Tendo City

Rage:

-There's a lot of questing to do. Little outposts scattered around will give you quests that send you into various hostile areas to fight raider dudes and win weapons, ammo, and ect.
-Graphics look amazing, in the big picture. There's a lot of detail, the art design is incredible, animations are fluid, everything feels large, and the textures are sharp, but...
-Texture pop-in is an issue and it's not something that's really going to be fixed. Spinning around will cause you to see some blurry textures that slowly sharpen, the length it takes depends on factors like PC vs. console, how fast you turn, and whether you've seen that particular texture before. It's noticeable if you're looking for it, but most of the time it's not really something that you're thinking about.
-Buttery-smooth framerate, PC and console.
-Item-crafting
-Buggies and four-wheelers to ride around on
-Feels somewhere between Fallout 3 and Borderlands, minus the stiffness of the former and grinding of the latter
-I've not sure how large the game world is, but they've talked a lot about how the game really opens up after the first 3-4 hours

Payday: The Heist

-Objective-based co-op
-Only saw player characters playing the robbers
-Feel is similar to Left 4 Dead
-Feels heavily structured without much variation

Should be worth playing, hopefully there's more to it than what was shown in the demo

Tribes: Ascend

-Huge, wide-open levels
-Lots of high-flying jumps
-At least three different vehicles
-Shop-style loadout
-Fast-paced

I haven't actually gotten to play it yet because the lines for it are long.

Skyrim

-Dual-wielding of all weapons and magics
-Dungeons are way more detailed and unique [going by how amazing the opening dungeon looks compared to the opening dungeon of Oblivion]
-Huge dragons and huge monsters all up in
-Music was ZOMG
-Some actual lighting going on
-Some spells are quite epic in scale
-Inventory is incredibly streamlined [everything is divided into lists now, with details and an image of each item appearing in the middle of a screen as you scroll through the lists]
-Each item can be viewed in full 3D in the inventory
-There are puzzles
-Third-person kill moves [for dragons, at least, not sure about regular monsters]
-There's a spell that will bring up a glowing line to direct you to your next mission target, for weak-sauce players that don't want to explore
-Another spell slows down time
-Not all monsters\animals attack the player [giants that herd woolly mammoths ignore the player, caves are infested with non-hostile bats]
-Dragon shouts are really powerful

Prey 2

-Mirror's Edge + Blade Runner + Oblivion/Fallout 3
-Open world that lets you choose when you want to do things, or not do them, pick up missions, wander around, explore
-You can also do random stuff like attack thugs that are beating up some guy or just randomly push people over railings [the latter generally draws the attention of the police]
-Hostage-taking is possible, but doesn't always work
-Opening level reminded me of the opening of Bioshock
-Anti-gravity grenades
-Hover boots
-Arkham Asylum-esque detective mode lets you follow trails of clues
-City level is packed with detail and very vertical
-Movement was fast and fluid, jumping from ledge to ledge and climbing up walls
-Some bounties flee, forcing you to chase after them through the city
-HUD is incredibly minimal, sometimes completely absent
-Gun is holstered by defaults, which lets you actively draw your gun to threaten people
-Totally stole the show, for me. Better than Rage, better than Tribes: Ascend, better than Skyrim. Dig it.
-Alien stripclub

March 2012, same as that other scifi RPG...Mass something. Can't seem to remember what it was called...

The Hilton Anatole:













The Line:







The BYOC:







The truck being given away:



Some filthy poors who couldn't afford a room:

So you were actually there? That's pretty cool...

I've gone for the past four years. Thrice at the Hilton Anatole and once at the Gaylord Texan. It's a pretty amazing event, goes on for basically 72 hours straight. Some people don't even bother to sleep.

Huh. So it's not too far from where you live then I guess...

As for those games, Rage does sound kind of interesting. It's doing some things id has never done before, like a game with NPCs, conversations, towns, etc... they repeatedly thought about doing things like that (Doom was originally supposed to have more depth, Quake started out as an RPG, etc), but it'd never gotten into their retail titles, until now. I've never been particularly interested in Rage, and that it's a console-first design is annoying, but it does seem at least somewhat interesting anyway.

As for the rest of those, hopefully Tribes: Ascend will be good. I like jetpacks. :)

Oh... and yes, I still find it really stupid that Prey 2 has no portals. :(

Quote:Huh. So it's not too far from where you live then I guess...

Less than two hours.

Quote:I've never been particularly interested in Rage, and that it's a console-first design is annoying, but it does seem at least somewhat interesting anyway.

It looks amazing on the PC, so nothing really to worry about there.

And Rage is a bit of a fusion of Fallout 3 and Borderlands, but seemingly with some of the issues of both ironed away.

Quote:Oh... and yes, I still find it really stupid that Prey 2 has no portals.

They more than make up for that.

Some time-lapse footage from QuakeCon:

http://vimeo.com/27423096

What the heck is that swarm of bees in the 3rd photo?

It's art.

Great Rumbler Wrote:Less than two hours.

Ah. Not too far away then.

Quote:It looks amazing on the PC, so nothing really to worry about there.

But still, anything designed first for consoles is going to be compromised on PC. Just compare Crysis to Crysis 2...

Quote:And Rage is a bit of a fusion of Fallout 3 and Borderlands, but seemingly with some of the issues of both ironed away.

I haven't played either of those, but I know a good bit about Fallout 3 of course. Borderlands though, that's a multiplayer FPS with cartoony art or something right? Is that the one with almost endless numbers of guns or something?

But anyway, didn't Rage start development well before the release of either of those games? It's been in development for some time...

Quote:They more than make up for that.

Perhaps, but it's not Prey. Different character, different gameplay, and none of the game mechanics that made Prey Prey (apart from being an FPS that is)? Is there any reason other than the license that this game is Prey?

