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Wait wait, so you're saying if you have no love interest and you've got 100 influence with Okku, he can come with you into the dreamworld?

If you've ever met a young American who doesn't, they're either lying about their Americanosity or their age. Or they're mormons, who don't count.

It's best to use it after eternal resting / devouring / bestowing life on someone in conversation, since those cases always seem to yield the most spirit, and the cravings go way down.

I meant the last part, where you're sucked into yourself and whatever love interest you have follows. But it shouldn't be an exclusive thing. In my first playthrough I got 100 influence with 3 out of 4 characters (Gann hovered in the 60s) and we did alright for ourselves in the final battle.

Why, exactly? Having Safiya / Gann for the first half of that last battle is useful.

I don't see how this game's target audience couldn't be aware of either of those things. If you're under 25 and live in America but not under a rock, you are aware of Adult Swim, and unless you don't like being in with the other kids, you like their programming. If you like their programming, you love irony. Chances are you like metal or hard rock. If you like irony, late night programming and metal, Tenacious D is right up your alley. You also play lots of video games, preferably ones that are fun to play when high. Brutal Legend is a Tenacious D minus KG and the name "Tenacious D", it's thick on ironic metal humor and will undoubtedly be awesome fun after cashing a bowl. I will be stunned if it doesn't feature musical input from Black, at least in the singing department. So basically, this will be Tim Schafer's Bioshock, with all the connotations that come with that.

Suppress is necessary to reduce craving. I'm not aware of any other way to do that besides satiation. So being LG is the easiest way to play the game, since especially given Okku's blessings (which you should have as a matter of course if you're LG, unless you're stupid or crazy enough to not use him or use OoM) will make it such that after suppressing your craving to nil, you only lose 1 or 2 points of spirit every 8 hours given you suppress every time.

Unless it's an adventure game, I only gush about Tim Schafer's output if it's original (mainly because all of Schafer's adventure games were original anyway). This is not original. It's derivative, which is Schafer's bad luck, as this was probably in his head well before the goof metal trend caught on. There have to have been at least 4 Cartoon Network executives who had this exact idea for a video game. Analogy: If Radiohead decided to make a dance-rock album or a big working-class Springsteen ballad album, both of which are hot musical property right now, I wouldn't say that they're a bad band or that they haven't been good or unique in the past, I'd say they took an unfortunate direction into well-tilled sonic soil, which is regrettable given their past brazen individuality. And even as great as Radiohead is, I wouldn't expect much, because I've heard a lot of dance rock and a lot of Springsteen ballads and for all their talent Radiohead couldn't possibly add much to the formats. Which is where we're at now with Brutal Legend. Both Tim Schafer and Radiohead have made their names making product that is challenging and often surprising to the average consumer. I can't honestly say that I played Psychonauts for any other reason besides it was so out-of-left-field, and every time I read about it or hear it described that's the big draw. That's what I'd expect from Tim Schafer, something different, something that makes me think "Jesus, who thinks of stuff like that?", which is not something he's delivering this time around. This game was bound to have happened in one form or another after Guitar Hero became such a smash hit. Tenacius D and Metalocalypse have covered enough of the metal myth territory that it'd be pretty ****in' difficult for Brutal Legend to be a hell of a lot different at all, in its humor or even in its basic premise. It's all terribly convenient and not the least bit exciting. And the Nightmare Before Christmas vs. Yngvie Malmsteen Album Cover look is just... blah.

It'll probably be a mid to higher-level module, seeing as the only interesting thing about Westgate is that it's ruled by a cabal of vampires. Which can mean only one thing: Mean spirited, kick-em-while-they're-down digs at Troika. Can't wait. Any indications of how long this has been in production? Does Ossian studios just provide extra content for preexisting games? And for that matter, will there be more modder-friendly stuff?

For the life of me I can't understand how anyone could not like Episode 2 but like Episode 1. If anything, Episode 2 came up with what Episode 1 failed to deliver, the very least of which was anything resembling suspense and a kick-ass strider battle. At least the addition of the Hunter was more interesting than the addition of the Zombines.

No luck

The shou show up at a certain point later on (I think after you've beaten the Wood Man part of the game?) just off the side of the path that you showed up on coming from Okku's barrow, near where the golem's body lies. You can either feed them to the ape dudes or get them a new, mind-boggingly expensive wagon from the arab merchant in the bazaar.

If a door is indestructible, it needs a key. And no, I don't think Kaji gets any better. I'm curious, can PCs get portraits like the CNPCs?

I don't know if anybody else mentioned this, but some kids are now at work at an integration of the Portal gun into HL2. site Looks pretty schweet, if I do not say so myself, and I do.

So basically it's Metalocalypse vs. Tim Burton.

How does "imbue item" work for a warlock? Do you just place the item and the essence in the satchel and the ability duplicates the spell you're supposed to use to enchant the item? And on that note, how do you (further) enchant non-weapons-and-armor items? I tried to enchant rings and cloaks and it did not work.

Ah, I had thought it was Kaelyn and OoM that had been mutually exclusive.

OBA - Okku Bleeds Always. Gann says it's a sign of vanity, but, you know, that's coming from Gann. So to get One of Many, you can't have gotten Kaelyn? Or does Kaelyn leave / attack when you get One of Many, or what? Because I imagine it'd be a bit harder to fight Okku with just three people.

Not unique enough for me to take notice over the gameplay. God of War bored me to tears. At least with Psychonauts, I had something clever I've never seen before to help me get over the rote platformer gameplay. This game is going to feature Jack Black prominently, so given the trailer I already expect The Pick of Destiny: The Game, and that movie sucked. There's absolutely no reason for me to expect otherwise. Adult Swim is a niche market in the same way that the indie rock is a niche market: It's not quite a mass market, but it ain't ****in' Warhammer. Violent action game + goofball 70's metal mythology = instant sleeper hit. I'd be surprised if they didn't run a heavy ad campaign during Metalocalypse. And like I said, that's fine if he can continue to make unique games because of it. But this game is like KOTOR - lowballed vision for a wider audience. Which makes Schafer's "superdesigner who cannot do wrong" title seem a bit excessive in this case.

I thought the romance was tastefully done, which is what I was expecting they'd go for after the, uh, ****fests of earlier D&D games. Since I guessed Safiya's twist fairly early on, it actually worked a lot better, because I sort of incorrectly assumed that the romance was a repeat of history with the PC in the place of Akachi. It was another one of those elements that reminded me of PS:T, in that it was pretty subtle and didn't make a big show of trying to please the player.

Clearly you've never seen Metalocalpyse. Or Tenacious D. I didn't think Tim Schafer would be the type to hop on bandwagons. Early word is that it's going to be a God of War clone with "squad combat" elements. And one would guess, leftover Metalocalypse plots and humor. Hopefully the kind of mouth-breather that would go for that sort of thing will buy enough copies for Schafer to make something worth playing. The second Fantastic Four movie had a good trailer too.

In the shadow Mulsantir temple, there were 2 doors down a corridor to the west of the main chamber (when you enter the corridor the party is ambushed by vampire monks) that seemed to require a key to unlock. Where do you get the key? It may have been the case that I needed the Myrkul high priest's key (that I dropped shortly after opening the lower vaults, I believe) but I wanted to double check.

Who's Gromnar?