Giantevilhead

I hope they give a good reason for why the Reapers don't just drop a nuke on Shepard. Heck, why not nuke earth? At least nuke earth's military installations so its cities will be virtually defenseless against abduction.

Bugs and glitches can be fixed. Bad writing, poorly conceived game settings, and uninteresting characters cannot.

So many ripe mind grapes ready to have their talent juices squeezed into a game.

One of the ideas for Van Buren was that there would be another group of adventurers and the player was going to be affected by their actions and vice versa. It would be great if they implemented that idea in this game but also made the rival adventurer completely silent too. So when you meet up with the other adventurer, there's a completely silent conversation with no reactions from either side. In fact, the rival adventurer interacts with the world the same way the player does. When you as the PC, enter into a conversation, the NPC says their dialogue and you get the chance to pick your reponse. As soon as you pick your response, the NPC responds to it immediately. Think about how that conversation goes from the NPC's perspective. The NPC starts the conversation, pauses and waits about half a minute where the PC's just standing there doing nothing. When the PC responds, the NPC is able to immediately respond to it. That's how the first conversation with the rival adventurer could go. When you pick your dialogue choice, there would be this pause before the rival responds and when they do "speak," it's just a flash of text before you have to respond immediately. Only after an NPC intercedes, can you have a real conversation with your rival and even then it'll be through an NPC intermediary acting as an interpreter. The rival adventurer would also use player mechanics like persuasion skill, conversation interruption, skipping dialogues/cutscenes, etc. It would be funny if there's a clash between your use of gameplay mechanics with your rival's use of gameplay mechanics. For example you could run into a situation where you get into a conversation interruption loop with the rival where he/she interrupts your dialogue and then you interrupt his/her interruption and then he/she interrupts your interruption and so on. It would also be great if NPC's commented on more meta components of the game. For example, if you skip too many dialogues/cutscenes, you'd get special conversations where an NPC would stay silent for a few seconds and then say something like, "oh, you're not going to skip this conversation too? Because you've skipped every other conversation. OK, fine." In fact, there could be special dialogue based on when you skip a conversation/cutscene.

I think a horror game should play more with the player's perceptions. After all, if you're just a human fighting against demons and monsters or being hunted by them, your physical health isn't the only thing that'll be affected. Instead of just having hit points, there could also be stats relating to mental conditions like paranoia and fear, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Fear could increase certain physical stats like movement speed and strength but decreases perception and accuracy. Paranoia sharpens senses but also causes delusions and hallucinations. Different paranoia levels could triggered events that have the potential to increase paranoia or fear. For example, when paranoia gets up to a certain point, you experience delusions and hallucinations. But you don't know if it's a delusion/hallucination so you can go investigate. If it turns out that it was a delusion/hallucination, your paranoia goes up. If it turns out that it wasn't a delusion/hallucination, then one of two things could happen. Your fear goes up if it's something dangerous/scary like blood dripping from a mutilated corpse, but your fear goes down if it's something innocuous like a branch scratching on a window. Also, instead of having every detail in the environment being shown the moment you enter a room, it takes time for you to notice things and for things to come in focus. The higher your fear is, the less you notice and the longer it takes for details in the environment to become clear. The higher your paranoia is, the less time it takes for you to notice the details but some of those details may be distorted or they may be delusions or hallucinations. That way, the game plays differently each time depending on your character's mental state.

Since Obsidian is so good at deconstructing cliches and twisting old tropes in unique ways, I think it would be interesting if they made a game about time travelers who goes back to WW2 to take over the world, but instead of helping the Nazis like in every other story involving bad guys going back in time to WW2, they help the Americans. They arrive a few years before WW2 and use their technology to help America end the depression, becoming powerful political figures in the process. Eventually their leader defeats FDR in a presidential election. Then they use their technology to defeat the Axis power with ease. Since there's no constitutional amendment to limit presidential terms, their leader continues to get re-elected. They then proceed to take over Europe, defeat the Soviets and the Chinese, all while keeping the American people docile by continuously introducing new technology that makes their lives easier while they continuing to implement their agenda of global conquest. The main plot of the game would be about you going back to various points in history to undo the changes these time travelers have made. History changes based on the choices you make. A choice that may seem good could end up with diastrous consequences while "bad" choices must be made to restore the timeline. For example, these time travelers are using their future tech to help America defeat the Axis powers, so you might have to sabotage that effort so that the war could be prolonged to its original length, which in turn means allowing a lot more people to die.

How about a third person RPG set in a sci-fi or larping convention where you play a character who's helping to organize and run the convention. It would have mechanics that's a combination of New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, and Bully. The different factions would be the fans of different sci-fi franchises. The two major factions would be the Trekkies and the Star Wars fans. Then you have various smaller factions like Dr. Who fans, Farscape fans, old BSG fans, new BSG fans, Babylon 5 fans, etc. The hostile raiders/mutants factions would be like the Twilight fans and the Michael Bay Transformer fans. They each have their own territory in the convention. You can do missions to help each faction make improvements to their territory like booking guests, organizing events, etc. You can also do missions where you sabotage rival factions. Your main goal would be to either help one faction take over the convention or you can work towards peaceful coexistence.

