Linear or Sand-box?

[Bluepixie]

I like the articles this guys writes, check this one out.

Contrasting Crysis and Call of Duty 4: Why emergent gameplay is the future (http://www.gamecritics.com/contrasting-crysis-and-call-of-duty-4-why-nonlinearity-is-the-future)

I'm holding my hands up, I know, I've not been playing either title but it's obvious what he's getting at.

Scripting also hurts the replayability of the game. When I'm playing any given sequence, all of the enemies spawn at the same spot every time and follow the same scripted patterns. So if I round a corner and get killed by an enemy I didn't see, I know exactly where to aim my gun the next time through. I always know that the guy with the rockets is going to run over that way, and the two guys with machine guns will run this way.

Virtual Cop any one? :p Just teasing.

Anyway, it's an interesting assessment and assures me that Crysis is definitely "the" game I want for Christmas, ohh yes. :D

[GigaFuzz]

I like scripted games, provided they're of decent enough quality (Half-Life, CoD, etc), but they're certainly not as fun to play through more than once as more open-ended games. Sometimes I just like the put my brain on hold and just go where I'm told and shoot things. The atmosphere and action in games like CoD is pretty intense, and I don't think it would be quite as solid if it were more open-ended.

I think there's still space for both.

[Hex]

Anyway, it's an interesting assessment and assures me that Crysis is definitely "the" game I want for Christmas, ohh yes. :D

Tbh Pixie unless you can run it playably on high I would wait. It looks awesome on high settings but on medium it looks quite average, I think it's a title worth waiting to play until you can get maximum enjoyment from it.

[YegaDoyai]

This division is the problem. The 'fun' bits of most games come from tight scripting, they progress the story, they ensure you catch the action and generally allow for the game maker to pace the game. The sand box style is completely lost without scripting and to think otherwise is crazy, think of all the best SP experiences you've had and they are all scripted. The difference is that Far Cry and it's ilk limit the scripting to the story and not the gameplay where possible. Allowing you to totally break the game if you try hard enough. Stalker is best played the first time through as everything is new. By the time you get near the Brain Crusher you've figured out that the optimal strategy is to progress as far through the game as possible (distance, not story) and kill the hardest enemy you can. Pistols are just as leathal at the start as they are at the end - ie not. If you luck a kill you get a badass gun and everyone prior to that level is easy pickings. Frankly there is a very definate stage in that game where the difficulty levels off, you have a decent rifle and good armour, now all you do is kill folk that get in your way even when you are outnumbered you aren't sweating it too badly. I'm pretty sure this is how you are meant to feel. It is possible to finish the game without joining a faction after all (as I did). But the really great moments that everyone will see are clearly the 'lab' sections. I'm not going to reveal anything here but I'm not alone thinking that they had some of the best atmosphere in a game this year.

I'm a huge fan of linear fun games, but I never see them as anything more than glorified arcade games. The games that are 'trancending art' are the sand box games. I want to keep the knowledge and experience of the scripted games and blend it more seemlessly with the sandbox games. It is happening, but slowly. Saying one style is better than the other is like saying Air is better than Water, you'll die if you don't get them both so it doesn't matter that you'll die in under 5 minutes if you have no air and it takes much longer without water. End result is the same. Without the scripting the game lacks direction, without the emergent playstyle you loose the creativity and interest that will get players to come back again.

This is a typical divide for the development of a game. Traditionally console/arcade games have had you replay 'arenas' once the basic level and gameplay elements have been exposed you play in the same or similar 'arenas' to ensure that the player is not confused. This is a hangup from the arcade style of only being played for 10-15minutes (that is a LONG time for a single arcade) so you can't keep throwing new things at the player or they get frustrated forking over thier money and never really progressing. Consoles have a longer average playtime but I think it is still something like 20-30minutes for an average session. If you know you only have 20-30 minutes you HAVE to script a certain amount of action in that time. PC games traditionally have ignored these values and suffered as a consequence as discussed elsewhere. STALKER was supposed to have an actor AI that oversaw the actors in the world and ensured that the player saw events they needed to see and had action if they were looking for it. In the first patch it spawned bad guys at certain points to replenish the guys that you'd killed. Problem was they'd spawn on you, or block your path by spawning too soon after you've killed the last bunch but left you low on health. The latest patch fixes most of these issues but leaves the game far more 'dry'. Guys respawning in a game like STALKER is appauling, if you want realism then you need to justify the respawn better than it is done in STALKER but that is the designers problem for not thinking through thier solution properly. In COD4 guys seemingly respawn endlessly but you don't care because you are having too much fun tearing them to peices with your huge assortment of really nice looking toys.

