Overly Chatty Penguins
The Ready Room => Off Topic => Topic started by: BobTheJanitor on July 14, 2004, 04:21:12 PM
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As reported in this article (http://www.gamepro.com/computer/pc/games/news/36788.shtml), along with about a million others, doom 3 has just gone gold. It's on its way to retailers and supposed to be released august 2nd. Maybe this will make valve bust out and release their game already, too. At least it'll give us something to play in the mean time.
In other news, as reported nowhere at all, duke nukem forever has not gone gold. No one at all is reported to be surprised by this complete lack of news.
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yay only half a month :)
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yay for a week of fun....
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DOOM 3
THE WORLD-EXCLUSIVE FIRST REVIEW
You've waited years. Now the wait is over. PC Gamer was the only publication in the world to review Doom 3 a split-second after id declared it "Done." We thought we were ready...
Turn out the lights. Get the surround-sound speakers in place. And say goodbye to sanity for the next 20-odd hours. The guys at id Software are famous for delivering a game "when it's done" - and we're here to tell you that Doom 3 is not only done, it's mind-blowing.
The game opens up with your arrival at Mars Research Facility of the massive United Aerospace Corporation. It's the year 2145, and you're a Marine newly assigned to the facility's security detail. For the first 15 minutes,you're not even issued a weapon - the action unfolds in a pace reminiscent of the opening of Half-Life, as you get oriented around the security building and watch some video primers on your new job and new home. In this opening act, you're familiarized with your Personal Digital Assistant, wich will be your invaluable interface throughtout the rest of the game. Using this handy gadget, you can download info from other people's PDAs as you come across them, adding codes, access keys, and emails that contain crucial information you'll need to progress through the 28 maps to follow. Here's what you really spen those first 15 minutes doing: gawking. This is your chance to absorb the full shock of magnificant graphics engine put to stunning use. The enviroments are huge-scale and packed with detail. The base is a convincing Mars Station - less a far-future design than a depressingly postmodern corporate park. It feels lived-in, too - from the skin mags scattered on the kitchenette tables to the nastiest in the public rest-room toilet bowls.
But no sooner do you get oriented with your gear - and with the very cool physics model that lets you rearrange just about any object in the place - then all hell breaks loose. Literally.
The base is hammered by a shockwave of satanic force, and immediatly discover that almost evryone around you has turned into a flesh eating zombie - with a mindless devotion to snacking on you. Worse yet, the base has been invaded by a horde of nightmarish demons. Cut off from your fellow Marines (and stalked by some of their well armed zombie versions!), you've got only a comm link with your still human Sarge to steer you to safety
DOOM AND THEN SOME
For those expecting a "classic" run and gun Doom gameplay, the biggest surprise may be just how substanial this game is. If you try to blaze through any of these 28 missions you WILL be humiliated. Instead the only route to access is a slow and steady one, sticking to shadows, searching every nook and crany for health, ammo, and access keys, and generally advancing as methodicaly as you can.
You've also got to figure out whats happening. As you make your way through the different levels of the base, the pilot is revealed via the PDAs you pick up, and in breif conversations with the few NPCs who werent "turned" by the satanic attack. To make your way through the inevitably sealed-off access doors between levels, you'll have to read through email that progressively reveals a conspiracy of apocalypse proportions - the nefarious scheme of phsycotic Dr. Betruger, UACs cheif scientist, who's perverted a teleportion to open up a portal into hell-like demension. (Oh and if you didnt notice Dr. betruger is also keen on transporting his hellion army to earth.)
Gear is an absolute premium. All the old Doom weapons are back, but preciously rationed, and with an ever windling supply of ammo for each. The shotgun is your basic in close sledge hammer, while the assault rifle is your best down hallway exchanges with armed zombie marines. The chaingun provides a heavy punch for those hectic occasions when you need to yell "LETS ROCKKKK!" The plasma rifle was my personal fav, dealin streams of fiery blue death, although it runs out of ammo quickly. The rocket launcher scores devastating hits at a distance, while the stock pistol is suitable for minor enemies and desperate last stands. (And as for the BFG 9000 - you'll have to wait a bit before you get to arm it, but the wait is well worth it.)
