Starwars

Without speculating like crazy, this attitude just makes me a bit sad. I don't see the fun in being able to rush every damn encounter, where's the challenge? Where's the dynamics? The memorable "oh crap, I barely made it out of this encounter alive" stories? I mean yeah, I did have one or two dangerous experiences in Fallout 3 (finding deathclaws early on) but it was rare that I actually had to activate my brain. Turning the combat into a much more run and gun experience was one of the things that seemed to take away so much *danger* from the Wasteland compared to the other two games. EDIT: Moreso, the ability go into the inventory with no penalty whenver you wanted, and spam stimpaks... That was meh.

That's what's kinda meh to me as well. I mean, we obviously know that creating a "raw I'm Rambo" kind of character would be possible. But I can't help but wanting to have the game be more about being careful, where getting into trouble is almost always a *bad* thing. Still, it will at least prove to offer some replay value. And hopefully it will be fun enough to go guns blazing. But yeah, these last few previews seem to have been based on a demo where the matter of choice was the main point, and it seems to be doing well in that regard. The previews have felt more positive overall, so I think element of the game that should be pushed more. The bit about "every conversation setting a variable" or whatever the quote was is nice, and I hope that is really pulled off well in the game.

http://www.nowgamer.com/previews/xbox-360/679/alpha-protocol They seem to like the looks of it a lot, but are worried that it might slip under the radar. A just concern, though it does seem more and more people know about it. Let's hope there'll be one last marketing push that'll bring the game some more attention.

I've been playing an adventure game called Mata Hari. Yes, you take on the role of Mata Hari (obviously with some creative changes as opposed to real life) in it. The game is alright. Not the best I've played but enjoyable. The setting feels good and unique, and playing Mata Hari is quite cool. It's also noteworthy for being an adventure game with a female lead who didn't annoy the hell out of me. I quite liked the character, even though she still suffers from being to naive and getting pushed around by everyone. The puzzles were to easy generally, but still fairly enjoyable. They didn't feel stupid at least (well, some are a stretch of course, but...), and seemed to fit fairly well in the world. There are two mini-games (well, the game says there are 8, but they are really more puzzles like you see in most adventure games). One where you dance for money (money affects the ending). It's a rather horrible "rythm game" where you have to click notes as they pass by the screen. But aside from some minor problems before I got used to it, it's pretty easy at least. The other I kinda liked actually. Whenever you travel to another city (via train), a map pops up with the stations/stops along the way. On the map, there are hostile spies. The travelling then plays out in turnbased mode, where you first move to a station, then the enemy spies move to try to intercept you. If you manage to successfully navigate to the city you're travelling to, you get "skill points" (which, like money, affects a small part of the ending). Sadly enough, there is no real consequence if you get caught, you can just start over. If you don't like it, talking to friendly spies reveal a faster route which takes you instantly to the city you want to go to, but you won't get any skill points from it. It's pretty enjoyable, but as there's a lot of travelling back and forth later on in the game, it gets kinda annoying. I would've really liked for this part to be developed more though, it could be a fun "board game" type of experience. It's quite a pretty game even though it's not high-technology. The characters are alright, with some pretty good animations here and there. And the backgrounds look really good I think. There is a really nice atmosphere to the game. Playing in the early 1900s is quite nice and enjoyable. Pretty fun game, I enjoyed it a bit more than I thought I would actually.

Then I'll go against the stream and say that I have never, ever had any problems updating through the autopatcher. As for the OP, yes, it looks like you're up to date.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2M...tail&id=378 Says there that it requires MotB, but SoZ doesn't seem to be required.

Well I gave up on Dead Space since I think it kinda sucked. That's one game where I don't get the high scores for it, but oh well. After that, the Zork remake module for NWN2 got released so I played that. Very cool I must say. Tough as hell just like the original, but lots of fun. Very faithful remake and extremely well made. I really recommend it.

