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Warren Spector: Cooler than Jesus?

 
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Spector or Jesus
Warren Spector
40%
 40%  [ 6 ]
Jesus Christ (our Lord and Savior)
60%
 60%  [ 9 ]
Total Votes : 15

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Laco
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:02 pm    Post subject: Warren Spector: Cooler than Jesus? Reply with quote

Okay, so maybe this thread title is a bit misleading. I don't mean to question the guy personally. From most of the interviews and articles I've read, his heart certainly sounds like it's in the right place.

Basically, I don't 'get' his games. Apart from System Shock, which was pretty great even in 2003 when I first played it, I haven't enjoyed any of the games he has been more than superficially involved with. Admittedly I haven't played much of the Ultima series, so In particular I'm thinking about the two Deus Ex games and Thief 3. As dhex confirmed in another thread, there is a lot of love for this man and his work. So, uh, can someone explain it?
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

in short, a willingness to try something different. ultima underworld 1 and 2 for starters.

there's also a feel to his work that i can identify up front, and i'm not one of the many extremely well-informed gamer polymath types here. it's a signature of a kind, and it's what leads me to trust his work as, if not successful, at least something different. at least when he's not pushed out of the way a la dx2.

then again, i liked deus ex quite a bit myself.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I took the liberty of adding a poll.

My opinion is... Spector has a lot of great ideas, but I just don't like his games too much. Will Wright falls more in line with the Son of God.

-Wes
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dessgeega
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i need to play ultima underworld and deus ex more.

i might start with the former, actually. a lot of the writing in deus ex seems pretty masturbatory.
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Neal
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How much input did he have on the Thief series?
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Dracko
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a shame. I really can't play Deus Ex anymore. I tried to recently because I wanted to get to the Morpheus scene, but it's unplayable now. The scarlet thread is far too obvious and contradicts the claimed point of the game, the controls are sketchy and rely as much on chance as anything else, and the enemy A.I. really isn't clever at all.

It's got a story to tell, but it could have told it better, and I don't just mean in the game design.

Maybe I should give it another go on PS2.
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Laco
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
I took the liberty of adding a poll.

My opinion is... Spector has a lot of great ideas, but I just don't like his games too much. Will Wright falls more in line with the Son of God.

-Wes

Nice touch : )

That's kind of how I feel. I mean, objectively I can look at his ideas or read about his games and think "that sounds really cool!" But then whenever I am convinced to give, say, Deus Ex another shot, I give up after a few hours of not really enjoying myself. Maybe getting further into the game is necessary, but somehow I doubt it; System Shock was entirely different. I enjoyed that right from the very first room. (This was, of course, after a few hours of setup, thanks to the joys of DOS games on XP).

Neal wrote:
How much input did he have on the Thief series?

"So I signed on with Looking Glass, worked briefly on Thief: The Dark Project (though my impact on that title was, at best, minimal)". From http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=319. I once read an interview with Spector discussing the Thief series where he basically admitted he had no idea why people liked them so much. This made me question why on earth he would want to work on the third one. Now, if I could just find it..
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
"So I signed on with Looking Glass, worked briefly on Thief: The Dark Project (though my impact on that title was, at best, minimal)". From http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=319. I once read an interview with Spector discussing the Thief series where he basically admitted he had no idea why people liked them so much. This made me question why on earth he would want to work on the third one. Now, if I could just find it..


Thanks
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dhex
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

deus ex gets superb props for making illuminati/RAW jokes, mentioning adam weishaupt and the knights templar by name and also having decent voice acting. the open endedness wasn't that open compared to what it could have been, but it was also a step forward.

one thing i enjoyed was how you'd get a lecture on the nature of totalitarian governments from characters who were living in a tomb. the first runthrough gives you a hearty dose of paranoia to boot.

other things:
- gk chesterton sectionals just lying about.
- german cyborgs with no sense of humor
- metaphysical wonk on the nature of man

my kinda stuff, really.

the three delusions that end up being your choices are interesting as well: technocratic delusion, realpolitik delusion and pastoral delusion.

