2014 Game Releases

[SL33PY]

4 days for me... VPN FTW!

On another note...

Where is the hype around watch dogs, why aren't the spindoctors hard at work?

*hoping everything is still a'ight

[M.Steiner]

Lucky bugger
Resident Evil 4 HD out next Fri as well but I'll be jumping straight into Thief asap.

and yep, Ubi said spring so going by that we should be hearing a release date soon I would think. Otherwise we may be looking at another delay. Fingers crossed!

[M.Steiner]

Reviews for Thief are out coming out:

7/10 Videogamer
7.5/10 Destructoid
7/10 Edge
4/5 Joystiq
6/10 Eurogamer
6.8/10 IGN
8/10 CVG
7.5/10 Gametrailers
8/10 Game Informer

A little low for some of them but I'm still looking forward to playing it on friday and judging for myself.
If you were unsure whether to get the game or not or are going to base your purchase on some of these reviews, just let me remind you of this:

4/10 Videogamer
5/10 Destructoid
5/10 Edge
2.2/5 Joystiq
6/10 Eurogamer
6/10 IGN
6/10 CVG
7.2/10 Gametrailers
7.75/10 Game Informer

These are the scores these same sites gave Beyond: Two Souls in October. Which at least for me, was one of the best games I played last year

[Anubis]

The reviews don't look promising, I'll be honest. I'm glad I didn't pre-order, so that at the very least I can wait and see what the general reaction is (beyond the reviews). The game doesn't overly inspire me if I'm honest, and the reviews don't really change that.

Let me know how you guys find it though. Hope you enjoy it - may well get it if your reaction is positive

[M.Steiner]

The game doesn't overly inspire me if I'm honest

Suppose that doesn't come as a surprise really. I mean, you've never come across as much of a stealth lover like with the classic Thief games, Metal Gear Solid, Hitman, Chaos Theory, and more recently with Dishonored too

Will be sure to post my thoughts once I've played enough to form a decent enough opinion. You'll probably hear from Sl33py & Mech first as the game won't unlock for me until Friday. Got it pre-loaded and ready to go though!


[Edit]
Deus Ex: The Fall coming to PC next month

[Anubis]

The game doesn't overly inspire me if I'm honest

Suppose that doesn't come as a surprise really. I mean, you've never come across as much of a stealth lover like with the classic Thief games, Metal Gear Solid, Hitman, Chaos Theory, and more recently with Dishonored too

True that. Stealth has never really been a favoured genre of mine - it's the story that sells it, nothing else. The fault of games like Dishonoured for me is always story - great mechanics don't mean a lot to me.

Hopefully the reviews will be wrong and you guys will praise the story a lot. I am just not hedging my bets

[M.Steiner]

Back in the day, the stealth and survival horror genres used to be my #1 by far tbh. We do still get a few decent titles from both like with Dishonored, and games like Amnesia & Outlast for the latter (and I'd put TLOU in there from a gameplay perspective too). But they're not what they were.

If you ever fancy it I'd recommend trying the Metal Gear Solid series mate. Story in those is just as good and important as the mechanics and I do honestly think you'd like them for that. I do kinda agree with you, as much as I loved Dishonored, the gameplay mechanics, gameworld/setting, art direction etc were where it excelled and for those I'd say it was superb. As whilst both DLCs played together did expand and improve upon the story a great deal, the story of the main game on its own wasn't its strongest point even though I did still enjoy it. With MGS you get both.

(Likewise with the survival horror genre which I've mentioned before. Usually with those games you'll get awesome gameplay but their stories aren't anything to write home about, infact usually utter shite. Silent Hill 2 was to the survival horror genre what MGS has been for stealth, imo. Even to this day SH2 has one of the best videogame stories I've played, of any genre).

So yeah, if you ever want to try some stealth games where story is its selling point, check out MGS


Anyway. Fingers crossed for Thief. I've been reading around today and seen both extremely positive comments and some negative too so opinions are definitely split. Hopefully we will be in the camp that loves it. If not at least it's the PC version we all bought and with discount codes from GMG, not PS4/X1 versions at 40 odd quid hehe.

