Whatcha playin? (Video games wise.)

Le Saboteur

Active member
Meet Mrs. Chu. She just might be the most vicious character to have ever appeared in a video game.

Sleeping-Dogs-Mrs-Chus-Revenge-Video.jpg


I must otherwise say that I am pleasantly surprised that HKPD doesn't roll over for you. I think I spent nearly five minutes trying to shake off pursuit. Leaping into Victoria Harbor didn't work either; they unleashed police zodiacs on me.

A continued enthusiastic thumbs up for Sleeping Dogs.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
I must otherwise say that I am pleasantly surprised that HKPD doesn't roll over for you. I think I spent nearly five minutes trying to shake off pursuit. Leaping into Victoria Harbor didn't work either; they unleashed police zodiacs on me.
Have to ask: What did you do? Because I don't think I've ever spent that long shaking off a tail.

But then again, I usually try to employ tactics I figure might work in real life. That means taking a plenty of corners, utilizing any alleyway I see, even hopping out of my ride and hoofing it on foot for a while. What seems to be the absolute worst way to shake 'em is to just pedal it on a straight street. It might work if you've got a fast ride on the freeway, but other than that, a little creativity might be required.

That being said, I have found the HKPD's threat response far more refined than their those of their colleagues in Liberty City, for example. These guys actually seem to know the distinction between jaywalking and homicide. Although any kind of bodily harm against an officer in uniform still makes 'em go ape, even if it's a simple punch to the gut. For added excessiveness, try disarming the first responder of his weapon and running away with it.

---

As to my own status, well, apart from sneaking in some high scores of Angry Birds during breaks, still trying to figure what to pick up next. Leaning Hitman.
 

Nurhachi1991

Well-known member
Has anyone heard of the game " Whore of the Orient" it's supposedly being developed by Team Bondi the production team that gave us L.A. Noire and it takes place in 1936 Shanghai.


I read something about it in an article and it sounds amazing
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Nurhachi1991 said:
Has anyone heard of the game " Whore of the Orient" it's supposedly being developed by Team Bondi the production team that gave us L.A. Noire and it takes place in 1936 Shanghai.


I read something about it in an article and it sounds amazing

This is the first I've heard of it, but I'm certainly intrigued. Sounds like the Orientalism will be laid on pretty thick, though...I hope they're going to do something interesting with it.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Finn said:
Have to ask: What did you do? Because I don't think I've ever spent that long shaking off a tail.

Shot a cop near the Aberdeen Ferry.

My heat level jumped from zero to three and we were off like a prom dress. Two squad cars and a police jeep were in initial pursuit. One of the squad cars was eluded quite early, but a second and third police jeep took up pursuit. The second squad car blew up after running headfirst into a bus(?), and the first police jeep attempted to cut me off while going into one of the freeway tunnels (in Central, I think), but I hit the brakes and dove into oncoming traffic eluding what I thought was the last bit of pursuit.

Nope.

Back in Central, yet another police jeep came barreling down a side street. I seemed to avoid pursuit by dumping my bike and running onto the Boardwalk, and lept into the sea... where I was met almost immediately by two fully-loaded HKPD zodiacs. A few dozen rounds of automatic gunfire put an end to that pursuit.

Finn said:
But then again, I usually try to employ tactics I figure might work in real life...

See: Stress test. I was curious if there was a point in time where they would give up the chase, and I wanted to take over the top spot on that "Catch Me If You Can" list.

Nice way to add multi-player aspects into a single-player experience.

Finn said:
It might work if you've got a fast ride on the freeway, but other than that, a little creativity might be required.

Hong Kong's 'natural' density makes lengthy high speed chases next to impossible, but I'm surprised that HKPD hasn't and/or doesn't employ spike strips. It would add an entirely new dimension to the chases -- car disabled, you leap out and pursuit continues on feet in one of those free running chases the game does so well.

I'm slightly disappointed that the HKPD superbikes haven't been utilized in pursuit yet either. I guess they'll need something for the possible sequel.

What would have been really nice: The Government Flying Service.

HKPD said:
The Hong Kong Police Force makes frequent use of the department’s helicopters for a variety of tasks including the movement of personnel, traffic monitoring and communications. Regular patrols are flown with a Marine Police inspector on board, searching for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The three Super Puma L2 helicopters commissioned in 2001 have further strengthened the flying support to the police by providing an increased lifting capability.

With a measly four(!) police cases to undertake, there's a great opportunity for possible DLC and/or the sequel where Wei could tag along doing drug raids on 18k smugglers, etc.

As far as status go, Old Salty Crab and I just did some furniture rearranging.

