Video Games: The Next Generation

[TheEvilKing]

Cheese the Black Knight? How so? I always just found him head to head. OK, mainly fishing for backstabs, but still.

Climbing up the ladder just before you get to him and hitting him with projectiles.

[Werthead]

In a bit of good news, Belarus developers Wargaming (creators of World of Tanks) have rescued Gas-Powered Games and taken over the company, including hiring its founder Chris Taylor. The company was days away from going under altogether.

[Sad King Billy]

system shock is ... I know exactly how it works, both mechanically and where the scripted events are, and yet it's still scary as shit.

[Inigima]

System Shock 2 is officially on Good Old Games for $10, by the way, according to my email this morning.

[Fez]

You actually don't ever have to fight a Black Knight until the Kiln, as far as I remember. I mean, you should, but you don't have to.

And select controls gestures on my version, which is kind of useful for online interaction. Also, enemies barely move, so if you haven't been spotted, you can leave the game running totally safely (unless you're unhollowed, then you can be invaded by another human).

edit: Killing the BK in a straight up fight is pretty good work, by the way. Most people cheese it. I sure did.

That would've saved me some time. Still, I got what I think is a pretty cool ring out of it, so all in all, it wasn't bad. Also, the experience taught me a lot about the proper way to use fireballs, so that was useful as well.

Select does the same for me. I've realized that if I'm in a safe area I'll stay safe (unless I'm human); but what if I'm in the middle of a fight, particularly a boss fight? If the phone rings, or there's a knock at the door, or whatever, I have to get up. There may be a lot of MP elements to this game, but its my understanding that its still mainly a SP game. SP games should come with a pause function.

i never had any issues with the menu. But that might be due to having been through Demon's Souls first. Are there any specific items you need clarification on?

I've been able to navigate the menu well-enough (although I do think the controls are overly complicated), my problem is that there just isn't enough explanation. For instance I have I think 5 different helmets right now; I have absolutely no idea which one is the best; there's lots of different numbers on each but I don't know what each one means.

Also, I don't understand what most of the stats control so I don't know what to level up; the description text is less than helpful. For instance, what's the difference between strength and dexterity? Also, its my understanding that Pyromancy isn't Sorcery, so I don't need to worry about raising Intelligence, but is there a different stat I can raise to make my fireball stronger?

[Sad King Billy]

That's where I got it just now. It's completely stable, and supports 1920*1080 now.

[Francis Buck]

I've been able to navigate the menu well-enough (although I do think the controls are overly complicated), my problem is that there just isn't enough explanation. For instance I have I think 5 different helmets right now; I have absolutely no idea which one is the best; there's lots of different numbers on each but I don't know what each one means.

Also, I don't understand what most of the stats control so I don't know what to level up; the description text is less than helpful. For instance, what's the difference between strength and dexterity? Also, its my understanding that Pyromancy isn't Sorcery, so I don't need to worry about raising Intelligence, but is there a different stat I can raise to make my fireball stronger?

It's just something you get used to over time. I thought the menu controls were over complicated at first as well, but now I can fly through them. Something useful is to press the "select" button when viewing your stats (either at the level up screen or through the menu), and a cursor will come up that you can use to explain each and every number. For a pyromancer, you have no need to level up faith or intelligence (which are tied to sorcery and miracles, respectively). You level up pyromancy like a weapon sort of, so the "item" for it -- I think it's called a pyromancer's flame (the one that looks like a fiery hand) -- is what you actually upgrade, but that can't be done until you find a pyromancer trainer, which is still probably a few hours off for you.

In your case, the best stats to focus on are strength, dexterity, and endurance/vitality. But as other said before, it's good to find a weapon you like and then put the appropriate stats there. You can see the required stats (usually either strength or dex, or both) in the weapon's stats, down at the bottom. If you don't have high enough stats in those categories it will come up in red.

[Merentha]

No, I agree, a valid criticism of the game is the complete opacity of some of its core concepts, like what stats DO. You can find it ingame, but it takes work and generally is frustrating. A decent oldschool manual would be amazing for this game, but sadly, no.

