marelooke

Well, NDA is still up, so can't really say much. But gotta agree with the RPS article. Maybe it picks up after, at least Bester seems to like it. If I get another invite I might force myself past the early bit and maybe my opinion will change.

I thought the opposite - overall - in regards to Metro: Last Light. Much preferred 2033. The stealth was even poorer in Last Light than in 2033, the plot was completely pants-on-head retarded, (particularly anything involving Anna, who you make love to after having maybe five minutes total of actual face time with her - I quit and then uninstalled maybe fifteen minutes after that), uh...I felt like the gunplay was about the same, except more hampered by the even more ridiculously easy stealth, so I never used a real gun against anything mutants at any time, anyways...Khan went from a wise old man to some crack-smoking hippie "duuuude"...Miller and the other Rangers basically became your archetypal American meathead soldiers...I was very unimpressed, overall. The final nail in the coffin, though, was that (quite frankly) idiotic love-making scene with Anna. Maybe it was just me, but I would've shot her before doing what Artyom did with her. If you're going to make a tsundere-like character, please spend more than literally no time at all to transition between "you are a worthless sack of crap, I laugh at you with my thick Russian accent, ha ha ha" and "oooohh, artyom-san, I missed you soooooo much, I've been so worried about you and oh how I missed you! now come make love to me in this disease-ridden hell-hole...". When that...Communist, was it?...held her hostage as leverage against you, I immediately shot at him. The completely psychotic things you can do when you're being forced into impossibly railroaded situations not of your liking! Just finished Metro: Last Light as well. And yups, a lot of things make zero sense if you think about them even the slightest bit. And yeah spending (much) more time around Anna would've made that entire "relationship" thing make much more sense. Also wasn't too fond about the weapon modification thing, given how rarely you encountered places where you could modify your weapons I just ended up using pretty much the same weapons throughout the entire game (even more so than in the previous game), as I didn't want to sacrifice my familiar setup for something that might not work too great past the next point of no return. Some weapons are only encountered much too late in as well (and I'm not about to drop loads of dough on a gun of which I have no idea how it will perform). But maybe that is just me... As for the stealth, I preferred it over the Metro 2033 system where you often had no idea how visible you were and often were 100% visible to enemies even in very dark corners leading to some pretty frustrating levels. That said, I feel they might have gone overboard in the other direction with the watch. Still, I rather they retain the new system than go back to the 2033 system (or lack thereof) Overall I enjoyed the game, still have to play through the DLC levels and considering the stealth wasn't quite as frustrating as in 2033 I might actually replay this at some point to get a totally "no-kills" playthrough (think I killed one guy I shouldn't have, /sigh, got the same in Deus Ex: HR at the helicopter defense and a few dudes eaten by rats, at least that's my assumption, in Dishonored)

What? They never had the rights in the first place. It was a fan-made sequel until they decided to become legit developers and had to drop the franchise. It has nothing to do with Dungeon Keeper Mobile - this development happened before Dungeon Keeper Mobile was even announced. Anyway, as an early access backer I'm still on the fence on War for the Overworld. All it's done successfully so far is make me want to play the older Dungeon Keeper games instead. It looks the part, but it so far doesn't have any of the charm - they are playing it far too straight. Hmm, I must've been misinformed then, I read they were fine using the name until that Mobile thing came around. My apologies. That said I'm curious how it will turn out, can hardly be worse than that F2P thing. I probably still know all Dungeon Keeper levels by heart, so even if the urge to play is there it'd probably be a short stint. Maybe I should get my hands on the Deeper Dungeons, though I remember mostly frustration with that. KotOR2 is certainly better in pretty much every way (which doesn't mean that KotOR isn't a good game, of course). The main problem with KotOR2 is that it was released unfinished and stayed that way until fans fixed it. Something I'm still bitter about (sue me). Which reminds me that I should really give the restored version another try (I couldn't get it to run last time I tried, which admittedly was a while ago)

Phew, I thought you were talking about the *real* new Dungeon Keeper game for a while, not that pathetic offshoot. Glad I'm wrong and the review is about the pathetic offshoot. (yeah yeah, technically it's probably the other way around, gameplay wise that's how it is though) I am, of course, referring to War of the Overworld which aims to replicate the Dungeon Keeper (mostly 1, with the non-sucky bits of 2 added) gameplay. They lost the rights to the Dungeon Keeper franchise due to that pathetic excuse of a game above or this would have been Dungeon Keeper 3. Oh yes, website's here. Game is in Early Access on Steam currently and it's starting to shape up. Still seriously alpha though but it's stable and it actually feels like Dungeon Keeper (though the voice acting is sort of "meh" imho, hopefully that's just temporary) Wasn't able to participate in the previous one I was invited to, seems like they don't do second chances Keep use posted, I'm curious how this one will turn out (though, since it's a MMO, my expectations are rather low ) If you already gotten invites, aren't they still valid. Only people who didn't get invited previously got new ones this time around I think. The mail I got says my account and characters are still there. Not that I'll be able to participate this time due to being out of town, but still. Just got an e-mail, seems the previous invite is indeed still valid. Nice! Bethesda is imho good at making worlds that are fun to explore, if they at least carried that bit over to TESO it might be worth picking up. Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to take a peek.

