Despite being a big Commandos fan I never got into the Desperados games, but seeing that the new entry is being developed by Shadow Tactics-devs Mimimi has me excited.
I fully agree with everything that man just said.
Loved Commados (well, Behind Enemy Lines, Beyond the Call of Duty, and Commadnso 2; I didn't care for #3 and never finished it), and loved Shadow Tactics.
Also never got into Desperados, I think I played a demo or something once, but it didn't click with me somehow. Odd, since I even played Star Trek: Away Team, which wasn't exactly great.
Anyway, happy to see more games like that. Especially from Mimimi.
New Metro is looking nice!
A Plague Tale is a game with a lot of rats, and kinda stale-looking gameplay. But maybe the story will be really good or something? Who knows!
Aaaaaaand.... also a bunch of other stuff but nothing I'm excited about enough to post just go search gamescom trailers on youtube ok sheesh do i gotta do everything around here
Talking of hype: I like what I'm seeing of the Shadow of the Tomb Raider environments - but the character animations seem somewhat off to me. They lack a sense of weight and (at least to me) look more like Lara is pretending to be exerting herself rather than actually doing it. It might be different if you're playing the game yourself, but none of the recent videos really convinced me in this respect.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider looks messy to me, which I suppose is to be expected given it's another studio handling the third entry in a reboot when their prior expertise was first person immersive thingamabobs. Still no clear through-line for what Lara's facing off beyond exotic culture of the week and Tom Clancy tech-enhanced villain of the week. Or if they're going to give Lara (pronounced 'L/ae/-ruh'? For shame, devs) an actual personality beyond 'ardent striver who gets shot at/groans a lot'.
MEANWHILE, this is from Frogwares so I'm automatically suspicious (their handling of Sherlock Holmes has been interesting, to say the least), but it's a great trailer:
Yeah, saw the trailer myself yesterday. It's great.
What's with Frogwares' SH games, though? Never played any of 'em.
They're solid B-titles, but I'm someone who grew up reading Doyle's stories of Holmes and would like to think I know a thing or two about what makes a good Holmes story.
Frogwares tends to focus on the mechanics of gathering and arranging clues in prescribed ways (shaken up recently with Crimes and Punishments' 'cortex' system that lets you link observations together in various deductive configurations that could possibly fail), while the character of Holmes himself is represented as bland, elitist, or grating. Which is exactly the opposite of Watson's observations of his character in the stories, and does the entire enterprise a disservice in my opinion (Watson himself falls prey to that odd tendency of movies and TV to be portrayed as a bumbling sidekick instead of a steadfast, loyal companion). They're decent stories, but the missteps tend to make the whole thing come off more as fan-fiction with a decent budget than an authentic, could-have-been Holmes story.
Last edited by Sulphur; 23rd Aug 2018 at 14:46.
Ah right. I've been (re-)reading Doyle's SH stories myself recently, so I could imagine how that might grate.
I see the two of them are currently on sale on Steam for €2.50, so I think I'll give them another try.Originally Posted by Nameless Voice
That is indeed one tasty trailer. Doesn't necessarily say much about the game, but it works brilliantly as an intriguing short to get you interested.
As far as the Tomb Raider reboots are concerned, what I really mind is how they all (well, at least the first two) pretend to be chapters in an overall story, but really they've been the same, hitting the same character beats, hinting at the same overall antagonist. There's only the illusion of story or character development, there's only lip service, but really, nothing changes at all except for the environment. It would matter much less if they weren't all "Ooh, the next chapter, Lara's development into the Tomb Raider we all know and love" or if they focused on character-external story, but as they explicitly try to sell the reboot as the story of how Lara Croft, Tomb Raider came to be, they're doing a frustratingly shit job.
Exactly. I wouldn't have a problem with the reboot if it hadn't presented itself as invested in Lara's story and growth before it went arse over tit in search of those things and turning up empty-handed; it's been laughably shallow for all those ambitions, populated with cardboard cut-outs masquerading as characters, and RotTR confuses trite monologues and non-denominational stand-ins for religion (found via collectibles, no less) with depth. If they'd just dropped the pretense and gone all out on some no-holds-barred Tomb Raidin', that would have been good enough.
Last edited by Sulphur; 25th Aug 2018 at 08:18.
Or the more ballsy way to deal with it would have been to show her character darken into various shades of morally grey and willing to kill because she's tired of this shit (I know I am). She's still portrayed as a pure and unimpeachable soul looking to save people, what with RottR's unsullied iteration of an Abrahamic-ish religion under threat from Trinity (ugh), and its immortality MacGuffin that had to be preserved, which is very odd when compared with how willing she is to plough her climbing axe through someone's back the moment the cutscenes are done.
There are A BUNCH of games I'm interested in coming out this September.
Today - Spider-Man
Sep 13 - Frozen Synapse 2
Sep 18 - Distance
Sep 19 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Sep 25 - Valkyria Chronicles 4
Sep 25 - Creed: Rise To Glory
Sep 27 - Life Is Strange 2
I was toying with the idea of picking up the new Spider-Man game that comes out today, but then I remembered I still need to finish Dishonored 2 and after that I'm playing Budget Cuts. So Spidey, along with Tomb Raider and LIS2 get relegated to the budget bin, but everything else on the list is a potential day one purchase. Thankfully the rest of the year looks to be less packed with MUST-HAVE titles, RDR2 being the only one really.
...anyway.
Here's a game about fighting a big-ass lizard that isn't Monster Hunter, starring a person who looks like someone collaged Gerard Butler's mug with a young Joel from The Last of Us who an astute TTLGer once described as modern-day Hawke from Dragon Age 2, and I wasn't entirely sure where I was going with this sentence, so it will now end:
It's by the folks who got Uematsu to do a soundtrack for their mobile game, and now are apparently in the big console AAA space. Looks interesting!
Shadows of The Colossus?
Everyone wants a piece of the pie, it seems.
https://www.usgamer.net/amp/sony-ann...c-mini-console
Project Awakening looks kind of like a spiritual sequel to Dragon's Dogma. Definitely hyped.
No more hype.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...shutting-down/
I'd been hearing that their games have been selling less and less.
That's a damn shame. The Walking Dead: Final Season is widely acclaimed as a return to form for the series, and now we will only ever see 2 of the 4 episodes.
When Telltale Games were at their best, they bought the adventure game genre back from the dead (no pun intended) by replacing some of its traditional elements (e.g. obscure puzzles, non-linear choices) with more action-oriented gameplay, branching storylines (or at the least, making it seem that way), underpinned by strong, mature writing. While I've only played a few of their game series, and if my impressions of The Final Frontier are anything to go by, it appeared as though they were struggling to get to grips with evolving their style of games beyond just visual upgrades, leaving the gameplay feeling stale and outdated.
Not necessarily. Seems like they've still got a skeleton staff of 25 for now, so TWD4 may yet be completed.
They're working on the Minecraft game apparently.
I know I'm the only one following this, but...
Still looking forward to this!
Actually, you're not the only one interested in what Kojima is doing next.
New trailer doesn't say much, except introduce a new enemy I guess, but Troy Baker is always a welcome addition.
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