Gaming Gaming 29 - The Post-Pub Podcast

Custom PC veteran Phil Hartup and PC Pro's Mike Jennings join Joe and Paul for a late-night, post-pint rant. This episode of the podcast, perhaps because it's sponsored by alcohol, stumbles along with vague coherency through topics such as BioShock Infinite and Just Cause 2...

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/podcasts/2011/07/17/gaming-29-the-post-pub-podcast/

 

yay, +1 for Rush in BFBC2 search for "CustomPC". capitalisation is important.

 

Alcohol + bit-tech/CPC = epic lolz

 

WTF? Do you get all your APB info from reading the crying on the forums? The premium guns aren't overpowered whatsoever, letalone to the extent that you'te implying.

 

"I'm so cool my synapses are frozen"

 

Witcher 2 is defintely one of the best games of the year so far because of the sheer brilliance of the story telling but let's face it the original is still alot better!
Terrible and unresponsive combat just ruined it for me, to me it was almost crying out to just adopt the Assassins creed style of fighting. And it has some of the worst boss fights I've ever encountered. Roll > stab > roll away > roll > stab > repeat.
And the dam wait times before combat and looting, and you lose half your potion times due to those lengthy drinking and standing animations. Just to name a few.

Probably just being abit critical as I generally really liked the game.

 

I'm glad to hear you guys picked my question (Croomo84). I thought some of the replies were quite interesting, especially around Deus Ex. I could of sworn that the game was junked by some of you guys much earlier back, now it seems quite anticipated.

My hat goes off to Paul for reading it out without any hiccups (no pun intended!)

 

BF3 has 64 players on PC not 32. Or were you talking about BFBC2?

 

I'm the other person not interested in BF3

 

You mentioned lemmings and cliffs - guaranteed to perk my ears up. AFAIK the Disney version featured re runs of the same lemming going over the cliff, a Canadian version actually launched lemmings off the cliff for the shots. Slightly important detail - the little furry buggers can swim! Splash down doesn't equal suicide.

BF3: How many hours do you have to gain overpowered perks? That I'm a touch concerned about. 64 players? So what, we did that on the Nexus servers with RTCW: Enemy Territory. Fun? Yes. Carnage? Oh Yes!

@Joe: Punkbuster isn't the enemy, the need for it is. As far as an anti cheat system is concerned it's just a touch ahead of VAC. I've not seen anything else that provides the same function without a bigger downside.

@Everyone with respect to Witcher 2: It's so much better than anything else at the moment. Too short though, less than 60 hours for an RPG? Not optimum. You can't honestly compare it to Mass Effect 2 as that's a tactical shooter with RPG elements. A totally different kettle of fish.

@Crysis and Crysis 2: Didn't care then, don't care now. A N other FPS corridor shooter - whoop-de-****ing-doo! It looks pretty? Oh wow, let me go mortgage my soul for a system that'll hit 40 FPS if I'm lucky. Not happening. I've never been a fan of overly hyped, under optimised game engines. "But will it run Crysis?" is a meme that needs to be taken outside, shot repeatedly from the kneecaps upwards and then napalmed, just to make sure. WRT Crysis 2 - seen, not played but it gets an overall score of "Meh!"

I will now go and dig myself a bunker that I hope Gunsmith can't find me in.

 

A premium account, that's fine. Less grind, more money, what's not to like about that. The premium guns are the issue. And I'm sure you're great, and you don't afraid of anything. But me? I like a fair fight. I don't like the idea that the devs took a bung from some joker who didn't think he'd be able to beat me fair. Win or lose it's the principle. Life is not fair, games are fair. Or they should be.

I play APB, I said it in the podcast, and I stand by it. A paid for gun in APB is a huge edge. It has to be. Nobody would pay £5 a month or make a ~£20 purchase for a weapon that wasn't a killer. I don't like it.

But I'm torn. They need to get paid after all, to run the game. I do worry though that when a game is as directly competitive as APB it shoots itself in the foot by letting the vulgar business of getting paid involve itself in the battles.

 

I've been on both ends of premium weapons. In reality, there are way more dangerous versions of those weapons that are unlockable via in-game progression.

I just picked up the OCA Whisper this week because i wanted to grind my pathetically low Pointman role and in one of the first matches i played with it, i consistently got torn to bits by a 3 slot customizable OCA.

APB has a much steeper learning curve than most shooters, it's an unfriendly dog eat dog experience with an incredibly hostile community that's ready to pull out every cheap tactic, it's always been this way. And what i'm trying to get to with this, is that the game can be bloody frustrating, and blaming a loss on something can ease that frustration. Everyone does it, i do it.

Back in the RTW version of the game, if you had an upgraded weapon you were called a no-lifer. Now if you have a premium gun you're a P2W noob. If you don't have either and still win, then you're obviously a hacker.

 

To get a three slot upgraded weapon, in game, that's going to take how long though? I mean I don't think I've got anything with more than one or two slots unlocked, and not really unlocked anything good to put in them. Since the RTW days the amount of hours needed has rocketed, that and I just can't muster as much enthusiasm for it as back in the day.

You're preaching to the choir about the dog eat dog nature of the game though, I've clocked about three hundred hours on APB over the various beta and live stages of its life and, though the modern version is by far the kindest, it's still a painful experience, especially if you're losing a lot.

 

For a lot of guns one slot or two gets you the biggest adventage, anything on top of that is just icing on the cake. You get the one slot versions at level 5 of the weapon role or so? Failing that, some of the pre-set ones you get through contact progression are pretty decent.

The most popular weapons only really need an orange mod to be beastly, maybe a red one to better suit your play style, and anything after that is down to preference (and IMO provides diminishing returns)

For instance, now that mods have downsides i find that either of the blue ones hurt me more than they help.

You don't actually need to unlock the upgrades either, i got all of mine early from the player auction house.