I hope 'cubespew' becomes a genre label 

damn, that's disappointing. i really like that visual style or solid colours with just lighting and geometry... the video made it look pretty cool. 

Looks. 

Yeah still waiting for a good Blame! inspired game. 

 

 

 

scampie don't hurt me

(no more) 

I played Dead Space 2 this week, great game 9/10 I think. A bit linear but it seems most people overlook this since the rest is so good. Only negative is I found most of the more powerful weapons to be a bit shit. Definitely fixed the fucked controls of ds1.

Also played Batman 2 (Arkham City), pretty cool, 8.5/10. But really no different to the first game, just more of the same. Having to remember all the combo's and pissing around with all the gadgets gets a bit old after a while. I played the main game which was about 10 hrs, add Catwomen's DLC but by the Robin DLC I was over it and quit 30mins in. I'd had enough of those zapper cunts. Not the kind of game I could keep playing for 100 hours. Awesome design though, looks great in dx11.

I'm on to Portal 2 now, only up to chapter 3 but I see this is an 8hr game... boy this might be a drag if it doesn't change up fast. It's just the same old puzzles from Portal1. 

there are some new mechanics, but it's still a very short game. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abrKxAHJ7qU
Just a old game review - Quarantine. The guy is hilarious though :D 

huhhh.. that game looks cool, but i can see why i didn't do better judging by the problems the dude mentions.

also, he is hilarious. i usually hate weirdo youtube people, but his anger is awesome. 

I only got to the end of chapter 7 in Portal 2, I couldn't take it any more, it's a bit too long. I see on youtube the rest of the puzzles looked annoying as fuck. I don't get the response this game got, it's not THAT great. Kind of boring, dating engine, puzzles just for the sake of puzzles unlike proper adventure/puzzle games that have a purpose. Oh and the loadtimes! Load times out of the 90s!

Also I couldn't take the crashing anymore, not sure if it's something wrong with my computer but the further I got the more it crashed, to the point it was crashing every 30sec. Probably not normal for Portal 2 to crash so much, but everything hardware-wise seems to be okay, temps all good, memory fine. No other games are crashing.

Was I did like - the characters were great, though the story itself doesn't really have a satisfying summary. I did like the huge scale minimalist design, very moody and atmospheric. It suits this game, but you can tell the engine isn't really good enough for modern levels of detail. I wonder if this why Valve has been so quiet in recent years?

L4D1/2 looked dated, but that wasn't really their game anyway, they just created a bunch of new levels for Turtle Rock's HL2 mod, and called it L4D2.

Portal was the same, it's just Nuclear Monkey's game Narbacular Drop, but Valve hired them and recreated it as Portal. Portal 2 is just a bigger version of Portal 1.

Dota 2 wasn't their IP either. All their multiplayer things like CS and TF are based on user-made mods.

Has Valve itself done anything original since 1998's Half-Life? I don't think they really have.

I wonder how much the fact that they know their engine is out-of-date and has been for about a decade now, plays into that? Too busy with Steam perhaps. 

Every game steals the ideas of previous games - at least Valve actually hires the makers of the game they rip off! 

If it's crashing every 30 seconds, no, that's not normal. I don't think it ever crashed for me. 

they've done something to the hl2 engine. i get crashes in all hl2 engine games a lot. that or 20 second freezes. 

I hate Hotline Miami 2. 

 

http://kotaku.com/if-you-die-in-this-game-you-can-never-play-again-ever-1690928265 

Stupid idea for a game. One of the key elements to making something enjoyable is the idea that "Play is safe" (stealing this idea from Chris Crawford). If you can't experiment, try things out, learn from mistakes without irreversibly losing opportunity to continue doing so... you won't be having much fun playing, because you've driven out the essence of what 'play' is.

Games with permadeath can be punishing, but that's still fine because they are often made so that you will see what mistakes you made, learn new things about the game, and slowly progress as a player in conquering the challenge. It's still 'safe' when you die because all you've lost is time, but have gained knowledge about the game for next time (and modern games have unlockable things you might collect each play). You still get to try things out and attempt to create a mental model of how to better play the game in your head.

Just imagine how fun mapping would be if you could only compile a .map once. Get a leak (or worse!)? Sucks to be you. Misplace an entity? -1/5 stars on Quaddicted. How many of use would continue mapping for any amount of time if that were the case? Not very long I would imagine, we wouldn't find it any fun. That's likely going to be this game's fate. A curiosity for a couple days, and then a complete waste of the dev's time after that when everyone realizes that "neat ideas" doesn't mean "fun ideas". 

If you die do you have to buy the game again? Re-register an account?

I'm sure there's something worth taking the piss out of here, but I don't really know what... 

Just reading that article, there's two facets to the game really - the "players" - one of which you can only get to be once, ever - and the "audience" - which I assume you can participate in as often as you like.

Being in the "audience" seems to be an interactive experience, and the audience appears to have some control over the fate of the "players", so really, for the majority of the people, being in the audience, is "the game".

It actually sounds like there's probably some pretty good ideas there. 

It's not a videogame in the traditional sense, more of a spectator sport.

Clever idea, but not something I'd be interested in. But the internet tells me I'm a minority.