Quick breakdown:

For each level, you get +1 to all of your resistances, which reduce damage of that type coming in. Further, each level of "liquid humanity" (ie, the number in the upper left corner) will improve your resistances as if it were a level, while also giving you a large increase to your curse resistance and magic find (the magic find caps out at 10 humanity). With Chaos weapons, you also gain bonus damage as your liquid humanity increases, also to a max of 10. All stats have a semi-soft cap of 40, in that the benefit they give after that drops off dramatically.

• Strength improves your damage with strength scaling weapons, and is a requirement to wield weapons. Two-handing a weapon multiplies your strength by 1.5 and changes your weapon's moveset.
  
• Dexterity improves your damage with dex scaling weapons, and is a requirement to wield weapons. It also very minorly improves casting speed for sorceries (and maybe miracles? I don't know)
  
• Vitality improves your health
  
• Endurance increases your endurance meter and also improves your equip load. This increases the weight you can carry. Remember, that being under 25% of your max equip load makes you fast roll and run faster, being under 50% gives you a medium roll, under 100 gives you a hilarious fat roll and slows your run, and over 100 means you cannot run, jump, or roll.
  
• Intelligence improves your damage with sorceries and intelligence-scaling weapons (usually Magic or Enchanted). It is a requirement to cast sorceries.
  
• Faith improves your damage with miracles and faith-scaling weapons (usually Divine or Occult, which tend to be terrible). It is a requirement to cast miracles.
  
• Attunement gives you an additional spell slot every two levels.
  
• Resistance gives you an additional +1 to resistance. This is why you should never, ever, ever level resistance. It is terrible.
  

A brief note on scaling: Check the weapon's detailed card. There will be on the bottom left, in order, a flexed arm, a hand, a wand, and a starburst. These represent Str/Dex/Int/Fth. They may have a letter after them. This letter will tell you how much bonus damage, as a percentage of the base damage a weapon does, the weapon gains from having a high stat. S is the highest, followed by A, then down to E. On catalysts/talismans, this will also show the improvement to spells. If you have a high Str, a weapon that does 100 damage and has A scaling is going to be much better than a weapon that does 150 and has no scaling. If you have no Str to speak of, the 150 damage will be better, all other things being equal.

Pyromancy is unique and does not scale off any stat. However, upgrading the Flame improves the MagAdjust for the Flame, which improves your pyromancies. You'll find the guy who can do this later.

[Fez]

Thanks!

[Merentha]

Oh, and another note for armors. Generally speaking, the resistances of an armor are...not worth much. The two biggest stats for armor are the weight (which can murder your equip weight and make you unable to roll) and poise, which reduced the amount that you will have an attack interrupted. The easiest way to wear armor, in my opinion, is to find the weight class that looks the best to you. If you roll a lot, you'll need to wear light armor, which generally means you'll have no poise whatsoever and can really just go with whatever looks coolest while keeping your weight under 25%. If you like blocking/trading blows with people, then heavy armor, with the highest poise, is your best shot. Fortunately, armor that tends to have high poise also almost always comes with high resists, so it really is just an issue of wearing the highest poise gear you've got and everything else will sort itself out.

Wearing armor to reduce specific types of damage is often a crapshoot. Fortunately, the biggest case of that is poison and curse, both of which your pyro robes are pretty good against, iirc. They also don't come up until much later, when you probably already have a much better handle on the game. (Also, the game does sometimes make strange decisions. For example, an enemy called the Demon Firesage, who lives in a lava-covered area, attacks you with magic damage, not fire. This rather messed me up when I equipped my shield that has great fire resistance and...oops)

[sToNED_CAT]

Why can't people just make a good Aliens games recently. I remember the older ones being fun online and hell I even enjoyed the RTS Aliens vs Predator game that came out - though only as the Aliens as dragging random folk out of the enemy base and facehugging them had a certain charm.

Christ someone just pay Rocksteady to make a Arkham style Predator game and i'll be happy as hell

Whole Alien/Predator franchise is cursed.

Anyone playing Cognition: Erica Reed thriller ?

http://www.postudios.com/cognition/

It's an old school episodic adventure. Indie thrillercCrime investigation with some supernatural elements. It has some problems like pretty crappy animations, but the voice casting is great, gameplay itself is pretty good too and the story is really addictive.

