Tigranes

It reads like a horrible game because you wrote down only the cons, and you wrote them down in a negative way. E.g. character customisation is quantitatively limited but is unique and colourful. I wouldn't say it's 'better' than other games, but for Torment it fit well and it was a source of enjoyment to me, not a flaw. One thing I've always found interesting about the combat is that I suspect fans of the, let's say, 95-'05 RPG generation actually have a remarkably high tolerance for bad combat. In one sense or another, most RPGs from this period have bad combat. Arcanum is terribly balanced. KOTOR1/2 is terribly easy and based around too few mechanics that are all implemented badly. NWN1/2 was clunky as hell. Divine Divinity is grindy-Diablo. Torment is not actually terrible, just completely mediocre in every way, which is pretty bad. And so forth.

Can't afford more than $25, but yeah, really hope it gets to a million. Playing DivDiv again now and I really think turn-based combat with Larian's world design is going to be a winner.

Monreal has the "Dude, you actually scored a goal" look down pat. Looks like he's fitting in fine, then.

10% failed transactions is an unreasonably high estimate - I've heard of 2% but never 10. $5000 also seems high for a bunch of t-shirts, mousepads and caps that are all completely white background & simple black design, but hard to say without calculating in detail. $5000 for custom art by professional artists for the game, as far as I can see. Sure, I suppose when you have so much lying around, you might as well put it to something that directly aids the game. $6000 to stay at MIT for a week... what are they taking, first-class planes for the entire family? It could be disingenuity, but in this case I think they were always going to have a problem because their particular project is hardly scalable. If they make $50k what are they going to do, hire a 10 person team for Kenzie? Go to 3 different RPG camps? At least her entrepreneur background means, maybe, she will keep a good handle on spending.

I had the interesting experience of guiding a complete nongamer, i.e. as far away from games as you can get, through an hour of BI on xbox. Well, she had trouble moving and looking around at the same time so we only got as far as the Fair in Columbia, but I thought: (1) If you're going to have a really long intro before anything happens, then your opening plot better be really interesting. There is no opening plot up to that point. (2) Columbia looks pretty, though textures are washed out in a way that even the nongamer could tell.

$95 of my money gone. Gone, I tell you!

RPS is hopeful about just about every single game these days, the only thing they bash is DRM. I do find positives in that they're toning down the supernatural stuff again, the City looks pretty nice, and many staples seem to be there. What's always worried me is the things they change or add, like Focus, apparently a time limit and scripted sequence (though those may not stay), the 'murder sequences', etc. Crap like this. This is nice, though. Will be great. Again, it's the question - will this kind of rubbish be in the actual levels? From Garrett who mutters in-character, realistic mutterings about his current predicament, i.e. stuff people would actually mutter to themselves, we have Garrett who talks quest compass to himself. Dumb. The point is that every time I read the new Thief preview, there's a scattered set of information where most of it is ambiguously worrisome or downright dumb. You can suspend your criticism and say those are small, in-progress details that won't break the game, but at some point, you develop a general idea that they're doing a lot of dumb things.

So... you change the voice actor for Garrett because you want to capture the facial animations and lips ON A FIRST PERSON GAME and because you need A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER to have the voice of a guy who can also do motion capture? From this, we can conclude: (1) Oodles of kool cinematic cut-scenes of Garrett being kool which will be even kooler because his lips will move right (2) That apparently, people who can do stunts just have a different voice, their larynxes have evolved differently from all the jumping they do. I liked DX:HR but just about everything they've been saying is so silly. I'm usually a firm believer in wait till gameplay videos before judging, but these guys are really going all the way with the dumb ****.

The original Thiefs could be played by more than just the purists, so I don't see a problem with sticking to some core fundamentals of the franchise.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of those areas in the originals and tend to rush past them. Good thing is that they are mostly confined to a few specific missions, leaving the rest in glory. Life of the Party, baby.

That thief trailer was even worse. The excitement of thief was that your Garrett wasn't a superhuman roll seven times in the air hitting the guard's vocal cords with a piece of string from your left toe and then jump out the window and survive Assassin's Creed style, it was that you really were a thief, just a very very good one. I don't want to play Ninja Thief, I want to play a thief. And what the hell is up with that font? Why would you change that? Well, I guess all they need to do now is change the name, too. I suggest Silent Brooding Wealth Redistributor of Darkness.

Off-topic, but when you will return to BG2 LP? It has been ages I know, and when I do have a little bit of free time I've been distracted by other games. It'll definitely be back to frequent updates in May and early June, when I hope to get to the Underdark at least. Before that, no promises but I'll try... Re: Numenera I like how it already has a clear visual identity, I still think P:E is a bit shaky on that front though the waterfall shot helps.