But theres no need to worry that Doom 3 is as slow as spliner cell - hardly a minute goes by without a furious exchange of hostiles with some manner demonic beastie, imps, Hellknights, and Archviles are all back to shock and awe you with viscerally jarring attacks, and the endless stream of zombies and scuttling nasties gives you plenty to chew on (and chew up). The gallery of grotesquerie is the product of almost limitless imagination for horors - spiders that make your flesh crawl, infant "cherubs" mutated with fly wings, and other unamable terrors that blight the corridors of the possessed base
TO LAUNCH A THOUSAND PC PURCHASES
Early in the game, you're tasked with sprinting outside the mars Facility ( with rapidly depleting air canisters) in search of the next airlock. It was here that i really started to notice what I was seeing was graphics superiorty that not even current hot tech showcases like Far Cry could match. Dust blew around the martian surface and the dull brown/red hue of the sand and the twisted metal of shredded structures all semed so perfectly plausible.
Each girder, door, and window adds tangible substance to each scene, and even th \e effect of your flashlight shinging into a drakened corner looks ridiculosly real - as the light floods through a room , swinging back andforth, shadows are cast perfectly; dust particles gently drift into the cone of the flash light , eerily visible. And these are just the basics of the enviroment: just wait until you enter the depths of hell, and dive into some of the later mass melees. Doom 3, with all due awareness of hyperbole, is the best looking game you've ever seen.
Not surprising you'll need a monster system to render these monsters in all their intracetly textured glory. But the ability to play Doom 3 with all its visual magic maxed out is really a good excuse to trade up. A P4 3GHzwith a Georce 5950- class card will see u through okay. One of our test systems had a geforce 6800 ultra and ran flawlessly at 1024x 768 with high detail. (A higher level of quality and resolution is available , but the PC to run it well isnt)nning with a geforce4 MX card and 512 Mb RAM, the texture detail was great, although the game was choppier in spots.
Bottom line: If Far Cry didnt convince you, then Doom 3 should - the time to upgrade to a next generation 3D chip , or even an all new rig, is now.
SOUND, FURY...AND SCARES
While I was expecting amazing graphics, it was the sound effects and sound design that had me reeling. Footsteps echo spookily down halls; monsters issue bloodcurling shrieks; every hallway has an audible drip of menace and dread. Doom 3 is the reason to own surround sound speakers. The collective impact of sound design on the whole expierience cant be overstated, adding to the urge to switch out ll th lights, close the curtains, crank up the voulume, and let yourself be scared s***less.
And you will be jolted right out of your seat. I'm not going to spoil any of the socks here, but there were at least four occasions where i lunged back in y chair. Lead designer Tim wiltis is inside your head like a phycologist - and just when hes let you think you can lower your guard, he sticks the psychic shiv right into your nervous system.
Even when the scares arent heart stopping , theres a constant, simmering anxiety at each and every step. You basically subjecting yourself to a 20 hour cariac episode. At times, death brought sweet, momentery respite from the fear drenched mayhem.
The zombie plagued space station is creepy enough , but about mid way through the game you make a teleporteraided detour to hell. The whole feel of the game changes utterly - if you thought you were in desperate straits before, you now find yourself in a balls shriveling nightmare netherworld. (With no weapons!)
It's all leading up to a knees knocking climatic spelunk into the archealogical ruins beneath mars base where you enter a final showdown against evildoers amid the remnants of a fallen martian civilization. As the massive fright lifter descends so agonizingly slowly into the darkness, you may find yourself as I did, cursing out loud at the grim hold this game has on you.
Does Doom 3 have any missteps maybe just one; its attemps at humor feel way out of place. there are a few lame running gagas: PDA spam and an uber-nerdy string of emails between members of a roleplaying club. (The spam gag actually becomes a puzzle that requires you jump out of the game and use you web browser to find a code. Huh?) In one appalling instance, you even even become privy in a tounge-in-cheek directive by arcvillian Dr. Betruger, advising hellions on the proper way to prepare virgin sacrifices. These limp jokes server only to dump me out of the games carefully calibrated dread machine.
