if graphic changes are so important, you KNOW that the E3 demo and the final product VERY RARELY are the same . If theres a lesson to learn here is not to pre-order, i dont get why you would pre buy something when you only have 1 video of eyecandy , no reviews and still in development, it boggles my mind.
Unless its from a well known studio that produces quality everytime, but those are rare nowadays.
You know if there's one thing I've learnt lately it's that I very much get annoyed whenever I see "Lazy Dev" splattered around the net. That latest Kotaku article mocking the reflections brought out a lot of smart asses who think these things are there cause the devs are sitting on their bums and sleeping.
Oh well, way of the world I guess.
Anyway while I don't support the method of showing off a fancy prototype I accept it's part of the industry and our lovely gamer base just loves to start a noisy drama. The game has a lot of hard work put into it and at the very least it can be respected in that regard.
What I've seen in reviews, while it has some great mechanics, it hasn't been sold to me sadly. Could also be because I wore myself out with GTA5 and need a break. But kudos to the team for finishing and making it the best selling game for Ubi!
Most people that buy watch dogs probably didnt even see the E3 trailer
The internet moaners are a tiny and very vocal minority.....The average guy or girl doesent even register that they exist, theyll buy watch dogs because their mates said it was good, they saw an advert or a trailer, saw it was top of the charts, or maybe read a review or watched a playthrough.
Its very easy to be convinced by the wall of hate that the internet fanboys create, but actually, step back a bit, and no one gives a shit at all as long as the base game is good.
Sounds like in the broader view that Ubisoft have made a good game, and I hope it sells loads.
Well, I just finished the game. Final play time was around 26 hours but there's still a lot left to do as I basically stopped doing side missions after Act 2 to finish the story mode since it picks up in intensity and doesn't stop until the end. The last few missions of the game were absolutely insane, they had to have been a programmer's nightmare. Every single dynamic system in the game basically comes together to create some really epic moments (and some insanely difficult police chases.)
I won't spoil anything but I found the ending to be very enjoyable. It's ridiculous how much work went into this game (judging from the insanely long 30 minute credits alone) I really hope it brought in the necessary amount of profits to justify a sequel. I would really love to see a Watch Dogs 2 set in a new city in the world also. It'd be cool to see some action in a different country, but I'll settle for New York City also!
Overall, I'd probably stick with my score of a 9.5/10, the biggest complaints about the game are pretty minor. The music selection while driving is awful in my opinion, the Watch Dogs soundtrack is very well made, I was hoping they would just let me listen to some of the songs from that but unfortunately it wasn't offered.
There were some minor AI bugs also, some of them were quite funny. I stole a car to get away from the police and instead of pulling the driver out, Aiden just sat in the driver's seat while the original driver continued to float next to the car. I suppose the fact that the police can't enter the water (other than helicopter snipers) could be considered a gameplay issue, but I think adding support for that would require some serious changes to some of the later missions where you have to run away from high ranking police alerts. One of the final missions requires you to do this and I tried for about an hour to do it with a car until I gave up and just hopped in a boat, got away from them within seconds.
The other minor flaw I have is the lack of weapon customization. Generally speaking, I prefer going into situations using stealth, but the only silenced weapon in the game is the handgun they give you on the first level. It's a powerful weapon and I actually used it for at least 80% of the main story, but it would be nice to have other silenced options.
The things I really loved about the game were the amazing story (that makes me wonder about the direction our own world is headed), the great voice acting, freedom of gameplay, the convenient gameplay mechanics such as fast travel and the car app, and the incredibly enjoyable hacking feature.
In the possible sequel, I would hope to see some changes to the current mechanics. I think it would be pretty awesome if there were other rogue hackers located within the city that could also trigger off some of the hack events that you could. These could happen randomly and create some interesting moments of chaos. It would also be nice to see a more fleshed out approach to melee combat. Takedowns are enjoyable but I really like the system that is in place in some of the newer Splinter Cell games where performing a takedown on an enemy allows you to execute a separate group of enemies.
