Wombat

It can be anything but, indeed, Obsidian designers seem to be quite fond of iOS devices.

Thanks for the article, funcroc. Yea, I felt they are doing some experimental things with DLCs..., which doesn't meant that I wouldn't like to play them at "experimental" status. ...And thus, Amnesia: The Dark Descent was added to my list...

It seems like a version of "Trolley Problem", which one of Obsidian designers brought up while back. It is designed to cause ethical dilemma but I wonder if it can be presented in a way to make a coherent story with convincing themes to the players without letting them feel that it's just a one-shot experimental device or a mere superficial gimmick in a nut shell. Bioware, for example, use the "Prisoner's dilemma," at times but the usage feels superficial since it doesn't find a place in their "morality" system. To be fair, in Bioshock's case, the "moral" issue was pretty simplified, too. Rather, it's the atmosphere what was successful in that game.

Yea, the Western theme is the reason why I held myself off but I'd put RDR to my sale-waiting list, too. Too many games to play... As for the integration, actually, I'm wondering which would benefit convenience from the integration or freedom of choices and market competition from the variety. Memory consumption of Win 95 series was terrible and the integration between OS and browser helped malware damage many people's data, for example.

yeah, Zune. And its brilliant. I recently switched to Windows phone and I'm enjoying it even more than an iPhone. In fact I'm working towards giving ms another try and switching to all ms integration around the house. Yea...yet another consumer choice...don't feel like I'm actually choosing though. That said, I'd be more likely to go for a tablet and/or a phone since they can be used outside of "entertainment." Thanx for the news. I'd wait for sales anyway, though.

Obviously, it would make the matters worse. As you know, even professional DLC can cause some damages (In fact, it's one of the reasons why I keep my hands off from them at the moment. Besides, I found the raison d'etre of Steam on my PC after installing New Vegas is its sales. No hassle for me since I already have a pile of games which needs to be played for a while). Outside of "suffering" console-exclusive titles, a possible benefit for PC users and even the developers are written in the quote below, which seems to be proven to Bethesda's and even Obsidian's case through New Vegas. Well, the article has some interesting stuff, I visited these boards to see if it is posted at Skyrim thread but ended up with posting it here instead.

MS is probably integrating its entertainment-distribution system among PC, Console and Portable devices. Wonder how Sony, Nintendo, Apple, Google and Onlive, Gaikai are planning. Also, gamers can choose a game of their liking on their favorite devices. The quote below from AusGamers' interview to Howard may have other possible benefits for cross-platforming, although it is not even on paper as he points out.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls doesn't seem to have auto-map. Unfortunately, it's only on PS3, though. For PC gamers, Wizardry Online, which even has "lost" feature is planned. One of the things which makes me wonder is Japanese game development. While major companies doing their things, there have been being smaller companies making Wizardry games... As a side note, somehow, in Japan, Wizardry series is taken as a classic fantasy, and thus, you will see not so many parodies/jokes such as Cuisinart blade, which was actually introduced as a blade which was forged by a legendary bladesmith Cuisinart. I think that opening hours joke was there somehow, though.

Actually, I agree with your point. I simply omitted my reasoning behind my previous post. The reason why I cannot really count on major reviews on stories is that I know I cannot agree with reviewers about that aspect. Even in recent memory, off the top of my head, I see quite many reviewers couldn't even see how Witcher 2 plots are made and just summed up with "half-cut" story. I don't say that they are lying but they don't seem to be capable of analyzing how the plots are formed. Likewise, in the review of DSIII Gamespot, the reviewers don't seem to be able to discern if it is the presentation or story itself, which he finds "weak." Indeed, I have quite strong impression that most of them won't read many books. Unfortunately, gamers in general, too. So, the choice for story-focused game would be whether going for a movie-like experience or a format composed of text (as Dead State appears to be writing) for more smaller segment. Hence the conclusion above.

I haven't been playing any of Bioware games since the original Knight of the Old Republic. However, yea, combined with the power of movie industry, they seem to sell well and shooter game-play seems to have fewer problems with multi-platform. Since gamers are not known for reading, the visuals must play great role in "story-telling"... Who couldn't see this coming if not blinded by his/her favorite formula?

Yea, the story is pretty old and I don't believe someone could add to the circulated posting anymore. Actually, Obsidian is not Blizzard. Their size is between an AAA company and an indie. Also, considering their resources, I don't think they are able to make an online-heavy game and various character models on modern character graphics. In fact, they don't seem to afford the character models for NPCs in DSIII. So, rather than trying to do what they cannot do, they did what they could do. Also, some older members of Obsidian is from Black Isle Studios, a division of Interplay, which ended up like that mostly because they failed to adapt themselves to the industry shift from PC to consoles. Actually, quite many Diablo clones, too, ended up with more or less similar fate, which is why we don't see many of them anymore. If Blizzard is not able to make Diablo III as a hit, I cannot think of any other company which can make it. In fact, even Gas Powered Games doesn't seem to have been asked to make DSIII from any publisher, which comes to the commercial aspect. Commercially, DSIII appears to be born as an attempt for Square Enix to get into north American market while offering something "new" to Japanese console players. This is probably why Obsidian was chosen since they are known for story-focused games, to which Japanese players are accustomed. Then again, I have no idea about if this game will find its place in Japan, where the market is quite complex. So, my question would be, what could Obsidian do considering these circumstances? I, myself, cannot find even a possible answer to the question.

