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I remember being on NMA way back in the day and pointing out that the targeted groin shot was basically a gag on the developers' part and everyone was all "NO ITS TACTICAL ITS A TACTICAL ELEMENT IN THE TACTICAL COMBAT GAME". Schmucks.

Breaking News: Some dude is doing VA on NV

what name did they assign "Seven Dwarves"? Anyway, good to hear they're still alive over at Double Bear. I don't actually expect their zombie game to ever actually be released, but I'd really like it to.

Kids these days are marvelously uncreative.

This might end his career as an actor (his agency dropped him) but his brand of ultra-catholic depictions of masculine suffering play well with the cheap seats. He did make the most profitable independent movie on record, remember. He'll be around for a bit longer. He might not be crazier than Tom Cruise, but he is almost certainly a much worse person.

Mr. House is definitely going to be a Name, that's just science. Since VA is being recorded presently there's not much they're saying. The rumor is that Wayne Newton will be doing some voicing, perhaps for a radio station. Inquiries have been met with a "no comment". Take that how you will.

So here's a question. Does the rep system use an all-purpose numerical score at all times or are there specific things you can get called out for? ex. "Hey you're the guy who's been causing trouble for the Legion" vs. "Hey you're the guy who tased my bro at Gulliver's Gulch"

Great now I'm imagining a portable, directional infrasound generator (since infrasound has been claimed to cause things like vomiting, uncontrolled bowel movements, lung collapses and heart arrhythmia...) There was actually a similar weapon in Fallout Tactics called the Spasm Gun, induced massive nerve damage. It was an energy weapon, as I recall. Nasty would-be crowd control that I'm sure major city police departments would love to have in actuality.

The nice thing about sequels is that, optimally, they allow refinement of concepts and execution in ways you see in no other media, with the very occasional exception of film. See the extensive retooling of design from ME1 to ME2, for example, which was met with a lot of praise (perhaps not from this corner of the net, but still). There are always things you can do better. I don't have ADD. If you can do something again but make it better, I won't get bored with it. An AP2 could have mastered many of AP's flaws and delivered a better experience, with an increased depth given the absence of "getting to know you" bloat from the first iteration. The plot hook is basically built into the ending of AP. As for the snuffing of the series, it was more or less inevitable from the time the reviews first started coming in. I would have liked to have seen a sequel, but it looks like Obsidz's run with Sega is clearly over, and they can't justify bringing a sequel to another developer. To be honest I think this is something we all kind of expected would happen. The combat really is rather clunky (aside from the martial arts, which I think are the most satisfying means of fighting in the game) and that more or less doomed the game. Looking back on it MCA told me at PAX what he's said after release, which is that they didn't make the game they wanted to make, and they did what they could with what circumstances gave them. I'm not even sure their original ideas ("honeycomb" instead of linear plot structure, more freedom, lighter tone) would have made it a bigger hit. It's rough, certainly. Playing through it, AP felt a lot like Bloodlines, in that there was a certain roughness to the systems and the visual aspects of the game, but also a depth of polish and functionality with regards to more esoteric aspects of the game, particularly pertaining to choice and consequence, that is really unparalleled in Western gaming. I, as well as a lot of people, found those esoteric strengths to be more than enough to recommend the game, but the fact of the matter is that most people really don't care, and as MCA says himself, it's the base-level gameplay that appeals to people, and the base-level gameplay, while not as atrocious as that in Bloodlines, was not up to snuff of the games that AP tried to emulate. It's a really good first draft for a studio that's never done this sort of thing before, but it's not really good enough to carry it. Over time I think that AP's reputation will be rehabilitated in the same way that Bloodlines was (perhaps to a greater extent) but that always comes with the sort of cult that RPGs like this foster. But we're living in the age of $30 million averages in game budgets, and Obsidz's cult acclaim does it about as much good from a practical standpoint as, say, Kurosawa's did back in the day (for non-film buffs, Kurosawa made great films that Japanese viewers mostly ignored, but he was greatly loved by foreign filmmakers, and they basically kept him afloat through most of his life, though he never got over his lack of respect). I just hope that Obsidz can capitalize on this failure gracefully. Dungeon Siege 3 is going to be their second Action RPG and it's apparently looking pretty great already, though they're de-emphasizing the usual Obsidz strengths of writing and characterization and the like. And of course I'll be really surprised if New Vegas doesn't do fantastically. The trouble is that it's looking like Obsidz can't really fulfill its potential - the ignorant gaming masses tend to characterize them as riders of Bioware's coattails. Not just in the sense of picking up sequels but in emulating design and the like. In actuality Obsidian has a much greater focus on more complex and involved RPG system mechanics as a means to engaging players over the big feelings and epic narrative sweep that Bioware has used so effectively. You can think of Bioware as a Spielberg to Obsidz' Kubrick (you could also be less flattering and paint them as a Zemeckis) I don't feel like the sort of reactivity in Alpha Protocol is something that we'll be seeing more of, and I think that's a shame. It's too risky, and I imagine game development is zero-sum - the less time you spend on stuff people don't care about, like C&C, the more you can spend on things people do, like breast physics and reload animations. Obsidz gets knocked for being too much like Bioware but in this case I think they got knocked for not being enough like Bioware. Oh well.

They said they didn't make many improvements to the visual engine but if you watch those E3 videos you'll see they imbued Gamebryo with cutting-edge PV (projectile vomit) rendering capabilities. Hey Josh, if it's not too much to ask, could you throw in some type of weapon that causes enemies to vomit? Like the V:TMB Blood Purge, but in gun form.

Chicago office? Got to see Midway's empty husk last year. Must've been nice working across the street from Hot Doug's.

20 minutes of (probably illegally obtained) gameplay footage. Looks like they've got the cyberpunk look down.

It feels odd that we're not even getting screenshots, but the same 4 concept art images.

In bemusing news, you can apparently now sign up for the Fallout MMO beta.

I want to know if there's a "rogue" class, and if so, if it's the stepchild of the system as it is in so many other systems.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the VA has yet to be recorded.

So were the images that were released along with the announcement concept art or screenshots? Big Download blog says they're screenshots, but they really do look like concept art.

There's nothing to suggest that DS3 will be a continuation of that tradition. But if Funcroc's right, then the team behind DS3 is more or less the same team behind Mask of the Betrayer, which is as close as we've gotten to a PS:T spiritual successor. It all depends on where the creative team wants to go. Maybe they will have decided that the PS:T tradition is best kept within the D&D setting.

Yeah Obsidz's MO is pretty consistent. More likely that DS is going to undergo a shift.

Matt's good people. I'll be interested to see how DS3 turns out.

Modding has been officially confirmed, since they noted that the Steamworks DRM will not affect modding.

If that's in the cards, it would have to have been since the beginning of development - I seem to recall MCA saying how difficult it was to get out end-user tools for NWN2.

Giant Bomb's wikia page on NV now lists November 16 as a release date.