Tigranes

I did. You manually buy the DLC, enter in the code you got when buying the main game, and the transaction goes through at $0.00. Then you get a key by email that you enter into steam.

I played without Patty all the way through, PB games are all about you fighting monsters, when you have partners you generally end up using them to exploit poor monster targeting AI. It was fun fighting 5 giant crabs with Blake though.

A lot of D2 skills had time-outs. ALso, I think you can use the 6 hotkeys to map whatever you want, e.g. 6 skills from the same 'tree', but you have to wait until the hotkeys all 'unlock' and you only get the 6, instead of 10+. Still stupid, but yeah.

'B' will return your quickbar. I'm putting up swords and cunning for now, invested money in pickpocketing and picklocking training first but my thievery isn't high enough for most chests so I'm scrounging money to get some combat upgrades. Done most of the quests but quite a bit of exploring left to do in the first island.

Played a couple more hours and I'm loving it. Even on hard the regular enemies like the monkeys seem to be susceptible to attack spam, though, hopefully they patch and rebalance like they did with G3 because I have a feeling they screwed up the timing or something. It's more entertaining with human enemies and I guess also when I get more abilities. So, I learned the Kick ability... but how do I do it? edit: ah, right click + space.

Play Risen 2 instead, why waste your time? It's worth the money.

It's been that way in the couple fights I've had, but in my experience it takes a couple hours at least to get to grips with PB combat and really play it properly. We'll see - Risen combat certainly wasn't attack spam vs attack spam, unless you did it taht way.

Seems small enough that we could do this, if Wals wants *poke* *stab* *kick*

A sizable niche, but still a niche. IGN, etc. must be getting ad revenue one way or another. Also, there are a lot of gamers who are skeptical, but their skepticisms are staggered. Some people might hate on IGN and thus turn to The Escapist or think metacritic is still useable; others might go to newer video-based stuff like G4TV and Giantbomb because there the editorial stuff comes together with new information, interviews or gameplay footage, which makes it worthwhile even if they don't tend to listen to reviewers. Personally, I can't stand the presenters. I was looking up some old stuff for my article, and have zero idea what is wrong with this particular lady: http://youtu.be/ic6dKnv3WdU?t=15m Man, how the heck do we embed videos in the new forum style?

Forums or people that I know have similar perspectives and are passionate about the same kind of games. So that includes here, the Codex sometimes, etc. There's really no reason to go to reviews if you have that - reviews will always have to address a wider set of perspectives, and that's when they actually have the time to play the games they review, and that's when they aren't being flagrantly bribed, which is one of the worst kept secrets around. Gamebanshee isn't bad for RPG reviews, but I mostly skim the stuff. Haven't been to IGN, etc. in years, they're pretty useless at telling me anything I can't infer from 5 minutes of gameplay footage.

Played a little more but had to come into the office. I probably won't be able to resist going back home in the evening to play a few hours. For now, the game looks really nice once you get off the gloomy starting area (takes 10-20 minutes) then into the actual first island. Feels like Risen, but better - lots of foliage, bright sun, the mix of tropic/jungle environment and faded colonial uniforms, typical PB quests and encounters like a dude in prison who's had guards confiscate his equipment, so you get 3 different options to get one of them back, etc. I also like the voice acting and characters, actually - nothing elaborate, but the slimy colonial governor and his jaded underlings, etc. work nicely. You start with a rough aim of finding out what Steelbeard is doing and whether he knows anything about a means to kill the Kraken, as the Titan Lords are using it and other things to wreak havoc. But once you get down to it it's all about the classic PB faction intrigue and struggle - between the Inquisitors who're trying to keep things together, their local governors and soldiers who have their own priorities, etc. No pirates yet, so not sure how they're done. Note I'm playing with all settings maxed. There seem to be a few issues with flickering shadows/foliage at long distances but nothing noticeable yet. Game won't beat TW2 or anything like that but it's charming and makes me want to explore. Haven't made my mind up yet about combat. Playing on hard, my first warthog proved very dangerous but doable if I just kept spamming attack. (The stagger mechanic is still there, but nowhere as bad as G3 stunlock.) It was more interesting having the practice fight with another swordsman, and I think it'll get fun as I get used to it and unlock different moves. Character development is a bit different. You have 5 attributes (blades, voodoo, etc), which are directly tied to 15? skills (e.g. Cunning => Silver Tongue, etc.) you use your XP ('glory') to increase attributes, which then indirectly increases your skills. And then, of course, each attribute has its bank of abilities like Sneak or Pickpocket. Trainers seem to be able to give you not only abilities but increases in skills or even attributes, as can items. It looks interesting, but I'll have to play more to find out.

The DVD probably doesn't even have the game files, and you have to get stuff from Steam. Sometimes that's not true and there are workarounds. Steam tries to bone ya. Finally got it going and played for half an hour. Initially it feels as clunky as any other PB game, but looks to be as Gothicy/RIseny as ever. Started on hard and still don't have the hang of combat so died in the tutorial battle. Some silliness like a consolified UI (including a full-screen window for chests, luckily it fades in/out very quick and sets your cursor on Take All/Close button), but not too bad. I like how it autosaves you very often now.

