Wombat

I recommend waiting for reviews. In my particular case, it's just the release date is very convenient for me. Also, buying the game immediately after its release deprives me of some pre-order privileges although most of them tend to be garbage.

Still skeptic but I may pre-order this title simply because I'm getting busier at the end of this year. Re-pricing usually takes a few to several months and, at the time for holiday sales, I won't have time for games at all.

I praised Troika for their originality but I may have helped them to be kicked out of business as well. It was a typical way for a small company to be out of business, though. Also, with a bit of cunning and diplomacy, I think they could lower the entrance without sacrificing their originality too much. I believe OWB has proven it, to some extent.

Oh, my. Other eople have different opinions than Morgoth. On the Obsidian boards. The horror. (Meant as a joke) I think this kind of work can have the possibility for sequel than something like Alpha Protocol does. I think the essential part of the game is if the game delivers the core game-play without problems. Of course, people has their likes and dislikes but most of reviews I read complained of the lack of the content while appreciating what already exists more or less. While AP can be an underrated masterpiece, no publisher would pay the bill for the possible sequel. I don't know about the decision of Square Enix but I think something like DSIII would have better chance. Since Obsidian doesn't have the luxury to spend as much as time they like for a game, I think this is more practical approach. That said, while I had been quite vocal in the boards, I haven't bought the game. I played the demo with both characters but I ended up with confirming that this game-play (I wonder if I'm allowed to call it "hack-and-slash") is not my cup of tea. I simply cannot get myself into the game even enough to decide if the game-play is good or bad. I'm surprised by how indifferent I can be to what's going on the screen. So, personally, a sequel wouldn't make me excited but I'd like Obsidian to stay on business for possible other works.

Yea, Amazon Japan reviews for PS3 version began to be piled up, too. Basically, it looks quite similar to its US counterpart except there are not so many Dungeon Siege series fans (Somehow, most of Hack & Slash fans come up with the example of Sacred 2 as well as Diablo series). Means, "it's not Hack & Slash" vs "it's a well built/OK ARPG." That said, even the latter group seem to find the pricing is bit high. I wonder if the narrowed-down scope should be blamed, though, since the complaints about camera exist here as well. Not surprisingly, console gamers tend to be less tolerant to bugs/glitches. [Off Topic] BTW, I know about the popularity of Souls series since there are quite a coverage in Western media, too. I, however, didn't know Atelier series. Of course, it's not surprising that Japanese game makers rely on popular anime illustrators to cover up the lack of the visual impact of the games cooperated by Hollywood industry. However, the fact that they made a market to both hardcore gamers and girls amazed me. I had even expected some pedophilia comments in reviews but I found the comments there much healthier. "I'm tired of gore expression of Western games and it's refreshing to play the series." "The system is actually solid." among some girlish comments.

One of the sites I stumbled upon introduced Planescape: Torment as an adventure game. Indeed, the most rewarding part of the game is the feel the players to figure out the story piece by piece by talking to various NPCs. Personally, I'm not a great fan of point and click adventure games, where I am forced to solve childish puzzles but I felt the conversation-focused game-play of PS: T more at home. Likewise, games should reward the players with their favorite game-plays. A typical example is that game masters would increase combats when they see that's their players are into while they would go for more of investigation aspect when they find the players like conversations. Since computer games don't have the AI to judge which game-play is favored by the player, the designers need to prepare a buffet of game-plays for them and let the players choose. I haven't played any of New Vegas DLCs yet but I've gotten an impression that Avellone put the players into game-plays they didn't expect from Fallout 3 format. I think I understand his argument about too much hand-holding makes games less rewarding but, with all the experience as a game mater and a game designer, shouldn't he know better than putting the players into a certain game-plays without making sure that they actually like them? Once the designers make the players into their game-plays, the players would be prepared to, and even be willing to do tougher "challenges" but it would be too risky before that. Wonder if he put his grumpy side aside and made the dialogues lighter and prepared some welcome comfort to the players in OWB but it sounds like the story now.