The art is really enjoyable too, and it was nice to see some of the work of various Polycounters in the game. The level in T-Bone's scrapyard with the traps was great! I think people complaining about the game had a serious overreaction, even at the lowest settings there are environments in the game that make me stop and admire the art. This game also has the nicest looking water I've ever seen! Watch Dogs is definitely worth a purchase if you enjoy open world games at all (even if you don't like them, you might still like this game. I almost never enjoy open world games.)
Anybody that worked on this should be very proud!
EDIT: So apparently there are other silenced weapons, I just missed them because I stopped doing sidequests -_-
I don't see what the issue is here. I, along with many others, pre-ordered the game and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I'm at a little under 20 hours of play time now (gotta love time off!) and I'm about halfway through the game I think.
I really love how the singleplayer blends in with the multiplayer. I was going to a mission location to start the next part of the story and somebody randomly tried hacking into my game, of course they slipped up and accidentally ran past me so it was quite easy to gun them down.
On a side note, one of the final missions in Act 2 has one of the most enjoyable shootouts I've seen in a game, it's right up there with the last level of Max Payne 3 in my book!
The idea of pre ordering is bullshit. You are paying for product you can't possibly say is good or not. You are doing it because people in Ubis marketing told you it's worth. Maybe it is a good game. It means that this time you won in this lottery. Why do you spend money on lottery when you can spend it responsibly by just waiting for confirmation it's worth spending money on ?
You can say that it's your money you are spending and it's your problem. Totally agree. The problem is you are showing those companies that they can sell you anything just by creating hype train.
The idea of pre ordering is bullshit. You are paying for product you can't possibly say is good or not. You are doing it because people in Ubis marketing told you it's worth. Maybe it is a good game. It means that this time you won in this lottery. Why do you spend money on lottery when you can spend it responsibly by just waiting for confirmation it's worth spending money on ?
You can say that it's your money you are spending and it's your problem. Totally agree. The problem is you are showing those companies that they can sell you anything just by creating hype train.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game.
That's not entirely the case though, I think. I've been playing games for many years (like many others) so I know the type of things that interest me and the type of things that don't.
I always see people talking bad about pre-orders but I've never understood it. If I see content of a game and I enjoy it, what's wrong with pre-ordering? A lot of the time, you'll get better prices and extra content as an added bonus to a game that may already interest you. I got the game for $45 and an exclusive costume for pre-ordering. If I pre-ordered two days earlier I could have gotten the game for around $39 from the same retailer.
I've seen pre-orders for Watch Dogs get as low as $25 too, for certain regions. If you make a purchase afterwards, sure you can look at reviews or get other people's opinions, but then you have to hope that opinions aren't biased and at the same time, you'll end up paying more.
Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, but out of the many games I've pre-ordered over the years, the only one I have ever regretted was Call of Duty:Ghosts, and to be fair, I only regretted it because the game was taken over by cheaters after a month (which is info that many people in reviews tend to leave out.)
In the past I remember getting some better bonuses for pre-ordering. When I pre-ordered Final Fantasy X many years back, I remember my local Gamestop was running a promotion where they allowed me to pick two games of my choice from a giant bin as a bonus. I ended up walking out with a free copy of Mystic Heroes (Dynasty Warriors clone) and Timesplitters 2, a game from a franchise I previously didn't even know existed, that ended up being one of the best games I've ever played.
Plus, there's the fact that every major game almost always gets leaked out early, so there's always a plethora of gameplay on the internet posted at least a week before a game gets released.
I entered 2 peoples game and stole their data. They were running around like headless chickens while i casually hid behind something small and occasionally hacked something to distract them from running into me
one time I had to watch someone to gather some intel on him, he popped into two gun stores so it was quite easy,I just had to tail him carefully between each store. About 90% through he comes out of the second gun store and takes my car! he literally pulls me out of it and drives off. He got about 20 feet before i had gathered all the intel i needed and we parted ways :P it was awesome!
Since this has come up in this thread a lot, here's my golden rule to pre-orders:
Pre-Order ifand only if you would want to play the game even if it sucks. Obviously this won't happen often but you might be invested in an IP, or just want to play something for the art style, or because of who worked on it... anything like that.
Following this is a simple way to avoid disappointment.
Mine is if there's a review embargo, maybe wait a bit until the dust settles. Only reason for an embargo is to protect sales and hide issues from preorder/online customers. Games aren't necessarily bad but it's usually due to something. Like batman origins, tomb raider etc. not bad games, actually really good but not perfect enough for consumer confidence.
