Sorry, to clarify I think the bit about that level was up on the screen.

I really, really enjoyed watching that. But I must say that there are many things that I disagree with. Matt felt like the final level in Alpha Protocol was really good for example, but to me it's easily the worst part of the game outside of the fact that you get to "wrap it up". Some of the challenges thrown at you feel overtly "gamey" and artificial (rocket launcher placement anyone?). Also, (this is not related to the challenge though) while it's nice that you return to the where you started out the game, the problem is that it's just not a very interesting location visually speaking. In fact, I would say that it's probably the most boring one in the game.
It also breaks what I feel to be a fairly important design decision of the game in that you have to kill at least one fairly big main character, even if you choose to use non-lethal means to take him down. Yeah, the numbers on the stat page say non-lethal but the game plays as if the character dies.

I think a lot of people will watch these vids and feel that what Matt is saying does not match up at all with their personal experiences with Alpha Protocol. I think there is a great insight though in that he says that they kinda lost their objective view, got desensitized, of how the game plays.
Personally I think it's a lot of fun to play, I'm one of the people who think the weapons feel good to use, I enjoy that you have to aim, the stealth stuff and so forth. But it is a pretty unbalanced game overall, with wonky AI and all that. But I think making AP has been a great learning experience for the designers involved with it.

He's right on the money when he talks about Left 4 Dead btw.

Also, beards. But no drinking game.

Very enjoyable presentation.

Of course. But I think the ME2 story goes beyond soft.

I don't mind the ironsight blocking out the view so much. Like C2B said, it depends on the weapon and we've seen other examples where it doesn't block out.

Two things though. Am I the only one who thinks the animations for that rifle looks a bit strange? The shooting in particular, the recoil looks a bit weird... Also, I really hate it when enemies flail around like that when they die. It looks completely ridiculous.

One the plus-side, framerate is looking very solid on there. Looking quite smooth overall.

For the NWN games, he did the soundtrack for MotB (which rocks). SoZ was handled by a bunch of different composers, some of which have also done music for the Planescape Purgatorio mod for NWN2.

I never saw the greatness of ME1, I think it's a pretty bad game overall.
The gameplay of ME2 is not the direction I would've wanted myself (I would've liked more RPG and less action myself) but I think it *is* an improvement on ME1. ME1 was to me one of the worst examples of gameplay being "stuck in the middle" between action and RPG. Like I said, I would've preferred a strong push towards the RPG side, but I think the most important part was that it *got* a push at all.

But, while I think the ME1 plot was extremely boring... The way ME2 continues it is just horrendous. For all the talk of ME always being planned as a trilogy, it sure feels as if they had *no* idea where to take the plot in the second game. It's terrible.

That said, the companions (which are sort of the stars of ME2) are much better and a generally fun bunch to interact with.

Overall, I had quite a bit of fun with ME2 on my first playthrough. But when I tried replaying it, I... well, I didn't really like it anymore. It was a really fun ride once but once that was over, I didn't find any more enjoyment in it.

I think that's definitely part of it, yeah. But usually, even for the classic "console port interfaces", it still feels fairly usable on a PC. For this game, I just have no idea what the designers could've been thinking. I think it might feel better with a controller but even then it's pretty bad and most of all, unintuitive. Ah well.

I kinda don't want to bring up yet another discussion about this but it is fairly clear and laid out on the interwebz what the original designers (as in the people who did Fallout 1) wanted to accomplish with the game. Furthermore, as wonderful as it is to point out NMA as the cancer of the universe, you're bound to find the same type of arguments (generally speaking) within any fan-community. Hell, as I understand it there are people complaining about how DS3 is breaking the Dungeon Siege tradition. Completely unfathomable to me personally as I think the two first games (based on what little I've played) were bad and boring, but there you are.

I agree with the people who say that the 50s thing is taken a bit far. Something I liked about Fallout 1 was that you could still take it pretty seriously as a post-apoc game, even though there was obviously humor in it. But I think as the series goes on, the 50s schtick is so prevalent that it almost feels like the game is poking fun at itself a lot of the time. There's a lot of stuff I really look forward to in New Vegas, namely how roleplaying seems to very improved, especially with the factions and the player's role in them... But a lot of stuff, like the gang of Elvis impersonators for example, doesn't strike me as particularly Fallout (if I may *dare* to even suggest that) and downright strange all together.

