http://media.pc.ign.com/media/670/670283/imgs_1.html
The engine is looking amazing. Considering how flexible the Unreal engine is currently, the Unreal3 engine will be truely a technical and artistic feat. It wont be released for quite a bit yet, but I do see it becoming the next Doom III.
The main thing I love about UT (all versions) is the replay value. Every match is different. There are hundreds of maps out there, most of them quality. (If you've seen some of the stuff by 'Angel' then you know what I'm talking about.) The community is also strong, and the community practically the entire game in itself.
Any opinions?
> the next Doom III
>So, thoroughly mediocre?
I miss the day where games were focussed around the story and gameplay and not just the goddamn graphics :(
>story and gameplay
Games didn't use to be focussed around story, except for straight adventure games. Putting a story in every game is a throroughly modern trend, and one I am quickly growing incredibly tired of.
I enjoy games that I can sit down, and just play. My patience for sitting through an hour of introductiory cut-scenes and training levels before getting to a part of the game that is actually fun to play has really run out at this point. There is room for story in games, but for god's sake, keep it SHORT, and keep it out of the way of the actual gameplay.
I personally don't think the focus has changed at all. There have always been plenty examples of both.
And I'm of the exact opposite color. I find games without a story incredibly boring. I require something to keep me going, because otherwise it's just repetition. Getting the next key just doesn't do it for me.
The only non-strategic games I have ever finished were ones with a tale to tell. Ie, the Thieves, the System Shocks, Deus Ex, Half-Life, etc.
Now, how the story is integrated is an entirely different issue.
Half-life did the story thing very well. It was integrated into the gameplay for the most part, and not just tacked on as cut scenes. Also, Ico is one of my favorite games ever, mostly because of the story. But it, too, tells the story through the game itself. Also, Ico is masterfully minimalist in so many senses. It manages to tell a gripping story with just three characters, one of which you don't even speak the same language as.
AGERU!!
Cunt. But oh well, since someone aged the thread.
I find story to be completely the opposite of gameplay. Which is to say that many of the best games are completely without story, just like many of the best stories are completely without game.
Yeah, there are very few games that manage to do both well.
Well, I tent to say that a good story gets in the way of good gameplay. I'm not saying that story is bad, just that the two are polar opposites and can't be expected to coexist so easily.
FWIW I never found Half-Life to have much of a story either. That one was certainly more a game.