Keyrock

Mashing a button as fast as you can until you develop a blister fits no game I've ever played, nor does it qualify as gameplay under any definition my brain can come up with. The timing type QTEs can be fine, or even of value, when used sparingly, and either in optional mini-games, or as a way of determining whether you get bonus or not, not as a live or die mechanic.

Yeah, that level is pretty rough. The platforming itself in the game is subpar, but the game way more than makes up for it with an overabundance of charm, personality, humor, and level variety. Quite possibly the best level variety I've ever seen in a platformer, it's like playing a completely different game in each different level. Plus, it includes the single greatest level ever made, The Milkman Conspiracy. It's been so long since I've played the game that I'm starting over from the beginning.

Psychonauts, one of the best damn games ever made. It's been several years since I've played it, and I am happy to say the graphics hold up quite nicely.

Just once in a RPG I'd like to see a character jump in the water to swim wearing plate, make it a few yards while struggling mightily, then sink like a stone and die.

I haven't watched a second of basketball since the Olympics started. Who broke LeBron's nose?

Yay, swimming (I'm already imagining how bad the swimming animation will be ) Yay, voodoo is coming back (hopefully they make it more useful but still as much fun as in R2) So we're swapping our nameless hero for presumably another nameless hero. No modding tools.

Woot! Activated my Steam key, now just have to wait a few days. Hopefully the Berlin campaign is a bit less linear and gives you more options for going through areas in alternate ways besides one or two vents for drones and one or two terminals you can use decking to open doors or disable security.

I'm hoping they stick with the pirate motif, but if this picture is anything to go by, then it looks like we may be going back to a more medieval-ish theme I didn't mind the pirate theme. What I didn't like were the smallish islands and that meant less fun exploration. Agreed, one or two much larger islands would have been much better. With that said, Piranha Bytes managed to cram an amazingly high amount of stuff to find and do into each of those little islands.

Gotta love Google Translate: I'm hoping they stick with the pirate motif, but if this picture is anything to go by, then it looks like we may be going back to a more medieval-ish theme

Source?

How is this blasphemous? JUST TELLING It LIKE IT IS! Hear, hear.

Any Star Trek game with playable Borg and no Seven of Nine sexy time is just blatantly leaving money on the table.

Are there any Star Trek games out there that let you play as a Ferengi? That would potentially be highly entertaining.

Riker would definitely be the choice for protagonist if BioWare or CDPR were to make a Star Trek game. Number one hooked up more often than even Kirk.

Oh come now, did you not see the longing glances he and Dr. Beverly Crusher would share?

Absolutely, encounter design is part of it, Vancian magic only compounds the problem greatly. An aspect of encounter design is mindless, repetitious filler combat (which is to say, 95% of cRPG combat). It's such a standard feature of cRPGs and so widely accepted as being necessary (it shouldn't be, but it is) that it would take a revolution to exclude it from games (Help me Torment: Tides of Numenera, you're my only hope). If a developer is going to create a dungeon of any decent length, it's almost as if they have to fill it with a couple dozen filler battles, and with that many filler battles, and with Vancian magic, it's practically impossible to go through that dungeon without copious amounts of resting.

Here is another blasphemous confession: I've only ever played through Baldur's Gate 2 once, and likely never will again. I've played through NWN: Hordes of the Underdark at least 5 or 6 times (I've lost count at this point). HotU is more fun, and therefore better than BG2. (Though BG2 is still a better game than NWN since the OC and SotU bring the overall quality of that game down).

I agree with you, Humanoid. The idea of a party of adventurers breaking out bedrolls and snoozing for a few hours, or even just sitting down for 15 minutes, in the middle of storming a keep is straight up ludicrous. A lot of having to constantly rest, I suspect, is a product of how ludicrously bad a system Vancian magic is.

What if I want a cat companion instead? Why can't I have a cat companion? What does this developer have against felines? Obviously this developer is a filthy specist with a clear agenda against felines.

I'm of the mind that not every player needs to see every last bit of content in a game, or even be aware that every bit of content exists. Alternate paths don't need to be obvious. If a given player only is aware of 50% of the content in the game, that's okay. There's a great feeling of achievement when you find a different way to do something, a way to steer a conversation in a different direction, an alternate path, a different way to do something. I'm aware not everyone feels that way. That's why game mechanics are never one size fits all. Ideally, greyed out dialogue options, skill indicators, and such, would be an option in the config menu you could turn off. I'm perfectly happy to have the mechanic in the game if I can turn it off. The recent trendy game feature is focus mode or eagle vision or whatever, you know, when you push a button, the world goes all different color, and the game basically spells out for you where all the secrets, climbing paths, targets,etc. are. Personally, I think it's a garbage mechanic, yet another hand holding tool making games more and more automated, but I have no problem with it being included in a game so long as I'm never forced to use it. If I can turn it off or ignore it, then I have no problem with it being in the game.

I personally like when they don't give you the skill/stat amount needed, or even the skill/stat for that matter, it just looks like any other dialogue option, and if you don't meet the requirements or fail on your roll then you fail the influence attempt and have to deal with the consequences of your failed attempt. The downsides to this method are: 1) It encourages metagaming and save-scumming. 2) It can be difficult to convey how difficult or preposterous an influence attempt might be without clobbering you over the head with a number. My responses to those two valid concerns would be: 1) People are going to metagame and save-scum anyway if they're inclined to do so. 2) I enjoy trying to decipher/guess how much something would go against a certain character's wishes and nature and how far I could push them and get away with it from what I've learned about the character, their manner of speech, personality, etc.

I am very much against this sort of thing. DA:I is certainly not the first game to implement such a thing, and sadly won't be the last.

The things you describe are called faeries or sidhe and they have very little in common with the Elves. Granted that Tolkien drew inspiration from them, but that doesn't make it his fault that people today took inspiration from him and made it in to something else again. The elves we know today are awful in large part to being inspired by the awful elves Tolkien depicted. You start with an awful base and your modified version is more likely than not to also be awful.

How is that his fault? Elves, as they first were conceived by whatever Germanic tribe, were very different than what elves are depicted as in popular culture right now. The current depiction of elves all stem from Tolkien's depiction of them.

Some more: I wish I could punch J.R.R. Tolkien in the face for making elves what they are now I would rather Dragon Age 3 went The Full Shepard than back to DA:O style combat or the awful hybrid they created for DA2 (though I'll take DA:O combat over DA2 combat in a heartbeat) Contemporary real world setting is much better than the vast majority of settings