Starwars

Hm, I have an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor. As I understand it, that's about the minimum requirement. I hope it will run without being a lag fest. Kinda want to upgrade it, but I think if I'm gonna make any substantial upgrades I'll have to replace a lot of other stuff as well like the Motherboard itself. Oh well.

Oh wow, an Obsidian dev playing FFXI. I played that since the NA launch, and quit I guess about two years ago. What server do you play on?

You mean... We'll be able to shoot dudettes also?!

Thanks, nice preview. Exactly stuff like that I'd like to see more off in the previewing business, he clearly has a positive attitude but doesn't gush all over it, and can provide some points of criticism. I think that his point about the gunplay outside of VATS (and how it compares to other games) is a good one. I'm glad to see that they're continuing to "hype" the choices & consequences. If this part is well-done, then it could really "save" the game for me and make it enjoyable at least. There are some point of doubt though, mainly just due to it being Bethesda to be honest. We'll see if their writing has gotten better, and I really hope that the whole father storyline won't have to much of a presence in the game (as in a long questline like the main quest in Oblivion). Or if it does, I really hope there will be *plenty* of options on how to tackle it.

This is why we need to whip Monty and Rogue Dao harder to get them to finish Planescape: Purgatorio! Seriously, as sad as it is that PS:T isn't more widely recognized, there is always the part of me that is glad of this as well. It is what it is, and it's a damn fine game on its own. It doesn't need a follow-up. The thought of Nameless One bobbleheads is not pleasing to me. But yeah, I'd definetely want to see more stuff set in the Planescape universe. To bad it went the way it did.

I really like this game up until the Red Forest section. Then it just gets way to combat-heavy and Rambo-ish, with the Marked One mowing through hoardes of Monolith. And even moreso depending on what you ending you're pursuing. STALKER, to me at least, would do best in focusing on smaller and challenging battles. If we're gonna have those huge fights, then it would probably feel a bit more balanced if you had a team with your or something. It doesn't work well for me within the context of the game to have Marked One pull off amazing feats like that. STALKER still aims for a certain realism, and after the Red Forest I think the game really goes way off base.

Seems like Obsidian is moving, perhaps due to the danger of cars almost smashing their offices? Well, that and people who talk loudly on the phone wile they're taking a poo. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...riendID=5202025 We're happy for you Chris!

From memory, I thought Kreia was rather well-done throughout. It may be I just conjured this up in my mind, but I always felt as though she moved more towards the backseat, as the Exile gained more power and "identity". It seemed to work for me in a rather nice way, the Exile was becoming more and more independant of his/her teacher sort of thing, and Kreia being "pushed away". I don't know. Can't really remember it to well though. Vampire was mentioned, and what I think that game did really well, is making the characters feel alive and human (in a very vampiristic way of course, heh). Even though some of the concepts are fairly crazy, the characters in that game really strike me as believable. I think that part of the game is very well done, and the excellent voiceacting helps. I actually found NWN2 to be pretty much opposite if looking at its party companions (most of them anyways). Some of them are fun, but so completely over-the-top that I can't take them seriously at all. In this case, I found the voiceacting cemented that as well, and made a lot of them cross over the line to being downright annoying. I just can't buy into them at all. And of course, the final nail in the coffin is that you have to bring them along. MotB was a vast improvement for me, somehow I could relate to these characters again, even though they're fairly weird and out there. Just like PS:Ts characters. Was never a big fan of Biowares characters. There are some fun ones, but plenty more annoying ones. And none of them really stayed with me. KOTOR2 have nice concepts, but they feel pretty unbalanced in how they're developed. They all take the backseat to Kreia. I'm kinda surprised at how much flak G0-T0 takes though, I thought he was an extremely fun character, much more so than HK-47. Maybe it's due to how he joins the party? Or is it his combat abilities?

Billy Joel - Ballad of Billy the Kid

I recently just tried it out briefly at a friends house, and even in the short time I played it, I felt the possibility of extreme repetetiveness. The jumping around like a mad-man is great at first, but it actually really hurts the game after a while I think, since it's so easy to do. Just hold down the button and off you go. Wasn't what I was hoping for at all (though again, only tried it rather briefly).

