marelooke

The day Origin starts respecting my locale settings instead of just showing the main page in French each and every time is when I'll consider it less than a totally broken piece of crap that can only be saved by a total rewrite (because if they can't even get something that basic right then I have very little hope for the rest of the design). Oh, and while they're rewriting it they could decouple language from the rest of the locale settings, that'd be neat and save them this kind of embarassment (would also be rather a nice feature for people working/living abroad, I'm sure, as well as the people in this country speaking the 3rd official language, which Origin doesn't even allow them to pick) EDIT: just checked, apparently they now offer the latter as an option, yay. Hopefully the French issue goes away when I pick UK English... EDIT2: nope, still French, *lesigh*

Pyrodactyl (the developers of Unrest) posted a post-mortem on their (just released) Kickstarter project.

I would pay good money for Grand Theft Effect. Main character a sympathatic, but still criminal Krogan on hard times. Gets dupped into crimes. Breaking into flying cars, punching people, paying for Asari prostitutes. Bioware, take my money now. Genuine interest: I like the idea, NKKK, that would likely be a lot more fun than whatever Bio is actually cooking up. Matter of fact: However, no playable Elcor, no sale. Maybe a playable floating jellyfish could change your opinion? That said, my biggest issue with the Mako was the awful terrain on those randomly generated planets, not the thing itself (and the ME2 replacement was even worse,...)

Created a second profile in D:OS since my first is stuck (due to crashing on level up, sorta gamebreaking ). I'm more or less back where I left of now, still trying to figure out a way to solve the murder mystery without breaking any laws (might make you wonder why I picked a rogue and a wayfarer to start with )

Torturing someone wearing armor, that must be new (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though and assume that's placeholder material) Tactical view looks annoying at best, I'd probably avoid it unless it turns out better than what's shown here (aka, closer to the DA:O view, wich already was too limited in how far you could move the camera away from your party) and just power through the fights, DA2 style.

There's always been a significant market for CRPGs, and since there's barely any competition, any decent one is garanteed to make a profit. And if the game is actually good, it will inevitably attracts players that aren't necessarily fans of the genre but will still want to try it out. It's actually a bit surprising CRPGs simply stopped being made. The more CRPG-y games of the last 5-10 years were commercial successes (Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age). There hasn't been a huge profile game bombing miserably to point at and say "see, this genre is dead!" either. Why no other big studio ever tried to get in the market? My assumption is that the big studios/publishers (or at least the suits running them) have caught a severe case of consoleitis. Making these kind of games (thinking cRPG and RTS mainly here, though I'm sure there are other genres) work well with a controller is something nobody has pulled of as of yet (and I frankly doubt it's even possible, but I guess that's another discussion), as such they didn't consider it a viable investment (aka "No controller, no care!"). After the resurgence of PC gaming (or rather, with people finally realizing PC gaming isn't dead, hasn't ever been anywhere near dead and isn't going to be dead anytime soon) they just forgot about all these genres they'd been neglecting all this time and just kept pushing out these console ports to PC gamers instead of playing to the strengths of the platform. Maybe all these successful Kickstarters will change their minds, we'll see. Though honestly, as long as the likes of Obsidian, inXile, Larian, etc keep cranking out great "niche" games for use to enjoy I could scarcely care less about what generic crap the big publishers keep shovelling out the door*. *I'm aware that's a generalization, of course it's not *all* generic crap.

Probably referring to the huge day one patch which included all the voice-overs, don't think there have been any really big patches since. Hope the large patch will include my KS pet, oh, and it'd be nice if they solved my crash issues, love the game, but crashing on level-up sort of makes it unplayable ( this only started happening after the one-but-last patch too )...

Well, since my CTD-after-combat-ends problem I went around finding other ways to level up. Turns out my game just goes wonky on level up. Leveled up on quest completion and the game world went black but the UI stuck around (first time the UI started blinking like a strobe...), couldn't do anything anymore though, except Alt+F4 out of the game. Looks like I'll be forced to wait for the next patch

The only reason at this point to make a BG3 is to cash in on the name of a beloved franchise, Fallout-style. No thanks.