Finally finished downloading the FFXIV beta and started it up... First impressions are OK, the character creation is pretty fun. You have the races from FFXI basically but with different names and lore to fit into this new world. There is much more customization, some races appear to have a couple of "clans" to choose from and so forth. Fun.
Also, in FFXI the jobs were all geared towards combat. In FFXIV, stuff like fishermen, miners, the various crafting stuff are apparently all considered jobs of their own which I really dig. I started as a fisherman.

But when you start playing... Jesus, it's such a clunk-fest. Now, I played FFXI for a long time and it was clunky as hell and I dealt with it. But, this much time later and for a new game... Wow, I can't believe they couldn't create a half-decent interface. Furthermore, the performance is pretty poor. Loading times are bad. There is a really noticeable wait when you bring up a new interface element, such as when you when you want to buy/sell something from a store.
Perhaps worst of all... The starting city I chose is not really boring-looking visually speaking, it's also terrible to navigate.

I'm not really sure whether MMORPGs have made great strides in usability and such since FFXI first came out (though I think it was known to be kinda clunky even in the MMORPG field) but FFXIV sure didn't leave a good impression from what little I saw. Of course, it's a beta and yaddayadda, but...

Guess I'll try it some more tomorrow but it doesn't feel particularly good so far.

Yes they are.

Especially when they are WRONG!

Well, despite my skepticism I'm finding myself downloading the FFXIV open beta (which is taking forever). At least it'll be a good way to see a bit of what the game has to offer before buying, we'll see if it's anything good.

I don't mind slow-mo stuff per say, it's just that it looked more like severe FPS drops rather than a smooth slow-mo effect. I actually thought my computer was having troubles loading the video properly.

Hard to say anything otherwise. Can't really get a sense of much of anything other than that the moves and fx stuff looks smooth and nice in motion.

Well I finished the shift and things went just fine and dandy. It started out pretty hectic with two new patients arriving, everyone wanting to go to sleep and get their medicine at the same time and two people that we had to watch extra carefully.
Other than that, nearly everyone slept through the night.

It was pretty cozy to work at first actually. I did fall to the temptation of having coffee but it was rather nice to sit in the quiet ward sipping coffee. The temptation of eating was huge but I managed to stick to my carrots only, hehe.
Things got *really* slow at around 3-4AM up until 6AM or so. When dawn starts to break, you really get a new surge of energy.
Got home and slept for about four hours. Gonna stay awake now and try to sleep like I usually do during the night.

Didn't love the experience but can certainly see myself hopping in every now and then to make some extra money. But I don't think it's for me to become a full-time night worker. But hey, who knows what'll happen.

Well, for now I'll only be working nights every now and then and the majority of workdays will be during the days. So I think I'll try to stay in the normal rythm of things for now. I think I will get some twisted sense of enjoyment seeing all the people heading to work in the morning though while I get to go home and chill out.

But yeah, not in a relationship at the moment so if I enjoy working nights, I'll be shooting for that as much as I can.

haven't had a cold in a really long time now though and I usually get a really big one when autumn rolls around... So I kinda fear that I'll be hit with that.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'd been reading up a bit before and something that constantly comes up is the pitfalls of eating at night. I'd originally planned to make a little "lunch" to bring so to speak but I think I'll skip that. Though I think I'll bring some fruit or veggies.
I don't usually drink coffee at work because it tends to go right through me, but I think I'll be having some before I go to work since the effect is apparently long-lasting (I can't say I've ever felt a very real change myself but eh).

Yeah, staying active will be a problem I think. Unless there's a patient who's going a bit berserk, the night-shifts at the ward are very quiet as far as I know and there's just not that much to do since... well, patients are supposed to be asleep.

When I get home, I think I'll have some breakfast and then try and go to sleep.

So I'm about to start working a few nights at a psychiatry ward at a nearby hospital. I'll be working from 9pm to 7am.
Anyone here have experiences from working at night? How did you prepare, how did you sleep, how did you eat etc etc? And how did you like it overall?

