Humanoid

Yeah, for a low tech game the load times are surprisingly long - and it's installed on a fast SSD.

Hint for beginners: cure poison is a novice level earth spell and available from the vendor in the starting town. Anyway, some more quibbles: - The ingame journal sucks. I understand the concept of the old school 'take a notepad with you at all times', but I remember the old games automatically recording a lot more useful information than what you get now. Such as what colour barrels do what, which trainers are where, etcetera. P.S. Would also have been nice for the local map to tell you what the local area is called, and be scrollable. P.P.S. I wish it would mark down loot containers that you haven't opened for whatever reason, such as riddles. - Did the castle 'dungeon' to rescue the governor or whatever. So far I'd say it's been the most tedious part of the game. "Find the brown switch on a random brown wall somewhere in the level" may be an old school design, but that doesn't mean it makes for good gameplay: not now, and not back then. There's a lot to dislike about modern RPG simplifications, but *making things properly visible* isn't one of them. - The levelling up process can be pretty irritating in that you have to open two separate windows (stats and skills), allocate points in them, close them, then open up the other one. And the windows are *just* big enough that they block you from clicking the shortcut to open the other window without closing the current one. - The night/day cycle has been slowed down since the early access, but I still think it's quite a bit too fast. In summary, the main thing I'd say about the game is that is succeeds at recreating the old school experience, for better and for worse. In this regard I can say the developers have 'done it right'. But all that approach guarantees is the possibility of a good game, and not a great one. It'd be fantastic if the next step, in a sequel perhaps, is to go back and ask the question "why was it done this way?" to each and every classic design element, keep the good ones and throw out the bad anachronisms. Despite the negative tone of all the above, I do want to make it clear that I'm having a pretty good time with it.

It is somewhat interesting that the story can survive the player character being a fighter, thief or bard, as long as it's not a female fighter, thief or bard. I'm picturing in my head a game where you can play a dockworker, a chef, or an accountant, with a supposed story that would be perfectly fine with any of those roles, as long as you're a guy. It's just a bit weird to be flexible in one area but immutable in the other. Static protagonists are nothing new, but there's generally a *lot* more that's static about them other than their gender.

That said, buying Ubisoft games through Steam just adds another layer of complications since Uplay is required anyway, no? 30% off for the next day at GMG by the way, comes to $17.50 for the deluxe edition with the code 33M15F-1DGAOD-YLXBYR P.S. Don't bother using the GMG capsule installer they give you, just plug the Uplay key into the Uplay client.

Just wait until the Al Qaeda sysadmin upgrades their XP machines once support expires later this year. "Wait, so I have to create a Microsoft Account and download the app to launch the chemical weapon missiles? Jihad on Microsoft!"

I was never going to love MM10, I knew that from the start. I've never loved any of the mainline Might and Magic games, and their fundamental gameplay elements that were shared with its contemporaries. Hacking, slashing, and looting were never what made an RPG for me. But with that in mind, MM10 is a well made game, and I'm very much enjoying it. Likes: - The nice and easy inventory management, no more grid hell like in previous games in the series that I've played. - Character creation mostly seems about right. Enough room to feel ownership of the characters, while not being an opaque spreadsheet. The stats and skills are simple enough to understand immediately. - Straightforward combat mechanics, no messing around with initiative systems or anything like that. Minor quibble though, I get a bit disoriented about who's move it is on the first turn of every combat. Since all your characters get to move before the enemy anyway, may as well have hardcoded the leftmost character to be the initially selected one. Dislikes: - Poison. Oh god, poison. I'm happy with the concept of poison being a genuinely dangerous thing, instead of like in most games where all it does it turn your health bar green for a few seconds. But when a dose of poison means you can barely walk from the inn at full health to make it to the temple to get cured without dying again on the way, it feels way too harsh. (For those who haven't played, poison 'ticks' every single step you take, and can take around 10% of your health each time) - The grid based movement, while playing quite well in dungeons and in combat in general, feels unnecessarily restrictive in town. I wouldn't have minded a dual-mode movement system here that relaxed the rules out of combat zones. - Two portraits per race/gender combination is just sad, considering there were quite a few more options in prior games. - The Ubisoft rebooted MM universe. Admittedly though it's out of total unfamiliarity with it - I haven't played any other MM games post-Ubi acquisition.

