E3 2009 Commentary Thread

[Havok]

I was really excited when Joel McHale came out, but after he left it all went downhill. Ubisoft is really tanking right now. Stop talking and actually show us something. 4 people have been out there and we have yet to see anything, they're a bit under 30 minutes into this.

I'm sorry, but my Irony meter just went critical.

As for ME2. You can all kiss my ass. I want to get back in my indestructible 4 wheeling machine and run over some Geth.... now with more GRIMDARK!!
I also didn't really have a problem with the inventory thingy, but then I don't play many games.

[Stark]

Chards didn't know you could change from 'weapon attachment' to 'weapon ammo' until I told him. I think this shows the interface failed.

[Lord Relvenous]

According to Kotaku Microsoft will be launching a Steam-style download service for full 360 games in August. That's easily the biggest announcement so far imo.

That's awesome. However, I know that some games suffered performance drops when installed on the hard drive (mostly on Live). Is there any indication that the experience will be lessened by playing a game installed on the hard drive?

Is this a real performance drop or is it the type of "drop" that only fatty nerds care about? "ohnoes, it takes a whole 5 seconds longer to load a stage!11!1!"

Now don't you start stealing Stark's thunder when it comes to ridiculing fatty nerds.

Personally, I've only ever heard about problems in the general sense, so I can't give you too specific of an answer. The only thing that I had was frame rate drops on GRID and Halo 3. Not horrible, but not exactly negligible either.

[Schuyler Colfax]

I was really excited when Joel McHale came out, but after he left it all went downhill. Ubisoft is really tanking right now. Stop talking and actually show us something. 4 people have been out there and we have yet to see anything, they're a bit under 30 minutes into this.

Statement retracted.

Awesome Red Steel 2 footage. The lack of blood is annoying though, seriously, how is someone going to get stabbed in their side and blood isn't going to come out? What is that? I was also surprised that the bad guys blink away after you kill them, I can't recall the last time I saw that in a video game. Other that, the game looks to be great.

I was really excited when Joel McHale came out, but after he left it all went downhill. Ubisoft is really tanking right now. Stop talking and actually show us something. 4 people have been out there and we have yet to see anything, they're a bit under 30 minutes into this.

I'm sorry, but my Irony meter just went critical.

I'll give you that.


Well, by September I'll have the money to buy a 360 or Wii, up until now I was sure it was going to be a Wii, but after seeing what is coming out for the 360 I'm starting to have doubts.

[Ford Prefect]

Chards didn't know you could change from 'weapon attachment' to 'weapon ammo' until I told him. I think this shows the interface failed.

No, it's just yet another example of Chardok being a retard at video games. I'm pretty sure it actually says how to switch on the screen. Granted, it's still a terrible interface, but it's not invisible.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Beatles Rock Band looks fantastic.

[Oscar Wilde]

Hope Mass Effect 2 fixes what was more ass than the inventory screen, the Biotics menu. Half my reason for not using them was the shit menu.

That and the Sniper rifle is all you really need.

[Stark]

Except the pistol is a rapid-fire sniper rifle that's just as good outside the two 'sniper range' combats in the game?

[Ford Prefect]

I think we could waffle on endlessly about how the sniper rifle and shotgun were COMPLETELY useless in comparison to the pistol and assault rifle. There was basically no situation in which the assault rifle was inappropriate. Actually making other weapons useful would be a good idea - Stark once said that the pistol is so ridiculously useful that it just wasn't worth it to pick a class based on weapons; thus play biotic, win game.

[Commander 598]

I think it should be noted that I've seen "guides" for ME suggest that you make your party along some retarded generic RPG lines such as Caster/Biotic, tech specialist (For picking locks), and the one who actually shoots things (which is probably the player because just like in Oblivion hitting things with a sword is WAAAY ) however I basically played the game with nothing but Ashley and Wrex (Who has some biotic skills but they're pretty much irrelevant compared to a shotgun.) The game was piss easy and I was still rolling in money despite.

[Ford Prefect]

You don't really need biotics for anything, except if you want to finish the game faster.

[Commander 598]

Faster? I was already blazing... (Also someone deleted the wrong post)

[Ford Prefect]

As astonishing as it is to think that Mass Effect could be easier, yes. Singularity will instantly kill whole rooms of enemies with anything other than utterly retarded placement. Engagments last about as long as it takes to select the ability (so roughly two seconds). I actualy had Liara clear a whole room of Rachni immediately after I had enetered it, so fast that I didn't even know we were about to fight until a dead alien flopped dead at my feet.

[Stark]

Yeah playing with Wrex, Liara and Biotic = you will never even get shot. Spam a few lifts and whole gunfights just stop. It's especially hilarious at the end when you can lift people off the tower and they float away.

