Keyrock

It should be variable by region. Highly civilized areas would likely have a very smooth gradient, both in terms of wilderness and danger, in some areas almost no gradient in terms of danger as whole chunks of land, towns and countryside included, would be patrolled. In more frontier regions the gradients would be sharper. Areas occupied by nomads or savages my basically go right from village to wilderness with no more protection than fires and safety in numbers.

The early part of BG1 is TERRIBLE. Even fighters can get pretty much insta-killed at level 1 with just a roll or two going against them and mages and rogues are ridiculously squishy. Until you get to about level 3 or 4 the game goes something like this: Encounter > die > reload > encounter > die > reload > encounter > survive > save > encounter > die > reload > encounter > survive > save > etc... It's horrible, it forces you to save scum. I hate it so much that I use a save game editor to boost myself to level 3 at start, then later on dock myself 4000 exp to get back on par.

Yeah. BioWare Junior is really doing something totally interesting by making a Mass Effect clone. Even if it was nothing more than a Mass Effect clone, I'd be on board. I liked the Mass Effect trilogy quite bit, all the way up until about the last 10-15% of ME3, where it promptly fell off a ****ing cliff. Heck, a lot of people refer to Fallout: New Vegas as nothing more than a Fallout 3 reskin. I personally think it's more than that. Regardless, F:NV is one of my favorite games, reskin or not.

Wait, you can turn those trading cards into money? I thought they were just worthless trinkets to look at.

I remember MERP, it was basically an adapted version of Rolemaster. I never actually played MERP, but I played plenty of Rolemaster and even more Spacemaster.

Nothing that knocks my socks off so far, though I will scoop up the GRID2 Super Modified Pack DLC for 40% off. Usually I use 75% off as my threshold, but I can't expect that for a DLC that came out a week ago, not to mention that the difference between 40% and 75% off would be a measly dollar.

GabeN's server's can't stand up to the overwhelming demand for us to throw our money at him.

Okay, this is something that needs to come off the shelf and be put on the back burner. Then once Stick of Truth and/or Project Eternity are completed it should immediately go on the front burner. Medium heat, season, stir frequently. Seriously, Backspace sounds ****ing fantastic.

To me it all just comes down to "is it fun?". SR2 and SR3 were just fun. The missions were fun, the activities were fun, especially Insurance Fraud. Everything was put in place for me to have fun. GTA III was fun, partly because it was groundbreaking, and partly because it got out of your way and let me have fun. Vice City and San Andreas each added different fun things to do. There were parts that were tedious and unnecessary, especially in San Andreas, but there was still plenty of fun activities and the missions were for the most part fun and interesting. Not to mention that San Fierro was a stunt driver's paradise, man the crazy jumps and hellrides I pulled in that city. Somehow GTA IV just lost the fun aspect for me. The missions were more tedious than anything else, the city was well crafted but drab and boring, there were some well made mini games and some fun to be had, but the game seemed like it was actively trying to keep me from having fun. It felt more like a chore than a game. By the time I got to the last few missions I was dreading the missions and just saying to myself "let's just get this crap over with so I can get to the end".

Humans will eventually be phased out altogether.

Yeah and it makes me laugh But I would say we are all in agreement that GTA is the superior game ????? I think we're all in agreement to disagree with each other. Besides, the best open world, sandbox game ever made is CLEARLY Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. /hides

Here's the first trailer for the Kickstarter funded upcoming new Tex Murphy game, now called Tex Murphy: Tesla Effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BABcn4RMLqo Loving the cheese-tastic FMV. Welcome back Tex. Also, images:

And so it begins: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125841-Steam-Summer-Sale-Could-Start-Tomorrow Prepare your anus wallet.

I love the Saints Row games and the new GTA trailer does nothing for me. Really? I'm not sure if you are joking, I don't want to turn this into a SR vs GTA discussion but you can't possibly compare the outlandish and exaggerated gameplay antics of the SR4 trailer to the real living world of GTA5? Both look good but GTA5 is on a different level and it always has been? It's about what you're looking for in a game: If you're looking for gritty realism and going through an emotional roller coaster as the characters struggle with the morality of their actions, then GTA V definitely looks suited to that. Me, I want to cause ridiculous amounts of chaos and just have crazy, unfettered, over the top, juvenile fun. Having super powers, running around naked and punching people in the ****, and shooting aliens with a dubstep gun is definitely well suited for that.