[M.Steiner]

and yep, Ubi said spring so going by that we should be hearing a release date soon I would think.

Speak of the devil.
New trailer with release date incoming!
April, please. Though May would be good too.

[SL33PY]

Well the new Thief...

Where to start...


I like to compare Thief to Dishonest at this moment, for the simple reason that I approached Dishonest as a stealth game even when you can also play it as a guns out blazing fps type game.

The graphics are nice, but compared to Dishonest I'm shocked to see that it doesn't run smooth. I have a somewhat dated dual GTX560 setup and I can run Dishonest full detail at 1920x1080 with no problems. But in thief I have to lower my settings for it to be playable and then still... it's not really as fluent as I'd like it to be.

Game mechanics wise it's a good game, the player gets the freedom to do things his way, searching for all the loot he can get etc etc.

But, due to the high level of stress I have at work and with sick kids I was really tired and didn't play much the last halfweek, normally, when that happends and a really good game is released... I still play it like a maniac... This time however I decided to not play it

It's a good game and I'm happy I bought it, but I'm also happy I had a great deal and only paid around 30€ for it.

[M.Steiner]

Few Thief comments from IRC

02:26 @SSX-MS • Played the prologue and a tiny bit of chapter 1. Will continue properly tomorrow
02:27 @Kahn • How does it compare to the older ones?
02:27 @Kahn • It's not like Assassin's Creed, is it?
02:28 @SSX-MS • Way too early to tell really as I only started it tonight, I'll have a better impression of it in a day or two I would think
02:29 @Kahn • Righto. Let us know later. I'm not sure if I can run it well at this point, but I'd like to play it down the line
02:30 @SSX-MS • The area in the prologue was very restricted but it was basically a tutorial at the same time, the area seems to have opened up a bit more in chapter 1
02:32 @SSX-MS • aye, performance has been a little strange for me. Running smooth for the most part (and hitting 60fps in some areas) though I've noticed a bit of slowdown at times like when I'm entering a new area or whatever
02:32 @SSX-MS • Will see how that goes tomorrow, might try the latest drivers they have out too
02:33 @Mechanus • Cut scenes are also a bit jumpy
02:34 @SSX-MS • yeah, infact my audio and subtitles at the start of chapter1 went out of synch with one another due to that
02:34 @Mechanus • I've made it to the Clock Tower
02:34 @SSX-MS • Hopefully that's not a frequent problem
02:35 @Mechanus • Aye, I'm hoping the same

Given the slowdowns with the performance when you're hitting 60fps in places it does seem like it's down to the optimization more than anything, which could be better in that case. Turning SSAA off seemed to help a little but I'll have a proper play around with the other settings tomorrow and see if any of the others will help smooth that out some more. Maybe try the 14.2 Catalyst drivers too.
Liked what I have played so far though and other than the odd performance hiccups as mentioned I've not seen anything to paricularly dislike. One recommendation I've seen from some of the people who have spoken highly of the game is to play on master difficulty and go into the options and turn some of the pointers off so that's what I'm going to try I think. Supposed to change the gameplay quite a bit and make it more in-line with the classics.

Will continue tomorrow anyhow!

[Edit] Game seems to be running much smoother for me now. Enabling exclusive fullscreen and disabling SSAA seemed to help the most but I knocked the texture & shadow qualities down to high and texture filtering to 8x too just to be safe.

Also be sure to go back and speak to Basso inbetween every main mission/chapter as he offers lots of side jobs. I've already put a fair amount of time into the game but only up to chapter 3 for the main story as most of my time has been spent on side quests and exploring. Not sure how many there are in total but I must've done around 11? so far.

[SL33PY]

finished in 17 hours... i'm a bit disappointed

[M.Steiner]

Did that 17hr include every one of the side quests from Basso and the other two guys btw?. Think my save file said around 11-12hrs last time I looked. Just finished chapter 4 with the Keep but I've been doing all the other missions as well before and after each chapter. Looks to be 8 chapters in total going by the achievements so I guess I'm around the half way mark?

