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Melan on 14/2/2011 at 08:11

I have only followed three of these, and will also add DNF and Grimoire:
Thief 4: We know almost nothing meaningful about this project, and as long as it remains that way, I will stay a pessimist. Game development today is not nearly as permissive an environment as it used to be, and Thief as we like it is too niche, too hard to be a genuine commercial success. If the creators can work with these limitations, I will take a more careful look, but until then, I have written it off.

Deus Ex HR: Seems to be a significant departure from the original Deus Ex, but so far, it looks appealing in its own right, even interesting as a Deus Ex game - not necessarily one set in the same continuity (something that does not bother me), but one that examines similar themes and has similar ambitions. This may actually be good, as long as you are okay with lemon lime instead of your usual orange.

Bioshock Infinite: If Bioshock was the failed utopia of immersive sim design, Infinite is shaping up to be the tried commercial recipe that makes people forget the series ever tried to be something genuinely great - beneath the creative world design and carefully constructed set-pieces, Infinite looks like another 'cinematic' experience with oodles of hand-holding, carefully limited interactivity, and maybe a few extra branches off the main railroad counting as 'non-linear design' and 'emergence'. Can't argue with success, but this leaves me cold.

Duke Nukem Forever: Duke was great because it had amazing, interactive map design and amazing, creative weapons, not because Duke was such a great guy or because there were tits. DNF, so far, shows too much of the latter and not enough of the former. I will be happy to be proven wrong.

Grimoire: Speaking of ages-old vapourvare, this self-described (http://grimoiresystems.com.au/goldenera/) Wizardry-killer (from back when this meant anything to anyone) is apparently very close to release this time, a bit like in 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2006. Will noted fallout shelter owner Cleve Blakemore really finish it before the bombs begin to fall? Will it really be the ultimate mid-90s CRPG that unseats Crusaders of the Dark Savant from its throne? And will we still care now that most of us who still know about it are bitter, jaded old men? Stay tuned.

Briareos H on 14/2/2011 at 10:08

Thief 4. Embarrassing working title, a few disappointing rumours. The Deus Ex release will tell us exactly what EM are willing to sacrifice to the new target audience. It will also show what common gameplay elements from other games they are going to add without thinking it through. Third person cover, cool show-off moves and no qualm at taking the view from first person every now and then is a significant cue that Thief 4 may feature mostly third person gameplay, parkour and stealth kills. 4/20.

Arkane Studios. If their past and cancelled/on hold projects are anything to go by, they're clearly worth keeping an eye on. In absence of news, there is nothing hinting that they've lost their PC-centric attitude. Personally, I just hope that their next game won't feature a core multiplayer component like The Crossing was supposed to have. 15/20.

Bioshock Infinite. Fact: the first trailer was a horrible scriptfest. It doesn't mean that the game won't be an interesting linear FPS, but it will have to include more than gimmick telekinesis, different kinds of splicers and renaming the big daddy/little sister relationship. And I'm not trusting Levine to do anything interesting with the story. They could just get rid of all their literary pretenses for what it's worth. 6/20.

Deus Ex: HR. "Looks cool" pretty much defines it. Visual design is shamelessly pillaging Japanese cyberpunk and the rest from Blade Runner. Aesthetically and story-wise, it couldn't be any more remote from the original games. Gameplay-wise, some core concepts seem to be interesting if done right (multiple approach scenarios and stealth) but TTLG regulars will have to accept to play it as a mainstream, multiplatform game at its core. My biggest hope is that they keep hidden storyline elements for players who have a certain, uncommon approach (not killing bosses, finding certain readables, etc.) which change radically the way later encounters unfold. 9/20.

TES V: Skyrim. No surprises indeed. Looks dated due to it not being made for PC anymore. First interface shots/interview look horrible. The world itself looks tentatively interesting, but it can't be worse than Oblivion IMO. Quests and interaction with the world will tell. 8/20.

Fallout series. Not interested. Countless attempts of getting into FO3 and NV resulted in failure. 0/20.

