Drowsy Emperor

By actually going into the engine and ripping out all legacy win95 stuff and trying to make it take advantage of current tech. They say they had no idea how many oddities were hard-coded there and how many things that shouldn't be connected turn out to be. Simply, bg1 code was a mess that, incredibly, worked and untangling that mess broke a lot of stuff. I have no reason to doubt them, certainly as they demonstrated their ability to fix stuff up until this last episode. Honestly, that sounds like bollocks. The people that made a working game made a "mess" but those that "untangled" it broke it. If they got it working later, that basically means Deathdealer is right - they just kicked it out of the door prematurely. If I get the itch to play BG again, I might get it - but only on a drastic sale.

Btw how did they manage to break a game a dozen modders didn't? What's the official excuse

No, Oni is the best.

So we have reached the usual Obsidian consensus on the issue.

This just brings back memories of rampant daddy issues in Mass Effect 2. A galaxy far far away, filled with american teenagers. WHY BIO WHY

I wouldn't count on it unfortunately. Why not?

That's what I thought as well. I was experiencing feature bloat by San Andreas. Dumb repetitive things, like working out in the gym. I work out in a real gym, why would I want to go home and do more of that for a virtual character? Same thing with GTAIV and hanging out with friends. Drive to pick them up, drive them to the destination, pray that nothing goes wrong, drive them back (iirc?)... Bleh. A 5-10 minute non interactive cutscene would have offered all character progression necessary, without all the tedium. Its like they're trying to make the game all things to all people. As a general rule, that doesn't work. I see the 3 protagonists and I get a headache thinking I'll get recruited into doing similar tasks three times as much as before. The developers lose focus too. Some of the GTAIV minigames were well designed, but many of the missions were terrible murder sprees that totally clash with the realism the game aspires to - so it turned out that minigames were at time better than core gameplay?! That was the worst immersion breaker. On one side you have an attempt at serious storytelling on the other the completely nonsensical "going postal" GTA missions. Niko is portrayed as a good guy, essentially sick of violence - but you have him kill more people than the Terminator. There was more murdering in the game than stealing cars and running away! Its okay for a game to be as serious as "Mafia" or as silly as Vice City, but having both in one makes for a thoroughly disconnected experience.

Last good Blizzard game was Blackthorne. It was the Lost Vikings you n00b.

How is any tablet a productivity tool? There isn't a single thing that can't be done faster on a desktop/laptop. Hell even a 200$ netbook is a better productivity tool. My poor Intel Atom N450 (at less than half the price of MS Surface) can run Chrome, MS Office, Photoshop CS6 etc. on a proper operating system at reasonable speeds and has a full complement of input options, plus a 320 gig hard drive. Its not going to win awards for speed but for all intents and purposes, its a fully functioning computer. For the price of MS Surface, or god forbid, the iPad you could buy a solid laptop on which you could actually do everything a pc is made for. A tablet is like a smartphone - a toy. There's nothing bad about wanting to have a new toy but since you list productivity as a reason, I can't follow the logic of buying a tablet, the most useless device in existence at those price points if you're hoping to get any actual work done.

I'd probably get hooked enough to play a large part of the main story at the very least, for as long as it keeps my attention, but I'm also likely to drop it about a dozen hours in so its probably not the best purchase for someone on a budget. My gaming time is so limited anyway that I'm reduced to playing only those games I really really want to play, and those are the games that in general have quality story content I can tackle in linear fashion. Sandbox gameplay wastes too much time on irrelevant stuff (kind of the point, but still). Its probably a matter of changing tastes too, my third person action game experience was at its highest with the holy trinity of the time: Max Payne - Vice City - Mafia. The first two I played 5-6 times, the third one only once but it raised the bar on action game storytelling in a single stroke. After that my interest shifted to role playing and never returned for anything but a short stretch of time.

Me too. The protagonists from previous games were cardboard cutouts. There's literally nothing to like (or even dislike) about them. CJ had a bit of character but ultimately he was just another yo from da hood, completely interchangeable with the other members of the cast. Niko* has a story and motivation, although the other characters in the game were as shallow as the rest of the supporting cast from the previous ones. *Btw the name means "nobody" in Serbian. And no, its not a name anyone actually has. I must say I am surprised you didn't like GTA4 due to its strong ties to Serbia and the Bosnian War, its not often games incorporate that devastating war into there lore and characters? I liked the story. Or actually, I liked Niko. He is a far more human character than any GTA protagonist, an in fact he's one of the best videogame characters ever written. I also appreciated that they did a good job of keeping things general and vague enough not to offend anyone. There really isn't anything about the war there, just vague snippets from time to time. Some of the other choices are unclear. Niko is obviously Serbian but Roman on the other hand is not a Serbian name. I guess its because Roman is a popular hollywood name for people from eastern europe. Other names are chosen seemingly at random. Its also unclear why they chose an american to do voice acting for Niko, if they wanted him to speak Serbian on occasion and have an accent - obviously it would have been much better to find a Serbian voice actor. It was a bad choice. His Serbian is horrible and distorted. The city was well crafted, the animations were fluid and the gameplay was pretty good. However the missions were somewhat boring and the story delivery was haphazard. So it was a mixed experience. On one hand I greatly enjoyed playing Niko and I think he's a great creation. But the GTA part just didn't hold me. After 3 games I think I was just too burned out to get excited by it all over again.

