fastpunk

Yes, I love K&D, and their side-projects as well, like Peace Orchestra and Tosca. :D

+1

This. After you finish it, there is really NO reason to replay it. None. I disagree as well. I replayed it a second time after a few months from my original playthrough. I tried a female Vanguard Shepard this time, the first time I had tried a male, soldier class. The female Shepard voice actor did a much better job than the male. Also, combat was definitely more interesting as a Vanguard, as you have access to some nice biotic powers, plus I avoided almost all side exploration, taking on only a few side-quests I hadn't done the first time. It was pretty fun, definitely better than the first playthrough. I also juiced up the difficulty to hard, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the combat sequences. I like that tactical interface they implemented in the PC version. I ended up enjoying the combat sequences a lot more than any talkie-talkie stuff. Dialogs (and the dialog system itself) were kind of sub-par imho anyway. I'd say ME is worth getting for 15 euros, specially when experiencing a gaming drought. It's fairly fun.

I'm listening to some samples of Tosca's upcoming album, No Hassle. God, I love these guys! Their sound is so organic and smooth, it's like swimming in a warm, infinite ocean on a summer day. Check this track: Tosca - Elitsa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyAgSERu66Q

Another RPG set in the Planescape universe is totally acceptable (that would be awesome), but a sequel to Torment is completely unnecessary and should never ever happen. There's nothing left to say, it's over. Also, a Torment 2 in today's gaming industry... yeah, I don't see it selling too well, not outside the established fanbase. Not to mention that it would have to be radically different as a game, and probably get rid of the very things that made Torment so great, like the walls upon walls of superbly written dialog lines, wrapped in equally superb descriptive text. Any talk of a Torment sequel is preposterous anyway, the Planescape campaign setting is dead. And perhaps it's for the best, because greedy publishers can't get their hands on it, and ruin it. See what happened to Fallout...

I'll be honest here, AP's graphics are very hit and miss. Some things looks really good, while others look just plain bad. I'm not talking here about how many polygons objects and characters have, or textures resolution. It's just that the game's use of color is not that great, as environments usually have one color dominant and little else to break the visual... what's the word I'm looking for here? Uniformity. See Saudi Arabia screenshots for examples of what I'm saying here. Not to mention that colors often times seem desaturated, they're not vibrant at all. It's surprising, as Obsidian proved to be more sensible to color-related stuff than many other developers, as evidenced by the lovely work they did with Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir. At least that's how it seems to me. Both these expansions have beautifully vibrant colors, and managed to be interesting even when using one color dominant (like Thaymount in MotB, its brown-ish look was broken down by the superb blue lights and created a surreal combo that was simply eye-cathing). They're going for more of a photorealistic look with AP, I understand that, but it looks boring color-wise. It's hard to change this sort of stuff at this point in development, but maybe they can play with the post-processing filters a bit before shipping the game. Ultimately, I'm getting this game no matter how it looks, but I'm sure some people will complain about graphics, and it might pull sale numbers down a bit.

Ketto, by Bonobo

Indeed. However, it did have good ingredients. Not great, but good. It just didn't mix them right. Way too much walking around and way too many transition areas and movies really watered down the experience. I'm not even going to mention that damned vehicle (twas about as fun to control as a boat on restless waters). I'm hoping Alpha Protocol keeps this sort of stuff to a minimum.

... a downtempo classic!

Ah, thanks for the heads up Venom. Was wondering when this would hit Gametrailers. Anyway, regarding graphics, it seems to me that AP is looking better and better as time passes... or maybe it's just my eyes getting used to it. Regardless, the gameplay looks very fun and the cover system seems quite well implemented. The thing I'm most afraid of at this point is bad AI, and low difficulty. They kind of go hand in hand. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Ah, great stuff. But you didn't even include some of the Senna vs Prost duels. Or probably my favorite of them all, the 92 Monaco GP duel between Senna and Mansell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5AWV8wV_Y Not trying to downplay how awesome some of those moments were, but there have been plenty of superb battles in F1 in the late 90s and afterward as well. True, overtaking became increasingly harder and during the 2001-2004 era, when Shumi and Ferrari were dominating things got very boring. But hey, I will never forget some of the duel between Hakkinen and Schumi, specially Spa 2000. Or pretty much the entire season of 2005, when Raikkonen constantly provided us with awesome races. He used to get relegated to the back of the grid because of engine problems and such, but then he'd always make his way up the field during the race. I will not forget the Japanese GP that year, with Raikkonen coming from 13th or something, to take the win on the last lap. Can't forget some of the Alonso vs Shumi duels in 2006 either. Or Hamilton vs Alonso in 2007. Or the heart pounding season finals of 2007 and 2008. In 2008, Hamilton basically won the championship in the last corner of the last lap of the last race. It doesn't get any more better than that. If you ask me, there's plenty of excitement left in this sport. True, there are boring races too, probably more than before, but it's moments like the ones mentioned above that make it worth the watch.

