Raithe

Humanity is just a minor blip in the population level of every other alien species that share the Citadel and are organised under the Council's general "rule". Apart from the first encounter with the Turians, and Shephard fighting of 'Saren' and his Geth Army, most of the galactic community doesn't really care two figs for Humanity..or show much awareness of them apart from the "potential pushy new race". Why should they give a crap about some human colonies disapearing? And for the Human Alliance, all the colonies are the ones that are outside the Alliance's jurisdiction, they chose to go that far to get away from the Alliance. Would you be worrying over much why groups that didn't want you involved suddenly start disapearing? I'm not saying it's great writing.. just.. that's the way it could be taken from a certain point of view....

Yep, survivors of Eden Prime - besides the crew of the Normandy? There were about 4 people .. so, wow, yes, randomly run into them on the citadel while you're with a Geth.. and the Citadel.. most of the Geth were in the ships, not on the citadel.. and when Saren led that force of Krogan and Geth from the mini-Mass Relay to the Tower.. they were killing everybody as they went. Know how many survivors there were then? Didn't seem to see many as you went along.. C-Sec didn't really fight them, the security systems were scrambled, and C-Sec are based out of the lower wards , not stationed on the Presidium where the Geth went through on their way to the Tower.. So, if you look at it in that squinty way, how would people really know to recognise them on sight? The Council cleaned up a lot of the information about what happened and did a nice spin-control press release.. Do you think they really made a point of showing Saren and Geth pictures around to everybody in warning?

Technically, they can sort of get away with it on the Citadel with a slight reach.... Very few people actually recognise Geth beyond the name.. Until those "heretics" teamed up with Sovereign.. no-one had seen the Geth (apart from the Quarrian fleet) for a few hundred years.. So the people that saw them during Sovereign's attack were mostly killed... When you go walking around the Citadel.. most of the people there wouldn't even have seen pictures of what a Geth looked like.. they just know the scary stories and the name of them... So, technically a reason..

Hm, I don't really see why people are complaining that theres a sense of things being too linear.. You only go into the maps when you have a mission.. that means a specific set of objectives to accomplish.. which is always going to imply a certain sense of linear action. Even if you have a whole variety of ways to accomplish those objectives. And for flashy trailers , it's always going to have the roaring cinematic gunfight approaches because they usually "look" more exciting. The idea of the railway yard in Moscow has an aspect of narrow maps, due to the design of railway yards.. and the only other maps we've really seen are short clips of the Saudi armed camps..

No cthulhu please. "You've created your character. He's driven mad. He dies. Roll a new character."

the visit to London and around the Thames could be.. interesting Or in Dubai... the jet set mix... interesting architecture... Venice... If you're going to have the joys of James Bond action, anything that works in chase sequences around the canals.. or take a page from NOLF's book.. Akron, Ohio for the bizzare..

Not to forget the classic fps / rpg that was Deus Ex.. open worlds don't always flow well. A series of "hubs" that are fairly open-ended can work very nicely for the story side of things.. Especially if you can bounce back and forth from hub to hub, returning to ones you've visited and have all those consequences change elements....

I have to admit, the look of the shooter/rpg mix with the secret agent aspects makes me want to hope that it'll follow in the footsteps of Deus Ex for that gaming experience.. And the whole push of choice and consequences.. That's something I really want to see and play with.

EA are working with 38 Studios (Previously known as Green Monster Games) to develop a new single-player RPG. R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane being the creator/idea guys behind the rpg.. So the men who gave us Drizzt and Spawn go forth into crpg... Games Developoer Conference...

Solomon Kane.. entertaining in its way, without being overly brilliant. Pete Postlethwaite and Alice Krige do a nice turn as the "friendly puritan family". Some average to good minor cgi effects for "minions of hell" And a fair few sword/axe fights and blood spillage.

If only I could get that flight over the atlantic.... tsk..