Looking forward to picking this up today with wolfenstein
Only reason for an embargo is to protect sales and hide issues from preorder/online customers.
That's really not accurate at all. It's used extensively to ensure that there's lots of 'noise' on the day of release - or very close to release.
Nintendo is pretty well known for having odd embargos; like with MK8 - the reviews hit early but you weren't allowed to stick up any extensive video footage (in fact I think outlets were only allowed to use B-roll footage supplied...?). So the result of that was that mainstream media/newspapers reviewed it early, and then in the run up to release were writing articles like, "Will Mario Kart 8 Revive the Wii U?". If I worked in marketing for Nintendo that would displease me, the coverage of the game on day one wasn't the amazing review, but an ed op piece on whether it's enough to save the console. Not great.
So take some big releases of 2013, GTAV's embargo was the day before, Bioshock Infinite was... either one or two days before or on the day too? Really not used to 'hide' things.
Now if the publisher isn't sending out review copies at all then there's probably something being hidden. :P
Sorry I should of elaborated a bit more, I meant more on day of release, embargos are important to fit with their marketing and stuff I know, but if there's a review written and ready to go and you can't read it until the games already in the post or downloading or whatever, then I get worried. That's not to fit in with marketing, that's more damage control in my eyes, it doesn't make me angry though haha, just a bit sceptical. But hey, it doesn't happen all the time, but most of the time it's because the game has an issue and they want to protect their sales.
I remember tomb raider not allowing any scores under 8 to be published on launch weekend, batman origins I think was a release day review aswell, which reviews were good but not great due to the gameplay being too similar. Both fantastic games!!! It's all about making as much money as possible which is smart. Same thing here, they knew it would get a bit of bad press so, embargo.
Games actually really good aswell haha. I didn't get the hype for this due to the bland character designs but there's some real nice art and tech going on.
Looks amazing, it apparently makes performance better. Obviously gamers all speculating they intentionally made the PC version look worse than it could to not disrupt sales on consoles or something of that nature
Wow...just wow...yeah they are trying to keep the visuals closer together but keeping such massive improvements completly away. But for lack of a proof i would maybe assume the features were just not ready for primtime.
Also they probably figured out that always-on-DOF is only good for sexy demos and not actually playing a game.. And in general its better to turn of features that are not working 100% than to keep them in, otherwise people would be bitching about the extra bugs they cause instead : )
Well, but would it be really a problem to notify the user that these features could cause performance or stability issues and should be enabled at one's own risk?
I'm pretty sure I've seen games with "you better know what you're doing" kind of settings available via game menu.
I mean, I can't see how leaving some way for average user to enable that stuff would make people bitch more than they are doing currently.
Ironically this really makes me want to get the game now - just for the fun of playing with these settings.
It goes without saying that the DOF effect shown here is way too strong, but it is also extremely well done and it makes me curious about the other lens simulation tricks they have going on.
Now of course a simulated in-camera look can indeed be very distracting for gameplay (I found BF3 to be very annoying in that regard : my eyes do NOT see the world like a Gopro !) but if applied sparingly it can really look stunning, as done in MGS5 for instance.
this could be the first game that the actual mod makes me want to buy, its ok they dumbed down a bit, its dumb they dumbed down this much:( heck now it looks beautiful!!
Ironically this really makes me want to get the game now - just for the fun of playing with these settings.
It goes without saying that the DOF effect shown here is way too strong, but it is also extremely well done and it makes me curious about the other lens simulation tricks they have going on.
Now of course a simulated in-camera look can indeed be very distracting for gameplay (I found BF3 to be very annoying in that regard : my eyes do NOT see the world like a Gopro !) but if applied sparingly it can really look stunning, as done in MGS5 for instance.
I agree, it looks better but they went too far with the DOF, some of it is starting to look like miniature land. DOF works pretty well in screen shots but it could be really annoying to play with, especially if you don't have any kind of dynamic control over the DOF. Players could be trying to focus on an area but the DOF is focused on something else.
Did his shadow always have a gun drawn in other parts of the game?
