Pidesco

No worries. S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Gothic 2 loving is always welcome.

from what i understand, not anti stem-cell research, but anti fetal stem-cell research. big difference. while i don't agree with he positions on these issues, it hardly makes her a nutjob. taks I'd say advocating the teaching at the same time of creationism and evolution in schools should make her seem like a bit of a nutjob. Except in America, of course.

Choices and consequences are the only things that really essential in an RPG, to me. Of course, all aspects of an RPG should be interesting and well designed for it to be a good game, but if the choices and consequences aren't there than isn't much of an RPG. Also, the consequences should be central to the narrative, and should really affect the world and people around you.

Silent Storm.

What is the equivalent of Europa Barbarorum for Medieval 2?

I didn't say that at all. What do you mean by "succeeded"? Wasn't ME, like KOTOR, a huge commercial and critical success?

You could try being more generic in your appreciation of the game. Also, I'd like to point out that KOTOR was most definitely developed for the "graphics whores." It's the only reason I can see for it to use a 3D engine, considering its gameplay is actually 2D. Furthermore, the use of a 2D engine would have cut down on costs, and hardware requirements, thus allowing for richer, larger environments, with more actors and more development time spent on writing and side quests. Not that I'm criticizing Bioware for choosing to use a 3D engine. Marketing and selling a 2D game to the Xbox crowd would have been tough, to say the least, not to mention that Bioware would have to convince Lucasarts(and Microsoft?) that a 2D game was worth their investment of time and money.

How about elaborating on why you found KOTOR fun and addictive? What made KOTOR a better experience than all other RPGs you ever played?

What makes you think that Bioware's goals in making KOTOR weren't the exact same in making Mass Effect?

I haven't played ME. I don't know if it sucks or not. What I do know is that KOTOR is not a masterpiece of anything. It's a repeat of BG2 with most of its good features gutted or taken away.

I'd like to remind you that finding Bastila was a main quest, not a side quest.

English!!!! How could Obisidan let alpha the Protocol fail in this so very specific way? Disappointment! Yes, exactly!

How about this: Will an ancient, forgotten group of very powerful beings be a main part of Dragon Age's plot?

Speaking of which, how different will Dragon Age be from your last few titles? Because repetitiveness in Bioware's games has really set in for me.

Prismatic Spray?

I laughed at the implication that RPG's haven't had good combat since Troika died which is silly considering how phail combat in Troika games were. I think he's just talking about TOEE.

A far more important question is whether the overland map battle transitions will be handled with a blurry zoom in of the camera, and with some stupid, over the top panning of the camera around the characters! Also, will the characters have victory poses?

Audiosurf Fant

Dialogue. Well, the writing seems fairly nondescript and unimpressive, the animations in the dialogue scene are wooden, and the faces of the king and his advisor are simply atrocious. On the other hand, the battle scene appeared competent enough, and they managed to get a bucket load of characters on screen at the same time. I hope that isn't seen only in cutscenes. Wait and see.

You could just begin with the molten lead and save yourself the trouble.

oh, bummer. How much does XP cost, these days?

That example build that mkreku put up is really nice, I just don't see what's the point of shelling out the money required for Vista at this point. I'm guessing you have a working copy of XP somewhere so use that instead. It saves you 100$ right now, and you can always get Vista later if, at some point, there's a good enough reason for you to want it.

I think that it can be a great a way to see how the world is affected by your actions, and how the world ultimately affects your missions. Also, it could be a way to lead the player into using ammo a bit more sparsely. For example, Thorton can go into a mission with guns akimbo, shooting anything that moves, and setting off alarms all over the place. However, that would put the player all over the news, thus making subsequent missions a lot harder.

You just wish you were as cool as a Duran Duran auditioner.