It had to be the one game I'm actually interested in hearing about.

Josh Sawyer, Chris Avellone and the rest of Obsidian's einherjar - the mighty saviours of the Fallout universe storming straight from the triumph of New Vegas to resurrect classic Baldur's Gate-style isometric rpgs? Who are these heroes? They couldn't really pull it off again, could they?

I turned my head away from the development of this game; there are too many ways for it to disappoint - some of the combat mechanics sound worryingly 4e D&D to me - but here I find that it's been released and is...good...pretty...has pathfinding issues?

I'm very impressed with how interactive and alive they've made the world feel. The level of graphical detail here is reminiscent of The Witcher 2. The combat, while more action RPG than tactical isometric like Origins still looks like it has depth, but just more leans towards the Dark Souls variety with circle strafing to avoid enemy maneuvers and targeting specific boss weak points.

Guess we'll have to see how it turns out, but given how much they've willing to show and the fact that Bioware have proven they always deliver on the plot/storyline I'm pretty optimistic, even after what happened with DA:2.

Is this the latest of the C&C games? Their graphics are getting really good. It's too bad they're still using the isometric view, however.

@Jinx

Finished it at the time, nothing special.

It wasn't just the environment copy pasta. The battle mechanics felt considerably stripped down from DA:O, and the reliance on enemy 'waves' didn't help matters. Really left it dumbed down from a strategic point of view. The lack of an isometric camera angle for PC was just the icing on the cake.

Honestly, my main issue was that none of the companion characters with their back stories and own quests were remotely as well developed as in the original. That's what made DA:O unique and worth playing through for hours on end.

To call the battlefield franchise "well made" is a bit of an insult to high quality fps games. BF2 was released CHOCK full of bugs (if you played it, you'll know) and was left unmaintained. Certain game-breaking bugs were left in for months and months at a time despite ruining huge aspects of the game. On top of the bugs that were not fixed, new content was released and promoted - that ALSO contained bugs. Even when bugs were fixed, new bugs were introduced. And many of the fixes involved changes that negatively affected other aspects of play! How can this be called "well made"?

I consider myself an experienced gamer. I enjoy many genres, and have been playing for ~18 years. I don't just play huge titles, but i do play those too. I play indie games, casual games, you name it. The only company that i go out of my way to avoid is EA and that's due to bad experiences with their games. I am not "just a hater", as i did play dragon age and sang its praises once i'd come to accept that it wasn't simply another standard EA title.

Take bioware for example. Before they were 'bought' by EA they made some of the (arguably, but almost universally accepted) best games of their particular genre. Baldur's gate 1 and 2, neverwinter nights.... we're talking sweeping epics that involved in depth and original story lines that carried the game single handedly (i mean, it was only isometric, the story was everything). Then suddenly, EA get involved and bioware produce mass effect - instead of being able to choose from a plethora of moral and immoral dialog options, actions, we get a good/neutral/evil meter and equivalent options. I'm not going to tell anyone mass effect is a bad game; it is up to the public to decide and they have decided it's good. But i insist that, but for the dated graphics, their earlier RPGs were better in every single other way, and what they provide in their modern RPGs falls short on any RPG checklist you care to make when you put it up against Baldur's gate, icewind dale, etc.

I was very excited when dragon age was released, but then immediately disappointed again when dragon age 2 was released - and who can honestly claim that 2 lived up to 1? Can anyone deny that it was shat out at maximum velocity to cash in quickly on the success of the first? It was a completely different game!?

I hope i have managed to not sound like an anti-fanboy cock; i have spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds on game flops by EA which were underhandedly promoted by reviewers that i then learned not to trust. I feel utterly cheated by them but that is why i don't buy their games now, and that's why you'll find more and more people expressing the opinions herein and in the video. So yes, it's very easy to say "lolz u shudnt buy there gamez u foolz", but when there's several teams of people working together to try and trick you into doing something it may take you a few goes before you learn what the shape of the turd looks like. It's underhanded and i would have thought you could understand why people get annoyed by that.

I'm not surprised piracy has increased with the steady decline in VALUE FOR MONEY. I payed £30 for half life 1 and i still play it to this day. I'd gladly pay £100 for it in retrospect. The first installment of a battlefield game costs me £40, and £15 for an extra few maps or guns they add. Valve are still giving me stuff for free, and i cannot thank them enough for putting pride in their work, and for that they will have the kind of brand respect that EA will never get.

@Fletch hit the nail right on the head. I don't think people who disagree are stupid, or wrong, or anything. But if you haven't experienced the old AND the new (that goes for everyone, not just fans of the new or just fans of the old), then you are not in an ideal position to put forward arguments about whether or not games have increased in value for money, or decreased in value for money; i'm glad you enjoy modern games, but i feel disappointed and cheated by them and that's a perfectly valid thing to express, and it is not your place to tell someone they're over reacting or being a baby. If you haven't tried it yourself, you can't know for sure.

I think that is what this guy was trying to say in a humourous way, probably didn't do the best job of it ever but it was at least funny. And do remember it was meant to be funny. I think some people in this thread in favour of EA have looked more foolish in their pro-EA arguments than this guy did in his anti-EA exaggerations. Remember it was meant to be funny.

TL:DR - i don't blame you

>> ^Deano:

What kind of game is this?


Isometric dungeon crawler. Can't you tell from the intro?

Upvote, but Ehhhh. I won't say it looks bad - but it looks like Deus Ex meets the idioticness of Call of Duty. Way to fail a perfect franchise opportunity. The original could be remade with the isometric view & all. Funny how everyone wants to make FPS type of games because they think they will sell or that that is what people want... when Blizzard is the company that makes the loot. And Blizzard still basically takes old school games and polishes the shit out of them. The only way Syndicate should be made is with a Bullfrog type of touch.

