I'd take a 10 hour corridor shooter over a 200 hour RPG any day. Looks like I won't care much for Prey 2 :( 

Rage is looking a lot better in that video than the gun showcase one we saw before. The environments look rather nice too. 

I feel as though I'll be totally happy with that. 

Sounds cool to me. Much better than more Prey, I think the reviewer has that spot on. I also think the old D3 engine will suit that sort of atmosphere and gameplay well, rather than hampering it.

Rage

Looks great, really liking the atmosphere and style and stuff, and some proper monsters as well. Weapons are still meh but that trailer has me more than convinced. 

never played any Elder Scrolls game but Skyrim looks amazing! 

looks excellent concept art wise and I dig the player speed which is faster than usual for a modern shooter. 

After almost a decade Epic Games finally created a new franchise to add to Unreal. Unfortunately, it only lasted one game before they moved exclusively to the Xbox, but I'm glad we got at least one single-player game in Gears of War. Obviously Unreal was a classic, but Unreal II was critically disappointing, so Epic really had to create something special, in my opinion, to live up to their grand reputation. Did they suceed? Probably not, but try telling that to the Xbox crowd.

This seems to be becoming a common trend in each game I review - it looks good. In this case, fantastic. As to be expected from Unreal Engine 3, the environments are chocka full of detail with backgrounds of epic proportions. Too many games turn into claustraphobic corridor crawls missing any kind of grand, imposing environment. Not true with Gears of War, as there are some massive looking levels. This is, of course, just part of scenery because the very linear path you follow is quite tight and small. There's very little exploration or wandering off course. Basically Gears does share those simularities with corridor shooters, but at least you've got some large scale eye candy around you. In fact, while this is a sci-fi shooter, the level design felt almost fantasy-like much of the time. Fantasy-Sci Fi perhaps? The one negative of the art and design is that everything is very dull and BROWN. Where's the colour in this world?

Now there are some other nitpicks with this game, some of which are more personal that general. No quicksaving is present; always a bad thing. Only two main weapons at a time, a nasty gremlin copied from Halo I assume, which developers really need to stop doing because I hate having to play through a game with the same couple of weapons. Sure I could pick up another weapon, but why bother if they're not as good or only suit certain situations? Instead I equipped myself with a machine gun and a... machine gun. Oh such variety! There's also almost no story. Sure you've got your mission, you've got regular team-mates who spit some quick funny lines. But what is this war and who am I fighting? There's no backstory at all. Would it really have been too hard to make a two minute intro on what the hell this game is about, like a lead up to how this war first begun? It wasn't until I finished the game and Wiki'd the plots to the sequels that I realised it wasn't supposed to be earth!

The difficulty was just right for me on casual, as I don't need too much of a challenge. Only a few instances did I have to reload the same checkpoint more than twice. However for the less skilled players, there needs to be an easy difficulty. Some could say this game is a little difficult.

The gameplay throughout Gears was consistently fun with enough variety in battles and bosses. In fact some of these enemies I really liked, especially the Boomer and Beserker. It's been a long time since I came upon a semi-boss I hated so much as the Beserker. However I think the lack of quicksave contributes towards that feeling, as I know if she gets me I have to start all over. And while that means you really fear her, it's also damn frustrating when you do have to start the battle again.

So, 2006 comes down to Prey vs Gears of War for action shooter of the year. And I've got to give it to Gears because, while it doesn't do anything new, Prey's antigravity and portal ideas became ugly and irritating after a while. Gears at heart is just another action-shooter, like I said with nothing new, but it does it to a very high standard with great looking design and fun gameplay.

It's a shame Epic decided to shit on the PC crowd and go make Xbox only sequels, especially considering it's the PC crwod that made them what they are today. 

Hey, any Brit care to gift me the game (I'd payal the money in advance)? I pre-ordered it from Amazon uk, but costs 1 EUR!!!!!!! more and I'd only receive it in two weeks. 

No worries ;)

my normal email is my paypal..... 

