That is an excellent display of DPS assisting the tank in a final boss fight. You may defeat the hero but together they are a boss fight's nightmare. I didn't know I needed a Jade Badger in my life but now I can't imagine life without the Jade Badger.

The first boss fight will of course be a big kid with a magnifying glass. And maybe in a later level you'll have to safely navigate you way out of somebody's pants, bonus points if you can make them do the ants in their pants dance on your way out.
The movement however kept making me think of AvP and I wondered where all the Marines for me to snack on were hiding.

I can't help think they did themselves a huge disservice by not making it atleast part of a boss fight. I think alot of us would love to see the series as a live action CG fest, and adapting the story should have been a part of the demo. That said, the model of unit 1 was amazing. The head piece could go a different way, but if you look carefully, especially at the hands, you can see it is armor clad angel and not some mech. That is something the anime doesn't pull off most of the time.

Oh totally. Shadow of Mordor is GOTY for me, but those two boss fights had me going "WTF?!?" for like 10 minutes after each of them.

To be honest, aside from those fights, I liked how they implemented the "last chance" QTE events. They were too easy to do with a mouse and keyboard but once I switched over to a game controller I found them moderately challenging enough that I still died a couple of times.

As far as Advanced Warfare goes, this article on Polygon does a great job of explaining why the funeral scene is epic fail.

@Asmo

Except my daughter doesn't want to play other games--she wants to play Mario Brothers games. They have excellent game and level design. Why should she have to go elsewhere? Are you trying to say Mario Brothers games not for girls?

All my daughter is asking is to be allowed to play as the Princess--maybe after you free her from Bowser. That doesn't seem like much to ask, as it would have exactly zero effect on gameplay.

Personally, I'd go much farther and say when a game series continuously sends the message that women are helpless victims who need to be defended by men, when they're continuously objectified as trophies to be passed from player to villain and back to player again, then something is very wrong with that game and things need to change. Yeah, other games may be great, but why should that prevent people like Sarkeesian or myself from pointing out the games that aren't? Why should the trend itself not be pointed out when we can find examples of it outside of the Mario series?

No, it's not required that every game have a male/female playable character. It is, however, good business sense not to insult potential female customers of a product by portraying females (playable characters or NPCS) in sexist ways (or homosexual characters in bigoted ways, or ethnic minority characters in racist ways, while we're on the topic). This doesn't seem very difficult to understand and clearly game companies DO understand it because most are making great efforts to be diverse and more realistic in their portrayals of characters. However, just because some are trying doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the bullshit in those that don't. Games like the Mario platformer series, for instance.

You disagree with the way Sarkeesian presents her message... okay. I don't have a problem with that. I think everything you wrote grossly misrepresents what she's saying about games and gamers, but you're entitled to your opinion there.

Moving on... sorry you felt insulted. That was never my intent. But your comments on this issue are written in an extremely emotional manner as if you've somehow been personally wronged. If you don't want people to take it in that manner, you might want to think carefully about the tone your posts on this topic take. I have no idea what that link you provided was supposed to prove, so I'll just leave it alone.

On "Damsel in Distress," it's "your trope" because you've been--throughout this thread--defending it as if it is some bastion of literature that must be preserved. You are quite literally the only person I've ever seen actually try to defend it. And as I said, if it is that dear to you, you can have it. Games will still get made using it.

Other media,though, have long since moved on from it. Take the movie Die Hard as an example. Yeah, the main character's wife gets taken hostage by terrorists and that provides a nice emotional hook to move the plot forward--damsel in distress, right? If it were a game, though, we never would have heard from Holly Gennarro McClane again until Bruce Willis killed all the terrorists. Or maybe a video recording of her would show up after every "boss fight" where she tells John McClane, "Sorry honey, but I'm being kept in another part of the building."

But that's not what happens is it? The character of Holly is central to the plot of the movie and she appears nearly as much as John McClane does. She tries actively to subvert the terrorists by hiding her true identity and by taking responsibility to make sure the hostages are treated well during their captivity.

In other words she's portrayed as a real human being with personal agency throughout the movie.

And that's the point that you seem to be missing. That doesn't happen often in games despite the fact that it does happen in every other form of media (or at least in the examples from media that we generally consider "good"). When we are talking about the "Damsel in Distress" trope in games, THAT is what is being critiqued. Not the fact that someone was kidnapped to provide an emotional hook, but that one particular gender is always targeted and--to add insult to injury--is presented as weak, helpless, and without any agency of their own. They exist for the sole purpose of being rescued.

Thanks for the pro tip, BTW. Had no idea you were a pro at being a patronizing git but I'll take your word for it.

It sounds like you're on the first step of the journey. But can you face your shadow self and win?

Tough boss fight. Perhaps losing is the only way.

Is it a standard thing in Russian City planning to build an enormous tower in the middle of a town that otherwise has few tall buildings? Is that where the local civic boss fights are held?

>> ^SpeveO:

I worked on this game at Eidos Montreal. But regardless, it was confirmed in the making of and by the press.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9YbSkOW7sU
>> ^Xax:
>> ^SpeveO:
The boss fights were outsourced to another studio. What a retarded decision.

Um, I don't think so. Where did you hear that?



WOW. That's just... bizarre. Why the hell would Square/Eidos outsource the boss fights?? That would certainly explain what went wrong. Wow. Bizarre, man.

I worked on this game at Eidos Montreal. But regardless, it was confirmed in the making of and by the press.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9YbSkOW7sU

>> ^Xax:

>> ^SpeveO:
The boss fights were outsourced to another studio. What a retarded decision.

Um, I don't think so. Where did you hear that?

>> ^SpeveO:

The boss fights were outsourced to another studio. What a retarded decision.


Um, I don't think so. Where did you hear that?

>> ^SpeveO:

The boss fights were outsourced to another studio. What a retarded decision.


Wait, are you being sarcastic? Cuz damn that would explain a lot...

The boss fights were outsourced to another studio. What a retarded decision.

Just finished it after a marathon session last night. Think I ended up around 25 hours or so.

Overall I'd give the game an A-. It definitely wasn't as long as the original, but it really lived up to the spirit of the the first game.

*spoilers*
I was slightly disappointed in the ending. I think I may have bugged the final boss fight because I never took any damage once I got under the turrets and then used the code to deactivate the thingy with the chicks in it... after that it was just a matter of standing up by the chick till the glass broke... pew pew pew, "boss" dead... push all 4 buttons for achievement and watch similar movies. Just a slight let-down because the rest of the game was fantastic.
*spoilers*

What the game didn't have that I was hoping for:
UFO/Aliens like the original Area 51

I loved the game. The great parts more than outweighed the bad parts (which yes, the boss fights and the crazed people were bad).

I didn't mind the ending-tron 5000. I selected an ending that I enjoyed quite a bit and it felt like a decent close to the game. Also, ~25 hours of gameplay is not bad for this kind of game, these days. I'm sure other action RPGs get more hours in there, but 25 is nothing to be upset about.

Ultimately, I think it was the best game I've played all year.

I wouldn't have a problem with the "push a button" ending if there were choices you had to make early on which affected the end. In the original, there were a fair amount of choices mid-game which would prevent you from experiencing parts of the plot. You had to save and go back and play the game with different choices to experience everything. This game does not have that depth of replayability.

Also yes, agreed, all of the boss fights and the hallucinatory zombie thing were pretty lame.

Other than that, the actual gameplay was extremely reminiscent of the original and I had a great time playing it. Unfortunately they've already announced DLC which fills in a part of the plot where they sort of fast forwarded the story in the base game. DLC is lame when it's clearly planned out and worked on ahead of time.