Avatar: The Game
Mr Rob
Seeing as links to downloads for the demo of Avatar have started
appearing, I decided to download it and take a look. I did this in the
full knowledge that it is a Third Person Shooter with lots of
vehicular and Mech combat, as well as Grunt style action.
All I can say is wow. This game is absolutely beautiful to look at.
Despite my general distaste for the over the shoulder camera and the
fact that I find the vehicle flight controls difficult to master, this
is one hell of a game and will be on my list of purchases.
It's like a combination of Halo, Metroid Prime and Gears of War all
using what looks very much like the Far Cry 2 engine (I have no idea
if that's what it is).
I found the combat difficult to start with, because of the camera
angle. Whenever I play a 3rd person perspective game I have to train
myself to stop looking at the character animation and concentrate on
the weapon reticule. But that aside, the game simply blows me away.
Besides the usual array of weapons, you get to use a selection of
skills, including a Chameleon Mode that makes you invisible, much like
the nano-suit in Crysis. You also get a scanner very similar to the
one used in the Metroid Prime games. Killing enemies grants experience
points so presumably there is some form of character development
involved.
I recommend that anybody that likes Action/RPG type games gives this
demo a try. It's a 1.6GB download.
I will FRAPS some when I can, assuming that Youtube is not playing up
still.
Links:
http://www.atomicgamer.com/file.php?id=82132
http://computergames.ro/en/downloads/viewitem/id/15475/name/james-camerons-avatar-the-game-demo.html
http://www.filefront.com/14941123/James-Camerons-Avatar-The-Game-Playable-Demo/
http://www.gamershell.com/news_87210.html
http://worthplaying.com/article/2009/11/16/news/70265/
--
Rob
Shawk
>
> I recommend that anybody that likes Action/RPG type games gives this
> demo a try. It's a 1.6GB download.
I got a warning from ISP this weekend about approaching their limit on
my unlimited account but what the hell... its been a while since you got
this excited about a game...
Mr Rob
wrote:
It is pretty stunning. The night time mission in particular, with the
shafts of moonlight shining through the foliage, the night insects and
particles floating around. It looks fantastic but runs incredibly
smoothly too.
I forgot to mention in my original post that it has some degree of
destructible terrain which looks like it could be fun as well.
As for your ISP, I hate that type of false advertising. They don't
really mean "unlimited" but they want you to think that they do. I've
gotten used to Virgin Media's traffic management. It's occasionally
annoying that I can't download something via Steam between 4pm and 9pm
without getting cut from 20mb to 5mb for four hours. But in all
honestly it only very rarely affects me and I forget it's even there
most of the time.
--
Rob
Shawk
>
> As for your ISP, I hate that type of false advertising. They don't
> really mean "unlimited" but they want you to think that they do. I've
> gotten used to Virgin Media's traffic management. It's occasionally
> annoying that I can't download something via Steam between 4pm and 9pm
> without getting cut from 20mb to 5mb for four hours. But in all
> honestly it only very rarely affects me and I forget it's even there
> most of the time.
They are offering to reduce my speed from 8meg to 1meg for one month...
Nice.
Andrew
<noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> wrote:
>All I can say is wow. This game is absolutely beautiful to look at.
>Despite my general distaste for the over the shoulder camera and the
>fact that I find the vehicle flight controls difficult to master, this
>is one hell of a game and will be on my list of purchases.
It is pretty to look at, but like I think the film will be, it is all
style over substance.
>It's like a combination of Halo, Metroid Prime and Gears of War all
>using what looks very much like the Far Cry 2 engine (I have no idea
>if that's what it is).
It is a bit of a mish-mash of those, but missing out on what made them
great. From this demo and gameplay videos I have watched it is very
consoley, and not in a good way (bearing in mind I am a console as
well as PC gamer).
>I found the combat difficult to start with, because of the camera
>angle. Whenever I play a 3rd person perspective game I have to train
>myself to stop looking at the character animation and concentrate on
>the weapon reticule. But that aside, the game simply blows me away.
