https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAKBU7VXdUI

Looks terribly cheesy. Reminds me of B-horror movies with hot chicks and bad acting. So basically, I have high hopes for this game Hopefully it ends up being a blast!

ps Gorgeous facial renditions
http://www.supermassivegames.com/

If it's really intentionally going for a B-horror vine then I'm intrigued. If not, then geez, who the hell thinks this is good writing!?

Also, as always, I'm very skeptical about how much of an impact your choices will have, since it's usually just smoke and mirrors, but I'll keep an eye on this for now.

Hey, it's Hayden Panettiere!

Finally, this is what I consider photo-realistic graphics.

EDIT: On second thought, looking at the screenshots below, not impressed; the person in the banner at the top is probably actually a live actress, while the characters in the pics below look like your stock CG video game models.

I'm 100% sure the person in the banner is CG.
Whether the in-game graphics will look this good is a different story, but she doesn't look or move like a real person at all.

This's why I don't like to focus on graphics.

Maybe I just have bad eyes, but when I first got the PS3, I didn't really notice the improvement of graphics over the PS2.

Not until I compared screenshots of, for example, Final Fantasy X versus Final Fantasy XIII.

Really? I noticed a huge difference. Granted, it may not be night/day difference, but there was no doubt that it was on a different level. For one thing, my PS2 ran on my CRT while for the PS3 I upgraded to HD. That said, I don't play games for graphics, although I do like "good" graphics, I mean why not?

I kind of got to go with Avatar on this one... but with a caveat. I think the PS3 is pretty nice improvement over the PS2 when it comes to graphics, but that leap wasn't as big as the PS1 to PS2 leap which is still mind-blowing when I think back to it. We're really starting to hit the law of diminishing returns with visuals but the big problem is just the overall cost of it all.

You know, for those of us that are old skool, we might even recall playing on Atari and other such systems
Not that Atari etc weren't fun, but if you want to look at great leaps and bound, look at say the Atari 2600 and then look at what came after -NES. The NES blew away anything before it. It was magical, and the difference was like night and day. While I certainly appreciate the enhanced ability of the PS4 etc I agree with Ashely that we naturally will have diminishing returns. However, there may be a caveat called virtual reality. I think VR has the ability to revolutionize games much the same way as the original NES revolutionized the industry.

I can't deny that the NES was a leap over the Atari... but I think the reason the PS1 to PS2 upgrade sticks in my mind the most is many gamers (those not alive at the time) are more apt to complain about early 3D games (calling them "ugly") compared to early 2D sprite games in my experience. I mean I think Mega Man 2 still looks fine today outside the sprite flickering.

However, we've all run into that person that won't play or even acknowledge a game because it is two dimensional or sprite based. Really, if they can't give something like SotN a look it's their loss.

I'd say the jump from SNES to PS1 was a HUUUUUUUUUGE one, because we went from a largely 2D console (with some very rudimentary "3D" games) to a console that could do quite decent 3D (for the time), plus we went from cartridge to CD, so suddenly there was a LOT more memory at our disposal, resulting in much better music quality and CG movies, etc. I mean, there was the Sega CD before that, but, you know. Come on.

Other than that, I'd say the leap between PS2 and PS3 was one of the more significant ones mainly because outside of the expected increase in polygon count, texture quality, and processing power, we also went from SD 4:3 to HD 16:9 as a standard which makes a HUGE visual difference.

I'm not inclined to think of the PS1 to PS2 as the biggest one, but that's mainly because the Dreamcast (and, to a lesser extent, the N64) was in between. There were several steps in between the PS1 and PS2, so the PS2 never seemed like such a huge graphical leap to me.

The Atari to NES one was pretty big though, as was the NES to SNES one (hmmmmm, Mode 7).

This.

I probably won't be impressed with computer-generated imagery until it's literally indistinguishable from real life, and it's beamed into our heads, like the Brain Dream from Cowboy Bebop. Think of all those early PC live-action FMV games, but not sucky.

Also, Ashley Winchester?

