Raithe

Shame on you. Kate Beckinsale in that outfit... and you ahven't watched it?? To visit the topic, have they actually shown much of the Saudi Arabia hub apart from the weapons dealers depot out in the back of beyond? I kind of get the idea that a good weaponsdealer / terrorist isn't going to stash an arms depot in the middle of the city.. I mean, it might not be the most realistic for aesthetics in some areas.... but that's one devil's advocate thought.

There's also Biowares new concept of making "free" DLC as part of the whole "buy a legit copy and you get access to this on day one". It's a semi-effective way of approaching piracy and the second-hand game market. Develop one sort of extensive DLC (ala Zaeed and Shale) specifically to coax people into buying the game first.. Then some months down the line release other similar versions for the cost of a couple of drinks from a cafe.. I think Kasumi's mission made a more interesting setup then Zaeed's. The whole "run around a factory on some jungle planet" was very similar to other areas within the game. While Kasumi's "mansion party break in" was something a bit more shiny and different from the rest of the game.

As I recall, you can't exactly master every skill in one gameplay.. and part of replaying is to choose different skill sets as you play through, changing the game play as well as the choices you make within the plot... Sure it can be fun to play through from the start with some bonus type things from having completed the game before, but eh, that's not what replay value is all about. It's about having a new experience within the game, not the same old expereince just with better skills from the start... So far the word is that there's roughly 20-30 hours of gameplay to go through the game once... And that there's about 12 hours of cinematics, of which in a single play through you'll probably see about a third of.. So to explore the game fully, you'll need what, to play it through at least three times in extremely different ways.. and spend about 50-60 hours playing it? That's not even counting the idle curiousity of mixing/matching choices to see how different combinations might have some effect on the story and the fun of seeing just how you manage to make friends/enemies... Value for money, pretty much any game that lets you play 20+ hours for the same cost as a couple of evenings at the pub with friends seem good to me.

Clash of the Titans (the new one) .. eh.. it's an average'ish movie. watchable, but I'd say more for the dvd then a rush to the cinema for it. Some nice acting, and the cgi doesn't get too in-your face for the majority of it. Kind of wish the Medusa had more of a speaking role then a slither and hiss.. I didn't get quite the same "epic greek" feel to it that I had watching the original version for the first time. Admittedly, I was about 12 when I saw that first.. but still... And no nods to the Harryhausen school of stop motion either..

Wasn't the best preview with the repeated comparing things to Bioware games... And yeah I saw that "hacking being a nod to Mass Effect" and had a wtf moment. I really do get the feeling that a lot of people seem to get very focused on a very basic approach when they look at some games...

There I was, reading this thread and giving some thought to actually buying a copy of this to play when it's out.... and then I suddenly remembered it's Ubisoft and that craptastic new drm. Which slides it into the automatic rejection pile. Ah well. I shall focus on the joys that Alpha Protocol should bring when it arrives instead

Amazon.uk pre-order is

a hobby is always a matter of perception and perspective.. shame on you Purkake, lame to one person is exciting to another.. tis the way of the world.

And at least while they do compare it to ME...they also mention that it was being made before ME was released..

I'm fairly motivated for it's release... Obsessed might be a touch extreme, but it's the game that I'm really focused on this year.

I'm pretty sure I recall there being some mention that not all missions relate to the main storyline.. That there are missions which you can choose to do just for the benefits of improving relations with certain NPC's, to gain intel on others.. things like that... Of course, that's relying on some hazy memory of earlier interviews...

I'm theorising that it will have passive abilties that reduce chance of knock back/down from cqb attacks, and such like... Rather then greater health, just a touch more likely to shrug off damage or act as if it isn't so bad. "Tis but a flesh wound..."

Taking the interviews together, it sounds like increasing skills with particular weapons will give you improvements to their use (damage, amount of recoil, the small things) and open up a mixture of passive / active abilties to use with those weapons.. but at the same time they've built it so that people who have serious "twitch" skills can treat it like a standard shooter if they don't bother to improve the gun skills..

Not a bad little interview...

Good luck then with the shift in work. And enjoy San Fran.

As of yet, there's been no announcement of a PC port.. they seem to be keeping this latest offering to the ps3 and xbox 360 for the moment... of course give it a year or two and it probably will be ported..but at the moment..

"A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening ear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn. " - Blackadder, "Something is always wrong, Balders. The fact that I am not a millionaire aristocrat with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino is a constant niggle." - Blackadder,

I have to say.. there's a patch of music in the middle of that.. that is very, very deus exy...

Always on top of things funcroc

Sir David Niven to the troops he led on D-Day during the beach approach : ""Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I'll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!" Asked by suspicious American sentries during the Battle of the Bulge who had won the World Series in 1943, Niven replied: "Haven't the foggiest idea . . . But I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother!"

..Dang nabbit, and now WoTC have announced officially that they won't be continuing with the license.. So the Unknown Regions sourcebook coming out in a month will be the last thing they do..

Yup, most games I play look fine on my widescreen monitor.. I see no point to the hassle of hooking up to the tv screen with the majority of games... Ah well, but to each their own I suppose.

I'm going with the odds being they'll be guest spots ala Wrex in ME2.. potentially shifting the way a world / group reacts to you (regarding whether they're dead, alive, loyal or not). Not something as overly complicated that it could get if you could take them along as squad-members. There's going to have to be some influence felt from ME2 beyond the basic storyline aspect.. And since the majority of 2 is about the squad members rather then the plot..

"Skipping details like whether science could actually do it or the country could pay for it, JFK declared that by 1970 America would put at least one guy on the moon then (as a recruiting tool) bring him back alive. We weren't around, but we've always pictured the NASA guys hearing that and doing spit takes. At any rate, America's best and brightest nerds had a decade-minus to cash the check JFK's mouth had written. Kennedy himself then busied himself with other affairs of state, like Marilyn Monroe...."

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Entertaining if you like Terry Gilliam films.. although I think I enjoyed Baron Munchausen more.. It did leave me curious how the storyline was originally meant to have gone.. but still not a bad film.