Game News THQ Nordic Showcase 2022: Gothic Remake and Jagged Alliance 3

[RobotSquirrel]

I'm getting the "How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man" vibes from JA3 not gonna lie. But I get that every time someone announces a new interpretation of JA2.
1.13 exists, that is the right way to do it, stop ignoring it! lol.

 

[kaisergeddon]

They should have just called it a spiritual sequel, not a remake. They can never hope to live up to what Gothic accomplished. Gothic was a landmark game for a different era. THQ should know this.

 

[Ruzen]

About the magazines
Ok I'll be the one to start weird overthinking
I think no magazine for weapons is good for the setting.
Jagged Alliance always felt to me like an '80s 90's popcorn action movies with no reload scenes, so there for I'll be ok with that

 

[Skdursh]

I have absolutely no faith that either of these will be good. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. That Gothic Remake demo they released a while back was absolutely fucking atrocious.

 

[Ryzer]

Cons
Grid environment

Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 have grid environments as well and it was not a con.

 

[Modron]

Yeah but the grids here look somewhat like modern sticky cover affairs. Probably should have put it in a mixed category since they do seem to have proper line of sight shooting at people in cover and not nuxcom blanket half/full cover system.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

They should have just called it a spiritual sequel, not a remake. They can never hope to live up to what Gothic accomplished. Gothic was a landmark game for a different era. THQ should know this.

Bu there's NOTHING about Gothic's pillars of design that would be hard for a modern and competent studio to replicate... IF they were just willing to go there.
Even the technology that allowed seamless streaming of interiors and a whole world map (almost) without loading and used to be at least good now would be mundane to match.

The way a lot of these "successors" fail is by going in with the delusion that some of these cornerstones are "dated" and not appealing/user friendly enough, so shitting out abortions that have very little of the appeal of the original.
For example the "concept demo" was filled to the brim of invisible walls, arbitrary architectonic barriers you couldn't sneak below or climb above, "interactive prompts" that hardly made you interact, invulnerable NPCs you couldn't start a fight with "just because". An alarming sign that these devs just "didn't get it".
Especially when you consider that the high interactivity/reactivity and the full sense of immersion in the environment ("what you see is what you get") were defining aspects of the original.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Cons
Grid environment

Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 have grid environments as well and it was not a con.

There's a big difference between what the Jagged Alliance games had, and having conveniently spaced out boxes all over every single map.

 

[Gargaune]

My hope for Gothic remake went up significantly after learning Enderal lead writer and designer is working on it.

My hope for the Gothic remake went down dramatically after learning they have a writer working on it, because I finally realised it's a remake, not a remaster.

Spoiler

It will be shit.

 

[Outlander]

Wow, you must have missed the playable demo of gothic remake then :D
Both games look quite promising and I enjoyed gothic remake demo.

Yeah, it was so 'good' that the backlash made the devs completely scrap it and start over reassure everybody that they would focus more on the essence of what made Gothic, Gothic.

 

[Lexx]

Generally I like the setting and theme, but the JA3 maps so far look like fighting arenas and not like natural places. :/

Also the typical nu-xcom shit where everyone is standing right in front of each other - where is the distance? Look at the scene where they are sneaking up like 7 grids to the enemy soldiers. Other scenes also show an average combat distance like that (and we saw it already in the first trailer). Sure there is one sniper scene, but that distance isn't so big either.

I want to like it, but right now I'm highly skeptical. Oh, and missed opportunity to bring back animated 2d portraits.

About the ammo thing -- weapons still have a bullet count on the interface. You can see the numbers dropping when they fire the guns. At 2:19 the AK changes from 15 bullets to 0 and then "reload" action shows up.

/Edit: And I hope 5 people is not the maximum team size.

 

[damagedbrains]

THQ Nordic (who aren't even THQ to begin with) provide me with not much hope. They've turned whatever they've touched to shit.

 

[JDR13]

However the Gothic remake turns out, it better not have the dialogue or combat systems that the demo had. They were absolutely terrible.

