21st December 2004, 7:53 PM
Hostile purchase... hmm, EA has the cash to pull it off so I guess they said 'Why not?'...
Yes, I did, and I've said it before here so it isn't new news...
I seem to recall people saying 'but they make one game per year versus many and it's not a fair comparison', but if it's my favorite it's my favorite...
Blizzard not only has different servers for different parts of the world, they block people into their region so you cannot join servers for other geographical areas, stupidly. Yup, no Europeans on American WoW servers, much less Asians...
I know Pod isn't the most popular racing game ever, but it's a very fun game with fantastic track design and focus. Definitely one of the better futuristic racing games ever made. And I can *almost* get it to run on my PC... if I only had a different videocard... ah well. It's probably not a game I would have bought had I had to buy it myself as the ads and demo looked okay but not worth spending money on, but as a free game that we got with our PC? Great game, and I've gotten a lot of play out of it. Oh, and it's also got a pretty fun splitscreen mode. :)
Also, Maxis was having all kinds of financial and product quality problems -- see SimCopter, Streets of SimCity, SimIsle, etc... they had somewhat lost their way as they grew and became prime fodder for purchase.
Red Storm made the first Rainbow Six, but a year or two later UbiSoft bought Red Storm. The last few Rainbow Six games have been by Ubisoft itsself as a result.
Actually, they are owned by Vivendi Universal. VUGames' games division consists of Sierra, Vivendi Universal Games, and Blizzard... with "Sierra" being a dead corpse stuck on the box label of some VU-published PC games and Blizzard being an independant unit.
Blizzard hasn't been fully independant since like 1994, though, and have gone through a series of corporate parents without being destroyed by it all... and I think that they can continue to do so. At least, for as long as they keep making hits and they sure look like they will.
In the main city, there is a area with several pearls in a hidden base down a deep tunnel... you go into the building that is the guards' base or something (by a side door) and start going down this deep pit where you go past traps and then drop to the next level... well a good way down there's one where you have to walk on a narrow ledge around the hole and dodge the lasers. In the PC version I could never get around the second corner. Looked it up (for help or something) and saw a few other people had mentioned it... I guess maybe it's possible, but it sure doesn't seem it to me. Stupid morons and their cost-cutting that didn't allow for gamepad control...
That's just what got me to stop that time, though. I'd picked it up again because I wanted to try to finish... finally managed to come up with the cash for those stupid scanners (and the money supply is still a problem... getting it is slow and I need so much to buy all those pearls in the stores...) and progressed a bit, but then this came up and I stopped again. As I've said before, it's a good game but not a great one for many reasons I've laid out in depth... the control problems are annoying, and lower the PC version's score relative to the others, but even ignoring that all of my past complaints are certainly still valid.
But as I said, it's original and has good ideas at heart so it's too bad they won't make another one and try to improve on things.
Anyway, for your post... Rayman 2 is definitely better than BG&E, IMO. Rayman 2 I'd give an A while BG&E is closer to a B to B+... solid but flawed and just not as good as true AAA game.
How far am I? Uhh... it was like a month ago that I was playing it... past halfway certainly though for sure. I have the jump jets and have won the races. Next I have to get a couple more pearls so I can get enough for the thing that gets me into the Slaughterhouse. ... wait, or do I need a couple more pearls so that I can buy the jump jets? Either way, I need a couple more and then I can get there. More than just "a little ways into the game" for sure.
Uh, I love Diablo-eque games? First I've ever heard of it. I seem to recall saying many times before that I find most of them simplistic and boring... see my opinion on Dungeon Siege (stopped playing like 10 hours in because of boredom) or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (beat because it's short and not too hard) for examples. As for Diablo II itsself, it is repetitive, which is why I never had interest in it beyond the first time through, but it was very well done and had enough to it to keep me interested through my first time through. It's got nice depth with the skill system and all of those abilities... as for the story, it wasn't brilliant but it was good enough to keep me going.
