kalniel

A great shame - the audio in Storm of Zehir was the best I've ever heard from a D&D game. There can only be one sensible replacement - Kai Rosenkranz, of Gothic fame (the soundtrack to Gothic 3 was even better than SoZ)

Yes you can cope fine without arcane spell casters.

Just out of interest. Take SoZ for example, it seems to me that this title is actually being hugely enjoyed by large numbers of people, but most aren't posting about it on mainstream sites. Instead it tends to be the smaller RPG/old school sites that you hear about it, if people aren't actually just playing the game rather than writing about it. More mainstream sites just seem to have a few dissatisfied people posting very 'loudly' who for some reason expect it to be a continuation of the MotB type gameplay.

It works off the shelf. But other campaigns don't work so well when you install SoZ.

They have to make sure it all works upsidedown In all seriousness it probably takes longer to go through the Aussie ratings board as it's quite a bit stricter than anywhere else.

So how does the Alien Blaster work?

Awesome game so far. A VERY fitting tribute to Gygax in my opinion. A real nod to old school D&D computer games, and indeed Icewind dale, especially the way the story is told and the party stuff. I had forgotten just how fun it is to create a party with complementing skills and abilities, without worrying that any main character had to cover several bases or fit in with NPCs I didn't know about yet. The music deserves a special mention too - again the quality of it reminds me of Icewind Dale and adds to the tingly game experience. Voice acting.. actually I think it's very good. I didn't like the VO for everything approach that MotB took, especially for describing things my character was feeling - the slightly toned down SoZ fits better IMHO. Volo is excellent too. The ambient voices and effects also remind me more of the older games - there seems to be more background chatter from the streets etc., like the IE games. It's definitely a less cinematic experience, but I'm glad of that - I was getting annoyed with that style of game appearing everywhere and really pined for a more old school style RPG, and from what I've seen so far, SoZ really delivers.

It's completely different to X3, but still very enjoyable. The development schedule has clearly had an effect on the game - there are many things which look like they were designed with something else in mind before they've cut back and focused on polishing what they have. The story is probably the main consequence, as it's all great until it wraps up quite suddenly and very dissappointingly. The game universe is fantastic though, and very polished.

Lest you slackers take vacation and play the game during the working week. Hehe. Nietzsche was of the opinion that we British embraced Christianity solely so that employees would be forced to rest on Sundays and thus work all the harder come Monday

I guess I don't really know what I want from NX3 because almost everything on my wishlist is happening with SoZ. So I need to really see how that works out and if it's as good as I think it's going to be, then my wishlist is simply going to be 'more like that', ie another old school adventure perhaps in a different setting. Like the Spine of the World perhaps..

Ignore the main story. It's pretty rubbish anyway The game is particularly poor at explaining things, so really your best bet is to head to the forums where there is an absolute ton of better tutorials and guides. Get used to the way things work, build up some means of getting credits and only continue the story when you feel better prepared. I find it a nice game to sort of relax on - I love the music. And yes, the kha'ak are amusing, but what else can we expect from our central european friends

Games are always released on Fridays in the UK

I think pretty similar to you - things that just seem outright 'unfair'. My main hate is things like monsters spawning in when you're part way through a room - fine if there's a reason for that like you failed a spot check or they were 'ported in or something. But just unexplained spawning really annoys me.

Crazy about saying the landscape is great for the atmosphere but isn't a place I want to spend a lot of time in?

It's called humour

They are in a way - you tender a contract just as you would for any other service. So in a game's case you'd say we want company X to make Y game in time for a potential Z release window. Company X then tell you if that's possible, so you vary the scope of the game and the release window (and cost) until you find a balance which the publisher is willing to pay and the developer thinks they can achieve. Overruns are no different than they are for other service areas.

Both - skills determine accuracy, but you still have to point in the right direction. You can adjust the amount of aiming help. There are various spell-like abilities too. I don't agree here - I think the dialogue in ME is actually some of Bioware's finest. It is very cinematic, which means it is less like you making lots of different choices and instead more like an interactive movie. The timing works really well and it flows better than any other conversation system I've seen yet. The characters are also some of the best - there are the odd annoying cheesy Bioware NPC type, but there is some wonderful subtlety to others. Which 'they' are you talking about? Interplay? Bethesda have done a great job - there was a time when they were a relatively small studio, but they've managed to stick to making games the way they want and I think their recent success is fantastic. Something I definitely think Obsidian can emulate and probably will just so long as the market doesn't go against them.

Purely an indication of something that fails my criteria I agree with you about modern EA too. I'd argue that Mass Effect is a better Bioware game than some of their older ones too (Jade Empire for example).

Why would it be any different to MotB? If you can manage that on the X700 then you're fine, but I think it'd really struggle.

+ Atmosphere Humour Performance Skills/perks and their effect on gameplay Above normal variation in how to go about quests/the game in general Combat Replayability - Engine stability at release NPC animations Bleakness of landscape (but it does contribute to atmosphere, just isn't a place I want to be all the time) Length of critical path.

Yeah I know what you mean, and completely respect that viewpoint (of DRM being part of a criteria whether to play the game or not). We all have are own criteria that we use to decide whether to play a game or not. No The Sims for me

Deux Ex, done. Was ok that it was more sci-fi than spy, but didn't really do it for me. NOLF, the demo was enough to put me off - was okay again, but not enough to win my money. I can't stand the spy genre.

I can't stand the idea/genre. But I'll keep an open mind incase there's something in this game likely to convert me.

Yes, absolutely agreed. Fallout 3 is a better example of how to do a shorter main quest and yet also decent side quests.

Why do you need DRM to save money on games? If you want to save money, just don't play games at all - you'll save lots that way MEPC took me something like 19 hours on my first play through which wasn't doing everything, and I'm already going back through it again. But it's like I said, short for an RPG, but long for a shooter.