[NHL]

Gomez. Funny how you say supplies are 'short' when talking about Gomez. Is it true that he could be sitting on Cammalleri's shoulders, and both of them could be sitting on Gionta's shoulders, and Hal Gill would still be taller?

[NHL]

Leafs have already re-signed Reimer. I'm planning the parade now.

 

Seriously, I hope the Leafs can pick up a good 1C to feed Kessel pucks. I think they first have to finish re-signing their RFAs, or trading them, or whatever they're gonna do. Burkie's already on record as trying to improve the Leafs' draft position, so things should be a little more clear after that.

[NHL]

I'm happy for Kaberle. Otherwise, meh, bring on the draft.

[PC Demo - Post your impressions.]

I skimmed this thread while waiting for the demo to download, and I gotta say the kb/m controls were not at all as bad as people are saying. I can agree than not being able to remap the keys is a legitimate complaint, but that aside, it just takes a little getting used to. Someone mentioned getting a little lost during combat and I agree having Lucas change targets all the time was a little weird, and the camera seemed to end up just rotating quite often.

 

Other than that I liked the combat. I have to practice defense a little more; most of the time I completely forgot about blocking attacks, etc. As happens whenever I play this kind of game (or most games), I just wanted to charge in and kill everything as quickly as possible and the hell with strategy. Because of this I died several times. Oh well, it appears save points are plentiful, so backtracking a little bit won't be a big issue. Have to say I'd like to be able to zoom out the camera a little more and get better warning that a fight is coming, especially when I'll be playing as the chick with the guns... but again not a big issue.

 

I was engaged throughout the demo. Visually I thought it looked great, sound effects and music were good, VO work was good (love those accents), and the pacing was good, and very smooth transitioning from one area to the next. I'm gonna hate going back to games with loading screens.

 

The only minor complaint I have with the UI is during level up. It seemed a little... what's the word? awkward? ....to get through, but I know that will change as I play through and get used to it.

 

It kind of reminds me of when I bought torchlight. I played Diablo 2 for about half an hour before getting bored, but I quickly got addicted to torchlight. I think I'll get addicted to this game as well. As I'm typing this I'm thinking, 'dammit I want to go to Gunderic manor!'

 

Hope this game does really well, Obsidz, so we get DLCs (levels and quests plz and not just pretty swords and armors) and expansions.

[Dragon Age 2]

Actually, the official line was that it wasn't working as they'd intended, the body explosion threshold was bugging and wasn't getting set at the correct impact level. Which could be either true, or them just backtracking. I believe them, though, they've admitted other ****ups.

You believe them?! what kind of lawyer are you? Now get in there and pull the truth out of them

Truth bolded.

 

Either way, less exploding into body parts = sadness.

 

EDIT: NM.

[Plenescape: Torment remake]

Now, stop and think for a second. Do you REALLY think that console gamers are going to pump their bucks into such a game?

Could it not be a PC exclusive? The Witcher did alright, IIRC... errr, even though I never finished it, myself.

 

Anyway, I played Torment 20 times or more when it was originally released. I used a walkthrough and rushed through the last 1/3 of Baldur's Gate just so I could uninstall it and make room for Torment on my hard drive (as I type this I have 3 USB memory sticks sitting on my desk, each of which has 2-3 times the storage capacity of that hard drive. sigh). I couldn't get enough of Torment, and still rank it in my top five games, if not the top game, ever.

 

Having said that, Torment was a day one purchase when GOG added it to their catalogue, and after some minor hoop-jumping I got the game to work in high-res, widescreen, blah blah blah, and relished another run-thru... for awhile. Truth is, gaming has passed Torment by, at least in presentation. If it were actually possible to remake Torment as it was, at least storywise, characterwise, and with weirdness factor intact, optimized with some gaming engine from today, (whichever works best), I'd be ecstatic. Yes please.

[Dragon Age 2]

Enemies are now much less likely to explode into body parts upon death.

Awwww ...I don't care if it was ridiculous and unrealistic, if that term can even be applied to a game like this, it was fun. BOO.

[Dragon Age 2]

just as an aside. what the **** is up with writers planning out TEN volume book series? what ever happened to having a good idea and writing it down. the best books are not, generally, one of a longer series...

 

sometimes an excellent book will warrant a sequel (which is almost always worse than the original work). but if a writer intends to write something and not finish it till later, i will tell that writer to go shove it until he's actually written the whole thing.

 

everyone so busy worrying about being "the next _____" instead of focusing on just telling the story that they need to tell.

Maybe because if an author (or their agent) went to a publisher and showed them an outline for an epic story that would end up about 5000-7000 pages long, the publisher would kick them out on their ass.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, someone above mentioned Guy Gavriel Kay as a suggested read. I thought I'd link his website here. I haven't read his latest book yet, but the others are all entertaining enough. IMHO, Ysabel is the weakest of the lot.

[RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS THREAD!]

Sorry if this has been posted already somewhere, but just saw this on Steam:

 

PC Gamer with some free Portal 2 (and Bulletstorm) goodness:

 

Portal 2 Soundtrack Volume One

 

Bulletstorm Soundtrack

 

Also in Portal 2 news: Valve does DLC

 

The new DLC pack, entitled DLC #1, will be released this summer for the incredible price of free! The pack will include new test chambers, leaderboards, and challenge modes for both single and multiplayer.

More test chambers are always a good thing.

[What are you playing now?]

