Videogames: The War (for equality) Has Just Begun

[Jon AS]

When you get into situation where you're forced into dealing with waves of enemies, like in Shantytown or the final level, there are plenty exploding barrels to shoot at. Either fire arrows or guns will do it. Most of those encounters end up being very short if you take a couple of enemies per barrel.

Dunno, even taking out 2-3 enemies with every barrel in the shanty town usually only accounted for about half of them. And it's not the taking out that's the problem, it's that there's not enough variety to combat to justify the sheer amount of it. It's tedious rather than exciting.

I've gotten all the way to the beach now. The set pieces like the escape from the burning stronghold continue to be hilarious. Lara, despite surviving increasingly insane situations, really has the worst luck. Everybody else seems to get around the island relatively safely, but when she walks into the woods (which the most useless member of her expedition has just traversed safely), she gets mauled by wolves; when she tries to cross a chasm on an ancient bridge, the bridge collapses; when she uses a cargo elevator that has been around since WW2, it decides to stop working just that very moment.

The varied ways to die are also animated in loving detail. Other games might be contend to just give you a brief generic game over message, but if you miss a turn in one of the sliding sequences in Tomb Raider, Lara gets impaled on an ugly looking piece of metal or a tree branch; if you fall into the sea you can witness her being smashed against the reefs by the currents (a cloud of blood dissipating in the water as her lifeless body floats away...) etc. I kinda wish they'd spend some more time on the combat instead.;)

[Tony Soprano]

Here's some of the newest info from Game Informer's coverage of Unity, taken from a NeoGAF thread.

Okay, I'll just go ahead and say I'm most excited about the customization aspect. I loved buying different armor parts and dyeing my clothes in the Ezio trilogy, but I felt it was really lacking in the last two games, especially AC III because of the bugs that made Connor's clothes revert to the original Assassin white in cutscenes.

The leveling system sounds interesting too, I'm really curious to hear more about it. I've never liked how you can cut your way through dozens of enemies, so having the choice of actually sneaking past if you invest enough skill points into stealth sounds great.

[Melphis Amekia]

Here's some of the newest info from Game Informer's coverage of Unity, taken from a NeoGAF thread.

Okay, I'll just go ahead and say I'm most excited about the customization aspect. I loved buying different armor parts and dyeing my clothes in the Ezio trilogy, but I felt it was really lacking in the last two games, especially AC III because of the bugs that made Connor's clothes revert to the original Assassin white in cutscenes.

The leveling system sounds interesting too, I'm really curious to hear more about it. I've never liked how you can cut your way through dozens of enemies, so having the choice of actually sneaking past if you invest enough skill points into stealth sounds great.

Leveling? In AC? Not sure if I should be super excited about that, or worried if it'll make the game easier than it already is. They *cough* say that combat is much tougher now, but I won't believe it till I see it. And stealth should be difficult to pull of, at least moderately. Though I'll enjoy making me a super-stealthy assassin.

Customization also seems very cool.

[sToNED_CAT]

Here's some of the newest info from Game Informer's coverage of Unity, taken from a NeoGAF thread.

No ship combat so not much interest from me. After all I BF just for that.

[Batbob45]

Kinnikuman games were fun

[Tony Soprano]

Sierra, the studio behind titles like World in Conflict and SWAT is teasing some kind of announcement at Gamescom.

I'm really curious about this, considering the studio's been pretty much dead for the past 6 years. I doubt any of the original talent is actually working there, but it's a surprising comeback nonetheless.

[KiDisaster]

Sierra, the studio behind titles like World in Conflict and SWAT is teasing some kind of announcement at Gamescom.

I'm really curious about this, considering the studio's been pretty much dead for the past 6 years. I doubt any of the original talent is actually working there, but it's a surprising comeback nonetheless.

Kind of makes sense. Point and click adventure has been making a comeback and Sierra was huge in that genre in the 80s.

I would go apeshit for a new King's Quest or Space Quest game honestly.

[Jon AS]

Apparently there's a bug in Tomb Raider (that's been known since first release...) which keeps the game from showing my completion as 100% in the savegame. This bothers me more than it should.

