy on the street to total insaniac depending on what the situation calls for.

the 3 types of villains in Infamous were all fantastic, some of the best designs I've seen for a while.

I hope with future games in this genre, we get some slightly better A.I. out of the crowds of people that just seem to hang around while huge zombie beasts are fighting against tanks. Like, why would you even be on the street? I'd be in my apartment. It's like, "Well there's a total war going on outside, the building across the street has pulsating tumors on it with monsters coming out, but I really need to run up to the store for some bagels and coffee. Hope that guy out there with the huge tentacle whip doesn't accidentally hit me!"

Prototype is starting to get on my tits. All of a sudden I have crossed some kind of threshold where tanks and helicopters just destroy me. I have a ton of powers - all my movement and survivability stuff is maxed out - but I get bounced all over the place by their insanely accurate projectiles. I get killed just goofing around & trying to do side quests now. I guess I'm glad the game is challenging, but I feel less powerful than I did when I first started.

I just discovered something in Prototype - you can get the location globe things that are on top of the Empire State Building (and other pointy-topped towers that are a pain to jump/run up to) by flying through them in a helicopter! Frustration solved.

I said I didn't think I'd finish, but I've only got like three story missions left. Haven't done many of the side quests beyond the target gliding ones.

I just discovered something in Prototype - you can get the location globe things that are on top of the Empire State Building (and other pointy-topped towers that are a pain to jump/run up to) by flying through them in a helicopter!

...I've been trying to use the slow, "accurate" climb to get those, and when that proved nearly impossible tried jumping from helicopters and gliding to them. You just saved me hours of frustration there.

clocked about 8 hours on prototype yesterday - FUN! have barely messed around with upgrades, just running around and breaking shit mostly. hooray also for tank driving being well implemented.

Start with all the movement upgrades before you worry about the other stuff. Hauling ass, gliding off buildings - so much fun.

"i am alive" still looks like it could be amazing or terrible, no inbetween

idea sounds interesting but getting really fed up of this tried and tested monochrome colour scheme now, could they really not have put some more vibrancy in the graphics?

i think i'm going to give it a shot based on reviews, although i usually hate games that raise stakes/tension by limiting saves & checkpoints. it seems like it would be easy to include save-at-will as an option or lower difficulty mode.

this game has more than its share of flaws and the combat is very silly, but i'm having fun with the dystopian platforming. glad my expectations were lowered appropriately.

i still really like this game. except when i go the wrong way and it says "HINT: you're going the wrong way" and turns my character around.

played all the way through infamous and am on the final boss battle. it sucks.

okay, just beat it. Boy o boy the story on this is terrible.

The ending was terrible. I never did get properly into Infamous 2. It's on my to-do list along with Prototype 2.

I've never played either sequel. I was one of the only people to have a blast with the first Prototype, though like basically every other game I never bothered to finish it. Now that it's getting cheap I should pick up Prototype 2.

second son on sale.. worth it?

I had fun with it while it lasted - worth picking up for cheap for sure.