Morgoth

It follows the Bioware-formula of RPG design, with better combat, but not so elaborate characters. It's an overall good game, definitely kept me entertained till the end. Just don't expect too much, and you'll have a good time. Since you're a jerry, I will forgive your for your blasphemous statement. But does it have story and cool stuff or is it just hack n slash? I'll answer your question if you answer mine first: What is a Kaftan Barlast?

Pan is a Satyr, a talking one. And no, he's not a healer. More like a mix of philosopher and mage. He also distributes quite some punches with his walking stick.

And a short one, huh? I didn't count the hours, but I think it should be around 15 hours long. Maybe a bit more.

Good to hear. I suppose I'm mostly interested because the setting is a bit different, and I quite like Greek mythology, but does the game have much to offer someone who doesn't really like fighting/action/combos and all that? Not really. The game is quite linear, so exploration and looting and sidequests are practically non-existant (there's a quest though where you have to find mead, but you basically just stumble over it). I'm also not very familiar with the Argonauts tale, so you shouldn't expect a true re-imagination of the Greek classic. In some way, it reminds me of Jade Empire, though the Chinese premise is replaced with a Greek-Warcraftish one. Dialogs are always linked with the gods alignment in mind, so there's no way you can play let's say a bastard (although in one case I could distribute a nasty punch-into-face). You always chose our line to favor a god, but that's okay I guess. After all, you play King Jason, not some me-wanna-be-a-Jedi-Rogue-rowdy or something. Overall writing is quite competent, although the voice actors aren't on par with say Mass Effect. Pan always gives you insides about some of the background knowledge, for example when activating s shrine. The strength of the game is that it tells a motivating story from start to finish, and albeit it follows the Bioware-design-school, it sometimes comes up with quite a few nice suprises on it's own. There're also some mini-games involved that are tight into the quests. Like you have to argue with a philosopher, and try to convince the crowd with your arguments (a ripp-off from Jade Empire). The arena is also a ripp-off of Kotor, but in this case it's actually fun. Combat is always very visceral and sharp, you basically only have four weapons, but these actually feel different and make a differnce. You also get a new armor after you found a descendent of a god (the main quests), and you can always replace these on the Argo, the ship equivalent to the Normandy of ME. Your four followers are Atalanta (bow and arrow, tree hugger), Pan (philisopher, mage), Hercules (wrestler, not very subtle) and that fourth guy (spear's man, braggart). You can take two along with you, and they always contemplate their thoughst within conversations, or give some general thoughts about the current situation. Pan is probably my most favorite one, as he's quite chatty. In addition, you also meet some other characters you can take along with the Argo, though they're basically irrelevant to the gameplay, as you can only chat with them a bit. The levels are also quite huge, especially the georgous Tarantara (?), sort of a greenish hell, which was really amazing. Upgrading works with deeds, some of the through dialogs, some through kinda like achievements (kill 20 Ionian soldiers, you get a deed). You spend these until you get a "level" up, and then you spend these on god powers and passive feats. If you put alot points into Hermes, you probably will be a master with a sword, Athena with the spear, Ares with the mace, Apollo with the shield, among other things like quicker dodging, more health and so on. Overall, I liked this system more than the 20 or so skills you spend in Mass Effect that didn't seem to have a noticable impact. So, if you like "RPG lite", a good story, fast and brutal combat , then you'll like RotA. If you seek something like Baldur's Gate or Torment, then you'll be disappointed.

It follows the Bioware-formula of RPG design, with better combat, but not so elaborate characters. It's an overall good game, definitely kept me entertained till the end. Just don't expect too much, and you'll have a good time.

If the gameplay would just be as good as the art direction were...

I just finished Rise of the Argonauts. It was a fun ride.

RotA starts to grow on me. Just finished the jungle island, and now have the hot Atalanta on board the Argo. The game quite follows the Bioware formula successfully, without the timewasting bull**** like looting and Bio-boring combat though. Writing is competent, character likeness above average, art is mostly nice, voice acting average, facial expressions are horrible, and overall nice quests and motivating story. It's not the second coming for RPG standards, but nonetheless a very competent one.

This woman gets her point across...

Well, I've played some 2-3 hours now, and I just landed on the first story island Satiria (?), where those grumpy centaurs are doing their things. Anyways, the game sorta starts out a bit "meh". Very confining level design, but it starts to open up a bit later. Combat is pretty good, feels very gory and satisfying, there're a lot combos, and each weapon (sword, mace, speer, shield) has it's own important functulaity, which can be further improved in the "Aspects screen", depending to whom god you align. You spend these deeds into more efficient combos for your weapons, or general improvements for your team mates as well. The atmosphere is very nice as well. No Hollywood bull**** around here, so far. Overall, it's not extraordinary good, nor extraordinary bad. I just started on the first island for the search of the Golden Fleece, so I have to push my teeth a bit deeper into it. More later.

I thought that had been delayed. No, it's out since yesterday. But I heard it's delayed to 2009 for UK only. Doesn't make any sense though.

Rise of the Argonauts.

Interview @Gametrailers

THIS IS IMPORTANT! Its very important, yes, but I want scripted ingame interactive sex scenes, darnit. And you should be able to mate with any object in the game. Key features of Swedish game design, eh?

No. Without Quake, they'd have just programmed their own engine, or licensed another one. Either way, Half-Life would have been released anyway.

Resident Evil for GC.

1Up Preview "Luckily, its grisly serial-killer plot shows incredible promise. "Most publishers are still busy making games for 12-year olds," explains Quantic Dream CEO and founder David Cage. "Heavy Rain is for an adult audience who want to be emotionally engaged." Cage places immense value on depth and meaning -- two narrative tenets generally absent from even the best games' story lines." In-game graphics that looks like Mental Ray-rendered images? Say hello to some PS3 powah!

Finally I managed to advance in RE. The trick is just not try to kill every single zombie that gets by.

I take a macho meatball any day of the week over a 12 year old soldier-girl in mini. Thank you.

New preview at Eurogamer "I'm not starting with the story and trying to fit gameplay in," he insists, becoming animated, "because that would fail the same way. What I try to do is to think about the story and the gameplay together. At the moment that I have an idea for a scene, I try to think about the potential for gameplay in this scene. Or when I think I think about a nice gameplay mechanic, what's the potential for the story? I wrote many scenes that were deleted because they had a good idea for gameplay but not for story, or a good idea for story but not for gameplay. I need to have good ideas for both in every single scene." This sounds like each single scene will encompass unique gameplay mechanics. So we don't get to see a pattern, with a story tacked on on it. Also check out some screens and artworks

Luckily enough, HL offered fun gameplay everywhere, even outside sciripted events. What exactly did Quake or Blood offer that made them better than HL? Nostalgia?

LoLz w00ts b00bs!

Well, personal taste aside, I disagree. Quake was a mindless shooter (and so much brown), with no versatility, no scripted events, only silly "search the key card", get to elevator gameplay. Same for Blood, which was just meaningless in every way. Half Life finally featured a cool story (albeit not told through cutscenes) with varied gameplay, cool level design, cool weapons and generally more intelligent gameplay. Overall, HL did design wise everything better.