As inevitably already posted, Privateer's intro is the one standout in my mind, the wonderfully insane machismo setting up the player character perfectly. I'll contrast it to Strike Commander intro, same devs, same cutscene tech, same production values. But instead of setting up the cynical Brownhair, it only serves to set up the much more typical heroic protagonist Redhair, and so has nowhere near the same impact. In general though, it's hard to differentiate between nominations for lists like these - whether an entry is there on its own merits, or because of the game that it backs up. That said: - It would be hard to argue against Privateer 2's ensemble cast being the finest ever assembled, and the finest that ever will be assembled. Shame about the game itself though. - Interstate 76's lo-fi 70s schtick, with the intro's pretensions of being that for a classic TV show. The awesome music gives it an unfair advantage however. - Civilization's iconic "In the beginning..." sequence still warms the heart like no other. But again, being *the* game that made me the gamer I am today, it's hard to be objective about it. - Wing Commander 4's excesses has brought about mixed reactions, but at the time I had never seen anything like it, not least in terms of length. Three distinct scenes segueing into the first gameplay sequence... I'm a critic of the excessively 'cinematic' gameplay of today, but I loved that sequence. - Before I forget: Wing Commander 2. Sound Blaster. Voice pack. Yeah.

The Ubisoft HoMM setting, yes. There are very frequent shoutouts to the old NWC setting though, mostly NPCs.

The grid movement is going to be OCD-hell. Must....step in every tile.

Canada unleashes bioweapon attack on the UK, in the form of a cruise ship with a payload of DISEASED CANNIBAL RATS.

Picked it up as well, my first Uplay game. Got a UPlay key for it from GreenManGaming since they appear to be the cheapest as mentioned in the other thread. Activated fine, but the only issue so far was that it refused to download initially. A quick visit to Google revealed that UPlay needed to be run in administrator mode. Not so long ago I would have completely baulked at the idea of installing UPlay, but with recent changes in DRM policy, UPlay is no more offensive than Steam - or possibly less so given the policy for MM10 is apparently one-time activation.

But how would I defeat the copy protec..... oh wait, it's just pictures in the manuals. (The CD versions were literally the same files as the floppy versions by the way, just copied into directories on the CD. The manuals were reformatted into a compact version such that the pictures were collected on the front pages instead of the main body)

Only just noticed they got Covert Action recently too, so yeah, good times. I mean I have SS2 and F-117A, along with Civ1 and RRT on an old Creative Sound Blaster bundle CD, but still.

Sure, I just mean I imagine it more like The Banner Saga's format (where I'm fine just playing one segment) rather than the more literal episodic approach of Telltale's games, where all the episodes of a season are required to get anything out of the game. The former case is more like the concept of "standalone expansions" that are used to be somewhat common. Telltale's approach on the other hand seems completely vestigial these days.

So I didn't know there was a Clevo reseller in the UK. Apparently there is: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ I don't know the company so it's not an endorsement, but Clevo are sort of a 'generic' notebook assembler who make very customisable machines, and at a good price compared to the 'brand names'. I reckon the W230ST could be easily upspecced to beat any of the options you've presented prior. Heck, it comes with an IPS panel by default which is fantastic, and a video card with plenty of juice to drive it. Upgrade the RAM to 4GB or even 8GB, and optionally even the CPU to a quad-core, add a 240GB SSD, and it's a genuine gaming machine - not a machine that does gaming on the side, but an out and out gaming notebook - that crushes anything else under 1000GBP, at a price the configuration tool gives me of 832GBP. Specced at exactly 2kg too. Obviously the usual caveats apply for a device of this type - support isn't going to be as easy as if you go with an established vendor. And while the parts inside are top notch, I'd expect the chassis to have cut some corners and so feel somewhat cheap and flexy with plenty of plastic. And I imagine it'd be pretty hard to find one to inspect in person before buying it. EDIT: Token review. Ignore the Avadirect branding, it's just the US reseller who add their own branding - just like the UK seller calling it the Optimus V for no real rhyme or reason. The Clevo model number is the one you'd research. EDIT2: If you were looking for a brand, I think the closest would be the Gigabyte P34G, but that's over 1k. Very light for a 14" gaming machine though. I'd have said the Lenovo Y410 and upcoming successor Y40 would be comparable, but it looks like the former model is not sold in the UK, so I doubt the followup would be.