Useless, but interesting: Even police constables must be fluent in Cantonese and English. Wonder how that would fly in the states.

---

Finn said:
Yeah. It's not like I have a tendency to jump on board the hype train on the first sighting of it, save for special occasions

Speaking of Special Occasions...

Lo the Firebeast!



The Tale of Rock is long and fabled. A journey began four years ago in the Dark Ages of Studio Buyouts and Leverages... and now, simple PC enthusiasts can fight their way from roadie to Rock God!

Even Father Time can't stop The Metal.


If you need a refresher...


Nurhachi1991 said:
Has anyone heard of the game " Whore of the Orient" it's supposedly being developed by Team Bondi the production team that gave us L.A. Noire and it takes place in 1936 Shanghai.

Yes. And a dollar gets you ten that the title ends up getting changed somewhere in the production cycle. Despite the historical allusion to 1930's Shanghai, you just can't market a game with "Whore" in the title. Parents will be uncomfortable buying it for their kids, and the female demographic will be uncomfortable. The Chinese government will decry it as disrespectful as well.

That said, the potential is there. I'll need to see a lot more before I commit to another project by Team Bondi, though. While L.A. Noire was a definite plus, the outfall from the eventual release was enough to turn me off from future releases. Plus, I don't feel like waiting another six years before this sees the light of day.

In the meantime, things to read: Kowloon Tong, the Detective Chen series starting with Death of a Red Heroine, The Shanghai Bund Murders, The Dragon Syndicates, and the Sonchai Jitpleecheep series that begins in Bangkok 8. I would be remiss to not mention The Last Six Million Seconds.
 
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Nurhachi1991

Well-known member
Le Saboteur said:
Despite the historical allusion to 1930's Shanghai, you just can't market a game with "Whore" in the title.



People are to dang sensitive... I'm sure 1936 Shanghai was a real breeze to live in -_- the title sounds gritty and it's more than likely going to be a M rated release so I think they should leave it.



Btw. Do you think with Brutal Legend coming to PC there is a hope a sequel will be made?? I beat it on PS3 and loved it. I'm a huge metal head and the lore/metal imagery in the game was incredible but the game play was so so in my opinion. I wonder if there is going to be new content on the PC version.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Nurhachi1991 said:
People are to dang sensitive... I'm sure 1936 Shanghai was a real breeze to live in -_- the title sounds gritty and it's more than likely going to be a M rated release so I think they should leave it.

It might not have been a breeze, but it was certainly interesting.



Nurhachi1991 said:
Btw. Do you think with Brutal Legend coming to PC there is a hope a sequel will be made?? I beat it on PS3 and loved it. I'm a huge metal head and the lore/metal imagery in the game was incredible but the game play was so so in my opinion. I wonder if there is going to be new content on the PC version.

Beat it on PS3 as well. Played it for a while afterwards trying to find all the dragon statues; thing is, I couldn't help but feel slightly underwhelmed. Everything, and I mean everything, suggested that Brutal Legend was a third-person hack n' slash set in a metal inspired universe. I really wanted to play that game. Instead, an RTS appeared a third of the way in.

I think I even lost my first stage battle because it was completely unexpected. Rather than rally the troops, I attempted to kill everything myself.

I still want that hack n' slash, and Schafer seems to be interested in doing it. If they sell a metric-tonne of copies on PC, they just might be able to afford it.

I might pick up a copy on PC just to support Double Fine (not that they really need it if they can afford office space in a swank part of San Francisco), but I will be picking up the official art book.

So...

An announcement was made today. You might have heard about it.

The Playstation4 is very much alive, and will hit end users Holiday 2013. There's a lot of debate on the system's specs -- they're equal to today's high-end gaming PCs or... they're not --- but they mean absolutely nothing to me.

PS4 said:
8-core 64-bit x86 "Jaguar" CPU built by AMD, with a Radeon GPU comprised of 18 "compute units" capable of cranking out 1.84 TFLOPS to process graphics and more. Its Blu-ray drive -- yes, it will still have one of those -- spins at a brisk 6X (8X for DVDs) and as mentioned on stage, it packs 8GB of unified GDDR5 RAM capable of 176GB/sec of bandwidth. 802.11n WiFi, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI, optical out and even a legacy analog AV out make up the inputs and outputs, although the potential amounts of storage are still unspecified.

Any of the technologically inclined folk care to chime in? A lot of the social networking features I can do without, but we'll see. Though, the first company that requires you to share something for an achievement/trophy gets the game mailed back to them.