Part of me went in to it preparing for disappointment but on the whole I've been enjoying it quite a bit if I'm honest. The main story hasn't been anything to write home about (from those 4 chapters) and the performance issues (albeit somewhat smoothed out now) have been dreadful at times but the biggest worries I had for the game before hand were that of the level design, the scale of the world and the stealth gameplay itself, which have all turned out rather well I think.
I haven't engaged in a single bit of combat (other than knockdowns ofc) so I can't comment on any of that but as for stealth I've found that to be pretty satisfying and enjoyable. The City is also much bigger than I expected it to be too. Big enough infact that I do think it could actually benefit from having some kind of limited fast-travel. It can feel like a maze at times trying to figure out how to reach some of those side quest locations but there's lots to explore and steal there if you're not just going from chapter to chapter. Secret places too it seems.

Bits of it are a bit disappointing I'll agree, it's not going to win any GOTY awards and Dishonored is still the superior game by far, but in no way is it as bad as some of those reviews made it out to be, just like they were way off the mark for Beyond: Two Souls too. At least I don't think so heh. Anyway, I'm happy I bought it and at least right now I'm still having fun with it too. Maybe if I'd paid PS4/X1 prices (£42) I'd feel a little different but for 20 quid I can't complain

Should have finished the other chapters by the time South Park releases on Friday I think!


[Edit: Speaking of Dishonored...

Possible E3 reveal this year. Please be real.
!!]

[M.Steiner]

South Park reviews:

8/10 Destructoid
8.5/10 Game Informer
7/10 Gamespot
9/10 IGN
No score RPS
3.5/5 Joystiq
8.3/10 Gametrailers
"Not Yet" Kotaku
8/10 Eurogamer
8.5/10 Polygon
6/10 Videogamer

But Stick of Truth, out Tuesday for 360, PS3, and PC, is a game marred by bugs and technical issues, and it is impossible to separate the art from the faulty product surrounding it.

couldn't get through one mid-game cut-scene without his game crashing. He had to skip it. Other PC reviewers have also reported save glitches and other bugs, and one reviewer playing on PS3 told me he couldn't load out of a boss battle. Playing Stick of Truth felt like walking through a china shop; I was constantly worried that something would break.

During the ten hours I spent playing Stick of Truth, I ran into dozens of glitches ranging from minor to major. Sometimes my main character would pop in and out of cut-scenes. Sometimes the music would randomly stop playing during boss fights. Once I loaded up an old save file and learned that my newer file—saved manually, not via an auto-save that might have been overwritten—had suddenly disappeared.

So, there are some very serious issues with the game, with gibberish tutorials, incorrect on-screen instructions, no PC options at all, and the complete lack of basics like reassigning keys or switching between mouse/keyboard and joypad. None of that is acceptable. There are also some very significant balancing issues, with combat far too simple, and a ridiculous ubiquity of power ups, potions and cash. There are stupid oversights, such as there being no “sell all” button for the literally thousands of pieces of junk that fill your inventory. Also, there’s a very annoying bug that causes many lines of dialogue to cut off midway through the final word of the sentence – nothing kills a punchline like lacking the last word.

It is at once the South Park game we’ve been waiting for since the series started 17 years ago, and a cluster of stupid mistakes and bad balancing that we’d hoped Obsidian had put behind them. If you’re willing to plough through its dull opening hours (or perhaps mainline the main story until you reach the Taco Bell content to speed that process up), and put up with the technical issues, then there’s a lot on offer here. But that’s a big “if”, and not one someone paying for the game should have to ponder.

When I ran into a save issue while playing the game, I started talking to other reviewers and journalists with access to The Stick of Truth about what they’d experienced while playing. Here’s a collected summary:

Ben Kuchera, Polygon (PC): A glitch where he was unable to unequip his bow-and-arrow, disappearing character models.

Jim Sterling, The Escapist (PC): A bug with executing a buddy command that temporarily halted progress.

