Raithe

"It's not easy for some to accept, but the Soviet Union really did spend decades of time and untold fortunes in efforts to undermine non-communist government arounds the world. The USSR attempted to use espionage, propaganda, two-headed transplant operations, blackmail, the Olympic games, murder, kidnapping, ESP, military force, drugs, lies, imprisonment, ballet, torture, terrorism, and an army of half-man, half-ape soldiers (no, we're not making any of this up) to make the globe turn red. Those commies really did want to take over the world, were quite ruthless about it, and non-jackasses should be supremely grateful they failed. If the Soviets had won the Cold War, their system would have been imposed on us and (for a start) many of us smart-ass gamer types would be gulag-bound. Sure, there are those who say America is a fascist country, but here's a test for them. If a person can criticize his government for being fascist without winding up dead or in jail, it's not really fascist. Moreover, everyone who has lived in a real totalitarian state earns the right to punch them for trivializing their plight. The previous section outlined a litany of sins the USSR commited during its losing effort in the Cold War. It's a matter of public record that the US and its chosen allies did pretty much all the same things to win (no half-ape super-soldiers though). To be sure, it was often for shorter periods of times and in smaller numbers, but it happened all the same. Was it worth it for the sake of democracy, etc.?"

One of the journalists who got to see/play one of the previews did say that going through the mission guns blazing was much faster then sneaking. Apparently, you actually have to be careful if you try being discrete and sneak past people... and this takes longer then just running around with bullets flying... The storyline mechanic also uses a flash forward / flashback technique.... Almost as if Mike (your character) is being debriefed on what's happened and then it flashes back to the mission and you make your choices... Then it jumps back to the debriefing/conversation. (and I'm fairly sure it was mentioned that choices in the debriefing converstion will affect the way flashbacks happen). Also the flashforward is to help reveal some of the consequences of the choices you make.. Not sure on the total "length" of the game in a single playthru.. but it has been reported that there are 12 hours or so of cinematics in the game. In a single playthrough, a player will see about 4 of them. Also, since so much has been made of how different choices and play styles will really alter how the game goes, I'm seeing a lot of replay value in it...

Quite a few people are comparing it to a Deus Ex style of gameplay from what they've seen.. Various hubs that you can move between, and can choose when and which you move between them. Different missions opening up in the hubs that again, you can choose to do in different order... Within each mission there are multiple ways to carry them out.. not sure how much back and forth/exploration can occur while on a mission or whether you'll be channeled always forward by events... But they wanted to make sure that if you choose to put all your skill points on Technical Aptitude/Sabotage or Sneak/Martial Arts you can go through without having to wave guns around .. or if you've dumped all your skill points on the different guns you can blow lots of things up and expend large amounts of lead Obsidian hasn't really mentioned much about the levelling up that I've seen, but the choosing how you spend your skill points has been fairly covered. As you put more points on a skill you gain a mixture of passive abilties that are always active, and active abilties that grant special moves when you activate them. There are, 9 skills I believe: Assault Rifles, Pistols, Shotguns, Submachine Guns, Martial Arts, Toughness, Stealth, Technical Aptitude, and Sabotage. From what's been said, missions can be changed to differing degrees depending on what missions/hubs/people encountered previously.. so different options and attitudes will open up depending completely on what order you've chosen to do things... Also, the morality of the game has been discussed a fair bit. There's no good/bad switch, they're keeping to the idea of the "grey" spy lifestyle. Characters in the game are supposed to react to you depending on the choices you've made, whether you've been aggressive, professional, suave.. whether you've approached things in a "kill everyone and their mother" or if missions have been ghosted and no deaths... You can research characters and find out what sort of approaches they favour, so it's possible to try tailoring your choices to how you want them to respond to you... but other characters will react differently. (That's one of the key points to me.. I really want to see how much the "choice & consequences" will play out) The game's been in development for awhiles, but it's been delayed a few times. I've had it on pre-order since it was originally meant to be released back in February last year.

"Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final." - Dr Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt

I seem to remember that in some interview they mentioned that the reason that most of the team from ME1 were only "background" characters in ME2 was so they would definitely be alive for ME3... which hints that they should have important roles in the final game. I'll guess that they'll probably do something similar to Wrex in ME2 for all the suicide squad team-mates in ME3.. a location where you get one reception if they made it through alive, and another if they died. Although the potentially interesting character-wise moments will be the question of how romances in ME1 will react to those in ME2.. Ashley meeting Miranda or the like... How much that might have an effect on the story. Or whether it'll be standard BioLite Romance-Space Opera...