I like 3rd person games, but this one has a weird camera.
>Besides the usual array of weapons, you get to use a selection of
>skills, including a Chameleon Mode that makes you invisible, much like
>the nano-suit in Crysis. You also get a scanner very similar to the
>one used in the Metroid Prime games. Killing enemies grants experience
>points so presumably there is some form of character development
>involved.
>
>I recommend that anybody that likes Action/RPG type games gives this
>demo a try. It's a 1.6GB download.
Downloaded it in 6 minutes, which for me was the most impressive part!
--
Andrew, contact via http://interpleb.googlepages.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.
Mr Rob
wrote:
What a wonderful ISP BT is.
I'd rather stick with the VM way of doing things if we absolutely have
to suffer limited "unlimited" packages.
It's really annoying when their adverts hype up the speed that you can
download at whilst deliberately omitting the fact that "unlimited"
means unlimited access at potentially severely limited speeds and not
unlimited full use.
The most galling thing is that they will try to tell you that the
throttling is to maintain a high standard of service for everybody.
What they really mean is that they want to oversell their bandwidth
capacity several times over so you have to be limited during peak
times. One of the VM packages has a download limit of 200mb, which if
broken, penalises the user with a 75% speed decrease for 12 hours.
What the hell is the point of a 2Mbit connection if all you can do is
browse and download emails? Even that takes some people over the
limit.
Most VM customers with complaints about speed (that does not include
me I might add) will tell you that their service is just as crap with
Traffic Management as it is without it. Slowing "heavy users" down
does not improve network performance in general for the great many
people on grossly over subscribed UBR's.
--
Rob
Mr Rob
>Downloaded it in 6 minutes, which for me was the most impressive part!
Same here. Downloaded at 2.2MB per second.
I am seldom this taken by the graphical presentation of a game. But
this one really does make me glad to be a PC gaming enthusiast with a
modern system capable of handling all that eye candy.
I daresay that I will buy it and lose interest in it after a few
hours. That's exactly what happened with Gears of War, Red Faction:
Guerilla, Dead Space and Halo 2.
I kid myself that I will go back to them one day. But I know full well
that I quite probably won't.
--
Rob
Shawk
> On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:52:00 +0000, Shawk <sh...@gmx.com.3guesses>
> wrote:
>
>> Mr Rob wrote:
>>
>>> As for your ISP, I hate that type of false advertising. They don't
>>> really mean "unlimited" but they want you to think that they do. I've
>>> gotten used to Virgin Media's traffic management. It's occasionally
>>> annoying that I can't download something via Steam between 4pm and 9pm
>>> without getting cut from 20mb to 5mb for four hours. But in all
>>> honestly it only very rarely affects me and I forget it's even there
>>> most of the time.
>>
>> They are offering to reduce my speed from 8meg to 1meg for one month...
>>
>> Nice.
>
> What a wonderful ISP BT is.
>
Heh... 1meg might be an improvement. Currently getting 60kB/sec on this
d-load. After midnight that'll jump to 6 or 7meg (which is when I
d-load normally - not affecting anyone else)...
Its a f*cked up service to be sure
JAB
I think you know within half an hour whether you going to play a game
much. I try to be a bit picky so that I only get games I will play for
an extended period of time. One thing I've tried to stop doing is buying
games because they're cheap.
Werner Spahl
> It's really annoying when their adverts hype up the speed that you can
> download at whilst deliberately omitting the fact that "unlimited" means
> unlimited access at potentially severely limited speeds and not
> unlimited full use.
Now imagine all games would go from retail to digital downloads only...
--
Dr. Werner Spahl (sp...@cup.uni-muenchen.de) Freedom for
Wesp5 @ Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Vorlonships
John Lewis
<sp...@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Nov 2009, Mr Rob wrote:
>
>> It's really annoying when their adverts hype up the speed that you can
>> download at whilst deliberately omitting the fact that "unlimited" means
>> unlimited access at potentially severely limited speeds and not
>> unlimited full use.