No, I'm talking about communicating directly with the fanbase. I'm talking about when there was a huge confusion as to what the hell VATS actually is, and how it will play out (since the previews did such a crappy job of describing it) then perhaps a dev (or the community rep) could step in and explain it in non-hype language so that we could get an idea on how it works. Granted, they've done a Q&A before, and Emil was kind enough to answer a few questions not recently. They need not show the press previews to the fans. I would personally like that, but I understand how that might also cause confusion as to what parts of the game are finished or not. That said, I would've certainly liked it if the devs had invited fans to more discussion on the game when they were starting out. It wouldn't be the first time in history such a marvellous feat would happen. NMA and D&C was more than happy on initiating a dialogue, and the few times a Bethesda dev did post there way back, I certainly cannot remember any animosity or anything. But yeah, starting with clarifying wtf is going on with the game when certain previews are reporting different things seems to me not much to ask for. Is it not strange to you that people who do not even agree with the "NMA opinion" (huge generalization there) still wish for Bethesda to invite NMA to previews? It's because their preview tried to seperate the facts from the opinions (first mainly describing the preview, and then giving their opinions at the end). For "casual gamers", your general magazine preview might be a perfect format. But for anyone who's really interested in the game, they're more likely to want info straight from the developer themselves. I certainly don't see anything wrong with that. You could still keep the magazine exclusivity deals and whatnot, just straighten out any misinformation if it presents itself would be a nice start.

Fade to Bluegrass - Fade to Black

I'm not arguing which definitions are correct, I'm arguing that there should be expectations for a sequel as opposed to be judged as a stand alone entity. It should be compared to the games of old. I've certainly seen no evidence that Fallout fans don't look for other games to their liking. In fact, I see that a lot of people do jump over these games like hungry wolves, because there are not many of them. That's also part of why people dislike what Bethesda is doing to Fallout, because Fallout to some people is a game that was a unique experience that catered straight to their tastes. There's not exactly a wealth of these games. And a lot of people understood this would happen. This doesn't mean that it's fine and dandy. I was actually one of the optimistic ones when I heard that Bethesda bought the license, I thought that Bethesda would actually break their own history of FP roleplaying games and provide something more akin to the Fallouts of old. And please, singling out the Fallout community as being the only community doing this is rubbish. Did you see the Oblivion boards after it was released? That was way worse than I personally have ever seen the Fallout community. I suppose the Fallout fanbase is targeted so much because they have persisted throughout the years and spoken their minds without "censoring", and now the spotlight is on them. You say that people are trying to destroy the sales of Bethesda and blablabla, but this is the internet. I don't necessarily agree with it, but don't take everything seriously. It's not like people are mailing bombs to the Bethesda office or anything. People are speaking their minds on whether they like what they've seen or whether they feel Fallout will be a true sequel. This can affect sales, sure. But nowhere have I seen evidence of some grand plan trying to sabotage sales for Bethesda. People do say stupid stuff on the internet. The manner of expressing oneself is often way over the top than when compared to real life. But yeah, there are idiots in the Fallout community. I think there are in most communities. I do hold that against them if it means that I get increasingly unhappy about the products they provide. That is what's happening. I don't hold that against Bethesda, I do hold it against the previewers. What I may hold against Bethesda is them appearantly not caring about whether the information released is actually true or not, and not providing a more direct source of (correct) information straight to the fans and "non-filtered" through hype-filled previews. I do see the business sense in making those kinds of deals obviously, but many followers of Fallout (and Bethesda in general as well) would likely want a bit more communication without the language of hype attached. I don't think this would be a bad move at all. But yeah, the source of annoyance for me is the previews and how they're written. The examples of slobbering is all over the previews if you read them. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that people are excited about Fallout 3, not at all. But I do mind that these previews offer next to none critical views at all. I don't believe that for a second. I could dig up plenty of "bad stuff" even for the games I hold most dear to my heart. A lot of the previews seriously read as a hype-filled article written by the game company itself, rather than providing the reader with actual information (good and bad).

And I would also say that I feel it's hardly strange why people do compare it to the older games, it is supposed to be a sequel after all. People have expectations of sequels, as it should be. And like Tigranes, even if I strip away my expectations and wants for a Fallout sequel, the game *still* doesn't look particularly to my liking. Now, start combining those two things with a general distrust of Bethesda, and what they have done to their very own Elder Scrolls series and all the hype we saw before Oblivion. But yep, the most *annoying* thing about Fallout 3 has IMO been the awful previews. Not just the general amount of slobbering (which I don't like, I'm sure even these people could find critiques as well if they would bother to look) but the amount of factual errors and the fact that different previews actually say different things about the same aspects of the game, based on the same showings of the game. One previewer says this, one previewer says that. I know a lot of people don't like the NMA/Codexians/whatever, but I am so happy that they're here for this game, since there at least seems to be some discussion on what Bethesda is doing is "right" (or whatever you're gonna call it), some of which actually makes its way into magazine previews and whatnot. Sure, the "rabidness" can get much sometimes, but not nearly enough to balance out the general slobbering over Bethesda. Like CrashGirl pointed out, I fully expect that this game will get top-notch reviews. And when Bethesda announces their next game (which I guess will be TES5), *then* the reviewers/previewers suddenly notices the game flaws of Fallout 3, but never fear, because in TES5 they will all be gone. The gaming press, you can keep it.

