When PC gamers discuss the greatest PC games of all time, the number one spot almost always comes down to a battle between half-life and deus ex. When one wins outright, the other is usually very close behind. However you look at it, deus ex is one of the greatest PC games of all time. Deus Ex 2, while not quite as good, was still an admirable game. It didn't quite live up to the original.

So to hear them annouce Deus Ex 3… well lets say i'm divided. In the film world, sequels are not as good, as a rule. There are a handful of exceptions – terminator 2, mad max 2, aliens – which bucked the trend and improved on the excellent originals, but even in those cases, the follow up to the follow up – terminator 3, alien 3, mad max – beyond the thunderdome – left something to be desired.

In games, its harder to call.
Is Oblivion better than daggerfall or just technologically superior?
Does HalfLife 2 beat the original?
Will Duke Nukem Forever be better than Duke Nukem 3D?

Games sequels are often generations ahead of the originals, graphically and technologically. There's definitely the potential to make Deus Ex 3 at least as good as the first one. And theres certainly the technological capability to outshine Dx2 – Invisible War, much like Invisible War outshone the original. But without Warren Spector involved, I'm a little worried about how it will turn out.

In Other News:
Cliffy B confirms Gears of War sequel, Pandemic working on next gen batman game, HL2 Episode 3 will not be set in City 17.

Tags: games

Ron Gilbert has been attached (with glue) to penny arcade’s upcoming foray into episodic gaming.

I must say, its good to see a return to form of our lucasarts heros. First Tim Schafer psychonauts, then sam and max, now ron gilbert back in biz!

Tags: games

Liam Neeson plays dad in Fallout 3
Looks like Liam Neeson will be doing vocal work in fallout 3, also bethesda have release some cool concept art of a ruined washington DC, where the game is set

TimeShift – One Man Army
timeshift needed a facelift, it looked like awful rubbish when previewed a few months back. Granted this is just a prerendered cinematic, but if they're going this way style and gameplay wise it wouldn't be a bad move at all. check out the trailer

TeamFortress 2
Now that we've seen that all that video was in game stuff, and not prerendered, i'm very very exctiec about TF2.

Tags: games

i’ve been leaving big big BIG gaps between posts and i’ve no one to blame but myself really
sure i’ve been busy with college but it doesn’t take two minutes to write a blog post dammit.

Lots of big stuff happening at the moment, and i’m a bit out of the loop, lots of new games i’m looking forward to, one is fallout 3

Bethesda have aquired the licence to fallout 3 – this is old news. Everyone knows this. But now, they’ve got a trailer together – or at least they will have in about 25 days. You can view the countdown live on fallout3.bethsoft.com

It’s exciting stuff for me, because for me post-apocalyptic themes and open ended RPG gameplay are a marriage made in heaven.

Which is why i like STALKER : Shadow of Chernobyl so much.

Well, actually i’m a bit bored of it at the moment, but only because i seem to have played myself into a corner. I made an enemy of the ukrainian military before i realised that was possible, now it seems hopeless to try and continue.

STALKER is an excellent game in many ways, and I admire what the devs tried to do with it. But it’s not perfect by a long shot. Still, its a game thats been vaporware for a while, and managed to live up to a good few of its expectations, which is no small feat. I really miss the vehicles though. The trailers, right up until a month or two before the release, featured vehicles galore. battered skodas, vans, army trucks all sorts of stuff was driveable. It looked like lots of fun. However, driveability was taken out because the vehicles didn’t work with the anomalies in the game. Anytime you drove through one, you died straight away. and they are all over the place, so that made driving ridiculously dangerous. For the devs, it was a choice between vehicles, and anomalies, and the anamoalies were kind of the whole idea of the game.

I think if they’d just made you take less anomaly damage while in a vehicle it would have solved the problem. Sure you could charge through in a truck and survive, but only a few times. Caution would be required to drive safely through the zone. They could have at least increased the running speed or allowed your guy to sprint longer than 30 seconds, as getting anywhere takes ages.

Tags: games