Hmm, I'm not sure explicit sex would go over well with the FCC. What about a bromance RPG? You have different abilities like man hug, chest bump, high five, fist bump, and so on. As you level up you could upgrade your abilities to man hug with back pat, predator handshake, fist bump explosion. Here's an example of BioWare style dialogue options: Bro, you want head down to the beach and chill? Fo sho, that's a great idea, brah. I'll grab some brewskis. I gotta pick up the laundry first. Nah brah, that sounds lame.

Good find. Some really cool stuff on there. Also, great update. If I hear creature noises coming from a dark corner somewhere I'll suspect it's Polina.

Getting back to the GTA V trailer, and sandbox games in general. I will confess that there's a bunch of seemingly cool, fun stuff in the GTA V trailer, and I really hope that it is cool, fun stuff, but the GTA IV trailers had me thinking, wow this looks like a bunch of cool, fun stuff too, and in practice it didn't turn out that way, for me at least. I guess I'm still jaded from GTA IV. I get that Niko had been through a horrible war, desensitized to killing, and had PTSD, or whatever, but that didn't in any way endear him to me. To me, he was still a heartless, cold-blooded killer that just stared murdering people as soon as he got to America. The game was chock full of truly unlikable characters, with a few moments of levity, like Brucie's antics, and forced me to watch cut-scene after cut-scene featuring said unlikable characters that I could never grow to care about. Then it put me into missions that were boring slogs, forced me to use wonky mechanics, kept me from having the tools to have fun for many hours, then once I had the tools and city at my disposal, constantly interrupted me when I was trying to have fun (I know I could turn the phone off, but still). The sandbox in GTA IV was crafted well enough, and the story was solid, but it felt like the game was constantly actively trying to keep me from having fun. By contrast, Steelport in SR3 is nowhere near as well crafted a sandbox. The story isn't nearly as good (nor does it even make sense much of the time), and it's much shorter. However, the game just drops you into this sandbox (literally), then dumps a bunch of crazy weapons and stuff on you and says "have at it". It feels like SR3 allows you to have fun, in fact it encourages you to do so. There's no pretense of gritty realism, no incessantly nagging characters actively trying to pull me away from having fun, and the game doesn't withhold the tools of chaos from me. Heck, I'm able to call in air strikes from pretty early on in the game. Air strikes! The reason I turn to games like Saints Row 2 & 3 and Just Cause 2 for my sandboxing enjoyment these days is that they give me what drew me to this type of game in the first place. Here's a sandbox, here's a bunch of tools to use (some really over the top ones in the cases of SR3 and JC2), feel free to go on a rampage and push the limits of just how much **** you can **** up. It seems like GTA has more and more been moving away from that and toward cut-scene after cut-scene of "gripping drama". I don't want cut-scene after cut-scene of gripping drama, I want to have fun. Please let me have fun GTA V, please let me have fun. Edit: GAH! Wrong thread! This is what happens when you don't get much sleep and you have multiple tabs open. Could a mod pretty please move this to the Random Video Game News thread? Thanks in advance and apologies for the faux pas.

I hope I'm around at the right time when Valve has their annual screw up and offers a game STOOOOOOPID cheap for a few minutes before they realize their goof up and fix it. Last year it was Sleeping Dogs for like 97% off, I already owned the game, but I got some DLCs for like 20 cents. It would be awesome if they stuck with the Squeenix theme and had that happen with Tomb Raider.

Playable, yes, but it's a really shoddy port of an otherwise very good game. I'm playing Saint's Row 3 on my PC and it runs like a dream. 3 is fantastic, runs like a dream on PC. 2 was a bloody horror story when first ported to PC. They've since patched it up, but it's still got a few issues.

Oh, oh it's on now! It's SO on! /winds up to throw giant haymaker Eh, you play whatever games you like, I'll play whatever games I like. //shrugs ///shakes Morgoth's hand and walks away

A supply and demand based economy complete with regional pricing, fluctuations, shortages, etc. would be ideal, but that is almost certainly beyond the scope of this game. I'd settle for regional pricing and the favor mechanic.

Playable, yes, but it's a really shoddy port of an otherwise very good game.

The one title I'm most hoping goes on a nice steep sale is La Mulana. I'll probably snag Of Orcs and Men if it's cheap enough too. Tomb Raider is probably too new to get a really steep discount but if it does... Hopefully I don't get sucked into buying TOO MUCH other stuff... Who am I kidding? All my moneys are belong to GabeN.