Something I'd add to unskippable cutscenes is unpausable cutscenes. It really annoys me when any button press during a cutscene will skip it, so I'm completely unable to pause a cutscene if I have to run to answer the door or something - meaning that I miss potentially vital story.
It's true that Halo 2 was strangely disappointing in terms of its place in the franchise. It somehow wasn't the great leap forward everyone was expecting from the sequel to a game that changed the landscape of first person shooters. Also it's somewhat hilarious how screwed over the fanbase felt due to the incredible cliffhanger ending.
I have mixed feelings about this. The Real ID system is really convenient for when you have a select group of friends that you don't want to have to constantly be remembering to add on every character, and the cross-game chat support is incredibly cool. However, I don't see the logic in being able to see all of your Real ID friend's Real ID friends too. There's no good reason to network it that far out, that I can think of, and plenty of reasons not to.
The fo...
Free to play games definitely seem to be one way in which MMOs, and online gaming in general, is moving quite successfully. I've seen the benefits of various subscription-free models myself, and even the "dreaded" pay-for-perks system is not nearly as terrifying as a lot of gamers seem to imagine it is.
I found her voice acting a little odd at times, sometimes she seemed almost surprised at the things she was saying, or they appeared to come completely out of nowhere even though the actual script made sense. That said, Bonnie is definitely a tough female character in a setting not given to them.
This is an interesting idea, because Moonbase Alpha is kind of a "proof of concept" for the very notion of NASA games. It's almost like its purpose is to prepare you for the MMO in a psychological way
I've definitely had my reservations about APB, but maybe it is all down to those hefty specifications you've mentioned. If I were able to run it on high settings with a solid framerate it might be much more enjoyable, given its roots in serious action games.
Yeah, it "almost" makes sense. But really it doesn't. I've seen games in which the amount of ammunition in a clip is accurately modelled, so if you reload before you run through an entire clip you do lose that excess ammo. However, that ended up being more annoying from a gameplay standpoint than the minor suspension of disbelief that constant reloading requires.
There's no such thing as a lame Marvel character. Except maybe Cyclops, he irritates me.
I've sometimes been suspicious of the idea of just focussing on one aspect of a game in order to do it well and not even bothering with other modes... but it seems like this might have benefited from the developers not bothering with multiplayer at all.
Ocarina of Time is one of the only Zelda games I've ever put a genuine amount of time into, so while I'm usually not too hyped about Zelda I am excited for this one. Hopefully it lives up to expectations.
The name of "beta" has been somewhat corrupted by non-MMO games recently to pretty much mean "a temporary promotional demo" but particularly in the massively multiplayer genre they are still an important part of game development, so I for one welcome these new additions to bug land.
It's always nice to find, as you put it, hidden treasures, particularly when they're a little less financially damaging than AAA games. Sadly, most of these aren't really to my taste.
I've not really played any Mega Man game before, but this title seems like it could work as a good entry point into the series. I might have to give it a try sometime soon.
Damn you, I LIKED my nostalgic view of Earthworm Jim. Stop forcing me to accept reality!
This game actually gets more interesting every time I see it - I'm still not completely convinced, but if I keep seeing cool game mechanics, I think I could get behind it.
There are some MMOs at E3 this year that I'd really like to get some more details about, including the Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium and Battlestar Galactica Online. Definitely a show to watch.
I have to agree with Murgatroyd7 to an extent... it's the fact that Mass Effect is such a fantastic interactive story that makes it appealing. The story is good, but it's not far beyond the usual sci-fi film fodder if you remove all the extra detail that a player of a 30 hour game can absorb. If it is made into a film, it will be a potentially very good sci-fi action film, but I don't think it's going to recreate Mass Effect's standing in the game world.
This may be a case of Nintendo just trying to keep the release schedule rolling, even if they know they don't really have any hits in the mix at the moment. Even though the big game releases may have convinced us otherwise, we are heading into the lean summer months, and at that point the manufacturers just have to try to convince us that we shouldn't just hibernate until autumn.
Not being American, college "football" generally just seems like an even more obscure version of a sport that is already completely absent here. That said, I have felt a weird draw to Madden some years, and somehow NCAA seems like it has more "heart", as nuts as that sounds. It's been a few years since I played an American Football game, so I might have to give in and try it.