This is a pretty old story but are System Shock series/Deus Ex are shooters? The problem about continuing story-focused RPG is that story-telling part of FPS is getting better, enhanced with the technology grown up with movie industry. Most PC only RPG went for online games, where story is not important. I keep an eye on Dead State by Double Bear but Obsidian is too big for such game. Wondering if Obsidian is working on web-based and/or portable computer project.

Kinda ironic situation. For story-telling wise, it would have been probably better suited to something expected for Alpha Protocol but the veterans failed to catch up with the modern game-play (To say nothing of Conviction, I think it was even behind Chaos Theory...). On the other hand, while the younger designers were arguably successful in making the game-play part right, the reviewers say that story-telling is not wanted in this genre.

? They didn't work together on the core game. John Gonzalez was the Creative Lead/Lead Writer there. They worked together on Aliens: Crucible. One game we'll never see. Thanks but I'm quite sure Avellone played a certain role in New Vegas even if he is not titled as a lead creative. OK. I'll tell what I thought. When I read what people saying Honest Hearts, my old thought, in which I suspect the reputation of NPCs designed by Sawyer may have some relation with the fact that he doesn't read many fictions, came to me. For it's not first time for me to see people claiming that they have difficulty in finding roles of Sawyer's NPCs in the story of their own characters although they are not peculiarly wrong and they have their roles in the given settings. On the other hand, it's Avellone's signature trick to let the players build their own stories through his NPCs, most of which is not built in the game system since its power relies greatly on the talent of letters (Avellone told, in an old interview, that he put Morte so that he works as Falstaff, which can be one example of his constant thinking dramatic effects). I'll probably buying it when all the DLC is out, which should be good time for me to go back to the Mojave desert, though.

In terms of the sales, review scores from major sites are quite influential. I hope they won't be too hard to Obsidian. However, with that post counts, how could he fail to get the picture of the game much earlier especially when Chapman's posts have been quite informative? The complaint about the price tag is already arcane, too. With that price tag, people won't regard DSIII as an indie game. That said, I cannot point out what the team did wrong with the resource management.

A quite comprehensive review. Why should every single review need a score, especially when it shows good enough info about its subjected game? One of interesting things about DSIII development is that the team is composed of younger gen members of Obsidian, though.

I just dropped by spotting Ziets post, which should be above my post, while idly browsing since my skimming radar hadn't spotted any new info in this board but thanks for pointing me to the review, which is refreshingly nicely written.

I don't know about proper definition of hardcore gamers. However, I like in-depth game-play and stories and settings.

"We wanted to open up the accessibility without hurting the depth or the quality." Well, actually, it's just repeating the trend of E3 this year: to make things accessible to get more people without losing hardcore gamers. You see it even from the design of Wii U. Also, from a different point of view, even hardcore gamers might begin to like vocal input if it means a kind of come-back of free text input in adventure/role-playing game genres for riddle-solving and/or get info from NPCs, for example. However, as for the content, for my particular taste, I wouldn't like to see too much Hollywoodization while I'd like the game content not to be restricted to fantasy/Sci-Fi genres.

Yea, I haven't played Batman but those would make more sense. I'd try Batman: Arkham Asylum as well as Assassin's Creed series. I just upgraded my PC while back and I'm catching up with modern gaming, finding a solid amount of time. I've updated my info about gaming during E3 and I'll spend less on info-gathering now.

I find the combat is just ok but the bugger is that it doesn't offer valid options than it pretends to do, which makes it monotonous. Also, I liked some of the improvement on environmental effects/physics (non-flying ragdolls, swords/armor feel heavier and solid), which, however, work against game-play experience at times. There must be a sweet spot for them to enhance each other. All in all, I'm quite happy with how Witcher 2 turned out. A funny thing about CD Projekt Red is that, while I can find quite many defects in details, I think they manage to make the whole work better than these parts. I think it's just quite hard to satisfy niche audiences. In fact, some points I pointed out was rather tough to improve such as a better mixture of environmental effects/game-play mechanics and a story which keeps some mysteries while not betraying players expectations/reasoning and/or not getting too explanatory at the end (Actually, even suspense/mystery movies with a few hours have this problem). I agree with the former part. Haven't bought Assassin's Creed yet, but I keep wondering how its sword-play mechanic was done. As for the latter part, though, TW2 is more of action game format and some people even complained of spell-casting/finisher animations...simply, these animations are hard to put in the format. Some formula won't work in the action game style, which is why I wanted to see more useful options in character-builds/crafting for "RPG" factors.

I wonder if its small but even if it were small, it would get bigger when piled up with numbers...but its your choice after all.

Yea, that would have been helpful since, honestly, I needed to browse a bit.

Thanks. You mean this part? I think mostly flashy parts were shown in the videos but I believe there are something for more hardcore audiences as the list goes. That said, I'm yet another who is simply keeping an eye on it, which shouldn't hurt much.

Buying consoles for games you are interested in will end up with strengthening their power of holding control on the game makers...I wonder why some people can get so emotional on the net about the console dominance while they keep buying them, supporting their power. Well, in my case, though, I simply don't play game enough for devices only for leisure, though.