entrerix

durlags tower sounds like some of the dungeons from 70's D&D games (as I understand them anyway, i wasn't playing back then)

its probably going to be as Tig is suggesting "rare and expensive" will mean about as rare as stimpacks and water were in fallout 3

but irenicus had great VO

article is back up: i really like that they are upping the damage on bows, i hate hate hate that they are making arrows hard to find... seriously... arrows are rare and expensive? what kind of retard world are they creating where a little stick of straight wood with a point on the end is so hard to find that its a valuable commodity to be used sparingly... i LOVE that they are making daggers part of the stealth tree and that they can one-shot enemies when used as a sneak attack. They are doing a good job making the weapons you use seem very different from one another to encourage multiple play-throughs with different character types. and yeah the plasmids in bioshock are more "fun" to cast at enemies than most of the spells in oblivion, so i guess they are looking at ok inspiration. i can't really say much because I never played as a full on mage in any TES game. I'm VERY worried that the kill animations will occur too frequently, and that the game will be annoying as hell to play because every time you get hit the whole screen will shake and jostle and your weapons will waggle around for awhile before you get to counter attack turning melee combat into a boring and muddled mess.

that was my experience with BG2 actually, though I was also tainted by just having finished torment before beginning BG2 and thinking "i wish this was more like torment..." while I was playing it.

if baldurs gate was not set in the forgotten realms, I probably would be inclined to agree actually. I'm going to play BG2 next and see if my fond memories of that game hold up ala fallout and torment, or if its a bit of a dissapointment ala BG1... edit: actually no, on second thought, the exploration freedom in baldurs gate really does still trump dragon age's writing and choice&consequences, so even if baldurs gate was not an AD&D game it would still be a tad better than dragon age, not to mention it actually was original and influential when it was released which grants it "art" points in my ratings system

yeah for sure its one of the times that I'm glad I own all the consoles and a gaming rig, rpgs on PC, action games on Ps3, shooters on xbox... plus random incentives for owning some games on certain platforms over others

i recently played dragon age again, and immediately after began a playthrough of baldurs gate 1. now I haven't played baldurs gate 1 since maybe two years after it came out... I'm about to chase sarevok into the under levels of baldurs gate and have these things to say as my "new review" of one of my old favorites. 1. this game does not hold up NEARLY as well as fallout or planescape does. (both of those games I consider almost as good now as they were then) 2. its still fun, but really just becuase its a pretty ok representation of AD&D in a crpg package. 3. good lord the combat system is a mess and so many of the encounters are just a clusterball of chaos. this game should have been turn based and it should have had less mook fights. (so yeah, its exactly like dragon age) re comparison of dragon age and BG 1. dialogue and characterization has both gotten better and worse since BG1. There are better implemented "details" in BG1, but the actual things people say to eachother is better written in dragon age, and you have MUCH more C&C in dragon age. Baldurs gate is a much better game though because at the time baldurs gate did all this stuff it was NEW dragon age is a decent game, but isn't really revolutionizing much of anything the way BG did. winner = baldurs gate 1, but not by as large a margin as I was expecting (unfortunately for many "wrong" reasons).

earlier i said there was no way i was going to buy Dead Space 2, and yet now I've preordered it... why? two reasons: 1) it's getting some good/great advance reviews which got me intrigued, 2) the ps3 version comes with a copy of dead space ignition AND extraction if you preorder. It doesnt hurt that I liked the first dead space either... so it turns out I'll be getting that godawful armor for dragon age 2 after all... now onto the marketing analysis: I'm a pretty hardcore video game consumer, I buy, on average, at least 3 full priced games every years, and in recent years that number has been closer to 10. I also buy about 5-15 bargain priced games each year. so what do i think of things like the armor cross promotions? I think they succeed in making a person who is contemplating both games contemplate them both a little harder. Thats it, but honestly, from a marketing perspective, the more seconds spent in contemplation of a title the better, it doesnt matter if I buy the title right away "omg free armour must buy!!!!!" but what matters is that it makes me think about it and keep both titles in my head longer, it's branding. Now what do I think of giving away big bonus's to preorders? I hate it because it's occasionally tempting enough for me to stop contemplating and actually preorder. A bonus along the lines of two free 10 dollar games with my preorder? thats a pretty tempting bonus. A "free" character... that pisses me off mightily, but I ended up caving and preordering (mostly because I had a gift certificate that I needed to spend though). So i think pre-order bonus' of all kinds are doing what is intended: branding, and giving all the people who are on the fence just enough of a nudge to hop over. side note: is there a market overlap between fans of dead space and fans of dragon age? absolutely. I can't imagine anyone seriously questioning this. As I said above, I'm a fairly hardcore video game consumer, I either buy at full price, buy at bargain, or seriously consider buying, any and all titles which get "good" or "great" reviews from the major outlets and from people on these boards. So in a year I will buy games of all sorts, so long as they are considered great or worthwhile games. Why do I do this? Because I like video games. I don't just like rpgs, I don't just like action games. I like good games. I tend to lean heavily towards some genres, but like in film I don't only watch horror films, I watch films of every genre. It's the art form (both games and film) which is of interest to me, the advancement of design over the years (having been playing for 20+ years now), and the fact that games are just a goddamn fun way to pass the time. also, this is probably deserving of its own thread but: I like games because they are the only form of art right now that my generation is getting to see the birth and growth of. Imagine being born in the year 1920 and living 80 years. You got to watch the birth and growth of film, television, radio, and rock music. Thats pretty goddamn awesome. I won't get that, I was born in 83, so all I get to watch is the birth and growth of video games (and the internet! and maybe some future art/tech that we don't really have right now), and I'm gonna cherish that and really pay attention, because in 60 years I want to be able to tell my grandkids all about how awesome it was to play super mario bros. on xmas morning when I was little, and then kick their asses in whatever crazy virtual reality shooty game we'll all be playing. and for people who say my grandkids won't give a damn, well, i disagree because when I meet old people who can tell my about when they saw casablanca in the theaters I certainly give a damn.

