STICKY: Episode 47

[Mark]

This time on Played, the crew notices that there's a demo for Left 4 Dead--but none of them have actually played it yet. Mark and Chris have been playing Fable 2, Fallout 3 (4.7 million units sold shipped!), and Far Cry 2, however, and there's plenty of discussion about those titles, while Liz shares her thoughts on Dead Space.

Plus, Liz's Gadgetry segment returns, Chris battles a lingering illness, and Played announces a prize-packed theme song contest.

Link: http://www.playedpodcast.com/2008-11-07 ... pisode-47/
Direct MP3: http://www.playedpodcast.com/podcasts/P ... ode-47.mp3

[firefreak]

Heya -- going to listen to it tomorrow morning; I hope there wont be any spoilers for either Fallout or Dead Space

[Mark]

Heya -- going to listen to it tomorrow morning; I hope there wont be any spoilers for either Fallout or Dead Space

Nah--we're usually pretty good about that stuff. Sometimes I can dance on the line though.

[Fjornsvavne]

Good cast, thanks.
Surprised on how much hate fable 2 got in comparison to the other games you talked about. I've been so stuck on that game since its release, it has taken over the first edition's place among the favorites of games. It has its flaws, of course, but not more than say fallout 3. Well, the most of the hate did come from you Mark, so I wouldn't want to generalise.

The tight releasing of games at this period of time forces you to keep the "schedule" once more next week. I so wanna hear thoughts on Mirror's Edge. Cool game and all, the demo was decent, and I could imagine a mouse would give me the control i thought lacked. What I do wanna hear Chris (or any of you with an opinion in the matter ) say is that whether this issue is in accustomisation of a gamepad, or that the port to PC will actually be well made and it's preferred for someone PC centered.

Anywho. Hope the contest'll spawn a neat tune, but even more that you'll settle with something more tuney than what you played on this show.

[Mark]

Good cast, thanks.
Surprised on how much hate fable 2 got in comparison to the other games you talked about. I've been so stuck on that game since its release, it has taken over the first edition's place among the favorites of games. It has its flaws, of course, but not more than say fallout 3. Well, the most of the hate did come from you Mark, so I wouldn't want to generalise.

The tight releasing of games at this period of time forces you to keep the "schedule" once more next week. I so wanna hear thoughts on Mirror's Edge. Cool game and all, the demo was decent, and I could imagine a mouse would give me the control i thought lacked. What I do wanna hear Chris (or any of you with an opinion in the matter ) say is that whether this issue is in accustomisation of a gamepad, or that the port to PC will actually be well made and it's preferred for someone PC centered.

Anywho. Hope the contest'll spawn a neat tune, but even more that you'll settle with something more tuney than what you played on this show.

Hola Mr. Fjornsvavne--thanks for stopping by man.

I'm really do enjoy my time with Fable (still playing it), but there are just a lot of little things that are stacking up against it for me. Take, for instance, yesterday--I was running around inside one of the bars and my guy got stuck between a wall and a chair. I tried everything I could (jumping, casting spells, shooting gun) to jerk myself out it but I ended up restarting the game. Then 2 hours later, in the spire, I was prompted to hit the LT and after doing so--the game stalled. One of the characters in the game was suppose to walk up to me but he never did. I ended up restarting the game again. The amount of bugs in this game are annoying. Again, I loved the first Fable and this one is pretty good too--but like I said in the podcast, I really do wish they would have held on to the game for 2-3 more months to polish it up a bit.

Mirror's Edge thoughts are coming next Podcast. The game looks fun doesnt it?

[NoCopy]

Fantastic cast folks, excellent work.

On Dead Space:

It's certainly good to see EA doing something different after all these years; hopefully it keeps up as Dead Space is certainly a solid title. About the only thing I really took issue with was the pacing; it seemed quite uneven to me, for 2 mins your walking through empty rooms, next you have an epic battle with 3-5 guys, then you spend the next 10 mins just fighting 1 guy at time.

On Fable 2:

Fable 2 sure is a strange game isn't it? I think I am siding with Chris on this, enjoyable but not very memorable.

One thing about the map, I was watching an interview with Peter Molyneux talking about a fundamental mini-map problem. He was saying that during play testing when the mini map was available, they noticed that everyone was just watching the mini map and not really paying any attention to the actual world so they added that bread crumb trail thing; and I think, he really has a great point. On almost every game with a mini-map most players I've seen (and including me) will play the first 10-20 mins ignoring the mini-map getting used to the world, then spend the rest of the time playing it looking at the 1/10 of the screen where the map is.

While I agree their "solution" wasn't completely solid, I think the idea is sound but needed a bit more polish (actually that is much like the entire game, lots of good to great ideas that weren't completely polished)

On Fallout 3:

Awesome game for sure, but I am one of those guys that aren't really sold on the VATS system. I watched the making of movie where they are talking about making the repetitive task of combat more enjoyable and I do agree with their goal, but on the flip side, they really just replaced one problem (repetitive combat) with repetitive mini movies. They really should have made it skipable, or able to speed it up somehow.

To be honest I wouldn't have had an issue with it if for one, the hud was a little more toned down; that VATS hud where there is just HUGE numbers and text and big green outlines just takes me right out of the world (and I am not very fond of the hud just generally). Two, it isn't really optional, yes you don't HAVE to use it but it almost feels as if your getting punished for not using it; there are even perks related to using it but none for not.

Minor issues though looking at the big picture.

On that note, off to buy Far Cry 2 apparently