Downloaded 90%, paused and restarted due to driver update, now mysteriously at 35% having defecated a couple of gigabytes out into the void. Not a single game release that goes properly, Steam. Please die so I can actually play games.

Green Man Gaming has delivered my key, so, preloading. *squee*

Hoping to write a few thousand more words tonight so I don't suffer from Have-Risen-2-but-cannot-play-is-becoming-psychopath condition.

(1) No matter where and how you buy Risen 2, you must use Steam, because it has Steamworks DRM. If you bought a box copy, you'd probably get nothing but the Steam exe and a code. Yes, it's that silly. (2) AFAIK, they just email you a code. You open Steam, input that code, then it's exactly the same as if you bought it on Steam; it downloads and plays there. And you get the DLC. So the only practical difference is, with the voucher code listed on the site, you get -20%. (3) I can't remember what happened the last time I used them, but I"m using them for Risen 2 now. I don't think you need their Capsule program in this case. re. GOA - I find if a game is *too* short I can't get attached. E.g. if you know a game is 10 hours long, what's the point in conserving items for a rainy day? Or going out of your way to find a great item? I end up not caring too much about every point allocation, because I know this character will fade into oblivion by the time I go to sleep. A big part of RPGs is growing to feel like the person you're playing has an identity (doesn't need to be emo larping, but even in a powergaming sense) and becoming proficient in using him/her. I think something like DS3 is just long enough, though I wish its loot system was better.

All copies of Risen will use Steam codes, because of the Great Bargaining Power of Steamworks. So I recommend green man gaming, where it's 20% off, you get the DLC, and on release they'll just email you a Steam key download.

I'm curious as to where the Arkane love comes from, and in fact, how they've been able to survive. I liked Arx Fatalis but thought it was a rough gem, not a masterpiece, and I don't remember it selling a whole lot? Then there is Dark Messiah, which again I liked but was pretty shallow. Then they have a cancelled game, some work on Bioshock 2 (pfah), and other odds and ends. I'm excited about Dishonoured and will probably preorder it, but just curious.

Unsure what GOG does, but you should use Exult - it doesn't take long to set up then works very well. You are actually feeding the dudes, right? And not leaving food in the inventory? Thought it was a great game to play through at least once, even though the combat is probably among the worst in any well known RPG.

Although, the cost racks up over time, no? Since the coming of GOG.com there have been at least $50 worth of games where the price really made me want to get it, but I didn't. After a while, I realise I probably wouldn't have played some of them for more than a couple of hours. I've now over a dozen titles on my GOG account, and a few of them I'm pretty sure I won't go back to after a couple of hours, a few of them have become indispensable. Cheap games are great, but you don't want to just sit back and think "hey it's great!", it does change how you buy and play games, and of course, your own mental threshold for wanting / buying.

Krezack you're conflating exactly the two arguments I was separating earlier. I'm not so interested in fighting over whether Steam is good or bad, since we've gone over that a lot of times. My concern is that Steam uses its low price points, exclusive deals with publishers and its carefully cultivated street cred to push a lot of 'features' that many gamers aren't keen on. Is it just capitalism at work? Sure. So what? Shouldn't make this a non-concern.

Is Steam 'bad' for delivering the services it does, in return for the restrictions it imposes and the way it impacts trends in the industry? Well, that's debatable, and I myself am undecided, though I dislike Steam. Is the fact that Steam having the clout & resources to deliver such 'cheap deals' effectively excuses them from responding to gamers' concerns and wants bad? Yes, of course it's bad. Steam has done a lot of stuff that would piss a lot of people off (and currently has pissed some people off) but gets to do so because people will, quite understandably, partake of the deals they offer. I held out for a long time, but there are so many Steam-only titles now that it's even more difficult. I still buy games from Gamersgate, etc. whenever I can, but it's a bygone battle by this point.

It hasn't really changed for me, which is why my favourite games are still the same kind of games I liked within 2-3 years of playing RPGs. I find ways to arrange small but uninterrupted periods of gaming, though that's obviously not that difficult when you're still in your 20s and not married. Games are important enough for me that I've adapted habits and life patterns to enjoy the games I like the way I like to play - that's just how we roll with any media or pastime, to greater or lesser degrees. I have found that when I go back to games before 1998, which is when I started playing PC games, I need to put in more effort to acclimatize; but often, taking the time to do so lends its rewards. I've succeeded in things like old point-and-click adventures and some DOS era games, but not yet with others (Wasteland 1, Darklands, Ultima Underworld).

I know little about music, have my own tastes, and have hardly kept up with Anglophone music scenes in the last decade. So I don't know whether my connections are valid. But I listened to the song and it reminds of people like the New Pornographers, Wilco, etc - fun and upbeat, but boring after a couple of listens. But then, music is all about learning to listen to a particular style and enjoy it, and I haven't given this stuff that time. I may never, but point stands. (Which is exactly where I am with Arcade Fire. Some of their stuff seemed very turgid, I remember. I'll try The Suburbs.) The official music video is cute, though.

And that is the story of how Steam made itself immune to everything.