3181

I agree. The animal/insect enemies were the least interesting of the games, but fighting giant X is a series staple at this point.

3182

Eurogamer didn’t like it too much,

3183

Are we talking about the same country? I thought Singapore was the place where you couldn’t bring pornography into the country.

3184

Prostitution in Singapore is legal but pimping and street prostitution are not. Licensed brothels operate in designated areas where mandatory health checks are required. Apart from legal licensed brothels, commercial sex workers can be found in many ‘massage’ or ‘spa’ establishments, which are situated all around the country. In recent years, a new genre of massage parlour has emerged in Singapore. Known as ‘Tuina’ outlets, these massage parlours typically employ scantily clad women from mainland China. For them, massage is just a pretext for the sexual services which are the main menu. Technically, sex in these massage parlours are illegal, with a jail term for the operator if anti-vice raids on the premises yields evidence of commercial sex going-ons. Yet, virtually everyone who visits such establishments are fully aware of the sexual services provided within, and are there precisely because of it.
On Oct 4, 2005, the Singapore government decided it may raise the minimum age for prostitutes from 16 to 18 to bring its laws in line with international standards.
Under current laws, having sex with women under 16 is considered statutory rape, punishable by up to five years in jail and a fine of S$10,000 (US$5900).

3185

I think there was a general sense of frustration, too, from having the pace of the game slow down every time you encountered a pack of low-level monsters. They were easy enough to deal with, and yet time-consuming.

That might be less of an annoyance in this style of gameplay, where combat doesn’t mechanically alter the pace. Dealing with them will be less tedious, so they’ll end up being more of an environmental hazard.

3186

Oh man NMA will have a field day. Cover story there in 3,2,1…

As Kieron noted, what worked okay in Oblivion’s melee combat is not necessarily going to wash when you have a gun in your hand, and the lack of precision, sense of connection or tactile feedback is startling. (It’s worth noting here that we tested the Xbox 360 version of the game, and some of these criticisms might not apply if you play on PC with a mouse.)

I’m laughing a little inside…

3187

From the article it sounds like the previewer wants a pure FPS rather than a Deus Ex style game where stats heavily determine your shots.

3188

Even in Deus Ex player skill was a requirement. You still need to point the gun, no one does it for you.

3189

And it doesn’t sound much different in this game (unless you use VATS).

Part skill, but it’s still mainly an RPG.

So if your character sucks dick with small arms, it doesn’t matter if you’re a master at counter-strike. And likewise, if you have a very high skill and you’re masterful at FPS games you’ll hit everything.

3190

Auto-Aim - game setting or Perk?

3191

It’s the only strong flash of character and style we get from the game in our brief hands-on, although it does sound one bum note: Lady Killer gives you extra damage against female enemies, and “unique dialogue options” when talking to female NPCs. Sorry, Bethesda, that’s not satirical, it’s just crass and misogynistic.

Indicates two things to me:

  1. They played as a stereotypical male character
  2. They weren’t curious enough to ask about a female counterpart to the skill or didn’t feel it made a difference.

Fail.

3192

His article implies that they didn’t get to set up their own character.

3193

It’s a valid concern. Some hybrid games try to be both genres at the same time and in the end fail in every genre, both in action terms (not enough responsive, control too indirect) and in rpg terms (not enough depth). Hellgate London is one of them, Mass Effect wasn’t bad but suffered a bit trying to be also both an action and a rpg game. I didn’t like the Spellforce saga, again trying to be a strategy and a rpg game. And i wan’t a fan of World in Conflict, too light and ‘silly’ in the strategy side because they tried to be “actiony” but it didn’t have the good points of an action game.

Games like Deus Ex got it right (but for me it was more a shooter than a rpg, just another type of shooter), Vampire Bloodlines also (except in the last stages as everyone knows) but it’s hard to do, more than a pure action or a pure strategy or a pure rpg game.

3194

Also from that article:

Conversation and bartering are two aspects of the game that we regretfully don’t get anywhere near experiencing at E3, but given Bethesda’s record and Fallout’s history, we’d expect them to have some serious depth and reward, and we’re looking forward to examining them more closely.

Bethesda games having deep bartering and conversation systems? Uh, much as I like Bethesda games, their conversation and bartering are about as simplistic as it gets…

3195

It’s pretty bizarre that Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are all AAA games that have the same sub-user-mod quality character animation. Is the animator the VP’s brother or something?

3196

This is pretty much the point where all the NMA yots soak themselves in gasoline and light a match to protest F3

3197

That is actually a really good criticism of all their titles. The animation is REALLY awful. Definitely sub user mod quality. Our animator for Action Halflife was (far) better and he was a fucking professional sound engineer, not an animator (though he did go to school for animation at one point).

3198

Heh, funny someone should say anything about the animation being the result of nepotism. The worst voice actor in Bethsoft’s recent games has been Lynda “Wonder Woman” Carter, the wife of the Chairman and CEO of their parent company. Maybe the animator is the VP’s brother or something equally silly.

3199

Why aren’t you showing the full topics and just pics from what interest you?

Here part 1, and part 2.

That guy was eventually banned, the 1Up crew had already made a podcast insulting Fallout fans, so things got to a tie and after a few messages we just got a laugh out of this.

Besides I’ve seen worse here.

In another news Eurogamer’s review is pretty rough, ouch. He’s right about the animations though, I don’t agree much about the environmental art, that besides some low textures and too much aliasing seems pretty nice. But I didn’t saw the thing live, so maybe it’s just me.

3200

I thought the animation was improved in Oblivion, but still a far cry from (say) WoW quality. Well, the best WoW quality anyway. Human males don’t look so hot, but taurens look fantastic… the nose ring flapping and the braided hair swaying side to side as they heroically stride across the plains…