Sony apologizes for faulty PS3 update, investigating cause
Killer is Dead preview: Mondo uncertainty
Splinter Cell Blacklist gets 'Spider-Bot' iOS companion game
Square Enix's cancelled Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun 'not the right game'
Joe Danger PC includes TF2 characters, Minecraft levels
Weekend Confirmed 127 - Darksiders 2, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Madden NFL 13
by Jeff Mattas, Aug 24, 2012 11:00am PDTBack in the studio this week, Garnett and crew are back to deliver another game-packed episode of Weekend Confirmed. Jeff "2N1T" Cannata, "Indie" Jeff Mattas, and returning 'confirmer' Mike Schramm bring some more Darksiders 2, Sleeping Dogs, and Papo & Yo love. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Dust: An Elysian Tail, Puzzle Craft, and Madden NFL 13 get some well-deserved time in the spotlight, before the show gets whacked with a big bag of Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 127: 08/24/2012
Subscription Links:
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed in iTunes
- Weekend Confirmed is also available in the Zune Marketplace
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed via RSS
Here's a handy pop-up player so you can listen from right here on the page. Let us know how it works for you.
If you're viewing this in the GameFly application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 127 directly.
Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Show Breakdown:
Round 1 00:00:31 – 00:28:04
Whatcha Been Playing Part 1 00:28:39 – 00:55:07
Whatcha Been Playing Part 2 00:55:50 – 01:26:19
Listener Feedback/Front Page News 01:27:12 – 01:59:58
Jeff Cannata can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. They've gone daily so there's a new segment to watch every day of the week!
Follow the Weekend Confirmed crew on Twitter, too!
Weekend Confirmed @WeekendConfirmd
Garnett Lee @GarnettLee
Jeff Cannata @jeffcannata
Jeff Mattas @JeffMattas
Mike Schramm @mikeschramm
Remember to join the Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page and add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, Club Tipsy on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter @delriomusic.
Comments
I got to play a few rounds of multiplayer at Fan Expo this past weekend.
I played competitive multiplayer, Big Team Battle. We played on 2 different maps: one larger with vehicles, the other smaller and more of an arena-style environment.
Some standount impressions:
* The game feels very polished. The engine is greatly out-performing the Halo Reach engine. Better lighting, frame rate, smoother animations, greater detail, and that annoying "ghosting" effect is gone.
* Weapon balance feels finely tuned. Every weapon I got my hands on felt uniquely useful and powerful.
**** Player movement ****
I do feel 343 has made a fundamental change to the classic Halo formula in terms of the manueverability of the spartans.
The general pace of the game is faster than Reach. Kill times are slightly faster, weapon rate of fire feels a little faster. All players now have sprint as a default ability, so you can get around the map much faster.
BUT... the base player movement speed feels slower. Your spartan feels heavy and clunky during standard movements. I think this is a big part of why the kill times are faster... the players aren't able to strafe and jump around as quickly during combat. You definitely feel a little more pinned to the ground.
On the flip side, the right thumb stick (your "look" control) feels much faster and twichier. It makes turning and looking up/down much faster and more responsive, even with a low controller sensitivity.
The effect this has on gameplay is interesting. I felt like it forces the player to focus more on accuracy and weapon efficiency, rather than bouncing around the environment during a firefight. I still felt very mobile thanks to Sprint and some of the other armor abilities, but when the combat starts the movents definitely slowed down. This makes close-quaters combat particularly frantic, since players will alternate between stationary firing and sudden sprint/melee attacks.
Overall, I found it to be very different, but very fun. I'm definitely excited to play more.
I recorded a podcast with a friend who was at fan expo with me. If anyone wants to hear more about what we thought of Halo 4, here it is:
http://waypointmodcast.com/episode-25-halo-4-hands-on/
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 18 replies.
On the one hand, players are only unlocking starting weapons, not power weapons. There seems to be a pretty wide range of different starting weapons, and as I said they all feel useful, so I don't think players will feel like they're at a disadvantage if they have fewer weapons unlocked. Even if all you have access to at the start is a Pistol and Assault Rifle, you can compete on even footing with any other combination of starting weapons.
I think the unlocking of weapons will just allow players to play to their preferences a little more. In the long run, that might be a good thing.
Right now, when I play Reach, I feel dissapointed every time my lobby votes for a gametype that has the Assault Rifle set as the primary spawning weapon, because I hate the AR. In Halo 4, I could potentially never have to worry about that.
The other interesting thing is that the roles of some of the weapons seem to have been shifted slightly. The build we were playing gave us 7 pre-set loadouts to choose from when respawning. Several of these loadouts included the AR in the secondary weapon slot, rather than the primary slot. It seems like 343 have realized that most players would rather use a BR, DMR, or Pistol as their primary weapon, and rely on the AR only in specific situations.
You must be logged in to post.