Afro Thunder

Making an entirely separate download/package for a demo? Yes I can see why that's beginning to become a problem with these insane game engines. But again I've got to point out that this should not be considered a good thing. The last Crysis engine still plays Maximum Security detainee called Bubba with the majority of computers.

Developers need to look at the price they're paying for these insane graphics. No one's going to look at CryEngine 2 and say, "Ugh that looks rubbish". It takes teams of hundreds to make a game these days, and that's mostly down to the hideously high bar they set themselves for production values. It's turned the final fantasy series into the world's slowest corridor action game, it's costing developers the earth to pump out products so the desire for new brands, IP's and genres has dried up leaving us with nothing but a mound of tired sequels and now it's even limiting company's ability to market their own chuffing games! Wake up and smell the imminent industry implosion you muppets!

A replacement model for demos? Trial versions. Yes it means the poor bastards will have to download the entire game just to be able to play 1 level, but it's better than people skipping over their product altogether surely?

So much for the Too Human trilogy.

Yes it was a god awful game, but it had some great ideas, a good setting and the story actually left on a pretty damn good cliff hanger / teaser.

They could scrap the combat system, start afresh, really put some work into their decrepit graphics engine and make the sequel a real contender.

On the other hand I'd rather they cut their losses and work on a brand new IP than regurgitate another ham fisted attempt at Norse mythology.

NO! That's a bad Britain, naughty! Go to your room! That's a very, very bad Britain.

The shame of it...curse you Nintendo, curse you all to the bottomless pits of Heck!

Well at the risk of sounding like a giant gimp:

I called it.

I remember reading an advanced preview article on this MMO. In Edge Magazine or Games TM, I'm not sure which. It all sounded very encouraging, but then I saw one word: Funcom. After being a day one player of Age of Conan, I'd be reluctant to touch another Funcom MMO with a 10 foot barge pole.

I don't like paying retail, and then a subscription to beta test a game that was so obviously unfinished it felt like fraud.

Found the article. The only thing I'll extract from it for you are the 3 factions:

The Templars: A holy crusade organisation. They purge what they see as evil immediately and indiscriminately, the end always justify the means. There's a concept art of a woman dual wielding pistols, she's clearly Templar: Very military dress uniform style clothing with Crosses (their emblem) here and there, red white and black.

The Illuminati: Seeking to gain as much power, technology, information and money from the war as possible. Concept art shows a very pale man with a mane of black hair, his face hidden by a gas mask holding a long rifle, clothed in a long, dark blue, leather medical coat with a shirt and tie. Emblem is a sort of Triforce witha circle in the middle.

Dragon: An anarchistic band of organized guerilla fighters. They hope use the war to tear down corporations and governments with an aim to create harmony a peace at war's end. They wish to ensure the survival of the common man while using these paranormal instances as a catalyst for creating enough chaos to destroy the establishment. Concept art shows a man in Olive green Chinese style camo military dress uniform with a red Sash. Their Emblem is a 2D stylistic dragon head. His gun appears to be some sort of large flintlock, Derringer style hand cannon.

Also, there will be melee skills, an in game screenshot shows two players holding katanas, the Dragon concept art also has one.

Gotta disagree with you there hero. A Bourne game's already been and gone, and it was the definition of mediocre. It's an old property with no prospect of a fourth movie to boost sales, as an IP I'd say it's been milked enough and is no longer really on the public conscience.

I mean Ludlum himself has been dead for the better part of a decade and the new books continuing the Bourne franchise reeked of blockbuster tie-in desperation.

Syndicate was a cult PC game, and a progenitor of sandbox titles with its open level design. It would be well worth a new production.

They could make any sort of game with Syndicate and have complete creative freedom; from a developer stand point, and I'd say a financial one as well, it's a much more attractive prospect.

It all depends on the state of the game at release.

There's a very good reason why Age of Conan, Champions Online and Warhammer Online are all dying on their feet. They were in a dire state at launch and it immediately put people off.

Christ, AoC was like being made to pay for an alpha test at launch, it was insulting.

Three things that will keep it alive beyond the first months:

- Generous amounts of End Game content from day one.

- Any areas available at launch need to be properly filled out with content: Dungeons (and quests for these instances so people will want to run them), enough quests to see out the area's level limit.

- Client stability and performance. This is straight from page one of the Captain Obvious operation manual but a lot of MMO developers seem to enjoy waving stupidly as this fact passes them by. EA have to allow Bioware sufficient time to fully optimize the game before release, and luckily it doesn't look like the game engine will be a hardware buster.

Whether or not this MMO is going to be a WoW beater is frankly irrelevant, it still has to compete with a game that has been released, polished, balanced and expanded with 6 years worth of work and content. If players don't feel they're getting their money's worth from their subscription fee in comparison to what's being offered by Blizzard, they will not hit their subscriber targets.

Best of luck to them, I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Unlike Gamestop, GAME have done nothing to react to the swelling wave of digital distribution and online purchasing. Yeah they have their own website, but it's long been outstripped by Play.com and amazon. They've rigidly stuck to the same retail prices and non-existent marketing scheme, it's no wonder they've fallen on hard times.

Still it's always hard to hear when good people lose their jobs, so they have my sympathies. Unfortunately they've fallen foul of yet more crap upper management in British Industry.

I try to support my local non-chain games shop with console game purchases, but for PC I use steam almost exclusively and play.com/amazon for everything else.

...wow, I don't think you're predicted consumers could be any less credible or any more ridiculous. If you don't support a developer, you don't buy their game, you don't run off and buy their competitor's product. Do you really think there are people who purchase a game and think,

"Ha ha Acitivision, I've purchased a game from another developer, I didn't really want it but this is for not including dedicated servers! Who looks like a complete donut now??"

People who will buy this game:

-Fans of the Battlefield series.
-Fans of the Bad Company spin off series
-People who played and enjoyed the beta/demo.
-People who think the game looks fun and enjoyable enough to warrant a purchase.

But thanks for your menstruating tension rant based foray into the realms of the ridiculous.

From a complete business perspective, the Cerberus network and Day one DLC's make complete sense. Games companies make no money from 2nd hand transactions.

That doesn't change the fact this stuff leaves a pretty bad taste in the mouth, but hey, the fat cats at EA need to get payed too.

1943 fans might shed a tear, but thanks to the Steam pre-order I'll be taking my Tommy with me, and who's to stop be screaming "IWO JIIIIIIIIIIIMAAAAAAAAA!" as I charge a tank with my bayonet?