fett on 26/1/2008 at 02:19
Well sad to say, I've come to That Point where I'm just absolutely not motivated to play this anymore. I'm inside the Mako building, which looks just like the Terra whatever training center, which looked just like the club, which looked just like...you get the picture.
I still don't know why the hell I'm doing anything that I'm doing, the mods inexplicably work sometimes and sometimes they don't, with no explanation of why, and I have a very low tolerance for games that teach you what you're doing wrong with a kill/re-load rinse/repeat formula. The middle may get better, but I can't subject myself to the insipid story and boring levels anymore. I just can't take it.
IMO, this game sucks big. What hell happened at ISA? :(
Papy on 26/1/2008 at 08:28
Quote Posted by fett
the mods inexplicably work sometimes and sometimes they don't, with no explanation of why
I find that strange since I never had any problem with biomods... Can you be more specific?
catbarf on 26/1/2008 at 14:40
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Also, the strength upgrade in IW is hilariously awesome. At the max upgrade level, you can murder people by throwing coffee cups and ashtrays at them. Except when you're in a weapon deactivation zone, when suddenly you can't. Too bad only taverns can afford those things, and not top-secret weapons research facilities.
:D
Now that I think about it...
fett on 26/1/2008 at 16:25
Quote Posted by Papy
I find that strange since I never had any problem with biomods... Can you be more specific?
For one thing, the dominate bot mod works on some bots, but not on others. That would be fine if there was some indication of when or why this takes place. The only way to find out for sure is to sneak up to the bot and get your head blown off (or not).
There's so many bad things about this game I don't even know where to start. The 1-D characters? The mind numbing excuse for a plot? The inconceivably long load screens? The bland level design and coloration? The fucking HUD splashed all over my monitor to the point that I keep waving my hand in front of my face it distracts me so badly? The bass ackwards inventory management?
It's too much guess work, too much looking at load screens, too much learn by dying gameplay. I've better things to do with my life.
michaelg on 26/1/2008 at 17:20
Quote Posted by henke
What saves the game is that it's simply damn fun to play. And the fact that there are a lot of different ways to play it. And I'm not just talking about air-ducts either! Stuff like setting up traps with explosive crates/barrels or hacked turrets. Or figuring out how to get to the back of the lawyer's apartment and taking him out before he sets of the alarm or getting spotted by his bodyguard. There's a whole lot of tactic invloved here. You most defenitely
can play it stealthily, although it becomes much easier after you've armed yourself with Walk Silent, Arm Strength, Electronic Discharge and Vision Enhancement Biomods as well as a Energy Blade or The Toxin Blade or Dragon's Tooth.
I don't know yet how diffrently the game will let me get through it compared to last time as I'm only at Mako yet. But I've made it this far without doing The Order any favours at all(I sided with them last time). The fact that they keep calling me and asking me to help them out anyway is starting to get a bit sad. Sorry, Lin-May Chen, I just don't feel that way about you. Let's just be friends ok! STOP CALLING ME
It also undermines the feeling that your choices have consequences.
Anyway, if it didn't have the burden of having to live up to DX I think this game would easily be rated up there with Chronicles of Riddick. There just aren't many other games that give you this level of freedom. 8/10 says I
This is exactly how I feel about the game. It's not great, but it is fun. Despite the hokey characters, cramped spaces and odd physics, it does have a decent story once you get into it, and as Henke said, pretend the air ducts aren't there, and get creative. I agree with the 8/10 especially seeing the poor competition it had at the time.
ZB is right about the strength mod. Max it out and and it really is a hoot.
ZylonBane on 27/1/2008 at 00:49
Quote Posted by fett
For one thing, the dominate bot mod works on some bots, but not on others. That would be fine if there was some indication of when or why this takes place.
Read the biomod descriptions. Level 1 gives you control over small bots, level 2 for medium bots, and level 3 for large bots. I don't think I ever encountered a bot that level 3 couldn't dominate.
Quote:
The fucking HUD splashed all over my monitor to the point that I keep waving my hand in front of my face it distracts me so badly?
