Would You Trust A Talking FishSnack?

Total Biscuit of Cynical Brit is at Gamescom.  He has put up some excellent footage of both TOR and GW2.

First up, a good 25m in TOR.

I have to say this is the very first video where I actually had some excitement build up about the game.  I’ve already preordered but until now my reaction to the game has been lackluster at best.  The UI looks polished, I like the features I’ve seen so far but it doesn’t look like, combat wise, it is breaking any new ground.  While the melee combat looked excellent, I was disappointed seeing TB’s toon take a few blaster bolts and not react one bit.  I don’t know why it stuck out so much for me but it did.  Though I am certainly willing to give it a go after seeing this video and I’m sure, in time, I won’t really care about that slight immersion breaker.

Next he spent 40 minutes driving GW2.

40 minutes of pure excitement, right there!  First off I giggled when I saw how the weapons worked.  Skills changing based on the weapons you wield?  Awesome! Learning new skills for those weapons as you use them, and not tied to your level at all?  Sweet!  Then he showed the quest system.  Show up to a location, talk to a guy, get several tasks which, in aggregate, complete the quest.  Want to farm items?  Sure.  Combat?  Ok, too.  A little of both?  Have at it!  Now that I’ve seen it I will be disappointed in any MMO which does not have such a wonderful system in place.  But really, the whole 40 minutes I was just giddy.

Of the two games I am still far more interested in Guild Wars 2.  I’m positively beside myself with anticipation now.  I still need to give TOR a fair shake.  Fortunately their relative releases will allow me to do that.  But, seriously, I so need a time machine now.

If This Is Engineer Love…

So to promote the new Deus Ex game Valve teamed up with Eidos to give some Deus Ex themed items to their TF2 players.  I was stunned when I saw that there were Engineer items in the mix.  The Engineer was the last class to get an update and since then is the least updated class.  I quipped on Reddit it couldn’t be real in there were Engineer items in it.

Little did I know how true my words were.  I xreated the new engineer shotty. Gave it a try. 60 metal to fire. Can only carry 200. So, 3 shots. Sure, you get damage back as metal but unless you’re ramming your shotty up their arse you don’t get close to 60 back. So, 4 shots if you’re lucky.

Not only that but when you’re building, 0 shots. Oh, and since you’re shooting 60 metal per shot you can drain your level 3 dispenser dry. Meanwhile crates and dispensers give out ammo anyway.

So, same number of shots, virtually no reloads, wastes your metal and has absolutely no upside. Yup, that’s a Valve Engineer update.