Video Games... and I lament

I finally procured and recently finished playing Deus Ex, and while the graphics, premise, and overall feel were simply amazing... it had its share of problems.   It claims open world, but this is false, and there seems to be no way to accumulate all of the ulockable items in the game in any meaningful way.  While each level is presented in an open format, you cannot freely travel between the levels.  So in the end the whole thing really becomes pretty linear.  A railroad adventure with tracks that are just a tad wider.  Also it suffers from something I find enfuriating in games, end bosses who don't have to follow the same rules of physics and reality that the main character does.  The main bosses must be defeated in a pretty specific manner unless you have somehow managed to become extremely powerful, or are able to store and save all your really powerful guns and the ammo for them.  Of course doing so often means you have to leave the cooler guns behind, which means you won't get to keep them for the next level, unless you remember exactly where you dropped them.  And the end of the game is pretty dissapointing as well, in that it does not offer a choice of replay+, nor does it offer anything to do other than a dlc package which strips you of everything you have, and has no real connection to the rest of the game. 

Also, a minor gripe... the arm blades are cool, but they are way too long to be concealed in the character forearms... they make the same mistake with wolverine most of the time. 

My next video game will be Sleeping Dogs, I only pray its able to wash the dissapointment of SR3 out of my mouth.  SR2 was the greatest sandbox game since San Andreas, and I was looking forward to SR3 with more excitement than I ever had for a game before.  It was going to be bigger, better, and full of cyberpunk elements like Aerodynes, virtual reality, clones, ooo lala... And it has all those things, but they came at a serious and often unnecessary cost.  The customization was nerfed across every aspect... clothing, cars, character... its all at about 50 percent of the options you had before, in the case of clothing the choices are merely a fraction of what they were in SR2.  The storyline is a bi-polar incoherent mess.  The city is uniformly bland, with little to no difference between different parts of the city, and the seas and skies are devoid of life.  The amount of vehicles and items you unlock is lessened, and if you don't like them you can no longer delete them from your garage, nor can you delete DLC vehicles.  Not as big a deal since most of the DLC is worthless in my eyes, but more on that later. 

The game does have its good points.  The new engine makes for stunning graphjics, and the driving phsyics are vastly improved, although you cant bring a car to a dead stop... The new hand to hand animations are awesome (except for one where the MC poses after performing a takedown), but no one in the game will actually fist fight you, so it seems like a waste.  It has a great new option to save, import, and trade your characters, which is a bit of brilliant design.    But again, all this comes at a cost.  Mnay of the much loved activities are gone, like fight club and Fuzz.  There are no races at all, nor are their any taxi, police, firetruck, or minigames of the like.  There are very few enterable building, and very few shops in comparison to previous games.  The endings to the game are extremely dissapointing as well.  I could almsot forgive all of that, but the game seems to focus way to much on juvenile humor, and its lost its edge completely.  Instead of continuing the story from the previous games in any sort of believable manner, the game goes out of its way to be silly, with a gang of mecian pro-wrestlers as the main antagonists, and a Mascot and his army of furries as a main focus on the entire theme of the game... it gets even worse with the mission DLC's, all of which continue to take the game further into silly juvenile nonsense.  The non story DLC is the biggest slap in the face of all, as its all disc locked content... meaning you have to pay for things that are already on your game disc.  They have already announced SR4, and it appears it will continue in this manner.

In the end, Saints Row The Third is the best most dissapointing game I have ever played.  I have lost any desire to support Volition and THQ in the future, and with the exception of the Cyberpunk 2020 game coming from CD Projekt Red, I will never again pre-order a game.

But at least I have GTA5 (who hopefully have learned their lesson after the complaints about GTA4) to look forward to, and of course, my dream come true, the Cyberpunk 2020 video game.

Gamers On Games: Upcoming Mike Pondsmith interview

My pal Dave Simpson (and friends) and his video blog "Gamers on Games" has an interview lined up with Mike Pondsmith. They are asking for questions on RPGNET:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?652305-Interview-with-Mike-Pondsmith

So if you ever wanted to know anything, or have questions about the possible future for R. Talsorian games, please feel free to submit a question of your own.

On the DF2020 side, it seems that the File Project and forums are down again.  110.mb is the worst host I have ver seen.  Almost zero customer support and ridiculous downtimes.  I am still waiting on news of a site move to a new host from a friend who offered, will keep you posted.

I am still hard at work on the Guide To The Combat Zone, its coming along slow but steadily.  So glad I am getting this out of the way first, as its the largest and most crowded (location and gang wise) section of the city as it relates to my Amalgamated Night City Map.

Get your NC Amalgamated maps here...

Ok, while the File Poject and forums have been down, I have been receiving a ton of requests for the full Sized Night City Amalgamated Map.  It is too large to send via e-mail, but thats ok, I have a new dropbox account, so anyone who wants it can simply go here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yq1l5tjw4hwlgto/Cyberpunk%202020%20-%20Datafortress%202020%20-%20Night%20City%20Amalgamated%20Map.jpg

This should make downloading it easy.

If you are wanting any of the other files from the File Project (like the latest version of Interlock Unlimited), just shoot me an e-mail at wisdom000(a)gmail.com, or reply to this post with your e-mail, and I will get them to you.

I have finished the Gangs section of the Combat zone, it alone is 124 pages... I am working on finishing the rest of the Guide to the Combat Zone now, it will be the first of many guide sections, which will hopefully detail the entirety of the new map.