Raithe

Isn't that kind of like saying Mel Gibson brought historically accurate truths about Scotland to a new audience?

.. I tried.. but there's too many slavvering threats about "Talimance" and "Garrusmance" going on.. I was overwhelmed and had to flee.

That hive of scum, villainy, and fanatacism??!!

What, there's no femShep and Miranda option? I hear the hearts of many geeky pervs breaking..

Lost is like all of JJ Abrahms series.. He spends the pilot episode showing you a box. Then three years not telling you whats inside it.

Pop-culture reference: Chuck - the database downloaded into the guys brain was called "The Intersect".. And it's what Yvonne Stahovski and Adam Baldwin have been doing before being voices in ME2

I still find it amusing that the studio developing Bioshock 2 actually got flooded out.. The picture of the office with the Big Daddy model in the middle of this flooded area just.. hit that level of the universe taking a swipe.

Purkake = The Gif-Intersect ??

Byakhee Byakhee... Wait..is that a star or a tree...

"If I were a Deep One.. blub-blub-blub-blubby-blubby-blub!"

Dammit.. now i'm just getting songs from the Cthulhu musical going around and around my mind ... Curse You!

Hm, the "latest" mmo with a big name is out soon.. and gee, I've noticed they're doing a special "if you pre-order, you can get a lifetieme account for only $239!" .. How many people will cheerfully shell out the cost of two years subscription fees in one blast before even playing a game?

And it has to run the thread into the gutter within 5 easy posts..

I did like the pc's shift away from the "wheel" . Maybe it's more aesthetics, but it felt easier to use when it was split into the three seperate boxes around the edges of the screen rather then a glowing wheel in the middle of it.. But then I'm big on keyboard and mouse, tend to find gamepads clunky.

Gee, and I was only just thinking the thread was about due for pruning.. And on a seperate note ; watching that new launch trailer.. I loved the score. Looking forward to getting ahold of the soundtrack if the rest of it's like that.

I haven't actually seen much that's said how the pc differs from the xbox... I mean going by how they handled ME, everything was tweaked up to take advantage of pc hardware more and the control system/HUD was shifted to work better with keyboard & mouse rather then gamepad.. I'd assume there'd be something similar this time around ... but it's just a guess.

I like it.. : Amazon.ca 1st of April Amazon.com 31st of May Amazon.co.uk 25th of June.. Yeah, I think we can safely say that the retailers are still guessing wildly

It did seem that from the cheap seats, that a lot of people thought the story/plot was confused... which has always made me wonder how many people picked up on what a manipulative bastard the big bad was.. But ah well, it wasn't overlong, you could run through it in a single day which isn't the norm for those dedicated rpg games but it did have a fun time. And the mythic asian china made a good change from the usual elves and orcs It was also the one where if the male protagonist didn't make a choice between the two female romance options.. they'd both turn up on the "night before everyone thinks they might die" compared to how bio normally makes romances an either/or choice.

Hey, I know I'm in the minority but I mostly enjoyed JE. There were flaws, but the storyline ran nicely, and the main bad turned out to be a magnificent bastard par excellence once all was revealed. Even if some of the game mechanics were a bit clunky. And it did handle the whole "post world saving quest" future histories of your character and the various companions depending on how you played the game quite nicely. Then there's always the bonus of John Cleese voicing a "he's so awful he's kind of amusing" npc for a short section.

It's mostly one of those areas that's all swings and roundabouts. I like detailed characters to work with, but I don't always like getting straightjacketed into the style of play that those backgrounds would suggest. That's where games that allow you some say to develop the background and then actually show some reference to it within the game are the ones I found I've enjoyed a lot. A game that lets you choose a heavily detailed character background.. but then has nada to show for it within the game (apart from maybe potential game mechanic bonuses) isn't particularly great to my mind. It's one of the things that disapointed me in DA, they harped on the wonders of their origins but then it didn't really feel that beyond a few set pieces, the rest of the world actually noted any of it. I mean, playing through the origins was nice, it provided a lot of background feeling to your character..but then once you were past it and in the Grey Wardens.. >shrugs< Sure, Mass Effect didn't really provide much emphasis on the whole Earthborn/Colonist/Spacer backgrounds, but it still actually felt like it was there. Maybe that's just because there wasn't all the pre-game hype on that aspect to judge it against. I'm more just verbalising my thoughts on it then arguing any point with you over it

Well I don't class Shepherd as "generic space marine". But I do agree with depth needed in the majority of professional soldier type characters. In a lot of ways you get presented with the basic "image" of a marine and how you play a game with them is what makes them non-generic. Unless you have a detailed "origin" system for them, it makes it very difficult to create a backstory that appeals to the majority of gamers while also being "neutral" enough to fit with whatever the personal gameplay style and choices of those gamers as well... With ME, you at least had the partial nod to crafting the general background to how you wanted to percieve the protagonist, and then play the protagonist in that style for the rest of the game.. And going with the military route in sci-fi can make a lot of sense storywise. I mean, how many people have access to large amounts of weaponry, advanced tech starships and such ? While it can be the "simple" way of setting up a storyline, being the marine ordered into a situation that explodes into something totally new and that you then have to deal with...

Now you're just showing your hate for those tough experienced professional soldier types over your joe-normal civilian who stumbles around blindly.... I mean, I know you can relate more to the everyman.. but realistically, the guy who happens to have had physical and mental training, and the experience of combat, is a whole heap more likely to survive and kick ass then joe schmuck who stumbles into it... Unless joe schmuck then turns out to be an ex-special forces turned chef/computer geek/librarian..

Hell, Amazon.Uk updated their site about a week ago that Alpha Protocol would be out 25th of June this year. I think a lot of the stores are still making general guestimates.

Technically , Shephard is meant to be a bit more then just a grunt.. Out of all the people who made up the Alliance forces, he was the person being considered for Spectre eligibility.. which (much as i know it was a nice in-game mechanic) is meant to highlight that he's an extremely capable Alliance officer.. Throw in whatever background you gave the character, he's had a lot more experience, he's supposd to be smart and flexible. Whether as the lone survivor of something that killed everyone else, or the hero of the skillian blitz.. All heroic character are supposed to have that something extra that makes them stand out beyond the norm, that's why they're heroes, and why they're central to the story. It might be a literary conceit, but it's also a kind of reasoning for why they end up being the only one who can save the day

When you get down to it.. Far Cry and Crysis could both impress on a technical level. The trouble being they had no damned soul to them. Which made them distinctly uncomfotable to play. At least to me, they came across as a touch too... mechanical? and fairly uninteresting beyond the technical aesthetics.