Quote:But anyway, didn't Rage start development well before the release of either of those games? It's been in development for some time...

They started work on Rage back in 2005.

Quote:Perhaps, but it's not Prey. Different character, different gameplay, and none of the game mechanics that made Prey Prey (apart from being an FPS that is)? Is there any reason other than the license that this game is Prey?

I don't know, they just said that they couldn't really pick up where Prey 1 ended and decided to move the sequel to a different part of the universe and focus on a different character. Tommy still plays a role in the story, he's just not the player character this time.

Quote:But still, anything designed first for consoles is going to be compromised on PC. Just compare Crysis to Crysis 2...

It looks amazing and it's on 3 [Xbox360] DVDs. If there was any real compromise here, beyond the normal compromises of making a massive AAA title, they're not made overly obvious.

The PC version also has immediate access to the all the tools that the developers used to make the game.

I guess the biggest thing about Prey is that there's a de-facto spiritual world in it. If that's completely ignored in Prey 2, then it's a detraction.

-Tommy's not main character
-It doesn't have portals
-There's no [?] spiritual world

+Awesome scifi city
+Open world
+Lots of player choice
+Lots of quests and sidequests to do or not do
+Mirror's Edge-inspired movement and climbing

So, yeah, I'd say it more than balanced out in the end.

No, I'd say that it's a completely different game which shouldn't be Prey. No Tommy (and the character isn't Native American either, right?), no portals (portal technology was the centerpoint of the Prey project in all of its incarnations, Prey without portals shouldn't exist), no gravity-flipping areas, no spiritual world, nothing that would make it recognizably Prey in pretty much any way...

Quote:They started work on Rage back in 2005.

Yeah, so six years in development. Quite a while.

Quote: It looks amazing and it's on 3 [Xbox360] DVDs. If there was any real compromise here, beyond the normal compromises of making a massive AAA title, they're not made overly obvious. The PC version also has immediate access to the all the tools that the developers used to make the game.

No, being designed for consoles first means that there are compromises! A PC-focused game would probably have even better graphics, some design differences, etc... we'll have to see how it turns out when it releases, but that it's console-first is unfortunate.

The game does sound like it could be good though, certainly, as I said.

Man, you guys are just never satisfied, are you?

I guess the confusion is that they had this spirit realm that the aliens KNOW about and actually invaded. It was a huge deal affecting Earth history. How is this not a major part of every single advanced alien civilization out there? If it exists and scientific advancement allows aliens to access it, how is it that the entire galactic society hasn't made it a part of their daily lives? I mean, that's a pretty huge empirically verified discovery to just sorta say "well that's just going to be tucked away over here".

Well at least tell me this. Does have a mini-game that brings you back to life, getting harder and harder each time you die?

I guess what I'm saying is this. This sounds like an amazing game. There's just no reason to call it "Prey 2". I mean, sure, you're a bounty hunter so "Prey" makes sense there, but heck they could have called it "Hunt". A single reference to Tommy isn't enough. The complaint has nothing to do with the game, it's entirely a semantic debate about calling it a sequel when it isn't.

Yeah, I know Final Fantasy does it every single game. I accept it there because I'm just so used to it at this point, plus at least they made the attempt to tie them all together with Dissidia, eventually.

GR, if this game is as amazing as you say it is, I'll pick it up regardless, but it is the elephant in the room. It just has nothing at all to do with the previous game. It's got about as much to do with Prey as Mask of Eternity does with King's Quest.

Quote:This sounds like an amazing game.

And we can't leave it at that?

Quote:A single reference to Tommy isn't enough.

So now Tommy being a major part of the storyline [but not the player character] only amounts to "a single reference"?

And the main character was brought to the Sphere in an event directly witnessed by the player in the first game.

Quote:It just has nothing at all to do with the previous game.

That's a gross over-statement. They're barely even touched on the story anyway, aside from the basic setup.

Now he's a major part? Well that's better then.

GR, we aren't trying to fight YOU here. We're just saying it seems odd. Also, what part of "forum discussion" don't you get? NO we can't leave it at "this looks like an amazing game". We have to discuss things, and voice our concerns about what seems to be missing. That's kinda how criticism works. This isn't the 90's. Criticism is a good thing again.

I already said that before, so I don't know why you thought otherwise:

Great Rumbler Wrote:Tommy still plays a role in the story, he's just not the player character this time.

Well, the problem is that you guys keep wanting to focus the entire conversation on what the games DON'T do. It wasn't developed solely for the PC or Tommy isn't the main character or whatever. Rather than putting the game on the table and saying what dooes it DO. Both games look absolutely fantastic when taken on their own merits and their own merits are what you'll eventually be playing, not some dream game where it does all those things plus something else.

That line of thinking has the very real danger of falling into ABF's patented "Everything was better back in the late 90's, game these days are really lame" trap.

Bah, I don't think ALL games these days are really lame... just too many of them. I play modern games too though...

Anyway though, wanting a sequel to be like the game it's a sequel to has little to do with that I think.

Here's some screenshots:

























http://videogamewriters.com/new-prey-2-s...2011-19269

So the new rumor is that Prey 2 was cancelled. Even though I've obviously stated some issues with the concept, it did sound like it was doing some interesting things, so that would be too bad if true... Bethesda's "no comment" response is not promising, though. :(

This is the worst news gaming news I've heard all year.

That's a bold move in a time where smaller developers [and even larger ones] are collapsing left and right.

But at least it looks like production is back on again.

It's back under development, really? Who's making it now then?

The fact that Bethesda came out and specifically said it wasn't cancelled [only delayed] certainly seems to suggest it's started up again. If it isn't, why come out with a comment at all?

Some people have suggested that the ex-Starbreeze team at MachineGames might be working on it now.