Humanoid

Yeah, I'd play a modded version of the game where *all* the combat is taken out, leaving just dialogue and exploration. Actually, strip out the exploration too, having to creep around in stealth mode to find things was godawful and even as a thief character I couldn't be bothered. Either remove the movement penalty or remove the stealth requirement just to detect hidden stuff so I can get away with never using it. I know there's a story mode difficulty which is a baby step forward, but it's still just busywork. Or make it as fast as Ultima 7 combat which was effectively an autoresolve mechanism. (i.e. see enemy, hit the 'C' button, wait five seconds, loot)

I'm yet to leave Gilded Vale.

Just going to use this post as a scratchpad for now. No great thought has gone into this list so far, all I did was open up Notepad++, start typing out the names of games off the top of my head that seemed good until I got to 25, and then sorted the list alphabetically. It's not really a submission, at least not yet, just something to get me thinking. One self-imposed limitation is that for any given series I restrict myself to nominating the best individual entry. Alpha Centauri Baldur's Gate 2 Broken Sword 2 Championship Manager 3 Civilization 4 Day of the Tentacle Donkey Kong Country F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 Fallout: New Vegas Freecell Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Jagged Alliance 2 Master of Orion 2 Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine SimCity 2000 SimFarm Super Mario World The Curse of Monkey Island The Witcher 3 Theme Hospital Ultima 7 Wing Commander: Privateer World of Warcraft XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Maybe it matters in terms of abstract concepts like moral culpability, but I'd be more supportive of less subjective measures when it comes to drafting the actual legislation. Then we don't get the absolute mess that would ensue when EA's lawyers hold up the courts with arguments on how they're not technically targeting children, because the law would simply be that if your game contains lootboxes then it's subject to such-and-such regulation, period. It would be a right mess trying to enforce varying standards of what level of gambling is okay for games potentially as diverse as Lego, Star Wars, Battlefield, or Sexdungeon XXX Online. Like the cigarette advertising ban, this is something that would work better as a blanket rule.

I don't think the target demographic thing even matters in the grand scheme of things. It's a big talking point, yes, and is an easy political target, but why should that be the determining factor? Casinos are marketed at adults, are regulated, and still operate legally and successfully. In the same way, lootboxes can also be marketed purely at adults, can be regulated, and still can be a legal and successful revenue stream for gaming companies. A lot of the debate stems from the reporting at times using the terms "regulating" and "banning" almost interchangeably and leads a lot of people being inevitably categorised into being either for both, or against both. It turns the argument into one of black and white: should it or shouldn't it? Surely the sensible question would be about the extent to which it's regulated. Casinos, lotteries, betting, sweepstakes, and yes, competitions on the back of cereal boxes are all regulated, and are all still viable practices. Why can't there be a sensible debate on where lootboxes fit into that spectrum, and thus apply the appropriate level of regulation to them? I mean look at the laws around stuff as simple as those crane games in shopping centres, y'know those machines where you manipulate a mechanical claw to grab a stuffed toy or whatever. Those are regulated and tested to ensure "fairness". Surely it's fine in that context to apply some level of due diligence to videogame gambling just so it isn't a complete wild west scenario.

I plan on replaying it when proper co-op support is finally added sometime early next year. I've already done a solo run when it was new, and a glitchy co-op run with the makeshift multiplayer mod this year, so I've gotten plenty of value out of it already despite them taking almost two years to deliver the multiplayer functionality (that was always promised).

DOS2 is the only 2017 release I've meaningfully played thus far (well, one of two, but the other is a microtransaction-laden mobile game). I'm not comfortable giving out GOTY awards by default though, maybe I should go and finally play Thimbleweed Park to give it some semblance of legitimacy. Or I might just leave it vacant like the black hole that was gaming in 2014. (During the last week of this year, I will finally play the Switch and its two big titles, but a week isn't enough time to award any game the GOTY award either unless I do so retrospectively) For the record: 2016 - Stardew Valley 2015 - The Witcher 3 2014 - no award 2013 - Monaco : What's Yours is Mine 2012 - XCOM 2011 - The Witcher 2 2010 - Fallout: New Vegas

You're all making it sound as if people never buy new TVs during the lifetime of a console. OLED is just about entering the mainstream now that Panasonic and Sony have both relented and are competing on that front, so after a quiet few years there's finally some life in the TV market again.

I skipped buying Dawnguard a few years ago when it was $2.50 and am now locked out of an essential mod in Live Another Life and doubtless a number of other important ones. Now it hasn't even been under $10 for three years, making it not viable to purchase over just rebuying the entire game. Am sad. Can't exactly blame Bethesda for it I suppose (other than the actual Dawnguard content being so crappy that me of three years ago decided it wasn't worth $2.50), but I probably should have guessed from the nature of their games that modders would always assume you own the whole package.

Usually I go Humble direct download over GOG over Steam. I don't actually buy anything direct from Steam - for Steamworks games I'll buy a Steam key from the cheapest store listed on IsThereAnyDeal.com. Humble is there because they take a smaller cut of the sales, so it's better for the developers (and charities). I'm not sure what the exact cut is these days though, and how IGN's buyout will affect it. Sadly they're selling precious few DRM-free titles these days anyway, even for titles which are available DRM-free on other platforms. GOG is there because of its relative simplicity. Galaxy is not a plus though. The only issue I tend to encounter is slower patching, some of it due to GOG's manual vetting procedure, other times due to developer complacency. (Death Road to Canada took 2-3 months to catch their GOG build up) Steam is last because its advantages are generally those that I don't value, and because I dislike the way they try to push their brand with the insidious always-on model. I make zero use out of the social functionality. Achievements actually have negative value for me, I would rather they not exist at all because they promote unfun gameplay. The other knick-knacks like in home streaming might have value, but I haven't found a practical use for them yet. The one title I want to use family sharing for doesn't work despite extensive troubleshooting.

