RPGmasterBoo

I thought SC II not having LAN was about piracy reasons as well. Some clever guy on the Blizzard forums enlightened me. Its not about piracy, its about without having LAN Battlenet becomes the only place to play SCII, and to host tournaments, unlike today when the original SC has plenty lan based pro tournaments, that bring Blizzard no revenue. Its essentially the way too keep the entire SCII mulitplayer scene under Blizzards thumb, and some people speculate that Battle net will also include micro payments soon enough. Either way, they control all multi for SCII and thats what its about. The piracy is just a cover up. As for C&C4 - they just lost a sure purchase God damn I had high hopes for that game.

Oh the days of summoning a Mordanikens sword in a room full of Illithids and shutting the door. And the calamari several minutes later. *sniggers* Haven't played BG2 with the SCS mods, but I did with BG1 and it was incredibly hard. For really tough battles I would usually use my stealth character to initiate combat then throw a nice potion of explosions in the middle of the fray. Then I would run run run away separating my main party from my stealth character. I would then try to divide and conquer leading enemies into ambushes or tight corridors. I really enjoyed it. Yes you had to compromise and think unlike these days, where all you need to do is be present at the computer to win. Sometimes not even that.

So Morrigan will have no cause to complain.

Its a hyper realistic military simulator from the makers of the heavily modded Operation Flashpoint. Its hardcore, and not for the impatient. Its what you get when you have too much realism - the desire to whack your monitor. And yes they screwed the AI.

Cos everyone knows what they say about dwarves.

I've been looking at Alpha Protocol videos, and I get what CrashGirl was saying. The game has a semi serious stylized approach, an obvious homage to action thrillers and spy movies. I thought it was going to be more conventional but I was wrong. Therefore the political aspect shouldn't bug too much as there is no real attempt at "real world" stories. So, the mods can lock this one up as far as Im concerned

You know repeating that like a mantra might brainwash somebody into believing it the end. Nevewinter Nights on the other hand, was incredibly mature, filled with meaningful character interactions, a branching plot where every choice mattered, originality beyond compare, clever tactical combat, challenging and infinitely replayable. Except it was not. In fact you pretty much described it yourself.

It's also pretentious, but you'll have to finish the game to see the full extent. Try World of Goo if you're into indie games. I'm too stupid to get through the latter levels, and I used to kick ass in P&C Adventures. Long ago So Braid is going slowly. I played World of Goo. It was nice, but a bit like a flash game. I was also playing Darwinia recently - another good indie. Its very charming, but loses appeal quickly.

They suffer from a rigidity of creation. By the time the intro is over you know how the game will play out to the end. You end up feeling cheated because you invested a certain amount of time and all you got was deja vu in return. I'll go through the game definitely, for the story and characters. I like you already. Can I get your card?

Well No One Lives Forever proves that it can be done, (spy game without politics) even though its a parody... Just saying... You won't see that soon. Its not really a conspiracy but games made out of the US often don't have the connections or the money to butter up the right people and push in the market. They dont get the advertising and they don't get the positive reviews. Eg. I went to my local seller yesterday knowing he has a deal with Eidos to get the games they publish. I wanted to ask about the german RPG Drakensang and he tells me that they just didn't get it. I ask why, and basically it boiled down to Eidos bullying them to import other titles they can't really sell like Hitman/Tomb Raider/Kane and Lynch etc. etc. So we have a shelf full of that crap (3 different editions of Hitman anthologies, 5 editions of Half Life 2 from Vivendi...) and no Drakensang. The Witcher sold a million copies practically by word of mouth only. And it has a 8.5 cumulative grade from a few dozen "professional" reviews, and 9.3 cumulative grade from several hundred gamer reviews (Metacritic). That tells you all you need to know how these games are treated.

Its an okay preview. He just wasn't paid to drool all over the game as they usually are, that's why it doesn't come with the orgasmic thrill of Half Life 7 and Crysis 5. Eurogamer sucks anyway. I found their reviewers uninformed on the topic of gaming history on several occasions.

Oh the days of summoning a Mordanikens sword in a room full of Illithids and shutting the door. And the calamari several minutes later. *sniggers*

Braid. Its... different.

I didn't but there's a cumulative effect with the years and years of it. besides I somehow presume Role Playing game developers who created Torment and MoTB to be immune to crap of that sort. I almost puked at the end of Call of Duty IV's single player, for the sheer idiocy, bias and misinformation in the story. It ruined my experience of what was essentially an excellent game.

