E3 motherfuckers.

[Zac Naloen]

I'd also like to add that Dance Central is going to get me laid.

[Losonti Tokash]

Hang on, I already own a Squier, will I be able to use this?

Unfortunately, no. What allows the guitar controller to function in the game is the special fretboard which detects finger placement.

Har har har.

I guess it's an improvement.

I'm not even sure what you're saying.

[Gaidin]

Hang on, I already own a Squier, will I be able to use this?

Unless they've heavily modified the pickup I'd say you should be able to use any guitar but just have to run it through some sort of splitter that'll run half the signal to the amp and the other half to the game system. They didn't say anything on how they did it though so who knows...

[Gaidin]

Hang on, I already own a Squier, will I be able to use this?

Unfortunately, no. What allows the guitar controller to function in the game is the special fretboard which detects finger placement.

Dang...scratch my above post. :/

[Ritterin Sophia]

Oh, and I also got to play some SWTOR. It really is like KOTOR and WOW combined.

In a good way or a bad way?

[White Haven]

Oh, and I also got to play some SWTOR. It really is like KOTOR and WOW combined.

Have the animations improved from the early gameplay footage? Saber combat looked jerky and not at all fluid then, really put me off the game.

[White Haven]

[Admiral Valdemar]

The PS3 motion controller always reminds me of a Hitachi Magic Wand more than anything.

A 3DS, however, looks nice. I've just started playing my DS Lite again after about a year of inaction (Infinite Space is quite fun) and I pity those who got a DSi or XL, heh.

[General Zod]

The PS3 motion controller always reminds me of a Hitachi Magic Wand more than anything.

A 3DS, however, looks nice. I've just started playing my DS Lite again after about a year of inaction (Infinite Space is quite fun) and I pity those who got a DSi or XL, heh.

The catalog of games for the 3DS looks awesome. I was able to hold off on upgrading to a DSi or otherwise because the new features were "meh", but this might push me over.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Oh, and I also got to play some SWTOR. It really is like KOTOR and WOW combined.

Have the animations improved from the early gameplay footage? Saber combat looked jerky and not at all fluid then, really put me off the game.

I didn't have a lightsaber to use per se but I had a melee weapon of some sort as a Sith Warrior. It wasn't really that much different from what we saw from the videos but there was some fluidity in the melee fighting. Interestingly enough, my character dealt damaged to her opponents when she blocked melee attacks from them.

[Losonti Tokash]

Hang on, I already own a Squier, will I be able to use this?

Unless they've heavily modified the pickup I'd say you should be able to use any guitar but just have to run it through some sort of splitter that'll run half the signal to the amp and the other half to the game system. They didn't say anything on how they did it though so who knows...

You also wouldn't need to do anything like this. The guitar controller functions within the game and through an amp at the same time.

[General Zod]

Whoa whoa whoa. Fucking whoa. Final Fantasy Tactics on the fucking iPhone. Goddamn.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I didn't have a lightsaber to use per se but I had a melee weapon of some sort as a Sith Warrior. It wasn't really that much different from what we saw from the videos but there was some fluidity in the melee fighting. Interestingly enough, my character dealt damaged to her opponents when she blocked melee attacks from them.

So was it WoW-KotOR in a good or a bad way?

Whoa whoa whoa. Fucking whoa. Final Fantasy Tactics on the fucking iPhone. Goddamn.

You mean the good one? Cuz if so, woah.

[General Zod]

I didn't have a lightsaber to use per se but I had a melee weapon of some sort as a Sith Warrior. It wasn't really that much different from what we saw from the videos but there was some fluidity in the melee fighting. Interestingly enough, my character dealt damaged to her opponents when she blocked melee attacks from them.

So was it WoW-KotOR in a good or a bad way?

Whoa whoa whoa. Fucking whoa. Final Fantasy Tactics on the fucking iPhone. Goddamn.

You mean the good one? Cuz if so, woah.

The PS1 version it sounds like, whether or not it's based on the PSP remake I'm not sure. There's a teaser on 1up.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I didn't have a lightsaber to use per se but I had a melee weapon of some sort as a Sith Warrior. It wasn't really that much different from what we saw from the videos but there was some fluidity in the melee fighting. Interestingly enough, my character dealt damaged to her opponents when she blocked melee attacks from them.

So was it WoW-KotOR in a good or a bad way?

I'm not sure how to answer that. During the quest-giving sequences, it felt very much like KOTOR or Mass Effect with the dialogue system. The acting in the time I played seemed mediocre compared to some of the other videos we've seen of the game. But once the quest was given and I was out in the Korriban tombs, it was similar to WoW (or most MMOs). You're running around attacking critters as you need to kill X amount of them to complete the quest. There were two somewhat unique quests - one where I had to retrieve a new weapon from the tomb of Ajunta Pall and another where I had to fight a bunch a critters and set a charge to blow up a bunch of eggs. And of course once you're done and you run back to the quest giver, it segways into the KOTOR/Mass Effect style dialogue and conversations. There was also a demo of four players in an instance and it pretty much played out like a WoW fight with tankers, DPSers and healers.

I also asked one of the devs about whether SWTOR tackled the problem with their goal of making the player feel heroic within the persistent world of an MMO. The answer was kind of ambiguous but what I got out of that is that there's very little room to get around that so really, you should be expecting a WoW-KOTOR hybrid.

[Mr. Tickle]

Couldn't see this mentioned, but some Portal 2 info was put on youtube yesterday, 3 videos, part 1 is here

Can't wait, I loved Portal, but man some of those rooms looked tricky

[Vendetta]

Gizza 3's reverse Horde sounds interesting. Class based Horde with five players controlling the various Locust gribblies, from Tickers right up to Berzerkers.

