Purkake

It is okay for surfing and light downloading. You'd want something a bit better for heavy gaming, streaming and downloading. Also, it is never really "fast enough" just like processors are always getting faster and more efficient. Same oppinion, my sister is totaly into streaming video, she almost never use classic television anymore, and 2Mbit is realy very limited for that purpose, especialy now when she found out about High Definiton. Oh totally, I quit "normal" TV about 3 years ago. There's really nothing to watch especially here where all the better shows arrive 2 years later or not at all. Yeah HD is like a drug, once you get a taste of it, all the other stuff looks really bad.

For the love of god, please make it more interesting than a weekly episode of <insert generic TV-serie here>. Is this the backlash against Mass Effect? I thought mostly everyone here liked it. It wasn't bad, it was just... mediocre, average, run of the mill. The console crowd finally got a taste of half-way decent storytelling and hailed it as the second coming.

Yeah I can see what you're saying and I disagree on some points, but this is a discussion for the DRM thread, sorry that this thread got all derailed. So back to DA. What is known of the system that they use for stats, combat etc.? Is it DnD-esque or have they made a completely new system? Does anyone here think that EA actually has the determination to push Dragon Age as hard as Mass Effect and make a similar success out of it? I hope they don't set their expectations too high or just ignore DA in their marketing.

Lulz. :( Remember Starforce? It worked pretty well until the unfortunate side-effect of destroying optical drives and sometimes even hard drives emerged. I still avoid anything with Starforce like fire.

I'm actually trying to bring out the other shortcoming that most game companies have with PC games. Some of them are bad ports, buggy and rushed games, lack of technical support. Just look how "well" Microsoft is doing with their Games For Windows initiative. Games For Windows Live is just now barely working. Now coming back to DRM, yes I believe that since all the existing DRM schemes have been broken within a week of the games' release(with a couple of exceptions) for the past DECADE, DRM is a waste of money. If they haven't figured out how to make effective DRM in the past 10 years, how long is it going to take? Sorry to use the repeated argument, but why is only the legal consumer suffering? How does the survival of PC publishers depend on DRM, if it doesn't work and never really has?

I wasn't aware of such great baggage on a simple expression. Different social and geographical background, I guess. Even if the DRM situation is indeed improving, you can't seriously suggest that PC gaming is getting a fair treatment by companies like EA and Microsoft.

It's just an expression

Companies have treated PC gamers like second class citizens for a while now with DRM, crappy ports and "timed exclusives". I am a PC gamer, I am not rabid and I could care less if a game is also out on the consoles. All I want is a decent game that works. I judge the companies by their games, if they make crappy games then I give them ****, if they make good games I might buy their other games. Bioware is seriously lacking on the PC cred lately.

Don't they pirate it anyway? I don't think that is the reason PC ports usually come months after the game is released. Either the porting takes longer or there are incentives (hint: money).

You haven't drunk your kool aid man! It's Bioware, believe! To be honest the console stuff doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, but maybe they don't change the PC version and only mess with the console version. This could be the ONLY "good" Dragon Age with workable pc-centric controls.

Umm, was anyone actually expecting this to release in March or whenever it was supposed to be released. Maybe they'll use the time to polish the game in general/PC version because god knows they need it. I have my reservations about Dragon Age, but I think that the delay can only make it better. How many times have games sucked because they were rushed out the door? I'll be happy if it actually WORKS on the PC as opposed to say GTA IV etc.

It is okay for surfing and light downloading. You'd want something a bit better for heavy gaming, streaming and downloading. Also, it is never really "fast enough" just like processors are always getting faster and more efficient.

The school didn't really fit into FEAR at all. FEAR was about bleak, eerie and wonderfully gloomy corporate offices and industrial complexes. It's a gloomy, eerie and depressing school for an industry giant's human genetic experiments on children in their early years, where teachers' desks have notes on the use of psychoactive drugs on the kids, instead of say, how well Billy did in the gym last week. I'd say that fits pretty well. No. They shouldn't try to pull a Condemned. But we'll see what the full version offers, it's hard to judge a demo that consists of glued-together maps from everywhere. But my stomach tells me it won't be as good as FEAR1. Oh man, the kool aid is wearing off? Somone get this man a new drum!

Estonia has a silly number of internet connection per person, I remember being in Rapina (fairly small place for those who don't know), the closest bar had wi-fi! It's everywhere... It's not just cities and large towns, pretty much anything from a small village up has a net connection. I'm not too sure about some of the small farms out in the middle of nowhere, but I'd imagine you could get a connection if you so wanted. Most of the population is in the bigger cities/town and pretty much all of them have internet. There are still a bunch of people living in farm houses in the middle of nowhere they can get the (not very fast yet) wireless broadband. I guess I'm just spoiled...

The city as a whole is called Freeport I think, there are several districts, only one is named (The Auburn District) and that district is where Alma was kept and got blown up in the first game. In FEAR 2 you're running around in the ruins chasing a freed Alma. It always felt like the same damn city, can't they switch it around a little? I don't mean ice level and lava level, but like HL2. Some change is refreshing, and you could try to do creepy forest and creepy country side for a change.

