Spider

Psychonauts, you heretic. Also Dragon Age and Batman: Arkham Asykum.

Isn't the scanner speed only affected on the Xbox? I thought that upgrade on the PC only gave you extra drones? if there is

makes much more sense than what occurred in the game. am not minding a misunderstood villain... but we have little patience for a stoopid villain. HA! Good Fun! I think it was said somewhere (probably in RtO as well) that the Fereldian army at Ostagar would have lost that battle even if they had interefered. They had underestimated the strength of the Blight and didn't have enough troops to win. Besides, Loghain really hated the Grey Wardens, and he didn't buy into them being the only ones that can stop a Blight. And the Grey Wardens were the only ones that bit the dust at Ostagar, so in his mind the military strength of Ferelden wasn't affected much. It's entirely possible that Loghain didn't plan Ostagar, just saw an opportunity and took it, when he realized he'd only be throwing his troops away. Does it make absolute sense? No, there are still flaws in his logic, but there is a reasoning there I can see an arrogant bastard like him make. I could have bought that, story-wise. Now he just comes off as a raving madman, and I think the story suffers because of it. It almost makes me think the information in RtO was thought of after the game shipped because they realized the games main villain just didn't make sense. Considering how the information is presented (through codex entries when you find letters), it really feels like something just thrown in there.

I think what Cailan is doing gives perfect sense to Loghains actions. If he indeed knew about it. Basically his wors nightmares coming to pass at the hands of a king he has very little respect for as a ruler. I can see how he would act on that.

There is some information revealsed in Return to Ostagar that helps put a light on Loghain's actions, provided he himself had that information (RtO doesn't divulge if that's the case). Should have been in the game proper and Loghain should have pushed at it during Landsmeet. Would have made the story more interesting (and more logical).

You're thinking about the velociraptor. That one is very quiet. When I was complaining about noise, I meant my old 36 gb raptor. That one is only available as a 3.5 drive and when it's working it's lojs as hell. When idling it's not so bad though, but when working drowns out everything except my CPU fan under load.

Borderlands kinda had it, except you had to activate compare mode and scroll to the weapon you have equipped. So IT kinda sucked. It was in Titan Quest though, and I think it's been a staple in action togs for some time.

I have yet to get an SSD, but I've been told the difference in everyday use is enormous. In gaming, the result is shorter loadtimes, but after that you won't see much. So my suggestion would be to get a smaller SSD and use it for OS and apps, then a bigger normal drive for games. The problem with SSDs is that you really pay for each GB. Getting a larger disk will not net you a lower price per GB, the 160GB SSD intel has is twice the price of the 80 gb (which in turn is twice the price of the 40 GB, but at least here there is an increase in performance as well). Personally I am considering the Intel X25-M G2 80GB, which seems to suit my needs. Then I'll get rid of my raptor and all the noise it brings. I wasn't aware of the terrible XP-support though. As for graphics cards, nVidia are supposedly making some sort of announcement tomorrow. Whether it's in regards to their new line of cards or not remains speculation, but if they do announce their new line then, it's possible cards will be available within a month or so, then you might get a good nVidia that could compete with ATI in price and performance. But it also depends on how patient you are, since availability in the first month or so is likely to be scarce. But tomorrow should bring some answers hopefully.

