Bound by flame Catch-All

This game looks rather good. Anyone had hands on?

I just tweeted about this! Not out until Friday but I reached out to their PR. I love fantasy schlock.

Coming from Spider, which normally means somewhere in the average/below average range. I feel like they may turn a corner some day.

Great. Hope they send you something so you can give us your impressions.

It looks like it has nice tactical combat.

You should probably trim up the ol' location tag there, buddy.

The fact that it's Spider gives me pause - Mars: War Logs had promise but it was REALLY short for an RPG and the execution was not great (to be generous).

That said....

...does look like a BIG improvement over their previous stuff.

And the soundtrack is pretty fantastic too.

It doesn't make it very clear (in true Bioware fashion) in the trailers but I believe you have a male/female character choice...although I'm just a little worried about the treatment of female NPC's in the above music video, especially since there are "romance options" involved. The "good" woman at 1.25 seems awfully submissive to burlyheroman and the "evil" demon one is less so.

pyxistyx wrote:

burlyheroman

As long as I don't forget before it happens again I think you just named every generic male hero a game lets me rename for the foreseeable future.

pyxistyx wrote:

The fact that it's Spider gives me pause - Mars: War Logs had promise but it was REALLY short for an RPG and the execution was not great (to be generous).

That said....

At least they did right by the game and went back and made the voiceover not a pile of crap.

True, although I never went back to see how much of a difference it made.

The stuff that bothers me more is this...

One of the main female characters in the first chapter of Mars: War Logs (that isn't a prostitute) is Mary, who starts out as an enemy and a powerful 'technomancer' looking like this...

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-miGsk-Qx8BQ/UXIqzSNfQRI/AAAAAAAAE40/bQeyITgufDo/s1600/mars-war-logs-mary-01.jpg)

...and then into the second chapter of the game she short circuits for reasons I can't recall and ends up like this for the rest of the game...

IMAGE(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRkyzbyXxURVMdwq5pazDFgGIHcx8Xgo7UTcidZzuZj_KwmH20z)

Her personality changes COMPLETELY and she becomes pretty much an entirely subservient companion NPC for the player - including hesitantly offering herself for sex as a reward for the player rescuing her from her predicament.

That's the kind of thing that makes me worried when they talk about "romance options" in Bound By Flame.

BUT, if they let you create a female main character from the start then maybe things have improved somewhat.

pyxistyx wrote:

BUT, if they let you create a female main character from the start then maybe things have improved somewhat.

Baby steps?

Certis wrote:

You should probably trim up the ol' location tag there, buddy.

Must admit, it was getting slightly out of control

pyxistyx wrote:

That's the kind of thing that makes me worried when they talk about "romance options" in Bound By Flame.

If there's one thing I've learned from all the books my wife reads, it's if the title has Bound anywhere in it you can pretty well be guaranteed where the romance options are going.

I'm definitely interested in hearing impressions. I'm curious about the game in general and about the PS4 port. I think this is the first RPG on the platform. (Non-MMO)

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong by a week. I forgot Ubisoft's Child of Light which just released.

Wait for reviews.

It's out on Friday. I really hope it's a decent game.

Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews.

Hmmm. Will you be saying more come Friday maybe? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, after all.

Higgledy wrote:

It's out on Friday. I really hope it's a decent game.

Reviews are supposedly embargoed until Friday. It is nonsensical in this case since the US PS Blog says it is releasing digitally on PSN this afternoon and then at retail on Friday. Assuming it does launch tonight, there should be multiple twitch streams to check out this evening. I caught a couple early ones yesterday and was neither blown away nor turned off by what I saw.

Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews. - IGN.com

tboon wrote:
Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews.

Hmmm. Will you be saying more come Friday maybe? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, after all.

*nod* *wink*

Lots of potential, but some typical way off base difficulty spikes and other budget game issues.

Certis wrote:
tboon wrote:
Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews.

Hmmm. Will you be saying more come Friday maybe? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, after all.

*nod* *wink*

Lots of potential, but some typical way off base difficulty spikes and other budget game issues.

*rubs nose* Grazie.

It's $34 on Steam as well.

I am concerned about the amount of cutscenes in it. From some video I watched, it seems the game pauses to show you a cutscene after almost every enemy you kill. And there are a lot of enemies. Or maybe it was just a tutorial issue.

