Purkake

I've got a ton of them, finding the right place to use them is the problem.

Wouldn't the path you don't take be hidden content as well?

Sure, the ME2 thing was just a little too formulaic for me, they should have integrated it into the missions or something like that. I would like Obsidian to try some crazier story-telling mechanics, they can't just stick with the influence thing forever.

Well, for me the "good parts" were the perks, the dynamic mission structure based on the intel and your previous choices and the characters. Everything else can be improved. So while taking press criticism one for one is probably a bad idea in any case, they usually point out the major flaws pretty well if you aggregate the result enough. EDIT: Oh and dossiers as well, but it would be nice if they were used a bit more actively in the game.

Neither crutch is particularly good, especially after multiple uses. The NPC's motivations have been boiled down to a single loyality mission. Oh and why aren't any games doing the rival pseudo-protagonist thing where multiple people are doing the same thing as you in parallel and for their own reasons?

Well yeah, you get my point. Also all Obsidian's protagonists seem to have the magical/force/inborn talent to manipulate/inspire people, getting a little predictable there, old chaps...

Encouraging metagaming isn't necessarily a failure. A roleplayer will simply play through it twice. Once metagaming to see all the content (the first time for me), once roleplaying to really get into character (the second time around so I know I'm not missing anything critical or truly amazing). I almost never play games more than once. The influence system should be more natural and based on stuff you actually do instead of just talking to them and not being a douche.

Maybe we have different opinion of the "good parts"?

The Terror missions is TFTD were way tough. Total battle of attrition, I used to get below decks after losing half my squad and just barely eke out a win. Having to find the last damn alien on the ship missions was way worse than anything else.

I'm not getting on the hype train anytime soon. Also would be nice to see some gameplay footage.

The press might have been overly harsh on AP, but they weren't complaining about the good parts.

Well it was in the wrong thread :/

Add a little African culture to your Obsidian forums experience.

Some E3 hands on impressions fromGameInformer

You are awesome. And I come

Umm in order of appearance: Warcraft III, Defense of the Ancients, If I Recall Correctly.

The only part I remember clearly was Arthas returning to his castle to cut up his father after turning evil. I'm more nostalgic for Warlords Battlecry, though.

What about Braid or World of Goo? One is a single-man operation and the other is done by two people, both look amazing and have plenty of polish. Valve took away cutscene skipping controls. They're just portraying it realistically, how exactly would a mute in a power suit tell the Vances to knock their crap off? The whole game is actually about people using you for their own ends, Gordon is nothing but a tool. "Tell me, Dr. Freeman, if you can. You have destroyed so much. What is it, exactly, that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not."

Spikey hair?

Don't make it a curse word, you can streamline stuff and actually make it better, just look at Shadowrun 4e.

Rage gameplay video(s)

Yeah, I do understand it, hence the 'way it goes.' Books, movies....sequel-itis is one reason I stopped reading very many novels or caring about a lot of movies. I guess I was just foolishly hoping that the vid. game industry would avoid it being quite so dominant for a bit longer. There have been some game sequels that I've liked almost as much as the original, & certainly games where I want a sequel (Diablo, haha) so again, not always a bad thing. It's just disheartening when it starts to feel that's all there is anymore. I think it comes down to having a planned out arc like some awesome TV series(Babylon 5) and book series vs just making stuff up as you go along. Of course it's pretty hard to predict whether a game will do well or not and no one likes cliff-hanger endings with no sequel ever coming out. Mass Effect was supposedly planned out from the start, but the second part still feels like it was made up as they went along. Title name recognition=more sales, among other things. There's no reason every game has to be a AAA $60 title. What's wrong with big developers making small innovative download-only games? I guess this mostly the publisher's fault.

Valve's not actually big on cutscenes in general, HL2 didn't have any either. Depends on your definition of a cutscene. I think just standing there for five minutes while the Vances have a heart to heart and then you watch a cat fight counts . It comes down to taking the control away from the player. Not that everyone wanted to watch the Vance heart to heart, but there is a difference. It's been happening for a while now, especially after Activision entered the scene in a big way. But it's not just the publishers, just look at all the people begging for a Alpha Protocol 2. People are also into franchises in a big way.

Nariko was modeled after the voice actress and Fringe star Anna Torv. Might be the same case here? Valve's not actually big on cutscenes in general, HL2 didn't have any either.