Wild Arms > Wild Arms 2.

Wild Arms 2's characters were just the same characters with their defining character traits exaggerated 1000 fold.

Rudy and Ashley were your boy scouts, Jack and Brad were your battle-hardened warriors with dark pasts, and Cecilia and Lilka were your fledgling mages naive about the world. As I understand it, Lilka is actually supposed to be a boy, not a girl, kind of like Bridget from the Guilty Gear games.

If I ever wanted to masquerade as any of the Wild Arms characters, it'd be Jack. I like the samurai with duster coat look.

I could go on and on about how much I disliked Wild Arms 2. Why did you need a flying castle, when you had a system that can warp you around the world? Especially when the flying castle only had maybe 3-4 landing pads in the entire world, and you also eventually end up with a flying vehicle that allows you to land anywhere you want? Just seems like a bad design choice to me.

Good reviews so far. Gamespot 8/10, Forbest 10/10, although others were not as generous. Still, sounds like a game I would enjoy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddkenreck … er-make/2/

"Your choices create the plot. Every choices matters, affecting relationships, encounters and deaths...Much like the game ‘Heavy Rain’ before, this game is genre defying in the best possible way."

Sounds good to me! Still looks rather cheesy though (but in a good way

Yeah, I really like Wild Arms 2... but to be honest...

Wild Arms = Wild Arms 2.

I can't really decide which game I like more... even after all these years.

I won't say WA2 is perfect (actually, it's pretty flawed) but if you can go on and on about how much you dislike WA2, I can probably go on about how much i disliked Wild Arms 3 for the same length of time.

I mean when my experience with the game hurts my opinion of Naruke's music THAT MUCH just by association... cripes.

Life Is Strange

Beyond Two Souls

Why does every game wanna be Heavy Rain nowadays?

I thought that game was universally lauded as being tedious and ridiculous? Nothing but cut scenes and quicktime events.

I could toss Telltale Games' The Wolf Among Us on the pile, but honestly, I actually enjoy the art style, plot, and dialogue of that game/interactive story/movie.

Maybe the attempted photo-realism just doesn't sit right with me?

I liked the battle system better in the first Wild Arms. Also, I liked the top-down SNES-styled map POV, though PSX 3D certainly still has its place.

Wild Arms 2 & 3 used the exact same battle system, granted, it was still pretty similar to the first Wild Arms, but with certain tweaks that didn't sit right with me. I hated (1) how the Force System replaced a lot of things, and (2) the lack of MP.

Random encounters in Wild Arms 3 were pointless until about 1/3 into the game - enemies offered squat EXP. I don't remember enemies offering significant EXP until the area around Boot Hill, Virginia's hometown. Using the Lucky Card in boss battles exploit was arguably necessary to level up for subsequent boss fights.

Wild Arms 3 just felt like dungeon after dungeon, and the towns were too small for my liking, especially after the excellent town design in the first Wild Arms. In Wild Arms 2, having to return to Meria Boule and Valeria Chateau rather defeated the need to have more towns later in the game.

At the very least, I still kind of wax nostalgic for Wild Arms 3, since it does have that definitive sci-fi Western style that the first two games didn't really have. WA1 & 2 were essentially still fantasy-steampunk, with a few Western toppings. WA3 really does remind me of the Trigun anime.

Hands down though, the first Wild Arms is my favorite of all 3.

Yeah, the small town size in WA3 bugged me.

I can appreciate/agree that WA3 has what is probably the most sci-fi western world out of the games... but I think the dull color pallet was one of the things that dragged the game down for me. Breath of Fire IV falls victim to the same vice for me... BOFIV is a fine game but compared to the bright colors of BOFIII it just doesn't feel as inviting even if it does enhance the setting.

IMHO, BoF IV probably has the most coherent, fleshed-out plot of all the Breath of Fire games.
Fou-Lu had depth; he wasn't just a maniacal megalomaniac like Sephiroth was.

That said, you certainly spent enough time trawling around some pretty bland cave dungeons.

