Llyranor

Alright, I did the first Dark Brotherhood task. Nothing special. Just kill someone, with nothing specific attached to the quest. Afterwards, I've been officially admitted into the Brotherhood, and was given some cool ninja gear, which also gives some very appreciated skill boosts. My first contract is to go kill a pirate. Now that's a good start, yarr.

Meh. The main reason DA was announced so soon was to shut the PC-only fans up. If they had simply revealed that they were making console games, the PC dudes would be riotting even more than they are now. The longer they take, the better. If you want a rushed problem, you can replay KOTOR2.

Stay on-topic. Final warning.

There is nothing - I repeat, NOTHING, "sexy" about Oblivion's faces. NOTHING.

Hi Gabrielle!

About 4-5 hrs into the game. The main storyline does seem to be picking up, and is enjoyable so far. The writing is decent, but none of it has really impressed me too much yet. A definite improvement over Morrowind, but that's an understatement anyway. The PC responses are pretty meh, though. Having only one dialogue choice available isn't very inspiring, and just emphasizes how linear the main storyline is. That said, I'm enjoying it. Boromir is such a dream. I've also joined another faction - the Blades. I haven't progressed in the Dark Brotherhood quests yet. EDIT: Er, yeah, the instatravel feature is actually a pretty neat one. Normally, I'd be opposed to such, but if there is absolutely story-related during the trip, then by all means please make it optional. This way, I can focus on the story without having to put up with pointless walking. Now, if they had introduced storytelling (a horseback chase, perhaps?) into the trips themselves (and furthered character development in instances where other characters were tagging along with you), that would have of course been better. But, this is better than not having any of that AND not having a choice to skip it.

You should boycott Bioware. Freaking sellouts. Jade Empire, Mass Effect, a freaking MMORPG. 'Dragon Age' has been announced for two years, and no news. It's probably vaporware that they're crapping out in order to appease the PC gamers. Bloody Bioware, they don't deserve their PC fans' business anymore. That'll show them! BOYCOTT TIME.

Here I am playing with a corpse. I'm glad Oblivion employs the Havok physics. http://s61.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1IG2SRC...FJ3695PD6AUVH7U I, of course, improved my acrobatic skills again

I'll liking the sound of this game more and more.

Okay, Take Command - 2nd Manassas just got on my list. Try the demo out, dawgs.

Hello, geniuses, it all comes down to design. The modes in and of themselves can go screw a rock.

Western fantasy art doesn't.

I think the whole problem with the turnbased model in Fallout was that it only applied, controlwise, to a single character. It was soul numbing because players had to sit back and watch party NPCs slug trough it without any kind of player input. In a game like Temple of Elemental Evil, it becomes much more attractive and interactive to issue orders to a group which you have full control over; you can analyze the battlefield and devise tactics that take NPC skills into consideration. In Fallout there wasn't much you can do beyond controlling the PC, then wait for every other character in the current battle to make their move. To that degree I agree it wasn't a success. It worked as a means to an end, but that's pretty much all I can say about it. The ToEE model was vastly superior for a number of reasons and ideally that would be where I would like to see Fallout's combat model go, with perhaps only a small number of improvements. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Do you know which body parts I would freaking sell for a game with TOEE's combat and NWN2's toolset????

You're doing well, my Jedi friend. Keep it up

Urg. Actually, I am NOT a fan at all of FO's combat. A single avatar TB system, bah.

Not released over here yet. Isn't it gold or something, though?

Screw TB, I like to click-click-click until my opponent dies. Then I feel big.

I point you to Chess. Chess is TB.

TB is irrelevant. Look at Civ4's sales. POR2 was #1 bestselling game for 2 weeks in a row, despite murdering the OS. It, of course, plummetted quickly afterwards for those reasons. Had it been a good game, the trend was looking good.

Squad-based FPSesque systems can work quite well, as Brothers in Arms demonstrated (which worked very well, if not for the repetition). Adding RPG elements to it certainly could end up quite interesting. I'd keep an eye on this one, if I actually had a 360. To expand on BiA. Basically, you had two fire teams at your disposition. One keyboard press switches btw which one is active. Point somewhere, click, order move. Point at the enemy, click, order fire/suppression. Click something else, order assault - fire teams charges. You could easily set up suppression/flanking maneuvers in a few clicks. Some commands were to take cover behind objects, rally up, fall back, etc.

Hmm, update. Surprisingly awesome demo. The combat was more enjoyable than pretty much any RTS out there at the moment. No mainstream drivel here. Thumbs x 2.

Fallout 3 just won't be Fallout without idiotic party members who shoot you in the back. In TES' defense, the one-liner NPCs in Fallout were just as freaking bloody pointless as the idiotic NPC-NPC crapathon in Oblivion, or - *gasp* - even Morrowind's encyclopedias. The difference, of course, is that Fallout didn't consist exclusively of one-liners. From that perspective, the keyword drivel could even be deemed tolerable as a replacement for conversation with unimportant NPCs. A keyword/rumors check could replace a random one-liner; it'd just be tackled in a different manner. This, of course, is no excuse to propagate this disease to the bulk of the storyline.

You can be the president of my fist *shake*

Okay, I've been progressing further into the story. I'm about to cross into Oblivion. For all intents and purposes, that means I haven't much more than last time, really, but the story at least seems to be picking up. There was some cool roleplaying potential when I arrived at the city I am now (Kvatch), but instead the devs opted to force a completely linear path onto the main storyline. A shame, really. That could have been great. I would say so far the story hasn't wowed me yet, but it's compelling enough to keep me playing. This is a good thing. I've tried a few misc quests here and there in the Imperial City and Chorrol. They really felt pointless - some Morrowind flashbacks there. I think I'll stick to the Dark Brotherhood one, and maybe some of the guilds (though we'll see if that actually works out at all, since I'm not playing a stealthy character). In any case, I've initiated the DB quest line after I finally successfully murdered the old beggar hag. The guards caught me, but I resisted arrested and escaped the city. Now, I'm supposed to go kill some old guy at some inn. That will come later. The best part of the game is how you can play around with the corpses after you strip off their clothes. Will you drag their feet around, or will you move that torso back and forth? Or will you bring those hands into compromising situations? Oh, the possibilities!

Fool. Tetris DS > all.