[Aj_]

Originally Posted by ILoveYou

And I don't believe Fahrenheit needs a better graphics card, since it's graphics are a little outdated and HL2's ain't.

You're so trusting, don't let facts and technical specification get in the way though, they're bad. I'm going to hazard a guess that more people have a CPU that's over 1.2Ghz, and have the many cards that aren't supported by Fahrenheit, but are by HL2 by just looking at the Steam Hardware Survey. This is something called "scaling" something the Source engine does really well, it means that not only does Half-Life 2 run on about the same number of machines as Fahrenheit, it also looks pretty, real pretty, on a high end PC. The game you might be looking for, is Doom 3, which runs crappy on even mid range PCs when it was released, and had little support for low end.

[cardician]

And that can only be a good thing. Farenheit is an exciting and interesting experiment, which is better than most experiments.

I agree with you completely! Nice to know there are some objective people out there who look at things logically and not with complete bias. Were there things that could be improved? Certainly. Was it a great game and rather innovative when compared to the current offerings? Absolutely (though the greatness is up to ones personal opinion). Is this a game for everyone? Of course not. What game is?

One thing people need to understand is that just because thousands of people love a game, does not mean that you will. For instance, I hate Myst game and all games like it. Bore the hell out of me. And yet that game was HUGE and tons of people LOVED it. Do I bitch about the game because of that? No!

Also, I'm getting really tired of people talking like they know so much better about every aspect of games than those out there making them, like Cage. I mean c'mon people, if you're so knowledgeable and could do so much better, then DO IT! Get out there and make a game that proves it. Otherwise, shut your pie holes, take the game for what it is, and if you don't like it, fine, move on! But accept the fact that the game has sold hundreds of thousands of copies (so Cage tells us) and that its success is going to spawn more of the same which we can only hope are as good if not better than the original.

We all know the game is not completely perfect. What is important is that Cage knows it and knows things to work on. I just wish people would stop with the postings about the games flaws. Whatever, its been said, no one really cares about yet another person's opinions on what was wrong with the game and what could be done better.

[Aj_]

Wait, I'm not allowed to criticize a game without creating one of my own?
You don't think I'm qualified enough to voice my opinion on this game?
What makes your opinion valid, where's your game, does your perspective magically reverse when you're kissing ass?

Even the reviews that give high scores say the controls are terrible, the gameplay is repetitive, camera control is poor etc... I never said the graphics, sound, and style, were BAD. Might have complimented those a little.

I thought the story was bad, characters dull, and didn't see anything very original in there at all.

I'm getting tired of people citing how great the game is, but not why, can't really say I'm a fan of the pacing (probably because in the end third), but I understand that point, also I mentioned that the storytelling was good, in the beginning of the game. Hell, when you're not meant to know that much about the characters, it's promising, but they don't grow. So far only Trep and SJH have had something to say on why they like the game, instead of stating it's great. If I made my inital post "This game is crap." then that wouldn't do my opinion, or the game, justice. I didn't really say much about the story, because I wanted this thread to be spoiler free.

[ILoveYou]

Originally Posted by Aj_

You're so trusting, don't let facts and technical specification get in the way though, they're bad. I'm going to hazard a guess that more people have a CPU that's over 1.2Ghz, and have the many cards that aren't supported by Fahrenheit, but are by HL2 by just looking at the Steam Hardware Survey. This is something called "scaling" something the Source engine does really well, it means that not only does Half-Life 2 run on about the same number of machines as Fahrenheit, it also looks pretty, real pretty, on a high end PC. The game you might be looking for, is Doom 3, which runs crappy on even mid range PCs when it was released, and had little support for low end.

Well Doom 3 ran very well on my computer even though the actual game was lame. And my computer is middle-end, soon to be low-end. Fahrenheit ain't a good game, I'll give you that. Just saying the graphics were good enough for me.

[Aj_]

Your specs, settings, and frame rates are? I've had this conversation before, and last time someone's idea of running very well was pretty far from mine.