Well, Chaosium system, the ancestor of learn-by-doing system, uses both approaches and skills can be developed through learn-by-doing and "training", where the players can develop the skills of their choices with the cost of imaginary training fee, or, in-game money, and game time. However, what Bethesda have been aiming to do seems to be optimized for video games. Means, to develop their characters, the players only need to do the game-play of their liking. They seem to have even managed to get some action game players into their games, which, itself, may not make traditional CRPG players happy but publishers stopped running away when they hear the word RPG. Of course, the obvious problem here is that there is no established speech game-play...

I have little idea about why so many western sub culture fictions related with conspiracy theory...even Assassin's Creed seems to be related with it, too, while I wanted to see some historical/economic aspects of the age of Crusaders... I think Deus Ex did ideological conflict part did rather well, though. One of the possible endings , for example, feels to have a touch of the concept of philosopher king mixed with Christian mythology, . Quite many western cyberpunk works seem to be influenced by Christian mythologies, which makes the existence of Japanese works such as Ghost in the Shell interesting, where the focus is more on the human identity in information society (I personally find most of anime works are plain dismissible but there are some exceptions, indeed). Well, his name is Adam, at least. Also, 2027 would be appropriate if Paul were JC's natural brother and a few year senior of him, however, due to the experimental nature of their existences and conspiracies behind their origins, I wonder if the date can be a good indicator.

From what I've read so far, HH reminds me of regionalist writers such as John Steinbeck, but, generally speaking, Sawyer's approach so far is more to do with simulation where the players are offered settings rather than pre-determined story-paths. However, for me, it's tough to imagine that such approach works with smaller piece of content such as DLC compared with more narrative heavy Avellone style. So, I wonder if he resorted to something like works in which writers use religious beliefs make their real world settings feel like the lands of mythology. Well, probably I should play the game to figure out how much of my assumption would be right, though.

Humor is an essence for Fallout series but "funny" is rather vague to differentiate the humor in Disney cartoons and that in, for example, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. For me, it is should be witty and poisonous at the same time rather than plain silly in Fallout...something near to Dr. Strangelove (Somehow, the song selection of FO reminds me of Try a Little Tenderness in the opening). The risk is that it can be pretentious if it doesn't have a certain core to it. In Fallout's case, the imaginary world is presented quite convincingly. FO2 appears to be less focused and even Chris Avellone admitted they tried too many things without a certain focus in terms of the theme (Yea, typical "beautiful failure" pattern for him... Seriously way too dangerous for Obsidian as a company, at times . Nice to see OWB seems to have gotten his better side although it would stay in wishlist on my steam account till sale...still my hands are full!).

Finished Portal and started Portal 2. They are good so far. The dialogues and the story are good, too. Surprising thing is that, they are poisonous but somehow managed to stay cute at the same time. You know, it's pretty easy to go for a horror route established by System Shocks, which are inspired by Space Odyssey, but Portal stays to be funny and cute. I like my expectations to be betrayed in such a way.

Stealth, 18 century setting...my antenna is up now.From Gameinformer and the story changes depends on how much damage caused during the game-play without any moral interference...nice touch here, too. I don't think myself as a particularly ethical individual and yet assassination-focused games such as Hitman series make me run away. Like the concept already, wondering how the outcome will end up.

Thanks. Well, I'm an on and off gamer and sometimes or more often I overlook such info. Now playing the game room by room basis just to fit to my life at the moment. Like HL2, pushed from map to map either admired as a "hero" or despised as a "test sample,"* but the puzzle is entertaining, indeed.

Playing Portal for the first time, I am pleasantly surprised by the innovative game-play that I'm already feeling that it would be one of my favorite titles. Guess I took Half-Life 2 as a puzzle game than a shooter (Never played Half-Life, though...I'd rather wait for Black Mesa).

