roguefrog

I started playing Solasta and it's given me a proper and good UI/UX for D&D5e. BG3 was a tiresome mess in comparison. Having to rearrange all those icons for every character...

Aaaaaand game complete. Took 289 hours. All of Act 1 played in real-time w/ pause except when I got to the swarm boss in grey garrison, then turn-based ever after (with only some situational switches back) Act 6 didn’t overstay its welcome or totally **** the bed like Kingmaker thank the lord! It’s a pretty straightforward linear section of combat encounters and dialog bits. The hardest fight in the act was the boss demon during the approach before setting up camp. Everything after paled in comparison. The last boss is kind of a joke. So much so they auto heal a certain number of times to full life just to prolong it. I did get 3 nat 20 greater dispels off that pretty much striped most buffs. Enough that my party could land hits no problem. The penultimate boss fight was also hilariously easy. I used the waterfall Azata spell which is great and has a chance to knock down an enemy. Sure enough he got knocked down. The rest of the fight was my melee completely hacking the guy on the floor to pieces.

I tried grease. Many times. Both on the adds to try and rush her and on her herself. Didn't work. I tried dozens of other things as well. Once the swarms where out it was a party wipe within 20 seconds. I think I would have to do some extreme cheese, like running my party out of the room and separating out the enemies piecemeal. I did try this once but still wiped. Once I switched to Turn-based I beat it first try, although near the end of the fight every party member was down except for Lann and there were two archers left. It was still a ****show.

There's some stupid nasty fights if you are determined to go at in real-time. The one critical path BS fight in the early game was that dude that summons swarms in Grey Garrison. He is solely responsible for me switching to turn-based mode for the rest of the game. That one guy. I just really hate that man. I mean I wouldn't encounter such an impossible fight until Playful Darkness, and he's optional side area challenge boss galore on encounter. It's more fun to return at the end of Act 4 and destroy him. (It's still hard)

Alpha Protocol is WORTH playing. In fact it is the only game I played in recent memory where upon after finishing it, I immediately started a new game with a radically different character build and dialog choice path in mind...TWICE! This CHANGES things a lot. A LOT. Your choices completely alter the narrative of the game! IIRC It's IMPOSSIBLE to see every plot point in a single play through. One door closes, three other doors open. People who hated Alpha Protocol are usually people who were expecting a MASS EFFECT 2 clone or something similar. I say to them, THEIR LOSS! Alpha Protocol is an RPG first, with action elements second. People have a hard time coping with this after ME2 which sheds a lot of the RPG for instant action-based gameplay shoot'em up brain death. I'd argue Mass Effect goes TOO FAR. The entire game in a nutshell is a space dungeon cover shooter that never changes its core gameplay from start to end ad nauseam. Alpha Protocol? You start out as a rookie who can't shoot the back side of a barn and by the end your guy can head shot 6 people simultaneously without leaving cover. THAT'S REAL PROGRESS! This isn't to say the game is without its faults. Some poor level design, clunky controls, and one annoying as hell helicopter boss. I hate that thing! But you should play it! People also hate on the mini-games but 1) They can be TOTALLY bypassed with items 2) made COMPLETELY trivial with skill increases 3) Are designed to be completed VERY quickly! Unlike that painful planet scanning slog in ME2! I thought the AP mini-game design was sublime.

Ahhh, that character sheet brings me back.

After the game is done* in QA it is passed on to one last group that makes sure it passes the technical standards for the given platform (this group is also refered to as Format or Quality Control) It is the last line of defense before the games goldmaster is sent to manufacturing to be mass produced then shipped off to retailers. If they find something bad enough, the game could be sent back to QA which will then continue to test it while the programers try and fix the issue and submit a new final build. QA will test the new final build to confirm the fix and then submit it to "certification" again. This applies to console platforms. I'm not sure if PC games go through the same process. *Misnomer -- games are never really done in QA, and are almost always released before they should be.

Looking Glass Black Isle Troika Origin Microprose All defunct

EA has the liscense, if you were wondering.

F-Zero GX (Gamecube) It's pretty intense. When I played it, I'd always grip the controller really tight and leave it covered in sweat. It was very challenging, but I was able to unlocked everything. I need ludicrous speed for racing games to be any fun. (Like over 2,000k per hour)

Total Annihilation has much higher claim to that phrase. The fact that it isnt even in the poll shames the thread starters repertoire of RTSs.

Too silly. I'm partial to MCA's mad hate interview.

Tall dwarves vanished. Nobody knows where they went. Not even the sole surviver in the corpus dungeon.

The Blight is the EVIL disease, but theirs also Corpus which apparently is a lot worse. Anyway a long time ago in Morrowind not so far away some power mongering dwarven dude made some totally sweet technogaget tools that can be used to create living god dudes (with the assistance of some long dead gods heart) Anyway the leader of the Darkelf dudes at the time was like "wtf hell no!" They end up fighting or something, Dwarvens did something with da tools and vanished into the ethereal. Tools corrupt Darkelf dudes best friend, they fight, Darkelf dude die. Blah Blah! Ancient history. Top remaining elf dudes used the tools to become Tribunal. This pisses off some old bitch god so they make you old Darkelf dude reincarnate. Now kill the foozles! BTW the corrupted best friend dude is the main antagonist. He created the blight, invades peoples dreams, and lives in a volcano. He basically continues what old dwarven dude started.

Five Possible endings: Lone Wolf Ending Anarch Ending Prince Ending Camarilla Ending Chinese Vamp Ending