Monte Carlo

It's refreshing, in of itself, that this thread hasn't descended into the usual flame-war. Oh no, look what I just went and said

As usual you are talking out of your you-know-what. My Bio purchase history, since BG2 has been NWN and Dragon Age. Jade Empire and the Mass Effects passed me by. I won't be buying DA:2. I will however, be sniping at it. Diablo 2 and Battle.net will I suspect be my next big gaming thing.

Look, the 'unreliable narrator' is a long-established literary convention (Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a classic example) which only goes to show the pretensions that drive this project. As the man said earlier, the unreliable narrator will be a device whereby whatever you do, Bio still tells you what happened. The excuse being, "it's an unreliable narrator, a classic literary device, look how clever we are." Lastly, the time frame will merely provide new, linear, activity hubs (Years 1-3, Years 3-7, Years 8-9 the YeAr 10 ThE YEaR of DaRk HERoiC FantASy!!). How do I know this, sport fans? Because of the hyperbolic spin around every previous Bio title since BG2. Cheers MC

It doesn't matter how tired the mook-creature-orc trope is, I expect the journo to know and elaborate. Crap journalism is crap journalism and gaming is very poorly served by it's attendant media. A movie correspondent wouldn't get away with that, unless he was trashing the film.

Tigranes, next time try it with the player character, Imoen + your own party Icewind Dale style (i.e. create a MP game and cut-and-paste it into your SP folder). This is a hell of a lot of fun, because you can bash the game up with a custom-built twink squad and try out all those classes you've heard so much about (I did it with a Kensai / Mage twink build, the notorious dual-classed Beserker Cleric, a Cavalier which is twinkier than a twinky covered in glitter and a Ranger / Cleric. Even with lots of mods and challenges it was hot knife through butter time and lots of fun.

'Ranks' are a bit of a misnomer, aren't they? There are more Catholics than Americans, which puts Pope Benedict right up there. Unless we are using the Stalin gauge of power 'How many divisions does the Pope have?'

Baldur's Gate 2 is a significantly shorter crit-path game. It was probably orders of magnitude cheaper to make too. Point not found. You're comparing production costs in 1999 / 2000 (Apples) to 2008 / 2009 (Oranges). In BG2 retrospectives in the mid-2000s, other industry professionals were citing the stronghold quests as an example of overly generous design.

The Force is strong in this one.

The main thing is that most outsiders view the US political system as more hegemoinc than it actually is, so this move looks like imperialistic arrogance rather than grand-standing. As I said, I am on the whole a big fan of the United States. Lived there, travelled there, like the people there. So why, over the past eighteen months or so, is the USA getting on my **** so much?

I went for a minor upgrade, namely a 1GB NVIDIA

Quel surprise! Vol speaks out of his arse. The primary engine for the EU in the 1950's, out of the European coal and steel stuff, was the fear of another pan-European war. The counter-balance to the US stuff was a French thing and came much later. Again, you speak out of your fundament. Look at the generosity of residence & employment rights to Commonwealth citizens several generations after the end of Empire, and our complete acquiesence to EU treaties and law. This, I suspect, would require you to think before posting though so is extremely unlikely.

^ I think they would, Grom, I think they are moving to a console-focussed model in line with virtually every other developer.

All the same, I can't get excited about it. The pre-defined PC thing is really a deal-breaker for me, everything else just adds to my initial indifference. It's still interesting, as a gamer, to observe what Bio is doing with the franchise and with CRPGs in general. Even if I think they are becoming a crusading force for mediocrity.

The Americans seem to favour non-reciprocal relationships. Union Carbide / Bhopal? Silence. Gulf of Mexico / BP? Uproar. The decision to release Al-Megrahi was loathsome and stupid. Indefensible. Then again, the American government makes loathesome and stupid decisions and nobody orders them to attend the political hearings of other sovereign governments. And if they did the Americans would refuse, and quite rightly too. That a handful of senators wish to whip this whole thing up with the BP angle seems to me more to do with the Democrats forthcoming kicking in the November elections than anything else. The presumption that you can summon UK politicians to give evidence betrays the 51st State mentality they have. I'd tell them to bugger off, too. I don't remember the USA being overly helpful around IRA terrorist prisoners and extradition in the 70's, 80's and 90's, for example. There is an occasional anti-British vein in American politics that I will call Mel Gibsonesque - we're all Redcoats / evil imperialists really, despite nowadays being a small and relatively insignificant island that offers nothing but material and political support to the USA. Under Obama, this tendency for some reason has accelerated to the point where I'm beginning to view America in a far less positive way than I did previously. I appreciate that the American government isn't analagous with the American man or woman on main street, and in my many visits to the USA have found them to be friendly and charming. It's just that American governments have a tendency to hubris that under Obama simply keeps increasing exponentially.

Bioware has a history of implementing grand features like this, it's to their credit by-and-large. Prime example? BG2 Strongholds. Most gamers will play BG2 once in one class and access one stronghold. Bio wrote, what, five or six? Magnificent, but futile from a mainstream gaming point of view. I think the origins are the same, but agree with Grom in that it simply wasn't viable to see them through. Which was when Bio hid behind the hype to conceal how, after the initial fireworks, they petered out like a damp squib.

A Bioware minion wrote of the art direction for Hawke... I presume that where this person works this actually makes sense.

Thanks, I'm going to order one on Monday after a bit more research, I'm going for more memory as per your suggestion, a faster processor and some other minor upgrades. I'm a bit disappointed that on a rig like this you actually have to pay extra for a Bluetooth module. I've not used Windows 7 yet, my gaming rig is still Vista. Any views / advice with regards to games and backwards compatability. For example, it seems inconceivable that I wont be installing some old Infinity Engine games on this rig.

Hurlie, would you go out of the box on the spec or would you beef up the processor / memory / video card? Linkie

Thanks, I'd rather pay a bit extra and have a little future-proofing.

I said too. Keep up.

I have a nice gaming rig, it's getting on a bit but eminently up-gradeable and I'm happy with it. I'm about to buy a laptop, I'm lucky in that I can afford a decent one and I've always been curious about getting an Alienware rig. Anybody have any views or advice. I'll be using it for writing and internet access too. FWIW I'm aware of people's love / hate with Dell but personally having had one or two I've had a pretty good experience. Cheers in advance, MC

Because, like, it can't be a genuine role-playing experience unless I grapple with dilemmas like having to slaughter kids / old people / puppies. What a crock. It seems that, as usual, a sizeable proportion of Bio fans want to (a) cyber every object in the game including barrels (b) have a soppy romance with anything else not bolted down and

From that preview: Yay!

Hmmm. The +5 Armour O' Spikiness. It feels a bit Dark Sun for some reason. Maybe the desolate landscape, it has a sort of fantasy PA feel which could be potentially quite interesting. Hawke looks like a younger, well-fed Duncan. I still don't want to play a pre-defined character or be a tamagotchi in Dave's fantasy novel.

MOAR FIGHTING IN TUNNELS. This is the bit Bio are good at, not soppy romances or silly fan-fic style back stories. DA:3 TACTICS: MOAR TUNNEL COMBAT is the title we are all waiting for.