Tigranes

I wonder how the costs of making a 'good little 2D RPG' these days for the XBLA compare to doing it for the PC ten years ago, though?

Open world within districts like "Paris X district", I guess.

*shrug* I actually think it's to FF's credit that they've gone on and had such a long franchise with commercial success while trying a reasonable number of different things in different ways (story, gameplay, combat, etc), enough for a lot of people to at least enjoy some of the games. They do get grindy and I really really wish they would grow out of the whole anime emo characters, but I think they are dismissed too easily - they are often built very very well in terms of pacing and balance and do a good job of making you feel challenged or rewarding you for work (grind), they also pace and deliver the story very well and the games do look beautiful most of the time. I tried 10 and 12 but they were too emo for me, 5/6/7 really was the golden era although I enjoyed 9 for the kitsch parody throwback it was. I thought they really missed out with 12 in that they had a great world setting and some very nice elements in the story that could have raised it a level and made it a bit more 'mature' (the war, political intrigue stuff) but it became a macguffin soon enough.

Self-explanatory, I guess.

Man you guys really get riled up. It's fair to say the graphics don't look as top notch and the reticles are pretty damn big in some situations. We'll just have to see if the variety of art direction and gameplay make up for it. As for open world, I don't think it's such a big deal now because so many games are open world. It would be fun, but I don't think it would really add a lot. I mean, it's not like you can have 'filler combat' or dungeons, anyway.

Story structure sounds awesome, and if delivered right will have a really good impact. the dialogue example was stupid, but you can't win them all, I suppose.

You'll have to deal with me and my fiersome haka in the airport first.

Any of Beijing, New Delhi, Phuket or Seoul would do awesome, actually. A combination of the best of the developed world's luxuries and night life with random bits of Asian tradition and 'slummy' neighbourhoods.

Maybe it's time I tried JA2...never looked like I'd enjoy it, for some reason.

Remember that it makes a vast difference whether you watch the cutscenes in full or hit skip once you read all the dialogue. Since these seem to have become the core of the game experience for many Bio games, it actually cuts off 5+ hours off the gametime alone.

Yeah, I don't think it matters so much you get yourself in Princeton to start off with, if you can get yourself in it at the end. Which is why I stayed in NZ, then tried to go to a big 'un for Masters, but couldn't afford it (need-based aid? not for foreigners), and am trying to go for PhD. Guard Dog and Enoch, by the way, are responsible for me going for the long-shot, so they better put me up if I fail.

I tried various wives. The pirate wife was very useful mid-game because I had various items that gave me pirate bonuses, and my sea dogs were whirling melee masters of doom. Item drops are random so I think that's going to drive strategy quite a bit - ironically, as Paladin now, I'm finding all these excellent intellect/mana items that I never saw as a mage. Currently I just got the frog-wife, but we'll see.

I've read the article and the act, the act itself seems to say that you have to be a 'qualified person' (Librarian, etc) to actually engage in the act of DRM circumvention, though they can do ti for others?

I like the Byzantines but the Mongols were massively annoying. As they should be, I guess, but I never understood why they got all sorts of elite infantry and artillery units. Usually, because I'd be the regional power long before that, I'd keep a buffer of vassal states and hope they took a pounding while my assassins killed their entire family off. After that, you never ever want to face them in the open field because their freaking horse archers will run around randomly all over the battle map for 3 freaking hours. Seriously. Once I tried turning off battle limit and sitting there with highly armoured troops, they just run around and kill like 2 people. You want to get them in forests, bridges or hell, I normally let them take a castle then sieged it, letting them try and break out - that's where they are the least effective.... and the AI most retarded. The AI armies sallying from sieges look less organised than a swarm of ants going after honeycombs.

I think most people would prefer a game that works properly over a broken one with DLC, though.

Yeah, that wouldn't be a good idea by any stretch of imagination.

King's Bounty, got to nearly the end and then started again, as I do with most games. :/ It's a game you're meant to know and work and number-crunch and I'm going to do the best I can this time, even Normal was a big challenge on my first run and I was having to run from half the enemies in later areas.

I should really know this stuff, actually. Well done media graduate. I bought FM2010, and they had a steam version and a normal version - I got a physical copy from the UK and it had nothing to do with steam. It's a good thing, too, given the number of compatibility problems they had with 2009 & 2010 for Steam - nothing good comes of trying to make things more complicated than it needs to be. Anyway, as a multiplatform release surely there's no good reason for it to be Steam only. Guess I have to wait for news on this before preordering. But then, if I have to moderate this place and I don't have the game I'd probably kill myself.

Its just a game purkake dont be such a fanboy lol Maybe I just don't appreciate the gameplay in adventure games enough, so I'm not the best person to judge. They're mostly decent, but I mean, did BG&E really need the platforming bits? I liked the stealth, but unless you got it right you'd get insta-caught and have to redo the 'set piece' again and again, as well. Combat was basic, but again, if you couldn't work out the right way to do it you had to repeat. I'm not great on platformy stuff and it really wore me down. It was great in that the gameplay actually made you empathise with Jade (always on the run, always nervous), but it wasn't the funnest thing in the world.

Yay, someone is helpful! Dreamfall I recall enjoying about as much as TLJ, though I didn't know what the hell was going on. Besides, BG&E had silly actiony sequences and I still persevered. These games are never really about the gameplay, sometimes you get those moments thinking "Hey its cool I can do this", but that's about it.

Actually, yeah. Now that I've stopped panicking, since when do all Sega games use Steam? I just hope it's not like ETW, where boxed copies forced you into Steam as well. I've read this before, but I can't remember where.

TLJ didn't really have gameplay either. I mean, that's true with the vast majority of adventure games. I love 'em but most of them, most of the time, have braindead gameplay. Of course, I don't remember 'action sequences' in Dreamfall so maybe I have a brain fart. But it had the same special 'feel' that TLJ had.

Wellington showcases the latest in construction work facilities.

Oh god, I didn't think of that. Steam takes five minutes to open in New Zealand. Even if you start it Set Offline. It takes 30 seconds for it to respond to anything. Either the gaming industry installs fibreoptic networks in the country or they can screw this idiocy. I mean, does ETW have a legal way to not use Steam yet? Why would you *force* it?

Oh snap! They did have a game I was interested in... oh well. Probably, but not for certain. If Ubisoft does repeal it it would be a nice example. edit: just to confirm, encouraging, admitting or providing information about DRM removal/bypass and/or piracy will be treated with prejudice to err on side of caution.