All cars have thrusters built into both sides for convenient sideways ramming, what's not to like?

Having a fixed character like Link and Gordon be silent seems to be a matter of tradition for tradition's sake. They were protagonists of good games who happened to be silent, and for some reason that became an association to defend, no matter how much people claim to understand correlation is not causation. It's basically just dogma at this point. Fortunately Arkane were good enough to acknowledge their missteps and Dishonored 2 reversed the decision on the silent protagonist and is a better game because of it.

Unlockables are totally fine as long as you can edit an easily accessible ini file to unlock everything immediately.

Adding the multiplayer functionality would imply some sort of attempt at balancing I would hope. But even without any changes, I reckon I'd have fun just fooling around anyway, perhaps with some self-imposed challenge (or intentional sabotage). That said, given how some multiplayer sessions go, the addition of teammates might already have made it harder (looking at you, Magicka).

Every single player shooter could do with a buddy just jumping around you helping you out, in the style of Saints Row's multiplayer. I mean Mass Effect has two virtual buddies tagging along with you at all times anyway, I never saw why multiplayer turned out to be some weird standalone arena thing instead of having friends in their stead. All the Mass Effect games would be a blast with drop-in Saints Row-style multiplayer. So would Bethesda games and just about every single-player shooter campaign out there. And RTwP is no limitation, any such game worth its salt has enough difficulty customisation so that it could viably be played without pause, and there's plenty of prior art in this regard. If you can do Baldur's Gate or Crusader Kings multiplayer, there's no reason something like FTL wouldn't work.

I reckon Cities Skylines would make for a fun multiplayer experience. Whether co-op using the same resource pool, or as competing mayors in the same gamespace, it'd be a hoot. I mean, Theme Hospital had some entertaining (and trollish) multiplayer and that was 20 years ago.

Like this reenactment? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce2jEDfPwG8

This thread made me check up on the Skywind (the equivalent project for Morrowind) and their website hasn't even been updated this year. Wonder when the last time a fan project like this ever made it to release. There was, um, U5: Lazarus? (Ultima 5 on the Dungeon Siege engine)

I praised the game earlier for allowing you to kill a seemingly important NPC early in the game. Well I withdraw that praise because apparently the game just Deus Ex Machinaed him back to life in a very literal sense so his role in Act 3 is unchanged. Bleh. The magic has wearing off pretty quickly in the last few play sessions, and not just because of things like the above. Bloodmoon Isle was a frustrating mess of obtuse quests with a couple of Guide Dang It moments, and it prompted me to just end the act without tying off all the loose ends because it was seriously turning into a mess of unresolved issues. But the first few hours of Act 3 have been pretty aimless too.

Just had a stickybeak and I see I can get the PS4P for $469AUD ($366USD) and the XB1X for $549AUD ($429USD). Seems fair enough for both, though I'm in the market for neither. (And granted the Xbone price is a MS store exclusive offer for Amex holders).

I'm a software developer who likes video games, and I would not even slightly consider working in the games industry. It's the wild west out there. Cushy government job where I can count the number of times I've ever done overtime on my fingers - now that's my speed. It's hardly a localised problem either, I remember reading about the development hell that was LA Noire, and that was made in Australia, where we have much stronger labour laws than the US or Eastern Europe. It's safe to assume it happens everywhere. I'm not sure there's a palatable solution to all this. In real terms, games have never been cheaper to buy, and they've never been more expensive to make.The sticker price on games are still the same as they were near the dawn of the industry, absorbing decades worth of inflation. Meanwhile team sizes would be the biggest they've ever been, and that's before taking into account the auxiliary stuff like licencing, voice recording and marketing - the cost of which would also be at record highs. Sure, the greater volume of sales these days (compared to when gaming was a comparatively niche hobby) compensates to an extent, but in an increasingly saturated market, something's got to give.

's where I bought NWN from, the collector's edition with the cloth map. Boy what a fine disappointment that ended up being, at least until the expansions came out and some really good user created content was available. The shop's been kaputt for a while now though. I think the cloth map was also included in the standard edition, unless the CE came with a different one. And the cloth map was indeed a disappointment if I remember right, it was fairly small and flimsy. Still infinitely better than the travesty that was the DOS1 map, of course. I have a recurring dream of walking into a second hand shop and finding a pristine copy of Fallout 1. Then I wake up and am sad. I do have a battered copy somewhere that I bought on eBay yonks ago, and my FO2 box isn't the original release and has an ugly yellow banner along the side of it. My Arcanum copy is fine, though I don't really remember the contents of it.

It's weird, everyone reckons the writing is better this time and I can't objectively disagree. But I can't say I'm enjoying the writing as such, maybe it's because of how wildly it swings between their off-the-wall humour schtick and the newfound Darker and Grittier additions. I'm suffering some sort of mood whiplash as a result.

So they changed direct connections to no longer allow joining using IP address. You have to use the special code which you need to generate every time you play, because it always changes every time you launch the game, unlike your IP address. Dumb, dumb change.

Diversification relies on identifying which abilities scale with what attributes/skills and how. It's not always in an intuitive way. In a physical party you need to identify which spells can be useful with baseline intelligence, and vice versa. There are some traps like how summoning doesn't scale with anything but itself - a pure summoner can stack strength just as effectively as intelligence. Even summon spells that are not linked to the summoning skill use it for scaling: things like the Fire Slug and Bone Widow still require you to stack summoning to be effective, not Pyro/Necro as you might expect.