Raithe

It all depends on your approach and what you happen to be looking for. ME2 has some plot holes, and some issues... but it's seriously space opera over the top... That's always a a part of it. You can have a lot of fun with space opera without needing to take it too seriously. It's not hard sci-fi. It's not meant to be hard sci-fi. The plot does seem more of an excuse to throw in the death/revival of Shephard, and then give a reason for going around and picking up the companions... Sure a lot of the companions have "daddy issues" in one form or another, but there's a lot of good content in there.

Amazon has a pre-order bonus for the pc version.. but technically it doesn't actually provide any in-game issues. It's a 24 page booklet. A "Field Guide" to skills, weapons, equipment etc...

There were valid points in there.. but there seemed an awful lot of bollocks where he's taken the (what seems to me) wrong view of how something was presented.. or hell, even gotten something out and out false. It almost seemed as if he'd sat down and worked out precisely how to take everything the wrong way to meet his expectations...

Film Bourne - Army Officer who gets volunteered into a secret program, and gets trained to blend in and assassinate people. So soldier type, tough, with martial arts and sneaky stuff added to it... Book Bourne - Army Officer (with Academic background), who loses his wife and kids, throws himself into a vietnam special operations group.. then volunteers to go undercover to track down another assassin because he has nothing to live for.. Soldier type with some martial arts, sneaky and a touch more technical.. (And yes dammit, I wanted to see either The Jackal or Medusa turn up in the films at some point..)

I think it's kind of like Ron Perlman. Girls love the voice, even if they don't have the looks of prettier actors.. <shrugs> I just know quite a few girls who happily do the "squee!!" when Vin is mentioned.

Well technically (just to be a little pedantic), Bourne would be a Soldier with a bunch of Martial Arts added on...

Hey, Vin Deisel happily admits to being a DnD geek. Hell, he even had the names of his favourite characters put into the tattoos he had to wear for xXx... And yet still a fair amount of the girls I know find him incredibly hot..

Or a pen n paper roleplayer Wargamers can get a better rep in certain locales... But say you play DnD or Mutants & Masterminds... Of course, then you get to look down on the Vampire Masquerade Larpers..

Take the Wing Commander film. (please, take it...) But seriously, that wasn't as bad as it gets a rep for... Sure it wasn't as comparable to the games... and really, after the push of the last couple of WC games with the full motion video and the various actors they had starring.. going for a film route didn't quite click the same chemistry. (And there were some quite entertaining "bloopers" from the WC games floating around the web if you can find them). It's the question of how to take something that's been pushed more as an "interactive movie experience game" and then turn it into a strictly standard sci-fi movie...

You have to admit, there are a lot of places where there seems to be frothing teenagers..or at least , people who seem to act as if they're frothing teenagers with attitude... That and the amount of blinding ignorance people seem to show off when they make comments on gametrailers and the like.. It can be very disturbing to realise these people actually seem to mean and believe the astonishing drivel they're writing... (yes, that might be a touch of arrogance on my part.) Gamers are a cross-section like any other "hobby". It's just very simple to stereotype certain extremes and carry it over.

Now I wasn't going to go there Oner...

That's been my planning, I've had a retail on pre-order for awhile. I guess my main puzzle that if you say Steam as is, is a form of DRM, but then most games from Steam also have Steamworks as DRM.. they suggests they have two forms of DRM... Or is that just a warped way of looking at it from the things you've said... I mean, okay, apparently you like Steam, you like Steam's DRM. And you feel offended that a game that's available via Steam doesn't use Steam's usual style of DRM.... That's your point of view and personal preference. Mine is that is seems a very artificial distinction to make, and makes a mountain out of a molehill. So I'm trying to understand it.

Well if they do decide to go with a movie based around Shephard... they might just go with a fem-shep.. Who knows, it could end up with Milla Jovovich starring in one more game adaption...

So you're saying that any company that produces a game that is being sold through a lot of outlets, retail stores, different online stores beyond Steam.. should then put the expense of having multiple DRM's on a game to suit each individual outlet? They produce a game, they put a single DRM to it, then put it out there.. Why should they then have to chop and change it just for one particular form of outlet? Besides, if you consider it a case of double DRM, why don't you just buy a retail copy so you have the disc and all? Or if it has to be a download, why not use one of the online suppliers that's not Steam? Then you won't have to deal with the hassle of Steam as well as the games DRM.... All seem valid options if you feel using the Steam version is "wrong" in some way...