For $34 I bit.. can't be that terrible and I have some road trips coming up so I typically get good gaming time in.

Spiders seem to be REALLY good at making their games look considerably more exciting in trailer-form than they actually are to play (see: trailers of Mars: War Logs compared with the end result gameplay of the released version).

Which is not to say there aren't interesting things in their games that are worth a look at the budget price, but waiting for reviews is a sound strategy with them I think.

I liked Mars: War Logs as a $5-$10 game so if this is similar I'll just wait for that price point.

Certis wrote:
tboon wrote:
Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews.

Hmmm. Will you be saying more come Friday maybe? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, after all.

*nod* *wink*

Lots of potential, but some typical way off base difficulty spikes and other budget game issues.

Sounds like all of Spiders' games. Kind of really close to hitting that old Bioware feeling but coming up short on some very important aspects (story, controls, and balance). They should make a smaller scale RPG and just polish the hell out of it.

Vector wrote:
Certis wrote:
tboon wrote:
Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews.

Hmmm. Will you be saying more come Friday maybe? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, after all.

*nod* *wink*

Lots of potential, but some typical way off base difficulty spikes and other budget game issues.

Sounds like all of Spiders' games. Kind of really close to hitting that old Bioware feeling but coming up short on some very important aspects (story, controls, and balance). They should make a smaller scale RPG and just polish the hell out of it.

I think this should be true for the RPG genre in general. Tell better stories that are more intricately interwoven and less filler.

Basically, I want The Last Express as an RPG.

garion333 wrote:
Vector wrote:
Certis wrote:
tboon wrote:
Certis wrote:

Wait for reviews.

Hmmm. Will you be saying more come Friday maybe? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, after all.

*nod* *wink*

Lots of potential, but some typical way off base difficulty spikes and other budget game issues.

Sounds like all of Spiders' games. Kind of really close to hitting that old Bioware feeling but coming up short on some very important aspects (story, controls, and balance). They should make a smaller scale RPG and just polish the hell out of it.

I think this should be true for the RPG genre in general. Tell better stories that are more intricately interwoven and less filler.

Basically, I want The Last Express as an RPG.

I like big sprawling RPGs (even though I don't finish them anymore) but I would love to see more small scale RPGs that are only 5 hours long. Make it episodic like Telltale does.

$25.50 at GMG with 25% code.. but wow that site sucks.. I had the same problem last time I bought a game through them (my first time) rejected 2 of my Credit Cards.. finally tried Amex.. rejected that.. got a fraud alert from Amex..cleared that up and the charge went through. Tried just now for this game and my exact same Amex was rejected..same fraud warning..cleared it up..tried again rejected..called Amex back and they say they see two approved charges from GMG for $25.20. No indication on the GMG site order went through..Customer Support is an voicemail box.

Amazon is so worth the extra $8 vs now $51 of charges with no game.

It looks like the game is now up on North American PSN for both the PS3($39.99) and PS4($49.99) versions. The listed download size is less than 5GB so more twitch streams from customers should be showing up any minute.

TheGameguru wrote:

$25.50 at GMG with 25% code.. but wow that site sucks.. I had the same problem last time I bought a game through them (my first time) rejected 2 of my Credit Cards.. finally tried Amex.. rejected that.. got a fraud alert from Amex..cleared that up and the charge went through. Tried just now for this game and my exact same Amex was rejected..same fraud warning..cleared it up..tried again rejected..called Amex back and they say they see two approved charges from GMG for $25.20. No indication on the GMG site order went through..Customer Support is an voicemail box.

Amazon is so worth the extra $8 vs now $51 of charges with no game.

Yeah, for some reason, I see LOTS of complaints about GMG problems with credit cards. Why don't you use PayPal, I never had issues paying with PayPal at GMG?

Hmmm, $25 makes it REALLY tempting. But then again, I am playing Dark Souls 2 now, loving it and will probably play it for another month or longer. Might as well wait for reviews, lower price and some patches.

Unfortunately they just swapped the $ for £ in the UK store, which pushes it outside the price I'd be willing to take a chance on. If it turns out to be reasonable I'll save it for a sale.

*actually, I'm wrong, it's actually £30.00 over here. Definitely in steam sale territory.