Quote:

* JC Denton: "Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverance. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverance."
Morpheus: "God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary."
JC Denton: "No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera."
Morpheus: "The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realise truly omnipresent observation and judgement."
JC Denton: "You underestimate humankind's love of freedom."
Morpheus: "The individual desires judgement. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilisation."

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't really played any of the Theif or System Shock games, and Deus Ex, fine game that it is, has more than enough people willing to rave about its greatness, but let me tell you: if you can get Ultima Underworld to run on your modern-fast computer, it is completely worth doing. A while ago we had a thread here talking about those moments in games where you make a new discovery and feel like you really did find something secret and hidden about the world; the Underworld series is chock full of those moments. You can decide to jump off a bridge into a river, for example, and after swimming for a couple minutes you'll find an island with a skeleton, a potion or two, and a beat-up sword that still slightly better than the one you currently have equipped, and you feel like Marco fucking Polo because dammit, you DISCOVERED this final resting place of some poor soul lost to time (and are now looting his corpse, but whatever).

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the Underworld series do a much better job of making you feel like you're in a real world in which you can do as you please than Morrowind does. Morrowind, to me, gets too close to that Uncanny Valley Shaper wrote about in his Umihara Kawase article last issue; Morrowind works too hard to present the player with a living, breathing world and so the small flaws are glaring and that much more apparent--like how in the early levels you can't hit the goddamned crab-thing standing right in front of you during combat. Underworld suffers the combat issue as well and obviously has other problems of its own, but given that the game is over 15 years old, the combat is quite forgiveable and the rest of the problems are merely quaint. The game world--eight floors of an underground Abyss--is vast, but traversing it never feels like a chore, and such a limited setting really works to its advantage. The world is fully realized, and just as you have the well-marked paths that connect the main areas of the Abyss to the various civilizations that have settled there, you have the dark corners avoided by most where strong monsters wait; just as you have the good, helpful denizens of the Abyss you also have to contend with bands of theives and rogue goblin clans and all manner of evil creepies. The game is truly amazing.

Underworld 2 is more of the same greatness and the engine shows a marked improvement, but I haven't played it to completion yet.

EDIT: But speaking of Deus Ex, I'm replaying it right now and I must say, some aspects of the game--references to suspension of civil liberties, the government and extra-government organizations' freedom to incarcerate or spy on civilians with little or no probable cause, etc.--are just fucking creepy in light of the last six months' or so of news headlines and whatnot.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

conspiracy fiction puts me off because bureaucracy is incompetant. the state isn't interested in concealing things, just distracting from them (or else redefining them in popular consciousness).

most conspiracy fiction is too in love with its own cleverness to evoke a real reaction. look how it all perfectly pieces together in a way only an authored work of fiction could! and usually only if you're willing to suspend your disbelief on a few points.

this is kind of irrelevant. i've only actually played deus ex up to the people who live in the subway.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that's what's so engaging about Deus Ex's brand of conspiracy fiction--it doesn't try to really create Ye Olde Grande Conspiracy from our current world state, but simply extrapolates upon sensitive modern issues--appropriate response to terrorism, privacy vs. security, etc.--and spins a futuristic tale at the end of a slippery slope of these modern concerns. Of course, the game can't help but reach back to classic conspiracy mainstays like the Knights Templar, Area 51/Roswell/Majestic12, Illuminati, etc., but its saving grace is that it takes great pains to avoid our current era and doesn't try to tie all these conspiratorial ideas into our current time. Modern-day conspiracy fiction has always turned me off because--as you noted--incompetence is in larger supply than cunning, and modern conspiracy tales do involve a very large suspension of disbelief on everyone's part.

Your really ought to play past the subway area though, Dess, as that's where the game really begins picking up.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

maybe i will! i kind of game up because i was killing lots of people and it felt wrong for the character. i was doing it because i'm absolutely terrible at first-person 3D games and i find it really hard to be stealthy when i can't see someone standing behind me. the range of vision in first-person games is kind of a joke.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Funny, I always saw JC as being a no-questions-asked soldier type.