On the linked Asus - well, screen size is not correlated to price at all. 11" panels all the way up to 17" probably cost the manufacturer the same amount given approximately equal quality. What matters is the type of panel and the resolution, and that Asus has a rather nice 1920x1080 IPS panel, as opposed to the nasty 1366x768 TN that infest cheaper products. It also features an upgraded CPU (4500U as compared to the common 4200U, though personally I don't feel the upgrade is worth the cash). The rest of the difference is in general materials (Gorilla glass, aluminium/magnesium instead of plastic) and build quality. Not saying it isn't overpriced, but it's a premium product and is built as such.

It's hard to compare since the Novatech seems to be some sort of UK-only OEMish product. It has a generously large SSD for the price point, the rest of the specs are pretty vague. If the Alienware screen needs to be upgraded I'd say it's a safe bet the Novatech has an equally poor screen - not that it'd be powerful enough to game at full HD I guess, but I just feel 1366x768 screens are unacceptable in this day and age. Also be aware it has a previous-gen low-voltage CPU, which is to say, similar power to the current gen but significantly worse battery life.

Fortunately then it reads that the future acts are intended to be full-blown sequels to a full-scale game. Which considering the price they're asking for them (an extra ~$100 for act 2, and an extra ~$250 on top of that for act 3 *holy cow*), had better be the case.

Sitting on minimum pledge for now (stupid Aussie dollar is sinking fast), but I'd totally triple it if I can play a female thief. Don't care the slightest bit about the other classes, but yeah, thief!

Had no idea it was imminent either. Was planning on ignoring it, but $18.75 on GreenManGaming, hmm. I've managed to steer clear of Uplay all this time, but not as opposed to it as I might have been in the past. (With regional pricing firmly in play, Steam is asking $35 and Ubisoft are asking $40. Yeah, no.) EDIT: Mildly amused by Gamefly's region restriction:

SHIVs can rescue games that otherwise are headed down the toilet. Alloy SHIVs in particular (normal SHIVs come at the point in the game where taking lower ranked troops isn't as big a liability) are cheap, fast (they move further than standard troops), tough (hp similar to Titan but unlocked by researching Carapace), do more damage than equivalent-tech assault weapons, and thus can shepherd your newbies while they learn to shoot. And with upgrades they can suppress and self-repair, plus they benefit from a number of passive boosts you get from the MEC technologies - so they're more powerful than ever in Enemy Within. Their aim is a bit rubbish but can be compensated for by getting in close - you obviously won't need to worry about being flanked or otherwise exposed. And they're viable right to the end, even when the toughest aliens are out in force: which is to say, with enough SHIVs, no game should become unwinnable due to attrition.

As a fan of the more streamlined female form, does it not mean that I can now accuse the developers of objectifying women *more* with this move? /philosoraptor

It turned out that pay TV content was about as boring as free-to-air TV content, just more expensive. Never had pay TV prior, or since. A $300 lesson, but ah well.

Sitting on the sofa with nothing to do led to turning on the Xbox for no apparent reason for the first time in months, which led to a lot of patching, but ended up with Rock Band 3. It's the only thing on the console I've played more than once, and while still a monumental waste of money in hindsight, it's the one thing that keeps it from being a total loss. (The console was purchased as a short-lived experiment of pay-TV streaming, games being an absolute afterthought)

If viewed in the context of being a sort of multiplayer framework, then it's not so surprising perhaps - like a beta for an MMO, say, it doesn't seem the type of game to have a defined content target.