>
>Now imagine all games would go from retail to digital downloads only...
>
Ah, yes the hidden costs of digital downloads and streaming (or
downloaded) movies. The ISPs are all lining up for the $$ bonanza from
bandwidth tiers, download caps and cap-exceeding penalty costs. Why do
I still truly love those 12cm silver (or gold, or blue) discs,
especially when they go on huge discount sale, or in the case of
movies that I only wish to rent.... from RedBox or similar. Nice not
to be in a hurry to play or view the "latest and greatest". Saves a
huge chunk of money in purchase and/or ISP costs.
John Lewis
John Lewis
Or wait for great games to hit bargain prices....? Happens far faster
these days than, say, 5 years ago.
John Lewis
JAB
We're not all skinflints ...
Schrodinger
"Mr Rob" <noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> wrote in message
news:bo96g5h67jbn8mecq...@4ax.com...
It seems far more cartoon like than, say, Crysis. It reminds me of the
graphics in Saints Row 2 somehow.
It is colourful and all, but doesn't at all grab me.
Gameplay wise it reminds me too much of a console game. Challenges, an
illusion of freedom, seemingly zero tactics and random elements introduced
to create an artificial challenge. Like the "hammerhead" - a mini "boss".
I hated Halo with a vengeance, along with Saints Row 2 and disliked Quake 4.
I should learn my lessons before leaving the PC on overnight to download a
demo!
Thanks for the headsup anyway as it's always worth trying these out.
Shawk
>
> I recommend that anybody that likes Action/RPG type games gives this
> demo a try. It's a 1.6GB download.
Hmm... don't really know what to make of it. Yeah I had fun with the
demo, the graphics were great (everything runs at ultra high and
1920x1200 with my 4870), some of the level design is great (very linear
of course - but thats ok) but the AI is really stupid and your fellow
troops completely ignore you (even if you shoot them in the face).
Unless there is a compelling story I think I'd tire of this pretty quick.
JLC
I played the demo to the end which really wasn't the end because I
didn't finish all the stuff I was supposed to do. I didn't know that it
would just stop when I hit the base.
I really like the look of the game and it runs fantastic on my rig (4870
1GB) 4xAA 16x AF 1680x1050. But there's something I just don't like
about the POV. I don't mind a 3rd person view. But it's not done right
in this game. The cameras is to close I think. I really noticed when I
went inside one of those little base camp units. The view got really
messed up when I was trying to look around inside the small area.
It's linear, but so was Crysis in most areas.
The part I really didn't like was killing the whatever the natives are
called. They moved really fast and their movements seem really stiff. I
also agree that the AI is really dumb. But I did get a response when I
shot one of the good guys. He told me to watch where I was shooting.
I also didn't like the crosshair. It didn't turn color when I was
targeting an enemy which made it hard to figure out what I was shooting
at from range.
I think it will probably bomb on the PC, I'll pick it up when it's less
then $10 just because it looks cool and I like the all the different
vehicles.
JLC
Elias Fotinis
> I think you know within half an hour whether you going to play a game
> much.
It doesn't always work like that, for me at least. Oni, Far Cry 2 and
Mirror's Edge are examples of games I hated initially but really got to
enjoy after a few hours of gameplay. I don't consider myself a proper gamer,
though, having played *only* 50 or so games in my life. :D
JAB
50 games you say ... about the same amount of times you change your
"name" in about a month then?
Elias Fotinis
> 50 games you say ... about the same amount of times you change your "name"
> in about a month then?
I haven't changed my name since I was born. :) I must be the only one using
their real name in this group...
Wile E. Coyote
> I got a warning from ISP this weekend about approaching their limit on
> my unlimited account but what the hell... its been a while since you got
> this excited about a game...
How can these ISPs call it "unlimited" and then put a cap on how much
you can download? They are so FoS.
Antonio Huerta
is fascinating. But if this is the only thing which developers have in
store for us, then people better not to buy this game. The eye candy
will not be noticed anymore in half an hour, because it will cease to
be such.
