Starwars

The loading times are horrendous. It's not so troublesome to live through when you're entering a new area or whatever but it becomes a real pain in the ass when reloading saves if you die and such. Some areas can take a bit of reloading to get through and waiting for the loading really sucks. I just fought one so far but the boss battles appear to be made of suck. It's true for the first one at least. Couple this with a very high deadliness (you die very easily, normally a good thing but not in the boss-battles), lots of reloading and the above mentioned loading times and, well... Not too many people have this problem but I personally find the cover system to be rather clunky to use, though it's not game-breaking. Also, the takedown cutscenes are awkward and the concept of using energy for takedowns feels a bit cheap. Those are the main negatives that stand out for me so far. Thoroughly enjoying the game all in all.

I've been playing for just a little bit, completed the first mission and ran around a bit in the office building where you work. Early to judge but seems very promising so far. Thought the mission level looked a bit boring overall unfortunately but level design seems pretty sound. It's hard to get a grip of with just one playthrough but it does seem fairly supportive of more than one way to get through them, some alternate paths and all that. That was the main thing I was missing from Alpha Protocol if one should draw comparisons, in some ways the two games feel pretty close to one another actually. Playing at normal difficulty and it's definitely possible to get killed. I'm trying mainly for a more sneaking approach and if you get caught in a bad spot, you can die really quickly. I've never been good at sneaking games though so I probably suck at it. Controls takes a bit getting used to and I think the game feels a bit... I don't know. Definitely wouldn't say clunky because that would be an exaggeration but it could feel more responsive at times I think. More smooth. The look of the game is hit and miss. Some parts ooze with atmosphere, especially stuff like the advertisements for in-game companies, signs and stuff like that. But it also feels a bit too sterile for my tastes in other areas. Technically speaking the game is nothing amazing I think but the for-the-most-part-good visual design helps a lot. A lot of the impact of the game comes from the sound actually which is excellent. The music especially is absolutely right for the game, fits perfectly. So far so good!

It unlocked a few hours ago in the US.

With a little bit of help from a VPN program (or whatever the correct term for those things are), I could unlock the game here in the EU when it was unlocked in US. Will be fun to see how good the game is.

I expect a good game from this but as always will take reviews with a huge grain of salt. It's good that they are enthusiastic but you can already tell that some are sorta tripping over themselves. In short, many have no idea what they are talking about. Nothing new.

I also think this fight was the one fight in the game that crossed over from hard and challenging to simply frustrating on Hardcore. Just too much rolling around in this fight, plus the fact that the build-up (the two cyclopses) makes the fight too annoying to replay when you die to the Archon girl.

Still think the character designs look silly but that's really just the lore at work, the character models sure as hell look like a big improvement over Oblivion.

Never liked respeccing so that feature doesn't do anything for me. It is nice however that work is still being done on the game, hopefully there'll be some cool stuff revealed. If this is all true that is.

I haven't beaten this with Reinhart on Hardcore yet but I just played the boss with Lucas. I also had Anjali with me and she ended up dying quite a lot. I found the best thing was to keep moving as much as possible. Whenever your companion goes down, be sure to lure the boss and all the small spiders away as far as possible and then dash back as fast as you can to your companion to revive her. The spiders are fairly fast moving but you should still get enough time to revive her. I imagine that traps such as Geometry of Annihilation would work excellently in this fight, especially in decimating all the small spiders. But yeah, this was a long fight for me. Learn how to anticipate the spider's attacks, get a few attacks and roll away. Better safe than sorry. And then lure the enemies away whenever your companion goes down so you can revive her safely.

Also, while dodging is the best overall way to avoid damage in DS3, when there's ranged missiles going on (which I believe there is in the Vera fight if I remember correctly) standing still and simply blocking them can be a huge help if you can't time your dodges.

I think the main thing I would want in a sequel would be a world that simply feels a bit larger, with a bit more branching. A bit more content where the player has to search in order to find it. DS3 has sidequests and optional objectives but it's pretty much put right in the path of the main quest anyways so it's sorta pointless in that regard. Less of a corridor-design overall, open the quests and areas up a bit. As far as the more "classic" RPG stuff goes, convos and choices and all that. Well, I'm the type of guy that will pretty much always welcome more choices in games so I would welcome that personally. But, what I mentioned above would be my number one thing to improve upon in a sequel I think.

Playing some Tropico 3 again. Doesn't have quite the pull the first game have for me (probably because the third game is largely easier) but it's still a great little time-waster.

http://playablecharacter.com/2011/07/27/00...g-expectations/ Great and honest listen here, including Chris talking about the inspirations for Father Elijah in Dead Money and more.

