mkreku

I'm pretty sure that non-lethal takedowns are a part of the game, as no spy would be able to keep themselves hidden for very long if you left a big pool of blood everywhere you went. Unfortunately, they hadn't decided if we'll be able to drag bodies around the last time the subject came up..

I really enjoyed the original Far Cry. When it came out I had not seen anything like it before. Every FPS before Far Cry looked like FEAR or Doom. And you CAN screw up Far Cry; take a look at Crysis for a game without a soul. But the Gothic situation is also a win-win for me! I mean, I know I am going to enjoy Risen, I'm that much of a fanboy. But now I'm getting three attempts at making a Gothic-like game! Risen from Piranha Bytes, Gothic 3 expansion from India (I don't have much hope for this one, no) and Gothic 4 Arcania from Spellbound (this might be good, you never know). With a little luck we'll just be getting more good games to play!

Hey, we haven't played it yet, it might become good :D It doesn't really matter anyhow. Whatever happens with the Gothic franchise, we're still getting Risen. Also, when Crytek lost the rights to Far Cry, most people believed Ubisoft would screw up the license using their own developers. Noone knows for sure yet (since Far Cry 2 hasn't been released) but Crytek's own 'new Far Cry', Crysis, was technologically impressive but otherwise forgettable. Meanwhile, Ubisoft's Far Cry 2 is looking better and more impressive for every day that passes. My point is, there is still hope for a good game even though Spellbound are making Gothic 4 (or whatever it is called now) and these Indians are making the expansion.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/starbreeze...ic-ea-franchise Noone knows. But with a little luck it's.. uh.. what the hell does EA have that I would want to play? Ultima perhaps?

It's not so bad after patch 1.6 (although I did experience a crash to desktop yesterday, for the first time since installing patch 1.6..). The worst problem with Gothic 3 is that it's so demanding for your computer and even if you have a top of the line rig, the game still stutters from time to time. Also, if you thought Gothic or Gothic 2 were difficult, Gothic 3 is worse. I am level 60+ right now and I am still getting my butt kicked by random packs of wolves. The same wolves you happened upon when you started the game as a level 1.. Other annoyances is the way your former companions seemingly ignore you for most of the game. The same people you used to talk to, solve quests with and fight evil with are now saying like.. five lines throughout the entire game. They've become shallow and that's off-putting for a lot of the Gothic fans. Still.. You've got an absolutely enormous seamless mass of land to explore, with three different settings (Viking, the usual Gothic and Desert). There are over 500 quests to solve and three different paths to follow throughout the game (each one with its own ending and quests). And no, they're not all Fedex either. But they are, for the most part, pretty difficult. Usually it involves finding missing persons or collecting runaway slaves or trying to find more people for a rebel camp or something. A lot of the quests require careful exploration, which I like, but I understand it annoys a lot of people. Be prepared to fail quests, something which isn't even possible in the normal Bioware Standard game. I like Gothic 3. It's the weakest in the series, but it's still head and shoulders above most of the competition (for me).

I thought this was kind of funny.. But I bet the Brits don't.

The reason I included Vista in the calculation was that it's always included in pre-built computers and I wanted to match the one Will posted earlier as close as possible. Also, the Vista I linked is the 64 bit version, which is needed to take advantage of the 4GB of RAM I also linked.

I'd recommend the Geforce 9800GTX+ 512MB if you like Nvidia or the Radeon HD 4850 512MB if you like ATI. They are both excellent value for your money, although none of them are really "cheap". ATI's card is slightly less costly than the Nvidia part and they perform about equally.

Wow, it looks great! I've seen previews and screenshots before and it's looked like crap. But these videos make it look like Gothic :D

A few pieces of art from Risen: http://piranhaclub.eu/forum/showthread.php?t=1156 Apparently there will be women in Risen. The Gothic series is kind of known for being a huge sausage fest :D

Finally someone who thinks like me! Now do a RPG using this way of thinking: no magic, nothing supernatural, just real life. I'm hoping Alpha Protocol will come close to something like that, but they have unlimited ammo and twin-gun wielding teenage girls..