[ILoveYou]

Running very well: the settings were on medium (I never even tried high so I don't know if it would've worked), there was no problems, not twiching, no graphical errors or anything. Performance was great overral, even though I had to put vsync on in order to get rid of some nasty screen problems. I had no problems whatsoever with playing the game on my computer. This might be because Doom 3 is made for Nvidia cards, so it might run smoother in those than ATI. I don't really care for the frame rates because they don't tell you the whole truth, in Counter-Strike Source they're something like from 60 to 120.

When I think about it, Doom 3 actually ran more smootly on my computer than HL2.

[Aj_]

The thing is, settings on medium don't really mean anything to me, because I can't memorize what they are in every game, and don't count resolution, AA, AF usually.

The stats on your machine will help me figure out what type of system you have, a FX 5950 or 9800/9700 XT/Pro was still high end when Doom 3 was released. Anywhere around 2Ghz was mid-range.

Average frame rate, lowest dip, peak, is the only way for me to determine what experience I would have with the settings that I consider mid-range.

[ILoveYou]

Oki. Well I have 6600gt pcix, amd64 3000+ ~2,4 GhZ, 1,5 gigs of ram and the resolution was 1024x768 (which I always use). This hardware is becoming low-end very soon, if it already isn't. I always put AA on the highest. I don't know what the FPS was because I never checked it and Doom 3 isn't on my comp anymore so I can't check it either.

I'm actually thinking about upgrading to 6800 ultra soon. Just need to save some money first

[squarejawhero]

Rofl, I'm lower than you. But the difference is minimal.

Athlon XP3000+, Asus A7v8x rev 1.4, 1.5GB PC2700 DDR, AGP 8X (faster than PCI's last I heard, still!) Geforce n6600GT, Audigy 2. It's pretty tight although this time next year it isn't going to be enough.

RE AJ's point, some people are more susceptible to FPS differences and quality. For example, when the Myst V demo came out, some people within that community thought it was the best graphics they'd seen on a technical level. I disagreed... mainly as I found some people THOUGHT they were getting good FPS and couldn't tell they weren't, one was shocked at how low it was and only then noticed the difference. Truth is, if it works for you, it doesn't matter in the end.

edit - and save your money on that 6800U. The money you'll save between now and purchasing, with new tech coming out (and new tech seems to be getting cheaper) you could probably get something better in about 6 months for the same price, or at least afford something higher grade.

[ILoveYou]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

edit - and save your money on that 6800U. The money you'll save between now and purchasing, with new tech coming out (and new tech seems to be getting cheaper) you could probably get something better in about 6 months for the same price, or at least afford something higher grade.

Yeah well the problem always is that once I have the money there's already a newer and better card for the same price. And if I get the better/newer one, I'll have to uprage some other components on my computer as well. So it's an endless money hole for the gamers. *edit* Yeah, the difference between our computers is like 10% which is not much.

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by ILoveYou

Oki. Well I have 6600gt pcix, amd64 3000+ ~2,4 GhZ, 1,5 gigs of ram and the resolution was 1024x768 (which I always use). This hardware is becoming low-end very soon, if it already isn't. I always put AA on the highest. I don't know what the FPS was because I never checked it and Doom 3 isn't on my comp anymore so I can't check it either.

Was the 6600GT even released when Doom 3 was? Sure your PC is mid-range now, a generation of graphics cards later, benchmarks suggest you were getting anywhere from 40-60fps.

Price and performance wise, compared to the systems still selling, even the 6600GT was high end, even though it was the second tier of the latest generation back then.

A generation later and the second tier of the previous generation, a AMD64 3000+ when there are 4000+ and AMD FX's that cost $1000 doesn't seem all that high. I thought I was pretty ready to advance, people are still on Geforce 2s, and I was thinking that the GF4 Ti, or the FX5200 would be the lowest now, and there are loads of cards between those and the 6600GT that I think are the low end, and a lot of them run 99% of games even released this year.

[ILoveYou]

Originally Posted by Aj_

Was the 6600GT even released when Doom 3 was? Sure your PC is mid-range now, a generation of graphics cards later, benchmarks suggest you were getting anywhere from 40-60fps.

