The Nerdz Lounge.

PC gaming is definitely for nerds that like to get the most out of their products. Armed Assault was developed alongside military training sims (VBS - Virtual Battle Space), by the guys at Bohemia Interactive. They do/did contract work for various Defense Departments around the world, including the US Marines. Armed Assault is a watered-down, user-friendly version of what they give to those guys.

Factor in their loyal community, that pumps out missions, campaigns, vehicles, uniforms, you name it, and you have a hell of a game.

http://www.armedassault.info/index.php?cat=news&game=1

http://forums.bistudio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9

if you're thinking about getting the game, browse around these links and look at the stuff you can play with, courtesy of their community.

it's always fun to download a vehicle and test it in a mission:smt003

 

Real life Buster sword! :shock:



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how did THIS not get covered in this thread for so long?

when FFVII came out, all of the nerds were going bananas

i dont think any game had as much of an impact for it's genre (and gaming in general) as this has

 

It grew popular because of the FMV and graphics, which enhanced the liking of the storyline and overall gameplay. But impact wise? Not quite. It was really an overrated Final Fantasy. Excellent indefinitely, but compare to the likes of FFVI and FFIV, this game lacked the impact the previous two games in terms of story telling.

To further add, this was when videogames became mainstream so popularity did surge by a large margin.

 

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Starfox 64 dropped near the same time FFVII dropped (June 1997 or 8 I think) and I was a Nintendo fanboy to the fullest so thats my excuse. I've never played a FF game in my life.

You are soooooooooooo far off. FF has never garnered the same reaction since 7. If memory serves me correctly, FF7 sold 11 million copies within a week it dropped I think. That was huge back than! In comparison I think Starfox 64 sold less than 2 million.

 

There's a difference between popularity, which it obviously obtained and impact, as in how games can raise the bar. Final Fantasy 7 wasn't a revolutionary game. At best, it was an evolutionary RPG that took advantage of CD based technology of the Playstation. Playing the older games, notably FF4 and FF6, the story elements were definitely way ahead of their time. Furthermore, Wild Warms came before FFVII and that included FMV and 3D RPG gameplay. It's just that FFVII eclipsed it because of its anticipation.

 

Same here with both Superman and X-Men movies. I'll at least wait until this new Superman movie is out on DVD to check it out. Superman 1 & 2 are the only two of the movies I only acknowledge as well. I thought the first two X-Men were just okay, but the third one and that shit Wolverine movie......:smt092

And don't get me started on this X-Men First Class movie that's coming out. From what I've heard about it and seen.....:smt017

Exactly. I don't care about the nationality of an actor or actress playing a character that's not their nationality. If they have the skills and the script is good that's all that matters.

Reminds me of when they first said they were making the Captain America movie and you had mofos all over the net saying whoever they picked to play the part he had to be an American actor or it would not be "realistic". :smt108

 

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FF7 is lauded by FF nerds as the greatest FF game ever.

I beg to disagree. While it was revolutionary for it's time, I logged waaay more hours on FF10, which is generally spat upon by these purists I seem to always find myself hanging out with. I don't care...the sphere grid leveling was annoying, but in the end it was cool and easily cheated (me, cheat? neeever) so I was pretty happy.

Last few years I'm like fuck FF, fuck Square Enix, bring on Bethesda!

And no, I haven't played New Vegas. It makes my heart weep. But I shall move heaven and the earth to get a copy of the new Elder Scrolls, Skyrim! holy shit, it looks amazing and according to Game Informer that shit is gonna be off the chain.

 

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My bf got FF13. I never even touched it. He played it for a few weeks then let someone borrow it and now we don't know who has it.

I remember a time when I would've fought him over who got to play first!

I don't know about Japanese games in general, but I feel the FF series started suffering when Square put it's sights on film. The fiasco of The Spirits Within didn't make me stop playing, but it was such utter shite (aside from the amazing CGI...gotta bow down to that) that I kinda wish i forgot I ever saw it. It wasn't until Advent Children that Square finally made a FF movie it's fans could actually enjoy, but instead of it being something new they went with the tried and true FF7 world to hook in past customers.

The moment I tried Fallout 3 I fell in love. Honestly I'd never heard of Bethesda or any of the Elder Scrolls until after that night that my baby let me play Fallout. I was hooked instantly.

