Topic: Episode 275: The Pen-and-Paper Podcast

[oohhboy]

A bit late to the party since I am catching up in the podcasts which do end up a little long at times...

Deus Ex gameplay is still very solid despite it's age. The amount of care and detail was unheard of back then and is still far more engaging than a lot of today's games. If you are having issues with how low rez it looks, Give this a try. It is a community HD re-texture of the game. It's one of the many community mods out there. Biomod fixes many gameplay oversights and adds additional gameplay elements not found in the original.

There are texture upgrades for Deus Ex:IW, but nothing fixes how fundamentally flawed that game is. If it wasn't a Deus Ex game it would be average at best, but as one, it's a massive step backwards in every way making it a terrible game.

I haven't played Human Revolution yet and I am waiting on the Mac version which might be Steamplay. But it's being done by Feral who have a history of not going Steamplay(Balls). Based on what I have seen, SE's influence is mostly graphical. It looks very much like Front Mission Evolved with the colour palette and the distinctive Japanese clean texture style(See: MGS, PN5). It doesn't look western.
The Bethesda situation is Bullshit. Reviews are indeed subjective, but it's no reason to throw objectivity out the window and not do analysis on the gameplay fundamentals including it's stability. Giving it GOTY except for PS3 is a cop out in the worse possible way especially since the bugginess was universal enough so it should have disqualified it. You have to ask the question, "If this was any other game, would this be acceptable?".

If games were wine the subjective part would be the taste, the aroma and whatever BS adjectives you use to describe it(Crisp Spring dew). The objective portion would be alcohol content if any(Not wine without it!), contaminants, age, basic chemistry of it, did they **** it up and make vinegar?. It doesn't matter how subjectively good the wine is if a significant % of the bottles aren't wine or poisons you. The same has to be said for games and reviews of them.

It's also naive to take their word when they say we will fix it later. History has shown that they do twist the truth, omit and outright lie or threaten to get a good review and it's not acceptable. Bethesda's situation is worse as they have never lived up to those promises. Bethesda is an entire studio full of Peter Molyneuxs and even as a joke it isn't funny anymore.