I think it was because I got Doom 3 the day it was released

[Aj_]

I can't find a card manufacturer that released a card based on the 6600GT before Doom 3 was released.

[ILoveYou]

Originally Posted by Aj_

I can't find a card manufacturer that released a card based on the 6600GT before Doom 3 was released.

Okay. Hmmm... I dunno then. Well I got the game because my friend recommended it to me and I got this hardware back then too. So it might be that I got this computer a little later than the game? LOL, I'm confused, can't remember.

[entranced]

Originally Posted by cardician

As for gameplay, I enjoyed every bit of it. The only part I didn't like was making Lucas walk across the beam and trying to keep him balanced when he's saving Tracy. That was the only part that I actually had to repeat like three times.

For some reason the only part I had trouble with was the whirlwind apartment scene. I don't know why that part was difficult for me especially since I handled the Simon Says rooftop fight without losing a single life. Maybe it was because that was the longest portion of the Simon Says action up until that point in the game.
Also the second flashback stealth scene I kept getting caught 4 or 5 times until I finally figured out that you had to throw rocks to distract the guards.


Anyway you guys want to talk about system specs?

How about the 4 year old system I'm running on?


Are you guys ready for this?


I don't think you're ready.


Pentium III 933 MHz
384 MB SDRAM
GeForce 2 GTS 64MB
40 GB Hard Drive


It's not a question of not being able to afford a new system...especially when that last system cost around $2,500 back when I bought it. I just grew tired of games for a while and saw no point in upgrading when I stopped playing games.

And the funny part was Fahrenheit ran smoothly at 800x600 (I was going to try 1024x768 but didn't want to push my luck) until the very last scene of the game when the Indigo Child gets sacrificed. The graphics in that little Chroma whirlpool at the end was the only thing that sunk my framerate down to like 5 or 10 fps...but that was the ONLY scene in the whole game my obsolete system showed its age.

Like I said earlier...Fahrenheit had game requirements from 2 years ago..maybe even 3. Yay for me.

[Legolas813]

Originally Posted by entranced

Pentium III 933 MHz
384 MB SDRAM
GeForce 2 GTS 64MB
40 GB Hard Drive

I didn't even bother buying the game for PC (got it for Xbox). Here are my laptop specs:

Windows XP Professional
Pentium IV 1.8 GHz
512 MB RAM
SiS 32 MB video card (this prevents me from playing most modern games)
40 GB Hard Drive

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by entranced

The graphics in that little Chroma whirlpool at the end was the only thing that sunk my framerate down to like 5 or 10 fps...but that was the ONLY scene in the whole game my obsolete system showed its age.

Even my more recent setup (an athlon 3200+) had framerate issues with that scene.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

Even viewed as an experiment in moving film narrative and values into games, it's a first. Even compared to TLE. This is a game with direction. But I can only see things moving forwards from this, any attempts to move sideways or copy or replicate the formula to me, would be a failiure. The only way is to improve the shortcomings, including roping in the fantasy if the game didn't need it. The more slight scenes worked more in its favour, and even action gamers on mainstream sites are praising that OVER anything else, no matter what the puritans might be fearing of the action being the pull in AG sites. You don't play this for the action, as the action is lacking, you play it for the drama, choices, characterisation, pacing and narrative first and foremost. And that's actually a first in gaming, even if the parts are less satisfying - this game is easy to dissect, but viewed as a whole I find it more successful.

Do you know what I'd like to see? A game by Cage with more balls to the narrative approach. If he's going to be inspired by outside sources and include action, something more akin to Oldboy than The Matrix. Something with intelligence only without the fantasy clichés. Then we'd have arrived at something that isn't just groundbreaking, but truly special.

I think at this point it's safe to say that, despite its obvious imperfections, it had to take a game like Fahreneheit to make us see various possibilities in how games can affect us emotionally. I admire the game's ambitions. It makes me see how severely limiting many other games - particularly adventure games - can and have been in terms of drawing in the player in particularly effective ways. Sure, it's fine when I point-&-click at things to try and solve a myster, but after experiencing Fahrenheit, it just makes me far more aware of how clinical it feels to play some other game as if it's under glass.