Overall, fun game that manages to be more than the sum of its part by virtue of taking even more inspiration from the Indiana Jones franchise and turning Lara into a relatable heroine who is in way over her head and makes it through with a combination of luck and determination (and all those useful skills like mountaineering and archery, of course).

I'm now looking forward what they do with her in the sequel (though I'm sure it'll still have QTEs).

[Werthead]

Marcus is leader of Jacobtown in NV. the citizen there are nice enough

Reference to Marcus being played by Michael Dorn, who was Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[Werthead]

Hard West is a 'weird west' game which combines a Heroes of Might and Magic-style overland map and XCOM-style turn-based combat. It's on Kickstarter now and looks pretty solid.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Hard West is a 'weird west' game which combines a Heroes of Might and Magic-style overland map and XCOM-style turn-based combat. It's on Kickstarter now and looks pretty solid.

Here is the Kickstarter link if anyone's interested. It looks very cool, especially "gun experiments" and "myths and legends" bits. Vaguely reminiscent of Arcanum (which some enterprising developer needs to hurry up and remake already).

[Maia]

I am completely obssessed with The Banner Saga. It is amazing, IMHO. There is still some room for improvement, of course - the resource management/ text part of battle preparation needs to be better balanced. But otherwise the game is damned addictive, at least for somebody who likes turn-based combat and text based adventures with consequences, such as me. And it has visual presentation to die for, too.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Well apparently the new Tomb Raider will be an xbox exclusive. Lucky I have an xbox, otherwise I'd be pissed. Well I'm still kind of pissed. That is a dumbass move to make a great multi platform game, establish fans on said platforms, and then cut many of those fans off from the sequel. Good move, Square Enix.

[Werthead]

The new Tomb Raider will likely be a 6-9 month timed exclusive which will then come out on at least PC, possibly PS4 then or later. After bitching about the 'low' sales of the previous game, it would be suicidally insane of Squeenix to limit sales to the lowest-selling machine of the new generation.

Meanwhile, an Obsidian-made Pathfinder CRPG is apparently going to be announced at GenCon.

[fuseprime]

I'm curious as to how much money Microsoft had to dish out in order to secure that.

[KiDisaster]

Well apparently the new Tomb Raider will be an xbox exclusive. Lucky I have an xbox, otherwise I'd be pissed. Well I'm still kind of pissed. That is a dumbass move to make a great multi platform game, establish fans on said platforms, and then cut many of those fans off from the sequel. Good move, Square Enix.

It'll end up being a timed exclusive most likely, same as Dead Rising 3 and Ryse. That said, it may still never end up on PS4 if that's the case and be XB1 and PC exclusive.

[Fez]

I really hate 3rd-party exclusives, timed or otherwise. It seems crazy to me that the market could be so fragmented. I understand PCs being a thing apart, especially for smaller studios and genres that don't lend themselves well to consoles (strategy games), but that's it. I hate the idea of having to own three separate devices to play all the games I want to play, and since I'm not going to do that, it means I'm going to miss out on stuff. Obviously 1st-party games are something else, but that's a much smaller share of games.

[Jabronius Maximus]

It'll end up being a timed exclusive most likely, same as Dead Rising 3 and Ryse. That said, it may still never end up on PS4 if that's the case and be XB1 and PC exclusive.

That's probably it, as Wert said. I just hate anti competitive measures like this in general. If a game is exclusive from the outset, or expands to other platforms, that's fine. Exclusivity after being multiplat, whether it's timed, is very counterproductive to the game devs.

[Shryke]

Everything about the console industry is anti-competitive. That's the whole idea after all.

[Muttering Bill]

Well apparently the new Tomb Raider will be an xbox exclusive. Lucky I have an xbox, otherwise I'd be pissed. Well I'm still kind of pissed. That is a dumbass move to make a great multi platform game, establish fans on said platforms, and then cut many of those fans off from the sequel. Good move, Square Enix.

That makes no sense considering how Square Enix felt that the first game "didn't meet sales expectiations." Limiting the game to a platform that is being outsold by about 2-1 by PS4 (not to mention the PC crowd) seems really stupid. Or is this going to be a cross generation game? Though that would only make it slightly less stupid.

And yes, I am bitter, as I have no intention of buying an XBone.