Nurhachi1991
Well-known member
I'm no computer dork guys /: wish I was would of saved money.
I hear Alienware gaming PC and I'm like "Oh rad a gaming netbook"
I hear Alienware gaming PC and I'm like "Oh rad a gaming netbook"
Whatcha playin? (Video games wise.)
- Thread starter Agent Crab
- Start date
Le Saboteur
Active member
Come cheer up me lads! 'tis to glory we steer!
First, click here, here, or here. You might even consider here and here.
Repeat as necessary. Once your spirits are sufficiently roused, feel free to proceed.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flags
Yes, that's a real image. Ubisoft president Yves Guillmot announced that the fourth outing in the series will be unleashed upon PS3, X-Box, and Wii U no later than April 2014. No further announcements were made, but an official reveal including the first trailer will be made during the coming week.
After a series of leaks over the past week, it looks like the series will going back in time some sixty years to 1715, the latter half so-called Golden Age of Piracy. It's also just after the War of Spanish Succession, so it'll be interesting how that plays into the narrative.
Kotaku has an image of the Todd Macfarlane illustrated poster here, and the map of the Caribbean that's supposed to be on the flip side.
Despite Havana seemingly off by fifty-odd miles in placement, the map is encouraging. And where's Santiago de Cuba? While I suppose the game could warp you from point-to-point, I am keeping my fingers crossed for naval free-roam.
I need to ask though, why is the main character wearing so much armor? He's going to sink like a damn rock if he goes overboard. A modification of Connor's outfit/uniform/whatever would have been perfectly fine.
First, click here, here, or here. You might even consider here and here.
Repeat as necessary. Once your spirits are sufficiently roused, feel free to proceed.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flags
Yes, that's a real image. Ubisoft president Yves Guillmot announced that the fourth outing in the series will be unleashed upon PS3, X-Box, and Wii U no later than April 2014. No further announcements were made, but an official reveal including the first trailer will be made during the coming week.
After a series of leaks over the past week, it looks like the series will going back in time some sixty years to 1715, the latter half so-called Golden Age of Piracy. It's also just after the War of Spanish Succession, so it'll be interesting how that plays into the narrative.
Kotaku has an image of the Todd Macfarlane illustrated poster here, and the map of the Caribbean that's supposed to be on the flip side.
Despite Havana seemingly off by fifty-odd miles in placement, the map is encouraging. And where's Santiago de Cuba? While I suppose the game could warp you from point-to-point, I am keeping my fingers crossed for naval free-roam.
I need to ask though, why is the main character wearing so much armor? He's going to sink like a damn rock if he goes overboard. A modification of Connor's outfit/uniform/whatever would have been perfectly fine.
Le Saboteur
Active member
Avast there. Ye come seeking adventure and salty old pirates, aye? Maintain a steady course then, matey. This here secret be leakier than a pleasure barge after the doubloons have run out.
Well, it be too late to alter course now lads. Run up yer white flag, batten the hatches, and keep yer ruddy jaw off the floor. Remember: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
There have been five screen shots leaked thus far. This one happens to be my favorite of the bunch. Lots of detail there. Note the telescope on the back, the four single-shot flintlocks, and what looks like a hanger sword or a boarding cutlass.
By all accounts the chaps in for a murdering there are Spanish tercios. Note the white uniform with the red facings. For the life of me though, I can't figure out who the guys in the white uniforms are wigs are. I can't think of a single navy of the period (or ever) that wore white uniforms and powdered wigs while at sea. Early guess: East India Company?
I'll need to dig out my uniform guides.
Well, it be too late to alter course now lads. Run up yer white flag, batten the hatches, and keep yer ruddy jaw off the floor. Remember: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
There have been five screen shots leaked thus far. This one happens to be my favorite of the bunch. Lots of detail there. Note the telescope on the back, the four single-shot flintlocks, and what looks like a hanger sword or a boarding cutlass.
By all accounts the chaps in for a murdering there are Spanish tercios. Note the white uniform with the red facings. For the life of me though, I can't figure out who the guys in the white uniforms are wigs are. I can't think of a single navy of the period (or ever) that wore white uniforms and powdered wigs while at sea. Early guess: East India Company?
I'll need to dig out my uniform guides.
It's obviously something Altair left out when he rewrote the rules.Le Saboteur said:
Looks pretty interesting. Though if it's really going to come out for holidays, I do wonder how good of a game they can whip together in just a year. Because it's obvious this setting was inspired by the hugely positive reaction the naval element of ACIII got. Ubi of course has several fully-manned studios working on it all across the globe so they if anybody have the muscle for it, but still. ACIII was definitely longer in development, but it did feel somewhat rushed regardless. Maybe it was that, maybe it was something else, but even if I had some decent times with it, it never really connected with me.
