Game News Pete Hines responds some more

[Ortchel]

Thats a little unfair, Patr.

Theres nothing wrong with being optimistic and actually waiting to see a final product and then judging it on it's own merits. As opposed to bitching and moaning like everyone else everytime Bethesda considers (or are deemed to consider) making the game they actually want to make, instead of the game they're being commanded to make.

Exitium isn't jaded, I can respect that, in a how-the-hell-isn't-he-jaded kind of way.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

pfft, system shock 2 was shite.

You appear to be suffering from Terriblus Tastus. Methinks the Good Taste Police should pay a visit to you.

 

[Seven]

I guess some people don't get tired of being treated like sheep.

 

[Anonymous]

pfft, system shock 2 was shite.

You appear to be suffering from Terriblus Tastus. Methinks the Good Taste Police should pay a visit to you.

Seems like Retardation to me, actually. Always remember to consult a follow doctor.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

pfft, system shock 2 was shite.

You appear to be suffering from Terriblus Tastus. Methinks the Good Taste Police should pay a visit to you.

I didn't think System Shock 2 was nearly as good as people said it was either. The obligatory POISONOUS RADIATION MAZE alone was enough to make it drop several points in my book. There were a number of other things I thought sucked, like the robots who moved really, really slow, but would turn one-hundred eighty degrees around instantly if you came up behind them with a wrench to bash their heads in.

It wasn't a terrible game, but it's certainly no where near as good as people claim it is.

 

[Ortchel]

System Shock 2 is bad because:

1. Radiation maze
2. Robots turn too fast

I think Saint is suffering from said malady as well.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

He didn't say it was because of those elements exclusively. He brought those two up, but he clearly stated that there were other things.

 

[Ortchel]

Yes, I made a cheap shot, but if there were obvious larger problems I assume he would have named them.

If those are the worst details of the game well .. then I think my point stands.

System Shock 2 is one of the best games ever. No argument.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Do you guys think that any developers actually listen to Rosh? He might have some great common sense and most, if not all of his points are usually valid - but do any developers actually listen to him?

I don't think anyone appreciates having their intelligence berated, regardless of how intelligent the person doing the berating is. I have no doubt in my mind that Rosh is an intelligent person, more intelligent than most people, in fact - but most people tend not heed insults.

As for those of you who think you can insult me by coming up with cheap, snappy insults about liking World of Warcraft at a time when it didn't suck, and some turn based games on the console, you need to grow up - or at least get your arguments in order instead of making broad, useless generalizations about how I love Final Fantasy just because I happen to enjoy FFTA. Is that even a bad thing? Who the fuck are you to judge me on my tastes?

 

[plin]

He didn't say it was because of those elements exclusively. He brought those two up, but he clearly stated that there were other things.

I just meant it's over-rated in it's "scary-ness". It's a fun game (for a while). But as saint said, I don't think it's half as good as people make it out to be.

And pat, you've said that how many times now? Get original now, oh, and sending me goatse by PM again isn't original or effective either. Nice try though, really, a stand out effort like always.

 

[Volourn]

LOL You got a goatse too? I love those. Stop cryinga bout them. Geez.. Just take the 1 sec to erase the PM and stop bringing the D R A M A here.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Goatse is the gift that keeps on giving warm, fuzzy feelings to millions worldwide.

 

[plin]

LOL You got a goatse too? I love those. Stop cryinga bout them. Geez.. Just take the 1 sec to erase the PM and stop bringing the D R A M A here.

Crying? I said they don't effect me, and that it's not original. You're the one with too much D R A M A.

 

[Volourn]

The fact you came crying and whining about it in this thread proves you wrong. What a blosuerwhitjkingy.

 

[Rosh]

Do you guys think that any developers actually listen to Rosh? He might have some great common sense and most, if not all of his points are usually valid - but do any developers actually listen to him?

Quite a few, odd as it might seem. I'm quite a pleasant fellow unless someone either does something stupid or is dishonest. Dishonesty and trying to feebly spin-doctor around is the red flag that will make me tear into someone. I have said it many times in the past. I am tough, but fair.