But no matter: The rest is all dynamite. Doom 3 took me 23 hours to complete on the medium difficulty setting. (For all those who rumored that the game would be over in a few hours- you couldnt be more wrong.) And for those 23 hours, you will never expirience a dull moment. Or even a less than mesmerizing one. Doom 3 is a masterpiece of art form - staying true to the frantic legacy of the Doom series, while ambitiously reaching new hieghts and bashing down the doors of the next generation of PC shooter. The bar is raised. Lets see someone else climb over it - Dan Morris
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Man, at a magazine as highly supported as PC Gamer, you'd think they'd be able to type a bit better... ;)
Anyway, what are the system specs needed for this game? I know I'm going to need a new video card for upcoming releases (Hell, I need a new video card for most of the games I have now; Geforce 2 mx is definitely not a gaming card), although I'm wondering if the rest of my rig is good to go.
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I'm not buying it...well, I might get it when it drops in price....
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PC Gamer recommends:
2Ghz CPU
512 MB ram
Radeon 9800
5-channel audio
Lowest supported GPU is a Geforce 4 MX (worse than Geforce 3)
Supported cards:
GF 4 MX
GF 3
GF 4
GF FX (and higher)
ATI 8500s, 9000s and higher
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So I'm set with my 768 mb ddr ram, and I think I'll be able to slide by with 1.8 ghz processor. I'll look into getting a new video card either if I have money left over after the Comicon, or after I get a job and get my first paycheck.
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Please tell me that Comicon thing isnt the thing in Hartford, CT..
I really don't want any of you people in the same state as me.....
:p
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ooh.. sweet... I won't be getting it though... no money + old PC = no doom3.
I heard it's comin for Xbox too though, right? If it does I'll be getting it then :)
Now if you'll excuse me, my dinner's gone gold.
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The San Diego Comicon (http://www.comic-con.org/).
It's a yearly comic, anime, and gaming convention at the San Diego Convention Center. I missed out on it last year because of a family trip to Louisiana; We got back the day before the first day of the comicon, but I didn't have much money, and all of my friends seemed to have plans already.
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Now if you'll excuse me, my dinner's gone gold.
oh, so very very nerdy of you. :p
i'll buy it, and upgrade my PC, if some KILLER mods come out for it. does it have voice support?
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i'm kinda excited about this game! wasn't too much at first, but the graphics look awesome and i'm looking for a new game to play (i'm so bored with all the games i got now...). i think it's worth a good playing. i'm pretty sure my machine can handle it... my good ol' 128MB GeForce 4 Ti4600 has gotten me thru a lot so far... maybe it'll hold up it's last moments for this game at least...
P.S.: i'll probably steal this game from malevolent when HE gets it (hint hint male)
P.S.S: male, in case you didn't get the hint, buy this game when it comes out :D
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agreed leaderzorz, i'm seeing this game is gonna come out, people go crazy, play for like a week, and forget about it(maybe a little longer), that's about it, as per the norm with most uber hyped games coming out lately have had happen to them...just imagine what's gonna happen to HL2 hee hee...'and a record low, only 2 copies sold and valve goes under, with one last press release they only had one thing to say..."gg"'
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the thing is with HL2 there is insane mod and community support and following, doom3 has none of this following, and is mainly a SP game with deathmatch on the side. Painkiller anyone?
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YES! Finally! :ph34r:
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Yea, the whole mod-making-ability thing will keep HL2 going, like it did for the original HL. People want more variety nowadays, something more than just plain ol' deathmatch battles.
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The thing with id software, though, is that they don't really care about their game being able to sustain itself for a long time. Whereas HL is sustained by allowing people to mod their engine and thereby keeping money trickling in as people have continued to buy the game for years after it became obsolote, id software is much more in the business of making engines for sale. Their games are just showpieces for their new engine, which they then sell to other game companies and make lots of money off of. (guess who made the engine half life runs on) Almost any popular game in the last several years has had a piece of id's technology in it.