Now, since we're in the subject of assassins...
I've had a busy period with life and very little time for gaming, but after finishing Holmes a couple of weeks back, I decided to take a gander at Hitman: Absolution. And I've got one thing to say: Boy is it brilliant, at least in my book.
I'm still only a few levels in, but I can see why the people who say Blood Money is by far the best in series might be disliking this. It IS different. It's far more plot-driven, the environments may be slightly more condensed and you do spend more time in traversing from one point to another rather than figuring out how to kill the a-hole of the level. And it's got a tad more of Splinter Cell -like "stay-out-of-sight" stealth rather than the social kind the series is known of. Have no fear though, it does have plenty of the latter, too.
Still, I don't feel the core gameplay has radically changed. It's still based on the very same design idea as its every predecessor. Namely, getting where you want to be is easy. But getting where you want to be and achieving self-satisfactory results is hard. And I guess it's the very reason why it clicks with me. It's exactly as easy or as hard as I want it to be. You can be quick and brutal or approach things with far more meticulousness.
Now, there are some odd design choices. The checkpointing system is a bit wonky, and level scoring has its own logic I've yet to fully grasp. What comes to the much chagrined disguise system, it's actually not as bad as other peoples' impressions made it out to be. Occasionally it does place some limitations on you that feel arbitrary, but in a game like this, it could be taken as yet another puzzle element to figure out.
It's kinda funny, really. I suppose that ultimately, it's a game I perhaps shouldn't be liking this much. But I do. It's got charm, despite a whole bunch of rules that are arguably pretty stupid. But maybe that's it. It's got rules, and you can play by them - or you can exploit them. Sometimes it feels even as if the game deliberately dares you to do so.
And can it do crowds. No background sprites or people that vanish when you turn your back. Yes, they're all there.
Ska
New member
I'm about 25% synced with AC: Revelations and really starting to hate the story and setting. The town is so dusty that you can't see anything. And I have no idea what the end goal of the game is, other than helping out the other assassin's in Constantinople. I guess it's finding the 5 keys, but it doesn't seem to be the main focus.
Oh, and I miss my horse. It takes so long to get from A to B in this one. It seems like every other mission has you jumping from island to island. I'm sick of taking the ferry and/or finding tunnels to get around.
Oh well. I guess you tried to warn me, Finn. But I'm a completionist and needed to play this one before AC: III.
Oh, and I miss my horse. It takes so long to get from A to B in this one. It seems like every other mission has you jumping from island to island. I'm sick of taking the ferry and/or finding tunnels to get around.
Oh well. I guess you tried to warn me, Finn. But I'm a completionist and needed to play this one before AC: III.
Le Saboteur
Active member
Finn said:
Further reading seems to indicate that it's leather, so it's not a deal breaker. There's a picture out there in one of the many, many articles to have sprung up once the embargo was ended that shows Capt. Kenway stripped to the waist while free diving in the Caribbean. Still, very un-pirate-like. Plus, it's hot. The weather, that is. I encourage everybody to put on a pair of leather pants and head to your local sauna. Give it about an hour and you'll see what I mean.
Finn said:
To be fair, one of the promotional videos released in the run up to Assassin's Creed III's launch explicitly mentioned that the naval components were developed by a completely different team. It's been stated multiple times now that Black Flag was under development concurrently; that gives it a nearly three-year dev cycle assuming Ubisoft isn't lying.
Finn said:
The naval aspect earned my interest and subsequently my money. That might be expected, though. In addition to the complete Master & Commander, Hornblower, & Nicholas Ramage series' are such exciting works as: The Prizes of War: The Naval Prize System in the Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815; The Republic's Private Navy: The American Privateering Business as Practiced by Baltimore During the War of 1812; The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down; Blue Water Patriots; Pistols at Ten Paces: The Story of the Code of Honor in America; The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, 660-1649, etc., etc. I've amassed a hefty amount of nautical related tomes over the years.
Sounds exciting, right? Anyway, the point: The setting is right up my alley. I'll plunk down my five bucks to pre-order tomorrow, and see what the coming months bring us.
Finn said:
I can't comment fully, because I still haven't beat it. I'll do that once I've fully exorcised Sleeping Dogs from my system. For now though, the amount of vitriol that the third outing has engendered in nearly every comments section I've come across is astounding. One of my favorite ones amounts to the commentator finding it absolutely incredulous that Connor could know all of "those famous people", but found it perfectly reasonable that Ezio would be best pals with Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo de Medici, and earn the eternal enmity of the Borgias.
