Dr. Dumb_lunatic on 7/9/2005 at 10:27

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Actually, I don't think the smilies help much, do they.

Still sounds too angry. Sorry.

:(

Ziemanskye on 7/9/2005 at 11:24

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:mad: YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

Okay, now I've got that out of my system - Everyone Chill.

(rant:)
I am a console gamer. I play PC games too, but mostly I'm a console gamer.

Games get cut down and 'streamlined' on consoles. It happens.
The good ones feed back into the PC and streamline them too, removing a lot of clutter that wasn't really helping that version much and might have reduced the sales of the game because people were turned away by the apparent complexity.
Sometimes, things need simplified. Deal with it.

Games get smaller levels on consoles. Yup.
There aren't that many working engines you can just licence to run on consoles (that I know of), and even then most of them don't have much in the way of data-streaming, so whatever you need for the level, needs to be crammed into what is often 1/4 or less of the amout of memory you have access to on a PC. Most of them (this generation at least) don't have HD either, so there goes another space, because you have no virtual memory either.
And you know what, sometimes that isn't bad either. Some games are artificially long because levels are made bigger just to make it seem like you're getting more of a game - spending an extra 10 minutes just walking across a map isn't a good thing, no matter what the platform is.

Niche games.
You get them on consoles too. And just like on the PC they are currently a dying breed. We even get adventure games, whenever someone actually makes them. We got Broken Sword (all three of them), we got the latest Monkey Islands, we got Syberia, and we're getting Fahrenheit too if you'll count it. There's just not many of them coming out on any platform anymore.

Invisible War was simplified compared to DX.
I don't consider that a good thing, because I really liked both PC and PS2 versions of the DX.
Was it simplified because of the Xbox version. I don't know. I don't care. Having played with the Flesh editor for TDS, and knowing that the objects in IW needed more properties on everything it doesn't surprise me that the game is toned down.
And you know what? We are building bigger levels than TDS had as default - and it's not going so well because the Flesh Engine doesn't like it. Maybe the problem wasn't the Xbox at all.

Did Ion Storm screw up with IW and TDS?
I don't know. I was a fan of the series, so I had high expectations, and these weren't met. But they aren't sequals, at least from a marketting point of view, so maybe they weren't meant for me as such anyway. Simpler games with more obvious rules to entice people put off by the complexity of the previous games, or who perhaps just didn't know about them.

If they did screw up, was it because of the XBox versions?
I don't know. Probably a little bit, because it will have informed most of the design process. But there's also going to be time, money, and technology issues even without that hang-up. So maybe it was all going pear-shaped anyway.

(/rant)

Okay, rant done.
The sequals (to us, if not to PR) weren't what we wanted them to be. They're pretty much done too - the Thief3 editor doesn't let us do as much as we'd like, and we have a slightly better version than they did while working on the games, and Ion have died, and Eidos isn't giving any more support, so they're done.

Roll on the next round of games and there almost inevitable disappointing sequals. And if we're lucky, they wont try and update any more of our beloved brands, because the new ones will never live up to the nostalgia of the old.

Dr. Dumb_lunatic on 7/9/2005 at 16:02

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Well, it's less ridiculous than my idea about cheese in norfolk, but yeah, fuck it, let's call it a day. :/

good game, and all that. :D

Hell Kitty on 8/9/2005 at 09:15

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No they wouldn't, why would you think otherwise, considering all these things have been done on console many, many times before? All those things can be easily done on PS2, the lowest end of the current gen consoles.

An example:

- Left analogue stick for movement (which allows for different movement speeds), right analoge stick for aiming.
- Left/right on d-pad to cycle through item slots, up/down to cycle through augs.
- Square button for shoot/use item in hand.
- X button use item in world/holster weapon.
- Circle button for crouch.
- Triangle button for activate selected Aug.
- L1 and R1 buttons for peaking left and right.
-Start button for inventory/goals etc screens
-Select button for main menu for load/save/options

And then there are still the R2 & L2, and R3 7 L3 buttons, and I haven't taken into account the analogue nature of the buttons.

The hud needs to be larger on console to be readable on a TV screen, though not as large as in DX:IW. It can be easily changed for the PC version of a game, but IS didn't do that.

Hell Kitty on 8/9/2005 at 11:45

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In this regard, there is nothing in the original Deus Ex that can't be done with a console controller. Champions of Norrath offers a system similar to DX in that pressing Select brings up status screens with a tabbed interface showing inventory (divided into weapons/armour/items), character information, quest list, and a Diablo style skill tree that can be scrolled through for selecting and upgrading of skills on levelling up. The pointer is controlled using the analogue sticks rather than the mouse.

Resident Evil 4 features an inventory system with better functionality than DX, and like CoN, there are different tabbed status screens to scroll through.



Sure, a PC user my call using the controller "tricky" if they aren't used to it, in the same way that a console user might at first call a mouse "tricky" if they've never used one before. As someone who uses both, I can't fathom how anyone could find either system the slightest bit difficult. Mind you, I stuck to the arrow keys in older FPS long after I could have moved on to the mouse...



That's a pretty good idea.

Unlike the PC, you can't have a unique key to select individual augs or items, but if developers feel having to scroll through these if unfair to console players they can always use the system in Metal Gear Solid, in which holding down L2 scrolls through items, and holding down R2 scrolls through weapons, and while doing so it pauses the game. So you'd be able to hold down L2, scroll through and select any and all augs to activate, release L2 and continue playing.

Entering in keypad codes isn't an issue at all, as can be seen in the Splinter Cell games. Entering text is more annoying because it requires and on-screen keyboard, but it's certainly not impossible, as can be seen in the millions of RPGs that allow you to enter your characters name. Some of the Resident Evil games required you to enter in codes like this.



I am EXACTLY the same. :laff: