Tigranes

Here be Arcania, available now as direct download at gamersgate, though UK/NA release is now 15th/19th respectively, I believe. Is anyone actually getting this? Let me know, I'm still on the fence and want ohpeenoms.

Inventory Grab: Lighter Use: Toenail Success!

What the freak? And they expect English regions to wait until January? O_o I'll wait for the mkreku seal of approval, though. I don't even know how I could begin to get it from Germany or whatnot...

Continental release 21 oct = no English version yet right?

I'm an idiot. :crai:

My super-modded BG trilogy run has stalled around Spellhold because of I think the game starting to creak and lag under the strain of it all... but mainly because I'm absurdly addicted to PES 2011. My copy of New Vegas will take a while to get here so I might dabble with Gothic 1 (I summon you, mkreku!), which I recently installed. It's hideous but pretty playable, and I actually liked the intro... I need to look up how to talk to people, though.

What's the bug in the video, exactly? Is an NPC floating half a centimetre above the ground, or something? Meh.

I don't know enough about the ME side, but BG2 was so, so amazingly larger, and most importantly, expanded and extended the tactical combat available in BG1 in a huge number of ways. Obviously there were some changes, some would argue for the worse (i.e. ranged attack going from overpoweringly awesome to not very), but really, in the context of everything else, BG2 was about doing BG1 bigger & better. Arguably that's what ME2 did, though I keep hearing about the actionification of combat for one.

TG/DB quests were decent, but they were good in the sense that they had a coherent narrative strung over multiple quests and a few tightly scripted, interesting situations. They didn't really present powerful emotional moments or nonlinearity in problem solving / quest outcomes. Anyway, from the demo I can see what they mean - if you look closely at the level design in the demo it's absolutely horrible. Every place has only one route to go, and tiny, enclosed offshoots that so obviously contain a couple of herbs in very obvious places only served to highlight the weirdness. It actually feels like a railroad.

Except that's how I played Jade Empire, Friend Volo. Yes, I know, it's shocking but it happens.

Honestly, based on the videos and playing the demo, the experience is more like Oblivion than Gothic. Or rather, the mechanics of Oblivion infused with Action RPG mechanics (which, actually, I consider a plus for this type), wearing the colours of Gothic. But then, I enjoyed my first playthrough of Oblivion...still don't know whether to get.

Review embargoes are very common. Not much here.

Leaving aside the amazing level of black-and-white in Vololand in general, I'm on his side of the fence I think - look, Brent as a game developer, but also in personal terms, does not agree with the direction Dragon Age is taking. Big deal. There gonna be devs who agree with this, devs who don't, in and out of BIO. Besides which, devs aren't automatically the best people to say where the industry should go, mainly because they're right up close to it and will always look at it from the production side of things. Sure they will know their stuff, generally, but that doesn't mean the same thing... Obviously personally I agree with what Brent says and DA2 is doing its best to lose my money every day, but this doesn't automatically invalidate the way Bio are going, or show that Bio have become a soulless corporate eeeeevil thing (I mean, they probably are more 'corporate' than 10 years ago, but that's what happens when you get an extra 100 people in there).

Around the same time as Liberty Extremist Group.

Well I'm finding that I am not gettinga ny burning urges to not miss out on Civ5, despite reading up a lot about it. Everyone seems to be having fun, though, so it's a bit weird. Without playing, I think this probably explains my impressions quite well - though, even before V, the problem I always had with Civ was that you couldn't really play any game where you could look at the progress of your nation throughout the ages and build a coherent narrative out of that. Like you couldn't tell yourself the story of your civilisation after playing a random map Age of Empires or Starcraft game. key difference between this and Paradox games, I feel. Now I think it's just gotten a lot worse on that department, and that probably hurts Civ V's longevity shoudl I get it.

If you're the player that did backtrack a whole lot for healthpacks back in the day, I can see why you'd prefer it this way - again, I'd argue that it's not a natural evolution here but a taste/preference thing, based on the kind of challenges you like and the kind of way you play. No need to feel like I'm patronising you because I use the word 'strategy' - the last part of my post should make very clear, in any case, that I'm not opposed to health regen completely. I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so combative here, but my main point is health regen isn't a clear cut issue of "stopping the player". I don't think I can say too much about how extreme regen can get these days, apart from hearsay, since I don't play COD, MW and the like. I thought the original Halo's wasn't too bad, though, and same with AP.

That's such a tired argument, though - I mean, seriously, how many times were you stuck with low health and had to stop, backtrack, and scrounge in cold corpses for the odd health pack you might have missed? Actually, much more likely is that you had to figure out how to get by with your low health, making the action even more intense - or you would die, having to reload. If the argument is against reloading, then it's not a case about intense action, it's about reducing the frustration associated with reloading and wanting to move forward. i.e. it's directly connected to making the game easier in a specific way - which brings us to the sheer question of preference (i.e. does a 'hard-set' challenge making you reload give you a sense of achievement, or would you just be frustrated?). For instance, I'd much prefer the former case, where I actually then get a sense of limited resources, which makes me play more strategically, and if I have to reload a few times to get past a difficult area that's all the better for the sense of accomplishment. So it comes down to preferences about what kind of challenges excite you - the whole thing about "oh I have to go back 8 rooms for the healthpack" is really blown out of proportion. That said, I don't mind recharging health unless it's too much, and if it's offset with challenging enemies/AI.

With one hand he gives, with the other he taketh away... Sucks though, does it call for sausage therapy?

Believe me, I'm not. I left the gal at the house, met the dude in the other house, followed him to the swamps, and am now pretty stuck. The enemies in that tutorial area were easier but in swamps/that farm area, bah. I have barely any gold, wielding the 15dmg sword from the house & am still in my bare feet. I can (sometimes) kill a single bird or porcupine but they almost always come in 3's. Luring one at a time hasn't worked yet. Single wolves, boars, & moths pretty much kill me. I even finally put the game on Easy...helped a tiny bit but not much. I suck. No way - that's where all the fun is, going off the beaten path as early as you can manage. It's a good decision to go to the bandit camp first, though. Stick it out and do all the quests there - most of them in fact don't need any fighting, or ones that are easy enough - and in many areas you can run and get some help. You should be able to get a significant amount of money, XP and equipment by doing the various favours to bandits & gaining their trust. Then you can hit the surrounding areas a bit, and the town.

Keep it happy folks. In any case, if you think you can change Volo's mind about NWN, questions must be raised about you and lost causes...

Media Studies, scroll down here. However that is a thoroughly despicable photo, I don't know what they're thinking taking them when it's 9am and you're presenting at a conference. Wals I'll PM you a copy or somesuch soon.

I'm assuming going to bit-tech of all places for a halfway competent games preview is an exercise in futility, of course, so this is not unexpected...

Agreed here, the second is a good read and the third, well, Robert Harris is pretty interesting 'light read'.

That is because from what little I've seen for myself, non-American history in America is a big bucket of retardation. Anyway, depends on what your definition of 'dry' is. I mean, Suetonius is pretty good when it comes to old historical texts... the Gallic Wars were never really intended to be written as a sit-down thing anyway. I'd say starting off with modern texts is a better idea, something that focuses on the area of your interest (I.e. military). Sorry if you wanted exact names, but I haven't touched classics in a while.

That's awesome, I think I'll use these guys or dvd.co.uk for New Vegas then. Hell, Arcania is 35AUD & 18 quid respectively!