Yards of Footage (via RPS)

July 15th, 2008 · 31 Comments · Gaming

So! Lots of stuff coming out of E3 in the form of game footage, some exciting and tantalizing, some… less-than-so.

Since RPS is linking a ton of stuff, I will link their links, because I’m just a huge leech and I’m too lazy to pretend I get information from anyone but them.

Left 4 Dead: Continues to look completely awesome and it’s the game I’m most excited about. Scary, gritty, and co-op? I am so there. They’re redesigned the main characters, too, for whatever reason. November 4th, if all goes well, but it’s Valve so it’ll land when it’s ready to. Whenever it is, it cannot come soon enough. After months of colorful cartoony TF2 action, I’m ready for some dark rooms, scary monsters, and realistic-lookin’ blood-n-guts.

Fallout 3: I have no Fallout baggage. I never played the first two, so I don’t have a whole lot of expectations and if it’s a good game, I’ll enjoy it despite any disloyalty to the original series. That said, the footage wasn’t terribly impressive. The world looks fantastic, the combat, kinda not. Pausing to examine your enemies might be fun for a while but I think I’d rather just use full real-time combat when I play. Also, the characters move kinda oddly — reminiscent of NPCs in Oblivion. Not the most natural looking thing I’ve seen. Still, want to play.
Ghostbusters: Am I the only one who thinks this is gonna blow? It looks like it was made for the Playstation 2. And as much as I loved the first movie, I’m not really nostalgic enough for it to want to play a game based on it. It’s not a great sign that much of the footage was from the actual movie, not the game.

Crysis Warhead: You can shoot a lot of stuff, like trees and Koreans. I played a game like this not long ago. It was called Crysis. It was pretty good.

Mirror’s Edge: Still not sold on this, a first-person shoot– er, jumper. With a little shooting. It looks lovely, but I don’t know how exhilarating a game where you jump and swing and slide and vault is really gonna be in first-person. Seems like it would be perfect for a third-person experience, so you can actually see yourself doing all that cool Jackie Chan shit. But, I’m willing to give it a shot. I hope for a demo.

Also, RPS recently posted a video of the first half-hour or so of the Stalker prequel. I haven’t watched it. I don’t want to watch it. I do want to watch it. I know I will eventually watch it. You can watch it. Then maybe tell me what you thought without ruining anything. Okay?

Tags:

31 responses so far ↓

1 jackrabbit // Jul 15, 2008 at 4:33 pm

i really wanna play crysis
2 Ledundead // Jul 15, 2008 at 4:52 pm

I’m still holding out for an Episode 3 announcement.
3 LaZodiac // Jul 15, 2008 at 4:59 pm

What exactly is Stalker?

Yha, not that up on the computer gaming stuff.
4 Tarev // Jul 15, 2008 at 5:13 pm

Yah, I think Fallout 3 looks sweet, but the combat appeared a bit slow and stilted with all those fancy green aiming menus.
5 cliff // Jul 15, 2008 at 5:19 pm

For what it’s worth, you don’t HAVE to use TADS mode in Fallout 3. That was added to satisfy the fans, because historically Fallout is a very turn based tactical game.

However, it is playable in something that resembles an FPS (although one can only speculate on the impact of your mouse-driven accuracy vs. your character’s statistics).
6 Sentry Gun // Jul 15, 2008 at 5:48 pm

Fallout 3 will be playable without ever touching the VATS system. The deal behind VATS is that it’ll take your skills and compare them against other factors and provide a percentage chance, like the first two Fallouts. In normal FPS mode, skills apparently only affect ’shakiness of your hand’ and reload times. I guess you could just think of Deus Ex as an example for that.
7 Nyarlathotep // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:00 pm

I was born waiting for Left 4 Dead.
8 Koslov // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:06 pm

Actually all of those games are on my list. Eventually I will play them all. And your right about that Ghostbusters game… just not quite feeling it but I like the movies enough to at least rent it for one of the consoles.
9 LaZodiac // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:19 pm

As for the Ghostbusters game, which I remembered I should mention, I think that it might be bad, but it’ll be bad enough to be good.

And if experiance has taught me anything, when these guys are working their Ghostbusting, its uselly incredibly awesome.
10 Newt Pulsifer // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:26 pm

Just now RPS uploaded a trailer of a game called “I Am Alive”.

I’ve never heard of it before, but it looks [i]so[/i] cool!!

I’m not sure about Left 4 Dead, though. It’s Valve, so it got to be good. The footage looks extremely difficult and, also, repetitive.
11 Generic Name // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:26 pm

Go play Fallout, dammit! >:(
12 Tracer // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:33 pm

Ghostbusters looks like it was made for the PS2 because it was made for the Wii. In fact, the trailer floating around is for the Wii version from what I understand.

I don’t think it’s going to be a great game, but I think it’s going to be fun. Holding your EKG Meter (DS) in one hand and your proton gun (Wiimote) in the other. Damn. :)
13 mr. Brit // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:48 pm

yawns all around. Bring on spore, little big planet and TF3, lol.
14 Mike // Jul 15, 2008 at 7:07 pm

I don’t care about any of these games. I just want my sequel to Skies of Arcadia.

