Vernon on 30/8/2011 at 08:46

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lol

Matthew on 30/8/2011 at 10:05

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Even I've stopped LotRO long enough to play it, Vernon!

mothra on 30/8/2011 at 11:33

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the game is great and fuckin stupid at the same time.
because so many things are good the bad ones really stand out:
3rdperson, takedowns, bad VO, golden filter is the new brown, bad dialogues, bad cutscenes - that work against your character's decisions - in atrocious quality and a really small conflict, not the world-sprawling conspiracy I expected of DX. The design is no hommage but a blatant rip-off of GITS and BladeRunner and does not fit at the least into the DX1 world design. The XP system is more of an invite to powergaming than playing the game in an RPG-y way. The hacking system is fkn annoying like any other minigame.
Also: Adam Jensen another one of the more stupid gaming characters (like Shepard imo). No matter how you play him (choose neutral, interested, grumpy responses) he comes across as a douchebag and his motivations (gf + work) are dubious for me. The leveldesign is confined, many chokepoints actively seperate each level into really small chunks. Not to speak of technical problems (mouse lag/acceleration, graphic glitches with nvidia, REALLY poor soundmix)
BUT: give me a few rooms with guards, sec systems and computers to hack and some augs and I am happy. That part they got dead on. The conversations between guards, the multiple routes, the alarm system, the hubs. The stealth system is designed around 3rd person, so it sucks but it serves it purpose and the animations are bad so they work against the "cool 3rd person moves", especially the landing system looks really bad in 3rdP.
BUT: All in all I am satisfied and happy to see that they still are able to do games that are "like" DX, even if they don't know how to make them as good as them. I give them the "first time on such a project" benefit of doubt.
But on the other hand: if the game sells well all those stupid decisions will be confirmed and carry over to Thief4. And in that way I regret buying the game :)

mothra on 30/8/2011 at 11:48

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what that is about: it shows the devs have no clue.

Why design a landing system and show it in 3rd person when all you see is your char glitch along fireescapes and jerking around from the collission errrors ?
Why takedowns when you can see other guards walk by without noticing because you are stuck in the animation and therefore do not exist in the map ?
or it places you into other locations because it just cannot play properly for the position you are in. I initiated a takedown near an open door, the animation just did put me into that other room because it did not know how to play properly inside the door frame.....wtf
WHY DOES MY BODY HAVE NO LEGS ?
the list could go on but fortunately I could ignore the 3rdP for most of the time (mentally) and turned the diff to EASY for bossfights so I could just go in there, blast a rocket in their face and be done with it. wow, the bossfights are really lousy in every way (design, story, dialogues, level). I hope only one person is responsible for those and gets fired immediately.

anyways, enough grumbling: there are guards to stun

Matthew on 30/8/2011 at 13:08

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Nah, 'cos the third person works well in other instances. Having played it a little more I guess the reasoning is to let you look down at the floor below you to check for approaching enemies and stuff. Bit odd, but you get used to it quickly enough.