It does look great. But there's one thing that might just kill it off for me, and that is that there's no option for a non-cinematic style of conversation (like NWN2 had the old NWN1 style as an option). This means that I will either have to suffer through horrible community voiced mods (I can't recall for any game that I've played that actually has good voiceover, hell, I complain enough about AAA games voiceating), or the rather awkward "silent" cutscenes (which I think can work well at times, but definetely not for every cutscene). From what I understand, there also seems to be a limit of how much text you can put on one node (and it doesn't seem to be that much) until it "spills" out of the conversation UI. It also looks as if the UI system will not be very moddable, so the chance of something like that being modded in seems slim at the moment. It's too bad since some of the features look great. And the building of a social site where community members can help each other would've been exactly what NWN2 needed since it would've encouraged teamwork (building a solo mod in NWN2 is of course possible but very, very time consuming). But yeah, I guess I'll hope for the feature to be patched in or something, otherwise the DA modding will not be for me.

If they didn't, I'll buy 100 copies of the games and eat them all.

It will however be the bloodiest and have the most sex in it.

Listening to the new Battle track for Baator in Purgatorio. It rocks. Unlike most battle tracks in RPGs, this actually makes me want to kill stuff.

If Dead Space actually gets less scary as the game progresses then I think I'll just move on to another game now, heh. It's too bad, they could've really done something extraordinary with the engine and the visuals.

Games can be plenty scary. Penumbra scared the pants off of me, and even replaying System Shock 2 scared me badly a few times (and it's like 10 years old now or whatever). I don't think System Shock 2's strength lies entirerly in its scares though (I'd still say it does a good job of it). It's mainly creepy as hell. And the goddamn spiders are still the worst ever... I swear, everytime they jump or just skittle after me I nearly fall off my chair. Ugh. Also, it actually amazed a bit at how well done the voices in System Shock 2 are as well. Especially the stuff like The Many and/or Shodan, which are setup to be very "hypnotic" with the wonderful distortion to go with it. It surprised me at how sophisticated many things in that game really are. I can't get over how good a game it is. /gushing like crazy

After replaying System Shock 2 (which was even better than I remembered, *fantastic* game) I found myself wanting some more horror-ish type of games. I borrowed Dead Space from a friend but I have to say I'm very disappointed with it. The monsters are just annoying and... loud. Don't dig it at all. On the plus side, the visual design of everything is good. I think they could've pushed the lighting even further (I don't care if I get epilepsy damnit) but it does look wonderful overall. But yeah, very disappointed with how it plays. It's not scary at all.

Agreed, though for certain games, I'd still argue that if you act like an idiot (like shooting up a bunch of people in a town in a more openended type of game for example), then that *should* stay with you. If you were to steal something, then yeah, consequences shouldn't be as harsh naturally. As far as Alpha Protocol, it's of a different design. And I'd agree with you that it probably wouldn't be wise to really screw your game into a corner in it. But even so, if we go back to the example with Grigori and the guards. If every consequence is somehow bypassable like that, then I don't like it none. Having the ability to somehow impact it would be great. But occasionally I want to feel the game bite my ass for something I may have done, otherwise the difficulty of stuff like conversations (which are an gameplay mechanic in RPGs) simply disappear. From where I stand, for every possibilty there is to revert a consequence like in Grigoris case, I'd also like an event where I have to think my stuff through in the *first place* and not be given a second chance to "fix it", you know? That doesn't really mean painting the player into a corner, it need not be that harsh. But I feel that, sometimes, games should say "well, you acted stupid there son, now you're gonna have to take the consequence of it here".

