Nepenthe

Yep. Though I lost interest in FR with the latest revision - and the fact that they never capitalised properly on the Bhaalspawn saga with tie-in products. Dragonlance is definitely my favourite RPG setting, the stuff Sovereign Press and Margaret Weis Productions released for 3e D&D were brilliant. In fact, they were so good that when Wotcy went forward to their 4th edition (and killed the Dragonlance line), I chose to stay back in 3e with the amazing books I had.

I share your excitement. As do I. I'm maybe paranoid, but the main character (frame 1) is looking somehow more "anime" than he used to. Square Enix involvement scary. A 2027 setting would/could/should mix "futuristic" architecture with the decrepit ~collapse scenery of Deus Ex. Let's see how they handle it.

Currently the Nepreference system ranks as follows: Mass Effect 2 > Alpha Protocol = Mass Effect > Dragon Age: Awakening > Dragon Age: Origins > a big void > Fallout 3 Fallout 3 is the only game that has taken me a ~year to complete (or how long it took for Broken Steel to get released on PS3... 9 months?). I completely lost interest in it twice, but came back both times to try to finish it. It's been gathering dust ever since, and I honestly don't see myself suffering through it again. I feel like the guy seeing the naked emperor whenever people praise FO3, I really don't see what's the big deal - ok, the DLC was on a relative scale really good and the 3 I got were great value for money when compared with, say, DAO DLC, but that's about it. I won't start thinking up conspiracy theories, but I think it's pretty obvious that some of the major U.S. review sites have approached Alpha Protocol with a definite negative bias, overlooking the positive aspects and overemphasising the negatives. I find the ones linked to on the official Alpha Protocol facebook page to be mostly quite fair (one was crossing over into fanboyish territory). The tearing is godawful, though, but I guess tearing beats the DAO judder we PS3ites got. Oh yeah. There is something I like about Fallout 3. The CE lunchbox is fun.

I'm sure we can think of a few more alternate spellings first, though!

While I'm not going to compare the game to ME2 (which I probably preferred to AP), I agree with your statement here. I haven't had a game take me so far out of my comfort zone (in a good way!) in ages. While some of the "tough decisions" are a bit of the slightly contrived Virmire variety, they're actually hard decisions. The conversation ticker just adds some sweat-factor to it. Need to give it another playthrough soon, so I can see how much the order of things etc. really change the experience. Like would I get some decent assault rifles to the store this time around!

I also have epic (and I mean EPIC) screen tearing when I even flick the camera - really hope something could be done to this. Along with texture pop-in that manages to make Mass Effect 1's look "mild and rare", those are pretty much my main issues. Classic PS3 port fare, I'd say (along with classic Unreal Engine fare, when ME2 style trickery is not used to overcome it). Gameplay wise the using skills is kind of a drag, so I wound up using just chain shot for most of the game, with awareness occasionally and fury a few times towards the end. Probably not changeable at this stage, but for future console games, it might be worth it to give the control scheme a serious thunkin' The PDA is indeed a bit slow, and having to access the map through multiple steps gets kind of tedious.

How about you actually get hands on the game before you start talking about its flaws in every thread?

"Zephyr"?

That includes me. And I went through tutorial a bit faster than I should've.

Restarting from the Safe House fixed that. Inneressin'

Hit Taipei first, made it through all the initial missions until I get here. After Omen locks me up and I start my escape, there's a sequence where I have to fight my way up a bunch of catwalks surrounding a smallish open space. At the end of this sequence there's a door that is apparently supposed to lead somewhere. Currently it leads me to a black room with no textures loading - when trying to navigate the room I always fall outside the game area. Have been able to replicate this bug three times now from last checkpoint, will try loading from mission start to see if it's some kind of save corruption. p.s. EU version, PS3, released Friday.