Still, I think that it's awesome when games have a photo mode giving full control on that kind of settings. Also sometimes it's great fun to simply walk around slowly in a game or engine tech demo with lens effects cranked up - like a movie director ! I think there can be a lot of creative uses for this, already shown by gamers recreating movie trailers with a console version of GTAV.
As a matter of fact it could be argued that the Watch_Dogs ingame cinematics themselves could benefit from the unlocked effects. I wouldn't say the effect makes the game look like a miniature world (which is a slightly different look) ; to me it looks more like a natural 50mm lens sharply focused on the subject, like some art house movies do (Upstream Color comes to mind).
Also, I would love to have the ability to blur the character instead of the background. Now of course it would never feel right gameplay-wise (I am all for games being crystal clear, and I really dislike any kind of 'cinematic' motion blur) but it could open up the possibility to take very lifelike screenshots.
coincidence?
'A game that revolves around a world of hacking, & you have to hack the game to make it look better'
If so, that's a new way of marketing a game... o.O
pior, yea "photo-mode" I love that kind of stuff, I'm such a tourist with about every game I play, ha. My tourist tendencies often run counter to the goals of the game, but I think there might be some limited uses during gameplay? The problem is finding out where the player is looking and focusing on that. Maybe they could use the Kinect or Oculus to do that? People might actually pick up a kinect if it unlocked amazing features.
In the video posted above the DOF is cranked up pretty high but it looks pretty good most of the time. Still there are times that I wanted to focus on something else (like the foreground/background example of yours) and couldn't. Which is forgivable when I watch someone else play but would be frustrating if I was playing. Still I think it has some limited functionality and could really make for some awesome cinematic scenes or any scene that has specific camera movements.
As for Ubi gimping up the PC version, it looks like the lowest common denominator won out again. That's pretty common for PC titles these days.
I really don't expect them to give any preferential treatment to the PC crowd it already gets cheaper copies and a boost like this would just weaken the new console market, that is already suffering from poor adoption rates. In their view higher PC sales just means more piracy, why reward pirates, they should reward customers.
Sadly they made the game for where the majority of gamers are still at, ancient console hardware. If they had cut off the old consoles they probably would have turned up a lot of the settings but then lost a lot in sales. I think a better option would have been to tailor it to each console and give players control over some of the settings (I would love that), but a lot of people would probably cook their console or mediocre PC and be super pissed.
Of course I don't know what kind of internal or external pressure they where under. I do trust them to make the best game for the widest range of players possible, I still bristle at the idea that some armchair developer would have made all the right calls when they don't have all of the information.
Crysis and Witcher 2 were released with settings that couldn't be maxed out on current hardware at the time of release, and no one really complained (of course there was some "I spent $2000 on my computer and still can't max it"). Those higher settings do make the game worth coming back to once you get a new graphics card. It would have been cool to see those features listed under extra features or something. I'm sure people would be really excited if Ubisoft announced there would still be the E3 graphics settings in the game that could be enabled before it was discovered.
As for Ubi gimping up the PC version, it looks like the lowest common denominator won out again. That's pretty common for PC titles these days.
I really don't expect them to give any preferential treatment to the PC crowd it already gets cheaper copies and a boost like this would just weaken the new console market, that is already suffering from poor adoption rates. In their view higher PC sales just means more piracy, why reward pirates, they should reward customers.
see here's the thing, as a PS4 owner, and Watchdogs (PS4) owner, when i see this stuff on the pc it really makes me think "i wonder how many of those files are sitting, unused, on my Bluray disc". It makes me wonder whether the PS4 version was likewise unnecessarily gimped.
Watchdogs is probably one of the prime examples of WHY adoption rates for the new consoles are "so low". Why bother picking up a next gen console when your favorite/most wanted game is also available on last gen and they look the same?
Ubisoft have raised an important question here - as well as Steam/Valve have. Are consoles really the best experience / platform? I could get a laptop that easily beats the XBoxOne and PS4 and all it requires is an HDMI link to the TV and a controller.
Is it a monopoly? Is Steam trying to diverge the market from brands to games?
see here's the thing, as a PS4 owner, and Watchdogs (PS4) owner, when i see this stuff on the pc it really makes me think "i wonder how many of those files are sitting, unused, on my Bluray disc". It makes me wonder whether the PS4 version was likewise unnecessarily gimped.
