Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Ah yes, the ever popular "now you must fight an enemy the size of a 
> small city even though you now have no ammo left at all". Gotta love 
> that. :-/

I will admit the number of video games where you're expected to fight off an 
entire army by yourself is pretty common. :-)  I mean, really, can you 
expect Gordon Freeman to really do what he does, even with the suit?

Incidentally, what's up with the number of video games that separate armor 
from health? Is there really any benefit to that? Does it actually make the 
game more interesting that you sometimes find first aid kits and sometimes 
find armor shards?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:

> I will admit the number of video games where you're expected to fight 
> off an entire army by yourself is pretty common. :-)  I mean, really, 
> can you expect Gordon Freeman to really do what he does, even with the 
> suit?

Well, how many times does Dr Freeman actually come face to face with 
more than about 3 enemies at once? Not very often. If anything, that's 
where the realism is lacking.

 From a game design point of view, it's a bit tricky. In a real battle 
with 30 people vs 30 people, the battle isn't won or lost by any one 
individual person - but for a single player computer game, it needs to 
be, or the game isn't real interesting. If your buddies are too good, 
you don't really need to do anything and you can just stand around and 
let them do it all. If they're too rubbish, you won't stand a chance.

> Incidentally, what's up with the number of video games that separate 
> armor from health? Is there really any benefit to that? Does it actually 
> make the game more interesting that you sometimes find first aid kits 
> and sometimes find armor shards?

Crysis is one of the few (only?) games I've seen where you don't wander 
round collecting health and armour. Your suit continuously generates it, 
so just as long as you can find some cover, in theory you shouldn't ever 
die.

Unfortunately for the last several hours I've been surrounded by 
airborne hostiles that you can't hide from. :-/

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Ah yes, the ever popular "now you must fight an enemy the size of a 
> small city even though you now have no ammo left at all". Gotta love 
> that. :-/

Apparently that's the final battle though. Well, until Crysis II or 
something, I guess... o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:31:44 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> And similarly, Germany, for example, does have restrictions on some of
>> those games being distributed in Germany, particularly if they depcit
>> Nazi symbols.
> 
>   I find it rather ironic that by banning nazi symbols from a piece of
> art based on historical events, they are actually censoring history,
> which is something nazis themselves did a lot.
> 
>   I can't help but to get the feeling that by banning everything related
> to nazis, they are pretending that WW2 never happened. Then, at the same
> time, they outlaw holocaust denial.
> 
>   Talk about contradictory behavior.

I suppose you could look at it that way.  The friends I have in Germany 
have described it more as suppressing hate speech.

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Apparently that's the final battle though. Well, until Crysis II or 
> something, I guess... o_O

16.7 hours of playing time, according to Steam. It seems like a month...

I wouldn't even want to imagine how the hell long it took to *make* the 
game. I surely haven't explored even half of the map. (Mainly because I 
spent most of it running away very fast trying not to die!)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Well, you got me - I had to try it now.

With all settings set to "High", my Radeon HD4850 can get 30-40fps 
consistently :)

And yes, it is a VERY impressive game, visually!

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I suppose you could look at it that way.  The friends I have in Germany 
> have described it more as suppressing hate speech.

  There's a fine line between suppressing hate speech and suppressing
freedom of expression. It seems that European countries in general are
slowly but steadily probing how much they can extend the latter in the
name of the former before people get angry.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 2/7/2009 4:56 PM, Chambers wrote:
> Well, you got me - I had to try it now.
>
> With all settings set to "High", my Radeon HD4850 can get 30-40fps
> consistently :)
>
> And yes, it is a VERY impressive game, visually!
>

Doh!  It had changed the screen resolution on me without my noticing :(

OK, at 1280x1024 (my monitor's native resolution) I get 15-20 FPS with 
everything on high, and 40-45 with everything on medium.

Unfortunately, it's crashed my computer twice now.  I have to try the 
latest update to see if that fixes anything.

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> Unfortunately, it's crashed my computer twice now.  I have to try the 
> latest update to see if that fixes anything.

  Can you monitor the GPU and CPU temperatures somehow?

  I have never heard how common it is, but I have the strong suspicion that
at least sometimes the computer crashing when playing a game is caused by
overheating, rather than any bug in the game (or other software) itself.

  After all, a game like Crysis probably stresses the GPU (and the CPU)
quite a lot, and they tend to gain temperature when overworked.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:59:21 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I suppose you could look at it that way.  The friends I have in Germany
>> have described it more as suppressing hate speech.
> 
>   There's a fine line between suppressing hate speech and suppressing
> freedom of expression. It seems that European countries in general are
> slowly but steadily probing how much they can extend the latter in the
> name of the former before people get angry.

You have to admit that Germany is something of a special case, though - 
one of my friends there works in government (not as an elected official, 
but as an IT guy) and he's stated that that chapter of German history is 
something that should never, ever be repeated again.

I think that's something that most people would agree on.

Jim

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