WorstUsernameEver

Couldn't you at least put your beard on auction? You know, like on eBay, so your dedicated fans could buy it?

Any Bioware game from Kotor onward : four babysitters and you can choose the order for firing them!

Exactly What It Says On The Tin

Charlies? That's a.. uhm.. well... I never heard that euphemism before. Nice to learn new ways of saying.. you know.. charlies.

Can you be more specific about what you dislike about it? I can't speak for him, but basically : - trivializes the whole 'orbital laser thing' - overpowered, or at least it should be - from the description it sounds like it doesn't really have any limitation, the Fatman at least had ammo but this? do you need some battery to charge it? there's a limited range in which you can use it? I still haven't played the game (well.. that's kinda obvious, isn't it?) so I'll reserve my judgement for that, but these are my impressions.

A summary of UK X360's World mag preview from DAC : * The tagline says: "A Safe Bet for RPG Fans" * Hardcore mode: Stimpaks take a long time to heal, you need a Doctor's Bag to heal broken limbs, and you suffer from Dehydration so you need to carry water. * Dynamite is one of the first weapons you come across * Obsidian have focused much more on the story than Bethesda did with Fallout 3 * VATS now includes a special attack for every weapon * Weapons can be modded - one of the mods involves reducing the spooling time for miniguns. * All of your skills can be used to influence dialogue * A "Command/Companion Wheel" gives you control over your followers - the design of this isn't finalized yet * Nightkin are back and can cloak * The Hoover Dam is intact and produces electricity * Electricity seems to be one of the main things in the game * There are 3 factions - the NCR, Caesar's Legion, and (although unconfirmed) the Brotherhood of Steel * The Helios One solar tower controls an orbital laser platform * You can get a portable controller for the laser platform and use it throughout the game * Lots of "grey areas" in terms of actions and dialogue - a combined reputation and morality system means everything you do has an effect on something in one way or another. * New Vegas will have different endings, "instead of the single, potentially anachronistic 'man/woman saves the Wasteland' finale." * The overall theme of the game is about trying to find out who tried to kill you and why. * New weapon - The "All-American" - a rapid fire Sniper Rifle I don't like the sound of the portable controller laser thing, sounds like a new Fat man to me, the rest seems good.

It is. Still.. Sasha Grey...

New incredibly positive preview. I'd have been more prudent if I were in the previewer's shoes but it's nice to hear that I'm not the only one that's excited about this game. Edit : Just to clarify, it's not a preview of some private demo or a hands-on, but a collection of the writer's impressions. Sorry if I was a bit misleading.

The fun stuff : the group of players you're DMing manages to make their boss blow up the bank they should have gone inside undercover after a failed robbery attempt, and Al Qaeda acknowledging the explosion as their doing on the net.

Well I dunno how but I missed it. I remember subsonic ammo being mentioned in subsequent preview but I just don't remember noticing it in the walkthrough video.

We knew it all along. Well, ok, I didn't. I also remember more than one comment complaining about the fact that the guards didn't hear the shots.

At least you're sure there aren't mysterious higher-ups organizing wacky social experiments with you and your family.

No screenshots and a December release date? Unlikely. Who knows? Maybe they learned from Bethesda's PR department.

Well there are some problems like not-too-smooth animations and some lo-res textures (I believe the lo-res textures are just for the console versions however) but they're mostly good. I also don't remember all this criticism for other AAA games that ran on Unreal Engine 3 even when they had all this problems (I remember lo-res textures in Arkham Asylum too for example, and yeah, facial animations weren't particularly good either). I also believe we now know why guards didn't react to the stealth killing : subsonic rounds. All considered, it's looking good for me. Not perfect, a little too over-the-top with the abilities and not enough shiny graphically to attract the kiddies these days and the AI still looks a bit stupid, but the pros seem to outside the cons, really, awesome C&C in the character development too, diverse gameplay, differents levels look like they have a different 'personality' meaning that the game won't feel like you're playing the same area again and again and again (Mass Effect I'm looking at you ). So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

I lolled. Great presentation.

Tim Cain's RPG of the decade is The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion.

I think you've nailed the problem. The possibility to build a new rpg audience it's there but for some reason developers seems to want to cater more and more and more to other genres' audiences. Mind you, ultimately I'm only interested in playing a good fun game, so if the games manages that without a complicated thought-provoking character progression system it's ok, but I'd like to play a new GOOD rpg sometimes..

Looks fun but far from mind-blowing. I won't suffer if it doesn't get ported.

That's a good argument, but I think that some of this problem could be circumvented with a better level design. Bethesda also trimmed the skills a lot, so it's not like you could do a Medicine+First Aid+Gambling (read as : absolutely totally utterly USELESS character) as in FO1.

Not completely related but J.E. Sawyer complained in his formspring page about the fact that some console games passed certification even when they're not readable on SDTV, so it seems this is a serious concern for Obsidian. Not sure if this reassures you though.

Ubisoft announces "epic fantasy-themed turn-based" HoMM MMORPG.

The melee wasn't perfect but it was a step-up in the right direction for Pyranha and it generally kept a good balance between character skills and player skills, meaning that battle would become easier as your skills went up but without losing too much challenge. Ranged combat however was pretty flawed.

That's a good point and very true. Ideally though, by lowreing the number of skill points available but increasing the ability to riase three choosen skills over the course of the game, skill choice in generakl would have more specific game impact. No more all-characters-can-do-everything syndrome. Which is fine for a shooter, but pretty much completely antithetical to a crpg. That's actually what I wanted to say It also has been done in FWE (the skill points per level value is configurable and can be made as low as 3 skill points per leve + INT bonus, tag skills give 2 points per point spent) so it's perfectly feasible. I'm also sure there would be plenty of complaining about it though... in Bethesda's forum there are even users claiming that people who want maxin' all skills to be impossible 'childish and without self-restraint'

As long as the skill balance is redone from scratch, otherwise it'd just make it easier to max all your skills. If I was designing the game (and fortunately I'm not) I'd give less skill points per level, make tagged skills give you two points for one spent as in FO1/2 and make tagged skills have a slightly higher cap like 125 instead of 100 that would give you consistent bonus. Fortunately I'm not a designer and I just play games.

I'm actual interested in what the mag meant when saying that Hardcore Mode would make combat 'more lethal'. I guess that could mean 'you, your friends and your foes will be more fragile so combat will require more tactics' but it would be interesting if it also changed how skill affect weapon behaviour (accuracy/sway/damage). I guess that if the devs change some of those however it will be for the core experience and not just for the optional HARDCOREEE (I admit, it DOES sound a bit silly ) mode.