WorstUsernameEver

Clarification on my part, since I inserted myself in the discussion between J.E. Sawyer and Starwars : I don't care much about the dice-roll/threshold mechanic, but about the fact that you can try again repeatedly.

The Steam version works flawlessly for me, but as mkreky already showed us, it appears there are problems for some people. As long as old graphics don't bother you I'd say get it: it's probably the best example of a multipath gameplay I've ever played, has a great atmosphere and is just a lot of fun to play.

If Hardcore proves too much for you you can revert to Normal at any time, but once you do that, you can't go back, and you won't get the special achievement for completing the game on Hardcore. This should dispell some worries people had about Hardcore Mode.

Just a question, if you had to throw a bone to us, how many of this speech checks are non repeatable? I'll try to explain myself better with an example : let's assume we have two quest. One quest requires you to find the mystical nightwear. The other asks you to convince Bob to lend one of his brahmins to Josh. In the first quest, when you get the mystical nightwear you're ambushed by a couple of raiders. There is a speech check to convince them to let you go. Obviously, if you fail it, when the conversation ends they'll attack you. That's what I consider a non repeatable speech check. In the second, obviously you can convince Bob in various ways, one of them a speech check. Since you can come back to him in different moments, it's my understanding that speech options never disappear, so if you come back when you meet the requirements of the check, you pass and convince him to lend one of his brahmins to Josh. That's a repeatable speech check (you would never have guessed uh?). Because to be honest, it'd make the second kind of quests a bit too easy, especially since you could just wait and come back with a speech magazine.

Imagine the pain of the japanese who had to follow it one episode a week. It's like a perfect torture device carefully disguised as a TV show. Brilliant. Supposedly if you went back and watch the japanese stuff raw, half the episodes of them just standing and glaring were filler for the american versions because they cut so much. That said, I supposed somebody should bring up the "Views of the world" bit from "America: The book" where Japan is allll hello kitty. Dunno, since I actually watched the italian dub (which was horrid as far as the translation goes, but surprisingly faithful when it came to the voices). Speaking about american view of Japan, I'm pretty sure the whole world view of it is : meek office workers + horrible flashy pop culture (and tons of perverts, of course).

I don't know, I never had the impression that the Chantry was right, and it certainly wasn't one of the things that bugged me about the game. Playing Awakening now, and it's good fun, the 'moral' (I'd say political, even) decisions are good (though I've yet to see the consequences), the quests are interconnected and have already a couple of good twists, the writing seems on par, if not actually superior to Origins. I've already had a crash however, hope it won't become a frequent occurrence since I'm having fun with the game. (Never crashed with Origins)

Here's the translated version. And here's the original french version. Some interesting comments about 'projects that will never be'.

Precisely. (The other idea is a jerkass paladin, though for now he isn't developed and he's more of a backup plan in case Blank finds the idea of the half-orc cleric too wacky)

Imagine the pain of the japanese who had to follow it one episode a week. It's like a perfect torture device carefully disguised as a TV show. Brilliant.

Well at least it's justified by the fact that I'm planning on playing a half-orc Waukeen cleric, so it's rather easy to screw it up.

Update : Decided to go with Awakening. For now, I must say my impression is quite positive, the plot hook is basically what the Crossroad Keep in NWN2 should have been, the quests seems well integrated, even the fetch quests weren't cringeworthy and the characters promise depth. I'm still at the beginning though, I'll probably post a more detailed comment lately.

They actually said the PC version will have high-res textures. I also believe lately we've seen a couple of new videos of the dialogue interface with letters for the various dialogue choice (no, not the Xbox360 buttons), though I might just be imagining things. As for the controls I don't really know, but Obsidian has quite a lot experience with PC gaming so I'm catiously optimistic.

Then again, you're assuming it's that easy to get completely different cinematic for each playthorugh.. I suspect some changes will be more subtle and some cutscene will be 'fixed' for the large branches of the game, meaning that actually you may have to play thre game more than 3 times to see all the content. Which is good.

Actually I'm pretty sure there is a sniper rifle, though it's just a one shot weapon and not something you carry on with you.

How exactly you came to that conclusion? (I haven't play Prince of Persia 4, anyway)

I've narrowed it down to two character concepts, though one is developed and the other... isn't. Guess I'll go with a cleric, anyway, let's just hope I manage to play it decently.

Wait, what?

Dragon Age actually laster roughly 40 hours according to my savegame and I certainly didn't rush it. Anyway, to you point, I believe the dev have said the length is between 20-30 hours, depending on the number of side missions you accept (and of course, that's one playthrough, and it's been said already that you'll get a lot more out of the story if you play it more than once and try different approaches).

Limitations of the engine maybe?

Actually the intro of Deus Ex kinda spoils that point, anyway.

Finished Deus Ex, funny how Troika copied even the ending structure (basically, your ending is decided by an action at the end of the game rather than a result of your choices during the game), though their execution was worse. All the three endings were brilliant, but a bit short. Even with all its wacky conspiracy theories the story grew on me, the script is certainly superior to a lot of crap I've played. Really, I had a lot of fun with it, and I can see myself coming back to it again and again in the future. For now, I'll have to decide if trying the sequel immediately (which, already having played 10 minutes or so at the beginning for configuring it to work with my widescreen resolution, I know it'll be a quite jarring experience) or playing Dragon Age Awakening. Probably gonna play Awakening.

Knowing Obsidian there will be a good deal to discover going on (wouldn't be surprised if it turns up that the 'untrustable' higher-ups have actually perfectly rational motivations, and by that I don't mean greed) and it's probably one of the few things you discover in the first hour of so of the game. I was spoilered about the 'twist' at the end of Knights of the Old Republic II and I still found the 'journey' very enjoyable, I could even examine the foreshadowing in a more critical/relaxed way (heck, I enjoyed the 'journey' moreso than the ending, considering it was rushed... VERY rushed ). Could they have kept it under wraps? yeah, but compared to a lot of other games I think they did a good job about keeping the plot relatively unspoiled, even a little bit too much since we discovered the flashforward system just lately.

Still! That would've been an AMAZINGLY cool plot twist. I don't know who is responsible for revealing this information but I suspect it's probably due to all the douchebag torrent junkies who got the game early by pirating it and then decided to ruin it for everyone else by posting spoilers. I hope they all die of nut sack cancer! .... Nope, it isn't. Previewers' fault. It sucks, but what you're gonna do?

Though that scene technically wasn't on Namek. Just sayin'.

Damage threshold return confirmed, huh? Good. Hope this means combat will need a little bit of strategy and planning this time.