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THANK YOU, GOD!
A anticipated game is finally coming out...
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God bless you, oh Radeon x800
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damn radeon 9600xt <_<
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9800 pro.
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Check out inktank`s take on the release news :D
(http://www.inktank.com/images/AT/cartoons/07-16-04.gif)
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WAIT!!! They came out with a new duke nukem since when??? Also i dont understand what is means when doom3 goes gold, can someone explain.
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when something goes gold it is at its release state which means it is now off to the publish to be released in stores
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And duke nukem forever is still in the same state it was 5 years ago. In production, due to be released... someday... maybe. I added that in as a sort of attempt at humor. I know I'm not very good at it, but just pretend like it's funny and say 'ha ha' every once in a while and I'll feel placated.
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bob: hehheheehhhehehahhhhahAHHAHAHAhHaH
HAHAHAHHAHAHAAMAHAUAHAHHAHAMAUAAHHAH
*GUFFAW*
*SLAPS KNEE*
HOOT!!
<3 <3
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See? Now I'm happy!
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See? Now I'm happy!
waaaaaaiiit a second.. you said you'd be PLACATED!! not all the way over to HAPPY!! :o FALSE ADVERTISING!!!!!
at the very most i expected you to be mollified, maybe even bemused, but HAPPY?!?!? darn you!! you are a dastardly one! give you a snivelly somewhat incompetent sidekick and you're a shoo-in for an EBIL MASTERMIND!!!
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i do believe you went a little over board yourself niteowl, he asked specifically for someone to "just pretend it's funny and say 'haha'".
see, a simple haha would've placated him, however, that overabundance of enjoyment that you displayed brought a rouse out of bob more than even he imagined possible. i say, good job, and applaud your jolliness
[edit]w00t 50th post, i'm now compiling![/edit]
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heh that was a great post about duke nukem forever there bob :lol:
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So, Doom 3 has a story eh? How unfortunate that it's still "Demons from hell are on mars". Don't tell me that it's good, I haven't seen one good story from Id's direction yet. I'll believe it when I see it (assuming I buy the game).
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good stories are highly overrated.
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Like that stuff by that 'shakespeare' guy. It's all just hype.
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DooM 3 will be moddable, it's not like Id just abandons a game post-release. They have many patches for years, and always release the mod source for much mod making. In fact, they release MORE source than VALVe does, you can actually do more with a Quake 3 mod than you can with a Half-Life mod.
Also, John Carmack said way back when that when DooM 3 comes out, he's going to release the ENTIRE source to Quake 3 under the GPL, as he did with Quake 2, Quake, DooM, and Wolfenstein.
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I am soo gonna get this. (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?j=1&id=1051384719568&skuId=5379798&type=product)
If you can't see the link because it gives you some "You do not have cookies enabled" error, it's just because Best Buy's site is screwy. Basically, it's a Radeon 9800 Pro for $170, after the $50 mail-in rebate. This is definitely what I am buying to upgrade my video card, especially at that price. The only thing left for me to do after I get it is decide what I want to do with my GeForce 2 mx after it's pulled out of my tower. Maybe tossing it in the bonfire at the weekly beach gathering I have with my friends would suffice. >:D
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You know Grimm, i used to play CS on a TNT2 video card, with a 500 megahertz proc, on dialup. if you'd a said that then, i'd have tracked you down, skinned you alive, then fed half the flesh on your bones to pigs while i ate the other half in front of your now lidless eyes...
Now that i've got a substantially better system, i can't say i'd do that any more. But back in the day, man, it would been bad.
In other news, studies show hyperbole is over-rated, but not by much...
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Maybe tossing it in the bonfire at the weekly beach gathering I have with my friends would suffice. >:D
Ingrate.
