RPGmasterBoo

No, I've also found charge implementation strange. Because enemies never miss and fire long bursts as soon as the charge is finished you're dead. I only use it on the big mechs, when they've been reduced to their health bar. Charge in, shotgun in the head and then retreat before they blow. But thats it.

Gotta agree on that one. The way he handled the reunion with Ashley was terrible. I tried to choose good options, but he was saying all the wrong things.

The king of 4x games.

Of course.

I've been through a 7 hour session of ME2 and these are my first impressions: First the technicalities: Graphics: Bioware has strained to pull as much as it can out of the XBOX360 limited capacity. To circumvent the fact that the polygon count isnt the greatest and that many of the surfaces are simplistic some of the time with very blurry textures - they made great use of lighting. The glow that seems to be everywhere smooths out what's essentially a somewhat dated looking game. - However the graphical design is substantially better than the first ME. Omega station in particular stands out as great piece of work, though the other parts of its design (music) supplement it greatly. The redesigned Citadel station is smaller but much more satisfying visually - it finally has some sort of identity. The combat areas are functional but suffer somewhat from being subordinate to the gameplay: the endless crates and waist high walls slightly reduce immersion but that's to be expected. - Animation is mostly good, since its not a dedicated action game I suppose its done as well as it could be. Sound: -Music. Very nice, I especially liked the one on the Omega station (in the bar). Its not mindblowing, but its appropriate to the mood of the location/event. -Sound Effects. Functional, I think the weapon effects are better than in ME but my memory is somewhat fuzzy on the subject. -Voice overs: Much improved over ME. Of course this tends to go hand in hand with the characterization, and since the characters are better in general their voices do a good job of supplementing their personality. I like them all so far (voices) with Mordin being the obvious standout. The guy who did Shepard has again managed to be the greatest cretin of all, and if one VO is lacking its his. I'm playing male shep because I imported my character (but I wouldn't play fem shep anyway) Gameplay: Gameplay as has been noted has suffered substantial changes most, if not all to the better. For now it consists of 1. going around and talking 2. combat dedicated areas 3. flying the ship on the galaxy map - initially an interesting and fun way to break the action/talking, the scanning process of the planets is starting to annoy me. Too much time is invested in what's essentially an artificial way to lenghten the game. Still, compared to ME's planets its shorter and more substantial (in benefits). -Combat. Combat in ME suffered from being a frankenstein or two completely unrelated genres (third person action and RPG). It was sluggish, unsatisfying, badly paced and a pushover. ME2 has tweaked it to a much better version. This comes at the expense of the RPG part, skills have been lessened - turned into what's effectively a special move in any action game and character development likewise stunted to the level of any action game that has a few RPG traits. However, its much faster and far more entertaining. The reason for this is simple: its shorter. The combat areas aren't overtly long so as to become boring, the weapons pack a greater punch to do away with the enemies quicker, and the skills are actually useful. I'm playing on veteran level, and the challenge isn't all that great until the large mechs show up. Still it has forced me to use more tactics than ME (changing weapons to hit the appropriate shields/armor/health), running to cover (with the occasional annoyance of the single key binding making shep do something I did not intend) and utilising my squadmates. Squadmates aren't imbeciles this time around. They will in general utilise cover, and most of the time use the skill appropriate to the enemy/situation. Overall the combat is as good as it can be - because of the limitations of cover based combat. It does suffer from cheapness that would not have passed in the olden days eg: being completely immune to damage when in cover, which is set up automaticaly and having health regenerate at an insane rate. This sounds like noob land so its appropriate to examine how the difficulty is kept level: 1. enemies never miss when you're in the open 2. you can't take much damage before dying Thus the game forces you to play it the way its designed, from cover to cover, rock-paper-scissor style (in regards to weapons). Crude yes, but at least it works. (unlike ME) Story Will discuss when finished. Characters -Personalities. The characters I've seen so far aren't all that different from other Bioware cliche's, but unlike in ME or KOTOR they are implemented well. What they say makes sense, what they do makes sense, and none so far are horribly annoying or otherwise insufferable. The only complete idiot in regards to dialog is Shepard. Unlike other characters he comes off as stupid, naive or crude depending on the occasion. Granted he's not a predifined personality but his lines should be better. Other things of note: -quests are practically non existant, this is for now - a linear, mission based game. -the thing you use to select items (the pointer) is intensely irritating because it sees through walls and causes confusion. you read the title of an item before its in your view and start stupidly searching around for it. -my core vanguard ability is completely useless as it leaves shep exposed to fire. Its only good when there's one enemy, but then one enemy can be handled in any other way conclusion to come.