As for having their intelligence insulted, I will only do that to the gaming rag kids, or imply that someone isn't doing their job. Considering that this has been an entire PR mess, it makes me think that Pete hasn't really looked into the background of the title and how it was handled in the past.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Fair enough. With that, I should say that I think that you have an undeservedly bad reputation from some of our readers because of the reactions of the 'gaming rag kids'. As for Pete Hines, you said it: it's evident that this was a PR mess. I wouldn't call him 'full-of-shit' like Vault Dweller does, though... not that Vault Dweller's own comprehension skills are perfect, considering his recent 'inability' to discern Oblivion's use of skills and concluding that die-rolling is equal to role-playing.

 

[Rosh]

Fair enough. With that, I should say that I think that you have an undeservedly bad reputation from some of our readers because of the reactions of the 'gaming rag kids'.

I don't necessarily mean those that read the mags, because I sometimes will look into them to see what eccentric things they can find that aren't on the internet for some reason. It has a lot to do with those in charge of the publications. Many of the internet gaming review sites aren't much better. You will find I tend to have differences with those who are dishonest and use claims like "faithfully set in the Fallout universe" when describing garbage like Fallout Enforcer.

I thought it was the dislike of crappy journalism and the media cattle market that fueled this place, too.

 

[Sol Invictus]

It is.

If anything, we should be jumping on GameInformer for making up the bullshit, which magazines often come up with in order to add fabricated content based on pure speculation due to a lack of actual content to write about. It's like this: Bethesda didn't tell them much, told them a few snippets and half-details of stuff that may or may not be going into the development pipeline, obviously not enough to fit a column, so the magazine came up with this elaborate description by stitching all of those little things they may or may not have 'heard' together and adding a little bit of creative writing of their own into the mix to make the game sound oh-so-desireable to their console-gaming readers.

So instead of BUYING INTO the magazine's possible fabrications and jumping on the developers for it, we should instead be trying to find out if any of it is true and getting the developers to divulge actual information pertaining to the game in a civil manner instead of the manner employed by Vault Dweller.

 

[Rosh]

The problem I find with putting the blam on Game Informer is that Todd only debunks one point and that's it, and uses the "direct quotes" line. So that easily (in theory) takes the responsibility from Bethesda's PR in making sure the information was given right, clearly, and to an informed editorial staff.

If what GI posted was complete bullshit, Pete should have told us the truth of the matter instead of coming up with an excuse that doesn't float. By Pete's own words, Todd is becoming a worse PR nightmare than GI's article was, as he's put a lot of "direct quotes" out. That doesn't remove other pieces of information in the article that would have been called upon by the PR suit if they were bullshit, such as the brief synopsis of the game's start. Pete has done nothing to really clear up this issue, but instead seems to take one token item and try to straw man the rest. I honestly hope that's not the case.

And, as I've mentioned before and it has been pointed out here, PR is allowed to look at the final article, especially if it's an exclusive. Most PR suits will make sure to read over an article before it is published, to make sure that is what they want to be representative of their company's intentions. Matters like "the most violent video game ever" need to be cleared up, but Pete only gave "clarification" on one point and a "do not pay attention to the man behind the curtains" on the rest.

I'll admit the "[Bethesda] grinning every time their ass is licked whenever they answer the phone" bit was harsh, but honestly...that is exactly what appears to be happening. There's no kinder way to put it than someone needs to earn their paycheck.

So, this needs clearing up:
How much of the article is bullshit?
Will this PR mess be ignored for the sake of keeping good ties with GI by Bethesda?
How well will PR be handled with future events, or does Bethesda not care what others print, as long as there's Bethesda's name in there somewhere?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

System Shock 2 is bad because:

1. Radiation maze
2. Robots turn too fast

I think Saint is suffering from said malady as well.

There's also the random spawning of critters near where you are if you walk near a camera facing you, as opposed to actually alerting any monsters in the area where you might be. If you've cleared out an area that's pretty much enclosed, spawning monsters is a pretty dumb thing to have going on. Now, if there were monster generators, like a big mama alien thingy sitting in a room in that enclosed area that was turning cacooned humans in to critters periodically, then sure, that's fine. You can always kill the mama and the monsters stop. Killing cameras to make monsters stop is fairly idiotic. If the aliens were smart as the game claims, would it really matter if the cameras were facing you or not? If all the cameras in Sector Alpha started going on the fritz, wouldn't you send monsters there to check out what's going on anyway?