Gave The Witcher another go. This game is such a strange experience to me. Such a beautifully crafted game, and you can tell that an enormous amount of work went into it. But it's partially destroyed for me by the crappy translations and the resulting disjointed conversations as well, it being an action-RPG I suppose. Combat gets old really fast for me in this game. Still, I think I'll give the game another serious go once they do the enhanced edition thing with updated translations and voiceacting(?). All kudos in the world for updating the game like that, hopefully it will be able to grab my interest more then. Playing a bit of San Andreas, this time on the PC. Never did get myself to finish it, so we'll see how it goes this time. GTA series are a lot of fun, but they are also masters at providing some of the worst missions ever in gaming. And in San Andreas, this is worsened by the sometimes huge distances you have to cover.

Oh, I won't argue with that. Not at all. But I can see how people would want a more functional and working MP right from the start with NWN2. I think a lot of people were more interested in having NWN1 "built on", instead of starting a new so to speak (even though most features are kept). I can totally understand that view, though I prefer what Obsidian is doing. I don't really think we are, since there are so many previews out there at the moment. And many of them even downright saying that a Fallout fan can expect a very different game than the previous ones. There are also a few previews who have even made mention of it being a FPS, and a few who have even said that it's reminiscant of the fabled "Oblivion with guns". Now, I'm not saying that those previews are right (because a lot of them contain factual errors), but I really do think we have enough material to judge some of what Bethesda tries to do with the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, my final judgement will be playing the game myself. But the previews are also there to inform people what is going on with games, and tell people about how they play. I initially really liked the idea of placing the game on the East Coast as well, it was actually one of the most positive news I heard about Fallout 3 back then. I think it was a great idea to A) allow Bethesda to "inject" some of their original ideas into the game and B) to not have to worry as much about keeping in line with the canon of the older games.. So I'm rather disappointed to see stuff like the BoS, Super Mutants, Dogmeant etc making a return. Time will tell whether the presence of these feel warranted, but I personally doubt it (at least judging from the writeup on BoS from previews as well as the blurb on the official site a while back). I'd personally like it a lot more if they ditched the factions and stuff and focused their own creative juices there, and kept the gameplay of the older games (of course, lots of improvements should be made). I don't really think most hardcore fans would want a "FO remake", simply a game that is more recognizable as a sequel in terms of the gameplay. Yes, but explain to me why I, as a consumer who care quite a bit for this franchise, should flat out accept that Bethesda "just wants to make money"? Sure, I won't stop them myself, but consumers should voice their displeasure for products if they don't like them. Not just go "I really dislike this, but it's ok since they're a company and they want to make money". Even if the game was built solely for the Fallout fans, due the very nature of the industry now and Bethesdas cred and PR department, I believe they would still bring a lot of new fans. Now, don't get me wrong, not enough to make a big-budget game like this worthwhile. But I truly believe there is a balance there that could be struck which would be a lot more faithful to the original games, and still bring in new people. And again, I don't see any point in taking a license and changing it around to something else that it was not intended to be from the start. You say that Fallout fans have different views on what makes Fallout Fallout, yes, obviously. But there is a definite design behind the games (documented by quotes from the developers) and what they were trying to accomplish (and IMO mostly succeeded). Whether or not this should be respected or not is up to the inidividual, but those designs are the facts of what Fallout is per the developers themselves. And once again, Fallout was not some sort of "sign of the times" when it was released. It was out of left field, a game that was definetely not representative of the mainstream of 1997. Turnbased post-apocalyptic roleplaying games was *far* from the hot thing back then. Even so, Fallout seemed to be a success in terms of its development costs and money return on that. Bethesda could've done other things to secure their cash. Lower budget games to bring in smaller income/lower risk beside their Elder Scrolls "blockbusters", or (and this is my favourite) develop something new of their own, and letting a 10 year old license rest in piece (or until Interplay releases a Fallout MMORPG). They chose to take a 10 year old low-budget game that was intially made by P&P enthusiasts for a more "hardcore" crowd, and turn it into a mass appeal mainstream title that some previews are now mistaking for a FPS game. Obviously something rather important has changed or even disappeared completely. Again, you don't have to agree with the views of the hardcore Fallout people, but it's again not hard to see why they would be pissed off IMO.

