Tigranes

Alpha Protocol DLC: Skateboard Armour

There are, in fact, professional protesters who will help with organisation, moving bodies and getting media coverage for your event.

I thought it was rubbish. What's wrong with me?

Gothic 2 is older than I thought - and it's exactly that period that I really can't stand; super old 3D where everything looks like giant blobs of pixel. This is when I have no problem with, say, Sierra adventure games of the early 90's. I don't know. There's something about these where it feel as I'm walking around in a bad theatre set with cardboard buildings, and your character moves weirdly, too. I'm not sure if I can get into it, but I'll try sooner or later. Assassin's Creed is fun but increasingly feels like a failed remake of Thief. You have the rubbish sci-fi crap that you can't skip; the investigations are minigamish; and my first real assassination was incredibly disappointing because I wanted to strike from the roofs, but I was not given any ranged weapons, and you had to trigger the cutscene by jumping down anyway. Then you watch your target do some cruel things while you can't touch him (OH GOD THE EPIC & CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE), then... you basically stab him in the open and run like hell. Animations are cool and it's damn fun jumping on roofs and such, but I just wish they didn't butcher the othe stuff so much. Im gonna play on and see if some other assassinations are better.

And FPS games try to insert romantic elements in them as well. It's not really a question of RPGs, it's a question of the 'epic / cinematic' style of games lot of devs have been developing over the last 10 years. Because people who make these games keep looking at Hollywood films as inspiration, and because of their particular idea of 'cinematic', they feel the need to put in romances or romantic implications of the sort we know and (may) love. RPGs are just slightly better suited for it because they are usually less linear; i.e. dating sims in reality are just adventures and/or RPGs.

I got through the tutorial. The game looks very nice, and I was impressed by the number of people in town and how good the villages feel. As expected the sci-fi crap was horrible, but I can block it out since it doesn't really intrude with the real game (yet). The control schemes are silly though, why do you need to press two buttons to JUMP? It would work well for consoles I think (the tutorials still refer to "Button 1" of your Mouse). I couldnt figure out how to open the door, so I quit for now. Looks like nice animations, nice art, some fun to be had with assassinations, but lacking the depth of Thief. We'll see though. Installing Gothic 2 now.

It's on my list, but somehow it just hasn't endeared itself to me. Sort of like Deus Ex, which turned out to be pretty good when I did try. But my sweet impulse buys Gothic / Assassin's Creed must come first.

It ran really chuggy and the dialogue lagged, there were a lot of bugs and I didn't like the clunky actiony combat. The story seemed promising, but I had to stop soon after the haunted hotel place.

GW was good. GW and D2 were the only MMO-ish games I really enjoyed. Well balanced with comparatively little stupid grinding, always able to solo if you want, and so forth. Also, free.

He's pretty new in the biz then. We'll see.

My impulse buys include Vampire: The Masquerade, Lego Star Wars, Hitman: Blood Money and Indigo Prophecy. I was only satisfied with the third, actually.

Really? In my playthrough, I found that at the same skill level, Assault Rifles and even Shotguns had a similar % to hit to Pistols and other small guns; with the exception of things like sniper rifles or machine guns, you were really well off using those 'medium' Big Guns in VATS because the bursts were really good at taking down enemy health at short-to-medium range. It might be because I used the NMA Compendium mod that limits you to 1-2 shots/bursts per VATS. Explosives were very useful in FO3, which I'm really happy with - the game would have been much less fun without lobbing grenades and setting mine trails. edit: I didn't really use the BIG big guns much though, since with low str I never had enough weight allowance. And the Fat Man I just tossed away every time I found it. The flamer was fun though.

So what with Empire: Total War's AI wearing out my fun and half my game CDs back at home, I checked out the local game store and picked up a Gothic compendium (Gothic 1, Gothic 2 Gold, Gothic 3) and Assassin's Creed for 70NZD (~40USD). I really only wanted the former, but it was a mix & match deal, so I decided, why not. Assassin's Creed I remember the last time we discussed it here, consensus being that speed past the filler, and the assassination stuff is quite fun. Looking forward to that. But what do I do with Gothic (mkreku)? I'm thinking I might try Gothic 2 first, and wait till I can download the big patches and such for G3 when I go home. Or should I be starting with Gothic 1? Is it worth it? Really what I wanted was to re-buy Thief 2, but they don't sell it anymore.

DA > *

Bacon Paste: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/squeez-b....html?cpg=17417 I'd believe it, actually.

After about level 10 you become good at almost everything anyway. But yes, I think FO3 is pretty good to Big Guns.

They mostly controlled the size of mobs at 5-10 enemies, but if you ever lured more than one mob, or if your enemies summoned creatures, you can get pretty close; esp. with your own summons and friendly fire. DA might end up fielding slightly bigger mobs than BG (we haven't really seen any yet), but dialogue boxes are still better in both functionality and 'preventing torrent of data' than incessant floating texts.

Logical failure. Every IE game had exactly the same thing happen and the dialogue box was great. Bio just want to make the UI more "next-gen" and "invisible", so why don't they come out and say so? You could easily have +10 allied and +10 enemy creatures in BG2/TOB with multiple status effects (and their corresponding save rolls) and area of effect spells and such going off. Damage values and whatever floating up above your head is much more obstructive yet less informative.