I also didn't like the fact the "R" only worked with the type of ammo that's currently in the weapon. If I hit the "Reload" key, I expect to reload my gun if I still have ammo that fits in that gun rather than hearing *click*click*. I really don't care how it picks the ammo, the one I have the most of, the one closest to the last ammo, etc. As long as I can shoot the rampaging horde of critters coming down the hall so I don't die, I'm happy. I'll adjust my ammo later when I'm not in jeopardy.

People claim System Shock 2 was immersive, but all the things I mentioned are immersion breaks.. Why is there a fucking maze filled with radiation in the middle of the ship? How come this robot that moves at 3MPH can spin around instantly? Why are cameras respawning critters and not some actual in game device, which makes sense, that I can locate and stop?

 

[Ortchel]

Well, those are all still minor points, but I usually judge games similarly, based on annoying (or excellent) details.

I haven't played it since it was first released, I might not be so fond of it now.

 

[Rosh]

The radiation can be explained by the logs that tell of leaking coolant and such in Engineering. Which, given interstellar travel, implies fusion or something like that (I only remember FTL travel from the intro), which would have dangerously unclean parts of their system if someone were exposed to it. I don't remember how the leak came about but maybe someone was trying to sabotage the ship to prevent the infection from spreading, or it might have been through the rest of the damage to the ship.

In that context, it didn't bother me much since it only lasted a little while. What was really crap was that like some of the other areas of the ship, no rational design was given to the radiation maze. It would have been much better if some sense was applied to the corridors.

The infinite spawns of enemies were what bothered me the most, although in two player it's pretty fun. I tend to think of the game more of a Horror FPS than anything of an RPG since it doesn't even bother go into character interaction, and appreciated a lot of the things that made it a far better FPS than most out there. With all Shooter games, there is always some suspension of disbelief, but this one thinned down the suspension of disbelief and made it easier to immerse yourself into the setting. What I think people enjoy most about it is the audio aspects of the game giving more to the mood, as the voice acting and filtering was top notch for that time, and I think it still is.

It, like every game out there, has its flaws, but it's not necessarily crap because it showed creativity and a measure of depth, whilst most others are rehashing the same tired FPS formula.

 

[Ortchel]

I tend to think of the game more of a Horror FPS than anything of an RPG since it doesn't even bother go into character interaction

Why do people always equate dialogue/character interaction with roleplaying? Can't you play a role other than 'chatterbox superhero'?

 

[Rosh]

Why do people always equate dialogue/character interaction with roleplaying? Can't you play a role other than 'chatterbox superhero'?

I said interaction, which includes far more than just speech. Interaction being a vital point to the definition of role-playing.

 

[z3r'0']

System Shock is very immersive imo.
There hasn't been a game released since then that equals it in that department.Though its probably highly subjective.

It's not perfect, nobody said it was. But most of the things that mattered it did well, the story, atmosphere, protagonist and antagonist, setting, interactivity, opposing forces and game progression.

About the radiation: A coolant leak you could fix. (Design of Engineering level: Coolant Nascelle was for purpose of heat dissipation. :idea: )

About the ammo : You have 3 types of ammo: armor-piercing, incendiary and standard.
Ammo was also scarce in the game.

Zombies have resistance to certain types of ammo, like AP, while Robots had other, same as Cyborg-ninjas, mutant spiders and Cyborg-mammas.
The Annelids creatures were resistant to nearly all damage except fire or exotic (alien)
firepower.
Thus unloading on enemies would quickly lead to a situation, akin to being up a creek without a paddle.(Up shitcreek...:twisted: )

As for the cameras, there were different ways to bypass them.
If you had the computer security skill you could hack it. Or destroy the cameras Or make certain the cameras didn't detect you.(sneak)

If the worst happened and the alarm went off, you had many options.

:-Go to security terminal and switch off alarm.
:-Find a nook or cranny and hide. (Alarm is tied to a timer, after a while it stops if it detects no movement)
:-Fight the many. (difficult to do if you weren't highly trained in weapons skills e.g: Marine).


Imho : The monsters spawns added to the tension as you never felt safe.

The first two levels Med-SCi and Engineering aren't as good as those later in the game.
E.g: Deck4 were you meet Doc. Polito.. :wink: and Deck5: Recreation were you find out about the Resistance..(Marie Delacroix and co.).
The game gets really intense towards the end though as it gets down to a battle of wills between your character and Shodan, the lovely but evil and immature rogue A.I construct.

Sorry for the long post/review. I wished to clear some things up, hope its found in good faith.