Monte Carlo

My favourite let's-remind-you-how-you-play mechanic was the "Re-rolling stats counter" in ToEE. Let's have a how many times you die counter in DA so you can post it up on the DA social networking thingie.

There are four types of intellectual properties in any entertainment franchise, be it movies or games (etc). (A) (being the most common) - wildly popular but awful commercial, lowest-common-denominator tat. This can be quite good fun now and then, but it doesn't change what it is. (B) - Niche, too-cool-for-it's-own-good underground stuff. © - Mainstream stuff that, like a reasonably successful soup, uses a bit of every ingredient. (D) - The rarest and most holy, the IP that is of (B) but crosses over successfully into ©. Nightshape, instead of mingling amongst the peons from his aerie on the M4 tech corridor, should get back to his pod and start figuring some (D) style options. Cheers MC

^ I feel your pain. Having said that, the combat looks reasonable. I too have some reservations, but I doubt it'll be a melee screen-saver like some other Bio games.

It's like two bald men fighting over a comb.

off-topic If every purchaser of Dragon Age would recieve the same treatment, then Dragon Age would also be remembered as the game that no one pirated. Every single copy played was bought. Think of the deliverer as a female, in chainmail bikini *Ka-ching!* /off-topic You, sir, are a genius.

I only watched the first minute or so, very excited German chap opens the Media-Kit DA pack. It appears to be wrapped in a swatch of parchment bound with a leather cord. This is a map of Ferelden. Inside is a comedy plastic box cunningly disguised as an Epic Tome of POWA. Inside is... ... a mystery 'cos I got bored at this point. Then again, for a media freebie it did look very nice. The journo had a minor Geekgasm. Cheers MC

I know it's difficult, and I'm as guilty as the next guy with a Barratt Light Fifty and a high marksmanship score, but you don't have to use cheese tactics. As for the mooks lining up to be shot - well it is a homage to cheesy 80's action movies

I love JA2, it's in my top three all time games. If they made a console game out of it I wouldn't have thrombosis. OK, I'd be unlikely to play it but so what? Thing is, and as others have hinted, what is Jagged Alliance without the strategy map and the tactics? It's any number of generic merc games with a cheesy 80's action movie theme. Fallout is different - it's such a fully fleshed-out world with a unique style. Although I'm hardly of the Fallout taleban, I can see why people want to protect it. Imagine MT:W2 without the strategy map. It just ain't right, is it? It's like taking the burger out of a Big Mac and insisting that it's still a Big Mac. As for RTwP... I've never seen a real-time game plausibly capture the tactical level use of firearms in a squad level game. Hey, I'd love to see a developer try and succeed, I'm sure there is a way.

Fallout isn't a good example. Their hardcore fanbase is, in my view, utterly unique and completely incapable of being satisfied. Unless FO3 was going to be a turn-based, old-skool CRPG. Designed by a bloke on a leash in their basement. Maybe an imperfect but more apt comparison would be the (rabid) fanbases of franchises such as Dr. Who and Star Trek. The people refreshing those IPs with new movies and TV series did a pretty good job of winning over and then using them as a viral marketing tool (in the old days we called it word-of-mouth). So, it must be very tempting for games developers to throw a hissy fit when their old customers don't like their new offerings. But, before, tears dribbling down their little cheeks, they blast their fanbase out of the airlock like Ripley cuddling her cat, maybe they want to consider if it's possible to utilize them as an asset. It must be extremely tempting for Bioware (for example) to get royally pi$$ed off with the hate. But it's chicken-and-egg... how did Bioware get where it is. Hey, I'm sure a scorched earth strategy will turn over a whole new generation of adoring, Bio-engineered fan-drones, but then again it might not. Bio understands this, ergo it's online community and odd let-me-tell-you-about-how-many-Genlocks-I-killed-today Facebook thing. Cheers MC

^ yes, a severe lack of decent beards (unless you are a dwarf) but my human has the most splendid walrus moustache ever. Like the goofy in-game portrait options, I hope you can do that with the NPCs too. It's these small things that make all the difference, especially when GUI (Gaming Under the Influence).

^ Yeah, I think this is all about letting folks make avatars for that social networking thingie that I personally have no interest in. Still, it was a good idea to release it, it saves me an hour making silly faces when I get the full game

Let's face it, this is just a face-generator. At least it's a decent one.

