Blog Gaming 26 - The Showman's Bag

[arcticstoat]

This week Paul and Joe were joined by plughead.net founder and former PC Zone writer David Brown. First up on the agenda was the continuing PSN outage, and how the continuing lack of service is starting to affect games developers...

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/podcast...showman-s-bag/

[SMIFFYDUDE]

I'll never buy DLC

[SMIFFYDUDE]

I'll never read the middle. Take that hard working reviewers!

[Tokukachi]

The only DLC i've bought is BF:BC2 Vietnam, which is more of an expansion pack anyway

[Material]

Originally Posted by SMIFFYDUDE

I'll never read the middle. Take that hard working reviewers!

Damn you!

[thehippoz]

so the witcher 2 is what's going to blow the socks off.. the thing that really stuck in my mind in the original was walking through town as I was pumping my stats and equipment, a dwarf walked by and said f it!

weird that sticks in my mind but the rest is hard to remember.. oh the end movie too

wonder what nexxo would say about that

and star wars got rudy roped when lucas made jar jar binks.. nothing they do can do will ever recover from jar jar

[urobulos]

I bought Witcher 1 when it was on sale on Steam, but just couldn't get past the dated feel and wooden movements. I probably should have given it more than 5 minutes of gameplay time, but the combat felt terrible. And yes I know saying that after playing through 0.01% of the game is hypocritical, but there was just something about that game that instantly threw me off.

[Skiddywinks]

@urobulos, I got a lot further in to it, and still had to give it up. The Witcher 2 looks frickin' amazing though! WANT!

Thanks for answering my question so in depth, it was very interesting to hear your thoughts! Some very interesting opinions and some good points were made.

[Unknownsock]

Originally Posted by urobulos

I bought Witcher 1 when it was on sale on Steam, but just couldn't get past the dated feel and wooden movements. I probably should have given it more than 5 minutes of gameplay time, but the combat felt terrible. And yes I know saying that after playing through 0.01% of the game is hypocritical, but there was just something about that game that instantly threw me off.

I did that, but recently picked it up for the third time and managed to play for more than 2 hours. And I'm blown away, once you get used to the mechanics of the game you'll realise how perfect or fitting it is.

Seems like a massive game too, Just got the chapter 3 out of 9 i think? And I'm on 23 hours so far.

[Toploaded]

I fully agree about wanting to keep all your games in one place such as Steam, but I'm gonna make an exception on this one and get the Witcher 2 off of gog.com. My full price purchase of this game is more about supporting what the company stands for then want of the game. A donation to the cause, if you like

Yeah I know Steam is a form of DRM, but I accept that for the benefits I get from it. However, I hope for a day when Steam is the only DRM and that there is always an option to have 100% stand alone for those that don't see Steam's benefits as worth it for DRM.

If I end up really enjoying the game, then all the better.

[Canon]

Originally Posted by urobulos

I bought Witcher 1 when it was on sale on Steam, but just couldn't get past the dated feel and wooden movements. I probably should have given it more than 5 minutes of gameplay time, but the combat felt terrible. And yes I know saying that after playing through 0.01% of the game is hypocritical, but there was just something about that game that instantly threw me off.

Yeah, I'm currently pushing on through the Witcher only because I have been told it is a great game, but so far it's been horrible, if I had paid full price I would be furious. I bought the enhanced edition but struggle to see how the original could have been any worse, the movements are jerky, player and NPC models just appear out of nowhere sometimes in the middle of dialogue. Sometimes the players animations just stop and your character continues to run despite his legs being bolted together.

The combat system is essentially Geralt holding his sword in different positions, (Gorilla, Chimp, Bonobo) and then clicking furiously at enemies until the game eventually allows you to strike them.

Then there's the cameras. It seems like they have screwed up all 3 camera types and said "Chuck them all in, let the player find the camera that's LEAST screwed up for them."

Last but not least, every dialogue ending in "We'll talk later." in exactly the same wooden tone with no facial expressions whatsoever is beginning to give me a headache.

[thehippoz]

Originally Posted by Canon

and then clicking furiously at enemies until the game eventually allows you to strike them.

yeah you'll figure it out.. the beginning is a little slow

you hold the mouse button down and let go when the cursor changes to that sword looking thing, then go back to holding it down again.. he will unleash the whoopass =]

smashing the mouse button will get you roid rages

[Canon]

Originally Posted by thehippoz

yeah you'll figure it out.. the beginning is a little slow

you hold the mouse button down and let go when the cursor changes to that sword looking thing, then go back to holding it down again.. he will unleash the whoopass =]

smashing the mouse button will get you roid rages

Yeah it took me a little while to work that out, but even then, I feel as though I should be playing Guitar Hero 18th Century edition.

[thehippoz]

it's different at least.. the story with simon gets interesting if you hang in there

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by SMIFFYDUDE

I'll never buy DLC

Same. Ship me the whole game I paid for please. Day 0 DLC is the most insulting. I'll either never play the DLC or I'll wait for the GOTY edition. Still waiting for ME2 GOTY + price drop as I played a work copy the first time round.

[Tangster]

I'll admit it, I've bought quite a lot of DLC. I bought the Lair of the Shadow Broker, Kasumi, Zaeed and Arrival as well as Kestral armour for ME2 for example, which seemed to be good value. (Large new mission, get to sleep with Liara again, new squadmates, Normandy get a bar...

I'm reluctant to buy DLC which has no impact on the game or adds nothing interesting, ie, hats. Mostly because I'm still hoping someone crack the game for proper modding and such additions will inevitably flood the mod scene if that ever happens, whereas decent level packs and mission with proper voice acting won't.

[Toploaded]

Pre-ordered from gog.com and now pre-installing, really interested to see if it's a good as the podcast suggests!