Wasn't able to participate in the previous one I was invited to, seems like they don't do second chances Keep use posted, I'm curious how this one will turn out (though, since it's a MMO, my expectations are rather low )

Wasn't this how it worked in the first Witcher? While not as epicly slow as mkreku's description of Gothic it was still something that left you vulnerable for the time it took Geralt to drink the potion. As for shattering the vials, I always considered them to be some sort of metal/steel containers rather than plain glass, otherwise the way he wears them on him would probably result in no potions after a battle, whether he used them or not... ;-)

True that. They generally provide plenty of hours for their price, especially compared to the stuff many of their competitors dare charge you for. Otoh one could hold them responsible for introducing that idea as well *cough* horse armor *cough* I've picked up Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning during the sale this weekend. I remembered not being particularly impressed by the demo. I also remembered people saying the demo was kinda bad compared to the full game. I'm level 11 or so now (arrived in Didenhill), game's not too bad, though so far I'd only give it like a 6/10 or so. Pretty average on all counts. It often feels just like an offline MMO, in the way the quests are delivered and how they play out, how combat works and how the world "feels".

Most Skyrim quests are pretty bland. The one you talk about here (part of the last DLC iirc) is easily one of the best, if not the best, quest in the game. It's also the only quest I remember where I actually gave a damn about any of the NPCs (RIP Katria). Now don't get me wrong, I greatly enjoyed Skyrim and put many many hours into the game and while I'll disagree that the writing was bad per se I wouldn't call most of the writing "engaging", at least not in a way that "sticks" (if that makes any sense) Though the fact that their character writing (Serana was pretty good for a Bethesda character as well) was becoming better near the end does give me hope for the next Elder Scrolls game.

Haven't been following this one closely (I consider TW2 a pretty big letdown still, mechanics wise) but so far I haven't seen anything about movement and/or combat, has that been talked about in any detail at all yet? (if so, any pointers?)

Aye, the D:OS alpha is very alpha for how close to their release they already were. But with Larian feature creep is a given so yeah, no surprise here either. As for the Styx game, will it have similar draconian DRM (limited activations) to "Of Orcs and Men" (reason I didn't touch that game on release, since removed though from what I heard) or am I allowed to get excited?

Except that, to a degree, in an MMO you have to afford the ability to solo because there will not always be somebody to play with you at all times. Multiplayer content can be the focus of your game, but you have to design a majority of your content (mostly of the leveling persuasion) around only one player being around at any time. This is why most MMO's are endgame focused... because endgame is the only time you can guarantee there will be a large segment of your population twittling their thumbs. Although City of Heroes added layer after layer of things to the midgame and was built around alts. Out of all the MMO's I've played EverQuest 2 (EQ2) kept me interested the longest (aside from WoW, which was my first and as such has a bit of a special case). The reason I quit playing that game had less to do with the game content than with the utter lack of attention the developer (SOE) had for the game and the constant taking away of features to make the game more easily accessible to new players (read it became more and more of a WoW-clone) I really liked EQ2's ability to "downscale" high level characters (forgot the actual name for it), it worked reasonably well too (except for the fact that it didn't account for out-of-date content, iow high level gear had certain stats that simply didn't exist in the early areas), the real great thing about it was that it actually benefits both the low and the high level characters so it happened very often that when a "lowbie" couldn't find a group there would almost always be a bunch of high level characters ready to jump in to help. The fact that there was just a huge world to explore also helped, it wasn't until the last few expansions that there were multiple areas to go quest in, there were even just "adventure packs", which contained more same-level content with only cosmetic rewards but that had fun storylines. It is entirely feasible (and likely) to hit max level in EQ2 and not have seen more than half of the "world map" and up until the end I kept discovering new quests, dungeons etc, some of which even "ancients" (just made this up, but I mean players that had been playing since the beginning) had forgotten about. You could, and I often did, alone or in group, just go out to an area and see the sights. Sure raiding with people is fun, PvP (world or otherwise) can be great fun if you're into it. But there needs to be more to the world than being guided from area to area doing the same old quests following a singular storyline ending with getting a group to fight some bosses, same as everyone else. There needs to be stuff to discover and the discovery ought to be a reward in itself, not the subject of random achievements ("find all the hidden stone tablets with bull**** written on them"). I remember grinding reputation with factions just to acquire some cool looking (in *my* mind anyway) garb for my character and most of those factions weren't exactly the "endgame" factions. I recall trudging all over entire continents just to acquire a certain title, not because that title signified some awesome boss kill or some exclusive "achievement", but because that title was awesome in itself and *fit my character*. Or even to get some furniture for my house. This generally sounds silly to the "modern" MMO-crowd, I mean, why put effort into stuff that doesn't give you XP or 1337 gear. Right? Yeah, I didn't think so either. I guess the TL;DR, MMORPGs need to become RPGs once more. Maybe then I'll find one I can care about once more.