Though the combat system really isn't spectacular and the bodycount can seem ridiculous, yes.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ultima Underworld is just great. It's also the most opressive microcosm I've played. I mean, it never EVER feels like home.

Quote:
You can decide to jump off a bridge into a river, for example, and after swimming for a couple minutes you'll find an island with a skeleton, a potion or two, and a beat-up sword that still slightly better than the one you currently have equipped, and you feel like Marco fucking Polo because dammit, you DISCOVERED this final resting place of some poor soul lost to time (and are now looting his corpse, but whatever).

Heh, I think I know the exact island you're talking about. Though I guess there's probably more than one just like it. It's very true though. I wonder if the short view distance contributes to this.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you know, dhex, i always found it puzzling that you needed a definition of "chaotic good".
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dracko wrote:
Funny, I always saw JC as being a no-questions-asked soldier type.


I always saw him as a repressed, sexless Principal Skinner-type.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
you know, dhex, i always found it puzzling that you needed a definition of "chaotic good".


well, i never played d&d in that sense. i did play some of the earlier crpg's (ravenloft? something along those lines? and a few minutes of one of the eye of the beholder games) but that was about it. i never read fantasy fiction as a kid (i tried some raymond feist and it just didn't do it for me) so i never really came across this stuff except in the dumbed down versions of stuff like the arthurian mythos or, to a lesser degree, pre-christian celtic and germanic legends. and the usual james frazier stuff.

the referential conspiracy theory of deus ex is what really grabbed me.

"23...17...1723...THE YEAR ADAM WEISHAUPT WAS BORN! This is definitely the work of Illuminati scientists!" i laughed so hard i nearly died. i could see how someone who wasn't already an illuminatus fan wouldn't find that very funny at all.

and at the end it does invoke a sort of metapolitical clusterfuck that i can appreciate, as a somewhat serious student of history, at least part of the time.

i was very, very disappointed in one thing about deus ex, but that's spoilertastic and will follow here:

you couldn't just tell them to fuck off. contrary to my nature, i did pick the tracer tong ending the first time, just to see what would happen.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm with dessgeega on the whole conspiracy fiction thing. Also, from everything I've heard, the story is by far the best part of Deus Ex. So why am I even playing a game? If people seem to agree the combat, AI, controls, etc, aren't good, why not just make a Planescape Torment-style RPG with branching dialogue choices? Heck, just remove the combat altogether and make a traditional adventure game. As Harveyjames pointed out in another thread, presentation, or storytelling, is generally much more important than the story itself. The reason similar games like System Shock, Thief, and Half-Life work so well, for me, is that their stories are so well integrated with their actual gameplay. You have something in the story that needs doing, so you the player do it, revealing more of the story along the way and changing how you play the game. Deus Ex does seem to attempt this, but for me, I have to say it fails on the 'gameplay' part.

Wow, though, Ultima Undeworld. Thanks, you just answered this thread, dhex and Greatsaintlouis! It has almost exactly the same feel as System Shock. The demo works really well under dosbox, now I just need to lay my hands on a full copy, so I can actually save.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i like the combat in deus ex. it is slow and plodding, like myself.

and as much as i like planescape, there's only so many planescapes to be made in this particular metaverse.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i'm pretty sure all you'd need to do to make most text adventure games planescapes would be to add a bunch of running away from enemies to them.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Deus Ex had some awesome cheats. Spawning random groups of NPCs randomly was a lot of fun.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really enjoyed the clusterlove of conspiricies that Deus Ex threw at you. I don't think it was really trying to be deep, just bring together an entertaining and at times thought provoking collection of conspiricies set in a world that was great to explore and compare to our own, and told through some fun characters. Sounds good to me!