Watchdogs is probably one of the prime examples of WHY adoption rates for the new consoles are "so low". Why bother picking up a next gen console when your favorite/most wanted game is also available on last gen and they look the same?
It probably is, in order to deliver one universal experience across platforms they gimped every version to the lowest common denominator which was the PS3-360 hardware, where all of the customers are.
Its been happening for a very very long time. PC gamers are well versed in this. It's been pretty pointless to build a high end PC because all games have been gimped to 360 specs. Sadly it's also pointless to get a new console for the same reason.
They could have cut off the old consoles and probably bumped up the specs but they would have lost out on a lot of sales. New consoles are here, there are new games on them but that doesn't mean all of the customers are on the newer hardware.
The dev team is completely dedicated to getting the most out of each platform, so the notion that we would actively downgrade quality is contrary to everything we’ve set out to achieve. We test and optimize our games for each platform on which they’re released, striving for the best possible quality. The PC version does indeed contain some old, unused render settings that were deactivated for a variety of reasons, including possible impacts on visual fidelity, stability, performance and overall gameplay quality. Modders are usually creative and passionate players, and while we appreciate their enthusiasm, the mod in question (which uses those old settings) subjectively enhances the game’s visual fidelity in certain situations but also can also have various negative impacts. Those could range from performance issues, to difficulty in reading the environment in order to appreciate the gameplay, to potentially making the game less enjoyable or even unstable. Thanks for playing Watch Dogs and believing in our vision. Stay safe on the mean streets of Chicago.
Would it be possible that the graphics of Watch Dogs were (downgraded) locked down to lower settings on PC simply because of the parity clause once established by Microsoft/Xbox?
Ya but that will look like a big fuck you to the consumer if found out wouldn't it? Not trying to sound like the PC gamer master race here but high end computers cost way more than consoles, and are capable of much more.
So if the game is capable of using that power like Watch Dogs without the artificial Limits, I would be left feeling pretty fucking ripped off, if i get prevented from getting that quality. Considering it isn't real limitations but is a artificial limitation placed on the game due to politics.
Though we really shouldn't look at this as malice since most of the time things like this are just arrogance.
Though really it is expected now, people develop for low spec, and the DOF is too mcuh with the settings unlocked, cant see shit unless it is press against your nose.
Ya but that will look like a big fuck you to the consumer if found out wouldn't it? Not trying to sound like the PC gamer master race here but high end computers cost way more than consoles, and are capable of much more.
So if the game is capable of using that power like Watch Dogs without the artificial Limits, I would be left feeling pretty fucking ripped off, if i get prevented from getting that quality. Considering it isn't real limitations but is a artificial limitation placed on the game due to politics.
Though we really shouldn't look at this as malice since most of the time things like this are just arrogance.
Though really it is expected now, people develop for low spec, and the DOF is too mcuh with the settings unlocked, cant see shit unless it is press against your nose.
Give it a few weeks longer for the modders to fix that.
Though it's more like they've showed what the game can do, advertised it as game footage (which it was, despite it in development and subject to change ofc) then cutting out those features as there unstable, which the modders are now fixing.
really it could be a simple as they were wanted features, but time constraints didn't allow of those to be tested and deemed stable enough for release.
Any of you playing watch dogs on pc? I have a new rig ( i5 4.2ghz gtx 760) and it stutters quite a lot no matter how high or low my graphics settings are and I dont have anything much running in the background. If I set it to ultra then the stuttering gets a lot more obvious but its still there even on low...this seems like a really big deal because the game isnt really very playable. Tried theworsemod and texture mod it looks cool but doesnt fix the issue.
just grabbed this on xb one, having not seen much more than the average person before release. going into it pretty fresh. seems pretty cool so far, driving around in the inside view of cars is neat. runs silky smooth on xb one so far.
Replies
Unless its from a well known studio that produces quality everytime, but those are rare nowadays.
which do you think there are?
Thanks, NegevPro, for the information
Oh well, way of the world I guess.
Anyway while I don't support the method of showing off a fancy prototype I accept it's part of the industry and our lovely gamer base just loves to start a noisy drama. The game has a lot of hard work put into it and at the very least it can be respected in that regard.