I would agree with you say about some of the NWN1 fans complaints about NWN2. I think some of it is fair, like the multiplayer complaints for example. Cases where it just doesn't work that well as of yet. But the gameplay is pretty much the same. Same combat system, some updated graphics, still has a toolset, still has the multiplayer support, still continuing the tradition of a strong general support for the game. I respect Obsidian for that. Their overall direction for the sequels as of yet (KOTOR2 and NWN2) is pretty much spot-on I think. They feel like they are part of the same series. But compare the jump that Bethesda does with Fallout 3, and it just does not make sense to me why they didn't develop their own license. Gameplay has to be judged first and foremost IMO when talking about game sequels, and Fallout 3 has a completely different focus than the previous games. It's not surprising to me why Fallout fans (as in the "angry ones!11!") are bitter about Fallout 3. Any fanbase of a game that I can think of would be very pissed off if that particular license did a similarily big change of gameplay. I will give you that Fallout fans are vocal though, and I think that's a fair point for anyone. But I honestly can't understand how anyone can not see why. It's not hard to understand at all. And sure it would be hard to sell a Fallout game to the mainstream. But why buy the thing and then make it a huge budget game then? Noone is forcing studios to do this, noone is forcing them to make games that have to become blockbusters in order to make their money back. Fallout itself was largely a B-title, and a lot of its design values was definetely *not* the same as the mainstream of 1997. I'm not willing to excuse Bethesda and the fact that they have to make money, because they *chose* to buy it for whatever sum of money it was, and they *chose* to develop it as a big-budget game.

Just finished up Arcanum, now gonna play various mods for NWN2, some of which I've played and some which I've not. Replaying Dark Avenger at the moment.

Been reading up on the beta testers impressions, and most of the content seems good. Something I'm a bit worried about though is changes to the difficulty. Now, I don't mind the game being a bit more difficult at all, I think it's to easy "vanilla". But this talk of people having to reload several times to beat a few fights is a bit worrysome to me, mostly because I think the combat system of KOTOR is flawed and pretty terrible at its core. Replaying fights (especially solo ones) with the KOTOR combat system is somewhat of a nightmare if you ask me. Hopefully these encounters will feel balanced and uh, good in the final release. And a more general KOTOR2 concern. It kinda sucks that you're stuck with the Disciple if you decide to play a female character. Handmaiden IMO is A) a generally more interesting and likeable character and B) has more interesting stuff in-game (the whole Atris thing). And now, I think the Restoration project is enhancing those particular scenes even more. Disciple feels kinda bland when compared to that, unless there's some important thing about him that I'm not thinking of atm. The way you unlock the HK factory will be a bit of a pain I suspect for someone who doesn't like to use HK-47 much, but I can live with that.

Django Reinhardt - Festival Swing

Hey hey HEY! I'm a dude! Though I do have long curly hair (truth).

Seems like there was a real scramble to get those areas out before the deadline. I count 12 entries for the contest for yesterday and today. And if I counted it correctly, there are 34 contest entries all in all. People have been productive.

Giving Mafia another shot. Despite all the praise the game gets, and the fact that I found it have a rather fresh approach to the whole "GTA open city" (obeying traffic laws, who would've thunk it?), it never pulled me in the first time around. I guess it's doing something right since I got back to it again. Started replaying Arcanum, we'll see how long I last this time around. Replaying this game is always extremely fun for me in the beginning, but the interest drops off at one point or another usually. Playing a beautiful, charismatic female gunslinger this tiem around.

I've never been a big fan of TES, but I thought it was a great shame that Bethesda cut down so much on it after Daggerfall, instead of trying to live up more to the great potential found there. I mean, there are seriously awesome gameplay elements in that game (and even more that was planned), even though there are also stuff that annoys the hell out of me. I wouldn't expect them to deliver on it all in Morrowind, but sadly enough there was mainly cut stuff instead of good additions. Something that continued with Oblivion (and it missed the generally interesting setting found in Morrowind as well). This might mean that the game is more accessible, and less of a "hassle" to get into, but in Oblivions case it also means that it's devoid of pretty much anything interesting or "edgy". It's so damn bland, wrapped in a seductive open world with pretty graphics. I think it's fair enough to cut down a little in scope from a game such as Daggerfall, but continuing to simplify and "streamline" (or whatever you're gonna call it) in sequels is definetely not something I like. Just cutting features out is bound to be disappointing for fans of the series of course. I like to see sequels build upon what's there, and improving upon design decisions that were there in previous games. Not flat out removing them, or changing them into something else.

I wish my name was Noseworthy.