Nepenthe

There was a lot of homage going on in that trailer, from the fellowship of the ring mountain-climbing to the baldur's gate cue that went off when the dragon landed. Couldn't see much else from the postage stamp sized window, will check out later.

Or it's a timed exclusive, until Sony's stick and Microsoft's Watchamacallit hit the market.

On the other hand, it's the only game ever that i've had way more fun discussing than actually playing. YMMV I grabbed broken steel and operation anchorage over the past week, but didn't have the time (or really inclination) to play any further than load up my old final save and go through the 'rebirth'. Don't think I'll be picking up other DLC, maybe point lookout, but I'll probably skip the other two.

I think Fallout 3 is one of those games that feels a lot better when you are playing it than when you are thinking about it. Other games like this that I can think of from the top of my head are Jade Empire and Icewind Dale, at least.

Because it's obvious? I'm agreeing with Purkake here.

Wild guess: They haven't made up their mind as to the length of the delay, and won't announce anything until they have.

Not sure you could call that sitting on a finished game, since they were contractually prevented from releasing it before Half-Life 2? Must have been the worst engine licensing deal ever made, though.

We've had almost a year to see how it's worked out. I have no reason to doubt it hasn't. Of course, I've only bought Red Alert 3 this year (and the abovementioned Modern Warfare, and, er, civ revolution), so I have little personal input on the matter.

Yes. And no, you're probably thinking about the second song I mentioned or something. It actually took me quite a while to realise that Gorion and Minsc had the same voice actor. Mad skillz, indeed. Or maybe it's just the epic audio compression. Edit: I'm not as sure as I was, to be honest. That sounds way too epic for a one-sided struggle.

Only Microsoft requires them for all 360 games. http://www.videogamer.com/news/ps3_trophie...nuary_2009.html

I was thinking 'raving mad', but you might be onto something.

Nobody beats Vala the Amazonian from Secret of the Silver Blades and (to a lesser degree) Pools of Darkness. My first pixel-crush. Also, I believe trophies/achievements are required by the console manufacturers these days. Hell, some bits of Modern Warfare don't make sense if you play them on the trophyless PS3 version.

It's the Gorion battle music, that plays when the 'Armored figure' (I think that's the euphemism used) attacks you. In a semi-related note, I haven't had bg1 installed in a while, but I seem to remember there was a fairly epic battle tune playing at and about the final confrontation in the temple. For some reason I can't seem to find that on teh y0utub35 or anywhere else for that matter? Did I just imagine it, am I going nuts, or did the Shadow Wights* get it? *obscure Dragonlance reference

The only mission that started feeling a bit tedious to me was the second-last one. Most other missions are heaps of fun, and I still occasionally whip through one of them just for kicks (I don't do multiplayer).

The lawyers sure do. I think I read an EULA once. Or maybe twice. So not all lawyers regularly peruse EULAs.

Which is a Mac title. I didn't know copying mac solutions counted as pioneering outside Redmond.

I agree with you on everything else, apart from the shooting. Well, VATS is sorta fun, but regular shooting is just mediocre. I like the setting, and I guess the overworld/level design, to a degree where I can hang that 'above average' on it as well. This is based just on the main game, I only got the first DLC (well, Broken Steel, so first for me) yesterday and haven't played it yet.

All I know is that I'm a (grad) student, and I was really gagging for a game in June. Now I got Broken Steel (finally released for PS3), Pinnacle Station (that started finally working yesterday), Complete Galactica (blu-ray FINALLY hit Europe last week) plus a bunch of other movies I'm trying to juggle. And yeah, I was on a working trip abroad the last two weeks when all those came through, so I've already lost one week of excellent entertainment. Looking back at last summer, the completely dead June-July allowed for some real outsiders to shine - might not be a bad slot for AP, but I'll take it whenever I can.

I don't. First impression is very important for most of us, both in real life and (apparantly) in games. I try to keep open mind but sometimes when you first meet someone, you form idea of person based on very limited data. Even more odd is that it's often correct. At least the first impression of a person is generally not a minute clip of random bits edited together by a marketing guy wanting to show 'edgy'. At least I've never been introduced to a real person that way. But I take it back, this thread only took a turn for the absurd later on.

I'm also finding any character analysis based on the ~1 minute clip somewhat absurd. This forum has it's dose of FanDumb as well, mostly demonstrated via geek elitism propped by Bioware-bashing ("they are popular, they sold out, they make simplified plots for simple minds").

More like full of nerd rage and FanDumb. People obsess over the games to the point that nothing they hear of a game will they like. It's kind of sad, and I really feel for the (ludicrously few) people(, considering how massive the place is) who have to run those boards. It's a good source of information, and the level of info from one of the QA guys during the Pinnacle Station incompatibility fiasco was admirable (especially considering the amount of childish bitching directed at him). I wouldn't dream of reading more than about 1/10th of the threads, though, and happily they have the ability to filter just dev posts. The forum software is also the most primitive one I've had the (dis)pleasure to use in the 21st century, especially when compared to this one (which is probably the best one I've seen).

Sony could also want a mass effect challenger on their platform. Currently they only have a third world version of fallout 3 (I think the DLC came out last week, I've been away for a couple of weeks so haven't been able to check.) The leaked minutes don't say it, so I'm not going to speculate anything more on the Sony angle. edit: Wonder who I was trying to quote? It sure wasn't that one!

Yeah, you and a lot of people on the mass effect forums.

The people who CEOs answer to in publicly traded companies are generally not complete muppets. There are exceptions, of course.