Adam Rosenberg, Digital Trends (PC): Two game-breaking moments where boss fights didn’t trigger properly.

Jason Schreier, Kotaku (360): Frame hitches, animation glitches and music dropouts.

Mitch Dyer, IGN (PS3): Poor framerate.

Though there were no shortage of issues, most agreed that the bugs didn’t hamper their overall experience. That said, whenever a game has such widespread and disparate problems, it’s a worrying indicator that there might be more serious issues that appear when the game is rolled out to a larger audience.

Jesus.. What is it with Obsidian and bugs?
My one worry for this was the bugs and glitches as those are all too common with their games. Seems even with all the delays, different publishers and without it being rushed to release they still can't manage to ship a (relatively) bug free and polished game.
Rant aside, I still can't wait to play it and I expect this to end up further up my list than I originally thought it would too. Does also sound a bit too short (at round 15hrs that makes it shorter than Thief oO) but other than that it looks to have turned out rather well. It's just a shame to see the same shit happening yet again and my fears proved true. I don't know why but it's always the <censored> same with them.
I know a few of you are big Obsidian lovers and possibly all too accepting of this common occurence of theirs but it's piss poor imo and quite frankly there are no excuses for it to keep happening time and time again. Sort your shit already.

[Anubis]

The potential for bugs doesn't really bother me, and never really has, but as one of the aforementioned Obsidian lovers around here you'd hardly expect it to What I will say though is that I flicked through both the VG247 and IGN reviews at lunch and didn't see anything particularly scathing about issues in there (or anything at all saying that, though I may have just overlooked a minor mention). Clearly not as bad as some are hyping it up to be.

Also, http://www.vg247.com/2014/03/04/batman- ... iler-game/ YAY!!! Hype off the charts already! 2014 release too

[M.Steiner]

Reading over some other reviews it does seem like the PC version runs much better than the console versions, at least in terms of these frame rate issues. So that's a good thing for us guys at least heh.
Looking at these it may just turn out to be like New Vegas. For me (and lots of others) NV was and still is one of the buggiest games I have ever played at launch. Absolutely fantastic game beneath all of that but the bugs were indeed awful and it should not have been released in that state. Can be hard to just push all of those aside and not have them spoil your experience somewhat, especially when some of them are game breaking ones. That being said, some players didn't seem to encounter many issues at all with the game which was lucky for them I guess heh. Seems like South Park may be similar for that since not everyone has brought them up. (Though at least one reviewer did encounter an issue or two but failed to mention it in his review.)
As I say, it's just a shame to hear of this again with one of their releases as I had hoped that given the delays the game has had and having Ubisoft publishing it too, that it'd be much more polished in that department. Once can be excused, maybe twice, but despite making great games they've kinda got a reputation for this (which they themselves have admitted before today) which is not a good thing.

On a lighter note, GAME have dispatched my pre-order now so it should be with me for release day on Friday. Can't wait! . The more I watch of it the more I am convinced it could actually be a GOTY contender which I honestly didn't see happening, as good as it looked. Still, we haven't had Watch Dogs or The Witcher 3 yet but at least they may have some more competition. Dark horse indeed.
Still have 3 chapters of Thief to finish and the remainder of the side jobs too but I should have those done by the end of the week methinks.


Also great to see the Arkham Knight announcement yesterday. Was rather disappointed with Origins as you know but I welcome this third and final Arkham game from Rocksteady. Shall most definitely get
Murdered: Soul Suspect release date announced for June 3rd & 6th too btw, for anyone else following that one!

[M.Steiner]

New Watch Dogs trailer!

Releasing May 27th
Big downgrade though unless this is 360/PS3 footage :/

also:

yum yum

[M.Steiner]

The Watch Dogs dev team will be streaming a live Q&A tonight btw
http://www.twitch.tv/ubisoft

12pm PST, which should be 8pm in the UK


Finished Thief last night.
Just over 18hrs on master difficulty including all of the side quests. Would probably give it a 7/10 which I don't think is too bad really. Not amazing, and not a patch on Dishonored but still very glad I bought it at the price I did.
Will be starting South Park later!