It's not like he got it for free though. As I'm sure you know, Ross Brawn was at Honda last year. And the 2009 car is basically his creation anyway. As I understand it, he received the money he needed to make a team from various sources. Honda being number one of course, but I also heard that Bernie Ecclestone himself has a share in the team. Fernando himself said during winter testing that the car isn't what he expected. But they can improve. It's been pretty hard for everybody to adapt to the new rules, so I wouldn't say it's a lost cause. It all depends on how much margin for improvement there is. It's a shame though, Fernando's an excellent driver and deserves better. I wouldn't say he's the best, there's so much talent in F1 it's really hard to make out who is the best. I'd say Hamilton and Vettel are easily just as talented, though obviously not as experienced. A Kimi Raikkonen on a good day is virtually unstoppable, though he's had few of those lately. And there are a few really hard working drivers like Kubica and Massa that could easily steal the championship, despite not being quite as good. Oh, and Rosberg is among the best as well.

It's basically a team built by Ross Brawn (ex-Ferrari lead engineer in the Schumacher era) on the remnants of the Honda F1 team, which called it quits at the end of last year.

The Watchmen motion comic seems like a nice idea. I only saw a teaser trailer, but I'd be interested to see it all. However, I imagine it lacks the interesting extras between chapters that the comic book has, like the excerpts from Hollis Mason's book, or Milton Glass' book about Dr. Manhattan. Which were all superbly written and felt authentic. For example, Mason's book truly feels like an autobiography, nostalgia and all. It's so believable. These parts shouldn't be missed, and are among the main reasons why anyone interested in Watchmen should read the comic first and foremost. Anyway, the last movie I saw was Watchmen actually. Now, I went to the cinema to see it, but my viewing experience wasn't that great. Image quality and comfort were alright, but the sound was way too loud, to the point that it became really bothersome. Anyway, despite the sonic impact, the movie kind of lacked any other kind of impact, specially as far as characters go. It's hard to explain what it was, the movie tried to follow the comic book pretty close, but it just fell flat. It didn't capture that fantastic cold war 'impeding nuclear apocalypse' atmosphere of the comic, plus the action sequences were a bit too 'Hollywood' for its own good. Maybe those were the problems, but I never managed to connect with the movie. Although, it was pretty decent overall I guess.

Yup, I'll be following the season closely for sure, as I did every year since 1998. I haven't read detailed analysis on the tech changes, but I know they reintroduced slicks, simplified aerodynamics (by a lot), and introduced the KERS system. Honestly, it's really good to see the rules changed to reduce costs, because the smaller teams were drowning slowly. It was clearly not the way to go. And even so, the cars are about as fast as they were last year (although now they are really ugly). Which just goes to show you how cutting edge and innovative this sport is. Anyway, the debut race today was pretty good. I expected the Brawn GP cars to win, since they were way faster than anyone else in practice and qualifying. What I didn't expect is Lewis Hamilton coming back from 18th on the grid to 4th (3rd actually, cause the 3rd place guy got a 25 second penalty after the race) in the end. He fought like a true champion. Good stuff, can't wait for the Malaysian GP next weekend.

Heh, I just got BG&E from GOG.com yesterday. If it's any help, it works flawlessly. And it comes with a free soundtrack and a bit of nice artwork, if you're interested in extras. Anyway, what I did today... it's only 1:00 PM over here, which is usually the hour I get out of bed on Sundays. But they aired the first Formula 1 race at 9:00 AM, since it took place in Australia, so I got up earlier. The race was pretty entertaining, specially watching Lewis Hamilton fight his way through the pack. He came in 4th, after starting 18th. Also, Jesus Christ, the new F1 cars are butt ugly! They look like they did in 1997.

I'm currently playing The Witcher EE and Beyond Good & Evil, both of which are awesome.

Yeah, the chase in the city. Looks pretty close to that. Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed that BioWare didn't make any upgrades to the cover system. It looks just as basic and slow as it did in the first game. But hey, there's still a year of development left, so they might touch on this aspect later on.

Awesome! The good old Electron engine still has some spark. Anyway, I just got Beyond Good & Evil from GOG.com. It's very nice so far. Here's a screenshot:

So, you don't think most people will compare the two at all? They'll compare it on a superficial level. It'd be great if people would actually take the time and compare them more thoroughly, cause then they'd see how different they are. I don't agree with the people going all "AP ripped off ME's dialog system" or stuff like that. Sorry for being unclear.

Yes, the two systems have similar goals. But AP' dialog system gives you the choice between stances, it's timed, and you can't go through the same pieces of dialog twice. Maybe it's just me, but the differences are pretty big, which is why I don't agree with all the AP's dialog system looks a lot like ME. Hell, it's not even similar on a visual basis.

Not only was it not as exciting, it was borderline misleading. Something I'm hoping AP's system will avoid. Also, it's really hard to believe how people are actually seeing AP's dialog system as similar to ME's. I mean, ME had nothing innovative in this regard, it just had shortened responses which were arranged on a wheel. It's the same old system with a slightly different presentation. And the press threw itself at the game's feet for being so innovative...

The action looks really fluid and the cover system seems to be well implemented. I like the hand to hand stuff as well. Also, I agree with the rest of you guys, that music is pretty awesome.

Excellent! This one gets marked in my calendar. And for the love of all things good, please include more than a few seconds of in-game footage. Or else...

I see. Well, that changes things a bit. I tend to remember the details better when reading the whole thing at once than reading it in parts that get posted on different days. It would be great to have them all posted on the same day at least, though it ultimately doesn't matter too much. Cheers for the interview either way!