Finally, bought Amnesia, Assassin's Creed Pack, Gothic4 Risen, Batman, the expansions for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Valve complete pack during the sale. Now I cannot have ten items in my wishlist... Still little time to play them that I began to play relatively light title such as Portal. I think I'm not going to buy a game on release any more. Thinking about that, in Witcher 2's case, I just tried to support Gog.com and the game itself.

this along with the fact, that his buddies will never miss him and become alerted because one of them is missing, is probably my biggest problem with stealth games. I just can't enjoy them, because it's too easy to just figure out the "right" order to get rid of all the enemies If it is too easy, why do you take them down rather than sneaking past them? They won't be alerted since nobody is missing.

Suddenly, the thread seems to be filled with stealth geeks fans. Random behavior is anathema to good stealth gameplay. It is specifically the reliable limited intelligence of AI that makes the situations feel interesting and rewarding to overcome. I like randomness as long as it doesn't allow me to use the same pattern or it doesn't make me memorize the pattern. However, I'd feel "unfair" when the designer implemented what I cannot avoid without sheer luck. Guards' changing their routes and offering the players limited info are not a bad touch (actually, this comes back to the FP argument, too...something like sounds or device should be offered not to make the game mere gamble) but randomness without giving the players tools to overcome the obstruction would not be a welcome addition. Nice touch indeed, but sadly it's not random. There is enough variation to make it unpredictable, with the added touch of the radar only targeting known assailants (either through sound or visual) and with a very limited range. Its a fairly entertaining challenge. Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding: enemy patrol routes have one (maybe more in the full game) fix spot at which the enemy looks behind. That's what I meant. I don't mind either way, but the added randomness of the act would make the given situation a bit more tense without making it actually more difficult. There's a small but important difference between waiting "4 more secs till he turns then go" and "should I risk going now or wait a bit more?". I think I came across something like that in Double Agent...I found some guards "twitchier" compared with other guards...the nice touch is that they tend to be alone, which granted the players such choices you described here. After all, it's yet another implementation which encourages the players to observe the behaviors of NPCs. (Unfortunately, the PC control and some mission designs are not good in that game, though). Sounds like the dev team doing what they should be doing, then. It is another "refrained" random factor which encourages the players to pay attention to the guards' behaviors.

Haven't played MGS...haven't played any Japanese game quite a long time... And yea, SC seem to use some randomness in AI... Well, any game has its share of absurdities as HK pointed out. However, stealth games seem to be based on quite a delicate balance to drive players attention away from the absurdity. Yea, in Conviction, I needed to fight my way through in quite many occasions if not frontal attacks...loved the system which allowed me to sneak past guards while achieving objectives.

Still confused. Lack of concrete examples? Of what? Are you referring to this: No more than having a convenient crosshair to tell me where my bullets go while shooting from the hip; or being able to carry around more weapons, ammo and items then is physically possible; or the game being paused while I heal myself from the status screen; or... Because those are all things from the original DX, not to mention a billion other games. Talking of over-generalization. In any case, as I said, my own experience with cover system is limited to Splinter Cell series. So, I just wished someone had come up with better examples. Talking of that, I just watched Conviction game-play briefly (No time for reinstalling and playing) to refresh my memory. For, at earlier parts, there are no vision-based items and the players have to rely on even a broken mirror. However, the new game-play tie the cover system with the 3D puzzle factor (means, which route would be safest, where should I climb, and drop relatively safely...such kind of things...Steam even recommend me Tomb Raider series.), so, it's kinda hard to consider them separately... At least, the game-play feels pretty stream-lined and works its own right although I miss the old stealth system, to some extent.

