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[darkness]

I just watched Microsoft's conference and well, I'm totally dissapointed.

They blew their load way too early.

That's probably the best way to describe it.

MGS: Rising looked really cool.  Is it a motion control game?  The way you choose which way to slice kind of threw me off but it looked awesome.  It's not even close to a traditional MGS game but it's nice to have Kojima do some stuff on Xbox.

Fable 3, meh.  I won't hold my breath for a stellar game.  I actually like Fable 2 but the ending left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm ready for more dissapointment.  Molyneux doesn't help with his phrases that he took right out of a book describing the second coming.  

Gears 3.   WOW.  That looked awesome.  Huge fan of gears.  Glad to see that they included 4 player coop in this one.  Awesome action.  Kind of funny the way they acted like they didn't know what was going to happen with the scripted moments.  A friggin Plus.

Halo Reach actually looked really good but the presentation was not that great.  They had loads of enemies on screen and suprisingly good graphics.  The gameplay looked solid and had some new twists.  I think it might've been the lack of epic music that Halo is known for that explains my lack of appreciation for the presentation.  Once they include that I expect the game to be a lot more moody and emotional.  But, the ending was just awesome.  Space combat.  Brings me back to the days of tie fighter.  I love space combat.  I hope they pull off those sequences, they have potential with this game even if it is "just halo".

COD black ops.  What can I say?  It's COD.  Looked okay.  It seems like it's still full of slam bang moments and decent everything else.

Some kind of possibly hack and slash game from Crytek set in Sparta was announced, could be good.  I love me some Crytek.

No Crackdown 2?  No red dead redemption episode announcements?  No new RARE game?  No Banjo, conker, killer instinct, jetpack gemini, perfect dark, viva pinata, NOTHING?!  I doubt Rare will announce a new game now that the conference is over but it's possible.

But aside from all the absentees, it was a great showcase of good games.

And then - darkness.  The conference descended into the realm of shovelware.  A realm where companies beat their chest to declare being the alpha dog while showing kids play with virtual dogs/cats.  

Natal, Kinect, whatever you call it has SOME potential, but this conference reassured me that the new peripheral will be shoveling in some shovelware.  But luckily it's easy to ignore.

I thought that it was actually promising the way you can navigate the dashboard with motion.  The demonstration with Forza actually looked pretty nifty.  Hopefully there are developers out there with the patience to create something truly great with Kinect.  Let the kiddies play with tiger cubs named skittles.  God knows I'm too immature to be immature.  I'd probably whip out my schlong and see what skittles or Milo says.

ESPN free for gold members is an awesome addition.  I may actually use this if a game I want to see isn't on a regular TV.  The next step is adding a customizable scoreboard to your dashboard.  Pushing the dashboard button while playing to keep tabs on my favorite teams would be really cool.  They probably aren't as innovative as my fantastic brain is, though.

360 slim, short, thing.  Big deal.  I already have an xbox.  It will sell like hotcakes though.  

The fact that they didn't name prices for Kinect probably means that it's too expensive to brag about.  Probably means that I won't even come close to buying it.  Maybe once a price drop happens, maybe once the economy/my wallet rebounds, MAYBE once some decent games are made for Kinect.  Maybe.

Big Maybe.

Most of the conference was just a bunch of horseshit with the Kinect thing.  I was waiting on the edge of my seat for Half life ep 3, Banjo Kazooie 4, Conker Live and Re-reloaded, but no.

Casual is conquering.  

do a beta...

:-X

[9.8/10 overall]

If you haven't played the game then I suggest you find a way to play it.  It's such an immersive and emotional game.  It has intense combat, incredible graphics, incredible technology, and a great story.  The story is what I want to talk about in this thread.  So, after this post, there will be spoilers.  

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AFTER THIS POST


But this post isn't over yet, so I'll try to give a quick review for the people who have not played it.

Gameplay 9.5/10

Why?  Everything factors in beatifully.  The physics affect the combat and how enemies react when you shoot them.  You may be familiar with Euphoria or Natural Motion (it was in GTA4), but it has been put to good use in RDR.  Imagine these physics with animals and people alike.  It makes the gameplay feel real, and that makes it scary.  That can make it intense.  

Riding across the plains with your friends or even by yourself is just incredible.  You will always find something to kill, rob, help, what have you.  There's just nothing like sniping a random NPC's horse going full speed and watching him tumble down.  You can then run up to him, hogtie him, and either slice his throat, take him with you, or leave him to die in the hot sun.

Graphics 10/10

Holy hell I have never played a more technologically impressive game, and I was playing on a freaking 360.  The draw distances will make you involuntarily (or even voluntarily) poop.  The frame rate is steady, the lighting is absolutely superb, and all the little details will have you staring.  You will see for miles, and in those miles you will see herds of buffalo or families of bunnies or flocks of crows - all animals look awesome and act like actual animals.  

