We address morons and Mrs. Clinton, stealthy review copies, and more sexy issues.
Hey Doug, a few concerns. I've watched the majority of the videos for Pariah on the site, and almost everything about the game looks delightful. Except the AI, that is. In your hands-on, I distinctly remember some example of the AI, where 3 enemies did some intriguing maneuver which you spoke of admirably. In all the video's of the game so far, the enemies have seemed anything but smart. They seem to wait around for death, and let you casually stroll up to them and blast them in the face, or slice them with the melee device. In the recently Insider uploaded Masterbit Theatre, the grenade launcher is used from what seems like around 15 feet away from 3 enemies, who sit behind rocks blindly firing, apparently oblivious to the fact grenades are being lobbed over their heads. If they were actually taking legitimate cover, this may seem more intelligent, but most of this "cover," seems to be standing behind or to the side of a rock, which provides excellent cover if you, the player, were perhaps on the exact opposite side of the rock, inches away. In that situation, I'd say the enemies are well covered. However, the other 99.99% of the time, they look to be dumb as a rock.
"Hey guys! Look! An enemy! He just killed Joe over there, and I saw his body tossed into the air and then contort in a whole bunch of painful un-natural directions, while only 3 feet away! Hmm... Oh well. I'll stay here, because those objects coming out of the weapon which just killed Joe, are unlikely to blow up when they are at MY feet."
Yeah. I know that this is most likely an early previewable version of the game (lord I hope so...), I definitely am concerned. Also, in the videos it seems that when you pick up an enemies weapon it will mostly say "Picked up Bulldog," but then every once and a while will throw in, "You already have Bulldog." What's with this?
Also, staying with the topic of A.I., Brothers In Arms was a little disappointing in this department, at least with friendly forces. Early on example, when you lead just one team mate, and travel through some small French houses, the Nazi's outside shoot in through the windows at you. If trying to place said "guy," to shoot out the windows, you get what I found to be the common, "Can't do that Sarge!" reply. I mean, c'mon dude. Is shooting through a window THAT hard? Later on, when sending my troops up to take cover behind hedgerows, and shoot at Germans, I'd often times get the same message. Several earlier missions have particular choke points which are basically the only path. To get the squad to actually shoot where I wanted, Id have to send them back 20 feet from the cover, or somewhere much more open, which they generally didn't realize they should run when German machine gun nests housed hundreds of rounds their way. While this is a Squad based shooter, I ended up feeling much more like a babysitter the majority of the time, and after a long time, just ended up starting to move my guys before and after a firefight where they wouldn't get totally hosed, and took out the enemies by myself. Is it just me or was that a major turn off? I rented before deciding to [not] buy, and played about half of the game. This feature alone was the deciding factor when NOT handing over Ubisoft my 50 bones.
And oh yeah, what is with people writing in saying, "I know for a fact that so and so is the greatest..." blah blah blah? Has no one mentioned to these kids that words such as great, good, bad, sucks, blows, etc are all subjective words which mean there IS NO FACT to be proven. You can make your case as to why you feel how you feel, but cannot "prove" anything, seeing as there is no answer to how "good" something is.
As always, Thanks Doug. And I, unlike some others apparently, appreciated the review of Narc by Ivan (I think it was him, wasn't it?)- so if you want to pass it on. Anywho, great job as always! -mitch
Mitch, AI is a tricky thing, and after playing what seems like thousands of games, I have to agree with you for the most part, not all AI is all that impressive. As Naughty Dog's Andy Gavin likes to say, "Is there even such a thing as artificial intelligence?" Well, he didn't say that exactly, but that was the gist of it. So, in Pariah, that one section, in the creek with the guys flanking, etc, was pretty much the height of the AI that I've found so far. I'm about a hour and a half, maybe two hours into it, and the AI generally appears in groups and snipes at you, rushes and gang bangs you, and they're not terribly mobile. They are placed in good locations, but so far the AI is good not great. It started out teasing me, but it's just been good thus far. As for Brothers in Arms, tactics are your best friend, and the best way in that game to beat the enemy is to use your team intelligently. I also got the "can't do that Sarge," message, but it's part of the game's design to not place your men in either bad or too obviously compromising positions. In those cases, I either took care of the enemies myself, or re-positioned my men to a better flanking position. There is some hand-holding in there, others call it management, or tactical management, but it's a big key to enjoying that game, and if you skipped or didn't like it, I can see why you weren't that impressed with BIA. And yes, it was Ivan who reviewed Narc. Good 'ol Ivan.
