More off-topic, yay.
So turn the music down, if it's something you don't like change it. It was personally enhancing for me.
I tend not to alter these sorts of defaults if possible, if only to play the game as the developers meant for it to be played. And it's not about like/dislike, it's about the atmosphere it creates.
See the problem with that is, the devs don't really care about default settings, the program them in as variables for a reason. They generally normalized(centered) them for a reason. That was because you couldn't predict what a user would want, thus you would give a middle of the line setting.
Not talking about the zombie stuff. I'm talking about, as yahtzee puts it, "Let me tell you a little something about immersion Immersion is when after a marathon run of thief 2 when you go out for a midnight snack you find your self subconsciously looking down for your light gem." The fact that despite the cutscenes being still frames generally, you have a massive increase in your attention and connection to the characters. The fact that these don't rely on cheap trickery to manage it.
Can't say much here. I can't really remember an FPP game actually immersing me.
Most immersive game I've ever played would be Planescape Torment, but thief managed the immersion decently.
You see Unreal engine has the real funny habit of making you have to modify an INI so that your mouse can move at the correct speed.
Oh. Well, I found the default speed satisfactory, so I never had this problem I guess.
Yeah, some people have no issue with it, others like me, somehow get a mouse speed the equivalent to moving an analog stick in a direction.
And the inventory in both were panned, Morrowind was a list system with a graphical grid overlay, while Oblvion was a flat out uncovered list system. Same with fallout 3 and mass effect, they all got panned by critics for their unwieldy interface on PCs and consoles alike.
Morrowind or Oblivion got panned for something? I thought they were universally praised among journalists as some kind of holy grail of what RPGs should look like. Considering Oblivion's inventory system was passed down to Fallout 3, it can't have been generally rated that badly.
First off, don't use the actual gaming media as measuring stick, they review games as the editor tells them to review it. I can say this having been a game reviewer for IGN. As well as doing freelance work.
If anything use end user complaints as a measuring stick. Mass Effect was praised for it's story, but panned for it's interface and boring sections in mainstream reviews. The thing is, Mass Effect had the same list style inventory that KotOR, and as oblivion did, and as Morrowind did. The list style inventory, inventory arranged in a list fashion rather than a grid fashion. Morrowind was a list masquerading as a grid. Most often this type of inventory uses encumbrance or a set arbitrary item limit. It's also HELL on earth to sort through. Obilvion at higher levels if you were playing a mage, you would have around a hundred miscellaneous spells in you spell list, which followed the same procedures as the inventory. Along with your 40 or so spells of mega death. That really had no purpose because every enemy but the baseline animals scaled to you. You'll also have around 20 items you are currently wearing or utilizing, along with 4 staffs, 14 potions, upwards of a hundred random alchemy ingredients. It's just like Fallout 3, you eventually end up with 30 guns, of which 20 are variants at differing repair levels. You'll also end up with 60 different types of consumable. Eventually the inventory turns into a complete cluster fuck. I can say that after playing multiple characters in all of them to completion.
Idtech 1-In its time, Doom was revolutionary in its ability to provide a fast texture-mapped environment that passed for 3D. Idtech 2 - One of the engine's most notable features was out-of-the-box support for hardware-accelerated graphics, specifically OpenGL, along with the traditional software renderer. Another interesting feature was the subdivision of some of the components into dynamic-link libraries. This allowed both software and OpenGL renderers, which were switched between by loading and unloading separate libraries. Libraries were also used for the game logic, for two reasons:
Here's the link to id tech 3 and 4, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_4
That doesn't state that Doom or Quake were meant as tech-demos, though. And when people gush over Doom or Quake, normally it's not because Doom was capable of fast texture rendering or because Quake supported OpenGL.
They were good games mind you, but essentially they were testing beds for the engines, rather than full fledged games on the engine, compare doom to Hexen, same engine, but one is MUCH better than than the other.
System Shock 1, March, 1994, hexen, October, 1995 Strife, May, 1996, Terra Nova, February, 1996 made by the makers of system shock and later thief. 
It's kind of fun to play seven degrees with the universals.
Huh. True. But looking further back, you can find Bethesda's Terminator (1991). Haven't really played any of the other Bethesda Terminator games, but I heard they also had a pretty open structure for FPSes at the time as well.
Thing is bethesda back then had a hard on for procedural generation that would rival Notch or Toady's. The levels were open yes, but the same is true for Daggerfall.
They weren't designed so much as generated. You can ultimately blame toady for the creation of a DF universe, but he had no hand in actually generating it.
Only in System Shock you get more than vague murmurs about how it all happened. And you actually have a directive beyond go on the rails I send you upon to escape. You also have a better ending with a non-comes out of no-where boss.
Similarly in Half-Life. My memory might be sketchy, but from what I recall, if you listen to what people say in the game (including not to you), it turns out that the sample that caused the resonance cascade was unstable and supplied by the G-Man (/his employers?). The entire thing is sort of orchestrated by the G-Man, he ends up happy with the result and you're forced to accept his offer.
Correction, you only find that out at the end of the cock tease X-Pak to the sequel. Yes you can kind of piece together an event log of what happened, but much of what you learn about it only comes from interviews with the devs and the sequel.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/expandedinfo.htm can give you more info then you'd ever really need to enjoy the game.
Also, I'm pretty sure the scientists sending you off into Xen mention something about the thing controlling everything. Hence why sending you there makes any sense in the first place. But I might be remembering things wrong.
I may as well, it's been years since I played, and the platforming ticked me off.
Prince of Persia:SoT is well before the console bleed started. At around 2004 you have a major down turn in the quality of games on all systems and in the amount of innovation. It's gone to virtually nothingness now. Coincidentally this is also about the time when the price to make a new game started doubling every six months. And game lengths started to get very much shorter.
There are still flashes of creativity here and there. Mirror's Edge, for example, was pretty original in its gameplay focus (even though I personally didn't like it). EA shocked everyone and actually changed the PC control scheme in its newest Fifa, acknowledging the existence of a mouse and keyboard (although the results were supposedly not that good). Relic's Company of Heroes showed that you can add that bit of complexity to RTSes.
Most innovations may happen in the indie scene these days, but the big boys still sometimes do what the indies can't afford to do.
Also, I never said Bioshock is better than System Shock 2. Merely said that I do not see that great a difference between the two. Bioshock basically felt like a System Shock 2 clone.
It appears we have come full circle to common ground my friend. Bioshock is a system shock clone, with allot of consolish elements that detract from what could have been a glorious game had it actually innovated rather than taking systems and dumbing them down. It's pretty, but the levels are linear, and the systems offer very little challenge. Most innovation does come from Indies, however unlike previous eras in game design where a new company could roll in with the big boys at any time, those indies now have to make do with squalor because they can't afford the production values that a big name corporate game companies can have. I'm glad that EA can finally sit down and do some creative things, I just hope the lack of success of the past few don't detract from innovation which they are forging. I honestly like the freerunning systems that are coming out now, they are some of my favorite new gameplay types, I hope people attempt to do a good mirrors edge.
As I said, I think Assassin's Creed is probably the most innovative thing in a while. The freerunning and crowd tech are some of the funnest features I've seen, mostly because I can't freerun any more. I took a metal fence rod on the femur and knee about 5 years ago during Katrina. Knee is currently held together by surgery. There also the only good innovative feature to come out in around 5 years, cover systems make me physically ill.
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Topic: Bioshock: Infinite (aka Project Icarus) (Read 22299 times)