What's the purpse of the computer? Best bang for the buck gaming computer? Or more high end? Anyway, the processor you've chosen performs about the same as the Intel Core i5, which has a similar price, so no the comparative intel product is not three times pricier. I think the edge goes to the i5, but it's insignificant enough that whatever is cheaper is the better deal. As for the graphics card, I don't recognize that number. Do you mean 285? At a similar price point (550 at the site you linked) you can get ATIs 5870, a card that crushes the 285 in virtually every test and comes close to the gtx 295 in some. Or you can get the 5850 which has a performance similar to the 285 but costs under 400. My understanding is that the best price/performance computer you can build currently is an i5/5850-system and that's what I'd be going for if I was to build a new computer today. But the i5 and Phenom II are fairly interchangeable. Going Nvidia for graphics though, will lead to paying more for less, virtually at all price points. As for case and cpu-fan. What are your priorities? Will you be overclocking or do you want low noise levels? I think the best solution for performance and low noise is the Corsair Hydro H50, but there is a Noctua CPU-cooler that seems to have better performance. I'd go with the H50, but I value silence a lot. As for case, the site you linked is a bit limited. I'm thinking about getting a new case currently myself, but they didn't have any of the models I'm considering. Those would be Fractal Design R2 (definitely the best performance/price case right now, costs less than half compared to other performance models and isn't far behind), Corsair Obsidian and Silverstone Fortress 2. I would go with the latter (because I like Silverstone and it has great performance) but I don't know how compatible it is with a Hydro H50 I'm also considering getting. PSU and ram I don't know much about. Just that basically any known brand will do in regards to both. Corsair, Kingston, AData, OZC for ram. If you're going for a single gpu solution, then you'll be fine with any psu at around 600 or so. Brobably in a SLI/Crossfire setup as well. Now, harddrive is where it gets interesting. Since it'll only be used for applications, having a faster drive could mean a lot for performance. If you can fit it in your budget, I'd look at an SSD. But they're not cheap. The intel and OZC brands are the best and I'd recommend the 80GB version Intel has, which should be enough for OS, a few apps and 3-4 games (or more depending on the games). but if you like keeping lots of game installed, it will fill up 8since games like mass Effect take a bit over 10 GB on the disk). another option would be to look at the Velociraptor. The 300GB version also has pretty good performance, although not as good as an SSD of course. But neither the 300GB velociraptor or any of the brands of SSD I mentioned are available on that site. The 150 GB velociraptor is, but I'm not sure it performs as well as the 300GB version (it well could though). Or you could go for a regular HD. I'd go with the Smasung Spinpoint F3 1TB in that case, because the larger drives have better performance as well. Not sure if there difference between that and the 500GB is that large, but neither is the price.

I think that's your grey warden taint. The whole darkspawn-sense.

This is, of course, great news. Civ 4 is my favorite game ever, and I think my total playtime with the franchise over the years is higher than all other games I've played combined. At least if we count in Alpha Centauri.

Didn't Avellone also work on Thorn? And Sawyer did writing and design for Gauntlet. Iirc, they ended up cutting a lot of his stuff out of the game though. I also think Sawyer did some work for IWD1.

But the same is true for BG2. The second playthrough is MUCH easier than the first. I don't think this indicates a lack of tactics though, quite the opposite. It's easier because you already know the plan. There were certainly fights in BG2 that were tough. The circle, kangaxx, and some more. And it certainly had a more punishing death system, adding to the difficulty. If I had to reload everytime a character went down, there are fights in DA I'm not sure I'd get through. I just don't recall any fights in BG2 that frustrated me as much as the spider queen in DA. But it's been almost ten years so my memory could be failing me. I know I couldn't for the life of me beat Kangaxx, but that's because I didn't know that you needed +4 weapons and I had no clue how to avoid imprisonment. I don't think I'd say the +4 weapon is a tactical problem though, it's just obfuscated information. Avoiding imprisonment though kinda qualifies. But I still felt like I needed to make more tactical decisions more frequently in DA compared to BG2. Tactical as in positioning, what enemies to take out first, etc. Not figuring out what silver bullets beats a specific kind of enemy. BG2 is certainly more complex, but complex != tactical in my book. That is not to say BG2 isn't tactical. Compare it to say Torment and it's miles beyond. Compare it to IWD2 and it falls behind a bit. Edit: By the way, I agree with gromnis's post above 100%. Well, 99%. I don't think Irenicus is Bioware's best villain (I have a hard time with that character for some reason) but everything else is spot on.