And Sancho, I hope you're kidding. It's hard to tell with text. But I think you're kidding. How could you say that "good stories are highly overrated" and not be kidding? You couldn't. So you must be kidding. The lack of a smily just confused me. But ok, you're kidding. I can understand that. The storyline often makes or breaks a game. Marathon would only be a little better than the original Doom if it wasn't for the kick-ass storyline, which propels Marathon so far ahead that Doom can only be discerned by a faint, unholy glow in the rearview mirror. If Doom3 actually does well in the storyline department, then we're in for a treat, even though I'm no big fan of survival horror. If I see just one more scripted ambush...
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Well, what else do you expect me to do with this old card? It really is terrible for gaming, every game made within the past few years I have to drop a lot of graphics quality to play without slowdown or choppyness. I can't even run the demo for Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and the demo for Hitman Contracts is loads of choppy goodness.
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Put it on your wall. Green is good for the eyes. Heck, my cousin has a very old two-megabyte "stick" of RAM hanging on his wall. It's roughly as big as a modern-day motherboard.
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now THERE's a thought
i've been racking my brain over what else i could hang on my wall, but nothing seems right, me mum won't letmy put my guns on the wall(waiting 'til i have a job with which i can pay for an apartment with baited breathe), so computer parts might just work!
wow...why didn't i think of that before?
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heard a story once. Apparently some guy hung an entire computer on his wall, working and everything. Not sure if he just didn't have enough cases, or if cooling was a problem. Wish i'd heard more about it, seemed kinda cool.
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We used to have a test sytem here at the shop built on a board. Like, a big piece of wood. Made for very easy access. It got outdated and parts started dying though. But yeah, a computer doesn't care what shape it's in as long as the necessary parts go in the right slots and it's got enough power. You could make a mobile and hang a computer from the ceiling if you want.
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damnit, i can't find the picture of that.. anyone got it?!
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http://www.ua-corp.com/ (http://www.ua-corp.com/) , theres a neato site that has some cool flash/timer for doom 3 :)
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We used to have a test sytem here at the shop built on a board. Like, a big piece of wood. Made for very easy access. It got outdated and parts started dying though. But yeah, a computer doesn't care what shape it's in as long as the necessary parts go in the right slots and it's got enough power. You could make a mobile and hang a computer from the ceiling if you want.
I was joking about doing that in IRC to alleviate temperature issues AND save space :)
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I got myself a new Radeon 9800 Pro, so I should be set.
Grimm is very excited about finally having a new card. =D
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Doom 3 is gonna be so scary :D
I hope they make a coop mod, cause im not one for getting the uber crap scared out of me. Oh well, i'll just pop on some metal and go though the game guns blazing :D
I still wana know what the new cacodemon looks like, if the even added it (You will never hear the end of it if they didnt add the cacodemon :angry:)
Now only 12 more days -sigh- and it comes out the day before school too... guess im not getting much sleep.
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wow a day before school? i get an entire month to play/beat it :) .. i hope it doesnt take that long tho :/
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Haha, with the direction games are going nowadays, it'd be a godsend to get a game that would take a month to beat. Most often now they're good for 10 hours of gameplay, which really isn't worth the money.
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Haha, with the direction games are going nowadays, it'd be a godsend to get a game that would take a month to beat. Most often now they're good for 10 hours of gameplay, which really isn't worth the money.
Compared to a DVD and their normal prices.. thats fairly good.
I mean, around here a new DVD is about half the price of a new Game..
So 1 New game is equal to two new DVDs, right?
Now, the movies combined are worth 3 or 4 hours of sitting on your ass doing nothing.. and will generally always be the same no matter what... unless you feel like watching them with spanish dubbing or something.
Where is the game gives you 10 hours of gameplay, more than twice that of the DVDs, which didn't even give you much in the way of interaction..
Plus, the game can change. I mean, you've got different paths, different difficulties, addons, extra maps, custom maps, multiplayer..
Well, okay, maybe the DVDs aren't worth the money either, but at least a game is more worth the money than certain other things..