I also loved the gameplay in Deus Ex. Sure, the AI sucks but apart from that and a few other minor things that can be easily forgiven, I don't see what everyones problem is but whatever. Also, Dracko, the PS2 port is pretty terrible.

I'm eagerly awaiting the HD mod for Deus Ex, unfortunately it's taking forever to be completed and who knows if it ever will be.

Ultima Underworld is also great, I think I mentioned this before, but there is an XP patch for both games that make the games work pretty perfectly. You can also change the draw distance with a little hack, but that's kinda cheating and ruins the mood.

System Shock did a great job of intergrating story with gameplay, probably one of the best examples I've seen.

I also really love the thief series. It's interesting seeing how much the design philosphy of the first two games differ. I think enjoyed the second more since it was better designed as a game, but the first featured much more captivating levels.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm still trying to get System Shock to work. And I'll have to give Ultima Underworld a proper go. I wouldn't mind finding a copy of Arx Fatalis, either.

But yeah, on the whole, I'd say, regardless of how you feel about their stories, the Thief series pulled it off better than System Shock 2 did. There was a definite sense of integration.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the first Thief did it far better than the second, though. The second had some memorable story-heavy levels towards the end, but for the most part it was more about thieving, since people complained that there wasn't enough thieving in the first and too much running from zombies/tomb raiding. I guess it was kinda explained by Garret being in a sort of limbo in his life, until Victoria comes back to him.

I have a copy of Thief 3 but haven't played it yet so I can't really comment on that.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Funny thing is, they originally wanted the first Thief to be pure thieving, but were concerned that it wouldn't be accepted in the market. So they spiced it up with tomb raiding, straight exploration and adventure stuff, which did help give it a brilliant ominous flair, but gamers wanted more thieving. Thief II is great if only for how vast the levels are, though.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I played a little of Arx Fatalis once. It seemed like it could be interesting, but the developers seemed dead-set on ignoring that fact that the entire game was set underground; which is a terrible lost opportunity. I mean it seemed like laziness to have castles and inns in a cave.

I want to start playing Underworld again now.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle wrote:
I also loved the gameplay in Deus Ex. Sure, the AI sucks but apart from that and a few other minor things that can be easily forgiven, I don't see what everyones problem is but whatever.

Ah, I'm glad someone is defending the actual gameplay. I know a lot of people like the game for reasons other than just the story / dialogue, I kind of purposely glossed over that point in my previous post. Now I guess I can just take it to be difference of opinion, and leave it at that.

The two Thief titles are probably my favourite games ever. They're just so perfectly realised; the gameplay, story, atmosphere and characters work together so well. Also, the sound and voice acting is quite brilliant; Garrett, especially, just feels like his character should. I consider it more of a role-playing game than most RPGs, because when I play I feel like I'm actually making choices the character would. It's not 'me' in there (as opposed to System Shock where the character is totally open, just J. Random Hacker), but that actually helps the immersion.

I couldn't really stand Thief 3, from the couple of levels I played. Maybe I'll try it again now I have a PC that can play it smoothly.

Lackey wrote:
I played a little of Arx Fatalis once.

I was going to bring up Arx Fatalis when talking about Underworld, but I really don't know how much they have in common. I know Arx is considered a spiritual sequel, almost an Underworld 3. It's one of those games I bought on a whim, having never heard much about it. I've never gotten very far into it either, because as you say it doesn't actually feel all that 'underground'; to me it felt like quite a standard RPG.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where does Deus Ex 2 fit into the discussion, although not technically a Warren Spector game, Harvey Smith has declared himself an apprentice of sorts to Spector.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Neal wrote:
Where does Deus Ex 2 fit into the discussion, although not technically a Warren Spector game, Harvey Smith has declared himself an apprentice of sorts to Spector.

You tell me! I've played even less of Deus Ex 2 than I have the original, only about an hour. I know it's generally considered pretty 'bad', but my computer at the time had enough trouble just running it smoothly. Anyone care to give a comparison?
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I really enjoyed the clusterlove of conspiricies that Deus Ex threw at you. I don't think it was really trying to be deep, just bring together an entertaining and at times thought provoking collection of conspiricies set in a world that was great to explore and compare to our own, and told through some fun characters. Sounds good to me!