 

[whydoibother]

XCOM: Modern Warfare looks promising.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

Pros of what I've seen in JA3 trailer:

1. Aim system
2. Destructibility of houses
3. A lot of signature stuff makes an appearance (the laptop, iconic characters, AIM, etc)

 

[Ryzer]

Pros of what I've seen in JA3 trailer:

1. Aim system
2. Destructibility of houses
3. A lot of signature stuff makes an appearance (the laptop, iconic characters, AIM, etc)

The cons: everything else.

 

[Alienman]

It's using real ballistic system, right? Can't decide if it does or not. Will sitting behind something actually protect you, hide you?

 

[Roguey]

THQ Nordic (who aren't even THQ to begin with) provide me with not much hope. They've turned whatever they've touched to shit.

ELEX and Desperados III are fine.

 

[Ryzer]

THQ Nordic (who aren't even THQ to begin with) provide me with not much hope. They've turned whatever they've touched to shit.

ELEX and Desperados III are fine.

Elex needed more polishing, particularly on its animations. They are worse than Gothic 2's released 15 years ago.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I'm getting the "How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man" vibes from JA3 not gonna lie. But I get that every time someone announces a new interpretation of JA2.
1.13 exists, that is the right way to do it, stop ignoring it! lol.

1.13 is not even close to the authentic JA2 experience. If JA3 was like that it'd be a huge flop, that's a niche mod for a niche audience of a niche game. Vanilla JA2 is probably already a bit too autistic for widespread success, extra autism isn't going to help if they're actually interested in making money on it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

THQ Nordic (who aren't even THQ to begin with) provide me with not much hope. They've turned whatever they've touched to shit.

their only sin is not physically disciplining the developers enough

 

[Darkozric]

Generally I like the setting and theme, but the JA3 maps so far look like fighting arenas and not like natural places. :/

Also the typical nu-xcom shit where everyone is standing right in front of each other - where is the distance? Look at the scene where they are sneaking up like 7 grids to the enemy soldiers. Other scenes also show an average combat distance like that (and we saw it already in the first trailer). Sure there is one sniper scene, but that distance isn't so big either.

I want to like it, but right now I'm highly skeptical. Oh, and missed opportunity to bring back animated 2d portraits.

About the ammo thing -- weapons still have a bullet count on the interface. You can see the numbers dropping when they fire the guns. At 2:19 the AK changes from 15 bullets to 0 and then "reload" action shows up.

/Edit: And I hope 5 people is not the maximum team size.

Good points. I'm on the same boat, I want to like it but some things are alarming (too much zoomed-in views, small maps, distancing, team size, etc). Tbh given the current trend of decadence one would be delusional to expect that this will reach the greatness of JA2.

But once in a while I want to play some new stuff too, since I mostly play old shit. Dunno if I like it, but I have 3 very basic requirements. Not another fucking nu-xcom, badass mercenaries without cringe shit, and good music.

Of course these alone, cannot guarantee a truly good game, but it's my personal "starter pack" requirements for even giving this a chance.

For the rest will see how it goes.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I don't think that removing ammo management hurts the game in a major way. When I think about my JA2 play-through I never had any problems with ammo. It's just pointless busywork, like buying basic arrows in fantasy games.

Looking forward to loosing even more faith in game developers when they reveal non-binary/trans/furry/purple-haired/cuckold/pedophile mercenaries.

 

[Ismaul]

The Gothic remake is pure heresy. Nothing but a pale imitation, in both looks and sounds. The minecrawlers are hilariously bad.

 

[Nikanuur]

I don't see a point of Gothic remake.
Unless they make it ultra-friendly for user-generated content and harness the energy of pure autism that keeps the originals alive to this day.

Neither has Lister seen the usefulness of various versions of Casablanca. The one starring Myra Binglebat and Peter Beardsley is the one-and-only true original. Everyone knows that!

But anyway. Film remakes have been here for quite some time. Seems like we're experiencing the same thing, just with games. Possibly the start of a new era.