I do have to say.. apart from a Hitman Bloodmoney graphics glitch, I've never had any problem with things working on Vista....

Yeesh, I like that at one point he talks about how he seems like they've just used the ME2 influences to design the game..and then a few paragraphs later he's talking about how long AP has been in production.. It's always fun when journalists don't seem to link their facts.. Or is that just me?

"Should I be upset that everyone thinks we're murderers, or just happy that they're all trying to help us get away with it?"

Now, I'm willing to admit I might be partially mistaken... but from what I understand, a lot of the various European countries use legal systems are actually based around the old Napoleonic Code.. While the UK never did. So a lot of issues with the EU has been the clash of those two styles of systems. Kind of like how the French spent years talking about how they had high safety standards for MOT (but didn't enforce those standards) while the UK has lower standards but rigidly enforces them. Note how much fuss was caused a few years back when after several accidents involving French lorry drivers, the UK stopped incoming Lorries and gave them mechanical checks according to the French standards.. and the French truckers went on strike due to how many failed... It's the joys of totally different attitudes.

I think they're being a bit wishful thinking from the "no comment / we're not allowed to say" response to the questions about what they're working on..

We've been trying. Or at least, the general public has. The trouble being half the labour MP's keep trying to slip it around, and keeps sidelining the whole concept of any form of national referendum on it... Which seems to have us having engaged in treaties and signed onto the EU regardless... The LibDem's and the Tories both seem to be mixed on whether they're for or against it.. We get the politicians and the qwongocrats who keep saying that x treaty won't limit us, and that it doesn't allow x to happen.. then whoops, a year later something turns up in the fine print that actually does mean x can happen. (for the slightly non-pc joke, it kind of has the feeling of Chamberlain coming back and waving a paper slip in the air saying "it is peace for our time".) And it's the fun of Europe, so many hundred years of grudges back and forth...

"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather--who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car." "Relationships are hard. It's like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, and the day before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp." --Bob Ettinger "Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student! At least they can find Afghanistan ." --A. Whitney Brown

I absolutely love this. A shame you can't recall where you heard it. Well I've found variations on the "A Conservative is a Liberal who's been raped" in assorted books (fictional and non) that have been published throughout the 20th century going back to early pulp novels.... So it's probably one of those "universal lines" that's emerged somewhere...

Always good to hear someones take on it all.. I just want to get my own hands on a copy

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." --Drew Carey "Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God.... I could be eating a slow learner." --Lynda Montgomery

"All my bullets have someone's name on them. To save time, I simply label each one 'Spaz'." "Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, love is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and fewer would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose, against statistically long odds." - HK-47

.... and now I'm getting flashbacks to the board game "Junta"

Why does this feel like a continuation of the EU doing it's best to screw over the UK as much as possible? Maybe I'm being cynical. Maybe I'm being a touch "nationalistic"... But it does seem to feel like over half the things coming out of the EU are designed to give us the short shaft...

And I think I can speak for many of us (especially those of us on the wrong side of the Atlantic to catch the fun demo events...) who won't get to see the game for another couple of months... Git

To partially cross threads here.. some quotes for the situation.. "If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed." - Benjamin Franklin "I think anyone who has an opinion, and voices it, will offend someone." - Peter Steele "Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. " - Sam Brown "People are going to say what they say. I know sometimes I say things; I offend people. " - Mike Tyson "The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people." - George Bernard Shaw "We don't deliberately set out to offend. Unless we feel it's justified. " - Graham Chapman "What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." - Salman Rushdie "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." - William F Buckley, Jr "This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof. " - Neil Gaiman

I'll have you know I have a Certificate proving my sanity. And it's in nice shiny crayon. So there.

"We live awhile, and then we die sooner then we expect." "Where's the treasure? Damn it, I'm an adventurer! I demand fiscal rewards for acts of premeditated homicide!"

"If there was a way to get magic for free, do you really think I'd have spent so much time sacrificing children to my dark gods? For spells, I mean. Obviously there'd still be sacrifices. A hobby's a hobby." - Blackguard

If you liked Sun Tzu, you might want to have a gander at T'ai Kung's Six Secret Teachings, the Three Strategies of Huang Shih-kung or The Methods of the Ssu-ma. Just for the slightly more esoteric military classics from ancient china