There's a lot more out there to digest....
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
Any of the technologically inclined folk care to chime in?
After a bit of due diligence, I've this to say:

As a whole, those components are marginally more powerful than my current setup... which I built two years ago. And it wasn't even exactly state-of-the-art back then, as I went for the balanced solution between budget and computing power. Some might even call it technically the same if they wanted to cut corners and were not willing to measure every inch of those bars in the comparison charts.

The debate will very likely keep raging on, since the answer is essentially yes and no. When we examine the components one by one, some of it is high-end in reality, some is that in name only, and some is not. An 8-core CPU and 8GBs of RAM are pretty much phenomenal for a console. However, their choice of GPU is going to leave plenty of devs and basement eggheads crying for more. It's actually mid-range by modern standards, though likely for a reason. I'll get to that in a bit.

To simply compare the raw iron and leave it at that would be intellectually dishonest. A console can always release more of its juice towards gaming use because there isn't a complex OS and varying amount of other programs running underneath the game. Also, with standardized set of components, the devs know exactly where the limits are, meaning they're far more inclined to push 'em for better optimization.

However, despite that there will still likely be software limitations built within that will heavily constrict the theoretical maximum capacity, due to what we could call packaging. Good gaming PCs come in those sizable cases which have had decoration consultants and feng shui experts tearing their hair out for years. And why? To literally accommodate a plenty of hot air. Take a gander under the hood and you'll quickly notice that more space is required for fans and other cooling solutions than actual components.

gVGzoaZ.png


Now, any console that has been or will be released obviously won't have that big a casing, meaning they can't let the pieces inside run too many calculations per millisecond - they'll fry. Well, very likely they'll eventually fry anyway due to gradual wear, tear and heat spikes over the years, but in order to have their runtime measured in those years rather than mere weeks, the computing power inside has to be utilized laterally. I said 8 cores are phenomenal for a console CPU, but don't go expecting a performance equivalent of an 8-core CPU inside a PC case. To keep them cool enough, they'll have to run around half the juice, meaning they'll have roughly the calculating power of a modern 4-core PC CPU. With the GPU the limitations will likely be even worse.

While that'll still be more than enough to run any modern game - especially since the current-gen consoles manage with even less - I don't expect the leap to the next stage be as mindblowing as it was during the last one. At least if you measure the level of graphics and eye candy. Now, that extra calculating power will still come in handy, allowing the devs to make more complex games than before, so there will be more stuff happening on the screen, with a wider range of animations, actors and other gameplay elements.


To sum it up: It is going to be more than just a marginal upgrade and even a layman will be able to notice the difference - so in that sense, it's not just Sony trying to grub some cash off you with a new version number. But will it be enough to set whole new standards for gaming for the next five years or so? For that, the answer is no. If I have extra 500€ in my pocket by the end of the year, I can easily acquire a few upgrades for a PC setup that will sweep the floor with anything a PS4 can offer.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Finn said:
As a whole, those components are marginally more powerful than my current setup... which I built two years ago...

*snipped to save the lives of defenseless electrons everywhere*

Much obliged. :hat:

I need to ask: What about the so-called gaming PCs? They come in a package that's approximately the size of the current generation of consoles, and seem to do just fine. Since we haven't actually seen the housing, I can't help but imagine that Sony has thought of the requisite governors and are working out... something that allows them to get the most computing power out of the hardware as possible.

On a related note, I find it wildly entertaining that some commentators assume that Micro$oft is now ripping out components from the Next-box in order to be on par or surpass the PS4's offerings. Maybe if they want to be late to market by a year, maybe two.

Finn said:
If I have extra 500? in my pocket by the end of the year, I can easily acquire a few upgrades for a PC setup that will sweep the floor with anything a PS4 can offer.

Yes, obviously. However, with the rumors suggesting that the PS4 will debut @ £200 you'd be wildly overdoing it. Considering that the PS2 is the most successful home console ever, I wonder if Sony will sell it @ a significant loss in order to build up that install base.

j0188.jpg


First, if you haven't played Sleeping Dogs, now's your chance to pick it up for a song. Amazon has slashed the price significantly on it and a several other games including Max Payne 3. Use the code "CAGROCKS" at checkout to save an additional 25% on your item.

Second, while I have been generally been happy with this generation to date, the additional computing power and graphical fidelity would suit Sleeping Dogs spectacularly. Instead of just being a background, Hong Kong could show off its full flavor -- multiple shops on one street that open and close, more buildings to go into, and truly Hong Kong-esque crowds.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
I need to ask: What about the so-called gaming PCs? They come in a package that's approximately the size of the current generation of consoles, and seem to do just fine. Since we haven't actually seen the housing, I can't help but imagine that Sony has thought of the requisite governors and are working out... something that allows them to get the most computing power out of the hardware as possible.
Uh... given the context, am I right to assume that by "gaming PC" you mean those multimedia machines built in mini cases that are being marketed as the ultimate home entertainment solution to stick alongside your home theater?

