Starwars

If you think people will use the social site to announce their stuff (or even as a main platform for modding), then that's pretty hilarious. Now, to clarify, I don't think DA will be some grand modding platform that will kill everything else. I think it will turn out to be like NWN2. Some good mods here and there, but overall fairly lukewarm. But, if you have any sense of perspective at all, then that alone is quite superior to BG2. BG2 doesn't feature a huge modding scene. It has a few dedicated modders to it. People will have no idea as to whether people are interested in modding DA until more time has passed. To compare BG2 and DA modding and give a big thumbs up to BG2 and thumbs down to DA at this point is... beyond silly.

DA was also released months ago, which is not gonna be time enough to get modders to create something mindblowing. It may be news to you but the toolset, alas, does not feature a "make an awesome module" button. It takes a lot of work and time to create something substantial. There's a crapload of mods being released for Oblivion, doesn't speak much as to whether the game is actually good or not. While the classes can be fun, sure, the fact still remains that if you play a melee-centric character a lot of your time is gonna be spent simply clicking on things. I'm not gonna argue whether DA's combat is better or not (because I feel the games are close to one another, featuring a crapload of uninteresting combat but with a few good encounters) but it did move in the right direction with melee classes. If I'm playing the game on hard, I'm busying myself making use of all kinds of various abilities that my character has learned. BG2 does win out in the "different kinds of enemies" argument easily, which does ease the tedium a bit. But, there was still a *lot* of vanilla encounters and fairly few encounters that were truly interesting. And again, a refreshing change in Dragon Age is that you can actually roleplay a character and affect things in the gameworld. Hell, Dragon Age, even while being a story-heavy game, does a lot better in this department than most sandboxy games which claim choice to be a big factor in them. It'd be interesting to see how many different permutations there are in the ending.

Some more stuff from OXM: And a list of the SPECIAL descriptions for Strength:

There's no question that more stuff is optional in BG2, but they are games of different design while being similar in some areas. To put it in perspective Let's not forget that, while the Origins are linear in themselves, there are 6 of them to choose from. These bring small changes to the game, and fairly big changes in some cases. The game also provides 3 different ways to solve the hubs overarching quest, reflected in the games ending. 2 major ways to solve this hub I believe, one of which will result in you not getting a party member as well as eliminating a choice for another major quest line. Ending changes depending on your choices. One small gameplay choice that will possibly affect the ending. Two major ways to handle this (both which are reflected in the ending), one of which will lose you several companions. If choosing the other option, another choice is presented which will further change the ending. Let's not forget the Redcliffe questline (which I assume you've played since you've played Haven) which also have different solutions, both in the main overarching quest and in the smaller quests as well. You can also choose not to help the actual village which will also change things.

No, it's definitely not. Yes, it definitely was. Actually, they were. R00fles!

I just finished my second playthrough, and in my mind it's Bioware's best by far. But, it would depend a bit just what parts of BG2 you like that make you rate it so high. I'm not sure if I'd rate the combat better than the BGs overall, but it is quite close. The main difference is that a lot of the encounters are a bit uninspired and repetetive. The game would've done well to cut down a bit on encounters overall and also to have more monsters in general. But yep, on Hard, a lot of the battles are very satisfying (far more so than NWN, KOTOR, JE and ME). It requires me to be active, and switching between characters and issuing specific orders. Much like the IE games. It is absolutely very heavy on dialogues/cut-scenes. But, I will say that while I usually get bored to tears with Biowares storytelling, there is a lot of nice stuff in DA. The overall premise is a bit bland but there is a lot of interesting lore and politics to be found. It's also a big game. Finally, the place where DA stomps the crap out BG are the choices. There are a great many variations on how things can end up, both in how things end immediately after the game ends and in the long term side of things (presented as an ending slide a'la the Fallouts). The origins also add a lot of flair to the game. They vary a bit, but I will say that I was very impressed with a choice I got this time around when playing a Human Noble. It made the pretty different and is unique to that origin. All in all, it's hard to compare it in terms of quality to the BGs (I always thought they were the best Bioware had to offer, but still not great). Gameplay-wise, it's pretty similar in many ways. In terms of story and all that, it's closer to Biowares later game in the sense that it's more cinematic and all that. But I just feel DA did it so much better overall.

I find Dragon Age to be Biowares best offering as of yet. I do not find most of Baldurs Gate combat more fun to slog through generally speaking. Dragon Age's quests are far more engaging and have more interesting choices to them. While the world is generic on the surface, the politics and some of the lore underneath is far more interesting than D&D in BG. I think there's quite a lot of uninspiring combat in both the BGs and DA. The heavy narrative also makes DA a bit heavier to replay. But as a whole package, I find DA to be quite a lot better, especially in the roleplaying department.

Stealthy run + CQC when combat can't be avoided sounds like it could be a fun challenge then. I'm still not sure what angle I'll be using for my first playthrough. Shooting everything doesn't appeal to me that much. Stealth plus gadgets sounds cool.

I have to say that that was a pretty crappy preview.

A preview of a preview: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=234110 Apparently OEI has done some changes to the dialogue engine. Also:

I think Rorie said a month or two back that they had a new trailer ready. But, yep... SEGA + releasing stuff = ?