I use way more strategy in DA than in BG2. In BG2, most encounters can be dealt with with "select entire party, click an enemy, wait until it's dead then repeat on the next one". Cast breach every now and then to remove some invulnerabilities and then that's it. IWD2 is better in this regard, but BG is a lot worse. Overall, I think difficulty level in DA has a lot to do with it. Play it on nightmare without strategy and it will go bad, normal is way more forgiving from what I've heard.

So I bit the bullet and got Return to Ostagar. And played it. Here are my thoughts on it: (some spoilerish things, but vague enough to not warrant tags I think) There is a lot of combat. It's basically only combat. And some codes entries that give some clues as to what Cailan was thinking. And some loot. Cailan's armor (which is so, so, there are definitely better high tier armors in the game), and a couple of nice weapons (3 or 4 depending on where you are in the game I guess). The premise for going back is a bit stupid. But I guess it works. Then there was fighting. Lots of fighting. Unfortunately, most of it grindy fighting. There are a few yellows here and there, but nothing really difficult. And the archers didn't seem to have scattershot (the stunning one). So while there are many archers, they aren't really scary (this is for a level 23 character). Some fights are staged in an interesting way, but most are just bumrushes. There is a stretch at the end where you get the kind of cannon fodder that is in the endgame of the original campaign. It's fairly short though, so I not that annoying (although I didn't mind it that much in the original campaign, where the fodder made a little more sense thematically). Then there is the end fight vs an orange monster. Which was laughably easy. Most of the scenery is reused, of course. There are a couple of new areas, but they aren't long. As far as playtime is concerned, I think it was a little longer than Warden's Keep, but nowhere near as nicely designed. Other than at the start of the quest and the very end, there is no dialogue. None. Although there is some amusing banter between Alistair and Wynne if you bring both. For a level 23 character, the DLC has about 4,000 and change worth of XP for those who care). Enough to push me over to level 24 (at least with some donations to my troops). If you like the battles of DAO, Return to Ostagar could be worth getting. It's not terribly expensive and has a few interesting moments. But it's a little borderline, to be honest. I think it's probably more interesting to have if you go there a lot earlier in the game. maybe around level 15 or so. I didn't think it was a waste of money but that is because I love the game and the combat in it. If you don't like the combat, stay away.

And you definitely can't click and wait for two minutes, at least not on harder difficulties.

You really don't need two fighters. Or a rogue (at least not for the fighting, and the rest you can take care of once you've cleared a location, with a few exceptions). And while I wouldn't, I'm pretty sure there are people who've gone through without a mage as well. I went with a rogue, a tank (more specifically a Shale) and two mages my first time around and that was very nice for most encounters. I've heard the most powerful party is a tank and three mages. So there is some variety to how you set up your party. And the game can, and does, throw some seriously hard fights your way, especially if you play on nightmare. True, most encounters aren't that bad. but there a re a few that are really hard (and fun, except those damn wolves. They're never fun).

MC, I hope you intend to give a summary. I'll probably get it once I'm donw with ME2, to prep me up for Awakenings.

I think what Bio has been doing is a good idea. Reward people who buy the game, rather than treat them like criminals. An extra mission and NPC is a good incentive for people who like the game to buy it. And a cd-check will take care of anyone who is technically inept enough to not be able to apply a crack. Because the process for the person pirating the game is the same regardless if the game has a disc check or more convoluted versions.

Original was 1 + 9 I think. Thing is, I mostly use the sniper rifle to take out heavies and the like, then switch to smg to take out shielded monsters and grunts. So I rarely emptied the sniper rifle anyway. It's entirely possible (and even likely) you'd get more kills out of the upgrade, but it'd be less efficient for my purposes. Also, I don't mind reloading between shots, as long as the one you shot at goes down. I'll have to find a new target then anyways, which typically means going out of zoom regardless. But I think it's good design to make the weapons different rather than just better. Gives you a choice. The trained sniper rifle though is a straight upgrade over the standard. More ammo, higher damage...