Yea, how could you see it a problem if you haven't played any game of this type? I played Splinter Cell series and the view-shift felt quite seamless. In fact, it's quite established in its own way. I have my own preference but I see no problem in the Ubi scheme. This post baffles and confuses me. It's just simple. I found your post lacked concrete examples considering the list of games you must have played. For my own stock of shooter game-play example is quite limited and such examples would help (In fact, Thief series aren't meant to be played through by direct attacking, which is why I needed to take an examples from both S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Thief series). However, I think you noticed it since you began to include them to your argument, anyway. Imagine having to sneak around with zero area awareness. You don't see where enemies are, where they're facing, you can't even check their patrol pattern. What was already a test of patience becomes a luck based mission for every piece of cover. Actually, not necessary as long as some devices such as thermovision are implemented. I cannot remember a part where I relied on "cover system" than those scopes given in Splinter Cell series.That said, I don't know a single game which has heavy stealth game-play with assault option and sticks to the first person game-play view except Deus Ex. In Thief series, assault is not an option.

HK, you must have played video games many more than I do and you just have these over-generalizations. In any case, I don't think it is wise to make (ex-)Ubi team a game such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Thief and vice versa. For some mechanisms just work in their own schemes. Since Deus Ex series have always been TP game, I think the team is one of the most desirable choices...at least for the game-play wise.

Isn't that...sort of cheating? I mean you abuse the camera to look around a wall that your character shouldn't be able to see in his current position...it feels really cheap and what's wrong with just leaning? That's an argument quite popular with Thief: Deadly Shadows. In fact, I used the TP view only one mission since it was bare necessity since the map was more of a climbing puzzle (I believe Tomb Raider series have focus on such game-play and, indeed, Splinter Cell series have such cases, too). Considering S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s leaning and stealth of Thief series (I rely much less on my ears in Splinter Cell series compared with Thief series, which contributed to build the unique atmosphere), I don't think TP is necessary except that climbing puzzle game. That said, to be fair, it would be impossible to implement a device to realize precise vision of human being. Human vision is quite wide compared with what can be seen in the monitor of the first person view and you probably jerk your necks to grasp whole information of your surroundings consciously or unconsciously. Of course, you shouldn't be able to see your own backs but I guess TP is a possible alternative to make such game-play possible without complexity. Personally, I like the atmosphere which can only be realized by first person view but it would restrict possible game-plays in a certain areas. Seems, it ultimately depends on the focus of the game style both art-wise and game-play-wise.

Steam has been insisting that I'd like Rainbow Six...

Yea, it's quite easy to blame each other when things going wrong. As for rule-sets, I'm not a great fan of D&D in general since it focused too much on combat rules rather than making interesting sessions. Even Avellone seems to have been quite surprised by how FO rules work when he came across with the game, which probably means he hadn't played outside of D&D rule-set. Personally, I felt at home with FO and, partly, Morrowind. FO-like skill systems tend to be tied to how characters interact with given "worlds," where setting can play a quite important role in game-plays. If I can think of most convincing reason why skill systems are more interesting (at least, to me) than class systems in D&D is that it consciously takes characters as a medium to interact with an imaginary (or theme-focused real) world rather than combat units, a mere borrowed concept from predating combat strategy games. In fact, if someone is conscious of the core-idea above at all, how should the rule-set update be such a big issue? IMHO, outside nostalgia, I don't believe D&D rule-set is a good place to start the discussion...for this part "why RPG fans are often their own worst enemies", maybe, but how constructive is it, going back to the first line of this post? Probably, what makes me annoy is that I find the image of RPG by CRPG only players tend to be quite limited so that I'm inclined to think it is more or less related with the dominance of a certain style of game-play introduced to some classic CRPGs.

Sounds interesting. For, at the price tag of Alpha Protocol and Dungeon Siege III, I think the designers need to check out established successful (mainly game-play) models and weave them into what they are doing especially when they'd like to seek for their originality in story-weaving. An attempt and ambition which tries to defy every single existing format such as Planescape: Torment is admirable but risking too much, at least, with that pricing. That said, the presentation must be most about technical aspects...in reality, besides technical problems, AP and DSIII seem to have suffered the reactions triggered by disappointments through complex presumptions and expectations in the cross-genres, which is rather an issue of product design and marketing strategy area. In AP's case, I clearly saw it coming but, in DSIII's case, my lack of knowledge in online multi-player gaming blinded me.