I already mentioned in this thread about the specific phrases they use. The camera refers to cinematic cutscenes camera work, obviously (camera movement, mise en scene, framing, etc). DA's art direction can only look like the Witcher's if you take the broadest of brushes. As for the rest... we're not really discussing this on the same level. I mean that in a literal rather than condescending manner. Simply put... I'm saying that it's not a narrow and simplistic judgment of 'everyone has different tastes' and 'whatever people like is great'. I'm talking about the fact that Bioware are going down a certain direction in the kind of holistic experience they provide (not "combat game" vs "character development game"... or did you think I was opposed to character development?). One day I will find better ways to communicate the framework from which I am looking at things. Probably.

It's an optional romance area.

Not all fantasy looks like LOTR, no. DA does its best though, with its language, camera, art direction, etc. Relativity is not always the answer. Putting things in just because they are popular or commercially successful in other theatres isn't a blanket rule either. It's logically blind to assert thus. Hell why don't we put in a horse chase scene in DA? People liked car chases. And rock music. And porn. You need to build your game around elements and experiences that many people will enjoy, to be sure, but you also need to be conscious about how each element you introduce links with other elements, and what kind of experience as a whole that will produce in your game. Ironically, Bio is very aware of this and is doing it quite superbly. They have taken a very deliberate, consistent and well-executed turn towards 'cinematic' experiences and integrated their cutscenes, characters, dialogue, story, voice acting, music and combat to create what is essentially a kitsch version of a blockbuster (yes, I know). The particular way in which they seem to be expanding on NPC interaction with DA is just a part of that. My problem is that I wholeheartedly disagree with that direction; it is not conducive for challenging games, it is not conducive for fun gamey games, it is not conducive for 'artsy' games and in fact it is a set of mechanisms that is by nature designed to deliver immediate, indulgent satisfactions of 'epic' and 'cool'. That is the kind of entertainment the Bio Cinematic model offers. You look at your decked out character walking down a cutscene and feel cool. You watch the dialogue choices and gift options build up to 'tasteful' sex scenes. Combat and actually running around doing things simply builds you up towards cutscenes where you watch 'epic' and 'cool' consequences to how you've performed. That stuff has always been in games and role-playing and I like that, but now it is the heart of the game. This is obviously not extrapolated from the gift-giving feature on its own. To think of it in terms of "well if people like it then i guess its good to go" and "one feature, meh, who cares" is quite narrow. You can respond that you like the direction Bio is going in and think it is good for X reasons, or you don't think the feature is indicative of or contributes to the kind of direction I talked about, and that's fine - that's the level on which debate can occur and opinions can diverge. Oh, and I've given up on animations, really. I have yet to see really good animations from any big RPG since we got into 3D. If only they would stop skating around or clipping everywhere (don't see too much of the latter in DA).

I miss textboxes.

I was at work before, so couldnt' elaborate. Here: The bit in the video where they get ready for the eeevil zombies and there is the whole top down camera panning as they scram, the epic music, hell even the exact style of pseudo-medieval phrasing in the dialogue - if you replaced one of the party members with Gimli it would fit in 100%. To be fair, I haven't read up a lot about DA's story/setting; I don't see being forced to become a Grey Warden as that big of a deal (you've got to be forced into something for the story to work) and there are plenty of opportunities for that seemingly disgusting hero-King to develop in interesting ways. We won't know until the game's out. The point is that the stylistic decisions behind how DA's story is delivered is very LOTR, in almost every single bit of footage we've seen. The content is not so much the problem - you could put that Red Cliff stuff in BG1 and it would fit right in without a single change - but the delivery. Heck, I liked the origin stories as well. But if they're going to filter all that content through this over-the-top wannabe LOTR'ing like it seems to in current footage I'm going to have a hard time not feeling embarrassed that I'm playing this game. So that is what I mean by "it is LOTR". All I ever expected and wanted from DA was a game that provided gameplay similar to, or in the tradition of, BG1/2, meaning tactical party combat with some degree of strategy (absent in KOTOR); some good old looting and pillaging; big cities and areas with sidequests; a decent story and setting that set the stage for some fun and interesting situations. I'm still hopeful we'll get that. But I didn't expect them to fall so far down the path of what they think is "good cinematic storytelling". I like NPCs with character but I don't want to sit there playing thinly disguised dating sims/eroges with NPCs that go through exaggerated midlife crises like an arsenal of Carths. I like epic and I like fantasy but I don't want to sit there through fifty cutscenes with "WE STAND THIS DAY... AGAINST EVILLLL".

Great, so I'm 21 and I'm already over the hill. Saw the vids, combat is the same as it's always been; BG/NWN style RTwP with characters ice-skating past each other in true three-dee fashion (sigh). I had hoped they'd actually evolve the system by integrating cover and such more, but that's going to be difficult if they've still got the issues with skating models, because you can't really manage area effectively. Still, I don't really mind - what really matters is how complex and challenging it will be. Setting and story gets even worse every time we see it though. It is LOTR. There is absolutely no doubt now. >.<