On top of these amazing graphics you have an awesome physics system to make the world seem realistic.  Shoot a person or Bambi in the leg and he will limp off.  Shoot a person riding a horse and he may get his foot stuck in the stirrup.

Blown away.  But, if you want to die from being so amazed, you may want to wait for a PC version.  Hopefully it isn't ported badly like GTA but I'm sure there will be some absolutely incredible mods.

Story 9/10

This is what I want to discuss in the thread.  So, again, leave if you don't want to be spoiled.  I won't ruin anything in this mini-review, though.  

The story is pretty good but what really makes it an interesting journey is the game's set of characters.  They are what you've come to expect from a R* game.  They all have problems, quirks, addictions, etc but they are all interesting and believable.  

Revenge is a crowd pleaser.  That's what this game is about, more or less.  It's the theme of redemption (hence the name) and the theme or vengeance.  You will either love the ending, hate it, or you won't know what to think about it.  What I mean by that is that everyone will have a different opinion.  

I personally can appreciate some of the themes they laced into the ending and it's also full of foreshadowing.  Whatever you think, it will evoke emotion.  Whatever emotion that it stirs, it's a good thing.  Why?  Well, not many video games are capable of making you feel for the characters like RDR does.  Whatever you feel, it's something that you will remember.  That's a great thing.

"Outlaws to the end."

9.8/10 overall...  It has some bugs, it could use some more polish, multiplayer is great but not as amazing as it could have been, and those are the only things that I can hold against this amazing game.

Wow.  This was a shocker.  I had no clue that he had cancer.  Apparently he's had stomach cancer for 6 months and just died today.  He did look real skinny the last time I saw him.

I think he had one of the greatest metal voices of all time.  It was surely the most powerful.

The guy also gave us the famous devil horns hand gesture.  

Raise your horns for Dio!

I know most guys here have photoshop, so I thought this would be a good place to start asking. 

If anyone could give me some information on how to *purchase* this fine program created by Adobe then it'd be much appreciated if you could help me through private messages.  That way we aren't cluttering up the forum.

;)

No seriously I'd appreciate it you guys. 

EDIT:  NEVERMIND.  I went and 'bought' it for the full $599.99 dollar price tag set by the wonderful Adobe company who was gracious enough to offer such an amazing program at such an affordable price tag.  Delete this thread, lock it, whatever. 

DOUBLE EDIT:  This thread is now for posting fun little photoshop creations or if you have some nice artwork let's see it.

Go see it.



It's really, really good.

Really.





You euro-bastards probably have already seen it by now though.

But, if not, go.  Now.






Run.

So as we all know M$ is shutting down all of their xbox live v.1 servers.  No more Xbox live SvM or any other game for that matter.  I will not get to play it on console anymore after tonight.  After this post I will go play my final hour (tears  :'() and try to enjoy it.  It's like a freaking movie.  When the clock strikes midnight, it will be no more.

I was playing earlier today and trying to get some people learned about Project Stealth and maybe pick up some guys before the imminent doom.  After explaining it, some people were like "Hey, what is a mod?"  Fortunately, and surprisingly, there were quite a few people who actually knew about Project stealth and check the website occasionally.  I couldn't believe it. 

So the popularity and hope isn't solely with the PC guys regarding this mod.  Just thought you guys might want to know that people know about this even on xbox live.  At least, the ones who cared enough about SvM to give it one more go before it bites the dust tonight.

Good luck.  And also, put more of your stuff on the home page so that it's easier and quicker to see.  A lot of the guys said that they just check the home page and haven't seen anything new since the new website skin.  Maybe that was the most recent new thing - lol

So, I'll see you all online probably pretty soon.  I'm off to give her one last good bang.

If the current poll is never decided, then we will never receive any updates in any form.  TEXT OR MEDIA!!  NONE!  For the love all that is sacred (Farley quote) give Frvge a model to go by!

Feel free to discuss the poll here, or don't.  I don't care.  As long as 1 person breaks the tie.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/x10-vidoc-halo-reach/61845#comments_top

Seriously looks like the best halo since the first one, and they are still in Alpha. 

Impressive.

Well there is a debut trailer around the net.  Seems like the game takes place on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.  Possibly preventing a nuke from getting into terrorists hands sounds like a good setup since it is a plausible situation in the real world.

However, if you watch more of the trailer, you'll see the ghosts.  Literally.  They look like ghosts.  Meaning they have invisibility cloak ghillie suits on.  That made me say 'wtf?'... 