David Cage now definitely knows what works and what doesn't in how he wants to engage the player and communicate his drama, and he wants to make it better and better. And if he has to break down even more arbitrarily imposed walls (by the games industry, by publishers, other developers, and yes!, us gamers) to do it, well f#&k! let him!!! More power to him. He is a visionary and I place him up there with people like Warren Spector and Will Wright. I am NOT going to bitch and whine, it will always be inevitable to make some mistakes when you're exploring new ideas and trying them out.

The path to new and exciting interactive experiences is jagged and bumpy, but I'd rather risk a few cuts and scratches going that way instead of falling asleep from boredom going on the pre-paid, pre-fab package tour.

[Kirk]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Sure, it's fine when I point-&-click at things to try and solve a myster, but after experiencing Fahrenheit, it just makes me far more aware of how clinical it feels to play some other game as if it's under glass.

David Cage now definitely knows what works and what doesn't in how he wants to engage the player and communicate his drama, and he wants to make it better and better.

Hey, Intrep--

I admire David Cage and I see his latest game as a nice addition, but immersion was questionable for me. I definitely see the production value and feel that the fleshed-out characters, flashbacks and possible narratives made this game a fun experience. Yet, the actual "gaming" elements involved seemed to distance me frequently.

Doing Simon Says while listening to the orange clan discuss Lucas was peculiar, unnecessary and quite uninvolving. At times I felt the pacing was off simply due to the FORCED nature of some gaming elements.

As I have stated previously, Yu Suzuki has done much of what David Cage has created here. Except I feel Yu Suzuki has done a more effective job. The reason: gameplay elements felt interactive and not drawn out for you. There were QTEs periodically. The roam and discover portions flowed and enabled you to become the eyes and ears of Ryu. And the action elements required thought and helped to develop character (in particular, the falling leaf focus and attack in Shenmue 2).

Regardless, Indigo was a nice romp. A emulation of others, but a nice romp nonetheless.

Kirk

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kirk

Yet, the actual "gaming" elements involved seemed to distance me frequently.

Hey Kirk.

Some of those "gaming" elements distanced me, but not necessarily all of them.

Doing Simon Says while listening to the orange clan discuss Lucas was peculiar, unnecessary and quite uninvolving. At times I felt the pacing was off simply due to the FORCED nature of some gaming elements.

Yes, I agree that the Simon sequences were overused and didn't belong in a few of the scenes. But there were still instances where I thought it worked, and very well integrated.

And I refuse to make this a black & white point. I like this kind of gameplay and I want games to investigate it further. It really is a learning process for designers like David Cage, who are forging ahead and exploring new ways to experience story driven games - in this case, physical involvement representing emotional moments in the narrative. So I do expect a few flaws here and there, it's called 'trial & error' as well as 'growing pains'.

As I have stated previously, Yu Suzuki has done much of what David Cage has created here. Except I feel Yu Suzuki has done a more effective job. The reason: gameplay elements felt interactive and not drawn out for you. There were QTEs periodically. The roam and discover portions flowed and enabled you to become the eyes and ears of Ryu. And the action elements required thought and helped to develop character (in particular, the falling leaf focus and attack in Shenmue 2).

I'd say it's more a matter of David Cage exploring his own way into this idea. It is new to HIM and so let him play with it, tweak it on his own. I'll bet he already knows about Suzuki's ideas and respects it. I refuse to compare the two as if it's some kind of pissing match between them. What would that achieve?

I'd rather see it more constructively, like perhaps Cage might tap into something in the future that Suzuki hinted at and investigate that further. Or who knows, maybe the two of them might get together and have an awesome discussion about this? Either way, I seriously doubt Suzuki would call Cage and say, "You n00b!! I did it first and you're a lamer!"

Regardless, Indigo was a nice romp. A emulation of others, but a nice romp nonetheless.

See now you're definitely making it sound like a pissing match. I never saw it that way, and it's rather insulting to refer to it as an emulative romp. That's just so unfair, Kirk. Let's instead wait and see where Cage takes it, in his own way.