Hm, standard space opera sci-fi.. The "Mass Effect" science to base technology around and to gimmick in a form of "The Force" Green skinned alien girls.. (well, blue mostly, but there was a nod to the green skinned alien girl..) Another universe where every alien species has a specific type of role.. and then humans come along and are the unpredictable jack-of-all-trades type to upset the applecart... Hey, it's no different to the standard fantasy setting being used to come up with lots of different things. It all comes down to whether there can be a decent story and interesting characters using the variations of the standard space opera sci-fi... Throw in a few nods and winks to the games... It could work.

Not a bad trailer... Although I'd have expected them to go with the "For Agent Mike Thorton... There are Always Choices" rather then "Unlimited Possibilities"...

Sorry, yup, I meant Steamworks. Running on about 2 hours sleep and not fully behind the eightball today. Well, to my mind, there's Steam which you run, you log into so they can identify your account and know which method of payment is yours.... and that provides the medium to download the product. Steamworks is the actual DRM that Steam tends to favor and is part and parcel of the needing to activate the game once you've run it. Now me, I'm just going by the fact that they've said "Alpha Protocol does not use Steamworks as a form of DRM". So to me personally, that's not requiring me to suffer through multiple forms of DRM. And Uniloc is basically a one-off thing the first time you install the game.. (well, until you get around to installing it on another computer...or have uninstalled it and later reinstall it) not having to check on it every time you try to run the game.... So you buy the game... you download the game... you have the game install.. you have the activation of that particlar game installation... then you play the game.... I'm just not getting what about that seems terribly difficult compared to so many games with annoying third party DRM's that require some other software running. GTAIV's combination of having to run the "RockStar Social Club" and the "Games for Windows" before you even get the game to start loading...

No.. You're confusing different aspects of Steam. Steam itself, on it's own, is a delivery system to download things. The Steamcraft DRM is a seperate matter. Yes, usually it's used when you download via Steam. But it isn't an automatic part of EVERYTHING that you get from steam. Steamcraft just usually runs in conjunction with Steam downloads, so most people tend to view them as a single thing when they're actually just two things that work together. However, with Alpha Protocol Steamcraft is not used. It doesn't check or require anything from the game to instal or activate. You only use the Steam side of it to download the game. The game solely uses the Uniloc drm as a method of activation.

As has been mentioned in the Sega forum.. and quoted a whole buncha times on various of the AP threads here.. Steam can be used to download the game. It's a medium to download the game. But Steam is not used as a DRM. Steam does not check anything beyond the fact that you have paid for the game. Once you download and install the game .. (which, again.. Steam does not use any DRM to check on) you only have the Uniloc DRM.. 5 activations at any one time across 5 pc's. And a seriously simple and easy way to deactivate them. Even if a computer crashes and you haven't uninstalled it.. you can log onto the website and deactivate it... Or when you next reinstall the game (if you happen to have used all 5 activations) you get a "you've already used 5 activations, do you want to de-activate an old use to activate this install?" option... Simple, clean. Not that invasive. And once again.. Not using Steam DRM

Hey, to throw in the odd idea... does a Mass Effect film have to be about Shephard and the Reapers? Or would it be based more on the idea of Mass Effect as the Universe, rather then that specific story? I seem to recall hearing some interview last year where Bioware talked about Mass Effect as a franchise and possibly doing other things set in the universe... Not just the action-shooter-rpg trilogy set around Shep... Of course, I might be confused and memory hazey......

Some new footage to watch.. but that voiceover.. Talk about reading a script woodenly. That and talking about active abilities as "perks"....

We've spent the last year talking about this game The moments of pause, then a brief amount of publicity in some form causing another major stir.. Repeat every month or so... Now there was the last couple of months, a fair bit of talk, but this week it's all anticipation and waiting to get the game in our hands to try it out and then have something to say about it..

There's something about that music video... I keep finding myself going back to watch it again... it's.... invading my mind..

It's not the heat that's getting to me... it's the damned humidity that's lingering around the coast. It just feels so damn heavy! and oppressive...

At some point I keep meaning to getting back to GTAIV and actually finishing it off... I'd opened up the last island..and then stopped for some reason.. Now it's like 9 months later and I can't quite stir myself to actually return.. Ah well.. Alpha Protocol soon to enjoy delving into in a couple more days..