I'd say that GTA is the best and worst example of the crossover, it has one of the best freeform game styles, and some of the worst/best scripting for story progression. It is excellent because it is well written, directed and acted, awful because there are only a very small number of actual missions you ever undertake and most of those are highly scripted to remove the freeform aspect that we love in the rest of the 'game'. It is obvious why they do it and even more apparent that they know it is a problem as each version of the game has tried to give you more freedom in the missions and more mission types. GTA is undoubtably an arcade game. Everyone can have fun or attempt a mission inside of 5 minutes and it is evident that the missions are scripted to not last longer than 10 minutes. I'd even go so far as to say that San An is no larger than it is because to drive around it at the moment takes a time that was determined to be the limit of a players attention span.

It is unlikely anyone will read all of that but I was in a typing kind of mood.

[Hex]

I'm a huge fan of linear fun games, but I never see them as anything more than glorified arcade games.

Hahaha, I never thought I'd hear you of all people describe Doom as a "glorified arcade game" ;-)

[YegaDoyai]

That is because you hear and read what you want to and never what I say or write.

[Hex]

And clearly you missed the fact that I was joking...

[Sideshow]

Note that Crysis isn't a true sand-box game. You have a very definite set of objectives at all times and a very clear way of how to go about them. The island is not there for you to traverse willy-nilly. For example, there's a point where you have to assault a base which is atop a hill. I wanted to work my way around the cliffs to it's north so I could snipe from above and kill everyone in it easily. However, my plans were thwarted; backtracking around the cliffs for a way up I found none. I drove a truck up to a cliff, put stuff on it and then used that to jump up. Getting up I thought haha! gotcha! Until the game pulled a BF: Return to the combat zone or die. That was a big disappointment. The reason for it was they had a lot of pre-planned encounters on your way up attacking the base from below. Still felt like a let down.

[Bluepixie]

Yeah, Farcry used to do that to you if you decided to go swimming to some of the distant islands. A shiny attack chopper would swoop in from no were and tear you to shreds. They did mention it in the mission briefing, something about patrolling choppers round the island or what not. Still, it's a pity that Crysis places restrictions like that. However, I guess sandbox games need some kind of focus to keep things interesting, imagine Oblivion with no quests, just an endless dungeon crawl. Eeek!

I enjoy both styles of game play, it's a bit like anything else, depends on the mood.

Tbh Pixie unless you can run it playably on high I would wait. It looks awesome on high settings but on medium it looks quite average

MSI i975X Power Up! 2.1 Rev. C0 300MHz FSB
Intel Core Duo E6300 2.2GHz - Zalman 9700
Geil PC2-6400 2GB[2x1024] (4 - 4 - 4 - 12) (1.8V)
Power Color X1950 Pro (Stock, for now)
X-Fi Fatal1ty Editon

Enough? Please tell me so!

[Sideshow]

Maybe enough for medium. I think. Looks similar to Jonathon's setup, but he hasn't been playing because of graphical glitches. His machine autodetected for Low...

[Hex]

MSI i975X Power Up! 2.1 Rev. C0 300MHz FSB
Intel Core Duo E6300 2.2GHz - Zalman 9700
Geil PC2-6400 2GB[2x1024] (4 - 4 - 4 - 12) (1.8V)
Power Color X1950 Pro (Stock, for now)
X-Fi Fatal1ty Editon

Enough? Please tell me so!

I have an E6600 2.4 Ghz, the same RAM as you, and a superclocked 8800GTS 640MB, and the game will not run playably for me on High settings.

High with AA gets about 10fps
High w/o AA gets about 25, but dips a fair bit
Medium gets 40 (playable)

That's all at 1680x1050, but tbh I'm not convinced you'd see much improvement at 1280x1024. I'm waiting til I upgrade my GFX so that I can rly enjoy the game to the fullest.

