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No word on what the DLC actually entails?

Is it just me or does ME seem like the type of game that could easily (at least, more easily than most) go "epic" without screwing too much with the basic mechanics of the game? It seems obvious that Shepard will be back for the sequels. I seem to remember that Bioware was talking at some point about working continuity between iterations of the game. Like, loading your character from the first to the second. I wonder if they'll do a KOTOR2 sort of deal and work out the specific events of the first game at the beginning to determine the context of the second. That's something I'd like to see in some capacity.

I assume by hogwash you mean some sort of fantastic aromatherapeutic, citrus and cinnamon concoction for bathing magic pigs. Even with the USA fighting for Vietnam the communists went on to topple Laos and Cambodia. If Vietnam had been uncontested give me a couple of reasons why Thailand, Burma, and Malaysia would have survived? When you can think of reasons why the rest of Southeast Asia would have survived, can you then explain why Northeast india - a place still suffering a communist insurgency - would have been OK. I sure as hell can't, so I'll be very impressed if you can. I'll just copy, paste and embellish from the thread you locked. You'd think the Domino theory would've been dead and gone by now, discredited as it is. I suppose the fact that communism didn't spread like wildfire after the war is a testament to its resounding success and efficacy? How awfully convenient. Ho Chi Minh didn't have any interest in expansion, he wasn't that staunch of a communist, he was always a Vietnamese nationalist first and foremost (Minh's declaration of independence borrowed several passages from America's). Neither did Minh have any interest in starting a civil war. He was already the president of the North, France had promised him the South, and he was going to win the Vietnamese Presidential election by a landslide and unify the country, as by that time he was pretty much a national hero, but the Southern incumbent decided to appeal to America's fear of unfettered communism to stay in power. Unfortunately for the incumbent and the US, Minh had been trained in guerilla warfare in part by the US during WWII when Japan was occupying Vietnam (gee, that doesn't sound familiar at all.) Vietnam sure as hell wasn't China or the Soviet Union. Hell, when Minhh showed up at Woodrow Wilson's office during the deliberations over the Versailles treaty, had the guards let him in to talk to the President about getting Vietnam out from under France's yolk Minh probably never would have become a communist in the first place and the US wouldn't have had any reason to invade at all. But when WWII ended and Vietnam still remained a colonial holding, socialism became the most prominent tool against imperialism just like it was all over the world in those days. If anything, America's only consistent reason for invading Vietnam was to stop the non-violent spread of Communism. And even saying that is misleading because "spread" implies a coordinated effort. Aside from notable exceptions in South and Central America there weren't any Communist revolutions that came about as a result of foreign-trained insurgents being sent back to their home countries, which was the catalyst for the "Communist epidemic" Cold War fears (and even those exceptions had more to do with Havana than the USSR's prolific Lenin School). There are precious few Cold Warriors left who would argue that America was freedom and democracy such that it had a reasonable mandate to prevent native-born Communist revolution by force.

I don't see where you get the idea that it's "cheaper". Deus Ex's story unfolded in a more or less satisfying way, and never really gave the player real reason to stop and consider how ridiculous it all was. Assassin's Creed plot is mainly composed of the PC getting torn from the Matrix between missions and being told by an irate bearded man in a lab coat that WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME and WE HAVE TO RESTORE GLOBAL ORDER USING THE MEMORY IN YOUR DNA. It's like the Chronicles of Riddick, overloaded with plot in ways that make what the player would normally ignore glaring and awkward. This game doesn't need a plot. Hitman doesn't have a plot. Incidentally, Hitman is a lot more compelling than this game. It doesn't work in the remotest sense. Whoever decided to split the narrative should be fired. You have the part of the game that actually includes play, in the Matrix, which is where the game fires on all cylinders. There's just enough time spent with all the relevant characters to make them believable and engaging for the purposes of the game. Then there's the sci-fi part. Basically, you're in a lab, and you're a bartender. Oh, and you may have been an assassin at some point. And the memory of your ancestor is in your DNA and it's being accessed through the Matrix. First of all, they just tell you all this through leaden exposition before dumping you into the Matrix. The lab parts are not fun. It's "do mission -> wake up -> blah blah exposition blah -> back to the mission" Since you spend all real gametime in the Matrix, there's no time given to establishing character or context in "the real world". And it's really unfortunate, since I know right off the bat that the Holy Land Matrix part of the game isn't "real". I know right off the bat that the fun, interesting part of the game is a means to an end towards resolving this go-nowhere present day plotline. And I didn't care. I didn't care if the diabolical cabal of shadowy (jewish) people who are wholly responsible for each and every important thing that anyone has ever done (even Deus Ex wasn't that contrived) got their hands on the ancient holy / alien / whatever World Domination artifact whose location was locked up in my ancestor's memory which was in turn locked up in my DNA. Basically, Assassin's Creed is a great medieval combat game with a parasitic sci-fi schlock twin sucking it dry from the inside out.

