buglunch on 25/11/2003 at 17:36

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Since they have so blatantly decided the console money rules and we are secondary, this might be an acceptable game but DX3 won't be. Maybe professional mods might appear from true PC devs in future.
It was interesting that in this demo the guards don't shoot you on sight if you are passive but get antsy for you to hustle along and then beat it.

Tej on 25/11/2003 at 20:13

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[installed the demo]

[read the readme]

[started the game]

[fiddled with settings and controls]

[played for 15 minutes]

[noticed the controls won't stay put]

[quit the demo]

Ah, so this is what we've come to. I cannot say that there hasn't been a lot of work invested into the game. But the nagging feeling of not being a member of the primarily targeted audience for this game (even after having liked and completed SS, SS2 and Deux Ex), isn't very pleasant. I mean, for starters, you click "New game" and the game asks me if I want to start the game. So, they have to ask me if I'm sure even for such a thing?

Just to think of the differences. In Deux Ex, we started on a dock of the Liberty island. We're talking big open area, with nothing but skies above. Now, we start in... I can't even tell what this place is. Some back yard with the dumpster? It's too dark to see. The place is small, crammed-up, claustrophobic. I take the stairs down to the door, and after focusing on a bigger scale of those fonts I find out I'm facing the "travel to greasel pit" door. If this was Deux Ex, I'd click the door, it would open, and I'd walk inside. At this point, the engine would quietly load the new area, I'd wait a few seconds and play on. Here, after clicking, I'm facing another dialog asking me if I want to travel to the new area. Yes, I do, please, that's why I clicked on the door! So now the screen goes blank, shows some splash screen with the progress bar, flickers a few times, changes a resolution a couple of times, and only then can I play on. The only thing that's missing is the animation of the door hanging on the black background... and the question "will you pick up green plant?" What happened to the (near-to) seamless transitions between different subenvironments eludes me.

And what else... yeah, gone is the conversation log, gone the logging of the things you read. I liked the mouse inteface of the previous game a lot, the security consoles were comprehensive. Now we have to use an ordinary menu in its place.

So here we are, mostly not very happy. I certainly hope the content of the game will be great, so that it'll be worth having to learn new (console) game mechanics and the interface. I get some positive hope from the people here that say the overall feeling improved on the consecutive runs.

By the way, what the heck is that droid on the F6 biomod? It decomposes corpses or even unconscious characters, regenerating yourself? Isn't that a bit gross? It's like making your character a canibal or, for all it matters, Kain with his telepathic blood sucking...

And why, the heck, do I have to see an nVidia logo on my ATi graphics card?

OK... rants off.

Uncia on 25/11/2003 at 21:28

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> If this was Deux Ex, I'd click the door, it would open, and I'd walk inside. At this point, the engine would quietly load the new area, I'd wait a few seconds and play on.

I can actually appreciate them asking me if I really want to spend the next 5 minute staring at the loading screen as opposed to doing it without warning me. I'm not fond of games with long load times that don't make it obvious where the next part loads [like when I first played the Hong Kong level and foolishly decided to see what's around the corner before entering the Lucky Money and was forced to sit thorugh 2 loads just to get back], and a normal looking door doesn't qualify as obvious.
They could make it so it only does it once I suppose; when you already know where the load spot is, it stops.

[and goddamnit, why is the Confirm button not hotkeyed? Sloppy]

Tej on 25/11/2003 at 22:26

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Yeah, one of the things I missed, being able to convince a guard into not attacking. Then again, they were usually taking you for a terrorist. Towards the end I would snipe those that killed all the scienlists.

Those Kireon Glen's comments do make me hopeful. I mean, I played through all so far available Legacy of Kain games, hating the elements of consoles. But I enjoyed the games a lot. Similarily goes with Resident Evil - it's fun despite. Deux Ex is a PC game all in all, and the demo, being out of context, shows just these "issues."

Tej on 25/11/2003 at 22:45

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Oh, one more thing, my first mistake in IW was that I tried to hack the ATM in front of the guard. While in DX nobody would care, here I died quite quickly...