I enjoyed DS3, I thought they improved on everything in the last 2 games. Like the crafting and the side quests. But end of the day I just think the whole concept behind the series is getting a bit tired now. The narrative isn't as exciting but I still thought the game was very entertaining Indeed, I enjoyed the game. I just think that knowing more or less what is going on kills the suspense the first had ("WTF did I end up in here?"), kind of like the F.E.A.R. games I guess. The sidequests, well, the single player ones all turned out rather similar ending with you having to fight of a bunch of waves of Necromorphs while a box comes down on an elevator (except the last one, which has some of those annoying Regenerators, I really hate those things), though the logs you find make them more exciting as you try to figure out what went on all those years ago (archaeology while shooting evil stuff, yes please!). I hear the co-op ones are more interesting, but I didn't get to experience those (and I seriously doubt my gf is interested in playing co-op Dead Space ). I found the crafting idea in itself interesting, but I thought it was a bit too hard to figure out what you were gonna get before you actually made it. A better UI would have made experimenting a lot less tedious imho. In the end I think I only really used a few different weapons throughout the entire game: * the Planet Cracker, an improved plasma cutter (which I received for playing DS2): * the regular line gun * a shotgun with an impact hammer, which was my mainstay for most of the game (and replaced the line gun) * I had a short stint with a pulse rifle when I started encountering humanoid enemies again * the Pitch Black 392 a chain gun with stasis module (and knock back thingy as secondary fire), this gun is beyond awesome and can probably count as "the one gun you'll ever need". And at the end I experimented a bit with a flame thrower/ripper combination which proved only really useful against those skinny Necromorphs that like to swarm you (due to the flamer). The ripper really lost a lot of feathers since DS1 though and I used it more for old times' sake than because it was awesomely useful (maybe with a stasis module, though, but I couldn't figure out how to do that). Btw did you play the DLC, what did you think of it?

There are no respawns (well, there is one NPC that doesn't stay permanently dead I've been told, assuming you manage to kill him in the first place. Not sure if he keeps giving XP though)

Finished Dead Space 3, can't complain since I got it in sale, wouldn't say I personally consider it worth the full price. Hope there's a sale again soonish so I can grab the DLC as well €10 is a bit too much imho. The game isn't bad per se but I doubt they'll ever be able to recreate the atmosphere of the first. I also didn't care too much for the weapon customization options, maybe if the UI for them hadn't been so convoluted I would have experimented with that some more. Character faces somehow looked rather deformed to me. Other than that it was a fun atmospheric shooter, it was just a bit of a bummer that there's missions you're locked out of when not playing co-op.

Looks like I gotta shelve this for now (though hopefully not for long, given the speed Larian's been cranking out patches) as the game rather reliably crashes after combat for me (one of the characters decides he wants to talk when another one levels up, this seems to produce a CTD when exiting combat). Well, I *guess* I could go back to the city and finish the murder mystery, which hopefully will give me enough xp to level without crashing, but I was kinda getting into the undead killing thing... (btw, did anyone succeed in solving the murder without breaking any laws? I don't want to know how, I just want to know if someone managed, the paths I've found so far all involve breaking and entering )

The combat was kinda frustrating me early on (difficulty went way up since early beta ), but that was because I was treating it as I would do other cRPGs. We've(*) lately been so conditioned to stay on the path developers pave for use that (ab)using our environment in combat is something we don't naturally think of anymore. So once I started using the environment better combat has become a lot more rewarding (and fun(ny) ). * at least, I assume it was not just me that had a "What the...? This actually *works*...???"...

Some of the optional puzzles are really tough, especially since they involve trapdoors and timed switches, so even if you know what to do they can be hard to complete and until you complete them you won't know whether you're doing it right or are just banging your head against a wall. Rather annoying at times (luckily there aren't many of those)

I've put Remember Me (and the rest of the games I have active playthroughs in) aside for Divinity: Original Sin. I'm having a blast so far, ran into one annoying "issue" where I didn't move forward far enough in the second non-optional fight in the game so the Legionaires stood idly by while I was trying to survive against a bunch of Orcs (and doing a rather terrible job of it at that). Not sure if picking the default characters was such a good idea either, but I'll stick with it for now and see where it goes.

