Wrath of Dagon

Not being able to retry the mini-games would be horrible. I know I'll fail them all on the first try, so if that's the case I won't even bother with the skill, which is a shame since I was considering a stealth hacker.

This really makes a lot of sense, given Bio's long history of successful MMO's.

Because it's so much fun to fail all your hacking attempts in a row because your reactions are a little slower than the developer counted on (see 360 Mass Effect).

Btw, there's one trick in Cthulhu that's not in the guide or documented in game. If you don't suture your heavy wounds right away, they turn into light wounds and then you can use bandages on them. For example, if you have 3 heavy wounds, you can uses sutures on one so you don't bleed so fast, then wait for the other 2 to turn into light wounds. Also there's a fight with a boss later in the game that's not explained very well in the guide.

10 tries is actually pretty good. I lost count of how many times I had to retry that. Still, for me that chase was the high point of the game. I think that was also the point I started to become completely dependent on the guide.

Bio is the developer, EA is the publisher, I'd be surprised if corporate EA marketing has nothing to do with the game. Still, I suspect most of the marketing is Bio's idea, but EA should at least be doing demographic research and ancillary things of that sort.

Just bought Empire: TW for $25 on Steam, on sale this weekend. And there's another patch coming in a couple of days.

The game was always planned to be an M rated game. It was always supposed to have gore and sex. Two years ago David Gaider said he already wrote more raunchy dialog than he'd ever had in a Bioware game, or something to that effect. Aside from that, it probably will be similar to BG, whatever that means. They decided they'd make more money if they also covered consoles. For some reason, justified or not, marketing believes the potential audience for the game is a bunch of horny juveniles. Developers have assured time and again that the game itself hasn't changed, either because of consoles or the marketing direction, and I believe them. They've pretty much went as far as they're allowed disavowing the marketing campaign.

Really? Why is that? Burned out from waiting?

Not that excited about the setting either, but you can make a good game in any setting, the key is characters, writing, and quest design.

Just pointing out the obvious, that's all.

Yes, well, the Citadel and the UCW were the only ones where you could do any exploration and side quests, so not really like KOTOR.

Really it wasn't that bad. Morrigan's VO is a little weird in places, and there's an uncanny valley problem, but for a video game it's fine.

You started it. KOTOR was better written than the kiddie movies, let alone some kiddie cartoon.

A bit worse? It's only a small step above a Saturday morning cartoon.

I really enjoyed exploring Tatooine, finding the sand crawler, being ambushed by the pigs and kicking their sorry asses, and the combat in general. Without that part, it would be a much poorer experience IMO, in fact it'd be more like Mass Effect, puke. (I wrote all that about Dantooine at first, then realized I got my planets mixed up. Nevertheless, I enjoyed exploring Dantooine also).

Everyone's trying to rip off the Wii. I don't think it'll replace the controller, just complement it for kids games and party games, etc. It does get us closer to virtual reality gaming, I'm not sure that's something I want though.

They were physically wiped out, but their minds travelled through time to find another host race. As far as puzzle design, I agree, like I said I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do throughout the game, and trial and error wasn't very viable because you could only save at save points, thus I mostly used a guide

No, they're the greatest because they alone can travel through time, look it up (Shadow out of Time, http://www.templeofdagon.com/lovecraft-arc...w-out-of-time/) I disagree about the shooter, it was actually stealth which wasn't strong enough to carry the whole game, so I thought there was about the right amount of it. I did enjoy the early Innsmouth sections the most, but I also liked taking my revenge against the fishmen later. I thought combat conveyed the fact that you were a vulnerable human being instead of an invincible super-hero very well, and afterwards I didn't want to play another game with an aiming reticle. And I don't think the end was horribly designed, you just had to acquire enough skill to kill the enemies before they got within melee range, at which point it became fairly easy.

OK, may be you'd design the game differently, that doesn't mean the design is bad though. There's no reason the Deep Ones should be that hard to kill, especially I had a hell of a time getting through the last battle, took me hours literally. That cover is terrible marketing, btw, they should've put Jack and Rebecca there, probably would've sold at least twice as much.

Yes.

Yes, but prioritizing exploration and character agency is what makes a game an RPG IMO, carefully designed story elements push a game more to the adventure genre. Also Manaan was the weakest planet in KOTOR, that concept was much better done on other planets, especially Taris.

Mythos creatures are killed all the time in Lovecraft's stories. Only certain ones, like a Shoggoth, you can't fight at all, which is all depicted properly. I agree it wasn't very scary, but it had a great atmosphere, and it was an adventure game more than a horror game.

I wouldn't call the gameplay repetitious, it has some great environments and great story telling, and mixes combat and stealth. The rifle is one of my favorite video game weapons, it actually feels like shooting a real rifle, only Brothers in Arms: Rdh30 had a more realistic rifle.

One of the best games ever so far as I'm concerned. Some people had very serious bugs with the PC version though, so beware. Also can be very hard to figure out what to do next, you may need a guide, there's one on gamefaqs.