Jesus, why do sites like that exist? Still, the dude says early summer for release. EDIT: The guy certainly seems excited at least. The SEGA guy kinda look a bit scared, haha.

With Fallout 3, there are two different crashes I get. One I can get the jump, as it's when I'm using VATS. I can tell that the longer I play the game, the more "sluggish" the game will get when entering and using VATS. Eventually it will crash when entering VATS. The other crash can happen pretty much everywhere it seems. Just out and about in the Wasteland or whatever and then, suddenly, crash. That's what happened to me in Oblivion as well.

Decided to try and replay Dragon Age, going for a slightly more evil-ish character this time around. Tried a male human noble this time around. I quite liked that origin, found it to be a lot better than the mage origin (quit playing that replay after a little less than half the game) but not quite as good as the female city elf I played first. The huge amount of filler combat really gets to me at times, but I still really like the characters and the quests/stories for the different "hubs".

I get the same amount of crashing with mods or without mods for both Oblivion and Fallout 3. Usually happens after 30min-60min time.

I haven't had any performance trouble with Fallout 3, it actually ran pretty damn good I think. But, the problem I'd like to see rectified are the goddamn crashes which happens consistantly after playing for a while. I had very similar problems with Oblivion so I don't know if it's something weird the Gamebryo engine, but the crashes have been happening on two different systems. It's extremely annoying and I really hope they can fix it in New Vegas. EDIT: As for Zur, I find his stuff to be extremely forgettable even when he *tries* to go memorable and epic like with Dragon Age. The exception is the Icewind Dale 2 soundtrack which is good.

I'm not sure if he's currently composing for a game or not but someone at either NMA or Duck and Cover (I think) contacted him and he confirmed that he was not working on New Vegas. I think we'll see Inon Zur returning. At least, the theme he did for Fallout 3 made a return in the New Vegas teaser trailer.

*Definitely* worth buying IMO, my RPG of the year last year together with Dragon Age.

- Vegas intact. Not sure if I like that... It'll be interesting to see how they pull it off though. - Thank god we're not a Vault Dweller again. - Overarching story sounds good and hopefully we'll get to choose who to support. - Reputation is good. - Bit about the dialogue options is the worst news yet. I don't want to see all that right away, those are the nuggets that I wish to discover when I return for a replay. If they change the dialogue according to your skill level I could see it. So, if you have a low Repair skill, you'd get a [Repair] dialogue option which is "faulty" or a bit dumb. No punishment for failure is a real bummer also, bleh. Takes away a layer of being careful in the dialogues. - Good to see that there will be variety in Super Mutants. - Don't care that much for followers in the Fallout games but it's good to see they're improving the system. - Hardcore mode is probably the best news so far for me. Hope they make it really challenging. I also wonder if it's the highest difficulty level, or simply an option alongside the usual difficulty levels. Super Mutant in blonde wig and and pink glasses... er, hope the game won't be too silly in some areas.

I think they had to scale down certain parts of the graphics to make the larger areas viable, might be mistaken though.

Very positive overall though no new info: http://dualshockers.com/2010/02/sega-nyc-m...ol-impressions/

Hehe. But to be fair, I'm sure there was some sort of mini-deal struck between Beth and OEI where they'd start a "Meet the devs" thread where some of the guys would introduce themselves. It seemed to be a pretty popular thing before Fallout 3 was released as well if I remember correctly. But yep, would be fun to have them pop in a bit more here. Josh and Matt are holding down the fort by themselves!

It's sad though. The "Meet the devs" thread over at the Bethesda forums has probably had more OEI dev posts in this short time than this forum has had since the beginning. OK, exaggeration, but still...

I also think the grand ol' "hollywood orchestra" sweeping stuff in the Mass Effects is by far the weakest part of the soundtrack. Some of the eerie, more ambient like stuff in ME2 when you explore some of the more spooky places (likely in ME1 also but can't remember) is really wonderful though. One thing I think Bioware has done a really good job at are the visuals as well as the audio. While I think soundtrack is a mixed bag, the sound design overall is *great*, certainly some of the best I've heard. Playing with headphones, there is a wonderful texture and depth to the sound, especially in the more crowded areas. And they did a great job on the visual design as well, the places feel very varied from one another. Seeing the places and interacting with the characters is a lot of fun in ME2, it's much more in line with what I had expected with ME1 (and was disappointed with). It keeps me playing. On the other hand, the combat filler (of which there is a lot of unfortunately) and exploration/resource gathering are strong points against the game. I also hate that the game forces me into a trap for example, even if you see through it right away because hey, the story must play out that way. I think I'm growing more and more sensitive to this because it's something that often happens in Biowares games. Rather annoying. But I'm enjoying the game far more than I thought I would. It's much better than ME1.

He's flailing his arms around so hard at a few points that I thought they were gonna fall off. He sure is excited about the games. The footage looks good though it was somewhat ironic that they blabbered about romancing femme fatales while the purple haired chick was on screen (not romanceable due to young age I believe). Wish it was a bit lengthier and less disjointed. But oh well, hope more stuff will be coming soon.