Oh yeah, and I got it as a birthday present. I was not considering spending my own money on Diablo II (like how I had not bought Diablo I) and would not have. It's nice to have, but not something I'd have wanted to spend my own money on...
Now, none of that matters to you of course. You're not talking about any of those games, you're talking about Gauntlet. And here you show to be foolish. Seriously, can't someone like simple games as well as complex ones? Gauntlet is good because of its simplicity. The story is stupid and irrelevant. Depth? Barely there. And that is GOOD. The main failing of a Dungeon Siege or BGDA is that they are caught inbetween forces of simplicity and depth and get somewhat torn apart at the crossroads... yes, those games got good scores, and I enjoy them for a little while, but they are flawed and I've said so before. Diablo II is purer and thus stands up better. Gauntlet? Gauntlet is action with a slight dash of RPG and doesn't try to pretend to be anything else. It's got about as much to do with an RPG as Gradius does with a strategy game (because of the more-strategic-than-most-shooters powerup system). And I wouldn't want it any other way just like how I wouldn't want Gradius to be TIE Fighter. I like BOTH kinds of games. This is really not such a tough concept.
Quote:He said "anywhere".
Yes, I did, and I've said it before here so it isn't new news...
I seem to recall people saying 'but they make one game per year versus many and it's not a fair comparison', but if it's my favorite it's my favorite...
Quote:Capcom publishes Blizzard's games in Japan. Boy I bet they can't wait to get ahold of World of Warcraft. I wonder if Blizzard will have seperate servers for Asia or do like Squeenix and let both regions use the same servers and incorporate a translation system (various words and phrases you can start typing and tell it to find a phrase closest to that to translate it into, so when you say it it appears in whatever language the reader has the version of... um yeah...). The idea of playing with crazy Japanese people, who I hear are actually another species, might be enough to get me to get that game. I'd be a Tauren, and I'd call myself Dasher.... no wait... Dasho, that sounds cooler and less... reigndeer...
Blizzard not only has different servers for different parts of the world, they block people into their region so you cannot join servers for other geographical areas, stupidly. Yup, no Europeans on American WoW servers, much less Asians...
Quote:Pod??! That was a very average racing game at best. Rayman 2 was good but nowhere near as good as Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, or BG&E. Ubi Soft of the last couple of years has been a far better publisher/developer than any other western game company.
I know Pod isn't the most popular racing game ever, but it's a very fun game with fantastic track design and focus. Definitely one of the better futuristic racing games ever made. And I can *almost* get it to run on my PC... if I only had a different videocard... ah well. It's probably not a game I would have bought had I had to buy it myself as the ads and demo looked okay but not worth spending money on, but as a free game that we got with our PC? Great game, and I've gotten a lot of play out of it. Oh, and it's also got a pretty fun splitscreen mode. :)
Quote:He was probably thinking "Hmm, I like money".
Also, Maxis was having all kinds of financial and product quality problems -- see SimCopter, Streets of SimCity, SimIsle, etc... they had somewhat lost their way as they grew and became prime fodder for purchase.
Quote:Rainbow Six was not created by Ubisoft it was just a liscence they got ownership of, If buying franchises makes you the best developer then EA would be by buying Ubisoft.
Red Storm made the first Rainbow Six, but a year or two later UbiSoft bought Red Storm. The last few Rainbow Six games have been by Ubisoft itsself as a result.
Quote:Blizzard is a small company who gets published by Vivendi , They only got two divisions of Blizzard.
Actually, they are owned by Vivendi Universal. VUGames' games division consists of Sierra, Vivendi Universal Games, and Blizzard... with "Sierra" being a dead corpse stuck on the box label of some VU-published PC games and Blizzard being an independant unit.
Blizzard hasn't been fully independant since like 1994, though, and have gone through a series of corporate parents without being destroyed by it all... and I think that they can continue to do so. At least, for as long as they keep making hits and they sure look like they will.