I'm sure you enjoyed those games to some extent, but I don't see how you could have enjoyed either game fully with such a short amount of time invested in them. i've beaten ss2 about 3 times, and deus ex at least that many, all told I've probably put almost 100 hours into ss2, and far more than that for deus ex, i was just posting my vague memories of how long they took to finish the first time I played them. usually when i first play a game I play it "naturally" as in, i don't look stuff up (unless im stuck) or try to "game the systems" or anything, i just try to play the game as I imagine it was intended to play. Hell, my first playthrough of deus ex I didn't sneak past a single thing in the whole game because I didn't realize that was a viable option, I just used a fully modded sniper rifle to murder everything (the game goes by pretty fast when you're not carefully picking your way through the levels)

two things: 1) that screenshot with the viking dude is pretty badass, and the character model looks 10x better than any in oblivion 2) milk finger made my day, laughed so hard. milk finger.

i didnt play the sequels, but golden sun 1 was wicked awesome back when it came out, I have fond memories of playing it between classes back when i first started college

sounds like that may be retconned in skyrim

teehee hee that looks TOTALLY STUPID. oh well, its not something I'll actually see in my game since dead space 2 will almost certainly be a bargain bin title for me when i get bored in summer 2012

good lord there are some weird playtimes being thrown around out there... ss2 was probably 20 hours for me, deus ex around 35 mass effect 1 my first playthrough was around 30, but second playthrough was only around 15 mass effect 2 playthroughs are all around 20 for me dragon age... I've beaten it twice now, the first time took me about 80 hours, the second time about 85 (because i had all the dlc). I actually believe it would be impossible for me to beat dragon age faster than that unless I were to start skipping quests or playing on easy.

because Im a sucker for polished rpg's, i usually end up buying the big rpg releases within a week of release, and then will pick up the goty edition if there is substantial add-on content once the goty costs less than $20. so it ends up with me spending about $70 total on the game, but usually get at least two nice full playthroughs this way. right now I'm already champing at the bit for all the dlc and expansions (if any) to come out for new vegas so the goty edition will get released so I can pick it up for a song next steam xmas sale (or perhaps summer 2012)

morrowind either

lair of the shadow broker is pretty good, i thought it was well worth the money not so much for the length of it but for the quality (its only a few hours long, but its got some exciting moments and is very well made)

new vegas improved fallout 3 in essentially every way. So if bethesda can use those improvements in Skyrim then everyone will be happy and rainbows and balloons will fill the sky.

I agree, problems with only one solution are the antithesis of pnp gaming. If a party knows that a dungeon will be riddled with traps and they don't have a rogue then they damn well better not go in there, unless they hire a rogue for the trip, or do research and attempt to find the engineers who created the traps or their descendants who might have kept notes as to the types of traps involved, or at the very least hire some low-level mercenaries to send in first to set them off... though the party would probably shift alignment to evil for doing that unless they were all evil to begin with. but yeah, they most likely would avoid the dungeon and find some other way of getting what they need.

you know what I do for a living, right?

it's ok 1 player, and really fun if you have a friend, i totally agree that playing with randoms is a bad idea.

not for me, I like resident evil. though for the record, imo dead space is not as good as resident evil 1-5 and code veronica. i still liked it though, i'll probably buy dead space 2 when it drops to $20.

I'm not a good DM, i'm a GREAT one. The players all know the rules though, the world is dangerous, you must be prepared for danger ahead of time. Part of being prepared is being ready for any situation because some dungeons have traps in them, some don't. Some dungeons have monsters in them that are resistant to magic, some don't. some dungeons have powerful NPC's or creatures that must be reasoned with, not fought. the players know these situations can arise at any moment and thus always make a well rounded party capable of handling any situation. (though our current game they have decided to have two rogues and no cleric, so they are being careful about stocking up on potions etc ahead of time, but they think the risks are worth it to have one rogue dedicated to traditional dungeoneering, and another to diplomacy) now, don't get me wrong, if I was playing with inexperienced players, or morons, I'd be more forgiving, but I don't make games with morons in mind.

When my players roll they know they need a rogue. traps, picking locks, scouting ahead, without someone to handle these tasks the party will die.