WorstUsernameEver

There has been a management shakeup at THQ. It doesn't seem like it's gonna influence development on South Park, but I guess it's worth noting.

How did Beyond Divinity work? Did it have two companions that could split and could both interject in conversations? The way the article words it, it sounds like this is the first time they're attempting something like this, rather than refining their older model.

Still playing Dragon's Dogma. Capcom really completely shamed Bethesda in terms of enemy variety.

You can play the campaign solo and control both characters, from what I understand, though I'm not sure how it will work.

Yes. It's probably too long for its own good, but it's a fairly decent and fun platformer with a little entertaining combat system. Really pretty too. By the way, why is Larian able to do a turn-based iso RPG with their own funds (they're self-publishing) and Obsidian hasn't even attempted the Kickstarter route? I mean, at least Avellone is working on Wasteland 2 but..

Not sure how the comparison with MMOs works exactly to be honest, but you can customize your party pretty much how you want, your main pawn's skill selection, vocation, appearance, etc. depends on you, while the other two are "bought" at a rift crystal from other players. I haven't tried many party combinations yet because I just started, but I would say that mages are more useful to buff your weapons rather than heal you since healing items are plentiful and healing spells can't heal you completely. And uh, apparently, going by Twitter, Mike Laidlaw is playing it. Rejoice Maria Caliban, maybe this time BioWare will have capes in Dragon Age!

This really isn't true, especially for The Witcher 2.

Been playing a few hours of Dragon's Dogma. It's one the clunkiest games I've played this year, but it has a lot of good ideas, and it's rightly challenging. I'll have to play it more to get a real feel of the gameplay and progression though. Ah, also, yeah, writing is terrible.

There was an internally produced LucasArts KotOR III at some points, but it was scrapped in favor of The Force Unleashed. With The Old Republic running, I doubt we'll see another single-player title, at least in the foreseeable future.

It's.. kind of ironic that you mention Blizzard to Nathaniel, considering he works there now. Unless that was the intent, and you were just being *super-sneaky*.

Wait, what? Which IP is this? We don't know. That's kind of the point.

Did we ever get confirmation of that? I admit I'm biased, but I always take Pachter with a grain of salt, especially when he's commenting on something that has nothing to do with his work. Then again, the rumor wasn't exactly denied either.

I thought Deus Ex was one of the few games with a more than decent art direction last year. Maybe its originality is a little overplayed (mostly because games suck with recognizable visuals, unless they're going for "weirder than weird"), but it feels like a convincing vision of the future to me. Execution in game was so-so, though, character models are really bad, animations aren't that good, textures blurry, etc.

Going by the wording of the doctors' post, the fact that the founders felt they need to inform the public of the "restructuring", the fact that I've seen BioWare designers tweet sadly about their friends at BioWare Austin and wishing them good luck.. well, I find it difficult to believe we're talking only about QA/technical support people. Of course, it's difficult to understand what kind of layoffs we're talking about given that the only official source doesn't even dare saying the word and instead goes for "team restructuring", rumor is 200 but frankly that sounds way too big to me and difficult to believe.

From what I've seen there is a nice variety, although as moveset goes, it's tied to weapon types, and to the abilities you choose to equip. Comparisons with Dark Souls will inevitably leave you unsatisfied though, it's a game that really does different things.

Honestly, the game having atrocious writing is the least of my problems, because they don't really seem to be pushing it on the forefront. All of the gameplay I've seen points to a game that very much pushes you to "play" rather than watch cutscenes, and that's well and good. Writing probably will still hurt it, because it's really SO BAD from what I've seen, I can't even believe it, but not too much.

What?

You'd be surprised by how many people claim that it's not only a positive feature, but absolutely necessary if you're designed a WRPG unless it's totally linear.

I'm picking it up (and reviewing it, assuming my copy isn't so late in the mail that it's just pointless). I have to say, some of the negatives pointed out in the reviews strike me as a bit weird and ultimately come from different design views than mine (too difficult, no fast travel, no level scaling), but I also can already see how some problems that I noticed in the demo and streams might actually be in the final game (writing that makes Oblivion seem like a literary masterpiece, very limited variety in quests, same-y boring environments).

Brofist.

I read on RPGWatch it's already been released in Germany, but I dunno. I also read that it's about as short, or shorter than Treasure Isle. On that matter (shameless plug, but bear with me): I reviewed it

Wait, are you talking about the Kraken? There definitely is music, so I have to think your game is bugged. I don't know about length, I was satisfied with it, but I did pretty much every quest and some, found the legendary items, and I also did Treasure Isle.

I guess a better way to say it is "story is largely irrelevant and only serves you to move from mission to mission, so feel free to skip it".

There's no story. Assassin's Creed is all about parkour and assassinating dudes. Also, the first title sucks because of repetitiveness, although the unique assassinations offered more organic approaches compares to Assassins Creed II's scripted stuff. I have bought Brotherhood in this sale, so I can't comment on it yet.

Nope. There were two time limits, one for the water chip quest (the one that stayed in the patched game) and one, which was hidden, for the Super Mutant invasion. Super Mutant would gradually invade the civilized outpost and, iirc, they'd manage to find Vault 13 eventually. Players didn't like it, so the team quickly removed that time limit with a patch.