Finn said:
I should play it. I really should. I think I'm going to opt for a Sly Cooper next. A break is needed from the open-world games.
How about thieves? I hear they're making a comeback.
Well, like Blackbeard himself alluded in the trailer, Connor's granddaddy is very unusual pirate. I might be jumping to conclusions here, but maybe being an assassin has something to do with it.Le Saboteur said:
Wouldn't be the first time.Le Saboteur said:
Oh, and some more bits to add to the pile of evidence: Connor was regarded as rather bland and unpopular protagonist by the fans of the franchise. Ezio starred in three complete releases, and even Altair got a couple of spin-offs. But now conveniently they decided to switch characters so soon even before getting any fan feedback from the finished product? Doesn't fly. Also, I think the ending of ACIII pretty blatantly implies that it should not have been the last we've seen of Connor. Plenty more liberty to dole out even if the revolution has come to an end.
Regardless, I'm not saying it'll be a turkey. As I already stated, Ubi undoubtedly has the manpower to pull it off even in the given time. But still, the unpolished bits in ACIII kinda do make me wonder if it could be even better with proper development cycle.
Heh, talk about not knowing your history. The point is, all those founding fathers and revolutionary figures mingled in the same circles and knew each other, Connor or no Connor - so if our hero was to enter the same collective, it's actually more than likely that he'd end up running into more than one of 'em. Ezio's who's who of Renaissance times had far more forced convenience in it.Le Saboteur said:
Well, Hitman is very much not one. Even if the player is not tied down to a single linear way of doing things, it's still very much story-driven and follows a tightly-knit sequence. It's bit like a series of puzzle rooms with more than one solution to each. Very unique experience, despite its faults.Le Saboteur said:
Yeah, heard that too. Another franchise rejuvenation to be excited about. Even though I couldn't help noticing how much it initially looks, and even sounds like Dishonored. (Which is yet another title still staring accusingly at me from the backlog.) A city under oppression? Plague? Well, given how the chief designers behind Dishonored were major figures associated with the Thief franchise as well, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to recycle elements from a script they figured would be stuck in limbo for a little while longer.Le Saboteur said:
Incidentally, just like Hitman and Sleeping Dogs (which started out as a True Crime game) - and Deus Ex - it'll be yet another classic franchise that got picked up by a particular publisher, Square Enix. Add to the list the new Tomb Raider reboot (which seems to be creating quite the positive buzz among the hivemind, making it another title to check out) - and you can't help noticing that they're slowly becoming the new gold standard for knowing how to treat an existing IP.
Goodsport
Member
Le Saboteur
Active member
Finn said:
Speaking of un-pirate-like, I commented on the game's Facebook page about how the hood made no sense while at sea. Peripheral vision and all that. Sure, it's now iconic. Historically though, it's out of place. If I'm a grandee/hidalgo/guardsman, I think I'll be paying extra close attention to that guy in the hood. Why? The ever popular "one of these things is not like the other" should suffice.
But that's starting to get into the technical aspects of political murder, and the regular gaming public isn't interested in that.
Finn said:
I, unfortunately, don't know anything about Ubisoft's past business practices. But, somebody brought up a thought that initially crossed my mind: Was this an open world pirate game that was subsequently shoehorned into the Assassin's Creed universe following the success of the naval combat in ACIII?
Finn said:
That's the polite way of putting it apparently. And it isn't hard to see why Ezio was popular: He's wish fulfillment for nerds. Having played through three quarters of his debut, I found him to be the exact opposite. But those are thoughts for another day except to say that I was already well versed in the Renaissance.
Showtime's The Borgias, for example, portrays the machinations, skullduggery, and religiosity of Renaissance Italy infinitely better.
Finn said:
I've mentioned several places where Connor's story could go: The Quasi War between France & the nascent United States; the French Revolution; the War of 1812 would tie everything together quite well, and allow them to bring Aveline(?) de Grandpre into the mix.
Side note: When I heard about New Orleans (& now Havana) being a principle location, I had hoped they would make note of the Spanish practice of coartación. Essentially the legal act of freeing a slave from his or her bondage.
Ned Sublette said:
*-Alejandro O'Reilly was the Irish born Inspector-General for the Infantry of the Spanish Empire and served as the second Spanish governor for colonial Louisiana.
Useless trivia: A daily(?) ferry between New Orleans and Havana existed before the modern trade embargo went into place.
In additional to all the tomes dedicated to the Spanish Empire, piracy, and the politics of the day, there is a wealth of info out there on the slave diaspora. I'll need to root around my library to see what I can find that's worth drinking.
