Pidesco

She had no tentacles. She was just really into biking with full body paint.

She was in a Dollhouse special episode. I think she is an internet celebrity. Quite hawt, too.

VATS is simply broken. There really is no way around it.

Ok, this is actually brilliantly incompetent.

That has to be fake. The head is in a completely unnatural position and his hand is still black. Now, that said, if this was true it would make sense if there aren't any black people in Poland. It would be weird to have what's supposed to be the picture of a Polish office filled with people who are clearly not Polish. I mean, imagine if it was say, a Korean ad and none of the people in the ad looked remotely Korean.

My experience with English pubs tells me they're filled with ugly inbred idiots wearing football shirts as a fashion statement.

1. AI 2. Bugs Get cracking Obsidian!

And I'm not contesting that. That's actually my point and why I think that right now saying any game already released has outstanding writing is, not only shortsighted, but dismissive of the medium's potential.

Not in absolute terms, of course, but in relative terms definitely. Casablanca is a brilliantly written film and To a God Unknown is a brilliantly written book, however, what makes the movie brilliantly written and the book brilliantly written aren't the exact same qualities. When I say Torment's writing isn't a good as a classic novel(say, Crime and Punishment), I'm talking about how the game and novel harness their respective mediums in order to tell their narratives and expound their themes. Game writing and design still has a very long way to go before games can be fairly and positively compared to other mediums.

Off the top of my head, Obsidian, Irrational, Double Fine and Quantic Dream have better writers. Quite a few companies are about as competent as Bioware. Add the guys who made Bioshock. Irrational Games made Bioshock, even if they were absorbed into 2K's corporate machine.

Providing entertainment and amusement does not negate or exclude the achievement of cultural significance.

I don't think any game has really outstanding writing, not even Torment or Grim Fandango. Writing in games has still a very, very long way to go.

Writing isn't just the words on the paper. It's that, of course, but it's also plot construction, integration of themes, narrative and gameplay, and character development. I'm not sure what you remember of Psychonauts but it didn't have that little writing. Of course, it didn't have as much writing as Bioware's games but still had more than enough to make a critical appreciation of it. Just the intro sequence, for example, was better written than anything Bioware has ever done. I don't dislike Bioware, by the way. BG2 is one of my favourite games ever. That doesn't change my opinion that Bioware's writing is mostly just functional, including in BG2.

Off the top of my head, Obsidian, Irrational, Double Fine and Quantic Dream have better writers. Quite a few companies are about as competent as Bioware.

haha. no. there are plenty of companies who do worse writing, but not that many. Besides that's like a filmmaker bragging that his plots are better than those of porn movies.

^That's NV info right there. The weapons' UI will have info on which skill they use. >_

King Olaf The Old Republican. The game about an old Icelandic Republican who gets appointed the absolute King of Iceland after a freak election year and the finding of dodgy genealogy documents. The player, playing the puppet ruler of Iceland, must find out the hidden truth behind his appointment while trying to surreptitiously rule his beloved homeland. It's an adventure/RPG/strategy game of choices and consequences and has a better plot than anything Bioware has ever done.

Mount & Blade is pretty awesome.

Note how that screenie is a perfect example of dumbing down. In BG you had to actually gather your party before venturing fort. Now, in DA all you need to do is click yes. Weak, Bioware, weak. Removing a crucial gameplay feature from a classic just ain't going to fly with us hardcore people. C&C is dead. I bet we don't even have to listen to the spoken declaration one million and seven times because the console 'tards don't enjoy hearing. Decline of RPGs. Also: "Gather your party and venture forth." I'm going to quit RPGs forever, or at least until AP gets released or until I give Mount & Blade another spin. I hope you're ready to face the consequences, Bioware.

There were two major hype points for KOTOR1 before release. One was simply that it was a Star Wars RPG, the other was that all the NPCs had full VO.

wow.

I thought a melee/unarmed build would be a viable option.

Wouldn't it be easy to include the unarmed navigation animations in the PC version, while excluding them in the console versions?

You "found" it? How do you find such a thing without looking for it? Was Garrus pouting in the cover of Time at the local newsstand? Was Garrus winking at you on a huge billboard just outside of Pozn

I don't get it. If AP has unarmed combat, how can the game not have unarmed animations?