Matthew Rorie

Sprung, Rorie! :D You damn internet detectives!

I'll have to see if one of these can fit in my case. But then I'll probably just wait until Nvidia announces their new stuff later this year and hope for a price war.

That is definitely a pessimistic assessment. I think we've talked about the reactivity in the game more than almost any other feature, but I guess it's natural that some previews will focus on it more than others. Suffice to say the choices that you make in this game are going to have broad consequences beyond the obvious small touches that you might imagine.

As we've said before, there were never any plans to show Alpha Protocol at TGS, as I don't believe the game is even coming out in Japan. So no news there is not bad news, it's simply no news. And yes, I believe the gentleman in the quotes works for SCEA (assuming this is legit). As for what he said, obviously we enjoy any feedback that we can get, but without knowing how much of the game he played (and I seriously doubt that someone as busy as a product evaluator for Sony is going to be playing through an entire game if it's as long as Alpha Protocol), it's hard to judge what he meant by those comments. Suffice to say that Alpha Protocol is going to tickle your RPG tastebuds when it's released.

GTA also has really bad controller lag which makes it not feel quite as tight as it probably could. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalf...-article?page=3

In case anyone hasn't played them, you can pick up NWN2 and Storm of Zehir for five bucks each on Direct 2 Drive. I'm not sure why Mask of the Betrayer isn't on there. http://www.direct2drive.com/d2dturns5

Still playing Tales of Vesperia. Man, I wonder how someone managed to make a game in 2008 that has unskippable cutscenes, especially when they come in between a save point and a boss fight. Crazy.

What? He's not a Twitter addict tapping away feverishly every free second that he has? No, that's my job, unfortunately. @obsidian_ent

Avellone's at GDC Austin.

Good sniping in that game. I loved picking a spot a quarter mile away from the enemies, sniping one, waiting for the rest to come, then using a flare gun to surround them in flames. Fun stuff.

Dunno, I never played Crayon Physics.

Yeah, this is kind of off-topic, sorry guys. There'll be more AP news soon for you to chew on. If you haven't been following the obsidian_ent twitter, I post on there sometimes about my current playthrough.

If you want to check it out, feel free to click the link! http://www.bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/5-...-protocol-.html

Just got Scribblenauts, which I can tell is going to frustrate me since I have no imagination at all. I have a big vocabulary, but more in the sense of recognizing obscure words (thanks David Foster Wallace) than having them accessible to me when I need to grab a star that's suspended from a rope over a pointy spike. I'm also around 35 hours into Tales of Vesperia, which I picked up from Amazon for 15 bucks. Good game, but man is it ever a talkathon.

Excuse me while I puke. Sorry, but I have to agree with Bethesda on this one. There are any number of look-alike packages out there that attempt to trip up consumers who are buying gifts for people or simply see something without realizing it's not precisely what they're looking for. Calling something the "Fallout Trilogy" and putting it out on shelves just after Fallout 3 comes out, without including Fallout 3 in the package, is going to be confusing to people. Maybe not you or I, but I can definitely see someone reading about Fallout 3 or hearing about it from a friend, seeing the Fallout Trilogy on the shelf at Target, and picking it up, thinking they got a deal. (Although hopefully they get a blast out of FO1 and 2.) Another good recent example of look-alike products and packaging.

There, isn't that better? Let's be friends.

The checkpoints are pretty frequent, so it's not like you're going to have to redo half-hour chunks of the game or anything. This was all covered in a topic from a while ago.

Pretty bad news all around for me, but thanks for the info. You can pause the dialogue, but not when a timer is displayed. And, as mentioned above, these aren't going to be sentences you have to read; it's going to be two to four single words (adjectives) that describe a mood or a stance that you want to take in the conversation. So it's not like you're having to read four or five Neverwinter dialogue choices. In the end, this is intended to introduce a bit of tension into the dialogues and keep them moving forward in real-time. If you pick a stance once, though, the game will default to that stance for all future dialogue choices, so if you're going to play Mike as the consummate professional, you should be able to get through most conversations without having to change the dialogue option every time (although of course some characters won't appreciate your straight-laced ways). You can pause the game anywhere, and save anywhere, but if you reload a save you are brought back to the last checkpoint you passed. There is melee combat, but you don't have to partake in it if you don't like. Enemies that get close to you will often try to bash you with their weapons, though. (And this is a third-person game, not a first-person shooter.) As far as how much you can see in one playthrough, I don't have an exact percentage or anything like that. You will obviously not need to replay the game to get the bulk of the storyline, although by nature you won't see every dialogue and cutscene. (If you kill characters that you encounter they won't show up later in the game for dialogues, etc.) Although if you wish to see every mission I don't think there is anything to prevent that. Regarding the SIE thing above, SIE first appears in a mission that it is possible to skip. If you do skip it, and proceed far enough into the hub so that it becomes unavailable, she won't appear in the game, although you'll probably still get dossier bits and the like from her.

In this kind of economy I can see his point. You shouldn't be going to work for a publisher with the expectation that you're going to be playing video games all day; you should be trying to make money. Which isn't to say that there shouldn't be fun benefits to working at a publisher, but in the end your goal is to deliver products that make a lot of money for your shareholders.

Sega handles these releases to the community; you'll probably want to bookmark their blog: http://blogs.sega.com/usa/ And read that to find out more!

People were under an NDA for this event. When is said NDA lifted? That's up to Sega. Sorry, I wasn't super happy with the arrangement, either.

People were under an NDA for this event.

We have a few people who test on SDTVs (I have one in my office and haven't had any legibility problems), and I believe some of our HUD guys have been going through in SD themselves. Obviously you'll be better off with an HDTV display, but hopefully you won't have any legibility problems with an SDTV screen. If you do have an SDTV, though, bigger is obviously better.

Yes, this was at PAX and unfortunately poor Awsomeness is sworn to secrecy (Sega's call.) It was a fun event and we got a lot of good feedback. We have also recently received some cool AP swag that we are going to try and start giving away at some point soon (might be a while before we can get around to signing it, though).

Except...you're not a CIA agent.