Well, if a current-gen console can run a contemporary game, there's no reason why they shouldn't. Besides, if it can run a modern game even somewhat reasonably on minimum settings, I'm sure you don't find a single marketing person not afraid to call it a gaming PC.

And similarly, a PS4 should have more than enough juice to run the current stuff and more. What I was simply saying is that I don't expect them to be able to run to the full capacity of the component, as you'd need a full PC-grade cooling solution to achieve that.

On these days of lateral component architecture you can't really say how much you can get out of it by looking at the raw specs alone, because there are several other factors involved, such as provided power supply and cooling solution. I was commenting on the subject using the two reference points I have, that of a smallish home console and full-size PC case. Once we actually see the housing and have more intel on the layout inside it, I'll be able to give a better opinion on how close up to their full potential they can crank it.

Looking at this debate from the outside, it certainly has similar shades as the one we used to have when multi-core PC components started to come out in the mid-2000s. Before that, you could easily measure your CPU by looking at the # of hertzes on a CPU or video RAM on a GPU. Then, out of the blue, people were mighty confused again when 1800 x2 was suddenly better than 3000, or a video card with 512MB was better than one with 768MB, simply because it had more processing units.

But this is all really something for the eggheads to rag against. From a layman's point of view I guess it'll be bit like having a car with half a tank of gas instead of full one - it'll run the same to them, no matter what.

Le Saboteur said:
On a related note, I find it wildly entertaining that some commentators assume that Micro$oft is now ripping out components from the Next-box in order to be on par or surpass the PS4's offerings. Maybe if they want to be late to market by a year, maybe two.
Doesn't seem that far-fetched to me, actually. They're not really soldering anything together by themselves here, but are simply putting together a setup from predesigned, third-party components. Or at least that's what Sony is clearly doing. You can make a plenty of jokes about M$ and their personnel, but I'm sure they'll have enough people who are able to switch a couple of LEGO blocks to ones of different color.

Le Saboteur said:
Yes, obviously. However, with the rumors suggesting that the PS4 will debut @ £200 you'd be wildly overdoing it. Considering that the PS2 is the most successful home console ever, I wonder if Sony will sell it @ a significant loss in order to build up that install base.
Didn't see any price figures, so again I went with the known reference point - the price of PS3 on launch, minus some.

Of course, one shouldn't really be surprised if they decide to cut revenues on the setup itself and hark it back on the increased sales of games themselves. After all, it is the strategy that made X360 the top dog of the current generation.

Le Saboteur said:
Second, while I have been generally been happy with this generation to date, the additional computing power and graphical fidelity would suit Sleeping Dogs spectacularly. Instead of just being a background, Hong Kong could show off its full flavor -- multiple shops on one street that open and close, more buildings to go into, and truly Hong Kong-esque crowds.
Well, no matter the actual ratio of realistic hardware capacity opposed to theoretical one, PS4 as a reference point should be able to bring us closer to that. Unless, of course, the devs rather waste that extra power in putting in additional layers of eye candy, such as adding some extra wrinkles on the main char's face and make his nostrils flare realistically - because, hey, you can get better demos that way.

After all, they were able to give us this in 2006, which was about two generations of PC hardware ago to me:

kTgqFRm.jpg

It's pretty impressive, since that crowd has only about half of those polygons and physics calculations that went into his tie.
 

Nurhachi1991

Well-known member
DiscoLad said:
What have you got now, 'Hach?


I still have it haha but it can't run any new games because its only a core 2 duo /: I could barely run diablo 3 on low.

Hopefully it runs Brutal legend
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Finn said:
Uh... given the context, am I right to assume that by "gaming PC" you mean those multimedia machines built in mini cases that are being marketed as the ultimate home entertainment solution to stick alongside your home theater?

No. I should have written "gaming laptops." This is why you shouldn't watch teevee while typing out messages. Considering they come in similarly sized packages, could Sony borrow some of their design to help out with the thermal dissipation? I ask because there was a post on AMD's blog about the architecture being integrated rather than separate components, which somebody else said would help out with said dissipation.

Anyway, I agree with you. There'll be limits imposed on the hardware to improve its longevity. I just wonder if that self-imposed limitation might be lower than anticipated.

