GhostofAnakin

This actually would be quite humorous, especially if the NPC's personality is that of one who hates being treated like a girly girl.

My stupidity shines through again. I have two games of BG2 going at the same time, one more of a good play through, the other more evil. Anyway, my good play through is at Chapter 3, so I decided to switch over to my evil play through to catch up to the same point. As I'm playing my evil play through, I decide to save and go for something to eat. Guess which save file I saved over? So basically I have to start my good play through all over again. That's what I get for not paying attention and just clicking on whichever save file I saw first.

This brought to mind the laughable cutscenes with Kai Leng in Mass Effect 3, where he'd taunt me and laugh at me for failing --- even though during the actual combat portion, I kicked his ass without even breaking a sweat. It was immersion breaking because instead of me thinking what a bad ass he is, I was left thinking what horrible game design it was. Note to developers: If it's absolutely a must that an enemy "lives to fight another day", make it at least a bit more plausible like a bunch of his minions come in and distract us while he gets away. Don't have a cutscene or dialogue where it appears as though he was the one kicking my ass the entire time, even though I'd just finished wiping the floor with him.

First off, let me state I'm not comparing FO to AP -- before you decide to derail what I'm about to say into "LOLZ you think AP has more C & C than FO" and completely ignore the rest of what I'm about to say. So having said that, how can you continually talk about AP not having good C&C when you've never even finished the game? You haven't seen what those consequences of your choices actually amount to as the game goes on. As someone who has actually played the game father than the first Saudi mission, I *do* hope Obsidian at least looks at how the template they used in AP when coming up with how to make PE's choices and consequences matter.

I've given up on my BL1 play through. The lack of a "main story quest" is off putting for me. It's like I'm just getting a whole bunch of random fetch quests, with no real reason given for any of them.

I also agree with those that are hoping for alternatives to having to fight the final "boss". Perhaps rather than simply stat related (ie. if you have X charisma, you can convince him), it could be tied with a bunch of things you did over the course of the game. Intelligence gathering (to shake the bad guy's beliefs that he's doing the right thing), quests (perhaps weakening his hold on the world and convincing him his end is inevitable), or any such cumulative thing that enables you to avoid having to fight him. An example of this *almost* happening is in Dragon Age: Origins, in your fight with Logain. You could convince him during the fight that he was wrong (thus getting him to join your party). Of course in this case you had to fight him first, but my idea would be the same convincing thing but before the fight took place.

I prefer boss battles where you need to come up with a strategy to defeat the boss, not because he's got a million hit points, but because he's got "layers" of defenses you have to work your way through. Someone who takes a bit of thinking on your part, and utilizing your entire party, rather than just hasting your tanks and having them hack away until the boss is dead. As a short, extremely basic example: I'd rather face a boss who has only 50 HP, but who is protected by magical protection that needs to be dispelled first with a handful of spells before you can even start damaging him, rather than facing a boss with 150 HP that basically needs to be hacked to death.

I don't mind enemy re-spawns as long as they don't occur right away (ie. just finished a battle and am backtracking through a small area just to make sure I've got everything I need, when suddenly there are the same group of enemies I just dispatched), and as long as they don't spawn right on top of me after I've taken great pains to scout the area beforehand to make sure no one is there.

Weird. After I'd dispatched the beholdes, I decided to go to the shop just to browse some wares. I noticed that Deirdre isn't there. I don't know why she's not showing up. The other merchant from the "extra content" shows up perfectly fine at the Copper Coronet.

Voted for something in the middle. A nice balance between the two would be ideal, IMO.

I voted for don't care. If Obsidian thinks adding sexual content fits with the story and world they're creating, cool. If Obsidian chooses to not bother with pixelated sex, cool. Whatever the boys at Obsidian decide on this topic is fine by me. I trust their judgment when it comes to their vision for PE.

I kind of like the idea of unidentified equipment that you could wear, but at your own risk. You can wear them right away, but maybe they're cursed? It's just a chance you take if you decide to equip them before getting them identified.

I wanted to try and tackle them without using the shield (and later on, the cloak of mirroring or whatever) to see just how tough they'd be without "instant win" equipment on this play thru.

Beholders are my new bane, especially when they're in packs.

I do think it could add realism if NPCs reacted to how you and your party are dressed, but I hope it extends beyond just your character's attire. I hope his actions/deeds also have an effect on how people will react as well.

It's been a while since I've finished BG2, but the last time I did I didn't have *too* much trouble with Irenicus.

Beating the dragon dude wasn't too difficult, mainly because it's just one enemy. My problems with magic users arises when there's more than one of them. When it's just one, I can throw everything my party's got at them. But whenever it's more than one, I find that one of them gets off his stuff before I have a chance to neutralize all of them, and it's usually an annoying spell that either stuns, paralyzes, or confuses my party. And yes, I really do suck at counter and defensive spells.

The reviews do Alpha Protocol no justice. It got ripped apart for a lot of stuff that other games that scored highly also had, and the stuff it did well got glossed over as well. AP has fantastic replayability because of the different ways your decisions can alter/change the way future quests play out. Unlike a lot of games that advertise it as such, in AP choices *do* matter and have actual consequences in the game.

About to take on Fierkrag (sp?) in BG2. Sidenote: I positively suck against mages. Put me up against Golems, Wyverns, or any other of the beastly creatures, and I have relatively little trouble. Put even two low level bandit mages against me, and suddenly I'm in a fight for my life.

It would be kind of interesting if, like the OP suggested, the betrayal was PC-inspired, rather than just pre-scripted to happen regardless. For instance, if a Paladin was in your party and he was growing discontented with your shady activities, perhaps instead of leaving your party, he waits for an opportunity to side with city guards or other paladins to apprehend you. Or if one of your party members is of the thieving, evil sort, and he starts to get tired of how goody-goody you're acting, he'll sell you out at some point when you least expect it. In both cases above, the betrayal is because of something the PC has done, or has been doing, rather than because those companions were scripted to betray you from the start no matter what you, the PC, do.

So you played the PC version of Arkham City? I played the 360 version, and I actually thought the combat was fun. I also thought it was pretty intuitive, the button combos working well with the controller layout and such.

The combat is strikingly similar to Batman; Arkham City, minus the bat contraptions you have in AC. Sleeping Dogs is a good game. Money well spent for me, for sure.

Generally, I just prefer it if the game were over when the last main story quest is completed. I've yet to play a game that kept my interest after the main story. Usually all that's left is minor quests that I need to wrap up, which typically aren't enough to keep me playing. I tend to just start a new play through instead.

They invented these things called DVDs recently, they're pretty good. Dee...vee....what? You kids and your fancy lingo.

In terms of size of the game, I wonder if the physical copy is going to reach 4 CDs like BG2 did, or if the technology nowadays will allow them to optimize it better.