And cookies to you if you’ve played the game.
15 Justin // Jul 15, 2008 at 7:48 pm

I watched the Stalker gameplay movie on Rock Paper Shotgun. I think it’s going to be good. Not in a startlingly resilient, professional way like the Half-Life 2 series, but in a bizarre, atmospheric way… like the first Stalker game. Watching it and hearing the sounds and sights made me nostalgic for a place that doesn’t exist.
16 Erased.. // Jul 15, 2008 at 8:20 pm

I’m the only one shitting myself over mirror’s Edge. First person Assassins Creed? Yes Please!
17 The chicken // Jul 15, 2008 at 8:24 pm

I just watched the mirrors edge trailer and it looks amazing. Visually stunning to say the least but all the=at free running stuff are things I’ve always wished to try in really life but i don’t want to kill myself. Doing things you can’t do in real life is what video games are all about right?
18 Turyx // Jul 15, 2008 at 9:28 pm

“What exactly is Stalker?

Yha, not that up on the computer gaming stuff.”
No, it’s not a game about the first think you thought when you read the title. Same thing happened to me.

Its a FPS based in Chernobyl, full of mutant animals and normal humans fighting each other. But it isn’t just going forward killing everything on side, it’s kinda like Elder’s Scroll. You accept missions, sell this, buy that, talk to this guy and so on.
19 Turyx // Jul 15, 2008 at 9:29 pm

About Left 4 Dead, in PC there’s no problem, but the 360 version…it was a bad idea to sell it 2 days before Gears of War 2.
20 Swiss // Jul 15, 2008 at 11:03 pm

wait- it’s possible to have to much cartoony FPS action?

Left 4 dead sounds just fine and dandy, but I think I’ll save my money for Littlebigplanet.
21 LaZodiac // Jul 15, 2008 at 11:51 pm

Thanks Turyx.

I’d probably buy Left 4 Dead before even bothering with Gears Of War for my little slab of black plastic. But considering the amount of strokes Episode 1 of Half Life 2 gave me, I’ll avoid it due to massive coranary failure.

Being an utter pussy when it comes to scary things sucks.
22 Crane // Jul 16, 2008 at 12:35 am

I’m not sure whether I’m more excited by Left4Dead or Mirror’s Edge…
The thing is, L4D is a Valve game, so I KNOW it’s going to be awesome. Mirror’s Edge though… I’m more excited by it IN THEORY, but I’m worried about how well it’ll work when you actually play it.
23 Shlub // Jul 16, 2008 at 12:49 am

That Crysis video was a bit disappointing. I remember watching the trailers for the first one and being pretty amazed, but I give that a resounding feh.

Also yeah Fallout 3 NPC animations. Lame.
24 Sinister Minister // Jul 16, 2008 at 1:18 am

I’m surprised there’s no mention of Portal: Still Alive.

And in before platform war.
25 wolferey // Jul 16, 2008 at 3:46 am

I think Mirror’s Edge’s First Person view fits better than 3rd person view would, because of the immersion factor. In 3rd person, you’d just jump around, watch yourself roll and everything, like Assassins Creed, but you wouldn’t be all “into it”.

In 1st person however, you watch it from the characters eyes, as she rolls, you roll, if you get what I’m saying :p It just adds to the immersion factor much more.
26 Oliver // Jul 16, 2008 at 3:51 am

I’m really excited about Fallout 3 and I can’t wait for it to come out!
27 Dante // Jul 16, 2008 at 4:15 am

I still can’t understand how Mirror’s Edge is going to work in first person. I can only imagine it’s either going to be frustrating as hell (like all other first person platforming ever) or so totally on rails you’re just moving about normally and watching the pretty animations.
28 Scolex // Jul 16, 2008 at 4:33 am

I am not a fan of having combat in RPGs being dictated by player skill instead of character skill, and I know there are many other people that feel the same way, so it’s good that they brought back the turn based combat. That’s not to say I’m bad at FPSs, but the combat just doesn’t fit in a Fallout game.
29 Blaze // Jul 16, 2008 at 6:10 am

Ghostbusters is totally going to blow so hard. I mean, it’s by the guys who did BloodRayne and a bunch of other awful games like Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run. For the legacy of that franchise and the Hollywood talent they have behind the scenes, the company producing the game is very much a C-list developer.
30 MadTinkerer // Jul 16, 2008 at 8:04 am

For those who haven’t played Fallout 1 or 2, here’s a quick explanation of why they included the pause-feature:

It’s the exact same reason why you can pause Final Fantasy XII at any time and give individual commands. It’s a realtime iteration of a traditional turn-based franchise. Without including something similar to the combat in the original games, the franchise name is worthless because you’ll just piss off everyone who played the originals.

So in FFXII you can rely 100% on gambits, or give everyone their orders every round, or a little of both. In Fallout 3 you can rely purely on your FPS skills, or you can rely purely on tactics, or you can do a little of both.

As someone who has played both Fallouts and a number of FPS games, it looks like the final game will be the perfect blend of the two styles.
31 Niteowl // Jul 16, 2008 at 10:12 am

I hope they have bunny-hopping in L4D, or caltrops, I’d even settle for Conc Nades, if we could get decent air control. It would really rock if they had Tribes like skiing.

I only assume there’s going to be RJing of some kind allowed. I don’t want to have to rely on my teammates to get me out of a tight situation.