Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mack the knife]

Since this game is being touted as the best thing since keylime pie, one must wonder if it's all simply a bunch of hot air? In other words, have you played the demo?

[Hater Depot]

Well, it only took 10 years to get here. It better be good.

[hanguker]

I played the demo. It was a pretty good fps. Some new quirks like traveling in your spirit body, walking upside down on anti-grav strips and cool portholes to other dimensions were neat. There's a cool gun that turns creatures into some kind of jelly that I thought was cool. Uses the Doom3 engine and it looks a lot like Doom3. I like the glistening textures. Nothing revolutionary here (playwise and graphically), but I'll play it when it comes out. Looks like a fun story.

I'm on a P4 2.8 GHz, with 1G Mem and an Nvidia 6600GT. Runs smooth.

[Walter Mitty]

The Xbox 360 demo just hit Marketplace. I'm grabbing it now. Huge download though - 1.17GB.

[eamo]

I'm half way through the demo.

Great looking game for sure.

3D games are beginning to get really good. God knows what the future will bring.

[Demophobe]

It's all up to the GPU makers. Software devs have no trouble making games that will destroy even the top SLI setup. It's easy for them and always will be.

[mack the knife]

So, what's the final word?

[Juregen]

[cubanlord]

compare it to F.E.A.R. Thoughts? I loved F.E.A.R., but I don't know any info. on this game.

[Bulsajo]

[mack the knife]

Now there's just the minor problem of convincing the wife to let me plop down $$$ for a 360 (or new PC).

Ahhh, Bul....I do so miss those halcyon days of Unreal at the office...

[cubanlord]

so how is the game? Better than FEAR?

[Bulsajo]

[mack the knife]

Yeah I heard about Baker. That's good for him. I wonder if his 4 sons attend?

[Demophobe]

Sorry to bring back this thread but...

Played through 4 levels of the game last night. Some thoughts...

Spoilers Ahead!!

~ It looks really good. The Doom 3 engine is a real winner...I think we will see some more games using it. It does show it's limitations though and after PREY, I think the whole "living machine" thing will be finished.

~ Framerates are good, even on my older graphics card. I'm playing at 1280x1024 with all avaliable options on the highest setting. I have a 9800XT 256MB, and though there is a stutter when loading up some textures, overall it's very playable. The engine is very forgiving. Even at lower resolutions (I began at 1024x768, but it was so smooth, I thought I could go higher), the game looks really.....shiny.

~ The story has some cool ideas, but already there are a couple of things I don't understand. The hero is a Cherokee indian who hates his heritage and has done an army tour. Yet, despite his big hate-on for his heritage, he is instantly a master at letting his "spirit" loose and doing lots of out-of-body coolness.

His grandfather is skewered shortly after he is taken aboard the ship, but our hero escapes and his girlfriend (his motivation for rushing around the ship) remains fastened to her steel plate and is being trucked around the ship ad infinitum. Why was gramps lanced so quickly, how didn't the girl escape, and why isn't she already history?

~ The weapons are neat - more organic industrialist stuff. Nothing truly incredible, but worthy.

~ Gameplay is very interesting indeed. The portals, room shifts and spirit walks are really innovative, but hard to get used to. It's very disorienting at times, and one spends a good deal of time running around seemingly lost. All in all, it's pretty standard fare, but still seems fresh thanks to the heroes ethnicity and all the implications, as well as the flexibility of the engine.

~ Character modelling is good, though the players and some objects do look a bit "wax-like". Similar to the Riddick engine from Starbreeze. The enemies are modelled with a lot of detail and the AI seems a good step above Doom, but not quite as good as it could be. The aliens still jump out in front of you with a pea-shooter while you are toting the leech gun (a cannon), and sometimes seem to love getting shot; they don't go for cover at all. For aliens who are obviously pretty advanced in the field of killing and destruction, they are quite stupid in combat. Very Orc-ish; throw millions of idiots at the problem and at least one will get through.

~ Voice work is pretty good, though some of the dialogue sounds a bit forced - especially the profanity. The ambient noises are great; remember when everything hit the fan in Doom 3? All the screaming, distant pounding on walls and floors above? This is pretty much the same, but less intense and it never ends. A solid mood is created with the soundscape, and the alien voices, while a bit Strogg-like, are cool.

So far, the game is obviously one of the better titles to come out in the last while. A lot of attention to detail is apparent everywhere with one of the coolest examples of this being that doors on the ship open in parallel with your proximity to them. If you are approaching, the door begins to open. If you stop walking forward, the door stops opening. Maybe that seems goofy, but it's actually a big part of strategy; one can snipe through a partly-opened door, which provides cover. The butthole-looking doors are pretty gross...one feels like yesterdays' lunch when you 'pass' through them.

Anyhow...enough. I hope I didn't ruin the experience for anyone, but this is a really cool game. Better than FEAR? Yeah...I think so. FEAR just didn't have the appeal for me...it seemed to "been there, done that". I am a big Doom 3 fan, so maybe I am biased, but this is a "must have" game.

Relevant system specs:

P4 Northwood @ 3.5GHz, 2GB PC4500 RAM, ATI 9800XT 256MB o/ced.