STALKER series. The best addition to TTLG in the recent years. For the time being, I'm trusting GSC to stick with the core formula. Nothing much to say until we have more info on STALKER 2. Discussions about mods however make the dedicated forums here pretty valuable. 19/20.

Dear Esther. The remake of this one shot experience looks fantastic. It was built with a honest desire to make it the "reference art game" and I dig honesty. I hope they took the time to conquer the shortcomings of the writing and even if they didn't, it should be a beautiful and atmospheric semi-interactive experience. 17,5/20.

Dead Space. Both Dead Space games were fun and polished examples of modern console gaming working well on all platforms, although many elements of the game were terrible (notably writing and videogaming tropes). Visual design shows surprising consistency and good eye for aesthetics. 14/20.

The Witcher 2. I love The Witcher. It may be adolescent in its quality of writing and some kind of a half-mainstream beast when it comes to gameplay but it really clicked with me. I like such an universe giving us a somewhat raw take on fantasy kingdom, simplified and lovable characters (allowing to fake psychological depth quite easily), dark humour and unusual quests. CD Projekt nailed the 'humanity' needed for a RPG to work, and I'm looking forward to the sequel - QTEs and consolisation (yes!) aside. 16/20.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The best horror game in these recent years requires more than often the ability to roleplay the main character and suspend disbelief but gives back in spades when you do. I haven't been that tense playing a game since System Shock 2, and that is a great feeling. It's too bad the demo gave away those invisible monsters, they would have had an even greater impact if I hadn't known about them. I'm buying blindly Frictional's next game. 18/20.

XCOM. After the initial shock of their "take" on the X-Com of my youth, I'm prudently optimistic about this. After being hugely disappointed by Bioshock, I had great fun with Bioshock 2 which showed a lot more mastery in nailing the basic FPS principles. I'm trusting 2K Marin to make a fun FPS, I just hope it won't be a CoD clone set during the fifties. 12/20.

E.Y.E. A lot of things in E.Y.E look interesting: multiple branching paths, tight shooting, RPG stats, dystopian universe. I'm pretty worried about the writing and story however. I'm afraid it will be a fun game but not taking its own cohesiveness seriously enough for me to like it from start to finish. It's French. 10/20.

The Dark Mod. Very promising and already in a state where good missions can be made. Not enough people getting into it. Would love to know why. 15/20.

Sg3 on 14/2/2011 at 16:11

My four favorite games of all time are still, after all these years, in order: Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age, Arx Fatalis, and System Shock 2. Sadly, none of the titles created as "spiritual successors" by the same and different developers have come close to meeting my standards set by those four. In all cases, I felt it was a near-total departure. I'm not at all interested in the new pretender to the Thief series, nor in the next Bioshock game. And I was greatly disappointed even by Arkane's Dark Messiah, so I'm not sure I'm interested in anything they're doing anymore, either. In short, I've been forced to reluctantly conclude that great games come about by chance, and that "lightning doesn't strike twice." And it doesn't seem to be striking anymore; that the newest of my four favorite games is ten years old. All of the new titles listed in this thread have something about them which puts me off.

For example, Amnesia doesn't appeal to me if only because of the "over-done-ness" of the player character's audible expressions. I don't need the character to loudly pant and moan whenever I'm supposed to be scared. I'm supposed to be the one who's feeling the fear; I don't need the character to do it for me. It's a "double-simulation," and that really bugs me. If I'm doing something, the virtual character doesn't need to also do it. That goes for functional things which affect gameplay, and it also goes for aesthetic things such as adrenaline-affected heartbeat and breathing. I don't need to hear my virtual heartbeat pounding in my head because I'm already hearing my real heartbeat pounding in my head.

june gloom on 14/2/2011 at 22:54

If that's all you've got to contribute, i.e. nothing that TTLG isn't infamous for already, then why post?

demagogue on 16/2/2011 at 04:49

@Digi. So you've got this quasi-blog thing going now. Can you add some way for us to comment on the posts? It would contribute to it being a Community thing, I think. I don't mean a new thread for every single post, but maybe a space below the posts for comments, or a link to some kind of special space for them or something.