I'm half-tempted to dig out my old copy of Privateer 2 and see if I can get it to run on my current pc.. There aren't that many good space sims.. at least with a mix of gameplay and story. Still have fond memories of Tachyon Fringe.. but maybe that's because they had Bruce Campbell doing voice work for it..

Vampire Bloodlines? Although that's based on World of Darkness stuff.. (yes, I played various WoD pen n paper and actually enjoyed some of it) although when you step back, for all the "dark and angsty and gothic" elements, nearly every WoD game line was a metaphor for adolescence... "Oh look, something's changed you from the "innocent" you were, and now you've found out the world isn't the place you thought it was.. " Gamewise.. Dark doesn't automatically mean "bloody with some sex thrown in, and a bit of rough language" - but a lot of computer game designers seem to think that way..

Hey, Gilbert & Sullivan always rule. It's always fun to see some of those songs tweaked for such situations like Mordin singing..

If you take Zaeed on the recruit Archangel mission you do get some points of recognition and other dialogue from the mercenaries over his presence... Not a lot, but some.

I played the first one on pc.. and while it was crazy fun in it's way... but after a certain point it was just.. doing the same thing again..and again..and again. I can't quite remember where the tipping point was.. It makes me wonder how much this one will be like that.. "It's another mission where you use the grapple in a crazy way to break into a prison/army base/political house , rip off drug-dealers , kill some official/drugbaron/military officer.. cause several explosions, then ride a vehicle off a cliff while parachuting away to safely." Fun in doses.. but it was a bit hard to string an entire storyline to that..

Ah the joys of forum personality clashes. Still, with the whole Hammerhead dlc supposed to be out in a few weeks, it'll be interesting to see what exactly it adds to the gameplay. What thoughts are there? Something similar to the Mako from ME1 with better terrain? Or more a scrolling , explore/shoot em up mini-game type? Apart from the design concepts for the Hammerhead vehicle, I haven't really seen anything showing off what it might play like...

Having a yen for urban fantasy. Currently working through Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld series... Although it strikes me that an awful lot of urban fantasy is written by female authors and gets labelled as "romance". After reading so many, I have to say, the same sort of stories, with the same character interaction, written by a guy.. would never get classed as a "romance". It's kind of interesting how publishers decide to "fix" certain genres like that... Or is it just the "anti-fantasy" snobbery that goes on a lot?

Hm, the Dalish Elf origin had the taint come from the wounds caused by the mirror exploding.. the magical item had tainted mystical energies, and having shards of the mirror embed in your flesh and the mystical energies taint caused via that way.. Which is why the "proper" taint of becoming a Grey Warden "heals" or at least counters the taint caused by the exploding mirror..

According to that model, it turns a single-player game into something that you never actually purchase outright. And that's like saying "hey, this board game cluedo, you have to pay monthly fees to keep it in your house and play". MMO's, I can understand the monthly fees due to the services and costs involved. But for a single-player game? No way in hell.

I think the movie sequences in Privateer 2 were a strange mix of awesome and appalling. Quite often at the same time... Although again, a rather stellar cast of hollywood acting throughout...

And then of course, WC3 & 4.. and WC Prophecy.. had some interactive fmv sequences in them... Although finding some of the "blooper" reels for them can be amusing. - Maniac stood gazing out of the window.. Blair walks up.. Maniac glances over..double takes.. and stutters "Aren't you like.. that dude from Star Wars??!"

Ah..and I have such fond memories of some of those adventure games with fmv and all that... Who can forget Dennis Hopper in the Black Dahlia game?

Well one of the endings for Jade Empire is.. losing.. Sort of. You can be talked into sacrificing yourself for the "good of the empire" if you (as the player) belive it.. and then you get this nice ending where everybody is basically tinted by black magic being controlled by the main villain as Emperor... So I guess you could count that as "losing".

Stumbled on Clue going cheap from Amazon and got nostalgic and picked up a copy.. Sat down and watched it with all three possible endings A little silly, but still a classic comedy. Tim Curry does brilliantly as the Butler..