Have you at least turned the HUD transparency down to 0? That makes most of it disappear when not being used. Of course, your health and energy bars still look like they've been melted.
Muzman on 27/1/2008 at 00:50
Quote Posted by fett
For one thing, the dominate bot mod works on some bots, but not on others. That would be fine if there was some indication of when or why this takes place. The only way to find out for sure is to sneak up to the bot and get your head blown off (or not).
There's so many bad things about this game I don't even know where to start. The 1-D characters? The mind numbing excuse for a plot? The inconceivably long load screens? The bland level design and coloration? The fucking HUD splashed all over my monitor to the point that I keep waving my hand in front of my face it distracts me so badly? The bass ackwards inventory management?
It's too much guess work, too much looking at load screens, too much learn by dying gameplay. I've better things to do with my life.
I think bot domination is one of the few 'dice roll' style 'spells', most of them aren't like that. Really though Mako is like level 2 of the game, effectively. You've got past the first hub section and moved on to what is effectively a 2 section FPS/Thief level that bridges to the next hub. I'm a bit surprised you've had to do so much fighting already; there's only a couple of bits of combat in all of Seattle. Although it's hard to know that on the first run through (That's part of the problem with this sort of game; you don't know what's possible even though lots of things are and the game doesn't help much with what you can do. And then you try and freewheel a bit, investigate the games rules and some bug or something smacks you down and you don't feel so adventurous anymore.)
If you're giving up now the plot isn't so much mind numbing as hasn't even begun yet; you've found out that Tarsus wasn't quite what you thought it was and Dr Nassif has some connection to the Mako facility and you fiollow her. That's pretty much it. I agree there are
huge motivation problems at the start. I wish they had found a way to make the fact that everyone likes you and wants a piece of you intruiging rather than bewildering (and established why the world is this callous ruthless wild west sort of place where people will hire you to murder at the drop of a hat). Mostly I felt the same as I did in Bioshock "Why do I care about any of this? Why am I doing this aside from the fact it's a game and doing what people say is what you do?" (only Bioshock wrote itself a get out of jail free card into the story, IW's isn't so good). They don't tell you who you are, why you were at Tarsus, what Tarsus supposedly did before you found out that it didn't etc etc. It's all true, but as I said, the game's barely started.
And the load times; I have quite the beast of a machine now (although Crysis made my video card prettymuch obsolete the week I bought it) and IW runs smooth as silk, but Stalker levels load faster I swear. It is insane. I don't know how I put up with it before.
You can turn the HUD to invisible so you don't have to look at it most of the time as well. Anyway, take a break and maybe come back to it. It seems strange to say it, but the game gets generally more linear from here on out. I found I wished they'd included more Seattle-like sections, even though it doesn't serve very well as the start of the game.
Pyrian on 28/1/2008 at 06:08
Quote Posted by fett
For one thing, the dominate bot mod works on some bots, but not on others. That would be fine if there was some indication of when or why this takes place.
Yeah, you have to read the manual for that one.
Quote Posted by fett
...too much learn by dying gameplay.
People die in this game? :p
fett on 28/1/2008 at 22:22
Well, now it's crashing my machine randomly inside the Maco plant so out it goes. It's just too shit to have to fuck around figuring out why. I can see why some people like it, but it suffers horribly from consolitis IMO - much worse than Deadly Shadows or Bioshock. It's just a chore to play, and trying to work things out intelligently (using mods, stealth, hacking, etc.) doesn't seem to pay any immediate dividends. If I want to blow the shit out of everything, I'll play HL2 so at least the level design doesn't stink.
Sorry to be so negative, it's just that I've been largely absent from any discussion about this so far, and I can't believe how bad it is.
Muzman on 28/1/2008 at 23:17
I've been playing a bit again since my upgrade and it's started dropping to the desktop randomly as well. Never happened before.
You haven't got a dual core cpu or recently got a new graphics card? (They're the only culprits I can think of in my case.)
