Raithe

In answer to Nonek's list of questions, I present a mini wall of text : There's the environmental interaction if you count the "hand" symbols on certain environmental stuff that lets you do athletic tests or similar to get around... So probably not quite what you meant. There are assorted "use Athletics or this handy piece of pipe you picked up to move this boulder" or "use Athletics to lower yourself down this rope/wriggle between this rubble" etc. There are day and night cycles of a sort time passes when you move between locations, it counts whether its day or night and yes, the map will then be light or in shadow, and I seem to recall that merchants and npc's aren't around during the night time. But there aren't that many locations you'll be wandering around like that to really notice. Spells aren't used outside of combat (well if you don't count pre-buffing before actual combat starts ) You walk on the maps, and it checks how much time takes to move between locations on the world map - Part of the story does open up elements allowing you to basically teleport between specific areas which when you open those up then cut down the time taken to move between locations on the world map. But that really doesn't have any effect beyond the fluff. Once you've moved past the initial Edict and 8 day time limit, time really isn't an issue (Apart from when you start doing research and crafting, and then its a sort of thing in the background). There are a wide variety of evil options, and yes things like judging someone guilty and making the method of execution being left with a large boulder slowly crushing the life out of them are in there. There are no good brother characters as such...The companions you get are fairly interesting concepts and well-written for what they are. They provide a few different viewpoints to the world and some of the banter between them can be both amusing and informative. You do get the push of most people being in the Bronze age style but with that introduction of iron and such. Since you're pretty much in a war torn area with lots of disruptions, most of the culture is in a state of ruin. Each faction has a certain identity, but I wouldn't say you get cultural emphasis behind it so much. No, no fighting in a phalanx. You only get to control your party and the closest you get to trying that would be selecting square formation and hoping for the best.. There are an assortment of swords - straight, hooked, curved, etc. But that's mostly a visual element rather than mechanical. It does adjust for some which are only slashing, some piercing, some combo of the two etc. Plus bows, spears, javelins, daggers, axes, two handed variants of most of them..the usual assortment of such. I didn't run across anything allowing extinction of the Beastmen. But then I did challenge the leader and become Prima of the main surviving tribe in my run through. Other options might be available in different run throughs.

Yeah. I've got nothing. I've been around my original spire a bunch of times. Talked to everybody. Clicked on the doohickey on top of that. I've got no reason to cast any edicts since I've got no enemies in any of the places I can select for edicts. I've gone down to Ascension Hall and nothings changed or new clickable there. There's absolutely nothing new that I can find that actually ends anything. There's no other options available. Edit: I think Life was about the 3rd or 4th sigil I got. There are 11 schools you can find in total.

Mechanic: Resurrection. Its a fairly standard Jason Statham film, decent action sequences that flow along, although I don't think it's quite as smartly done as The Mechanic. Jessica Alba, Michelle Yeoh and Tommy Lee Jones have fairly minimal supporting roles, but they do what they can with it. I think they focused more on the being kick-ass and doing action sequences rather than on that whole.. professional, engineering, genius at evaluating planning and setting up the kill methods that were the characters forte in the original. The bad guy is fairly shallow, and serves more as an excuse to pull in Statham's character back from the supposed dead and into taking out targets. If you want your generic popcorn fix its light, daft, and entertaining for what it is.

Hm. Okay, I think I've finished the game. But that's definitely odd. I will say the game has a lot better variety of evil choices, Sure, a bunch of petty evil, but very little moronic, raving psychopath evil choices.

For the most part I'm enjoying the by-play of factions and all. But there are some really annoying moments when you run into locations for the first time, with groups that you haven't killed anyone of before.. and you have to get through but your option is "kill them and turn them against you" or "leave and not actually progress any on the quest". There have been a couple of moments where I've had that, and the initial conversation almost suggests there should be some route to bypass or open up other options, so I've left it and gone off and spent a few hours trying to work on other things. Only to end up having to go back and kill everybody anyway because I've found nada fresh options. Wondering how much of that is locked in from the get go by your Conquest choices alone.

Yup. That was the one. Tucked away and for some reason I hadn't noticed that area on the map. By the time you've bounced up and down the scattered floors there you start losing track of just where you picked up the ones you do find..

Arg. I know there's a fine line between holding your hand in games and leaving you with no clue what you're doing.. But I have to admit I'm hitting that point of thinking I'm missing something blindingly obvious. Currently in the Burning Library trying to find four parchments. I've found three, just need the fourth to proceed.. But I've gone through this map half a dozen times and can't figure out where that fourth git of an item is to be found.

My build went with a diplomat who has dual weapons with a minor in lightning. I have to admit, I'm not having too many issues with the Companion AI. They seem to use their abilities fairly well, and adding a couple of spells to everyone is also useful. Having a couple of extra heal or buff spells that they use on their own recognizance without micromanaging it is nice. Of course, saying that, the pathfinding AI truly sucks donkeys balls. They constantly get hung up or walk in circles around an opponent before carrying out the attack you told them to, so some really bizarre decisions there.

.. And RIP Robert Vaughn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM

I actually went back and played through that first part again. Things make a lot more sense when you realise all those small scraps of paper you found are the spell doohickies you need to learn to create the spells that stop mobs swarming you. Now I can create frost cones and ranged lightning bolts , heal from a distance and such like.

To insert something else here... Since he can't make another Hellboy, Ron Perlman is going to run for President in 4 years.

The whole Conquest slice of things was an interesting part to the character creation and I'm curious just how that'll turn out as the game proceeds. Made my way through the first stage and pausing at the meeting with the Archons so I can deal with real life stuff.

So is this the song for the day? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7APmRkatEU

Huh. I was about to jump back into a bit of arsing around on ME3. I hadn't realised that they have to validate all DLC with the servers every single time you run the game, I'd assumed it was like the previous games where it validated the first time you switched it on. So with the ME server apparently being down, it won't validate anything and therefore won't let me load my save game.

Ran through the tutorial of Dishonored 2, it's looking fairly pretty and keeping to the atmospheric slice of the first game. Trying to decide if I reaaaaly want to start playing the game proper at 1am....