Thanks a bunch! 

agree on the prey2 change. when i think back on the idtech4 games, i have fond memories of d3 scaring the shit out of me and the clean polished look of q4 with more varied locales.
prey... i have absolutely no feelings for at all. there was just nothing all that interesting about it beyond gimmicks (portals, gravity change and spirit walk).
a new direction is a good idea because more of the same would have sucked.

skyrim and rage.. holy shit. daz, that video you linked shows rage off MUCH better. obviously heavily scripted for the purpose of the demo, it still looks fantastic. i only hope all the maps look as good as that deadcity one. looks like a slightly roomier kowloon.
couldn't really seem to work up to giving a shit about 'shouts' or dragons in the skyrim video, but that's never really been what elder scrolls games are about anyway-- i just want to go and explore that world because it looks awesome. :) 

rage looks a bit overexposed and dull/grey to me. level design looks awesome though. good to see it's more standard shooter. i can't be bothered with driving crap. 

i just hope getting in and out of the vehicle will be very fast.

i hope you basically just disappear/reappear or at most do a hl2 'camera moves into position' thing.

a thing that drove (heh) me crazy in borderlands is the extended entry/exit animation. you can't move at all during, nor can you cancel midway.

hl2 doesn't bother me at all, even though it has an 'animation' (with the camera) because you can start driving before the 'animation' is complete.

so yeah, comes back to the age all 'responsiveness' thing. 

Was a daft idea in the first place really. ID just trying to shoehorn something different in to show they can do different stuff.

BUT it has potential to be absolutely fine. Will it revolutionise the game and elevate it from a good/great shooter into a cutting edge example of game design?? Of course not. Could it be a fun addition that adds some variety and scenic/action interest just like HL2/FC/Crysis?? Very probably.

Overexposed, blah! How many people were moaning that D3 was too dark?? 

The vehicles in Rage have aircontrol and a stabilising boost. Sounds good! 

Rage (looks cool)
Duke Nukem Forever (should be fine)
Bioshock Infinite (looks cool)
Prey 2 (sounds good)
Deus Ex 3 (maybe)
Battlefield 3 (boring but pretty)
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (pretty timesink)

Any others? 

This game is awesome, despite the aging Source engine, the levels look great and the designs are very refreshing.
The writing is really funny, wasn't expecting I'd laugh so much playing this, I'm loving it.
Best singleplayer I've played in a long time for now, looking forward to trying out COOP this weekend.

I'm a bit sad they removed the challenges, loved those in Portal one, wouldn't be suprised if they were released later on as a probable (free) DLC.
I also wish there were less loading screens between sections (it's ok with the elevators, less so when you're actually walking down a hallway), even though the loading is very quick, it kinda breaks up the pacing sometimes, feels like this should have dissapeared from games by now. Again, this is probably a syndrome of the aging Source engine. 

<3 Valve <3

Since I got the Golden Potato, Valve gifted me ALL THEIR GAMES, and for the ones I already had (90% of them pretty much, heh), I got a giftable copy of the game instead (including even Portal 2).
No one can say Valve doesn't treat it's fans well. :D 

Alice 2, Rage and DNF for me. DNF well at the top of the list. It'll probably disappoint a little, and just be a typical sci-fi shooter, but it's the memories i'll have of the original Duke 3D, and getting to see the old monsters and guns again at 2011 quality that has me excited. It's not just a fun shooter, it's homage to one of the first great fps'. At least I hope it will be. 

How did you get the Golden Potato - by excessively playing all games on the Potato Snack list? 

By getting all the potatoes yeah, it wasn't always easy, but most of them are quick to get. I admit there are a few times when it felt a bit like a grind, but I mostly had fun. Most of those games are at least ok (and some are quite good), and it was just fun jumping around the ARG wiki site and IRC to figure out the easiest and fastest ways to get the potatoes, felt like a treasure hunt. 

yeah pumped for this, really liked 1. 

It's funny some think Rage is overexposed, while carmack posts "Sometimes I want to put window tint on the artists and designer’s monitors to get them to build brighter levels" on his twitter. 

So who wants to coop with me? :p 

For another 3 hours, then I have marching orders for another hour (dog), then some procrastinating for another hour, but after that im game :D Murderer.