This is how I feel about it--the story was essentially The Invisibles/The Illuminatus in game form, but less overtly satirical and more "self-contained world where this stuff is possible."

On gameplay: okay, retrospectively, maybe it wasn't this brilliant procedurally generated system of choices and such, but I still don't see how you can blithely toss it aside like that. I don't think it put on airs of being revolutionary, just innovative, and it really was in that sense. It was an atypical FPS that gave you a fairly good amount of choices which did affect your experience in varying degrees. That's good enough for me.

On that note, I think 90% of the hatin' on Deus Ex solely because of its story stems from a response to the poor souls who actually consider DE's story a masterpiece. Which are just...fanboys, really.

Quote:
I'm still trying to get System Shock to work. And I'll have to give Ultima Underworld a proper go. I wouldn't mind finding a copy of Arx Fatalis, either.


I would be playing System Shock right now, except for the whole "it doesn't fucking work" thing. The guides somehow always manage to not mention some crucial step.

Reading this thread has also gotten me anxious to play Underworld, but if it's as difficult to set up as SS...hoo boy.

Quote:
You tell me! I've played even less of Deus Ex 2 than I have the original, only about an hour. I know it's generally considered pretty 'bad', but my computer at the time had enough trouble just running it smoothly. Anyone care to give a comparison?


Deus Ex 2 is...well.

I liked Deus Ex 2, but not for the right reasons. The AI was pretty pitiful at times. Some of the gameplay was dumbed down. Okay, all of it (everything from a shitty skill system to no regionalized damage. lame!) The story...well, I can't remember the story too well.

I had a good time with the game though. I liked the atmosphere (like these little buggers. they just looked so damn freaky!). For me, it was a Deus Ex fan's wet dream. Deus Ex--again! I've got to say I was very disappointed by the 'male/female' character choices, because they were both hollow. But really, maybe that was the point, considering what little of the story I remember.

I just had fun throwing corpses in the air and pummeling them with machine-gun bullets, sending them so far into the sky that they disappeared. Ahh, broken physics.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's worth saying that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines was essentially Deus Ex with vampires. Don't let the lol adult humor lol throw you off, it's a really sweet game.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lockeownzj00 wrote:
I would be playing System Shock right now, except for the whole "it doesn't fucking work" thing. The guides somehow always manage to not mention some crucial step.

Reading this thread has also gotten me anxious to play Underworld, but if it's as difficult to set up as SS...hoo boy.

I know I got System Shock working fine on XP a year or two ago. I really should have written down exactly what I did. I'll try and give it another shot and let people know.

The highly advanced setup process for Underworld is as follows:
1. Install Dosbox
2. Enjoy game

This method also works for System Shock, for certain values of 'works'. I have a pretty new cpu (core 2 duo), and even giving dosbox plenty of cycles, the 320x240 resolution was barely fast enough to play.

Lockeownzj00 wrote:
I liked Deus Ex 2, but not for the right reasons. The AI was pretty pitiful at times. Some of the gameplay was dumbed down. Okay, all of it (everything from a shitty skill system to no regionalized damage. lame!) The story...well, I can't remember the story too well.

I think that's part of where my dislike of Warren Spector's stuff stems from. I mean I guess he really wasn't all that directly involved with DE2, but right up until a few months after it was released he was swearing it wasn't dumbed down for console, it exactly met his vision for the next game in the series, etc, etc. Overpromising is hardly unique in game development, and sure you have to pimp your game to sell copies, but that just struck me as a bit Peter Molyneux, if you know what I mean. A few months after release: "Okay, so that last game (DE2, here) didn't really live up to expectations.. but my next game (Thief 3), man, it's going to be so awesome!!" I feel like I'm being way too harsh here, but I did get a bit of that feeling at the time. I guess I just wish people wouldn't promise the world, at least until they've actually developed it!