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Well, I remember hearing that HL2 is 36-48 hours of gameplay (12 chapters, each 3-4 hours). So that should be well worth the money and something that wont be beaten too quickly, and I doubt we will be seeing speedruns of that because at the shortest a speedrun video would be like a day and a half long :p
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You say that, but the original half life gameplay was billed at something like 20 hours if I remember right. Now people are running it in 45 minutes...
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Although they're using every engine and map exploit known to man to finish the game in that time, so it doesn't quite count.
As for the issue with DVDs: Over the years, I've seen companies adding more content and, thus, more value to the DVDs they release. As the technologies become less expensive, they're able to find ways to fit more onto a single disk, as well as include more disks in a box. Deleted scenes, director's and cast's commentary, interviews with the cast, and the ease of multiple language control on one disk as opposed to having to find the right VHS, among many many other things, coupled with the price drop of DVD players and DVDs themselves makes for a solid purchase.
Video games, on the other had, although have been improving as well, most releases within the past few years have only improved graphics-wise. Companies realize that people want shiny eye candy, so they load games with all the shiny eye candy that they can at the sacrifice of the game play time and replayability. Also, they forego any consideration about the average customer's PC specs, requiring some expensive upgrades, and then there are times where companies go out of their way to support one company's upgrade over another, blatantly advertising that one item will not work as well with their game as the other.
Games don't have to be extremely detailed, bank-breaking interactive eye candy to be entertaining. I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, for example, and that lasted me a solid 90 hours before I beat the game and got all of the 'secret' party members. Grand Theft Auto 3 and GTA:Vice City are also great games because the focus is on the gameplay and not the graphics; Even after beating every main mission, there are all sorts of side missions to do, secret goals to be reached (collecting specific cars and taking them to the garage and gathering all 100 packages for example) that increase the replay value.
In the end, I would much rather have a game with good replay value than some interactive eye candy.
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Although they're using every engine and map exploit known to man to finish the game in that time, so it doesn't quite count.
Oh, I don't know. Who defines what 'counts' exactly? They get from the first spawn point in the game all the way through to defeating the final boss in 45 minutes, and they do it using only things that are coded in to the game. How does that not count?
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Oh, I don't know. Who defines what 'counts' exactly? They get from the first spawn point in the game all the way through to defeating the final boss in 45 minutes, and they do it using only things that are coded in to the game. How does that not count?
Come now, most of them use every trick in the book. I'm pretty sure that making a tripmine ladder so you can get into the skybox and 'swim' to the next level was not an intended game feature. All things considered, the people who make the speed runs don't really play the same game.
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Bob - map c4a1 is coded in the game console so can I use that for a speedrun then? :D
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Actually if you look into speedrunning they usually have very carefully crafted rules. Some will go with the 'finish the game by any means possible', like these HL runs. (changing the map manually obviously doesn't work with the idea of speed running through the game, but it's a cute objection anyway :p ) Some game runs will require you to do things like hit certain important goals in the game (like some quake 2 speedruns, where certain goals throughout the game are required to be considered a full speedrun, even though it is possible to get to the next level without doing them) and some people will do 100% speedruns, where they finish every goal in the game, kill every monster, such things like that.
But I still would say that the HL speedrun is a perfectly viable playing of the game. After all, the game doesn't have any stated goal outside of getting through to the end and surviving. If, say, the maps were recompiled with clipped off skybrushes, the speedruns would have to be changed in some areas, obviously. But you're looking at the game like a representation of reality. In reality you can't swim through the sky, obviously. But speedrunners see the game as a puzzle, with the way to solve it being to get through it as quick as possible. Anything included in the game that can be used to further that goal will be used. This includes map bugs, climbing laser mines, gauss jumping, bunny hopping, wallstrafing, etc. etc. Of course they set rules, otherwise there's no fun in solving the puzzle. A noclip speedrun wouldn't be very entertaining... But the way they do it requires intense practice and a lot of skill. I don't see any reason to knock their accomplishments.
(side note, this discussion is interesting, but probably deserves it's own thread... anyone want to take everything about speedrunning and slap it into a seperate thread so this one doesn't become too horribly derailed?)