Me too. The protagonists from previous games were cardboard cutouts. There's literally nothing to like (or even dislike) about them. CJ had a bit of character but ultimately he was just another yo from da hood, completely interchangeable with the other members of the cast. Niko* has a story and motivation, although the other characters in the game were as shallow as the rest of the supporting cast from the previous ones. *Btw the name means "nobody" in Serbian. And no, its not a name anyone actually has.

I offer 55$. Independence War 2 was hands down the most immersive space-sim I ever played. Hell I'd pay to see a good sequel.

I have no doubt that the game will be amazing from a design perspective, but there really is only one question it needs to answer and that is: why bother doing all those things in game in the first place? GTA games have become progressively less fun over the years, and although I really liked GTA IV's story the fun I had with the series peaked in Vice City. This is just... boring. GTA III was mindblowing fun in its time but there is a limit on how many times you can repackage it and sell it again. All they've done is stress realism and its not helping. Plus Rockstar is no longer the sole purveyor of the whole sandbox crime thing, which I feel has become a dead end. Much like Bethesda's role playing games. But then, there are always the new kids. I guess GTA was the teenager game, but not something that can (or maybe even should) be entertaining to a grown up.

I can't help it that the best games were made when I was 13.* *Acute case of typical gamer nostalgitis.

Okay that is impressive, its like they have taken the best mod's for the game and incorporated them into one. That's some good development skills Awesome.

BG is done. If even a decent EE couldn't be made I sure hope they finally let the dead rest. Baldur's Gate = Bhaalspawn story. That story is finished, the PC made his choice and his friends went their separate ways. It was a fitting and somewhat romantic conclusion to a well crafted whole. Everything else is just using the name to slap onto something else to make it sell better and only an accountant could see purpose in that. Torment likewise. Enough with this crap. If they can't make a new role playing game without looting the corpse of something totally unrelated they might as well quit.

Wow, that's a massive improvement over what was shown during the Kickstarter. But it still looks extremely generic.

One thing is making me uneasy though. I don't know what kind of viewing angles are necessary to really make a pivot monitor pleasant to use. I assume that not just anything will do because some parts of the screen might be discolored towards the top and bottom.

I don't think the reviewers were getting paid for reviews, if that's what your getting at. If your saying shiny graphics distracted them, I could see that. The marketing for the game was very aggressive. It was practically pronounced GotY before release. Like most AAA titles I suppose a lot was done right (as it usually, but not always happens when you throw money at something) but I have a gut feeling it doesn't quite qualify for the "unforgettable experience" category. Reason being: I didn't see anything remotely original in the gameplay videos, apart from the high production values. In fact it looked like a cinematic adaptation the current zombie apocalypse fad, which I think has already been done to death. And beyond.

Weird, I didn't think the ability to pivot would drive the price up so much, I thought it was a pretty mundane thing at this point.

The WiiU will probably be worth something down the line. We're just going to have to wait on it a while, especially if it all boils down to first party titles.

See, and this is why Iwata-san deserves a bow. (If its not empty talk) it sure is cool. Sony never learned that lesson. If they didn't fire their engineers at the first sign of economic problems they wouldn't have Samsung and LG (among others) to contend with today. I recently found out that these companies got their startup tech cheap by hiring ex Sony staff. Basically got years of technological investment for peanuts.

Update: The screen flickering is driving me crazy. Apparently the reason is the monitor VGA connection. Users are reporting that using a DVI cable solves the issue. Sadly, my monitor only has VGA, so I'm ****ed until I get a new one. Who knows when I'll have the cash to buy a new monitor.... Can anyone here suggest a "best buy" 22 or more inch monitor that has pivot capability?

Its a big budget game from Naughty Dog. Guess where a chunk of that budget went. Not saying its a bad game or anything, but there are plenty of people commenting on issues that reviewers have selectively ignored.