Quake3World

Mat Linnett wrote:In regards to your point GKY, see X-COM becoming an FPS. WTF.

That is a kick in the groin indeed.

But I don't understand the Gears of War hatred here. I thought both games were pretty entertaining. No-brains shooting is fun from time to time.
And once again, Horde is just plain awesome.

brisk wrote:The GOW games are totally overated. I couldn't even finish either of them as I was bored shitless before the end. Same crap from start to end.

Very much like the Halo games in that respect.

I read the first line of this and before I read the second I thought 'just like halo'. Lawls.

Epic are talented engine programmers, but their games are dire.

Historically, disagree. Their games were mostly A+ up to maybe 5 years ago. More recently, agree. Coincides roughly with their change of tack from targeting PC to targeting console. HMM COINCIDENCE.

Epic's last and only good game was One Must Fall 2097

Captain Mazda wrote:Epic's last and only good game was One Must Fall 2097

Dunno if Jazz Jackrabbit or OMF2097 was released first (both are from '94), but Jazz Jackrabbit was pretty cool too.
Oh and I have to say that UT2004 isn't a bad game at all either.

Oh yeah, forgot Jazz. The second one was ace too.

I think Unreal 1 was the last decent Epic game I played. UT was pretty good until I discovered Q3, then it was game over.

Funny how every Unreal game since then has tried to copy Q3 mechanics and failed miserably. Epic couldn't do weapon balance if it chainsawed them up the pisshole.

Foo wrote:Coincides roughly with their change of tack from targeting PC to targeting console. HMM COINCIDENCE.

Low expectations, low results. Look at what happened to the quality of EA and Activision games when they started hammering out console-exclusives. Down the shitter, ahoy.

brisk wrote:epic doesn't care about pc people

or black ppl...

brisk wrote:I think Unreal 1 was the last decent Epic game I played. UT was pretty good until I discovered Q3, then it was game over.

Funny how every Unreal game since then has tried to copy Q3 mechanics and failed miserably. Epic couldn't do weapon balance if it chainsawed them up the pisshole.

its a shame then that epic has been more in the forefront than id has in the past few years.

Chupacabra wrote:

brisk wrote:I think Unreal 1 was the last decent Epic game I played. UT was pretty good until I discovered Q3, then it was game over.

Funny how every Unreal game since then has tried to copy Q3 mechanics and failed miserably. Epic couldn't do weapon balance if it chainsawed them up the pisshole.

its a shame then that epic has been more in the forefront than id has in the past few years.

TBH it's not really that bad. Valve has more than picked up the slack.

Speaking of new games...When is Rage going to happen? DAMN IT

is rage going to come out for consoles or just pc? i guess i could look this up...

yeah fair enough, id haven't made a decent game since q3 for me (doom 3 was pretty dire, lets admit it) but they do have one kickass legacy.

epic on the other hand brought such game changing features as walls to hide behind and shitty blob guns.

a damn shame that epics games probably sell shitloads more.

yes, especially considering id's potential and history. epic deserve it though...they've been actually trying these past many years.

I think you're being totally unfair to Epic.
Their games are good. They are really, really good. The quality of their work is among the best in the industry. These guys do push boundaries. Anyone here that says Epic only makes shit games probably still holds a grudge because of the whole UT vs Q3 argument.

Gears of War, like it or not, is a game that is properly executed, well polished and quite frankly, the first one was something different from what we had seen before. Sure, it's gameplay may not appeal to you, but damn, every single friggin' id Software game is a FPS with yet another rocket launcher, yet another shotgun and yet another machinegun. When is the last time they have actually done something revolutionary or even something different?

I mean, I don't particularly enjoy strategy games, but I am damn well aware that Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 are extremely well made games. Just because you don't like GoW's gameplay doesn't mean they are bad games. Yes, I agree that Quake 3's gameplay was far more intense than that of Unreal Tournament, but still, UT wasn't a bad game either.

When stacked against a random selection of games, Epic's games rate very high in quality. I think that Epic are definitely talented developers and they make pretty incredible games. Anyone claiming otherwise really needs a reality check.

p.s.
Doom 3 wasn't nearly as bad as the media wants you to believe.

Chupacabra wrote:is rage going to come out for consoles or just pc? i guess i could look this up...

PC, PS3 and XBox 360

Oh, I never said that Epic made horrible games. Just boring ones.

High production values + commercial success does not necessarily equal a fun game.

Doom 3 was just as boring. It was a 20 year old game marinated in a modern engine. The whole "walk around in darkness and wait for the next batch of enemies to spawn behind you" drove me insane, but I just bought a new PC at the time so I sure as fuck was gonna finish it.

Also, MGS did cover systems long before Epic thought of GOW. The only thing GOW revolutionised was oversized men with no necks.

Eraser wrote:I think you're being totally unfair to Epic.
Their games are good. They are really, really good. The quality of their work is among the best in the industry. These guys do push boundaries. Anyone here that says Epic only makes shit games probably still holds a grudge because of the whole UT vs Q3 argument.