The first few towns, namely Sarai and Synesta (Synesta is insanely huge and confusing - why is it not the capital of the desert nation?) but the rest of the towns in the game were 4 houses or less, and then maybe you had a castle as well, like in Ludia and Wyndia.

I found the battle speed in BoF III & IV to be quite slow - namely when enemies spam spells, especially buffs, I get tired of looking at them spasming for so long as they cast magic; a battle system like Final Fantasy VII just seems so much faster.

Not sure where you got that idea from? Heavy Rain was a unique game. I have not come across any game that's quite the same, although I did not play Two Souls. I thought Heavy Rain was superb. It had a great story, great (believable) characters, a great soundtrack, and I would love for them to make a sequel. Instead, they made Two Souls which I will play at some point. Now, I will also admit that Heavy Rain is not for everyone. For one thing, it's much more about thinking and putting a narrative together than anything else. This probably doesn't sit so well with most gamers who think Call of Duty and Halo are the end all to entertainment. The story did confuse some people, and admittedly it had a few cheesy moments, but again overall it was a wonderful story. You had to think about what was happening in order to fully understand it, and it was quite logical. One of the best gaming experiences I had. Certainly not a perfect game, and not for everyone, but I loved it. Maybe Until Dawn will be as entertaining, although two very different experiences.

I don't think I've ever disagreed with any paragraph of text as much as the one above in my entire life. Ever.

/hyperbole

I won't go into the many reasons why I think Heavy Rain is utter shit, God knows we've had plenty of that discussion already, but I am curious about Until Dawn. Will pick it up when it hits the bargain bin, which I expect will not take too long.

Review: Playable horror movie 'Until Dawn' is scary good

https://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-i … 03675.html

"The cast, as you might imagine, includes classic horror stereotypes: a heroic jock, a sensitive nerd, a geeky girl, a trampy cheerleader. Though they look like they jumped from the pages of a J. Crew catalog, they aren’t your typical B-movie cliches. Thanks to smart writing and a clever choice-and-consequence system, they're allowed to do more than deliver clueless reactions to dire situations."

Everything points to this being a surprise hit, and selling extremely well. So, it may not hit the bargain bin as quickly as you think. Still, give it some time. Maybe some DLC will come along as well? Oh, and of course expect Until Dawn 2

It certainly seems to be well-received, even if it's not scoring quite as well as Heavy Rain (not that that means anything), which went on to sell 3 million copies, I think?
Don't see this doing quite that well, but it will be interesting to see the sales numbers.

Most complaints seem to be about cringe-worthy dialogue, but I can deal with that in what is obviously meant to be the video game equivalent of a cheesy horror flick. Horrible writing by someone who thinks he's f---ing Shakespeare (*cough* David Cage *hack*) is what I have little tolerance for.

Started playing this baby, and it's everything I hoped it would be! Cliché as all heck, sure. But damnably fun. As you progress you unlock behind-the-scenes and they certainly don't hide the fact that they based the game on classic horror films. It's awesome that your decisions matter. It really does play out like a movie, although again I don't think a movie would be nearly as enjoyable. Superb voice acting, beautiful graphics (particularly the faces), great characters, I'm already rooting for an Until Dawn 2

Finished this! So, although the game may appear to be quite cheesy in many instances, underneath all that cheese is a very dark and deep game. Truth is, to understand everything you'll probably have to play this at least twice. First time just for "fun", second time to collect all the items and piece together the entire story. As I said, it's quite poignant.

Don't know if you got a chance to play this, but again, let me say, parts were certainly going for B-horror (on purpose), but it was enveloped in a deep, dark, and ultimately superbly-written tale. Once you piece together the story, well, it's intense and extremely meaningful. Also, your choices make a huge difference in the outcome -sometimes mortally so.

Yeah, I played it last year and loved it!

I was thinking of checking it out - the same company/developer made one of the best VR experiences (Rush of Blood) which is basically a side-quest to the main game "Until Dawn", however from the reviews it was hard to see if was worth the time