What's the deal with the city anyway? Is it the same city that get's (Alma)nuked at the end of FEAR 1? The locations have always confused me. It will be pretty sad if all you do is go through the desolated city to visit schools, hospitals and theaters.

Oh man, I don't think I could live with bandwidth caps. I'd rather go back to my 2Mbs and have unlimited bandwidth as I do now, than have 100Mbs and pay per megabyte. That is just criminal. Apparently our(Scandinavia and Baltic states) infrastructure is solid enough that we don't need caps. Pretty much everyone has broadband here(in cities at least) and I still get my full 12Mbs down and 2Mbs up. Australia is awesome, though!

The ISPs are capping the bandwidth because they lack sufficient infrastructure. The circle is now complete.

The problem isn't only the bandwidth, but also the lag. Lol and where is that a standard??? In USA and Japan? You know, there are around 250 other countries which can disagree with your numbers... But yes i can get 100mbit in here aswell, for a small fee of 2500 EUR/month... oh yeah i love standards... The US is way behind on broadband penetration, try Europe and Japan. USA was also way behind on cellphones, it's mostly the size of the country, I guess. I get 12Mb internet along with digital TV for

Ah yes, the ever-elusive unified console. To be honest, I could care less, the only console that I have is Nintendo DS and I'm not planning on getting any home consoles until I can get all the games in downloadable form. The problem is that here, in Estonia(and continental Europe in general) the consoles cost 1.5-2x more than in the US without the sales tax and the games come like a month later and cost 2x more. PCs and PC games on the other hand cost about the same as in the US. Maybe the console wars would go back to PC vs unified console. As it stands now I don't like the 360 for taking most of the PC games and simplifying them for the "mainstream". The PS3 is ok, but Sony seems to mismanaging it horribly. And it is fun to watch people blame the Wii for killing the gaming and making everything "mainstream" when the other consoles did that to PC gaming some time ago. The unified console thing would be interesting to see, but it's not going to happen in today's market unless two of the big console makers pack up and leave.

That's pretty good, I had a good laugh. It looked like he enjoyed it as well, the review that is. Maybe he had a good rest in the holidays. Chest-high walls!

Most podcasts are not recorded live.(it takes a lot more effort and tech) It would be much better to send mp3s via email or just plain emails like in most podcasts. The idea is that the Obsidian crew does the podcast. I want to hear their take on things, not just stuff about Obsidian. There are enough fan podcasts, we need more "offical" podcasts these days.

Same as no moving and shooting at the same time - they are probably trying to make it feel like the earlier games. I don't think it is a good idea, having a survival horror game be scary because you can't turn around properly or move while shooting seems like a cop-out to me, but some people seem to like it.

That is pretty much the only reason people are still buying so many console games. If the publishers finally have their way and kill the console second-hand market then it will be hilarious to see them blame low sales on some other scapegoat(piracy maybe?) I firmly believe that all games should have demos(that FEAR2 demo was like the first PC demo of a big game in 3 months) and that people should only buy games that they think are actually worth the money.(maybe we'd get better games then) Retailer's take something in region of a 40% cut from a game which is sold new. The rest goes to publisher/developer etc... A second hand game is pure profit for the retailer. A game costing $50 once sold makes $20 for the retailer. I buy back that game for $15, and sell it on again at $30, that's just increased the retailers profit. Hence a game which cost $50 in the first place has now made $50 for the retailer, with a risk of $15, the actual folk who've worked on the product have made $30. The sale also only counts as a single unit sold. That's my basic issue with second hand games, I can understand why people buy second hand, it's cheaper so that's a no brainer, but the retailers are making an absolute killing while the developer probably see's what $10 of every unit sold. Naturally there is some room for movement, but those figures are around the correct figure. I agree with the idea of demo's in principle, but it's not always practical to develop a demo. I know that second-hand sales are pure profit for the retailer and give developers nothing. The thing is that people would buy less games(new games) if they couldn't sell them back and get another (new game). The problem with digital distribution is that they sell the games at the same price as retailers. I love having my stuff on Steam and the physical boxes haven't been worth buying since the late 90s, but we need more competitive pricing. Is Mirror's Edge really worth the 50 Euros that I payed for it? That's why the Steam holiday sale was so great. Also props for Ubisoft for reducing Farcry 2's cost to 30 bucks. I understand that demos take time to develop, but when did it stop being a standard. Especially on the PC I want to see how well the game runs and how it plays in general.(I'm looking at you GTAIV) It seems like most publishers understand that their game sucks and they just want to take your money.

That is pretty much the only reason people are still buying so many console games. If the publishers finally have their way and kill the console second-hand market then it will be hilarious to see them blame low sales on some other scapegoat(piracy maybe?) I firmly believe that all games should have demos(that FEAR2 demo was like the first PC demo of a big game in 3 months) and that people should only buy games that they think are actually worth the money.(maybe we'd get better games then)