Finn said:
After all, it is the strategy that made X360 the top dog of the current generation.

The past couple of months featured several articles across the trades indicating that the two consoles had reached some sort of parity with ~70-million units sold. Not bad, right? Not until you consider that the PS2 had ~140-million units sold.

Which got me to thinking: Why? The price-point was an obvious deterrent (at least initially), but in looking through the games I own this generation they come from a very narrow spectrum. I would have to dig out my box of PS2 games, but of the ~100 titles I ended up purchasing, they were from a far broader range of ideas. Mad Maestro anyone?
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
No. I should have written "gaming laptops." This is why you shouldn't watch teevee while typing out messages. Considering they come in similarly sized packages, could Sony borrow some of their design to help out with the thermal dissipation? I ask because there was a post on AMD's blog about the architecture being integrated rather than separate components, which somebody else said would help out with said dissipation.
Well, I think I actually answered this question already - twice, in fact. And 'Hachi, perhaps unwittingly, helped too. If you don't know your hardware, you can easily fall prey to marketing and think you actually have worth-its-salt gaming laptop, while in reality you've got nothing that can run a contemporary AAA title. Or you can, but the level of eye candy is going to take you back to the PS2 era. Though that can be harder to notice, given the smaller screen.

But this is actually a minor point. The main one still stands the same: lateral architecture. You stick mighty effective parts under the hood, then place artificial limits on them so you still get mid-range output with less power consumption and heat. (In fact, they do the same, though with lesser effects to desktop components as well, it's why overclocking is such a healthy subculture.) There's something that should be a pretty big giveaway - the price. A good gaming laptop will fetch you quadruple digits in any of the western world's main currencies while you can get a desktop PC with similar capacity from 500 to 800 units.

The reason for this should have become obvious by now. The parts inside the laptop are actually better than the ones stuck into a PC of similar capacity. They've just been choked down to the desktop levels. (This is a huge simplification to be honest, but I'm working hard to keep the readability rated E for everyone.)

Okay, now somebody walks in and asks me to explain that if my laptop's got Core i3 with X hertzes or AMD Xsomething and it's been choked down, why don't I notice any difference between it and my desktop which has similar specs?

The answer is that PC marketers are actually honest here. They tell you the component capacity by their real levels, rather than what you could theoretically get out of the chip. This is because any chump can download a diagnostic software from the web and get the reality after a simple five-minute test. So not giving any theoretical promises is going to save 'em a ton of flak, refunds and calls to support. (This may not, however, stop Mr. Shinesmile on the sales floor of your local appliance store from giving you a faceful of dung, because they know that once they've got the sale, most RMAs will be made directly to the manufacturer.)

Now, what comes to that AMD blog post, well, if they've stuck both the CPU and GPU on the same chip, it's definitely going to save 'em the space of at least one heat sink inside the case, but there'll still be more than enough heat to go around regardless. But like I already said, it's something to review once we have more intel.

Now, I'd definitely be interested to know which specs Sony is giving us at this stage, but in reality it shouldn't really matter in the end. Whether they can squeeze some extra juice out of it or play it safe, it shouldn't matter. It should be a notable leap forward from the current generation regardless. The extra RAM definitely helps with building more complex games and if they've gone for SSD as storage space solution instead of regular spinning disk, that's going to help even more (tl;dr - skip here to get to the meaningful part). But if that turns out to be the case, there's no way those rumors of a 300€-price range hold true. One should never say never, of course, so I guess I'll say "I'll buy it when I see it" instead.

Le Saboteur said:
The past couple of months featured several articles across the trades indicating that the two consoles had reached some sort of parity with ~70-million units sold. Not bad, right? Not until you consider that the PS2 had ~140-million units sold.

Which got me to thinking: Why? The price-point was an obvious deterrent (at least initially), but in looking through the games I own this generation they come from a very narrow spectrum. I would have to dig out my box of PS2 games, but of the ~100 titles I ended up purchasing, they were from a far broader range of ideas. Mad Maestro anyone?
Heh. Yeah. Now, due to my preferences, I stopped playing on consoles a few generations ago, so I've never owned a PS2 but I can still say it truly was the s**t of the prev-gen. The sales of the first Xbox were apparently meager 25 million, so I suppose most people who got that had PS2 right on the side, likely for the very reason you said - not to miss a single game worth playing.

What comes to the lack of innovation in the current gen, I can directly point my finger at the laughably small amount of RAM. 512MB on X360 and 256(!!)MB on PS3. Seriously - what the hell, Sony? No wonder the devs are coming in their pants all across the board thanks to the 8GB announcement.
 
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