The Gaming News Thread

[Monk]

Half-Life 3 confirmed?

Easy now, remember last year (and every year before)? It might be a big tease or even someone's idea of a prank. Until we hear from the horse's mouth it's best not to get your hopes up.

[johnhughthom]

Hmm, I really must try those Half Life thingies one day, I've heard they are pretty playable, as PC games go. I've had them all on my Steam account for aaages, and never gotten around to installing them.

[Monk]

Well, it looks like you'll have plenty of time, RPS is reporting in an update that the HL3 thing is a fake. Valve aren't even presenting new games at gamescom.

Son of a

[Fragony]

Hmm, I really must try those Half Life thingies one day, I've heard they are pretty playable, as PC games go. I've had them all on my Steam account for aaages, and never gotten around to installing them.

They are still worth playing, the second one has a few area's that drag on too long and it's never a challenge, but there are a few area's that are pure genius. These guys at Valve are maniacs, if the artists and level-designers have to read short stories that take place in the levels that have nothing to do with the game itself, just to make the area's more believable, you know they are dedicated. It isn't the looker it was when it was released but I heard there are quite a few mods that seriously improve it

[TinCow]

Hmm, I really must try those Half Life thingies one day, I've heard they are pretty playable, as PC games go. I've had them all on my Steam account for aaages, and never gotten around to installing them.

Hmmm... this is a difficult situation. The problem with playing Half-Life (1 and 2) now is that you're going to be very unimpressed with them. Everything they do you've seen in dozens of other games. What made them awesome is that they (particularly Half-Life 1) pretty much created all of those things. At the time HL1 came out, it was a revolution in FPS gaming. You're not going to feel that way playing it for the first time now though. If anything, it might feel particularly constrained and rote. If you do go back and play it, try and keep in mind that, when it came out, FPS gaming meant Doom, Quake, Unreal, and other pretty mindless (no plot) shoot-em-ups. Stuff like Medal of Honor, Deus Ex, etc. didn't come along until later.

[Fragony]

The first Half-Life is still a blast to play because of the incredible AI of the human opponents, it's a bit odd that only Halo and (especially) FEAR did it any better. The second is kinda lacking there, the enemies aren't very fun to fight they don't flank or flush you out at all

[Husar]

OnLive is bankrupt.

That was faster than I could've hoped for!

[drone]

EA putting itself up for sale.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/3747...games-sale.htm

Hopefully the new owners will learn to treat their customers a little better.

[rajpoot]

EA putting itself up for sale.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/3747...games-sale.htm

Hopefully the new owners will learn to treat their customers a little better.

Kind of bittersweet if this actually happens.
I mean I do dislike the way they do business, but still it's sad to think that maybe they were forced to turn into this greedy money grubbing publisher, as the times changed.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I would be flabbergasted if they were purchased by an equity company that even cared about EA's various policies, never mind cared in a way that led to better policies towards consumers and studios. The only thing that an organization that could buy them out cares about is the short term percentage...

[Fragony]

Kind of bittersweet if this actually happens.
I mean I do dislike the way they do business, but still it's sad to think that maybe they were forced to turn into this greedy money grubbing publisher, as the times changed.

Why the negativity I can think of worse offenders. EA is a pretty damn good publisher of quality games. Eidos is by far the worst, just about every game they release needed more time

[rajpoot]

Why the negativity I can think of worse offenders. EA is a pretty damn good publisher of quality games. Eidos is by far the worst, just about every game they release needed more time

That is why I said bittersweet

[Hooahguy]

Why the negativity I can think of worse offenders. EA is a pretty damn good publisher of quality games. Eidos is by far the worst, just about every game they release needed more time

Except Hitman Blood Money. That game was fantastic. Still play it today.

[Fragony]

Two is better. Greatest soundtrack in a game ever, Crysis 2 comes close though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTs...e_gdata_player

Edit, not mentioning No one Lives Forever is just wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7JI...e_gdata_player

Half-wut? No one lives forever = best shooter ever?

Makes you wonder why they don't do that more often, incredibly awesome shooting with the main-soundtrack kicking in really feels like things getting wrapped up, it was absolutely glorious in these games.

[Martok]

It was inevitable...
[snip]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...is-iv-details/

I'll expect I'll buy the game in 8-12 years after it's released as a bundle package with all 142 DLC's and expansion packs.

[Voigtkampf]

Folks, EA is just about the greatest heap of scum and villainy you will find anywhere except Mos Eisley. Maybe Mos Eisley included. And the talk is about selling shares on a general market for additional cash injection, who could afford to buy EA as a whole?

Come on, folks, it is EA we are talking about, the most successful and most hated game publisher of today. That is an oxymoron in itself; who hates the ice cream vendor!?! But yes, folks, EA and Kotick managed to pull that one off, so all you need to do is google "why".

[Voigtkampf]

Silent Hunter Online teaser. Now, that is a game I could play for hours and hours...