Then I thought it might be cool since this might mean more "ghosting" and more "recon".  Then I remembered it's being developed by Ubisoft.  Then my heart had an irregular beat.  Then I died.  Then I came back to life to remind you that Ubisoft is pulling it's shit again with the catering to the casual. 

Actually, I haven't technically came back to life.  I'm a ghost.  I gotta tell ya.  It's pretty cool being a ghost.  I can steal all the Cheezits that I could ever want from my neighbors and you should see all the shit I've done to Agent.  He may be AFK but he's really UTB (under the bed).  For some reason he has pickle flavored Cheezits, WTF is that?!

http://gamerscoreblog.com/press/archive/2010/02/05/gh789.aspx

This completely blows.  I will only have a few months left to play CT?  DUDE.  I have no choice but to stop everything I'm doing and help the "revival" that has been talked about here.  There are still people who are hooked on Halo 2 or even Ghost Recon 2.  I guess this is the only downside when compared to PSN that LIVE has.  MS has control over the servers and not the developers in this example, but that can be a good thing or bad thing. 

If this report is legit, and I don't have the time or urge to see if it is, then so long Original Xbox - we hardly knew ye.   :'(

Mass Effect 2 is just so great that I decided to add sex into the title.  Because sex is cool.  Sex.

Sorry.  Sounded funnier in my head.

Discuss the game.  It is literally just behind CT as my 3rd favorite game of all time.  (All Zelda games are number one since they are essentially the same game, don't judge me).

Already doing my second playthrough immediately after beating it for the first time.  This time I will be renogade and listen to the song of the same name by Styx whilst playing it.  I'm blown away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzy_1YaPxPc

Okay, so I just bought it and the game is legit.  Do ya like Metroid?  This game will knock your socks off, or if you don't wear socks (agent ;)), then it will melt your face off.  If you have an xbox and you enjoy action/adventure then you should definitely download this.   

Well here we are again.  For those of us who still care wtf Conviction is doing right now then it's going to be a long end of the year.  Conviction has been delayed until Q1 of 2010, which we all know will set up the inevitable Q3 or Q4 delay.  The game already has been in development for 4 years, longer than ANY splinter cell game before it, and it looks to be the most hastily developed splinter cell ever.  Ironic eh?

I'm still on the fence on this one.  The single player looks decent despite its departure from traditional splinter cell fashion.  Still looks fun, perhaps a bit more than the old conviction build.  The multiplayer likely only started development a month or two ago, if that.  They promise multiplayer to be revealed in the coming weeks, but that was weeks ago.  If it's not revealed at comic con then when will it be?  The multiplayer will probably only be a slap-on and nothing revolutionary or evolutionary like PT/CT.  Probably will be something similar to that BS spy vs. spy, something in that range of quality.

This delay better be used to squash bugs, polish the crap out of it, make a GOOD multiplayer, RE-ADDING dragging bodies in single player (seriously, wtf is that about? I've heard that douchey guy max beland say that it's all about giving the player "choices" and they TAKE AWAY your choice to play slowly and hide bodies >:(), and most of all they better use it to make the stealth side of the experience at least as enjoyable as the action side of the game. 

Well, who knows for sure?  Could turn out pretty good.  Probably not great, but good. 

Has this been discussed before?  I think that I remember hearing about a gas mask "animation" was discussed but I'm not sure.  But is some sort of visual indication of gas mask being on/off being thought of?  I don't even think an animation is necessary.  For all I care the gas mask can just appear on his face when it is on (not necessarily activated), and dissapear when he has out another gadget.  Thoughts?

Apparently we no longer support harsh methods of interrogation to be used on TERRORISTS?  Hmmm, I think this actually all started back in the 70's.  Back when the public saw what war could be they cut their balls off and started smoking weed and protesting.  We've been too soft now for too long. 

France loves us now?  Wow, crazy.  They should have loved us until the end of time after we bailed them out and saved them from total destruction.  Nothing against the French, but really?  Is this really our goal now here in America?  To make the world love us?  We'll sacrifice what we need to do in order to become what the world wants us to be?  We've been castrated.  This Obama guy does not help with the regrouping of our testicles and independence.  Liberalism is borderline a disease for my nation.

Like it or not, America has NEVER been about doing what it's told to do because of friggin peer pressure.  We do the right thing, the noble thing, the things that the countries who lack the brass would never do.  We have our fair share of flaws but it's our will to fight and will to do right that makes us, no offense to any other countries, THE BEST.  Lately we'd rather blend in with the crowd than set an example like we always have done.  And that's bullcrap. 

Obama won't even allow the good-cop-bad-cop routine because we HAVE to use the manual?  For THESE GUYS?  My bologna has a first name, it's O-B-A-M-A.

Discussion.  Go.