Yeah, I am wondering about the gameplay in Heavy Rain. It seems like they actually decreased the control you have over your character from Fahrenheit and built a game consisting of a chain of scenes consisting of various quick time events! Does anyone remember that old laser arcade game Dragon's Lair..?

Oh, and I now noticed that I never actually included the link to the motherboard I had looked up! If you calculate the price from the original example post, you'll see that it adds up to $764. So just add a board for around $80. I had chosen an ASUS one. MSI are good too. And ABIT (mostly for overclock enthusiasts). Oh, and if you find yourself with any spare money, THIS is where you should spend them. I usually splash a lot on the motherboard since it's such a vital part of the computer. $79.99: ASUS P5K SE EPU (energy saving functions): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131278

You would get a thick book of a manual along with your ASUS motherboard. In it there are explanations on how to assemble everything. Just remember to not shock any part with static electricity, follow the manual and ask for advice if something is unclear and it really is no problem. In the example build I posted above, you would not need to worry about assembling the PSU first, since it comes pre-assembled with the Antec case.

I have so far not noticed any improvement in ANY application (neither games nor serious ones) from my four cores. In fact, I was able to overclock my two core version of the same processor HIGHER than this four core version, so in reality I actually lost performance! I don't know why I fell for the MORE CORES hype, but it isn't worth it right now. Trust me.

Yes, please let's turn this thread into a "Who can google sociopath the quickest and pretend we all knew that already?" game!

I tried building a computer that would match or exceed the rig you posted above on Newegg.com. The result: $26.99: Samsung 22x DVD burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827151171 $99.99: Antec Sonata III (with 500W Antec PSU): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811129024 $69.99: Samsung Spinpoint F1 500GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822152098 $179.99: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102747 $87.00: Corsair 4GB PC6400 (800MHz): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145184 $189.99: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115036 $109.99: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit English: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16832116488 = $843.93 - $20 (mail in rebate for Corsair RAM) - $20 (mail in rebate for Sapphire GPU) = $803.93 That's $4 more than the rig you posted earlier, and I bet this setup beats the prebuilt one in almost every aspect (not sure about the hard drive since they never mentioned the brand). Of course, you'd have to build it yourself.

That's a decent setup. Only real problems I see with it is that the PSU doesn't fare well with upgrades. Also, as usual, the weak point is the GPU. But this time you're in the mid-range and it will support all the games you've mentioned in this thread. Just don't expect to get blazing frames per second with everything on max and ridiculously high resolutions. You will be able to play WoW maxed out though, no problem. Not Crysis, not even close. But then again, even Bok's rig kneels under Crysis on max. I could recommend that. It would support you well enough for a while, and when you feel the need for something stronger, all you need to do is upgrade the GPU. This does not matter for you, but I must say whoever built that setup chose a really weird motherboard. Why choose a motherboard with integrated graphics and then ship it with a GPU? I don't get it. And for the record, I still think you'd be better off building your own rig. No need to compromise on any part. We don't know the brand on the RAM, hard drive or the DVD drives in this case. I'm personally very picky with that stuff.

I'm playing The Bard's Tale. When I reviewed it, I played beyond the starting area and a few areas further before I gave up and submitted the review. I hated the camera and the way the game automatically upgrades your equipment and sells everything unnecessary out of your inventory without you ever having to go to a store (it happens the same moment you pick something up, unless it is better than what you already have). And the combat seemed too simplistic and unexciting. But I was bored today and found the disc lying around so I installed it and now it feels streamlined (the word I hate the most, usually) in a good way. Weird how opinions change with time. I would still not give it great grades, but I would probably give it a slightly better score now.

We Risen-nerds think it might be the game's hero :D Oh, and the trailer on Youtube:

Oh great, a super spy that can be defeated by a potted plant.

I believe that's almost the entire fight. In one gif! :D

I started like this too, but only once. I was unable to put the damn PSU into the case after I had installed everything else... Never gonna happen again Lesson learned: don't buy crappy cases.

Hmm, looks like I was wrong. The Orb and the Oracle: Dungeon lords is a stand-alone expansion to Dungeon Lords and there will be a Dungeon lords 2 sometime in 2009, apparently. http://press.jowood.com/html/News/news_det...&bereich=61