What I've seen in reviews, while it has some great mechanics, it hasn't been sold to me sadly. Could also be because I wore myself out with GTA5 and need a break. But kudos to the team for finishing and making it the best selling game for Ubi!
The internet moaners are a tiny and very vocal minority.....The average guy or girl doesent even register that they exist, theyll buy watch dogs because their mates said it was good, they saw an advert or a trailer, saw it was top of the charts, or maybe read a review or watched a playthrough.
Its very easy to be convinced by the wall of hate that the internet fanboys create, but actually, step back a bit, and no one gives a shit at all as long as the base game is good.
Sounds like in the broader view that Ubisoft have made a good game, and I hope it sells loads.
I just think it was funny that they pulled that loss santos stab in their ads a while ago and the game came no where near GTA
indeed, a dude named anonymous posting info that is really easy traceable to him? sounds very unlikely.
I won't spoil anything but I found the ending to be very enjoyable. It's ridiculous how much work went into this game (judging from the insanely long 30 minute credits alone) I really hope it brought in the necessary amount of profits to justify a sequel. I would really love to see a Watch Dogs 2 set in a new city in the world also. It'd be cool to see some action in a different country, but I'll settle for New York City also!
Overall, I'd probably stick with my score of a 9.5/10, the biggest complaints about the game are pretty minor. The music selection while driving is awful in my opinion, the Watch Dogs soundtrack is very well made, I was hoping they would just let me listen to some of the songs from that but unfortunately it wasn't offered.
There were some minor AI bugs also, some of them were quite funny. I stole a car to get away from the police and instead of pulling the driver out, Aiden just sat in the driver's seat while the original driver continued to float next to the car. I suppose the fact that the police can't enter the water (other than helicopter snipers) could be considered a gameplay issue, but I think adding support for that would require some serious changes to some of the later missions where you have to run away from high ranking police alerts. One of the final missions requires you to do this and I tried for about an hour to do it with a car until I gave up and just hopped in a boat, got away from them within seconds.
The other minor flaw I have is the lack of weapon customization. Generally speaking, I prefer going into situations using stealth, but the only silenced weapon in the game is the handgun they give you on the first level. It's a powerful weapon and I actually used it for at least 80% of the main story, but it would be nice to have other silenced options.
The things I really loved about the game were the amazing story (that makes me wonder about the direction our own world is headed), the great voice acting, freedom of gameplay, the convenient gameplay mechanics such as fast travel and the car app, and the incredibly enjoyable hacking feature.
In the possible sequel, I would hope to see some changes to the current mechanics. I think it would be pretty awesome if there were other rogue hackers located within the city that could also trigger off some of the hack events that you could. These could happen randomly and create some interesting moments of chaos. It would also be nice to see a more fleshed out approach to melee combat. Takedowns are enjoyable but I really like the system that is in place in some of the newer Splinter Cell games where performing a takedown on an enemy allows you to execute a separate group of enemies.
The art is really enjoyable too, and it was nice to see some of the work of various Polycounters in the game. The level in T-Bone's scrapyard with the traps was great! I think people complaining about the game had a serious overreaction, even at the lowest settings there are environments in the game that make me stop and admire the art. This game also has the nicest looking water I've ever seen! Watch Dogs is definitely worth a purchase if you enjoy open world games at all (even if you don't like them, you might still like this game. I almost never enjoy open world games.)
Anybody that worked on this should be very proud!
EDIT: So apparently there are other silenced weapons, I just missed them because I stopped doing sidequests -_-
The idea of pre ordering is bullshit. You are paying for product you can't possibly say is good or not. You are doing it because people in Ubis marketing told you it's worth. Maybe it is a good game. It means that this time you won in this lottery. Why do you spend money on lottery when you can spend it responsibly by just waiting for confirmation it's worth spending money on ?
You can say that it's your money you are spending and it's your problem. Totally agree. The problem is you are showing those companies that they can sell you anything just by creating hype train.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game.