@NetRunner

I would also kill to see those older style of games come back. No one wants old graphics, they just want old content. Not only did i feel like there was more at risk and more difficulty in older games, but i felt like i got my money's worth out of it - which i must say i have only felt about VALVE games of recent times!

If they made a good modern isometric rpg like fallout or baldur's gate, with a kick ass story, i'd buy it, its sequel and its prequal and about 20 expansions for each.

Edit: Bloody spelling

It's funny just how awesome this game is when it is so simple/user-empowered. I want to see him optimize his code and start working with the Dwarf Fortress guy and combine ideas. DF + simplified with minecraft's engine optimized & an isometric perspective like Populous/Civ would be amazing.

>> ^dannym3141:

I didn't sit through the whole video - is this a borderlands mod? It looks like one.
And after reading the first post where fallout 1 and 2 were name dropped (there is no fallout 3, it's not a fallout game, i refute it), it made me think:
Why in the hell don't they forget all the fancy 3d "oblivion with different models/skins" first person real time bullshit and just make a PROPER fallout 3. It can be isometric, it can be turn based, spice it up with some modern graphical tweaks and improvements and slap it on a CD. Because i assure you i would pay £100 for that if it was a REAL fallout game.
Edit:
RE: the console debate. Man you nailed it - why the fuck are they limiting themselves so hard by making console games which they then port to the PC? The pc is the higher authority here, better at everything. Make it for the PC then downgrade it for the console, don't make it for the console and try to swindle PC users by charging the same price for a shit product.
Console gamers are USED to being served shit, and PC gamers are used to the best. So while console gamers lap this up, PC gamers will be left wondering why they just payed £40 for a product that, from a PC perspective, is worth about £20. So over-inflation of low quality PC games either bring down the quality of native PC games or bring up the average price of native PC games.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how piracy becomes prolific. Personally i never have, but i could throw a stone at my university and hit 7 people with the same stone who would tell you "i only do it to try out the game, if it's good i buy it, but i'm sick of being cheated out of my money"


Funny you should say that. I don't accept Oblivion as an Elder Scrolls game. Not after Morrowind.

I didn't sit through the whole video - is this a borderlands mod? It looks like one.

And after reading the first post where fallout 1 and 2 were name dropped (there is no fallout 3, it's not a fallout game, i refute it), it made me think:

Why in the hell don't they forget all the fancy 3d "oblivion with different models/skins" first person real time bullshit and just make a PROPER fallout 3. It can be isometric, it can be turn based, spice it up with some modern graphical tweaks and improvements and slap it on a CD. Because i assure you i would pay £100 for that if it was a REAL fallout game.

Edit:
RE: the console debate. Man you nailed it - why the fuck are they limiting themselves so hard by making console games which they then port to the PC? The pc is the higher authority here, better at everything. Make it for the PC then downgrade it for the console, don't make it for the console and try to swindle PC users by charging the same price for a shit product.

Console gamers are USED to being served shit, and PC gamers are used to the best. So while console gamers lap this up, PC gamers will be left wondering why they just payed £40 for a product that, from a PC perspective, is worth about £20. So over-inflation of low quality PC games either bring down the quality of native PC games or bring up the average price of native PC games.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how piracy becomes prolific. Personally i never have, but i could throw a stone at my university and hit 7 people with the same stone who would tell you "i only do it to try out the game, if it's good i buy it, but i'm sick of being cheated out of my money"

Looks like oblivion finally sealed the deal on FPS/RTS. No more isometric RPGs, and perhaps that's ok.

For everyone commenting on the game I'd like to hear the platform your playing on. I can't undersand people comparing it to Mass Effect or KotOR. With those I played in third person/FPS perspective. With Dragon Age on the PC I mostly play from an isometric point of view. This gives a much better tactical overview and is quite necessary when using the powerful area of effects spells (but only if friendly fire is on).

I've played it for about 20 hours and I still don't know if I really like it. It's good, but the worlds of KotOR, Mass Effect, and especially Fallout 3, and Morrowind, and even Risen had much bigger draw on me.

Big downside of Oblivion was the level scaling and quite repetitive world. But this could be solved by installing the overhaul which removed leveling and made the game much more interesting.
The level scaling in Dragon Age can be pretty annoying when you have quite high level characters and suddenly a large group of wolves become a danger. Or a large group of thugs which you should be able to kill easily. Also making a good party is quite tricky. Because if I just want to using a quite important skill like lock picking, that means I have to have a 'weak' rogue in my team.

Looks cool. Voicing everything has made them scale back from the "World in a box" that BG1-2 and to a lesser extent Planescape were. Plus they got more mileage from all the 2d isometric art than with 3d where you run across a couple of weeks worth of man hours in a few seconds. (Hence all the backtracking and cutnpasting in ME.) Maybe with the return to Fantasy they have worked out a way to scale up the rest of the game to their old standards.

I little bit more depth than Mass Effect and we are solid!

I recently watched TV as well, only I was looking at National Geographic, The History Channel and Discovery Channel.

That shit is really vapid when it's supposed to be all about learning something.

Every fucking show is presented like it's a Michael Bay movie with bombastic voice overs, fast needlessly annoying editing, stupid isometric CGI for really inane things and loads of green screening for out of work actors.

And the shows! The bloody shows like OC Chopper and American Chopper which are basically soap opera dramas for men. Why can't they fucking buy shit made by Ken Burns? His civil war series, the Jazz chronology or his work on World War 2? What about David Attenbrough? The Planet Series? King Kong? So many brilliant documentaries from Journey Man Pictures and many other sources. It's not hard. But no we must make everything stupid.

Thank god for Horizon, PBS, MVGroup and all the documentary shows that are made in the UK.