Beast Mode

[Gramzamber]

XCOM makes me want to stab my eye with a fork.
Let's see, it doesn't have the same gameplay, isn't about squads so much as a gorilla with a hat and some npc drones, doesn't have the same aliens, doesn't have the same art style at all, doesn't follow the continuity, doesn't exist in the same universe, so why call it X-COM? Oh wait you took out the dash. That makes all the difference.

I don't even get the point of this. At least Fallout 3 tried to keep the spirit of Fallout and follow the continuity (it did so badly, but it tried). This is just Bioshock: Surface and I dare anyone to put it another way.

[CaptHawkeye]

Who gives a shit about universe continuity? I think it's just funny how boring it looks.

[Covenant]

The printed media they are circulating seems to suggest there will be more depth to it than a simple shooter. You'll have scientists, and you'll talk to the NPC head techies to tell them what direction to take and what to build. Worst case it's like talking to the Ammo Bandito and plugging in your Elerium and Money, best case it's just a talking head front-end. I'd honestly prefer to just have a desk where I sit down and fill out paperwork, a little dull but building gear is such a common and specific thing (how many days, how many done so far, what's the cost) that I wouldn't want to do it verbally.

We don't know how much control we'll have over individual other soldiers, and it's possible they'll just follow you around in-game. We do know you're supposed to care about them for some reason, possibly related to out-of-combat NPC interactions. And we do know there will be wiretaps, radio monitoring and other explinations for how your 'strategic map' works, and you'll have a map (probably a literal paper map pinned to a wall or a table) where you plot out alien activities.

The escalation system means you can never really 'win', you have to escape at some point. Or so we're lead to believe, the end-game may involve being able to 'win'. I believe they're over-emphasizing this. Unless EVERY map has elerium I can't imagine that it'd always escalate. Why not let us kill 3 blobs and go home with a win? It'd keep the excitement of "Will this be a big one or a small one?" going.

Anyway, it's too early to tell, but I've got this one marked as a dismal PR failure so far and a very un-interesting FPS from first glance. I like the idea they had, but the execution is just really not working.

[Gramzamber]

Who gives a shit about universe continuity? I think it's just funny how boring it looks.

The point is if it has absolutely nothing to do with the previous games, why call it that? All you're doing is generating cheap publicity that could've been gotten by tying into Bioshock anyway.

[Covenant]

The lack of Hyphen isn't enough of a jump.

They should have called it XCOM: Infiltration or something, and made sure the whole meta-game of "oh is this a stepford wife or an alien robot how can I tell???" style investigation played out more prominently. I would like showing up in a neighborhood to investigate some strange things, blasting a blob, and then thinking that was it... until you find a pod/a dead dog/whatever and oh no it's a bunch a pod people! Run!

That'd be fun, and kinda X-Commy. Apoc did that, and the idea of infestation/infiltration has been an idea X-Com played with.

[Vendetta]

The irony is that if they'd just done a bioshock clone FPS with the original enemy and world designs, people would be all over it. I mean the original alien designs were at least characterful. Blobs of black assmatter and geometric shapes do not make for compelling foes, there's no satisfaction to be gained from shooting the shit out of, well, shit.

[weemadando]

I love all these people jumping all over XCOM like it's some horrible travesty.

Do people serious believe that the oil is the only enemy in the game?

And Covenant - what you've just described is apparently exactly what they showed off in live demos - guys investigating a seemingly normal street, where things keep slowly turning more and more strange and wrong, until the "Oh mother of god!" moment hits and they have to run/get killed.

[Covenant]

Well, what I'm actually talking about is a bit more of an FBI game where instead of coming in during an attack or after one has happened, you'd actually be doing a bit more wandering around in an area where nothing seems wrong, photographing the area, and so forth. I know they've got a camera, and that you drive up and then drive away, and that they seem to insinuate there's a 'calm' period and more escalation... all of which I like. But they're killing me here because I can't actually see any of that. The demo isn't distributed and I'm not at E3. Does anyone have a link?

The reason I say this is because that's pretty close to what they've said. It's not X-COM so they shouldn't call it XCOM, they should give it a title or something, which is why I said XCOM: Infiltration. Right now the risk is that you actually just show up on-scene, poke into a house, and blast some blobs.

But really, I've got hopes it'll be interesting as it's own style of game--I just wish they weren't so completely fucktarded with regard to media. The trailer they showed is abysmal. It's godawful bad. This doesn't excite me, except that one bit with the monolith, and that just a bit.

I really want to know stuff I've only been able to infer from the tiny bit they've said in their Interview, but if they do it right, it may be fun. Huge maps sound good--are they filled with blobs, or are the blobs just hiding in one area, and I get to search for them? They won't say. Will there be more of an emphasis on living humans? We see them in the trailer, but they won't say. Will we invade their home turf? It's kinda unimportant, but they won't say. What are the aliens going to be like? Presumably more than vacuum cubes and blobs, but how many? Can you show us some concept art? Or mention a few ideas? They won't say.

I'm a huge X-Com fanboy but I am not going to ignore this game the way I ignored Apoc, since this looks like it could be a lot of fun if it's done right. But this is one of the worst media outreaches ever, and even if it the cool kind of thing I was just ruminating about a post above, nearly everyone has good reason to feel discouraged. It's not X-Commy and the shooter portions look bland. They really need to show more breadth and more shit to do, more aliens, weapons, strategic functions... stop making trailers that only show off shotgun blasts. I don't give a fuck. And this is an institutional problem. It's the same reason they marketed Bioshock as a FPS game when it had more RPG elements, because they've got this moronic idea that's the only way to sell a game anymore.