StillLife

Wow, this is really sad news. Visceris was one of my favorite people from the BIS forums. It's been forever since I've posted here, or even lurked for that matter, but many of the discussions I was involved in with him still stick out in my mind. I still recall him saying something to the effect of, "it's single character? Not interested," anytime I'm enjoying a partyless CRPG. Or joining forces with him to argue the importance of turn-based combat. I also remember knowing right away who it was when he changed his forum name to DoomSayer, then Hades_One. Rest in peace Michael...and thanks for adding so much to the conversation, even when you said very little...

I don't understand that, why is it different from a first-person perspective than from isometric or third person? The amount of damage you do is determined by your character's skill as well, along with whether or not you even hit. That's no different than any other RPG, regardless of perspective. People skilled at FPS - like me and several other million people, would roll through the game with ease regardless of character builds if aim was all that determined a hit or not. Think of it this way: if you were shooting at someone in real life, and thought you were aiming in the general vicinity of them, but had never fired a gun, you could still very well miss, or just barely clip them, doing little damage - especially to a friggin vampire with a .38 special. Your arms and hands might not be very steady, your ability to lead a target, and your breathing inappropriate, etc. Once you start bringing semi-automatic and automatic weapons into the equation, experience and skill become even more of a factor. That's why not everyone who picks up a rifle in the military is automatically ready to be a sniper. Nor is every Tom, ****, and Harry ready to be a samurai because they handled a sword once. Now, if you guys who were put off by the game's system just hate RPGs and prefer action games, I could understand, otherwise, I don't get the complaints. I like FPS and I like RPGs...a combination of the two can be even better.

Well, it's more of an RPG than an actual shooter. Guns in the game do suck if you haven't invested in being good with them, as that's what primarily determines if you hit what you're aiming at. I think that aspect threw a lot of people off for some reason, although it shouldn't have, as your character's skill influencing how good a weapon potentially can be, is the norm in RPGs. My Torreador owned with guns.

Wait, you can save Jeanette and Therese? It still bothers me that what could have been an exceptional game was marred by technical issues and rushed level design at the end. If I were one of the people on the creative/artistic end of the game's creation -- who obviously put forth a lot of effort in doing their jobs well -- I would have been pissed. The writing, modeling, artwork, voice acting, facial animation, casting, game design, sound design, and even a lot of the level design and even many of the technical features were fantastic, but all that work got f'ed up in a lot of gamer's minds by a number of agitating issues that could have been easily avoided. Bloodlines might have matched the Fallouts as my favorite games too if those problems weren't there. Oh well. It didn't help that some of the marketing decisions seemed kinda dense.

Word.

I'm surprised you hadn't checked it out already Darque. RAM seems to be the best food for Bloodlines. I played it with 1 gig and had little trouble with . People with only 526MB or so have complained that it's sluggish. Not sure that's something you can easily work around if that's your problem. Oh yeah, Toreador for sure. :cool:

I think you'd like it. It's fun, the combat is a bit repetitive (and not as tactical as it would seem), the graphics are great and it really feels like a prettier version of Heroes of Might & Magic 3. I've been having a blast with it so far. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've actually been enjoying it quite a bit too. It really starts to pick up when you have enemies trying to jack resources and attack you on the campaign map. I just ran into a huge problem though. On the third or fourth Agrael mission, when you enter the elven lands, I keep getting dominated by the elf guy. Just when I build up a couple decent armies, he comes rolling in with an uber army of death. Something like 7 dragons, 21 unicorns, 200 pixies, 13 treants, 100 rangers, etc. Meanwhile there's another small army stealing all my resource points. I'm not sure I can even recruit an army fast enough to deal with that. What am I doing wrong?

It's okay. Actually, I haven't been able to finish it. The silly checkpoint save system tried my patience once too often. It feels a little too much like a budget console game a great deal of the time. The graphics blow, the levels instill claustrophobia, and not in a good, creepy way. The stealth system is pretty weak too. On the positive side, at times it does manage to feel like you're in a Lovecraft tale. The voice acting is passable, though the main character has a tendancy to sound rather mellow when he should be freaked the f out. You can also pick it up for $30 for the PC, so that helps.

Alt alert.

I loved all the comments from the clone troops, added a lot to the atmosphere and did a good job at letting you know what they were thinking.

Heh, that took me by surprise too. You're not supposed to be able to get through that garrison, as that's where the demon's main city on the map is. It depends what part you're on, but at some point you're required to send the old knight towards the south of the map(to reach Nicolai), around the bridge leading into demonville. I can't remember if you cross the bridge or stay on the normal side to reach the path though - it's pretty easy to find once you're looking for it. Then a cutscene will pop up and explain the rest of what you need to do.

Fifi is a popular poodle name, FIFE is different enough. Apparently it's the name of a town, a battleship, a lake, an engine, and Barney Fife.

I'm working my way through it too. It's pretty good so far, though I'm already feeling the repetition of combat too. Seems like tactics are sort of limited or something. I just let my ranged guys wittle away at oncoming enemies then send in the melee and that seems to do the trick for almost every battle. Of course I've only started on the second act of the campaign(the demons). It reminds me more of Disciples 2 than WC3, but not nearly as good in terms of gameplay. The story is fancier though.

What?

Bear in mind that was long before the Internet, or even the popularity of gaming magazines. It's not like you could hop online and read a review to see if a game sucked back then. You had word of mouth and the game's marketing, and that was basically it. Given the limited number of people who gave a damn about video games at the time, word of mouth wasn't good for much either. I played ET as a tyke on my sisters ATARI - it wasn't all that bad anyway for the time. The whole "ET was teh worst game evar" claim primarily gets tossed around because it became a trendy opinion amongst aged game journalists, who realized how mediocre the game was when contrasted with it's enormous budget and hype. Plus it was one of the progenitors of bland movie license games in a long dynasty of bland movie license games. It was a simple little ATARI game...technology has advanced so far since then, that developers are capable of commiting far greater atrocities today, it's just no one talks about those kinds of games for long anymore. I have noticed that guy tends to gloss over certain facts to make a point in his articles, so I understand what you're getting at. I just thought that was worth pointing out. Yep, I couldn't help but notice that too. RF 2 looked pretty crappy to begin with. I agree on most of the other stuff you pointed out, except I don't replay single-player games very often, though I do rewatch movies a lot.