Antonio Huerta
> "JAB" wrote:
> > I think you know within half an hour whether you going to play a game
> > much.
>
> enjoy after a few hours of gameplay. I don't consider myself a proper gamer,
> though, having played *only* 50 or so games in my life. :D
Geez, I finally reduced the pile of the games to a more manageable
height, and installed Mirror's Edge. Straight away I was kind of
blown away. The urban environment, the colours, the music, running on
tops of highscrapers -- this all created a feeling of freedom; a
feeling of real freedom for an urbanite like me.
I liked gameplay mechanics, too. Well, just as I said it was a part of
what created the freedom feeling. I played for maybe an hour. I guess
I want more games like that.
When I was playing I got a feeling Mirror's Edge was kind of Portal.
In both games, the antagonist is a girl, and she is running, and she
is trying to escape, and the gameplay is new.
Well, Mirror's Age could be THE game of the year for me. (Well,
actually, I enjoyed immensely Deep Space...)
Werner Spahl
> When I was playing I got a feeling Mirror's Edge was kind of Portal. In
> both games, the antagonist is a girl, and she is running, and she is
> trying to escape, and the gameplay is new.
I had the same impression and there are several cool Unreal Developers Kit
games in the works doing something similar. I also noticed that _I_ don't
want more games like those because pure puzzle solving or jumping bores me
in the end. What I want is to see these features added to the standard
repertoire of normal FPS like e.g. gravity manipulations after HL2. Just
imagine Mirror's Edge mechanics for every run and jump section in a FPS!
Rand Al'Thor
"Antonio Huerta" <ahu...@inbox.com> wrote in message
news:a9861142-8a87-45f7...@y32g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
The eye candy is extremely good, but that's it. Will suit the under 5s' if
their parents let them play it :) I was amazed tho, how smooth it ran on my
gear which has a old 8800GTX (2 years old, I think) all graphic settings at
max. I've yet to come across a game that requires the newer cards than this.
Rand
Elias Fotinis
> What I want is to see these features added to the standard repertoire of
> normal FPS like e.g. gravity manipulations after HL2. Just imagine
> Mirror's Edge mechanics for every run and jump section in a FPS!
My sentiments exactly. Mirror's Edge is sort of a tech demo for proper FPS
movement IMO.
Antonio Huerta
I put another hour or two in the game, and I have finished 3 chapters
(out of 9). I think Mirror's Edge can stand on its own as a game.
There is a story to it. And it is smoothly told. The game itself is
smooth. I am impressed with the background to the main menu -- it
looks like you are moving in the helicopter over the city with high
scrapers. And this is accompanied with a kind of transcendental music
(or, should I say, 'chillout music' ?).
Elias Fotinis
> I put another hour or two in the game, and I have finished 3 chapters
> (out of 9). I think Mirror's Edge can stand on its own as a game.
I loved the whole game too. I didn't mean that the movement mechanics were
the only good thing in ME. It's just that it was so amazing that it reminded
me how I felt when I played my first real 3D shooter (Quake): it simply blew
me away.
Toby Newman
The music is by the same guy who did the music for Turrican 2, one of
my all-time favourite game themes (on the Atari ST)
--
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
BrunoN Bluthgeld
>> I put another hour or two in the game, and I have finished 3 chapters
>> (out of 9). I think Mirror's Edge can stand on its own as a game.
>> There is a story to it. And it is smoothly told. The game itself is
>> smooth. I am impressed with the background to the main menu -- it
>> looks like you are moving in the helicopter over the city with high
>> scrapers. And this is accompanied with a kind of transcendental music
>> (or, should I say, 'chillout music' ?).
>
> The music is by the same guy who did the music for Turrican 2, one of
> my all-time favourite game themes (on the Atari ST)
>
Mirror's Edge music was made by Solar Fields, don't think it's the same guy.
Toby Newman
I think the theme tune was by Chris Huelsbeck, the Turrican guy,
though.