[Fragony]

If those are ingame graphics 3x wow.

[Fragony]

Cool Machinarium comes to PSN, more people who can play this little gem yay http://machinarium.net/demo/ If you miss classic adventure-games this comes highly recommended, it's a beauty and it's quite challenging

edit, this looks in fact interesting, great way to enforce real teamplay http://www.gamespot.com/medal-of-hon...eview-6392260/

[Fragony]

http://www.gamespot.com/dishonored/c...oredTheStudyOf

Yesyesyesyes

#want

No NEED. It better be possible to ghost.

[Fragony]

Oh yesyesyesyes http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...nor-thy-player

Looks like this one has the class and sense of place that only the first two Thief games had

[Secura]

Hearthfire announced as the next DLC for Skyrim, coming to X-Box 360 on September 4th.

I'm somewhat confused; Bethesda implied throughout the development of Skyrim that all DLC would be 'sizeable packs', more Knights of the Nine than Horse Armour. I think building your own home leans more towards the latter though.

[Husar]

Hmm, I wouldn't say so necessarily. The DLC seems to improve the sandbox aspect by a large margin and gives you a load of options, in fact the house building sounds somewhat similar to minecraft, thought you probably won't be placing single blocks but modules.

It's a huge step from a horse armour, of course I'm not sure how much 400 Microsoft points is in terms of Euros or Dollars.

[TinCow]

Hearthfire announced as the next DLC for Skyrim, coming to X-Box 360 on September 4th.

I'm somewhat confused; Bethesda implied throughout the development of Skyrim that all DLC would be 'sizeable packs', more Knights of the Nine than Horse Armour. I think building your own home leans more towards the latter though.

Actually, I'm looking forward to Hearthfire more than any other DLC Bethsoft has ever produced for any game. I'd even pick it over Morrowind: Bloodmoon (though not over Tribunal). Without exception, in every single Bethsoft game one of my favorite things to do is get a house and fill it with crap. I am constantly downloading housing mods, and am generally disappointed with most of them. This DLC seems to be focused on one of the things I love the most about Bethsoft games, and it looks like it's doing it better than any mod I've ever used.

[Vladimir]

Hearthfire announced as the next DLC for Skyrim, coming to X-Box 360 on September 4th.

I'm somewhat confused; Bethesda implied throughout the development of Skyrim that all DLC would be 'sizeable packs', more Knights of the Nine than Horse Armour. I think building your own home leans more towards the latter though.

I read an optimistic review on that and I'm excited.

[Secura]

Hmm, I wouldn't say so necessarily. The DLC seems to improve the sandbox aspect by a large margin and gives you a load of options, in fact the house building sounds somewhat similar to minecraft, thought you probably won't be placing single blocks but modules.

It's a huge step from a horse armour, of course I'm not sure how much 400 Microsoft points is in terms of Euros or Dollars.

I wasn't comparing Hearthfire to Horse Armour in the sense of "this content sucks!" (though I bought the armour straight away, starved as I was for customisation in Oblivion), more challenging Bethesda's statements during the convention showing and launch processes. I wasn't really anticipating something along the lines of Shivering Isles, but I think New Vegas' Old World Blues DLC is a good marker. There was plenty to do (even after completing the main story), a good story (though wacky and puerile in parts) and plenty of equipment to take back to the Mojave. I'm just unsure what longevity there is once I've built the home and moved my stuff in there.

400 Microsoft Points is £3.43, so definitely a good buy. I'm sure it'll tide me over while I wait for Borderlands 2. :3

Without exception, in every single Bethsoft game one of my favorite things to do is get a house and fill it with crap.

Purchasing and furnishing a home is one of my favourite things to do in Skyrim, and Hearthfire will go a long way to expanding the possibilities of both customisation and roleplay, particularly as I don't have access to the extensive modding scene being a 360 gamer. I enjoyed painstakingly arranging various ornaments and artifacts around the home in Oblivion and Fallout, but that's difficult to do in Skyrim; I remember arranging my insect-in-a-jar collection on a shelf in Honeyside, only for them to fly off said-shelf the next time I entered my home. After three occasions of that happening and me rearranging the display each time, I gave up. xD

[Crazed Rabbit]

There's a kickstarter for a "Planetary Annihilation" game from the Uber Entertainment Studio and some of the folks that made total annihilation and supreme commander.

Basically it's total annihilation but in space. So you can shoot at planets from their moons and stuff. That's nice, but the reason I'm posting is because you can also build a whole bunch of engines on an asteroid and then ram said asteroid into a planet to destroy your enemies base:



CR

[Monk]

Yeah there was a thread about that, it got a few replies but there wasn't much else to say other than HOLY LOOK HOW AWESOME THAT LOOKS.

Really looking forward to what becomes of it.

[Hooahguy]

This looks amazing. Im buying it for sure.

[Fragony]

Love the cartoony art-style, but I can't shake the 2D game in 3D feeling.