Erin isn't dead?? lol. Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say she'll be back, possibly with a big twist revealing her as the primary villain of the game. The story seems incredibly uninteresting, but the little bits of gameplay in this video looked decent. If what I've read is true and there are no QTEs, XP or…

That's disappointing to hear. There's still, hopefully, some time for them to tweak some of the numbers. Do you think it's possible to solve these problems with small changes, or do the issues go deeper than that?

I guess they want to get all the necessary gameplay elements working before they do too much work on the story. Gameplay-wise, it's pretty fun at this point and the editor seems quite good.

Sounds great. I really enjoyed C&C Renegade, unlike most people I've seen talk about it. Never really been into multiplayer that much, though (my limited bandwidth goes to other things). I'm glad this includes a skirmish mode. I really wasn't expecting that.

When they were making the first of the modern Lego games, I was pretty excited. Then I saw that they were just about a bunch of Lego people/things in boring, non-Lego environments and my excitement disappeared completely.

I know. I'm sick of reboots too, but I've come to expect them these days.

I was thinking the opposite. It's probably a reboot like Thief, Splinter Cell, etc. with the old character being completely unlike the person they used to be. (Although, like many said, it sounds like it's probably just the game's villain.)

Like you, I don't really understand the love for this game. I like the atmosphere, the music, and the basic way that gameplay works. I hated most of the dungeons, though, and I always stop playing somewhere in the dark world when I realize I'm just not enjoying it.

It seemed like it was the sort of joke that's supposed to be "funny" in a horrifying way. It wasn't about race, though. It was horrifying because it was a man setting fire to a child and because it was a rich person doing that to a poor person. I think that the only reason the child was black is because black people…

Sounds good. I don't want it completely disabled, because I like to see my health level and soul count, but I always found the weapon area far too large and "in-your-face". Nice to know it won't always be there.

I really hope they make the HUD customizable, or smaller, or let me turn down the opacity. It really gets in the way for me, and I don't really need to be told what weapon I'm carrying. I should know what I have equipped and it's visible on my character anyway. I'd rather be able to see as much of the screen as…

Wow. That demo was one of the most amazing demos I've ever seen. Even though it showed what goes into making demos, I can't believe how much work they put into it. If the original game is any indication, I've gotta play this a second and third time.

Obviously I haven't played it yet, but I feel like the movement/control looks a bit slippery. For something like this, with all that maneuverability, I'd hate to be falling off cliffs because it took too long for the character to respond to my input.

I imagine it'd be pretty entertaining to see them doing the motion capture for that scene. I bet nobody would be taking it very seriously.

Sounds great, but will I get banned from GFWL for tweaking gameplay-related data (since the game does have a multiplayer component)?

I liked the story of HL2 and Ep. 2 (I barely remember Ep. 1), but yeah, I found the gameplay in HL1 far more exciting.

Well, in my mind Eggman and Robotnik are completely different characters. Eggman is the one with exaggerated proportions from the games and Robotnik is the one from the shows. I always like Robotnik for the same reason you did. I miss the old "roboticizing" stuff. It was creepy in a good way. Now Sonic is just goofy…

Yeah, but games can get both right. When it's something like specular lighting that's making an object look fake it makes me wonder why they didn't just do it properly in the first place. The difference between something being lit like plastic and something being lit like cloth can come down to a few numbers. I don't…

I know. That's why I mentioned ambient occlusion. There should be some baked-in darkness around the bases of lamp posts, stop signs, etc. or they just look like cut-outs pasted onto the image rather than actually blending in with the scene.

Google's "Search by Image" feature can be good for that. Didn't find larger versions of the ones I wanted, though.