[Francis Buck]

(Also, the game does sometimes make strange decisions. For example, an enemy called the Demon Firesage, who lives in a lava-covered area, attacks you with magic damage, not fire. This rather messed me up when I equipped my shield that has great fire resistance and...oops)

Yeah this is definitely true. I was expecting the boss in Blighttown to be poison-based, so I went in with the Spider Shield equipped and got destroyed when it ended up having all (or mostly) fire attacks -- which is even weirder considering the enemy is a giant spider-queen thing.

[Talleyrand]

Whole Alien/Predator franchise is cursed.

I think the 2010 game was underwhelming but not fundamentally bad. Colonial Marines is just broken and retarded all over.

The worst thing is that the demo they showed looked so great, how did they go so wrong in the mean time?

[Maia]

Whole Alien/Predator franchise is cursed.

It seems to me that it is Sega which is cursed by stupidity. I mean, they killed the Obsidian RPG and released this? Infuriating.

[Merentha]

I think the 2010 game was underwhelming but not fundamentally bad. Colonial Marines is just broken and retarded all over.

The worst thing is that the demo they showed looked so great, how did they go so wrong in the mean time?

Relevant:

Enough differences that, while aren't damning, really contradict the narrative Pitchford set up with his constant "we love Aliens and want to create a faithful blah blah blah" and the rather impressive release trailer. This video doesn't even have the shot which, completely literally, looks like a 2002-era game. Most of it looks like something from early in the PS3/360 generation, but at least a few screenshots are so bad and unimpressive that its actually almost nostalgic.

edit:

Yeah this is definitely true. I was expecting the boss in Blighttown to be poison-based, so I went in with the Spider Shield equipped and got destroyed when it ended up having all (or mostly) fire attacks -- which is even weirder considering the enemy is a giant spider-queen thing.

I mean, Quelaag makes sense after the fact, but yeah, most people wandering into her lair for the first time are going to have no idea what she is or why there is fire everywhere. Firesage still has me scratching my head.

[Scipio Africanus]

I think the 2010 game was underwhelming but not fundamentally bad. Colonial Marines is just broken and retarded all over.

The worst thing is that the demo they showed looked so great, how did they go so wrong in the mean time?

Angry Joe (who was really looking forward to this game) sums up most of the problems (and also some rare good points):

I did a bit of reading on what the hell happened to Aliens CM today. According to a "insider" source on reddit, Gearbox outsourced most of the SP to Timegear or what they're called. Gearbox went ahead with the craptaculair Duke Nukem Forever (perhaps a clean death would've been kinder to the franchise) and their cashcow Borderlands 2.

Apparently the other company axed much of the stuff done by Gearbox but got hopelessly delayed and by the time Fox/Sega were screaming for it to be released, Gearbox just rushed it and delivered an unfinished product (but still playable and could be finished) we have today.

The big problem is that the Gearbox CEO lied his ass off in all of his press releases and demo expositions. The escapist.com did a vid comparing the demo to the actual gameplay and apart from performance (AI, graphics, character models) very little in the demo actually made it into the game. And that while the demo showed was supposed to be an ingame demo of actual gameplay.

It's too bad no one can do anything about such lies other than not buying the game. That Gearbox dude will go on counting his $$$ from Borderlands and not give one **** that his company just shot another franchise in the face and left it for dead.

[Jon AS]

Relevant:

Wow, that's just bizarre. And the finished game really looks pretty crappy.

[Talleyrand]

On the plus side Colonial Marines inspired me to go back on Natural Selection 2, which is a far better Aliens game than any licensed one has ever been

[Poobah]

Gearbox tends to lie a fuckton all the time. I'm really getting more and more turned off by them.

[Merentha]

On the plus side Colonial Marines inspired me to go back on Natural Selection 2, which is a far better Aliens game than any licensed one has ever been

AvP1/2. Take it back.

(I've never actually played NS2, because I can't be spending 25USD on games that may or may not have a playerbase by the time I get to them. I'm working on it.)