My biggest regret is that page turn.

I heard Chas & Dave have a collab coming out with Dr Dre... Knees up motherfucker.



Yeah I know, but it tickles me.

My apathy kicked in the generation before, it was the Dreamcast that sucked me back in.

I'd imagine that Suggs and pals, Ali Campbell and pals, and Paul Weller and pals all set new records for selling records

davyK wrote:

Re: PS2/GC/OLDBOX and apathy kicking in - that is when diminishing returns started to kick in re graphics etc.

It was the lack of gameplay evolution that disappointed me. Vice City would've been a far lesser experience on PS1 with LEGO graphics, but I was most amazed by its freedom and attributed that to the PS2's power. The PS1's era was the dawn of 3D and its effect on gameplay, so that was huge. Then 3dfx and the early GeForce cards allowed the PC to jump a generation ahead.

I was lucky in having such a PC and a PS1, but a handful of games aside, the PS2 failed to progress beyond what they'd offered in combination for years (and then Operation Flashpoint turned up). It was the Xbox that tried, and imagine that with the PS2's library in tandem with its own.

I'd like Digital Foundry to do a piece on how much untapped hardware potential there is. Crysis is now ten, and whatever you think of it (I've never played it), there hasn't been another of its kind since.

Even if more software did max the best of our current hardware, you get the feeling that that'd be through poor optimisation as much as push. But that's okay — I'd still like to see it. It's almost as if the current consoles are deliberately hobbled to allow devs to keep pace. If that's not true now, when will it be?

Perhaps if Sony consolidated their talent and just made a few games each year? I'd take 20-30 games per year in total if I found one or two special. 'Course, that'd surely have the reverse effect of franchise ubersafety.

Liveinadive wrote:

Crysis was peak PC elitism

It was grabbed hold of and waved about as such, but it should've been a universal celebration of visual advancement.

From Tomb Raider's T. rex to Tenchu's roof runs in the space of two years... That's not our age, it was the era. Most modern stealth games are worse than Thief!

Not worth ebaying?

I done quite well when I sold all my mags on there.

Escape wrote:

Liveinadive wrote:

Crysis was peak PC elitism

It was grabbed hold of and waved about as such, but it should've been a universal celebration of visual advancement.

From Tomb Raider's T. rex to Tenchu's roof runs in the space of two years... That's not our age, it was the era. Most modern stealth games are worse than Thief!

I, and several other of the PC crew guys, have stated multiple times that Crysis deserved to be celebrated, and not just for its visual splendour.

Raw graphics aside, it was a triumph of gameplay and environmental design. It was dozens of awesome sandboxes that gave you a base to attack and asked you to solve the "puzzle" as you saw fit. It solved the Superman conundrum (namely, how do you make a really powerful character fun to play?) by basically saying fuck it, and not hiding your powers away behind unlocks or bullshit plot contrivances to strip you of your powers and make you vulnerable.

Instead, it gave you situations where using the full array of your insane capabilities was fun and rewarding, and made the enemies smart and reactive enough that your victory felt earned.

No game since has struck that balance as well as the original Crysis, imo. The Sains Row games, from 3 onwards, gave you insane powers, but the world design suffered as a consequence, and, like Infamous, movement feels floaty and lacks weight. The enemies are thick as shit as well.

That first Crysis though - even forgetting the brilliant graphics, it's an incredible game. The sequels lost a lot of that as areas became less open and it became more of a CoDesque duck shoot.

It is still, to this day, my favourite FPS.