[Theoroshia]

The new South Park game is the reason I haven't been on EvE in days. It's like an episode of South Park that lasts for days.

Please send help.

9/10 would recommend at a party.

[Anubis]

The new South Park game is the reason I haven't been on EvE in days. It's like an episode of South Park that lasts for days.

Please send help.

9/10 would recommend at a party.

This makes me very excited to read

Hoping my copy arrives tomorrow!

[M.Steiner]

So even with Amazon's offer of free first class release day delivery they still failed to get it to you for release day? That sucks
Ordered mine from GAME. £29.99 for their special edition (Samurai Spaceman pack), free delivery, reward points and arrived Fri morning. They've never missed a date (and even got some orders to me a day early in the past) and I've never paid a penny for delivery with them either. Always reliable if Amazon are playing up again.
Hope your copy has arrived today anyway mate, that way you can get some time with it over the weekend

I spent a few hours on it last night and already love it. I've always liked South Park, ever since it first started tbh but I've never been a religious watcher of it. Seen several of the earlier seasons all the way through, and watched the handful of eps from the last season in preparation for the game too, but inbetween those I've mainly just caught odd episodes on Comedy Central here and there. Watched a couple on there last night even. There are loads of references to episodes of the show in there though which your die hard SP fan will love and pick up on, even I noticed some of them hehe. It really is just like playing an episode of the show, all totally authentic. Already had me laughing out loud several times but then Trey and Matt are behind the writing of it so ofc it's going to be.
Haven't encountered any issues so far (touch wood), or at least none that have jumped out at me so hopefully it stays that way. Will play some more this afternoon

Few pics:

[Anubis]

Yep, my copy arrived today! Not fussed about it not getting here yesterday, as I couldn't have played last night anyway and didn't pay for postage anyway - just glad it's here today

It's really nice to hear all of us who've played it praising it so. Really hope I enjoy it just as much - I have high expectations of Obsidian!

[M.Steiner]

Reviews for Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD popping up.

8/10 Destructoid
9/10 Game Informer
A- Gaming Age
9.3/10 IGN

Sounds great as expected. Only another week to wait for that
[Edit: Some for Titanfall here too]


Think I'm probably going to end up finishing South Park either tonight or tomorrow.
I believe there are

Show

3

ingame days which is what I'm on atm and the story is definitely gearing up towards that point I think. Don't want it to end
For an RPG it's incredibly short in that case but in South Park terms, when you consider the length of one of its tv episodes, there's a lot of content in there. This is definitely one of the funniest video games I've ever played (hats off to Trey and Matt) and one of the best licensed games as well.
Obsidian didn't spoil this one for me with their bugs either, thankfully. Yes there are some bugs left in there and I experienced maybe a handful of them myself over the course of the game but I'm happy to say that none of them have detracted from the experience like they have in previous Obsidian games. Maybe I got lucky, not sure, but this I am glad of as it was my main worry as said. There are a few balancing problems too but again, the same with them. (Also

Show

Al Gore

was a bitch)

There are a lot more games to release this year so who knows how well this will ultimately stand up against the rest but it has been absolutely brilliant. Have loved every minute of it.
Now I just hope we get some DLC for this as well at some point in the future. Hope it is selling well too, in an ideal world I'd love them all to work on another game together too but I sadly think that's unlikely. Fingers crossed for DLC though.

[SL33PY]

Finished Thief last night.
Just over 18hrs on master difficulty including all of the side quests. Would probably give it a 7/10 which I don't think is too bad really. Not amazing, and not a patch on Dishonored but still very glad I bought it at the price I did.
Will be starting South Park later!

This is exactly why the game only gets a 6 from me, especially considering the outrageous gpu demands

[M.Steiner]

The Witcher 3 delayed to February 2015
Disappointing but I'm sure they'll deliver an even better game from pushing it back a bit. Shame we won't get our hands on it this year ofc but it's nice to have a date now.

[SL33PY]

Maybe I should start the 2015 Game Releases thread