Finn said:
I'll cast a wide net and say that the game succeeds based on the strength of it's blue water territory. If, like in Far Cry 3, there are a finite number of encounters, then the game will fail. Some sort of randomizer for naval engagements and whaling (Yes, whaling!) needs to be implemented.
That reminds me, I sincerely hope that the Far Cry 3 staffers are only allowed to offer cursory advice. If I need to kill two bull sharks to craft a wallet, how many whales do I need to flay in order to craft a sail?
Default us at eight bells.
Finn said:
I would say that they've all been like that. One of the fondest memories of the original was the fact that your subject had a pattern of movement. You could opt to complete your contract at any point during that time. This is something that Assassin's Creed should have learned from.
Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves is fairly similar for a platformer. It's been so long since I first played it, I had forgotten. Each level is filled with many smaller tasks that must be completed before leading up to the final heist. The good news is that it shouldn't take nearly as long to complete.
Finn said:
That they are. Though, I do remember reading somewhere that they weren't happy that Sleeping Dogs wasn't flying off the shelves. Despite this, it still ended up being the top-selling original IP in the UK. I'll be curious to see what the final numbers end up being.
Polygon said:
Grr-ate name!
Last edited:
Nurhachi1991
Well-known member
I'm on a God of War marathon.
I beat Chains of Olympus and GOW, Now I'm on Ghost of Sparta
I beat Chains of Olympus and GOW, Now I'm on Ghost of Sparta
Nurhachi1991
Well-known member
Ghost Of Sparta done.
God of War 2 now
God of War 2 now
Montana Smith
Active member
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis!
But the word "play" doesn't come into the equation.
On the PC it looks ugly, 'plays' awkwardly, and the keyboard controls are terrible.
I gave this one a go years ago, and it lasted on the hard drive for five minutes.
It's lasting longer this time, but its minutes are numbered.
Seems this series only becomes playable from #4 onwards.
But the word "play" doesn't come into the equation.
On the PC it looks ugly, 'plays' awkwardly, and the keyboard controls are terrible.
I gave this one a go years ago, and it lasted on the hard drive for five minutes.
It's lasting longer this time, but its minutes are numbered.
Seems this series only becomes playable from #4 onwards.
Vance
New member
Finn said:
Quick minor point or order on the PS3, the 256MB is per core. It's not so much the lack of memory but the lack of linear adressing on the PS3 is what most developers have an issue with. That's the big reason the PS4 is going to a linear 8G stick.
The PS3 is actually still insanely powerful for a console, but it's core-based archetecture is very complicated, and Sony did a ****-poor job of putting out tools to take advantage of it. This has the result of the 256MB core limit becoming a SYSTEM limit, since the other cores might as well be 'hands off'. Most games STILL don't use more than two cores because of this. Lesson for Sony, powerful hardware doesn't mean squat if no one can adequately develop for it! Hopefully that is one lesson Sony learned for the PS4...
Uh, could you point me to a technical document that says these same things, using these words or close?Vance said:
Because all the ones I've seen have been pretty plain about it. PS3 has two physical RAM units, both capping at 256MB. One of them is dedicated for general system operations, other one for the GPU, even if it can piggypack over to the general side, exceeding the video capacity over that, but not the other way around. So yes, one could say that PS3, just like X360 actually has 512MB total, but the theoretical capacity for general memory operations is still only half of that.
And also, I'm aware that the XDR variety of general RAM Sony uses actually has better operations capacity than the DDR variety found in most computers (and X360) at the time, but it still caps at 256MB. So in a sense, it's a bit like filling a bucket with either a garden or a fire hose. With the latter, the bucket fills it up faster, sure, but it still can't hold any more water.
Not that MS fared much better. 512MB is also a laughably small amount for modern considerations - and as I said, that is only the theoretical capacity as standard memory and the graphics variety share the stick. But at least it offers a bit more flexibility than Sony's solution. Also, I suppose having 512MB (or even 256MB) was actually quite adequate back in 2007, but neither manufacturer didn't really take Moore's law into account here.
Now, maybe this is what you were actually saying, simply pointing out the difference in performance using a bit different words. But I still think it's a moot point here, as the RAM capacity of PS4 will still be 16x larger than that of its predecessor, and it's very much this increase in capacity that's got the devs jumping up and down in glee, not the difference in architecture or something else. Since my words were a simplifaction to a layman in the first place, it's all they need to understand.
Nurhachi1991
Well-known member
ENGLISH DOC!!
seriously what the heck are you guys talking about? 256 mb cores? huh
seriously what the heck are you guys talking about? 256 mb cores? huh
Vance
New member
Finn said:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/playstation-three1.htm
Like I said, it's a very weird set-up. Each core has a memory cache on it which is used to boost performance of that core. Unfortunately that memory can only be accessed when you're invoking the core for processing... so you ship it from the main 256MB layout to the 256K (big difference, yes) for a seperate process to handle.