You're living in a dream world Neo. Sour grapes. You're just wondering why you didn't take the blue pill. That's what all wives say. Funny, how they change their position at the divorce court.

You're living in a dream world Neo. Besides i don't see much hate. Pointing out obvious and nagging flaws isn't hate.

I played the first two. Gorky 17 was a pretty mediocre game with some surprisingly good moments. Sometimes the whole horror atmosphere was spot on! I never got far in Septerra Core. Didn't have the motivation.

GoG's isn't. @Tigranes - you have to delete some file or other to get the full glory of her blue t!tis, google it up

You forget NWN OC. To those who say it has better combat than KOTOR - keep in mind that KOTOR is a turn based D20 so combat can't be as "interactive" as JE. Of course the combat in KOTOR wasn't much good either because there were too few companions and it was too easy... The game had nice lore and an interesting if predictable storyline. Some parts had rather nice graphical design, and a few of the characters were fun to have around. On the other hand, the combat sucked the same way ME's did. It was another game shoehorned into a Bio RPG, this time a third person fighting game. People are too forgiving in this respect, if you're making half a fighting game and half an RPG and the former is one of the worst examples of its type it can't be a great game overall. But RPG players are used to repetitive combat so they never took much notice. Character development also sucked as did the lack of inventory. It was also too easy on all but the hardest difficulty levels. It was too linear and the locations too small and confined. And it was too short, around 10-15 hours. Overall it was playable but in a fire and forget kind of way.

What a waste.

Even that is not wholly correct. There is nothing particularly holy in Kosovo for Albanians. The core of their historical territory is modern day Albania.

That's not all there is to it. There's the aspect that Taiwan has been independent (de facto) from China for more than 50 years, has a completely different political system, government, and has also evolved because of this a distinct cultural attitude (similar as they are on other matters culturally). Then again, I'm guessing you think Kosovo 'belongs' to the Serbs, right? Pfft. It does. Your ignorance is unsurprising. Your persistence in it however, is.

Yep, Supreme Commander was incredibly generic. Another interesting adventure apparently coming out of development hell: http://www.graymatter-game.com/ It would be unremarkable if Jane Jensen wasn't working on it.

I'm actually prone to forgive every failing if a game has a good story. Dreamfall though, was too much to swallow.

Or you could just quit playing WoW and resume living.

Playing it is actually a worse ordeal.

No, it just wasn't as good as TLJ and the open end wasn't all that great. No, it was rubbish because its hard to imagine worse implemented and more nonsensical gameplay. Neither action, nor adventure but something worse than both. To be that bad takes concious effort.

I played halfway through it twice and couldnt bring myself to go on. Its rubbish of epic proportions.

This looks to be a good adventure... and its coming in a few months Only a few screens available http://games.gamepressure.com/game_info.asp?ID=10275

Instead of this wankery you people might list your collections on GoG: Mine is modest: Myst Gabriel Knight Unreal Tournament Giants Citizen Kabuto + 2 free adventures from Revolution Current wishlist: Arcanum Jagged Alliance 2 Riven Ground Control + exp Sacrifice Arx Fatalis Freespace 2 IL2 Sturmovik Feeble Files

Nightshape's post made me lose what little concern I had for the industry. If that's the way you treat your customers, then don't be surprised if they respond in kind.

You're disqualified for being from Japan.

By that time it will be too late. Its more fun being a prophet than saying I told you so. Which I'll happily do anyway