Nobody should complain about the game being easy unless they've played it on double-plus hard (whatever they called it). Yes, it was still easy as hell.

[Nephtys]

I just played Soldier, with Liara and Tali. Tali was just there to open locks and shit, and Liara singularitied whole fields of enemies so I could unload with the assault rifle. Easy as all hell, and dumb. Just be a damn soldier, and that one or two times you actually need a power used, you signal a teammate to do it.

TBFH, Mass Effect did one somewhat refreshing thing with the morality system: It let you choose something besides Hitler and Ghandi as the two extremes. Now you can be sorta slightly shady and violent but good person, or the pretty good in most ways and violent good person. I want some options beside 'love all of creation' and 'eat babies'. Even if of course, they don't DO anything.

The inventory was awful. It took forever to search your items to sell, you got so many duplicates of garbage, the weapons are all the same but with different numbers, upgrades were a pain to use, and you had that goddamned 150 item limit. What is this, the X-COM item limit from 1992?

[Stark]

I never found a use for Tali. The lockpicking thing was absurdly trival.

I played soldier and was bored. It's just a shame that the 'every skill you need' class also has the useless sniper rifle skill.

[Chardok]

Chards didn't know you could change from 'weapon attachment' to 'weapon ammo' until I told him. I think this shows the interface failed.

No, it's just yet another example of Chardok being a retard at video games. I'm pretty sure it actually says how to switch on the screen. Granted, it's still a terrible interface, but it's not invisible.

Man lemme tell you; while I do not dispute that I am, in fact, a gametard, I never would have thought or cared to change ammo; though I did wonder why I kept finding cryo this and incendiary that. But I still got through 3/4 of the game without this even mattering. So not only was the interface broken and nigh-unusable and SLOW, the shitz they included were apparently compeltely unnecessary tack-on bullshit that had zero impact on the game. In fact - I would argue the game was more fun and less horribly broken before I had to monkey around with stupid ammo.

Anyway, screw ME2, They got the Agency Director VO guy back for Crackdown 2, which is concentrated awesome. I am BOUT IT for that megajawesome thingo.

RE: MGS *snore*

RE: Project Milo - Fake. Molyneux is a filthy, dirty, lying scumbag, Project Milo is a lie.

RE: Natal: Did anyone else see the very very noticeable and annoying lag between girl moving realtime vs. avatar jinking on the screen? I was watching that thinking: That looks nigh unplayable - that's a full half-second delay.

[Xon]

The inventory was awful. It took forever to search your items to sell, you got so many duplicates of garbage, the weapons are all the same but with different numbers, upgrades were a pain to use, and you had that goddamned 150 item limit. What is this, the X-COM item limit from 1992?

Could you imagine the horror of going through the Mass Effect inventory with a few thousand items?

[Nephtys]

The inventory was awful. It took forever to search your items to sell, you got so many duplicates of garbage, the weapons are all the same but with different numbers, upgrades were a pain to use, and you had that goddamned 150 item limit. What is this, the X-COM item limit from 1992?

Could you imagine the horror of going through the Mass Effect inventory with a few thousand items?

It's not so bad... if Bioware figured out this amazing innovation called 'Stacking'. Yes, those twenty six Tungsten Round mods or Kessler VIs could all have just become a single dumb stack. Even KOTOR did it that way.

[Agent Fisher]

Wow, that Mario game. I am so unimpressed. Nintendo, unless you pull out that Zelda game I've heard about, you will be dead to me.

[Zac Naloen]

Nintendo are leaving me seriously underwhelmed for the second year in a row. Looks like they've set out their stall for the future and i'm not interested. Not that they'll miss me.

[General Zod]

Wow, that Mario game. I am so unimpressed. Nintendo, unless you pull out that Zelda game I've heard about, you will be dead to me.

The only Zelda game I've heard of is one we already know about, for the DS.

[CaptHawkeye]

E3: The industry's favorite show for disappointments. Let's finally show trailers for the games we've spent years and millions into developing. Hilariously these games will demonstrate very few characteristics to seperate them from games that came out years ago. Claim you have invented many of these characteristics for added points.

Besides that, E3 is just the gift that keeps on giving. Did a cool game get announced that's genuinly innovative? Enjoy it while it lasts. Over the next few months you're sure to hear about delays, massive amounts of cut content, complete gameplay design overhauls and vague developer claims about some kind of "player experience".

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Wow, that Mario game. I am so unimpressed. Nintendo, unless you pull out that Zelda game I've heard about, you will be dead to me.

The only Zelda game I've heard of is one we already know about, for the DS.

Besides Spirit Tracks for the DS, there's also been word for a while that they've been working on another "main series" Zelda game for the Wii.

[DarkSilver]

new 3d Mario game....

Didn't I pay for this already as Mario Galaxy?