I always see people talking bad about pre-orders but I've never understood it. If I see content of a game and I enjoy it, what's wrong with pre-ordering? A lot of the time, you'll get better prices and extra content as an added bonus to a game that may already interest you. I got the game for $45 and an exclusive costume for pre-ordering. If I pre-ordered two days earlier I could have gotten the game for around $39 from the same retailer.
I've seen pre-orders for Watch Dogs get as low as $25 too, for certain regions. If you make a purchase afterwards, sure you can look at reviews or get other people's opinions, but then you have to hope that opinions aren't biased and at the same time, you'll end up paying more.
Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, but out of the many games I've pre-ordered over the years, the only one I have ever regretted was Call of Duty:Ghosts, and to be fair, I only regretted it because the game was taken over by cheaters after a month (which is info that many people in reviews tend to leave out.)
In the past I remember getting some better bonuses for pre-ordering. When I pre-ordered Final Fantasy X many years back, I remember my local Gamestop was running a promotion where they allowed me to pick two games of my choice from a giant bin as a bonus. I ended up walking out with a free copy of Mystic Heroes (Dynasty Warriors clone) and Timesplitters 2, a game from a franchise I previously didn't even know existed, that ended up being one of the best games I've ever played.
Plus, there's the fact that every major game almost always gets leaked out early, so there's always a plethora of gameplay on the internet posted at least a week before a game gets released.
I entered 2 peoples game and stole their data. They were running around like headless chickens while i casually hid behind something small and occasionally hacked something to distract them from running into me
one time I had to watch someone to gather some intel on him, he popped into two gun stores so it was quite easy,I just had to tail him carefully between each store. About 90% through he comes out of the second gun store and takes my car! he literally pulls me out of it and drives off. He got about 20 feet before i had gathered all the intel i needed and we parted ways :P it was awesome!
Pre-Order if and only if you would want to play the game even if it sucks. Obviously this won't happen often but you might be invested in an IP, or just want to play something for the art style, or because of who worked on it... anything like that.
Following this is a simple way to avoid disappointment.
Looking forward to picking this up today with wolfenstein
That's really not accurate at all. It's used extensively to ensure that there's lots of 'noise' on the day of release - or very close to release.
Nintendo is pretty well known for having odd embargos; like with MK8 - the reviews hit early but you weren't allowed to stick up any extensive video footage (in fact I think outlets were only allowed to use B-roll footage supplied...?). So the result of that was that mainstream media/newspapers reviewed it early, and then in the run up to release were writing articles like, "Will Mario Kart 8 Revive the Wii U?". If I worked in marketing for Nintendo that would displease me, the coverage of the game on day one wasn't the amazing review, but an ed op piece on whether it's enough to save the console. Not great.
So take some big releases of 2013, GTAV's embargo was the day before, Bioshock Infinite was... either one or two days before or on the day too? Really not used to 'hide' things.
Now if the publisher isn't sending out review copies at all then there's probably something being hidden. :P
I remember tomb raider not allowing any scores under 8 to be published on launch weekend, batman origins I think was a release day review aswell, which reviews were good but not great due to the gameplay being too similar. Both fantastic games!!! It's all about making as much money as possible which is smart. Same thing here, they knew it would get a bit of bad press so, embargo.
Games actually really good aswell haha. I didn't get the hype for this due to the bland character designs but there's some real nice art and tech going on.
+!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838538
Looks amazing, it apparently makes performance better. Obviously gamers all speculating they intentionally made the PC version look worse than it could to not disrupt sales on consoles or something of that nature
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I'm pretty sure I've seen games with "you better know what you're doing" kind of settings available via game menu.
I mean, I can't see how leaving some way for average user to enable that stuff would make people bitch more than they are doing currently.
It goes without saying that the DOF effect shown here is way too strong, but it is also extremely well done and it makes me curious about the other lens simulation tricks they have going on.
Now of course a simulated in-camera look can indeed be very distracting for gameplay (I found BF3 to be very annoying in that regard : my eyes do NOT see the world like a Gopro !) but if applied sparingly it can really look stunning, as done in MGS5 for instance.
edit:: really wishing I hadn't given this game away now
I hope Ubisoft sees a surge in sales because of this and doesn't do it anymore
Did his shadow always have a gun drawn in other parts of the game?