Interesting. I've always assumed that Bio would tackle a Mass Effect MMORPG when the current trilogy and TOR are out of the way, but that post doesn't necessarily indicate a MMORPG. Mebbe somekind of campaign co-op play? *shiver*

Maybe it has... just the other way around. I.e. their losses are making them desperate. Considering how recent the newest DRM is, I don't see how it could have. If it has any results, they'll be seen later. Uhh... I meant bad results causes them to try new desperate measures, like their recent DRM scheme. I can't for the death of me see how that one is accomplishing anything other than alienating people from their corporate brand. Walks like a desperate company, quacks like a desperate company and all that. I have no idea how I managed to completely misread you. Sorry about that, it's either frostbite or sunstroke, depending on the country I was in at the time (Finland or Greece)

Maybe it has... just the other way around. I.e. their losses are making them desperate. Considering how recent the newest DRM is, I don't see how it could have. If it has any results, they'll be seen later.

Not on the x360 & squad ammo. I see. The only time I ever seemed to run into that problem on the PC was with Grunt and auto levelup turned on. He'd max out incendiary ammo asap and pick squad ammo by default. I had guys overrule Squad AP/Warp ammo with their lvl 2... whachamacallit anti-droid/shield armor against organics. A drag. Never used auto levelup, never will!

Not on the x360 & squad ammo.

Haven't played it post-patch, either, but it's also supposed to remove the annoying bug/issue where teammates overrode the ammo settings you'd put on them, with a couple of others I haven't really encountered. There's also new "story-driven" DLC coming out in June.

Actually, your point might be the critical one here. The computer I have can't run KOTORs properly (long story, laptop etc.), so my point of view into exclusivity is pretty much on the x360/ps3 divide. Those with real computers and not just glorified typewriters obviously have a very different picture of what is "exclusive" to the x360 than I do. So, I guess from that point of view, the PS3 would have different exclusives. And yes, we have different tastes in games.

It's both, but the data is somewhat more interesting than the analysis.

I have quite opposite oppinion on this matter... Care to elaborate, as I did?

I doubt Obsidian would be hired to work on an action/shooter game, it's not their area of expertise and there a LOT of small devs that would be more suited. With the lines between shooter and rpg blurring constantly (Mass Effects, Wolfenstein, some others I'm forgetting on the shooter side, probably Alpha Protocol, as well) I don't think this is a viable distinction any longer.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_...ying-a-console/ Or my take, Sony has weak exclusives. Frankly, I don't think this has changed a lot, I got by just fine with just an xbox in the last gen (in fact unless I'm completely forgetting something, the four original xbox games I own, the KOTORs, Deus Ex:IW and Jade Empire were all xbox exclusive on consoles), and unless I'd wanted the PS3 for the BD capabilities and smaller noise output, I'd probably get along fine with just a 360 now. As it is, the exclusives (Mass Effect 1-2, hitman: blood money to a lesser degree and Monkey Island SE originally) were 100 % the reason for my pickup of an x360. So hat's off to Microsoft for the exclusives (the timed exclusivity on Fallout 3 DLC and currently Alan Wake, a game of almost national pride here are just some others I can think of at the moment). So... what's it with Sony and their exclusives? GOW? Uncharted? Why am I the wrong target audience for this console, when I'd like to think that as a movie buff the kind of cinematic Mass Effect type game would be right the thing to target at me, or is the Blockbuster nature of, say Uncharted 2, something that the demo just wholly failed to get across?

Happily Morgan didn't write it (he wrote 3 and 4).

I wasn't commenting on difficulty one way or the other (I don't play enough shooters to know what's going on), more on the gameplay and "story" progression - or lack of it. After Rogue Spear and Dark Corners of the Earth, I don't particularly crave for an extra challenge outside my work life, anyway.

Finished Wolfenstein. Was bored to tears - couldn't think of any reason to use other weapons than the two machine pistols and the Kar98, the "big guns" were gimmicky and didn't seem to do much. The Veil thing was fun enough, but general gameplay just didn't seem to cut it with basically three types of enemies: mooks, ultrafast close combat troops and superarmored heavy weapons troops - the fact that they came in a 2-3 skins each didn't much add to it. Either RtCW was MUCH better, or I've just finally outgrown shooters.