I think that a turn based strategy game with RPG elements would be perfect for Obsidian. Something along the lines of the Heroes of Might and Magic, King's Bounty, or Disciples. It would allow you to create a brand new expansive world. It gives you the freedom to create either a massive story spanning entire nations or a small personal story following a specific hero. Not only that but there would also be an easy to use toolset that allows players to create their own maps, campaigns, and adventures.

I would like to see a supernatural/horror/psychological thriller game that plays more with the player's perceptions. After all, if you're just a human fighting against demons and monsters, your physical health isn't the only thing that'll be affected. Instead of just having hit points, there could also be paranoia and fear stats, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Fear could increase certain physical stats like movement speed and strength but decreases accuracy. Paranoia sharpens senses but also causes delusions and hallucinations Different paranoia levels could triggered events that have the potential to increase paranoia or fear. For example, when paranoia gets up to a certain point, you experience delusions and hallucinations. Of course you don't know if it's a delusion/hallucination but you can go investigate. If it turns out that it was a delusion/hallucination, your paranoia goes up. If it turns out that it wasn't a delusion/hallucination, your fear goes up if it's something dangerous/scary like blood dripping from a mutilated corpse, but it goes down if it's something innocuous like a branch scratching on a window.

Bioware was foolish, they should have used what they did not like about MMORPG mechanics to make TOR.

I'm playing Heroes of Might and Magic IV again. The game is very underrated. The campaigns are very well written, especially the last two, Half Dead and Pirate's Daughter. They're some of the best written stories in video games.

Not really surprising how Feargus Urquhart gave the diplomatic answer but I still wonder what he really thinks. Although it is kind of funny how he got the Pip-Boy/Vault-Boy thing switched around.

Not even the Dark Side of the Force can protect him from a copyright lawsuit from Lucas's lawyers.

It's not just a matter of good or bad science, it's more an issue of consistency. It's very annoying when they can't keep their made up stuff consistent.

With the success of MI4, which was directed by a director who previously only worked in animation, I hope that movie studios will give more animation directors a chance to direct live action movies. Specifically, I want WB to let the people who worked on Batman: The Animated Series to do a live action superhero movie. Also, I had to sit through Star Wars: Episode One with my sister, and it was much worse than I remembered. The whole damn movie made no sense.

Our society has become weak in the ways of the Christmas Spirit and dark forces have been arrayed against us in this moment of vulnerability. This threat could never have arisen just a few short decades ago, when people had such a hard on for Christmas that ornaments weren't hung on Christmas trees. We cannot sacrifice Christmas. We've made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our holidays and we fall back. They take down entire Nativity Scenes and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!

A suspicious mind is a healthy mind. But blessed is the mind too small for doubt. In order to have suspicion, one must have doubt. Therefore a healthy mind is one that is open to corruption and must seek absolution.

Yes, they are fiction but they're common in sci-fi. I never said that Mass Effect was hard science fiction. It was established to have science that was at least comparable to the best of what Star Trek had. The problem is that they've already established how powerful ship mounted weapons are in previous games and now they're contradicting that. That's something that I can accept in a 40 year franchise that has had hundreds of different writers and gone through countless creative changes. But ME has only been around for a short while and the same people have been in control of it all this time, so I would expect them to keep their made up science consistent.

Anything you can see with the naked eye in space, you would be so close to it, you'd be incapable of hiding from it. Unless it's a planet. You'd be radiating detectable radiation through that window enough to ruin the stealth, as well. Unless they're navigating an area of space that distorts sensors and has limited visibility like a nebula, asteroid belt, planetary ring, or a planet with really thick atmosphere, which is something that a stealth ship would do to hide from people.

Having a pilot at the front and a floor to ceiling window at his station is probably significantly worse than beam weapons not being up to expectation. The Normandy isn't a battlecruiser. It's not suppose to engage in combat. Plus since it is designed for stealth, it would have limited sensors as well. Are you trying to tell me that it's a ship designed to be piloted by looking out the window? Why, it made perfect sense when they did it on Star Trek. Except the bridge didn't have windows in Star Trek. If they did then the battle of the Mutara Nebula in Wrath of Khan would have been a lot simpler.

Having a pilot at the front and a floor to ceiling window at his station is probably significantly worse than beam weapons not being up to expectation. The Normandy isn't a battlecruiser. It's not suppose to engage in combat. Plus since it is designed for stealth, it would have limited sensors as well. Are you trying to tell me that it's a ship designed to be piloted by looking out the window? The window will be very useful in stealth mode when it has very limited sensors and may need to navigate areas that interfere with sensors even more.

If the government does collapse, most people are probably going to flee to China rather than South Korea. There's already a lot of smuggling and human trafficking between the two countries. It'll be much easier to cross the border into China since China basically has nothing but a couple of small towns there, some of which rely quite heavily on illegal trade with North Korea.

Having a pilot at the front and a floor to ceiling window at his station is probably significantly worse than beam weapons not being up to expectation. The Normandy isn't a battlecruiser. It's not suppose to engage in combat. Plus since it is designed for stealth, it would have limited sensors as well.

It pretended to have OK science. There are all those codecs that explain how the tech work. The characters throw out technobabble that use a lot of real science. The Normandy is actually designed like how a real stealth vessel would be like.

I guess they're really softening up the sci-fi in this game. In the VGA trailer, the Reaper's beam weapon was weaker than an WW1 artillery shell.