--Douglass
Splinter Cell Ad
That ad is killing my experience browsing your site, its slowing my browser down to a crawl, I think there's something wrong with it, never ever happened on my computer and doesn't happen on your site at all except when that ad is trying to work... Thanks for the help, great site keep it up
Unfortunately, that's the price of doing business online. They pay us to put that ad up, and that pays my salary and I write this hum-drum mailbag. No, really, I agree, that ad is hurting my experience with the site too. You're not the only one. The ad-ops team has been notified.
--Douglass
Raiders
Hi Dougy, Have you heard any rumblings from your people "in the know" about the new tomb raider being available for the x-box? The scans that have been floating around are from a PS2 magazine... Oh Please let us have Lara in Hi-Def with crisp textures and 5.1 sound.... please please please!
Tomb Raider Legends has been in production for some time now, and Eidos is just waiting for the perfect time and place to lay down the red carpet so Xbox 360 Lara can walk it and let the breast physics do the talking. You'll see it unveiled at E3. Supposedly it's an Xbox, Xbox 2/360, PS2, and PC game. Croft on Xbox 2? Sounds like 5.1 and 720i loveliness to me.
--Douglass
FPS
uhhh ... Prince of Persia: Sands of Time as a first person shooter? Doug, what drugs were you on yesterday??? I think you meant to say "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay", correct?? :) I'm playing through Riddick right now, it is a great game (although, about 1/2 way through in the mines, I wish there was a bit more "shooting" and a bit less "sneaking".... still, darn fun!)
Yes. I did mean Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay , thank you. I also meant to get more than four hours of sleep for the past three days, but that's not really happened. It seems as though the sands of time have affected me.
--Douglass
TS:FP
Let me say real quick I'm a fan of the ign website and I won't buy a game without reading an ign review. I am looking for a way to contact Free Radical to supply some feedback concerning their controller schemes in Timesplitters FP. Didn't find a way via the internet or through EA games. My problem is I use a controller scheme similar to the "Legacy" scheme in Halo. The problem is, when I zoom a zoomable weapon, the move/look functions are not consistent with the unzoomed mode and it really screws up my game experience. I wanted to suggest to Free Radical addressing this in an xbox live fix. I don't know if you can help, but thanks for entertaining this message. --Js
Check this site and send your letters addressed to Dr. Doak to this address: info@frd.co.uk. He'll like that.
--Douglass
Quit
"Right-Wingers"?
You're a moron. Just because you're based in the Politburo... er, San Francisco doesn't mean you have to taint video games with your political bias.
Plus, this story is three weeks old!
I quit IGN.
I keep trying to quit listening to politicians, but even Hilary Clinton should know better than to say something so reactionary and fear-producing. I wish politicians could come up with some other interesting way of getting our attention instead of trying to cater to our fears and ignorance. If she had done the least amount of research into the subject, those words would not have come out of her mouth.
Let's taker her proposal to heart, shall we? What really do you think will be the conclusion of a $90 million investigation into videogame "violence?" Do you think that after spending all that money, the results would be that everything is hunky dory? That after $90 million down, the results would prove that people who play videogames are happy, sane, and unlikely to kill anyone? No, of course not. The results are more likely to produce legislative ideas such as how to ban videogames, re-work the rating system, and to heap more statistical fear-mongering jargon claiming that videogames are bad for our youth. It's to address people's fears. It's for Clinton's upcoming presidential bid. It's politics, pure ands simple. And it's pure BS. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. You don't have to agree, but it's my first amendment right to say what I think.
If parents don't want their kids playing violence videogames, then here's some legislation for you, they should pay more attention to what their kids are doing, manage their kids' intake of videogames, and make sure to actually parent them. They should play videogames, learn about them, and learn to read the simple ratings on the damned game boxes.
Here's an idea for you, instead of "quitting IGN," which is easy, why don't you send a letter to Mrs. Clinton to try and legislate how parents should be better parents? To train them to understand games better, instead of simply reacting, like Mrs. Clinton. That takes work. You know why that won't happen? Well, I don't know, maybe you will send one. You had no problem sending me a letter. It probably won't happen because there are no rules are laws about how to manage your children. So, quit if you want, but damned if I'll let pure, ignorant anti-videogame political agendas go unchecked on our site.
--Douglass
Strikeout
What is the deal with Spikeout? I've seen news on some sites (including Sega's official site) that it has shipped to retailers. However, it no longer shows up in either EB or Gamestop's databases. My distributor says its been cancelled. Has Sega given someone exclusive distribution rights or what?
Spikeout is one of those games that has been slipped under the radar. Sega stealthily released it so we couldn't review it on time, so it would have a chance to potentially get into the hands of eager gamers to buy it before we played it and A) either shrieked in pain, B) winced in agony, or C) took out the big red pen and wrote a review tearing it to shreds.
This tactic was used for Spikeout, Iron Phoenix and Midway's Narc.
--Douglass