Gfted1 “We don’t make a habit of punishing the player for playing the game the way they’d like,” It's this quote and some of the examples shown that has me slightly worried. My point is, if we as Mike Thorton (who is in a rather delicate situation it would seem), act like morons throughout the game then personally I would've liked to see punishment for this. I don't want every mission to be like the one with Grigori, where even if we smash his frickin' head on a table like some kinda butch Rambo guy, we can still turn those consequences (heavy security later on) to our advantage everytime by simply smooth-talking a bit. It's like, if we get a lot of choices... that's great. But if the consequences of those choices can all be reversed, or even turned to our advantage, the "consequence" part of choices&consequences kinda loses its importance to me at least. Like in Fallout 3 (just pulling a really quick example out of my head here). Yes, I the player have the option of pissing off the town of Megaton, by attacking someone or trying to steal something or whatever. But since the town only remains pissed for a few days if I remember correctly, and the returns to a "normal state" again, the choice is sorta meaningless. Probably a crappy example, but hope point is getting across. And I'm not claiming that AP will be this way, it's just that I fear it will.

Nice. The possible thing I won't like is how there seems to be no "wrong" choices. Don't get me wrong, I think having content for different options is a very good thing. But if you act like a moron, then I think there should be consequences for that, and often have those consequences be unfixable. I hope there won't always be possibilities on "repairing" your mistakes (such as smoothtalking the guards even when we headsmashes the dude in the bar) whatever we do. But yeah, this definetely sounds good. Definetely one of the better previews since it focuses on what appears to be one of the main points of the game.

It looks good overall. I like that we'll be writing e-mails. I've always been a fan of little stuff like that. Only thing that looks *really* wonky is the whole "I'm powering up!" animation which seems to be used for some abilities, like Fury in the video. It looks silly and just seem unnecessary... Some form of feedback that you've started an ability is good, but eh.

I liked the visual aspect of Bioshock, and the story. But I found the gameplay to be incredibly lacking, with bad FPS mechanics which weren't backed up by any sort of depth (which is present in System Shock 2) at all. I think the whole thing felt like a serious downgrade, except in graphics quality. Yeah, I was very disappointed with it. But yep, I'm surprised at how well System Shock 2 holds up for me. I still find it creepy as hell. I think part of it is actually to do with the skill allocation present, because there is that sense that while you're getting better, there is also the fact that there are things that you are just not as good at that and that creates a certain edge to the gameplay. That said, I'm sure there's an "ultimate way" to build your character like in all character-building systems but if you don't remember or don't care, then it's great.

After finishing Monkey Island Remake, and aside from playtesting Purgatorio, I'm replaying System Shock 2. This game is just amazing. Probably the only FP with stats game where I feel they really succeeded in delivering good gameplay. So sad to see that Bioshocks gameplay is just... lesser in every way imaginable. But yeah, System Shock 2 is *awesome*. Kinda forgot how good it is.

I finished the Monkey Island remake. It was a blast overall. Two things I'd complain a bit about are 1) the interface could've really been better for the PC, though works fine once you learn the hotkeys and/or scroll through them with the mousewheel and 2) didn't really like the look of Guybrush and Elaine. Overall, very faithful to the original. The ability to switch between the new and original version rocks big time and the voices are very well done. Loved it. Bring on Monkey Island 2 I say.

Yes Jaesun, I joined to be mostly a playtester but I'm also doing some writing on it. So you know it's gonna be awesome RIGHT RIGHT?! Hehe. Yes, I love the main screen as well. We were discussing a few days ago what music to put over it since you know... I love the Storm of Zehir music, but it doesn't quite... fit with Purgatorio.

Thanks very much. And sorry, no release date for now. The old team promised a few dates which they couldn't deliver on, so we're gonna be real careful about that. But things have really picked up, and stuff is being produced at a nice speed. We're also discussing some things which we may do in order to get the mod out as soon as possible.

I gots some screenies for ya. Welcome to Purgatorio cutter: Battling it out: Wouldn't be Planescape without some strange drinks to try out, would it?

I watched Memento for the first time the other day, and I can honestly say I didn't like it much at all. Think it might be that the hype killed it for me, heard so many good things about it, and the premise of sounds like it would be right up my alley. But... didn't click with me at all. On the other hand, I watched Syriana today which I thought was brilliant.