Pidesco

System Shock 2 had linear progression, but each individual level was quite open.

Dungeon Siege 3....

I'd be shocked if Diablo III wasn't better than DS III in terms of gameplay. I find this surprising. Diablo's strength was never in the gameplay proper, which was designed to be as simple and mindless as possible. The point of Diablo was grinding and item hunting for the sake of character building. It didn't play itself to the point of the original Dungeon Siege, but the combat was still pretty lackluster. DS3, on the other hand, has sweet, responsive combat that really shines through the tight controls, and the emphasis on player skill. Conversely, it falls flat in the character building options, given that it only allows you 30 levels and the itemization is comparatively shallow. In some ways Dungeon Siege 3 is the exact opposite of Diablo 2. DS3 is just the sort of hack and slash CRPG I wanted to see on the PC, and I'm playing it avidly.

You could state what your problem is exactly. That might help.

This... is probably the best summary of the Codex I've ever seen. That said, I do love the place. I firmly believe that the internet is for mad people, and that that's the way it should be. Madness has its negative side, but if I want to talk to anything approaching normally functioning human beings, I'll leave the house. If I want mad, brilliant, maladjusted geniuses willing to wax lyrical about odd obsessions ranging from art direction in RPGs to racial purity to how golden retrievers are genetically modified mutants to how much they want trannies to poop on them, I go to the internet - and for all these things and many more, you can't beat the Codex. It takes a... special sort of person to survive there with sanity intact. I'm really, really not sure why everyone there is insane or why general discussion is a Nazi enclave, but there you go. For all their downsides, I don't believe there exists anywhere on the internet a collective of people who, as a whole, know quite as much about old-school RPGs as the Codex does. Work your way past the bile and the insane noise:signal ratio and you'll find that their hatred is motivated by the purest love. Love for a genre which has undeniably strayed far, far from its roots, with the original target market being told by the industry as a whole (not Obsidian; they've had their bad moments, but I really like them and think their hearts are in the right place at least) that nobody cares about them and they'll never be catered for again. From the endless well of tears left behind by this act, an act which echoed the way their dad left forever so long ago, the Codex came to be. And all the Codex wants is to look back on the good times, when dad would hold them close and make all the world's troubles go away. But now mum is coming home with another man, who's big and strong and handsome but just can't replace your dad, and every night he beats you and tells you that you're stupid and ungrateful for not calling him father, for not saying he's better than your old dad ever was, and everywhere you go, all the other kids are talking about how cool your new dad is and you know what I mean, right? Admiral Jimbob here is one of the better posters on the Codex. One of the few worth following there.

Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction

Those in Europe can get Shogun at UK retail for less than that.

Do you have two monitors?

Lightning could have an interrupt effect, for example. Poison could cause a reduction in stats. Fire could be just straight up damage; or it could cause your character to do the funky chicken, thus wresting away control of your character.

Don't elemental attacks have effects besides damage?

If you are in europe you can buy any game for less money by ordering from uk stores.

Right now Steam servers are taking a beating due to the Summer sale. That may be affecting their service.

There's a help section in the game's menu that explains all the stats.

Amazing. That happens to me all of the time when my friends want me to help them move. Such a shame. Only this time it's my own furniture.

I pulled my left thigh muscle while running to catch the tram, yesterday. I had plans for moving furniture over the weekend. "Had" is the important word here. Also, I'm old.

That kind of disagreement is a sign of good balance and gameplay variety

Really? I liked the pip-boy. =P It felt to me like I had more options to choose from, whereas I feel that a lot of console games try to oversimplify everything for me and give me a small/basic UI. Then again I started as a PC gamer, but had to move to consoles for financial reasons... So that may be why I feel that way, heh. =) It's a perfectly fine UI if you are using a mouse and your ability to read smaller text is limited by the distance to your screen. If you are playing on a PC with a mouse as a pointing device and the ability tor ead much smaller text, it's an atrocious UI. Funny little fact: The terribleness of Oblivion's menu system on PC was acknowledged by Todd Howard. Regardless, Fallout 3 came out with the exact same type of menus. That's commitment to quality right there.

It's designed for consoles.

It's visually very clear when your character causes or suffers from elemental or bleeding damage. What's the difference between real elemental effects and lame ones? DS3 has auras and buffs, by the way, just not on items. The right choices of equipment can alter the optimal gameplay considerably. Still, you're right that equipment isn't as crucial to a player's success as it is in the original titles or in Diablo. however, conversely, player skill and reflexes affect the chance of victory in Dungeon Siege 3 than in the first Dungeon Siege. It's a question of focus.

Dungeon Siege has awesome combat. I don't think I've ever played a pure ARPG on the PC with combat this good.

Force feedback in a racing more or less emulates the feel of driving over rough terrain. Rumble simulates fighting your enemies with a cell phone. Or with a vibrator.

@Monkeylungs: Can you explain why you find the combat in DS3 weak? Also, regarding rumble, I think it's probably the worst successful gimmick in the history of video games. It doesn't achieve anything other than drawing attention to the interface between the player and the game.

Definitely no argument there. DS3 would have felt strange to me if I had played it on the PC too. My PC, my gamepad, and my big screen TV take issue with that. Oh, and actually, I've found I prefer to play Dungeon Siege 3 with a controller on my monitor when playing alone. Only on co-op do I prefer to switch to the TV.

Please stop lying to yourself and others, you make yourself look like a clueless buffoon. Mouse and keyboard is precise, flexible and superior to any control scheme. That really depends on the game. Unreal Tournament will always play better on M&K. Blazblue, not so much.

Also, by now Dungeon Siege 3 is probably the best RPG purchase I've made since Risen. It focuses almost exclusively on the combat, but one of the big problems with ARPGs on the PC is that they never ever focus on the combat mechanics. So it's a big breath of fresh air for me. I'll take this any day of the week over playing the same game over and over again on a random map.