Okay.  Just to clear this up.  The flamethrower attachment/gadget could be the replacement for your traditional tazer in Project Stealth.  The tazer or flamethrower would do the same exact things - just look different.  So, for some cosmetic differences between CT/PT and PS, would you like to see a flamethrower instead of a tazer?

What does the Flamethrower do?: 

Instead of the spy shaking uncontrollably when tazered, he would flail for a few seconds until the fire goes out.  Then, he'd pass out like when tazered.  The flamethrower would have the same exact range and damage as the tazer, as well as the cool down time between the flame spurts. 

Maybe for a cool effect have a bit of smoke rising from the spy's KO'd body?

To me, it just seems like a merc's style. I also think it's better to have more differences between spies/mercs.  Seems odd that both can electrocute people.  Instead, mercs burn, spies shock.  This would not take more work, just different work.

Thoughts? :)

Don't vote for the last one, unless you are agent, then you are telling the truth.  Haha jk.

I think this is a really basic feature that for some reason was left out of CT MP, but was in CT SP.  Frvge said this: "Not planned, but we'll see".  Well frvge, this is to show you and the devs if it is in fact worth implementing. 

For me, there were plenty situations where not being able to swap my firing shoulder was really annoying.  If I want to peek out of a corner with my gun pulled but I have to expose my body before my gun, it gets pretty damn lame. 

Why not?  I don't think it would take that much work, and it's just 1 minor thing that could improve upon CT's basic principle.

Discuss.  Now. 

New map idea.  Sketchup design shots coming soon!

Lagoon

Description:

Location: On the Brazilian coastline about 20 miles from the nearest city Belem.
Time of Day: 1:38 A.M.
Date:  March 23rd, 2013

Lagoon is a completely original SvM map.  As you can probably tell by the name it is set in a lagoon area.  A lot of the map is covered with shallow water and small islands in between them.  It has some pretty rocky areas the prevent players from going certain places and they split paths.

The mercenaries have been hired to defend a radio and relay center from possible attackers.  They have set up a defensive base, about 100 yards away from the radio center, near a lagoon to prevent possible attackers from docking there.  The mercenaries have taken advantage of small huts and a tower to strengthen their base.

The spies have been deployed via submarine and have swam ashore to a safe area behind some tall mountainous rocks about 120 yards away from their objectives.  Their objective is to knock out any threat from the mercenaries that occupy the area and gain any knowledge possible about the mercenaries defending the station and the drug dealers that hired them.  Secondary objectives include disrupting radio communications to handicap the dealer's abilities to communicate outside of the radio base.

The map includes a few small wooden huts on stilts because they are near water.  A communications tower overlooking a small portion of the lagoon.  This tower has a laptop on the second level where spies can upload a virus. (it's basically hacking as we have it now, but it works the opposite way.  Still takes 10-12 seconds to complete).  The mercs can use this tower as a vantage point but at times it would be a bad idea because it's a lot of stairs to go down/up.   It includes other things that I'll list below.

- Spies spawn in a rocky cliff area.  Below the cliff is 2-3 ft high water which slows anyone down that walks into it.  It is a good penalization for any merc attempting to get close to the spy's spawn point.  There are underground sea caves that go underneath the water and exit near the center of the map, they are only accessible to spies.  This will be illustrated in the pics I post later on.

- Mercs spawn in their own little area surrounded by cliffs.  They have stairs that go down in different directions so they can enter the playing field in a few different angles.  Again, this will also be illustrated later on.

- There is a hill in the center of the map with a zipline leading to between two huts with objectives inside of them.  Beside this zipline is a generator which powers the small hanging lights on this map.  If the spies are able to hack into this, they are rewarded with a much darker playing field.  The mercs have to cross water to get to this hill.  Water slows them down btw.

- The aforementioned huts are about 50 yards away from eachother and have jagged rocks between them that the spies can use for cover.  The map is littered with these stray jagged rocks and they would prove useful tools for the spies to time movements to get across the map.  In one of the huts there is an objective. You can enter it from below, since it is on stilts, through a passageway.  In the other hut, you can place a bomb to destroy the one of the merc's ammunition caches.  You can place the bomb on one of the stilts, or at one of the two places inside the hut. 

- Behind those huts are jagged mountainous rocks that block the map off in many places.  Behind those jagged rocks are two objectives.  One is a disc, the other is a laptop.

- The barriers of the map are the jagged mountains, of course, and the ocean.  When the ocean gets too deep you can't go any further, too deep is about 4-5 feet high.  The deeper the water gets the slower you'll go.

NOTE that you I'll post the layout tomorrow so you guys can get a real idea of what I'm talking about here.  Hopefully the theme has peeked all of your interests to the point where you can't wait for the drawings.   ;D