Yeah, I was expecting to see the inventory screen, maybe, and some items / equipment. Oh well, I wasn't expecting a great deal but the character generation system is quite, ahem, simplified.

Am having fun making butt-ugly characters (grotesque dwarfs - huzzah!), but not a lot else to do but gaze at the skill trees.

Maybe it's my fairly new and insanely powerful Cray supercomputer, but "Updating DirectX November 2007 (this may take a while)" really is... taking a while. Am wondering it is in fact a cutscene designed as a developer in-joke.

^ Good idea Let's live blog our fun with the CC! 85% downloaded, wait out for exciting field reports regarding our progress.

Yeah, I'm downloading it from Bio... am getting 229KB / Second. That's about twenty minutes for me. Am going to try to make a face that looks like me but handsome.

^ Yeah Maria is employing a bit of a la Monte style hyperbole there. The PC dumb-ass sword-toting hero gently taps the dragon on the side of it's swede once in the entire combat. It's quite clear that snarky mage chick decides to end the boy's play-time using magic, an inversion of what Maria describes. Now it's finished, I see shades of 300 (looking over the rim of his shield at the horde.... "steady") and yeah, the muzak is a bit meh. Then again it is punctuated by BG-1 homage type choral stuff. Which is cool. Lastly, Morrigan in that, for some reason reminds me of Miranda Richardson. Cheers MC

Yeah, I take the point and can see why Oner thinks it's a bit cliched, but then again it's a difficult genre in which to be genuinely original. It's vanilla sub-Tolkein fantasy guys, what else do they have to work with? Characters armed with senitent pieces of tropical fruit? A trailer that concentrates on the inventory system? Personally, I don't think a spell whereby you turn an enemy into a walking IED is a cliche, I think it's pretty darn cool. Yeah, the red-haired chick = Legolas with a bit of Crouching Tiger... about it, but hey those are cool character tropes - who wouldn't want to be like them in a game character? Stenn is the Terminator with dreadlocks - er, that's pretty cool from where I'm sat too. I find myself in the deeply ironic position of defending Bioware marketing, but sometimes you can be a bit too clever with this stuff for your own good. This trailer was polished, with high production values and exciting combat... it sends a deeply positive message about the development goals of the people who made the game. Whether the reality of those goals are met remains to be seen, but for me that trailer was pretty much on the money. Cheers MC

What's so bad about it? For starters, it doesn't have Marilyn whatisname caterwauling in the background mixed with scenes of pixellated boobies and unconvincing blood fountains.

The 'Ashes' trailer looks great, there's no getting away from that. I don't think it's meant to do anything more than show off that it's an epic, vanilla fantasy party-based game with lots of fighting in it*. In that respect it's very efficacious. Cheers MC * The Urk Hai dude looking extremely buff but taken out by one arrow - it's a bit Indiana Jones and the guy with the scimitar if you remember the scene.

Still confused about this 'mandatory character', being old-fashioned I took mandatory to mean, well, mandatory. How can you have three NPCs you've chosen in your party of four plus a 'mandatory' NPC?

For the record, I don't know where you got this. I thought it was quite clear at this stage that you're more than able to attempt to solo the game (save a few points here and there). When people say "mandatory NPC" they are not talking about that NPC taking up one of your 4 party slots. In which case I'm confused.

^ Oh, and my guess for annoying mandatory NPC is either Alistair or the Imoen-Exposition chick. Why? 'Cuz they both appear in most gameplay vids I've seen and because I already can't bear either of them (such is my luck).

^ You just don't get it, Al, do you? One mandatory NPC (in a party, it will be remembered, of only four) is a mandatory NPC too many. Hell, I played BG2 first time around with *gasp* no Imoen. It was a great game, I actually survived missing all the extra dialogue and plot stuff. It wasn't as if I didn't know she wasn't important as the plot forced me to rescue her (I love how they handled that, remember the dialogue that went 'I've rescued you but there's no room in my party right now,' and you abandon her to Spellhold). If a game needs a 'plot critical' NPC who's with you for the entire bloody game, then the plot needs editing, probably with an axe. A join-a-long NPC for an adventure or two for plot critical reasons... sure. One that radically alters my party composition and who I might utterly hate and have to suffer for 80 hours? Bad call. Cheers MC