Ostriig on 16/2/2011 at 12:39

Yeah, but that brings back the question of whether it'll take away from the forum action. In situations where you don't have and wouldn't want to start a thread for a particular bit of news it would be of use, but otherwise won't it run the risk of turning people away from the forums for not wanting to post the same thing twice?

demagogue on 16/2/2011 at 15:28

Quote Posted by Ostriig

In situations where you don't have and wouldn't want to start a thread for a particular bit of news it would be of use

This is basically my point.
I think most if not all the posts are looking like this.

Digi's made like 5 posts already. The games they talk about I believe have threads about them already, but these posts are more like news bulletins and an opinion that don't really fit in them, and except for that first one, they don't deserve entire new threads just for them. But they do make points it would be good to see comments on. And I don't think it will take away from people posting in threads because the threads stand on their own. And people wouldn't be posting their general thoughts on the game here, but just responding to the particular post or opinion. I'm just imagining like 3 or 4 comments, basically like a blog, not a whole discussion.

Digital Nightfall on 16/2/2011 at 16:08

Sadly I am still working with the decade-old content management system (cms) that was written way back when TTLG was just getting started, and so there's no support at all in it for any type of commenting system. At the moment I think we have someone who can work on updating or redoing the cms for us, but for the time being the only way people can comment on the news/blog posts is by starting a threat, or talking about them in existing threads.

Right now I feel like there's no point in posting something to the news/blog section unless I have an opinion about it, because our readers are just as likely to see the news elsewhere. If I don't have an opinion about it, it's not worth posting. Does that make sense?

I really do want to allow comments on posts.

Briareos H on 16/2/2011 at 17:13

Who are "our readers"?

With all due respect, I don't think anybody cares about the front page - whether it is made of opinion or not. I'm sure most people directly bookmark ttlg.com/forums/. I'm among those who think that the front page does not need hold any content, but merely act as a node towards the forums and sister sites (walkthroughs, FMs, patches, etc.).

A blog-like structure can be useful, but for hosting maintenance-related messages or general announcements concerning the TTLG network. If you really want to link to game opinions there, how about linking directly to dedicated threads in the forums?

EDIT: More regarding the "news" aspect of the site. There is no use in yet another videogaming news related aggregator. Many of us follow RPS, other forums and other blogs (even maybe things like Kotaku - bleh), so everything you can post there will be probably redundant and/or dated. If you start posting personal opinions and news about "hot" games, you're taking away the discussion from the forums and destroying a part of the community aspect. Plus, quite frankly, a personal blog is not what TTLG is about.

addink on 17/2/2011 at 00:13

I think a selective news blog can be very useful thing even with personal preferences indicated (if done sporadically and if they are clearly indicated as such). And let's face it, anything is better than the wasteland that the front page had become.

Just tapping into the forum would be a mistake IMHO. The TTLG community is not uniform or structured enough to depend on some kind of member democracy to generate an interesting page. Also, a lot of new threads start out without any real information, some do but most are no front page material.
Having one or perhaps a couple of news moderators might result in a more balanced page. The news items can of course still refer to an interesting thread.

Personally I'd like to see a setup similar to (http://www.rpgwatch.com/) RPGWatch: all the news items are basically the first posts of threads in a special news section of the forum. Each news item has a link to its full thread where any member can comment.
Like the TTLG forums, RPGWatch is vBulletin based as well. I don't know how much customization went into that but still..

Quote Posted by Briareos H

Who are "our readers"?

Anyone that might be interested in a discussion on the TTLG approved Games That Don't Suck.

At first glance the TTLG forums can seem a harsh place where personal preferences of some prolific members seem to rule (of course depending on which section of TTLG you're reading). Having a moderated/filtered frontpage that encourages people to comment on interesting TTLG subjects could be more inviting for potential new members and (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134847&p=2049621&viewfull=1#post2049621) certain people.