Pain in the ass, really. This was one big issue Bethesda Softworks constantly ran into in their engine, which was designed around linear memory addressing rather than making a 'virtual block' for their database (which can easily can fit into 256Ks block for shifting around). Thinking of memory in 'modules' like that is so early 1990s that most developers have difficulty getting their heads around it now.
Sony apparently went to Bethesda Softworks in person to get their database engine handled in this kind of block, allowing for Skyrim's addons to finally be available.
Console-primary developers, though, have had that limitation all along. This is why the 'we can't handle the archetecture' arguments come most notably from formerly PC-only developers (like Bioware and Bethesda Softworks) who have enjoyed linear memory addressing since the advent of Windows 95 or DOS 6.
(All of this dates me pretty well, using 64K modules was ingained in me for a long time...)
<small>Pardon us, 'Hachi. We will resume our regular programming in a more comprehensible language within moments.</small>
Yes, the CPU on a PS3 is a bit unorthodox when compared to more common CPUs (which, incidentally, also have memory caches so nothing revolutionary there), but its design with its 256KB- cache per core still has no bearing to the capacity of the separate Random-Access Memory - which is said 256MB, adequate in 2007, laughably small in the current decade.
Seriously, I thought that a tech-savvy person could easily make out the difference by looking at the abbreviations used. KB stands for a kilobyte, MB for a megabyte, which would seriously be one monster of a cache built within a CPU, even more so if there were multiple for each core. Computers 101 stuff, really.
Uh... this describes the architecture of the PS3 CPU. I've been talking all time about its general RAM, which is a wholly different component. You know, this compared to this? (Yes, I know those are PC components. But PS3 has equivalents.)Vance said:
Yes, the CPU on a PS3 is a bit unorthodox when compared to more common CPUs (which, incidentally, also have memory caches so nothing revolutionary there), but its design with its 256KB- cache per core still has no bearing to the capacity of the separate Random-Access Memory - which is said 256MB, adequate in 2007, laughably small in the current decade.
Seriously, I thought that a tech-savvy person could easily make out the difference by looking at the abbreviations used. KB stands for a kilobyte, MB for a megabyte, which would seriously be one monster of a cache built within a CPU, even more so if there were multiple for each core. Computers 101 stuff, really.
Last edited:
Nurhachi1991
Well-known member
I don't know anything about those gadget's I'm just a dumb guitar player my good sir
Le Saboteur
Active member
Vance said:
See: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, God of War III & Ascension, and other latter day exclusives. Between the consoles, it was obviously the more powerful of the three. It even holds its own when up against modern PC rigs as is evidenced by this Tomb Raider comparison video. It requires the developer to pay attention to the PS3's architecture.
Nurhachi1991 said:
Prepare for a life of employment @ the House of Mouse (that was inspired by a rabbit). I have found Digital Foundry to be a very good place to start over the years. They do an excellent job at breaking things down if you're willing to invest the time and attention.
*-If you can find the video of Drake's Deception running @ sixty frames per second, do so. It's spectacular.
And if anybody is interested, DF's breakdown of the PS4's specifications is worth a read. Especially this bit.
Digital Foundry said:
IN other news, I opted to forgo the latest Sim City given the insistence on the "always on-line" aspect, and the incredibly dismal launch. Instead, I opted for the perennially popular Tropico series. Haemimont & Kalypso have done a great job in moving the series forward, and being able to pick up the entire fourth outing including all the DLC for ten bucks is a fantastic deal.
I've acquired an interest in civic & urban planning over the years, and I like to see how well my own plans in urban development come about. The minutia of Sim City (no power & sewer lines to monitor) is noticeably absent, but everything else is on equal footing. Plus, El Presidente Por Viva is so much better than Mayor.
In addition to Tropico 4: Modern Times I've added Tomb Raider and God of War: Ascension to the ever growing backlog. Fortunately, there are only two more titles of note until October.
Vance
New member
Finn said:
Yes, but the PS3 was designed to blast 'chunks' of RAM into each core, which is how Intel's CELL structure works. THAT is the stumbling block most developers run into. To do it effectively you have to take a 256K block out of your main memory and blast it to a core. If you're doing your coding expecting full linearity ... well, you get issues like Skyrim.
It's possible to open up a core just to use the 256K for other purposes, of course. As I said, when used for graphics that amount is laughably small, but most games' DATABASE code will come to far less than that (or at least SHOULD with good design).
I already admitted to mistyping that one...