This bit from the Divinity: Original Sin release announcement might be of special interest: Bit of a bummer Gog didn't manage to get its stuff done in time for the D:OS release, think I'll be going with Steam for now as it just makes multi-player just so much easier (not to mention that I'm expecting there'll be kinks that will need to to be worked out when Galaxy releases).

d'oh, totally read over that. I think I need more sleep

Ah, thanks for the correction, I've updated my original post as to not spread more misinformation

Actually it's "and". You can build on all locations if you have the gold and materials to do so (and match the requirements for the Thane to be willing to sell you the land).

As I understood most people's objections are to them touching and adding content to the original games (iirc the cutscene graphics are replaced with new ones and they've added some new companions). I haven't personally tried it though and since I already owned the Gog version I didn't see any need to get the EE. EDIT: see post below

I'll just quote myself on that topic (something that was conveniently ignored by many, I know, reading the rest before replying would've left far less room for wisecracking): As for the rest of that thread: You're pulling things so far out of context I nearly didn't deign it worthy a reply. Me posting a clip of someone actually speaking English in a natural environment in no way constitutes a statement that that is "the one true accent". Even stating so is insulting my and your own intelligence. For a) see my response to AGX-17, for b: get a map and locate Brussels, then figure out where France is, then wonder how often I might conceivably have to deal with "real" French speaking English (on top of the Walloons, of course). Of course, the French probably aren't a good reference when it comes to French accents, I'm sorry, I have little experience with the Quebequois. If you qre however saying they weren't going for a French vibe then I'm afraid they failed because everything about Orlais screams "fantasyland France", so in that case I'd have expected a more representative accent. So to make it clear to AGX-17 and Nepenthe I'll spell it out explicitly: It is my personal opinion that Leliana has an annoying accent, she also doesn't sound like any French person speaking English I've ever met (and I've met more than a few living where I live) and as such I do hope that they'll get a voice actor with a more representative (and especially, less annoying) accent for Zorro (sorry, keep forgetting his name).

Thanks for repeating the best criticism of DAO! (The voice actress doing Leliana is a native French speaker!) So it's official: true French accent is even more jarring than the fake! Or a true French overacting a French accent for a game. I'm pretty sure she has a decent accent when speaking normally. Here's a French woman (former French first lady Carla Bruni) speaking English (skip to the 4 minute mark) without trying to "sound French": *snip* Well, it doesn't sound nearly half as bad as my thick eastern-european accent, so I guess I've got no right to complain about the French *shrug* Oh, I have a pretty bad Flemish accent in English (too bad I'm not a girl, my sister has repeatedly been told by Americans that it's "cute" ), it's better in French although I likely butcher the grammar like there's no tomorrow Anyway I'm quite willing to accept it might just be personal preference in play here. Iow that I'm assuming she's acting it while she maybe actually does sound like that (in which case I think she has a horrible accent, but hey, de gustibus et coloribus ...). I don't recall being annoyed by the voice acting the The Saboteur so it must be something she does that ticks me off in which case I hope they get a better male voice actor for Zorro

Thanks for repeating the best criticism of DAO! (The voice actress doing Leliana is a native French speaker!) So it's official: true French accent is even more jarring than the fake! Or a true French overacting a French accent for a game. I'm pretty sure she has a decent accent when speaking normally. Here's a French woman (former French first lady Carla Bruni) speaking English (skip to the 4 minute mark) without trying to "sound French": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrL_lFabbQw I'll admit it likely is not quite as dreamy sounding for foreigners as Leliana's acted French accent.

Thanks for repeating the best criticism of DAO! (The voice actress doing Leliana is a native French speaker!) In that case she's doing a very good job of overacting. Note that I live and work in Brussels, I have to listen to native French-speakers speaking English all day. Though, on second thought, the over-the-top lisp she adds might be the thing that actually sets me off (because I hear it a lot on wannabe French-sounding actresses)