What was it that it had that FF12 (which I never got around to finishing, and don't get me started on 11. I don't do MMOs well) didn't?

It's really simple: open world.

The open world option, being able to literally tailor the game to my specific interests...THAT was, and still is, fantastic.

In past rpgs most of them just had a linear story with a linear map that maybe you finally got to explore later on once you were ready to fight the big final boss at the end...

In Fallout 3 there was NO BOSS. It was a series of choices that decreed the end of the game, and I could play for however long -I- chose before I ended it.

I -still- haven't beaten Oblivion. I only beat Fallout cause I wanted to see the end. Technically I'm still playing. I wanna see how the game reacts to a character that started out extremely evil and then went extremely good. lol I nuked a town and then saved some kids from super mutants.

You just don't get that kind of choice with classic rpgs, even though the whole point in an rpg is an immersible world. Well, how more immersed can you get than a complete open world where you truly are the boss of how the game plays?

If we ever get that copy of FF13 back I'll play it. I may even break out the ps2 and finish FF12 if I get bored enough. But until Square learns from it's competitors and makes an open world FF I just don't see the series going from past glory to current.

Besides, I think an open world FF game would be amazing.

 

I agree with you for the most part but I really think western style RPG's haven't really changed either other than going 3D.

Where did you see these pics? All I saw was a teaser trailer revealing the new title. I put mad hours into the Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 (About 350 hours combined). Don't sweat Fallout:New Vegas, it's bug and glitch ridden, much smaller than 3, and the quests are boring without much of a story.

 

Well, that's the critical difference between WRPGs and JRPGs - the style. Western RPGs often tend to be more open-ended, thus giving players more ways to finish their quests and explore much of the world without the hassle of story-oriented progression. Assuming the role of a character and explore. Where as JRPGS often is more story driven thus a sense of linearity is incorporated. You can't really move much further without completing certain objectives. But one thing I will like to address is that JRPGs still edges out in many ares, notably the creativity and design aspects and music and characters. But free-roaming aspects pretty much goes to Western style games.

As for Square-Enix's Final Fantasy movies, the Spirits Within was simply just a sci-fi movie with Final Fantasy implemented in there. There's really nothing Final Fantasy about it at all. They just used the license to see if it can attract more viewers. So, it was more to do to demonstrate it'a technological prowess. Advent Children was more of a continuation of it's popular FF7 game, thus it would be much more familiar to those who played the game. It ties in with the game, and works out well.

From my personal experience, having owned and played Baldur's Gate with the the D&D rules, I figured that it actually changed a good bit. Plus we have games like Elder Scrolls and Mass Effect to make some differentiations to the overall WRPG genre. But I do see what you mean though.

 

In true nerd fashion, we're arguing over which ff was the most epic

 

Final Fantasy Epic Final Battles

NOTE:

Final Fantasy III - Cloud of Darkness
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Final Fantasy IV (NDS) - Zeromus
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Final Fantasy VI (SNES) - Kefka Palazzo
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Final Fantasy VII (PSX) - Sephiroth
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Final Fantasy VIII (PSX) - Ultimecia
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Final Fantasy IX (PSX) - Trance Kuja and Necron
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Final Fantasy X (PS2) - Sin & Yu Yevon
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Final Fantasy XII - Vayne
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ATTN: Persephone

To further to your original post, I'd like to address that the movie didn't cause the series to "suffer", although I do see why you feel that way. It never really did suffer per se and I believe the only fault in the matter would be how they dramatically emphasize more on cinematic sequences and story progression withe each new bit of technology. Final Fantasy X was highly noticeable. Though it kept you from getting lost, exploring other territories which the older games granted you greatly was severely lost in the 3D transitions as technology progressed.

However, it's also safe to argue that Final Fantasy XII did grant a sense of open-ended means, not so much on environment as much as character customization. Giving certain "roles" or making a character be the jack of all trades is purely up to the gamer. So, in the end, we really spoiled ourselves should we max out our characters' license board system. It's a smart game and it required some prior preparations for the battles ahead, hence why the Gambit System was implemented - to smoothen the progress without having to keep going on the menu and selection commands.

 

Personally I'm waiting to see if the Street Fighter/Tekken/Mortal Kombat/King of Fighters debate kicks off. I might jump in that if it does.