Quote:BG&E is one of the best adventure games in years, and it's really too bad that you got the horrible PC version with its shitty controls and based your opinion of the game off of that. Still, I find it amazingly hypocritical that you can call BG&E overly simple when you like so, so many terrible, simplistic games (like all of those crappy Diablo-esque games you love so much, including Gauntlet). BG&E wasn't complex, but it did what it set out to do exceedingly well, and presented its experience like very few games have done.
How far did you get, btw? I'm guessing not very far, since you usually form opinions on games after little playtime.
In the main city, there is a area with several pearls in a hidden base down a deep tunnel... you go into the building that is the guards' base or something (by a side door) and start going down this deep pit where you go past traps and then drop to the next level... well a good way down there's one where you have to walk on a narrow ledge around the hole and dodge the lasers. In the PC version I could never get around the second corner. Looked it up (for help or something) and saw a few other people had mentioned it... I guess maybe it's possible, but it sure doesn't seem it to me. Stupid morons and their cost-cutting that didn't allow for gamepad control...
That's just what got me to stop that time, though. I'd picked it up again because I wanted to try to finish... finally managed to come up with the cash for those stupid scanners (and the money supply is still a problem... getting it is slow and I need so much to buy all those pearls in the stores...) and progressed a bit, but then this came up and I stopped again. As I've said before, it's a good game but not a great one for many reasons I've laid out in depth... the control problems are annoying, and lower the PC version's score relative to the others, but even ignoring that all of my past complaints are certainly still valid.
But as I said, it's original and has good ideas at heart so it's too bad they won't make another one and try to improve on things.
Anyway, for your post... Rayman 2 is definitely better than BG&E, IMO. Rayman 2 I'd give an A while BG&E is closer to a B to B+... solid but flawed and just not as good as true AAA game.
How far am I? Uhh... it was like a month ago that I was playing it... past halfway certainly though for sure. I have the jump jets and have won the races. Next I have to get a couple more pearls so I can get enough for the thing that gets me into the Slaughterhouse. ... wait, or do I need a couple more pearls so that I can buy the jump jets? Either way, I need a couple more and then I can get there. More than just "a little ways into the game" for sure.
Uh, I love Diablo-eque games? First I've ever heard of it. I seem to recall saying many times before that I find most of them simplistic and boring... see my opinion on Dungeon Siege (stopped playing like 10 hours in because of boredom) or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (beat because it's short and not too hard) for examples. As for Diablo II itsself, it is repetitive, which is why I never had interest in it beyond the first time through, but it was very well done and had enough to it to keep me interested through my first time through. It's got nice depth with the skill system and all of those abilities... as for the story, it wasn't brilliant but it was good enough to keep me going.
Oh yeah, and I got it as a birthday present. I was not considering spending my own money on Diablo II (like how I had not bought Diablo I) and would not have. It's nice to have, but not something I'd have wanted to spend my own money on...
Now, none of that matters to you of course. You're not talking about any of those games, you're talking about Gauntlet. And here you show to be foolish. Seriously, can't someone like simple games as well as complex ones? Gauntlet is good because of its simplicity. The story is stupid and irrelevant. Depth? Barely there. And that is GOOD. The main failing of a Dungeon Siege or BGDA is that they are caught inbetween forces of simplicity and depth and get somewhat torn apart at the crossroads... yes, those games got good scores, and I enjoy them for a little while, but they are flawed and I've said so before. Diablo II is purer and thus stands up better. Gauntlet? Gauntlet is action with a slight dash of RPG and doesn't try to pretend to be anything else. It's got about as much to do with an RPG as Gradius does with a strategy game (because of the more-strategic-than-most-shooters powerup system). And I wouldn't want it any other way just like how I wouldn't want Gradius to be TIE Fighter. I like BOTH kinds of games. This is really not such a tough concept.