Drowsy Emperor

Still not worthwhile as dodging the game itself.

Rubbish, where are you from again? Please do not be someone from the US telling us what the situation is like in Europe. I actually have gypsies living in my neighborhood, had gypsies in my class in elementary school, regularly communicate with them on farmers markets and everything said about their lack of willingness to integrate is true for the overwhelming majority.

Well, we know how the Czech Republic went about this problem.

Also, I don't see the problem with a game alternating between open world and linearity. Linearity is needed to tell a good story. If you allow the player to walk away at each juncture it may be realistic but that way you have too little control over the experience. That's why every story in every Elder Scrolls game is utter ****, a quest like any other, and why the games feel pointless after 15 hours of gameplay.

I disagree completely with Josh. Athkatla was the best part of BGII. There's nothing wrong with being swamped with quests, it creates the great feeling that wherever you go there is something new to do and it makes the location seem alive and full of activity. There's nothing worse than entering a city location and realizing its made with a dozen quests that you can clean out in a day. You're never ever going to visit that in game place again. Why would you, if its designed to be so disposable? It doesn't matter how good it looks, if it doesn't constantly have something for you to do, for all intents and purposes - its dead. With Athkatla you never knew what a new visit would bring.

The need for every game to feature racism, sexism and bigotry after the Witcher did it (and did it only partly successfully) is becoming tiresome. It doesn't add anything by itself to an imaginary world, a world that should not have to (hopefully?) conform to the political topics of 21st century United States (and other countries obviously). If you need the disgusting aspects of your reality just look outside the window.

Monty, how many times do we have to tell you - the RC Sherman tank you keep in your closet isn't your son!

I like the costumes - they're obviously very real world but in this case that is a good thing as I'm rather tired of bland dark ages rags on one side and high fantasy kitsch on the other. Keep up the good work.

That's my point. Now its time to do their own thing. With projects less ambitious than AP.

Its probably for the best overall. Honestly, Obsidian always had problems with AAA games. For starters, their sequels, probably due to smaller budgets, rarely felt as polished as the original. The production values were always barely at the level of the original at the time when those games were already behind the tech curve. The elements that Obsidian is good at, the story and characters can be equally good in any game, regardless of budget. Having the budget of a typical AAA game helps of course but that brings about other constraints, not the least of which is publisher pressure. I think its good sense trying to stay out of that production value arms race and doing their own thing - for better or for worse, sink or swim - at least we'll play more of their own projects and less of what other companies dump in their lap. I know I often liked what Obsidian brought to those games, the thoughtful use of the SW universe in Kotor II, the story behind Mask of the Betrayer and the creativeness of Fallout New Vegas, but what I absolutely detested was that they felt like reheated porridge regarding gameplay, visuals etc (of games that I neither liked how they played or how they looked - NWN, KOTOR, F3).

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH That's the stuff that makes MMO's interesting. There was a cool cracked article with even crazier stuff: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-biggest-****-moves-in-history-online-gaming/ Read and laugh your guts out

^Thanks to Bester I'm now ready to join the nerd rage legions of DotA2 In other news, Planetary Annihilation: http://www.uberent.com/pa/ I generally don't play strategy games without a strong setting or story but I'd make an exception for this. If they didn't price the preorder at 60$.

Call of Pripyat was excellent. The atmosphere more than made up for the buggy and anticlimatic endgame.

I'm not against the game getting made (on the contrary) but I wish they (and others) had something more to show when they decide to make sequels to famous games. The thing that's selling the kickstarter is the JA name, not the reputation of the development team which is the ass backwards way to do it if you ask me. I could register a company and make a kickstarter tomorrow, whip up a few concept art pics and get my buddies to make a video but that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing or that I deserve the money. Its not the fear of losing 30 bucks I'm worried about, its the principle of the thing - you have to have something to show before asking people to drop the cash - either have a reputable name or company behind it, or at least a demo of some sort to show if you're an unknown developer.

What's the big deal over a few astral diamonds

I was out of the loop for a while, didn't know they were even handing out invites. I'd appreciate one though

Has anyone bought DOTA2 early access?

http://www.spacehulk-game.com/about.html

I did find a post from Civ V's designer on kickstarter talking about how difficult AI is to program, how proud of his code he was but at the same time admits that the AI doesn't know how to play the game or work as he intended it to work. Here: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/14/jon-shafer-criticizes-every-decision-he-made-in-designing-civ-v-explains-how-at-the-gates-will-differ/

I gotta try that.

Most people are complaining that the culling was done to cut the game down to a scope that would work on the consoles both from a hardware and gameplay standpoint - not because it was necessary (or even desirable) for an XCOM game per se. I've never even played the original so I don't have a nostalgic relationship to it. I just like to know to get a realistic idea of what the game is like before I decide to jump in, or not.

I guess that's why people are complaining that battles are "scripted", if every one of them starts with the aliens ducking for cover and continues with pew pewing over cover, majority of the time.

But if the AI always gets a move action that means you can never actually surprise them by sneaking in close in a direction they aren't looking to get a free shot? Like its possible to do in Jagged Alliance?

Its not skepticism keeping me away its just that I don't currently have access to my desktop so I can't play any newer titles. That said, my neighbor, who is much more tolerant about game flaws in general very quickly grew bored of XCOM. I still want to try it though. I finished and much to my surprise I'm completely unable to play through again. This is very much unlike me. 1. The difficulty is all wrong. The aliens just get crazier, and 'cheat' more. 2. It needlessly annoys me that all my 'men' speak with an American accent, despite being from, say, Brunei. 3. I could complain about the boring weapon loadouts, but ultimately it comes back to lazy alien AI combined with weak mission archetypes. Is it true that enemies always spawn in the same place (on the same maps obviously) and wait for you to come at which point they get a free move to hit you or hide - that there are effectively a limited collection of set piece battles with no randomization? Also, is it true that the game rolls all the shots in advance. One player was complaining on metacritic that if you load the game the soldiers miss or hit always in the same pattern, never re rolling the attack?

Lower birth rates result in a psychologically unhealthy passive and selfish society, dominated by an ever growing population of old people. It shrinks the work force so you have to import foreign workers. Lower birth rates will be the death of WASP USA, EU, Russia and the Balkans.