The ripped-from-Deus-Ex sci-fi conspiracy plotline sucks total ass and gets in the way of what the game should have been, which is Prince of Persia on a GTA map. You get the definite idea that the designers were looking for a cheap and effective way to account for load times, health regeneration, resurrection, saving and most of all, invisible walls. And somebody had the bright idea to have it take place in the Matrix. And throw in the Illuminati. Smart, considering the presence of the Knights Templar in the Matrix-game. The Templar have always been inextricably linked with the shadowy (jewish) cabal that runs the world. They were also in Deus Ex. The gameplay is fun enough, but constantly counterattacking (even with 2 different weapons!) gets old. I got about 60% through it and got bored, so I sent it back. But it's one of the most consistently polished games I've ever seen.

You haven't played Deus Ex much, I take it. Sort of kind of unfortunate that Alex Brandon is tied up 'round here. DE3 will suffer greatly in his absence. I got a little chill when the theme kicked in there. If only the video wasn't spoiled, I would've gotten a nice surprise realization.

NIN - Year Zero, instrumental version. Holds up better without the lyrics, unsurprisingly. http://www.sendspace.com/file/8er39e

You have to use it on a spirit essence. I stumbled onto it, never thinking I'd figure it out.

Joker spontaneously grows beards in my presence.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/fk0fty http://www.sendspace.com/file/d0owdl (Includes non-album session tracks released on the Baby 81 tour) http://www.sendspace.com/file/o0ksqh

There are things I'm unhappy with. They've got a few old tricks that they couldn't bear to get rid of that don't really fit into the game at all and stick out like a sore thumb. Most of them are thrown in at the beginning. There's the eager young party member who dies right away, but that fits better than the "doomsayer". Basically, you come across these scientists who are hiding, and one of them is crazy, so naturally he spews these cryptic statements that are, naturally, foreshadowing things to come. See, that's really lazy, even in a fantasy game. ME does its best to be straight sci-fi with everything from telekinesis to faster-than-light travel being explained away, and **** like prophecy has no place in it. The story is okay. The twists are pretty much inconsequential, adding in a new villain that the players have no connection to. Even less connection than to Saren, anyway. BG2 had the advantage of keeping Irenicus not terribly far away from the game experience most of the time, through dreams and encounters outside of the very end of the game and just having him interested in you. Saren's just kind of out there, focused on his objectives, and you chase him and fight Geth. It would've been nice just to give Saren remarkable agents (more remarkable than the Geth, anyway) who go after you, like in KOTOR. Characters are pretty good, IMO. They don't test very well on the Gromnir gauge, though. They're pretty easy to explain. One hopes they'll carry on into the second game so they can continue filling them out.

*cheerfully* ...Because clearly an aggressively expanding communist bloc could have been expected to stop at Vietnam, and not go on to take over Laos and Cambodia, followed by Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia... Australia... India... that would have been just fine. Isn't that right, my unfeasibly 1920s friend? Huh, you'd think the Domino theory would've been dead and gone by now, discredited as it is. I suppose the fact that communism didn't spread like wildfire after the war is a testament to its resounding success and efficacy? How awfully convenient. Ho Chi Minh didn't have any interest in expansion, he was a staunch nationalist. Neither did Minh have any interest in starting a civil war. He was going to win the Vietnamese Presidential election by a landslide with a mandate to kick the french out for good, as by that time he was pretty much a national hero, but the incumbent decided to appeal to America and France's fear of unfettered communism to stay in power. Vietnam sure as hell wasn't China or the Soviet Union. Hell, when Minhh showed up at Woodrow Wilson's office at the League of Nations in the 20's had the guards let him in to talk to the President about getting Vietnam out from under France's yolk Minh probably never would have become a communist in the first place and the US wouldn't have had any reason to invade at all. But when the first world war ended and Vietnam still remained a colonial holding, socialism became the most prominent tool against imperialism just like it was all over the world in those days. We shouldn't have gone there.