Yeah, the upgrades are definitely not always improvements. Like the handcannon. before that upgrade I used the pistol exclusively. Afterwards, it ran out of ammo so fast it was almost unusable. Sure, the damage increase was nice, but not nice enough. Then came the upgraded SMG that hold tons of ammo (675 with a researched upgrade) and I've never looked back. Same with the sniper rifle upgrade. Lots of more ammo, including a 12 shot mag. But significantly lowered damage output. What's the point of a sniper rifle if a headshot doesn't kill unarmored foes? So I switched back. Then I found the super-rifle in one of the storyline missions (where you get to train a new weapon class) and that one is amazing.

If you're talking about the mission, after that one is done you can go back to recuiting and what not. I think doing the next mission in that chain will lead to a point of no return (haven't yet though) but I got a choice to keep building a team before I have to undertake that one. If you're talking about something else, then I'm clueless.

So far, I don't think ammo has been an issue really. There certainly seems to be enough to go around. Sure, the sniper rifle might run out every now and then, and the upgraded pistol (handcannon).

Nope, just a disc check for the core game. I don't even think you need to be oneline for DLC (since it's downloaded manually), but I can't say for sure.

Quick impressions: Combat is much improved over ME1. I can't put my fingers on what exactly, but it's just more fun. A bit more difficult as well, using cover is integral now (playing on Veteran). The control for weapon selection is pretty crappy. Scroll wheel only. As an infiltrator I carry four weapons, but mainly use two. As long as stay to those, it's just scroll up and down, which works decently. But if I want to get the heavy weapon for a bit, I have to first pick out the pistol (with that whole animation) and then the rocket launcher. Why not have a keyboard shortcut for each weapon? Using the spacebar as the action key for everything works surprisingly well. So while sprint, use object, go into cover and jump over cover could have used different keys, it's not really needed and it's kind of nice to only have to remember the one. Whoever thought the planet scanning minigame was a good idea needs to be fired. Especially since it's a fairly integral part of the game (at least if you want to do any research). It's a complete waste of time and not fun in the least. I find it to be even worse than planet exploration in ME1. Haven't encountered many special encounters yet, but the one I did find was pretty funny, with a crashed ship stuck in a cliff. Sort of a platform puzzle, a nice change of pace. Why did I have to download the DLC manually from the website instead of in-game like in DA:O? Especially since it seems like XBox users can download from in-game? Dialogue is much improved. Sheperd actually says what I expect her to say this time around. Well, except some of the paragon choices. They ar a bit strange. Like pulling out a gun and threaten someone. Feels more like a renegade action, but I suppose it's the motivation that counts? Experience works as follows: Each level is 1000 xp. Each major mission (so far anyway) gives you 1000 xp (surprise). Each minor assignment gives you very little xp (40-150 I think). So the 2 levels gained from maxing out the character in ME1 were pretty nice. The mineral bonus was on the low side though, but then I didn't actually finish those quests. All 5000 meant was that I could start researching a little sooner, but it quickly became irrelevant. The cash bonus was nice though. I never thought I'd say this, but I don't miss the conversation skills. Since most players would just max those anyway, it makes sense to base it on paragon/renegade instead. Minigames are too easy. Hacking was hard the first time due to the lack of instructions (as has been mentioned). But they're both fairly simple. I like hacking better than bypassing, but they are both quick affairs, so they work. All in all, the game is a big improvement. It's more streamlined, better paced and more fun. Not that ME1 wasn't fun, but this is simply better. Not in all ways, but in most. The gripes I have are fairly minor (except for the planet scanning, that needs to change for ME3). It's probably the most polished game Bio has released so far. I don't love it the same way I did Dragon Age, but that's since I prefer the gameplay in DAO, not because it's a better designed game. That being said, I think ME2 is great fun and a stellar action game.