POE is a good game but I quit after 2 hours. It made me realise that the reason I wasn't into Diablo 3 wasn't just that D3 was bad; it was also that I'm no longer very happy playing a game like D2. There's the age / decreased tolerance for grinding thing, but also, D2 really was the pinnacle of that kind of gameplay and I don't really need more of it. For those who do, though, POE is pretty much the best I've seen in recent years.

I hope for better texture quality and all, but as an early shot, works for me. Good stuff.

I'd buy that.

I do like the ability to rotate your view in Wasteland 2. That probably makes more sense in a game where most of the combat is ranged. They've made positive noises about it, though I don't remember if they've actually confirmed it yet.

Combat is the weakest part of the series and of Divine Divinity, but like Torment, it's worth the 'grind'.

Isometric, old-school RPGs: Knights of the Chalice, a story-lite combat-heavy turn-based 4-party D&D RPG; one of the best D&D implementations in CRPG form ever. It's all about the battles. Eschalon: Book 1 & 2 which is a rather quaint has-everything old school RPG, typical mix of exploration, combat, quests, etc. Story is humdrum, you only have 1 character but it's worth a try, I enjoyed Book 2 on its own. Divine Divinity, from Larian, first looks like a pretty good Diablo clone but you suddenly find a huge world full of interesting quests, as you play more and more you discover it's a really great RPG + Diablo combat, rather than a Diablo clone. If you're enjoying Inquisitor you should love this. NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer, which has the best CRPG storytelling since Torment, and OK combat. Age of Decadence, as old school as old school can get, you die a lot, everyone wants to screw you over, the variety of choices you can make (and their horrible consequences) are unparalleled. A fairly extensive demo only, at the moment. One of the best implementations of single-character turn-based RPG combat. Stuff like Torchlight, Path of Exile and Bastion really gets out of "games like P:E" category and really they're not the same kind of RPGs at all.

... yeah... They just find great ways of making me not care.

Well it'll be interesting to see how KS respond if at all - it's these kinds of challenges that really show you what a website's policies are made of. Hard to say whether they should be taking it down, actually, since it's not so clean cut that they're violating rules. Similarly, it's tough to say that Susan Wilson is being unethical, and indeed difficult to tell whether she's genuine or manipulative. The only thing I can tell for certain is that she's pretty dislikable, and is handling it in a way that is embarrassing. Nothing that can be said for or against the daughter, since she's completely invisible here. You can't even presume that her childlike innocence and passion for games is being tainted, since we don't even know whether either of those exist.

I never really tried Bioshock 1 & 2 either, but yes, after walking through this complete non-gamer through it, I'll see whether I want to try this one at bargain-bin prices. I assume there's some way to play from the start with 1999 mode? Just wary of all these games these days which look cool and have cool things, but in the end you're just thoughtlessly massacring things with your overpowered gimmicks on dumb-as-stones AI (e.g. Dishonoured).

Bad timing, but $400k is modest and they should reach it. $25 pre-order pledge for me.

I may be walking a complete non-gamer through bioshock infinite on xbox soon. Anything I should know except that it's a standard pretty-&-pretentious story shooter? Any cobtrol/bug quirks?

Yeah, I loved TL so much I was fine with AP being more of the same, but after that it felt like a lot of milking, so I never tried. I'm really hopeful they'll use that revenue and push ahead with a big fat KB2. Heck, maybe this time we can have a real story!

Armoured Princess is the better title - does everything The Legend does, with a few improvements, and is less grindy. TL can be very grindy if you're not used to it. That said, I think both are very good games, so if you're feeling relaxed and wanting to go through it slowly you could do both in order. I'm playing a Warrior meaning you get a lot of Might runes, but that's just to give myself a change; I'm very partial to Mind skills. In TL you want to start with 1 levels of Scouting, Learning and Glory, and I also like the Reserve skill - e.g. in the first continent, there are a few elite troops that are really very good: Inquisitors, Royal Snakes, Archmages, Knights/Paladins, etc. (I hear Royal Thorns rock, but for some reason I never want to use them.) It's useful to buy some extra and put on reserve so that when you go from 7 archmages to 6 archmages you don't lose that firepower. I also like Ancient Bears for the sheer power and decent endurance as the 'tank', and of course some kind of Bowmen. I have a highly partial playstyle that I'm married to, though this time I'm deliberately trying to break out of it. E.g. I'm hugely fond of traps: not only do they do damage, they kill a turn, so if you play it right, the dude walks right up to you then loses his turn, allowing you to pounce (here is when Royal Snakes' no-counter attacks come in handy; you do this right, and you can have all your ranged units AND the royal snake pounce on them without retaliation, then, due to the snakes' high initiative, you'll probably start the next turn with another free hit = most things die by then without doing any damage to you.) I played far too much last night, so level 9 now. Took care of most things in the immediate vicinity of the first continent. There was only one shop of Inquisitors that had a very small stock, but I found another in the new island which is a little better.