Starwars

No release date yet. It will be available as a digital download, but you can also order a boxed copy from the devs (it'll be more expensive) and they'll send it to you.

Metallica - Suicide & Redemption I never liked the Black Album that much so I think this album might surpass that for me. But yeah, while ambitious, this album doesn't approach the best songs they've written though. It's a damn good effort for the most part at any rate. I've also seen a lot of people who feel that this album is a sort of forced return to their older stuff, but I think it feels pretty organic actually. I can't stand how it's mixed though. Way to loud and completely lacking dynamics, it seems to distort quite a bit as well.

Metallica - The End of the Line As someone who was quite the fan of Metallica in my younger years, this new album is a rather nice surprise. I really wasn't expecting much, but it's actually quite good stuff. Much more ambitious than their latest offerings. Much better than I thought.

As for now, my list is like this: -Age of Decadence -NWN2: Storm of Zehir -NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate -NWN2: Purgatorio -Hinterland -Colonization (the remake in the CivIV engine) STALKER, Clear Sky have dropped off the list after reading a few reviews as well as generall impressions on forums. Apart from being buggy (which I can live with), it seems to have gone in a direction which I feel is not the right one for STALKER. Still have hopes that the modders can "fix it" though.

Bloodlines combat was a big pile of lame. I will say that I found it rather satisfying to send people spinning through the air though when kicking their asses with melee weapons (or unarmed), but that didn't exactly even begin to make the combat enjoyable. I always disliked the radial menus in NWN1 and PS:T, but for some reason I really liked ToEEs (the rest of the interface, like inventory management, sucked though).

I think I saw somewhere that they're aiming for November with SoZ? That'd be about a year after MotB if I remember correctly. As for MoW, I really hope they'll get it out shortly after 1.14 is released (and that 1.14 doesn't take as long as 1.13).

We should get back to the fine tradition of putting in Obsidian dev faces into these screenshots.

I found a D&D box from Atari at the gamestore when going home from work today, and it seemed like a really good deal so I ended up buying it. Baldurs Gate 1 + BG2 + expansions Icewind Dale 1 + ID2 + expansions Neverwinter Nights 1 + expansions Temple of Elemental Evil Demonstone DragonShard Got it for about 7 or 8 bucks. Would've been great if they had PS:T in there as well, but I still thought it was nice. So I'll prolly be starting up one of those games soon.

Second and final part of the RPG Vault interview: http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/902/902639p1.html

New demo video: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwinter...ml?sid=6196650# Does give away some things about how the game will start off, so don't watch it if you want to go in completely fresh. Otherwise, it showcases the party creation stuff, the party conversation screen, the overland map and a new tileset (and Yuan-Ti).

Finished the third chapter of the Conan Chronicles mods for NWN2. They are very enjoyable, highly recommended to anyone looking for some mods to play. Hopefully the author will now string them all together in a campaign type of deal.

I see your point, and normally I would actually agree. But I think the trade-off (if there is one) is worth it if they bring the community into it. It's a beautiful thing, and the the song from the Purgatorio trailer just rocks as well.

I was in the NWN2 irc chat room the other day, and spoke with one of the Rogue Dao composers. He said they've done some work (all the RD composers) for the expansion, so it seems like there will be quite a few different composers doing work on SoZ. Pretty neat, I'm glad that Obsidian recruited some community members as well.

That guy in the screenshots in Hummelgumpfs post... First time I saw it I immediately thought of Sheogorath from Shivering Isles for some reason. Not a happy thought. It's really discomforting that I can just imagine these heads turning awkwardly towards me ala Oblivion, and saying their little piece of greetings when you go near them. Like Tigranes said, I really believe we'll be getting Oblivion deja vu for a large part of the game. Oblivion did beautiful environments well, but everything regarding characters looked incredibly stiff.

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/899/899068p1.html

Oh wow, that video Josh's post was a blast from the past. I'd also like to highly recommend Darklands. Man, haven't played it in so long... Should try to start it up again. EDIT: Another vid:

To tell the truth, I had not even looked closely at the presentation at their website, just really looked at interviews and such. Yes, perhaps it is indeed a mistake to market it like a RPG in the way that they're doing. I definetely don't get an impression from the interviews that they're pushing it as a RPG there though, or at least not as a type of cRPG we have come to know in recent years. More of a roguelike mix with some strategy/building elements. So yep, perhaps the marketing is off. But I still feel that a game that doesn't contain the narrative or storyfocus that we often see in cRPGs can definetely afford to be shorter and replayable instead. Perhaps I'm an odd man out, but if I play something like Civ IV or whatever, chances are that I will get the feeling of wanting to restart after 8-10 hours or so (even playing at a fairly slow pace) and that is a game which I assume had a fairly big budget/team attached to it. This goes for many other games as well. But then again, I also feel that the crowd which will buy this game will most likely look up the game beforehand, or find out about it through previews. I don't think there'll be many surprised faces saying "omg, only 6 hours of gameplay?!?!" after playing it, but perhaps I'm wrong. I also guess it's how much you play. I play about 2 hours per day, so if the 6 hour mark is correct (to tell the truth, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes a bit beyond that since many devs hold back a bit when announcing playtimes) then a playthrough would last me about 3 days. That seems perfectly acceptable for me, and like I said, would've likely warranted a restart in many games which feature strategy/building/simulation elements.

Yeees... And it also featured a rather heavy narrative. My point is that a game that features a heavy story need not last forever like many RPGs do, and that a game that features no or almost none (which I think is the case of this game) could be even shorter. At least if it does offer a lot of replayability.

Well, it's not a RPG. I could understand if you have a narrative going, because something like that needs to take some time for itself to play out (even so I don't think you need extraordinary lengths, Mask of the Betrayer was great despite it being short). IF the game is focused, fun throughout and with plenty of replayability, then I'll take that any day over games which lose momentum (which is a majority of longer games if you ask me) as they go on for a longer time. I have doubts myself whether they'll manage it satisfactorily, but there is nothing wrong with the general idea of it if you ask me. Of course, if replayability is not something you sort of "value" to the point of being a selling point (it's a big one for me personally), then I completely understand. And of course, it will be cheaper than a "standard" game

Replayability will be a design goal, so one playthrough will be about 6 hours. Appearantly a lot of it will be randomized. 6 hours doesn't sound like a lot when you hear it, but many builders and strategy games are mainly fun at the start I feel. There are many such games (that don't feature a narrative) where I restart the game after a few hours, since the early parts is the most fun. Hinterland seems to have that "early vulnerability" thing as a design-goal, I quite like that. So yeah, I've no problem myself with a 6 hours game if the replayability is there.

Troika are responsible for several schizophrenic outbursts of weeping for me. Arcanum, yep... On one hand it was horribly buggy, and generally unbalanced. On the other hand, great roleplaying and a very stylish setting and world. Still love the game though, one of my favourites. ToEE. Pretty much my favourite combat system in a RPG, but the rest of the game...? Vampire Bloodlines. Generally awesome writing, with great roleplaying and quests in the first half of the game. Other half of the game is pure suck, mostly combat stuff (with the really crappy combat). Really miss the company though. Both NWNs were gigantic piles of fail when I first laid eyes upon them. NWN1 still only has the modders to lean back on (who created some brilliant stuff), but NWN2 has MotB as well. r00fles! Van Buren cancellation was sad to me at the time, despite me disagreeing with a fair amount of stuff in it (like Fallout 2). But after reading more into it via design docs and whatnot, it really made me want to play the game. Such a shame that we never got to play the finished game.

More classless systems plz. On the classystems though, it sort of depends for me. I'd rather have fewer classes if this means that there will be a great reaction from the game to them. And if the playstyles and how the game develops depend on the class. But at the same time, I admit that I've actually replayed NWN2 (which has what I consider a mediocre campaign) several times due to the fact that I do enjoy trying out the various classcombinations etc. So if a game doesn't have much in the way of class recognition and stuff like that, then I'd rather have them pile on the classes. But yeah, classless systems where you can really "branch out" is where it's at for me personally.

jaguars4ever, I think Cohorts is basically just a new name to indicate how they fit into the story (they don't seem to be vital to the story, instead feeling more like mercenaries for hire sort of). Combatwise, I assume it will work like it's worked before in NWN2, meaning you can let the AI take care of your partymembers or have the Puppet mode where you control every action yourself. I have no idea why they came up with a new name for them though, the mysteries of the gaming industry I guess.

Got to the whole Nosferatu sewers thing again in Bloodlines, this time with a Malkavian with high Dementation. Had forgotten how hilarious and clever some of the Malkavian dialogue choices are, and it's nice that there is actually quite a bit of unique dialogue for the Malkavians as well. Still, this segment of the game really sucks. Can't even remember if it gets better again after, but my interest in the game just wanes at this point.

Obviously we need to amputate Mitch's leg and give it to the figurine!