WorstUsernameEver

I hope they reintroduced strength requirements for weapons too, I think it would complement the system rather well.

Meh. I'd prefer stat increases through dialog/quests instead, like in FO1&2. Hopefully they are at least more like memory chips than bobbleheads. you mean like the books and memory modules? Oh, wait... You read the book and learn. You use the memory module to get a brain surgery and "learn". You find a small toy and put in in your pocket and.. eh.. learn? I see a difference. Gameplay-wise it's the same thing though. To me that means the player could then just as well be able to fly magically through the air instead of walking, since it's gameplay-wise the same thing, both ways get you from point A to B But that's just me, always demanding at least some sense in games. Let's review what happened: - a preview mentioned the presence of item that raise special stats, like bobbleheads; - you critiqued this aspect of the game; - someone made you notice there were similar items in the previous Fallouts; - you replied that at least they made sense in-setting; .... notice something here? Yeah, that's right, you don't know what they'll be in Vegas. Could very well be something different for every stat.

Meh. I'd prefer stat increases through dialog/quests instead, like in FO1&2. Hopefully they are at least more like memory chips than bobbleheads. you mean like the books and memory modules? Oh, wait... You read the book and learn. You use the memory module to get a brain surgery and "learn". You find a small toy and put in in your pocket and.. eh.. learn? I see a difference. Gameplay-wise it's the same thing though.

Meh. I'd prefer stat increases through dialog/quests instead, like in FO1&2. Hopefully they are at least more like memory chips than bobbleheads. Personally I'll wait until I see what it is exactly. Considering it's a translation of a bullet point summary of a german preview, and that the sentence is incredibly vague, I'm not even sure if it means there will be other 'collectable items' for raising SPECIAL or if you'll do it through specific situations/quests (e.g. the zeta scan in Fallout 2). I personally am much more interested in the Firearms/Explosive dichotomy. Sounds like this time explosive may be a worthy skill, and I can see myself doing a melee/explosives/survival though I doubt I'll try a similar build in my first playthrough.

New info courtesy of our No Mutants Allowed friends (taken from the GameStar german preview). Be warned of some spoilers: - Vault 21 is an underground vault and lies under New Vegas. - The NCR has lost contact to the west and is underserved due to the fights with Caesar's Legion. - Caesar's Legion dominates New Vegas. - The NCR was fighting hard against the Brotherhood of Steel for Hoover Dam. The NCR has won this battle, barely. - The NCR troops at McCarren Airport lost the contact to Hoover Dam as well. - The main task of the courier has been to deliver a package to Primm. Then he got ambushed... - The small and big weapons skills are merged into one weapon skill. - Every weapon that made some asplozions before (like the rocket launcher or FatMan), are now in the skill category Explosives. - Repcon, a former rocket factory, is supposedly inhabited by ghouls. As of late, explosions can be heard from there all the time. - Craig Boon, one of the possible companions, will attack the player, if he sides with the Caesar's Legion. - The orbital laser Archimedes 2 can only be used once a day. - New monster: Cacadores, they look like bloatflies with shiny / colourful wings. - Something like Bobbleheads will be in New Vegas as well and it will boost players stats. What it will be exactly isn't known yet.

Since factions are very important in this game, type of weapons could be distributed differently for different factions. Like : normal raiders use melee weapons and small makeshift guns, NCR uses small guns and laser guns manufactured by them, the brotherhood and gun runners would be very well equipped, etc... Now, IIRC Energy Weapons was merged in Firearms in the original Van Buren design.. so when you used your energy weapons it depended solely on Firearms or there were other factors like your science skill?

It's actually rather fun to look at the inspiration for the Brayko's concept.

Well, even if it is true, AP should be better than a two year old game not have its faults comparable to it. I'd stack it up against ME2, a 2010 rpg, but I guess will have enough of those comparsions soon. Meh, the only thing in which Alpha Protocol should be superior to a 2008 game are technical aspects. I mean, most of RPG, especially hybrids, are still inferior to games like Arcanum, Fallout and Deus Ex, by your reasoning, they don't deserve so much praise...

I wouldn't whine so much about them if I didn't lose a good chunk of time in them simply because of invisible walls placed in strategic points in DC. At least if you have to block my path do it convincingly dammit!

Given that merging Small Guns and Big Guns was one of the big changes Josh wanted to bring in Van Buren, and that he has made clear his beliefs about "convoluted skill trees", this doesn't seem surprising at all The only thing that's surprising is that this hasn't been mentioned until now. I doubt it's a recent change (things like that are planned very soon in the development process, it was probably in the design from the beginning), so basically what this tells me is that journalist overlooked the skill list. Meh.

I've noticed just now that I wrote shocking announced game instead of unannounced.. serves me right for not checking before posting.

According to the news on The Vault the same russian preview mentions Small Guns being merged with Big Guns (Energy Weapons are still separated)... mmmh. Don't know what to think of it, on one part, big guns were incredibly rare and ultimately less useful than Small Guns in Fallout 3, on the other hand, there's the risk that a particular build will have access to the majority of the weapons in the game (though it seems that Josh & Co. are trying to take care of the Energy and melee crowd).

IMHO, it's not.

Because SE's unannounced project is shocking and looking kick-ass and sweet. It cannot be Obsidian's. The shocking announced game... ANNOUNCED.

That could've worked in Fallout 3 too, it's just that they took the easy way and simply put a mark on your pipboy most of the time.

I remember reading in a preview that the interior this time aren't mazes.

A couple of those are actually already toggable through the .ini files (compass and quest marker if I remember correctly) not to mention the ****load of mods.. problem is, only few quests give you directions in Fallout 3 so I ended up returning to the normal interface.

And that's what I think is cool - people who want it can have it, people who don't don't. Cool stuff. Yup. The option factor is great. Option toggles are the way to go, imo. Don't like the HUD? Turn it off. Don't like the compass? Turn it off. Don't like location indicators on the compass? Turn them off. Don't like Fast Travel? Turn it off. Even better would be if less aids = more xp. Or something. ANyway, I think HC mode is a good idea, though I never would have thought to ask for it. The sleep/food part is the least important to me though of all the HC tweaks. Nah, even better would be if they designed the game with this in mind from the beginning, meaning that even without a compass you still could find quest locations and NPCs simply going by directions and hints, etc. As Gromnir says less aids = more xp is a broken mechanic that undermines the challenge.

Pre-ordered on Play.com.

I think I'll wait rolling my statistics before choosing my equipment.

Uh? It's not like with Dragon Age they showed more gameplay, or with Mass Effect 2. Plenty of videos show gameplay too, so I'm not sure I understand the complaint.

A couple of possible choices probably, though it's been edited so much that I actually doubt it spoils anything at all. I personally feel that the PR material that Sega has been publishing this week is so disjointed that it doesn't really spoiler much. There were a couple of similar trailers for Dragon Age and I didn't even notice until after I completed the quest and got that outcome.

That's pretty sweet. I'm wondering if the addiction of food requirements would enhance the survivalist feeling of Pacman though.

Since when is a 93% not so good?

Part of it has probably to do with the fact that it was holiday period, but The Hut is consistently slower with its deliveries according to other people I know that ordered from there. By slower I don't mean a whole lot, mind you, it's just that the italian mail is slow too (for some reason they've been pretty efficient with Awakening though), so I ended up waiting something like three weeks to play Dragon Age Origins. I didn't particularly mind, considering I was busy playing Risen anyway.