Still, I think that it's awesome when games have a photo mode giving full control on that kind of settings. Also sometimes it's great fun to simply walk around slowly in a game or engine tech demo with lens effects cranked up - like a movie director ! I think there can be a lot of creative uses for this, already shown by gamers recreating movie trailers with a console version of GTAV.
As a matter of fact it could be argued that the Watch_Dogs ingame cinematics themselves could benefit from the unlocked effects. I wouldn't say the effect makes the game look like a miniature world (which is a slightly different look) ; to me it looks more like a natural 50mm lens sharply focused on the subject, like some art house movies do (Upstream Color comes to mind).
Real life DOF in motion :
http://vimeo.com/78881964
Also, I would love to have the ability to blur the character instead of the background. Now of course it would never feel right gameplay-wise (I am all for games being crystal clear, and I really dislike any kind of 'cinematic' motion blur) but it could open up the possibility to take very lifelike screenshots.
DOF on background (can't see shit) :
DOF on foregroud (yay, details !) :
Anyways - this stuff really gets me excited
looks gorgeous...
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=b43ZlqPvBDs[/ame]
'A game that revolves around a world of hacking, & you have to hack the game to make it look better'
If so, that's a new way of marketing a game... o.O
In the video posted above the DOF is cranked up pretty high but it looks pretty good most of the time. Still there are times that I wanted to focus on something else (like the foreground/background example of yours) and couldn't. Which is forgivable when I watch someone else play but would be frustrating if I was playing. Still I think it has some limited functionality and could really make for some awesome cinematic scenes or any scene that has specific camera movements.
As for Ubi gimping up the PC version, it looks like the lowest common denominator won out again. That's pretty common for PC titles these days.
I really don't expect them to give any preferential treatment to the PC crowd it already gets cheaper copies and a boost like this would just weaken the new console market, that is already suffering from poor adoption rates. In their view higher PC sales just means more piracy, why reward pirates, they should reward customers.
Sadly they made the game for where the majority of gamers are still at, ancient console hardware. If they had cut off the old consoles they probably would have turned up a lot of the settings but then lost a lot in sales. I think a better option would have been to tailor it to each console and give players control over some of the settings (I would love that), but a lot of people would probably cook their console or mediocre PC and be super pissed.
Of course I don't know what kind of internal or external pressure they where under. I do trust them to make the best game for the widest range of players possible, I still bristle at the idea that some armchair developer would have made all the right calls when they don't have all of the information.
see here's the thing, as a PS4 owner, and Watchdogs (PS4) owner, when i see this stuff on the pc it really makes me think "i wonder how many of those files are sitting, unused, on my Bluray disc". It makes me wonder whether the PS4 version was likewise unnecessarily gimped.
Watchdogs is probably one of the prime examples of WHY adoption rates for the new consoles are "so low". Why bother picking up a next gen console when your favorite/most wanted game is also available on last gen and they look the same?
Is it a monopoly? Is Steam trying to diverge the market from brands to games?
Either way it's a disgrace.
Its been happening for a very very long time. PC gamers are well versed in this. It's been pretty pointless to build a high end PC because all games have been gimped to 360 specs. Sadly it's also pointless to get a new console for the same reason.
They could have cut off the old consoles and probably bumped up the specs but they would have lost out on a lot of sales. New consoles are here, there are new games on them but that doesn't mean all of the customers are on the newer hardware.
Ya but that will look like a big fuck you to the consumer if found out wouldn't it? Not trying to sound like the PC gamer master race here but high end computers cost way more than consoles, and are capable of much more.
So if the game is capable of using that power like Watch Dogs without the artificial Limits, I would be left feeling pretty fucking ripped off, if i get prevented from getting that quality. Considering it isn't real limitations but is a artificial limitation placed on the game due to politics.
Though we really shouldn't look at this as malice since most of the time things like this are just arrogance.
Though really it is expected now, people develop for low spec, and the DOF is too mcuh with the settings unlocked, cant see shit unless it is press against your nose.
Give it a few weeks longer for the modders to fix that.
Though it's more like they've showed what the game can do, advertised it as game footage (which it was, despite it in development and subject to change ofc) then cutting out those features as there unstable, which the modders are now fixing.
bleh. The Devs are hiding under their desks...
Rather have a grahpical hit than unstableness