True but staying away from stereotypes is what gained them their reputation, all the way back to Torment. No reason so screw that up now. Not that I can comment on that, what we need is a dev comment. (hopeful)

As long as its a simple disk check - fine. Anything else is liable to screw the game over. Every original I bought recently has seen me wasting time trying to get SecuROM to piss off. I actually skipped buying GTAIV and Red Alert 3 because of all the moronic online demands.

What I would like to know is how far AP is steeped in US policy, from a plot perspective. Meaning, does the game dabble in recent issues and does it follow established stereotypes or is the plot more or less detached from them. The reason I'm asking this is that frankly playing a CIA agent is not appealing at all to me personally, but on the other hand if the plot has really little to do with usual views seen in these type of games (Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy games in general etc.) I might have no problem with it. The usual views being the lone heroic American, saving us all from the terrible Russians/Islamists/Whoever along with horrendous oversimplification of the issues at hand. Everyone who's read a TC novel knows this lame set up.

We'll just have to push for more explicit content Dragon Age will have big titted demons (yaay), only if we could get the tassles off

Oscar Wilde was a great man. :D The way you people react to sex and nudity makes me think its a culture/mentality thing. All Slavic countries Poland & Serbia etc. included have a very relaxed attitude towards sex and nudity, and this is the first time I've seen anyone so riled up about it. Of the hundreds of pages in the Witcher discussion, on local forums no one ever mentioned the sex cards apart from the occasional joke on the issue. In fact no one said it detracted from their experience. It must be a mentality thing. Also, on the same token - the fact that you get raped by a super mutant with a BDSM fetish, that you can have a pornstar career and get perks for sexual performance never made Fallout immature. Kama Sutra master indeed. Crude jokes and swearing abounded as well. The very inclusion of these things show that the developers were mature enough to not take everything seriously which is exactly what people are not doing in regards to the Witcher. If the Witcher's gameworld and characters are immature, then what's mature? KOTOR and its cookie cutter bad guy, bent on taking over the woooorld? Jade Empire? The I'm not evil, I'm closed fist - now eat my closed fist, bang tharsh... Mass Effect? The we-talk-five-lines-lets-bang romance? The color coded morality responses? The "fate of the galaxy/of fantasy medieval china/of the universe" is in your hands, for the 1000th time? Anyway you saw the fun side of it until your wife showed up. No we do not want 100% realism in games. Thats not the point at all. What we (I) do want hopefully is an approach that doesn't repeat the same stagnant experience that we're usually served, and if I get another ancient evil's back storyline I'll puke. What I admired about the Witcher was that it dared to be different. The only thing that seems to be changing in Bioware games are the engines powering them, and the pushing for gay romances further and further with each game.

So do I, but they can be counted on one hand - if you chop off two fingers. Which is a way of getting the discussion back on topic: does the fact that the PC is not so integrally woven into the plot as he/she was in Baldur's Gate/Torment/Mask worry you? For a game that was supposed to be a spiritual sequel, this approach would seem insane to drop, as it was a large part of BGII.

Yep, old age is definitely getting to me Maria.

Its the deep and hidden desire to have virtual sex while being all that you in fact - are not, with "women" you could never have, and to hide this from everyone else. Understandable, and I get if people feel a little jealous of Geralt but you know, some pixels have all the luck. Condescending much? I didn't bring up the sex stuff, but it does undermine your point of Witcher being so very mature. If you state something so adamantly(especially here and about RPGs), expect people to disagree. Its been stated what the mature aspects of the game were. I feel that the ability to joke at your own expense is also a sign of maturity and that the sex was even a parody of sorts. I mean village girls, noble women, dryads, even a goddess- come on, they're all fantasy cliche's. To look at it from any other angle than a self parody is pointless. I couldnt help but laugh at Geralts antics in those moments. To take the sex seriously and make an issue out of it, is missing the point why it was included in the first place. On the other hand a game like KOTOR takes itself so seriously for the most part, and all it is is a basic tale of good vs evil. If that's not needless drama I don't know what is. I don't mind disagreements.

Its the deep and hidden desire to have virtual sex while being all that you in fact - are not, with "women" you could never have, and to hide this from everyone else. Understandable, and I get if people feel a little jealous of Geralt but you know, some pixels have all the luck.

Right. The focus by people here on the optional sex stuff still boggles my mind, but on a final note here's an article on the issue (partly). http://www.edge-online.com/features/1m-sol...cret-pc-success

Which really doesn't invalidate the game in any way. Third time I've said it. It was meant to be good intentioned fun, a bit of comic relief and that was what it was. Just like in Dogma: Metatron: ...Take sex, for example. There's nothing funnier than the ridiculous faces you people make mid-coitus Bethany: Sex is a joke in Heaven? Metatron: The way I understand it, it's mostly a joke down here, too.