That screenshot is awesome, by the way. "Goal Received: Defeat Everyone". Doesn't get much clearer than that.

Swimmy wrote:
It's worth saying that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlust was essentially Deus Ex with vampires. Don't let the lol adult humor lol throw you off, it's a really sweet game.

I really liked Bloodlines. While I don't think it's quite on par with some of the other games mentioned in this thread for innovation or whatever, to me it was a really enjoyable game. I find myself thinking of scenes and locations from it all the time, and taking a while to remember where they are from. The part set in that hotel was the best.


Last edited by Laco on Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Swimmy wrote:
It's worth saying that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlust was essentially Deus Ex with vampires. Don't let the lol adult humor lol throw you off, it's a really sweet game.


Bloodlines.
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Lockeownzj00
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How was Bloodlines, by the way? I only played through a bit of Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption. It's first-person or some shit?
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Redeye wrote:
Swimmy wrote:
It's worth saying that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlust was essentially Deus Ex with vampires. Don't let the lol adult humor lol throw you off, it's a really sweet game.


Bloodlines.

Fiiiiixed.

Locke: You can switch between first and third person. First is better for guns, third better for slicing bitches up with your knife, as these things tend to always go. I mean, basically it's what Deus Ex 2 would have been if it wasn't as Xboxified and was about vampires instead of conspiracy theories. (Needless to say nothing like Redemption.) The standard FPS-with-RPG-elements schtick is all there (do you want to PICK LOCKS or CAST SPELLS or SEDUCE PEOPLE or SNEAK AROUND or SHOOT VAMPIRES the best?). It's got some great set pieces and characters. Plus the whole Vampire: Masquerade backstory is neat by default. I really love it. The only thing that irked me (besides my computer not really being able to handle it) was the humor, which edged up on that "Haha we can get away with putting a strip club in our game take that Joe Lieberman!" shit. Stuff like that should be left to Postal.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I pretty much agree with Swimmy.

I let the whole "substitute sleaze for substance" thing slide.
Maybe they "had" to do that.
(Time/money/audience requirements.)

The handholding and linearity annoyed me.
I don't have anything against linearity. It helps keep the story tight and allows effort to be concentrated on content that will be experienced by all players.
In V:TM-B, you are told about being a vampire/etc. instead of having to wander around and find out for yourself. From the packaging and hype I had the idea that I could explore L.A. (a simplified L.A. of course) and have a bit of a sandbox experience.
There just aren't enough areas, and the ones included are too "designer cheaty".

A first chapter as big as the regular game would have been marvelous.


If you can find it for $10 or so, pick it up.
The hotel sequence is really good. The best implemented part of the game, and it comes pretty early on.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really liked Deus Ex but was never able to finish it, due to how difficult the enemies become in the later game and how scarce ammo becomes.
But I loved how there was an alternate route for everything.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In other nudes, System Shock 1 has been made portable! It works on XP pretty darn well (I hear, I have yet to try it yet), but not perfectly (the sound is a bit off).

So yeah, we won't need to screw around for hours trying to get it to work on modern systems now?

http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php?topic=211.0
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is this the original, honest-to-God System Shock or an adaptation of sorts? Either way, I'm downloading it now, thanks.

EDIT: Holy Hell, it is. And it works fantastically. Thanks again.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gah, it just quit on me randomly. I'm guessing this is going to be one of those games I'm going to have to play a quarter of an hour at a time.

Is there a way to play CD quality music yet?
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmm, I haven't heard of any problems like that. You may want to post about it on the page I supplied. Although it's quite ahead in its development, it's still in progress so I'm sure there will be a few problems here and there.

I'm not sure what you mean about the CD audio!
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm just not sure if the music is supposed to sound like that or if there's a CD soundtrack of some kind. It all sounds pretty ancient.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to sound like that, based on a hazzy memory... the CD format was used for the log voices and Shodans taunting mostly.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, I see. Fair enough.
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