Thanks to a catastrophic motherboard failure I've been without my regular gaming pc for over a week. Am now getting things up and running again, and reinstalling games. Portal 2 is first.

 

EDIT: Pretty sad when updating takes longer than the initial installation. Good thing I have the day off tomorrow.

[What are you playing now?]

since portal 2 finally arrived in the mail, the witcher is on hold. portal 2 is pure gaming awesomeness.

[What are you playing now?]

Given Witcher 2's impending release, and that I'm still undecided whether I even want to play it, I've decided to give Witcher another try. Third time's the charm, etc. It's probably not a good sign that I've just started and I'm already dreading going through the swamp.

 

Ah well, as Oddball says, "Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves." So I'm gonna get through the swamp this time, and the game gets better after that, right?

[Zombies? Meh...]

True Safety

 

Hopefully I'll win the lottery before the apocalypse, but if I do I'm getting one of these.

[Mass Effect 3]

Because tell me honest, in ME2 you never get any sense of urgency for doing the Suicide Mission. Well, unless you knew the mechanics of people dying after the capture of course...

 

They actually did a half-decent job of pacing for awhile in ME2, even if the way they did it could have been better. By that I mean do so many missions then go to Horizon. Do a few more, go to the Collector ship. Do a few more after that, then get the IFF. At that point Shepherd says, "we need to keep building the team..." and any smidgen of a sense of urgency BIO previously created is thrown out the window. However, if for example, player gets side-tracked by a lot of side missions and doesn't get through all the loyalty or recruitment stuff before being forced to do the suicide run, then it really could be a suicide run, or at least be more difficult to keep everyone alive. Much better, imho.

[Portal 2]

You don't remember racing around in the car, killing striders with the magnusson device? What a pain in the ass that was.

 

EDIT: On topic, my copy of Portal 2 shipped on Tuesday (the 19th) from amazon. Should have it next week with any luck.

[What are you playing now?]

Still playing Bulletstorm, and realized that Jennifer Hale does the voice of one of the characters you can meet. I think as an easter egg, in Mass Effect 3, femShep should say, "Is that fear in your voice, Barbara?" to that turian councilor when he finally admits reapers do exist.

[What are you playing now?]

Bulletstorm. Holy ****. That is all.

 

Finished it the other day. 5/10, pretty lame effort considering.

It could use some polish, but it's a blast. I've only just finished act 2, I don't know what's in store for me next, and I don't care. Both the

train ride

at the end of act one and controlling the

giant robot godzilla

at the end of act two were worth the price of the game.

[What are you playing now?]

Bulletstorm. Holy ****. That is all.

[Dragon Age 2]

In terms of Dragon Age 2 in general - I've been enjoying it. Even considering the reuse of maps, they did a good job of trying to use the reused maps in ways that didn't make it seem like you were running through the exact same dungeon (using doors to close off/change paths, starting at different points of the map).

 

Personally - and I'm sure I'll pilloried for this - my impression thus far of Dragon Age 2 is stronger than Dragon Age: Origins (which I confess was rather middling in my opinion until I played with all the additional content/expansions which then made it feel like the game I'd originally expected).

Here's one opinion in support, although my initial impression of DA:O was probably better than yours. When the first screenies/trailer/info for DA2 were released I had my doubts, and planned to hold off purchasing the game for awhile. But none of the games I currently owned were grabbing my attention for a replay. Portal 2 is still weeks away, and DNF even longer now, so I decided to buy DA2 after all. I'm glad I did. I've been pleasantly surprised at the different look and feel.

[What are you playing now?]

Replaying ME2 at the moment, just finished the Overlord DLC. Was better than I remembered it the first time. I think Bio nailed the presentation of geth and their ships, etc. Not just in Overlord but throughout both ME games.

[Bioware's New Game]

I find it somewhat disturbing that all you guys who apparently hate the games so much still have in-universe knowledge that beats mine hands down.

Same here.

 

Although I will add it's likely the keepers would have 'cleaned up' any messages or warnings left on the Citadel by the Protheans during the intervening 50,000 years between reaper visits... Er, not intended as a direct reply to a comment of yours, Nepenthe, but it was mentioned earlier in the thread.

[Preorder and DLC items]

It doesn't help that the weapons in the weapons pack aren't any real improvement over the existing weapons... well, except for the arc projector, but that's free.

[Bioware's New Game]

Oops. Then it's not necessary to install firewalker first.

[Bioware's New Game]

Overlord is worth a look. Good story, good fights. On the minus side... you will use the hammerhead. Oh, it is not necessary to buy the firewalker pack first.

[Dragon Age 2]

In some cases that might not be a bad idea.

 

KotOR without Carth, ME without Kaiden -- not that I'm singling out that particular voice actor. It's not his fault his characters are lame -- ME2 without Jacob or Thane, DA:O without Wynne, Oghren or Zevran.

 

Yep, not a bad idea at all.

Different tastes, different flavors. You can't ask that a character be removed because you don't like it, although there are some where I may concede that they should be removed. In the end it really depends on how much depth the character has and how much of it comes out in the performance.

Of course it's all about different tastes, that's kinda the point. I'm not saying any character should be removed. If they're in the game, fine. However if, when I purchase a game that has a lot of characters with varying degrees of depth, I could choose whether I wanted at least some of those characters in my game... say after watching a non-spoilerific "audition" trailer... then I'm okay with that. I might think it's worth spending $5-10 to try one of these characters out, and then if I don't like them, I can uninstall them for subsequent playthroughs.