Like every Bioware game save BG2, the romance subplots are tied to the main storyline. So you won't progress through them as you go through all the sidequests. As a male, there's Ashley Williams and Liara. I think by default Liara is the squeeze and you have to tell her you want to be friends in order to advance with Ashley, but I haven't tested that assumption or anything. Maybe I missed something. For females there's Kaidan and Liara, I think.

Those aren't anomalies, they're poltergeists. They're invisible ape-things with telekinetic / pyrokinetic powers. Shoot the lightning-y floating cloud things. Shoot them good. After awhile, bodies will materialize. Then the door will open.

By the by, I beat the game last night as a Vanguard heavily weighted towards shotgun use, with about 20 hours clocked in all told. It would've been at least 32, but I unwittingly initiated the mission that kicks the endgame into action (hint - It's the one the council gives you after completing one of the initial 3) and as a result there were at least 12 sidequests that I never went through. I'm going through again as a Sentinel. The game as a whole seems to be a continuation of the Jade Empire design philosophy. That is to say, Bioware's focus seems to be on making gameplay more "visceral" and immediate, which I think is a mistake, but I digress. They've worked hard on a (relatively functional) real time combat system and built the game primarily around that. It's more complex and more satisfying than JE, but it still feels off. Dialogue and characterization were typical Bioware, which is to say, above average, but there isn't a lot of progress, all things considered. I had a lot of trouble with texture pop-in (damnable UE3) and dialogue that took place outside of the interface (elevator banter, triggered remarks, etc.) were nearly inaudible, although it may just be something with my surround setup. Other than that, technical presentation was highly agreeable.

I actually think the dialogue system is sort of a step down. At times it's an outright con job. Since the game lacks consistent autosaving and I sometimes forget to save manually, on those occassions when I stumble into combat and get hit with a rocket I usually have to retrace my steps back through some dialogue, and I try and mix it up a little. What I've found is that in a lot of the dialogues there are really only 1 or 2 options, when there isn't a charm / intimidate opportunity. On those occassions when there are 2 given options (right and left) they are exactly the same. So you've got angry and conciliatory. The top two options on the right are conciliatory, and the bottom is the angry one. I'm no Codexian, but I was still disappointed with the whole "consequences" thing. There are situations in which it seems like your choices might actually have ramifications down the road for the game, particularly the choice given after tracking down the Asari matriarch, but aside from what the Council says to you immediately afterward there's no real effect on the game at all. It's pretty anticlimactic given how important every ****in' NPC makes it sound. There is one choice that has ramifications for your group and one situation that requires a high dialogue skill to keep one of your teammates from turning on you, but they're more or less part of the endgame. When I beat the game it seemed as though the 4 different endings were entirely dependent upon 2 dialogues you get before the end. So, all in all, Bioware remains where it was before. I hope the second iteration in the series varies the gameplay a bit along with the inevitable engine optimization, but that's all I can do, is hope. I never really bought the hype, so this game wasn't as big of a letdown as it was for other kids.

Volo, when finishing the game, care to confirm/deny if the story is like the one that i envisioned above? It is not this. Spoilers follow.

Except that it was an alteration of the Aurora engine. They reused some animation and such from KOTOR2 (notably some of the H2H combat animations) but it is indeed based on the NWN engine.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/o7ba1x

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bgo6f6

We just covered this in Intro to Philosophy, but anybody who isn't familiar with the (weak) rationales for ID really ought to watch it.

JE took 2 years to port. Do you feel like waiting that long?

Everybody likes HotU because it's the best of the official NWN1 content.

But is she british in ME? Didn't the lady who voiced Viconia voice the Handmaiden as well? It's not like pro VAs have just one voice. The good ones, anyway. What else is there? Honestly.

I didn't know you injected flax seed oil into the flesh of your ass.