I think, to put it most bluntly, if you don't see the difference in tone between Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 (or Old World Blues for that matter, to be on-topic just a little bit) then I... well, don't know what to say to that really. Of course, one can debate until the end of time how far any individual thinks you can stretch the Fallout setting and have it still feel like Fallout. Fallout 2 really disappointed me when I first played it when it came to the setting and all that. It still seduced me by way of it being such a huge game but there were so many wtf moments when I first played it. For me at least, the setting has lost a lot of its core appeal and "mystery" I suppose. I still enjoy it because every once in a while they still hit the hammer on the head (Vault 11 for example). But I mean, even looking past the tone of it all, Fallout 3 and NV are just so different than the older games in terms of how they play that I still have trouble of connecting the first game (and even the second one, despite its setting wonkyness) with these newer ones. And I mean, there was what... 10 years between Fallout 2 and 3. To me it feels sorta like the Godfathers. I actually like Godfather 3 quite a lot but it feels different. Too much time in between releases, the director was obviously in a very different state of mind. Same thing with these games, plus how massively the gaming industry itself changed during those years. Pretty much everything is hugely different. Anyways, really looking forward to the Lonesome Road. Hope they can make something truly memorable out of it, the potential is certainly there. The Ulysses tapes in OOW were nice teasers.

Same here. I find Old World Blues to be very well written as a stand-alone thing. Don't think it particularly feels much like Fallout but eh. The writing is not as good as some of other Avellones stuff I'd say but it's still really good, especially if one compares to other videogames. Still, my least fav of the NV DLCs so far. Definitely felt it was worth the price but the tone really seems to separate it from the others which makes the references clash a bit, plus the combat is a real drag.

Mostly awaiting Old World Blues at the moment in terms of new releases. Started up a replay of Dragon Age: Origins as well which I plan to play a bit on and off. Despite some problems here and there, I still feel it's Bioware's finest offering. Think they got very close to nailing that marriage between "old-school" gameplay with the gaming trends of today. Shame so much of it was cast away and trimmed down in DA2 instead of improved upon. I think Origins itself could've done with being slightly smaller and more focused in some places. There was some fat to cut away definitely and some areas that could've done with more developing (a lot of the encounter design). Sadly DA2 mostly felt like a lesser experience overall, with what little trade-offs there were not being worth it at all in the end. Playing a female human noble character this time around. Still, in a bit of a gaming slump at the moment and not sure I'll finish the Origins replay. I do really feel like playing *some* game, but at the moment the prospect of replaying old games yet again just bores me and nothing on the horizon really excites me either. Old World Blues will be fun, I'm sure, but it's just a DLC and I'm not sure I'll like the direction of it anyways.

I always play with Hardcore mode on. While the eating/drinking stuff is basically a non-issue, the healing over time with stims is a nice change. Plus, I just enjoy the extra layer of management that comes with the food, drink, doctor's bags and all that.

I really liked the soundtrack overall. Perhaps mostly because it *is* fairly low-key most of the time and doesn't take over too much. I don't like bombastic themes too much unless they are done extremely well (Morrowind theme comes to mind). I also felt it had a good mix of sort of more standard, fantasy orchestra music as well as more "ethnic" influences here and there.

Does anyone know of a way to listen to the music tracks outside of the game?

What were some of the big choices you decided to make on your first playthrough? I ended up being mostly merciful. Spared Rajani, decided to help out the Cyclopses. Though I did give up the Dapper Old Gent to Wulf. Spared Jeyne in the end as I had promised the Queen. I especially enjoyed the ending slide about Jeyne. I ended up delivering Jeyne to the Queen in the end, and the Queen was compassionate towards Jeyne. But Jeyne ended up assassinated, strangled in her bed. And she had not bothered to defend herself from her assailants. Thought that was really nicely written. Was surprised that the Heart of Nagog wasn't mentioned in the end, though if you give the house to Leona there is a rather funny bit devoted to that. Was also too bad that we didn't get any ending for the First People (or any choice there for that matter), nor did we hear anything more of what happened to Phineas and Roderick.

I just tend to look at whether I enjoy a game enough for me to replay it once or twice, if I do then I consider it to be worth it. DS3 is certainly in that category for me even though it might be shorter than some other games. As way of comparison, I believe Torchlight came at a cheaper price and (I believe) lasted longer as well and had the whole random factor on replays. However, I simply didn't enjoy it enough to even finish one playthrough despite me really looking forward to it. There are other interesting examples of this as well. Mass Effect 2 was a game that I enjoyed a fair amount on my first playthrough but I simply can't stand to replay it, I find it almost unbearable. So naturally I don't find the purchase to be particularly worth it at this point. Dragon Age: Origins on the other hand is a game that I can continually replay and still find enjoyable even though I've seen what the game has to offer.

Must say that I really liked Mudgutter as well. The convo where he starts talking about taxing you and that you should keep receipts was pretty funny, hehe.

I think the idea of an Obsidian blog has been there for a very long time. I seem to remember there being talk of it in the NWN2 community channel, when Rob McGinnis was still around. And I think it's been mentioned on the forums as well at one point or another though I may be misremembering. Anyways, hope it'll be fairly active!

I'm on my third playthrough, using Reinhart this time and I think he feels a bit too powerful. I really like the notion of him using traps and such, and the "spray" abilities are fun to use. Stuff like the Lightning Strike is a good, powerful "meat and potatoes" type of attack. But Geometry of Annihilation in particular is just freaking murder. I wouldn't mind at all if that got hit by the "nerf bat" as it were.

Really liked the Dapper Old Gent and think that dialogue (after the fight) with him was my favorite convo in the game. His voiceacting was also well done. Sigismund Wulf was also good as the sorta old fashioned constable. Again, good job with the voiceacting there.