It’s even worse that he seems to hit the nail on the head.

And to think, I used to make dos-based adventure games with this Yahtzee guy…and everyone assumed I’d become the famous one.

Ain’t that a cock in the neck.

Make more Guitar Man and fulfil your destiny.

> It’s even worse that he seems to hit the nail on the head.

Except that he’s wrong about Mirror’s Edge looking pretty sweet. OK, maybe it looks sweet, but from what I’ve seen of the gameplay I don’t think it’s going to be that great. They have ‘runner vision’ (i.e. just follow the trail of red objects to get to your destination. i.e. the player doesn’t even have to worry about exploring or planning a route through the level. In fact, there’s probably only one route to take for any specific mission). Not content with destroying the open-world exploration aspect of the game they’ve also added bullet-time, to help you with the timing for tricky jumps. So you don’t have to use your brain *or* your reflexes to play the game.

Also the enemy AI looked particularly crap - it shoots at you (and misses) while you run up to it and hide behind some cover, and then just stands there and waits for you to pop out and knock the gun out of its hand instead of doing the sensible thing and taking a few steps back for safety, or popping round the corner and shooting you in the head. Although it’s possible that the AI was simply crap because the person demo’ing the game had it on the easiest difficulty level.

I think this is the video which showcases the above ‘features’, but I can’t be certain since it isn’t playing for me at the moment.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/949454/mirrors-ed…

I know the runner vision in Mirror’s Edge can be turned off, so hopefully that will open up the idea of exploration more.

The game itself hasn’t really made any impressions on me as of yet apart from the fact that it looks pretty. Which is probably fine considering I’ll let the prettiness draw me in and then judge the gameplay for myself rather than watching a developer gameplay video played by someone who has probably ran through the level a thousand times while testing.

Hopefully the AI will be improved as the game gets closer to completion, but I’m currently hoping that it will be more of a time based free running game than an overly standard FPS affair.

I was worried about runner vision, too, but when I mentioned it Tom Francis’ blog he said it will be optional. You’re just plain wrong about everything else. They all seem to be there expressly to make the gameplay as smooth as and enjoyable as possible, and it looks like it’s worked.

Well, apparently when you pick up a gun you can use the rest of the clip but then you chuck it away, so it seems to be a wholly secondary gameplay element. Which is good.

So what’s the point of showing a gameplay demo if it just gives people the wrong impressions?

That’s like saying why are 80%(random number out of my head) of awesome movie trailers portray movies that turn out to be steaming piles of bovril

> That’s like saying why are 80%(random number out of my head) of awesome movie trailers portray movies that turn out to be steaming piles of bovril

Yes, I’d like an answer to that question too, if you don’t mind :)

> So what’s the point of showing a gameplay demo if it just gives people the wrong impressions?

I’m not following you. You got the wrong impression (about ‘runner vision’ at least) because of your own assumptions based on nothing. The game demo was just showing as much of its features as it could, it didn’t do anything to suggest you couldn’t turn RV off.

> You got the wrong impression (about ‘runner vision’ at least) because of your own assumptions based on nothing.

Didn’t you get the wrong impression about it too?

> it didn’t do anything to suggest you couldn’t turn RV off.

And neither did it do anything to suggest that you can turn it off.

And whatever first introduced you to the concept of runner vision didn’t suggest that you could turn it off either, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked one of the developers.

> Didn’t you get the wrong impression about it too?

Yes, but the difference was I didn’t blame the trailer.

> And neither did it do anything to suggest that you can turn it off.

Why would they want to suggest you could turn off what they’re pushing as a good feature?

> And whatever first introduced you to the concept of runner vision didn’t suggest that you could turn it off either, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked one of the developers.

Not a developer, a games journalist. The only thing I’m taking you up on is suggesting the demo is in some way misleading. It shows the game in what seems like a decent way. You can’t expect it to address what is likely to be a minority concern. I was happy to ask around to see if my concern about it was going to matter or not, but it’s not something I’d expect a very short demo to address.

> The only thing I’m taking you up on is suggesting the demo is in some way misleading.

Well apparently the demo misled me. You can’t really argue against that.

Yes, I am being pessimistic about the game - but what’s the alternative? Be optimistic, only to find out that like several other games I’ve bought recently it isn’t as good as I’d hoped? Or spend hours trawling the net to find out every fact about the game before forming an opinion on it?

> Well apparently the demo misled me. You can’t really argue against that.

I could and I have, but I really don’t want to any more.

> Yes, I am being pessimistic about the game - but what’s the alternative? Be optimistic, only to find out that like several other games I’ve bought recently it isn’t as good as I’d hoped? Or spend hours trawling the net to find out every fact about the game before forming an opinion on it?

Well, in that case, remind me to never engage you in conversation about an up-coming game ever again.

I’m masturbating.

> I’m masturbating.

In the vain attempt you’ll go blind and never have to read anything again?

> Well, in that case, remind me to never engage you in conversation about an up-coming game ever again.

It’s not all that bad - I’m not pessimistic about every game. There are some games I’m even optimistic about!

STALKER: Clear Sky? As long as it’s not full of bugs like Shadow of Chernobyl was on release, it should be fantastic.
Spore? I’m not sure whether the idea of basically throwing several short games together will work, but there looks to be at least a certain degree of fun to have from designing creatures and letting them loose on each other.
Ghostbusters? Should be good for a laugh at least.
Left 4 Dead? Although I won’t know whether it’s everything I can hope for in a zombie game until I play it, it’s unlikely to be a bad game.
GTA: China Town Wars? Practically fuck-all details released about it so far, but it sounds like they’re going to produce a game tailored for the DS rather than try and port a fully-fledged GTA game down to a handheld (like the abysmal GTA 1 & 2 ports for the gameboy). From GTA 3 and onwards rockstar have shown that they’re good with streaming tech, so if they’re writing the game themselves then it will be interesting to see how much they’re able to squeeze out of the hardware.

‘Oh wait’

Best line. Oh, apart from the ‘wallet on the back of an entranced magpie’. Who the hell is this guy, some kind of cross between Charlie Brooker and Noel Fielding?