Morgoth

Yeh, they probably will move on. Perhaps George will be the lead writer on that next rumoured fantasy RPG?

But I think in general 3D took a while to look good. Truth. And that's why I hope this whole tired arguing "OMG let's better get back to 2D" won't come up when DA gets released. There will be some inevitable comparisons with it's self-declared spiritual predecessor (BG), but people by now should really accept that 3D graphics is superior in any way. Even DR gotta admit that now.

Do people also compare, let's say Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee graphics with Crysis? Apples and Apples huh? No. Different game, different needs. NWN graphics were great wehn it was released in 2002. For present standards, it isn't.

Normally, I'm against a NX3 (hey, after the horrible SoZ you can't blame me), but now that we learned that George Ziets is back in the trenches, I wanna see a follow up to MotB. It's story needs to be finished. MotB 2 anyone?

Apples and Oranges. First, back in 2002, RPGs were still considered "inferior" graphics wise anyway, so there was just no expectation that an RPG would/should comptete with a modern FPS graphics wise. RPG fans back then had other worries than graphics (as opposed to the present standards). Second, NWN was what I remember the first D&D RPG on market that utilized a full 3D engine. And I think it graphics was gorgeous (inevitable DR "NWN graphics sucks" comment to be followed). For 2002 standards, NWN was awesome, and as a sidenote, brought me into the RPG genre. Funny that nobody complained about the ugly Warcraft 3 graphics back then. At least NWN didn't look dated when it was released, as opposed to NWN2.

Vista is awesome. Vista will also support DX11, which XP won't. Therefor, Vista wins!

Ruined families is what makes many teens kill their parents, not video games.

kotor gave you some interaction with the fisheads, but what other race did you get similar interaction? not the sand people or wookies. by the same token, you did get a good deal o' history from me regarding the rachni and the krogan, asari and protheans. heck, Gromnir learned far more 'bout quarians from me than we did 'bout wookies or the tentacle head (mission vao) people in kotor. me were starting from scratch with most o' the alien races where as kotor assumed that player had some pre-existing knowledge. HA! Good Fun! Well, I did learn quite a bit about the wookies and sandpeople, and those reptile people. I didn't learn anything about the Turians, Salarians or Volus, except of that first contact war. For ME2 I wish there'll be quests/levels that involve these Alien types. How about visiting one of the homeplanets of these Aliens, for starters?

Now I agree that Kotor did a better job at letting the PC get involved into the history and culture of different alien nations. Something that I personally missed a bit in ME. There was some story from Liara about how the Asari reproduce, but I didn't get a chance to learn something about the Salarians or Turians. OTOH, ME was differently paced, alot faster and more action orientated, so I'm not sure it would have made sense to interrupt the player with all that codex stuff while shooting Geth in the face. Still, I wish I get to know a bit more about the universe in ME2, and I mean not through panels.

Halo 3 is a Baby game. You only shoot at little colorful Alien whelps. That guy is simply a psycho, that's why he murdered.

Fallout 3 Patch v1.1 online. Click Still waiting for the Steam version to get updated.

Crate Entertainment....oh the irony.

Oh, how's the state of things pertaining to a Kotor 3 made by Obsidian? Do we know anything new about that? I guess not.

Fable 1 really turned me off. The ugly design, the stupid characters....that game kept me treating like I'm a complete idiot. "Please step forward into the ring and bash the strawmen 7 times" -long cutscene- "now try to push the X button" -long cutscene- and so on. OMG!

DA is bound to sell well, as Bioware games usually do sell well. Oh duh! And even if the PC sales aren't that splendid, Bio still can hope to cash in more on the console versions.

Halo 3 is a lot better (relatively speaking) when you play it in Heroic. It's still an average old-skool shooter though compared with the modern pendants from the Valve or Monolith design school. But I guess the success of Halo has more to do that the franchise is being judged more as a religion, rather than the actual game. Same as WoW. Who comes first, wins, so to speak.

Combat feels too fast and unprecise. It's basically a wild monkey-fest. But then again, I've pretty high standards when it comes to FPS, so I think I'll stick with the PC-centric shooter makers (Valve, Monolith etc.)

Well, the DLC they released is apparently just another Uncharted World, and none of the other promised DLC materialized so far, so it looks to me like things are still rotten in Denmark. Thus I'm not terribly optimistic about ME2. But the DLC stuff is made by the Live Team, not the actual development team. But we will see.

Despite the shortcomings in art direction choice and level design, Mass Effect was still a very enjoyable quality product. I'm pretty optimistic that ME2 will be a major improvement, just like BG2 was a major improvement over BG1.

I played some 30 min of Halo 3 today. This must be the quintessence of totally generic SciFi. Utterly boring and disappointing so far.

Like there's anything constructive to say about this subject. I watched some of these 1Up previews, and how the guys there tried so hard to talk like professionals... it was so pathetic. Seriously, nobody is gonna miss those pompous "journalists". But then again, people around here already know my general opinion about game journalism. Specifically US game journalism. Did you listen to any of their podcasts?( GFW radio in particular) I can't really remember. I hardly listen to any podcasts. The only ones I was interested in were the Ken Levine podcasts for Bioshock, but I think these were done internally.

Like there's anything constructive to say about this subject. I watched some of these 1Up previews, and how the guys there tried so hard to talk like professionals... it was so pathetic. Seriously, nobody is gonna miss those pompous "journalists". But then again, people around here already know my general opinion about game journalism. Specifically US game journalism.

Maybe those guys should get some real job?

No, they're not. Definently not. Its two entirely different skillsets to know how to pace a level, and artisty stuff like how to make a good concrete material. The best level, to use a truism, is one that has been playtested thouroughly and allowed to grow based on a cycle of redesign and testing until all kinks have been worked out and everything is optimal. Yeah, so? Why can't someone have both skillsets? I remember many levels from Unreal 2, System Shock 2, Thief series, SWAT 4 etc. that were among the best maps I can remember, and many of these were created by designers who also build their meshes in Max. Unlike that soulless fabric-work like garbage I see so often in modern games.

Nvidia is awesome. Always buy Nvidia. And their drivers are vastly superior than that monthly Catalyst crap that ATI releases.