[Bluepixie]

You've got to be kidding me!

I won't be playing at 1680x1050, 1280x1024 for me, and to hell with AA.

I can cope with things be tuned down a little, but surely it will be 25-40 at high? I think I can hear my machine crying from here, better clam her down.

*opens connection to Alita*
It's ok baby! I'll get you a 2900 for Christmas! :D

[Octavion]

Better make that two 2900s.

[Bluepixie]

Ok, what are the specs for running Crysis at high, on XP with a 1280x1024 res display, this is starting to sound really dangerous for my wallet.

[Hex]

I think you'd be looking at a 2900/8800 at the very least, and even that might struggle to get a decent FPS out of it on some of the sections of the game. To be quite honest I'm gonna wait for Geforce 9 series cards to bother playing the game, the demo is really fun but it doesn't look that great on medium settings...

[Sideshow]

Game is totally playable on Medium. High isn't *that* much of an improvement; the main ugly is pop-in, and it's still present on High settings; you need to go to Very High to get rid of it, and no-one is playing on that. Right Barney? You cock?

[neogramps]

I played on very high last night with my new 8800GT - res 1024-788 - avg fps about 20ish which is just barely playable - more playable than the hacked very high in dx9 which was sub-20 most of the time. looks amazing - now to upgrade the rest of my system, or at least oc my cpu and i should fare a little better

[Fyndir]

If I leave Object Quality, Shader Quality and Particle Quality at Low I can put everything else to Medium with Sound Quality on High and get an average 25+ FPS with occassional drop to 18-ish.

That's my AMD 3400+, 2GB RAM, 7800GT and X-Fi at 1280x1024.

In somewhat related news: Defending Prophet is the most annoying thing ever. Why can't I just let him die and then kick him in the face screaming "WHAT NOW BITCH?" ?

[Sideshow]

I generally hate those kind of missions, but this one wasn't particularly hard or arduous. From a review I'd thought it would go on for ages but it was over pretty quickly (the last section I just sprinted from fire to fire which triggered the end of that mission)

[Fyndir]

I think I just hate those particular enemies at the start, I keep on shotgunning them and they just won't go down, I think it averages to about 4 shots for each (assuming my accuracy is decent) which means a reload to take down 2.

Plus the dumbass keeps walking in front of me while I'm trying to shoot, meanwhile he's yelling "AHHH SAVE ME!" and shit.

[Fil2eFly]

after reading And total destructibility, you can really ruin the gameplay

i stoped reading -.-

Tbh i like both types of games. e.g. here is a path folow it and here is a point get to it some how..

i love games where you have the choices probbaly the best example is ofp and arma, there is a big island and how u kill shit and cmplete your objectives is up to you. on the other hand i like to play games where as said i can turn off my brain, folow a path and shoot anything that moves.

As for the running of crysis. i can run it on full but if i touch the AA ; "puta says no", with everything on high i can get a stable fps of anything between 25-40 but i did stuffer when spamming the minigun when fighting the bos.

im running

c2d E6850 @ 3ghz
2GB's of DDR2 800
8800 GTX 768mb @ 1920x1200

[Sideshow]

I remember it only being a couple of shots; it's when I actually started respecting the shotgun, since it was good at killing them while the FY was shite. I was running up and firing point-blank though, so all the shell hit.

[Fyndir]

I've found that if I run to them I die quickly as one will get in behind me and fuck my day up quite royally.

I'll just have to keep trying it, I might give the scar a shot since there's piles of ammo lying around for a change.

[Sideshow]

The incendiary rounds work well, but they run out fast.

[neogramps]

If I leave Object Quality, Shader Quality and Particle Quality at Low I

yeah these also affect the look of the game the most - i've found other settings don't make a dent - but if you're willing to sacrafice some elements it's ok - I tend to try and keep shaders on high, cos it's pretty when they're on

[Fyndir]

I think I'll be able to push it more if I ever get my hands on a second 7800GT to SLI with, although it might be my processor that's causing problems. =S

[neogramps]

well my processor is definitely holding me back, so i may kidnap strings and make him oc it