Gears of War, like it or not, is a game that is properly executed, well polished and quite frankly, the first one was something different from what we had seen before. Sure, it's gameplay may not appeal to you, but damn, every single friggin' id Software game is a FPS with yet another rocket launcher, yet another shotgun and yet another machinegun. When is the last time they have actually done something revolutionary or even something different?

I mean, I don't particularly enjoy strategy games, but I am damn well aware that Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 are extremely well made games. Just because you don't like GoW's gameplay doesn't mean they are bad games. Yes, I agree that Quake 3's gameplay was far more intense than that of Unreal Tournament, but still, UT wasn't a bad game either.

When stacked against a random selection of games, Epic's games rate very high in quality. I think that Epic are definitely talented developers and they make pretty incredible games. Anyone claiming otherwise really needs a reality check.

p.s.
Doom 3 wasn't nearly as bad as the media wants you to believe.

I agree that Epic makes high quality games...for what it's worth. Their art department does a first rate job and their level designers create levels that fit their gameplay designs. However, as has been mentioned, my beef is simply with GoW's cover to cover based gameplay. It - to me - is quite monotonous and repetitive throughout both GoW versions. Like several people, I gave GoW all the chance it needed to blow me away (I played it to the last boss battle and gave up) and while it did tantalize my retinas with a really fucking cool atmosphere, the game itself was more than meh....but fucking meh. The only moments I truly enjoyed were slicing up some cunt with the chainsaw end of my weapon.

The core cover-to-cover mechanic was shown for the repetitive nature that it is - in a ridiculously obvious manner - in Mass Effect 2: every single time you came up to waist high objects you could bet the farm that there would be combat. Same thing in GoW. There is absolutely NO CHANCE of being surprised in those games as it relates to ambushes or other types of gameplay setups. The gameplay itself limits the level design to a huge extent which is the exact reason it becomes boring so quickly. Once you know the formula, you can set your watch to it.

IMHO the only game that got the cover mechanic correct was R6 Vegas...and only because you weren't always forced into it. Perhaps if GoW was a FPS utilizing R6's setup I'd have enjoyed it more...but Epic was too preoccupied with the 3rd person view of showing off the character models, the "jumping over obstacles" animations and the "handishake cam while sprinting" feature. They based the game on the visuals they wanted to show you, rather than how you wanted to play a shooter game.

as for predictablility, i recommend playing some GoW2. it has dynamic enviroments and debris so sometimes the waisthigh covers dont exist until a (scripted) event blows up a side of a wall.

Even though the AI is a bit dodgy at times, I think the new Splinter Cell uses cover quite tastefully. As GFY mentioned, ME2 *really* suffered in immersion because every time you saw some object you could hide behind, you knew a fight was coming.... same with GOW, whereas SC demanded a little bit more creativity and the lighting/stealth system worked well. Still linear, but for a cover-based game, it worked better than the others.

And yes, my beef with Epic is not the art direction, level design (even though thats nothing special either imo) or sound. It's just that their games are just dull as shit after a few hours.

Oh and for comparison, I just checked my steam game listing and I played 730.5 hours of L4D1 and 320.5 hours of L4D2. Valve know how to make their games fun and make you want to keep playing them. The only other game to demand such crazy time from me is Quake 3.

GONNAFISTYA wrote:I agree that Epic makes high quality games...for what it's worth. Their art department does a first rate job and their level designers create levels that fit their gameplay designs. However, as has been mentioned, my beef is simply with GoW's cover to cover based gameplay. It - to me - is quite monotonous and repetitive throughout both GoW versions. Like several people, I gave GoW all the chance it needed to blow me away (I played it to the last boss battle and gave up) and while it did tantalize my retinas with a really fucking cool atmosphere, the game itself was more than meh....but fucking meh. The only moments I truly enjoyed were slicing up some cunt with the chainsaw end of my weapon.

The core cover-to-cover mechanic was shown for the repetitive nature that it is - in a ridiculously obvious manner - in Mass Effect 2: every single time you came up to waist high objects you could bet the farm that there would be combat. Same thing in GoW. There is absolutely NO CHANCE of being surprised in those games as it relates to ambushes or other types of gameplay setups. The gameplay itself limits the level design to a huge extent which is the exact reason it becomes boring so quickly. Once you know the formula, you can set your watch to it.

IMHO the only game that got the cover mechanic correct was R6 Vegas...and only because you weren't always forced into it. Perhaps if GoW was a FPS utilizing R6's setup I'd have enjoyed it more...but Epic was too preoccupied with the 3rd person view of showing off the character models, the "jumping over obstacles" animations and the "handishake cam while sprinting" feature. They based the game on the visuals they wanted to show you, rather than how you wanted to play a shooter game.

Fair points
The predictability and repetitiveness didn't bother me as much to be honest.

There are new screenshots.

There's a bunch of screens that clearly show a mirrored level with red and blue flags. Maybe they're bringing a classic Capture the Flag gamemode to multiplayer.

Nice