Wrath of Dagon

No, if it just comes down to what you like, then you can't make any judgment at all, and any crap game is as good as a masterpiece because someone somewhere likes it.

The reason you thought that was probably because every Bioware game since KOTOR used the same device (don't know about earlier ones) and some non Bioware games (like K2 and Oblivion). That doesn't discredit KOTOR though, and at least it was very clear what you were looking for, thus you actually had a good reason to go to every location.

I know Mech Assault on the old Xbox had a bug which somehow allowed you to download your own software to the Xbox and then run pirated games, but I haven't heard of anything similar on the 360, although it's possible that it exists. I don't think most console gamers are aware of this or are sophisticated enough to do it, plus MS will ban you from Live and they know where you live, but on the PC all you need is download the cracked version and play it.

Not always. There are now ways of playing burned DVDs on the 360 and Wii -I don't know about the PS3- without chipping the system. Just read some gaming new sites and you would have seen them mentioning these developments. In that case they should've made it so there's an area on DVD that can be read but not written by normal DVD burners. Too late now I guess.

You have to have an illegaly modded console to play pirated games, that's the difference. Statistically the rate of piracy on consoles is far lower than on PC's. It's just that in this case it was the 360 version that happened to be leaked, so anyone with a modded console can play it now.

There's a big difference between brainwashing and mind control, brainwashing happens all the time in real life. Besides, KOTOR characters had lots of different motivations besides brainwashing (or really corruption to be more accurate), the whole plot wasn't based on that.

Well, on one level, he is very much Canderous... Hence the irony in my joke.

Agree, not sure about every level though, Mandalore is still no Canderous, and I don't even consider K2 inferior, I think it's a very even match overall. Edit: And I think only 6 months or so would've been enough, heck, according to Chris the HK-50 factory only needed a few more days (knocks head on desk).

I don't need to debate, I know the game only blacks out once.

I don't agree, characters in K1 > K2 >> ME. Except for Kreia, she was a K1 level character.

Actually I liked that KOTOR 2 had regenerating health, saved me from using up my precious heathpacks out of combat. But that's a very different game from the DX games, I felt that healthpacks and limited ammo worked well there. And yes, I'm the only person in the world who likes unified ammo, for the very reason that it allowed the developers to dole it out sparingly, and at the same time left the choice of weapon up to the player. Plus health packs and ammo clips make for a great exploration reward.

Carth was betrayed by the person he trusted and respected most, and as a result lost everything that was dear to him, his family. He had a reason to mope. The only thing they copied for Kaiden was the sad tale and the waah, waah. Edit: I thought both Bastila and Carth were great characters, and didn't romance either. Bastila's bitchiness is a feature so far as I'm concerned, what makes her interesting is that she's conflicted between her passions and her duty.

"My hatred for Linkin' Park comes from expecting the next great thing since Limp Bizkit, and getting a piece of half-baked, half-assed garbage instead." You see where you're going wrong there? I see what's wrong with your statement, was Linkin Park formed by former members of Limp Bizkit?

For one thing, remember Carth came first, so it's not like KOTOR copied Kaiden. For another thing, it was probably 5 times more lines. Carth was an interesting, well developed character, with a real history, a history which affected his behavior in the game and was actually part of a fairly major plot point. All Kaiden had going for him is his sad tale of being experimented on as a child, waah, waah, which really had nothing to do with anything else in the game. This perfectly illustrates the kind of thing KOTOR did so well and ME completely failed to do, I'll never understand why people don't see it for themselves.

uh, hyperbole much? No, did you not see my list of reasons? Do you deny any of them? KOTOR was high quality, ME was not, it's as simple as that. It looked to me like it was, of course the graphics were limited by the engine, but art design was top notch and played a purpose throughout. I still love it whenever I run across a KOTOR screenshot. ME was generic props cut and pasted ad nauseum, it created nothing but a feeling of dreariness. No it's not, objectivity is my thing, what did you find worthwhile?

I would say you base the amount of health on a moderate combat character. The heavy combat character will then have a tougher time, but he's better equipped for combat also. Obviously if you mostly play non-combat, health isn't an issue at all, unless you get discovered and decide to fight it out. I don't see why this would me much harder to implement than regenerating health for everyone. Edit: In HL2, I hardly ever ran out of healthpacks when I needed them. Even so, just the fact that I didn't have unlimited health made me more careful about taking damage and conserving health.

My hatred for ME comes from expecting the next great thing since KOTOR, and getting a piece of half-baked, half-assed garbage instead. So the similarity between them are the corridors? The difference is KOTOR had a lot more than spaceport corridors, each planet had its own character and theme, while ME's theme was the future galaxy looks like strip malls and underground garages in various textures of gray concrete. As far as combat, of course it's shooter combat, what else could it possibly be? Since there's nothing worthwhile in the game except combat, that makes it a shooter.

But this is an RPG, not a shooter, so there should be more opportunity to avoid damage. Plus it's just a question of how much health they provide vs how much damage you can be reasonably expected to take. Also in BiA I didn't normally use my men as fodder, I'd be careful to stay in cover and use good tactics. It wouldn't be a bad idea to require you to keep them all alive, except whenever you ordered them into cover, two would stand behind a wall and a third would stand in front of it.

They're nothing alike, the fact that you say this probably means you don't like KOTOR. Quests - Kotor's were great, ME's were crap Characters - Kotor's were great, ME's were crap Dialog - Kotor's was great, ME's was crap Art design - Kotor's was great, ME's was crap Story - Kotor's was great, ME's was crap Leveling up and equipment were also inferior in ME. Is that enough for you?

That's how it started out, but the commercial version is quite different. The original training version can still be unlocked with a cheat code. The commercial version is basically a series of situational puzzles, and on hard difficulty I didn't find it repetitive, because the puzzles get harder and harder.

You mean like ammo? Conserving ammo would have a similar effect to conserving health, so it's a bit redundant, plus it's harder to do it with ammo, since you can usually just switch to another weapon if you run out. At least in Gears there aren't really tactics to going through a level, may be some tactics with winning individual battles. Haven't played the other 2 games. The best example of a shooter where your tactics actually have to include the entire level and you had finite health was the original Brothers in Arms, and it worked very well IMO. And of course that's the way the Deus Ex games worked as well.

see That is to say, those games were good at what they did, but I LIKED the fusion. If you didn't, and that was your only point, then that's grand. My point was that ME is a decent if unspectacular shooter, and a crummy RPG, not to tell you what you should play. In fact my original post wasn't addressed specifically to you at all. As far as fusion, I agree that having character and equipment upgrades in addition to the combat makes it more fun, but that's about it. Edit: Yes, I see I did quote you originally, so perhaps it could be understood as telling you what to do, but that's not really what I meant.

I'm not saying the game will be bad just because of the healing mechanism, it just might be an indicator the game is trying to be more "accessible" and less tactical than I'd like to see. As I said somewhere in the thread, I'm not ready to jump to conclusions based on the little info we currently have.

Time travelling lizards?