I played the game during that time, it was pretty crazy. I have no idea whether that particular boss was bugged or not, or whether there was a real way to beat it, but those people are just stupid for doing something like that. If the boss was bugged then the company should be blamed for that, but the stupidity of the player staying up that long (I remember it as being longer than 8 hours as they took "shifts", but not sure) is just mind-boggling.

I really enjoyed my time with FFXI, especially when the game was still fresh and people were making their way not really having figured out the best strategies and all that. It was immensely fun to just adventure and explore. Once everyone figured out the strategies, started setting up schedules for events, basically "optimizing" everything, the game totally lost its charm for me.
I was initially interested in FFXIV but after reading player impressions I don't think I'll get it.
Besides, the idea of paying monthly fees to play is becoming more and more distant in my mind.

I gotta say though... Even though I kinda ragged on the game's acting in the above post, it probably has the best digital drunk acting (character animations and so forth) that I've seen. Really got the mannerisms and the kinda glassy, slightly off-center stare right.

That's gotta be worth something!

Cooking in the Dragon Age universe is serious business.

Yeah... I don't think I saw a difference in the number of the loot placements but I guess it could be that the standard ammo placements are replaced by special ammo? That could be it.

I got the game yesterday while idly browsing the local game-store. Couldn't stop myself.

I'm only a few chapters in but I'm a bit torn. The city and the visuals are marvellous. When you first get dropped into the city to walk home I thought it was a real "wow" moment. Stuff like cars still feel great, with real weight behind them.

On the other hand, when Mafia came out... Its story and the way it was told felt quite fresh at the time, a more realistic approach to counterbalance other more over-the-top games. But it doesn't feel like that this time around. I'm having trouble connecting with the characters.
Also, for a game that tries so hard to aspire to being a "Godfather of the video-games", I think the writing constantly falls flat on its face. The voiceacting is very over-the-top in many situations which completely undermines the seriousness of the game (and it is a game that takes itself seriously).

Not that the original Mafia was amazing in any of these regards either but I think the fact that it was A) fairly fresh and B) it didn't feel like it was overshooting its marks made it a bit more fun to play. Plus, I think the main character in Mafia 1 feels waaay more sympathetic than Vito in Mafia 2.

Still, I'm eager to play more so the game is doing something right. But it really hasn't impressed me so far in terms of its story and writing (which is crucial for such a story-driven game). I don't personally have a problem with the lack of sandboxy-ness, and I didn't mind it in the Mafia 1 story either (never used the Freeride mode). Though I hear a lot of neat things have been cut apparently which is a shame.

I think Hong Shi's is the only one where the order of the intel seems a bit strange, seeing as how you buy the secret file first (and it doesn't show up until you meet him and unlock his "usual" piece of dossier info).
Then you can complete it if you blackmail him for more info but I don't think there's a huge point to that.

There were one or two pieces of intel that mentions supplies being laid out in the area (I think one somewhere in Saudi and one in the Ruins mission in Rome, can't remember the pre-requisites) but I never noticed a difference vs not buying it. Might be me not paying attention though.

The first few chapters of Risen where the focus is very much on the exploration and open quests is simply put some of the best RPG stuff I have ever played. The world is nice to explore, the combat can be really unforgiving to the player and the quests and choices are very well-done. It's an absolute joy.
Sadly the game becomes more of a dungeon crawl later on but I still had immense fun with it.



I think Act 1 is easily the shortest one with Act 2 being the longest one, at least if you take your time to explore all the areas.

I'm replaying the game now and I gotta say that the conversations with Marburg are just amazing, whoever wrote them did a really good job. The suave path features some absolutely great lines, far and above most game-writing. And the acting is spot-on. Marburg is probably one of the best VA's I've heard in a game.

I would be quite careful with "info" from previews, it can be really hard at times to tell what stuff is A) actually true B) assumptions made by the previewer and C) just crappy writing by the previewer.

I didn't really have a problem with weapons breaking down quickly though (well ok, some weapons seemed to degrade way faster than others to an annoying rate). What I didn't like was that you had to have spare weapons to repair with (I dunno how New Vegas is changing this, but the repair kits seems to indicate that something is indeed changed). I also felt the degradation wasn't particularly noticeable on the weapon performance.

And yes entrerix, there will be a GECK (with upgrades done by OEI for New Vegas) released afaik.