Restarted in X-COM after reading a bit about managing panic levels and doing much better now on the $$$ front. Quite enjoying the game though the incredible randomness of combat can be rather annoying. Then again, haven't really encountered any "hard" enemies yet afaik (the Hulk guys are the biggest baddies I've seen so far) Probably going to dabble in Divinity: Original Sin's alpha some more later as well (already made it past character creation (such as there currently is), which is further than a bunch of guys got. Also: "It's gonna be awesome!"

I laughed way more at this than I should have. Mainly because it's not that far from the reality of a lot of the dialogue. Now combine this with a voiced protagonist for Fallout Effect 4. I'm sure someone can work a dialog wheel into that! ;-)

If they'd announced they were going turn-based on the KS page they wouldn't have received anywhere near the amount of $$$ they did. While what they did was "valid" in respect to what they said (or didn't say) they would do I consider it rather "tasteless". Combat is only mentioned twice on the KS page and there certainly is no mention of either TB or RTwP or any other system. Based on the textual information on the KS page it was perfectly reasonable to expect Numenera to have a similar combat system as PS:T, but with the kinks worked out. Instead it gets a radically different one. Whether it will be an improvement will remain to be seen but I'm very sure they lost quite a lot of fans/future backers with this farce.

Personally I prefer the dwarf from Dragon Age 2 for that role.

The only mod I used was the one that placed a missing part of the Elven Chain-mail where it should be able to be found, though I don't remember which part it was but afaik it was never fixed by BioWare, so without the mod that set is impossible to complete.

I know of only one way. To me that did not seem like an obvious path to get there. Well, it's broadcasted all over Skyrim... (spoilers about accessing the Dark Brotherhood questchain below) A lot of them got fixed, but it's still a good idea to grab the unofficial patches though as suggested above by WDeranged, quite a lot of bugs only show up later even though they are *caused* early on, and by the time you run into them it's too late to fix them. (for example there are many unfixed bugs related to the randomly generated generic sidequests clashing with major questchains or DLC quests, which obviously only show once you get to that point). And afaik the achievement to acquire all Daedric artifacts still breaks very often, depending on the order in which you acquire them (it's one of two I don't have for Skyrim, even though I should have received this particular one). Of course, assuming you care about these things. You might want to look into ENBSeries and other graphical mods, the Skyrim defaults even with maxed out settings and high-res pack really don't bring out full the potential of the game. (I also really liked the aMidianBorn retextures of various things in Skyrim, mostly armors and weapons but he's worked on other things as well) Difficulty is fairly brutal early on, but once you get some essential skills under your belt for your chosen playstyle it gets much easier very quickly.

Easy to miss the Dark Brotherhood questchain? The only way it could've been made more obvious is if they stopped you and handed you a flyer... How obvious it is to find and join all the secret-y organizations is one of the things I found rather irritating in Skyrim. It seemed a lot harder to pull of in Oblivion at least... Personally started playing XCOM Enemy Unknown for the first time now (without the expansion). Looking like good fun so far. Oh, and I also don't own Dark Souls. Game doesn't quite appeal to me (hack-and-slashy lootfest that's hard for the sake of being hard; at least that's what I gathered from what I read about it anyway), it apparently being a terrible console port that needs lots of fixing to be playable doesn't exactly help convince me it's worth my time, let alone my money.

This time I will have to agree. I'm also quite torn on the subject they brought up, so the weak attempt at humour didn't really do much for me.

I rather take a game that I enjoy for the full 15 hours it offers than a game that takes 80 hours to finish of which I only enjoy the first 40 hours before it starts to get boring. Everything can and will turn into **** if it just keeps on going and going, no matter how much you like it. I think that I would take 40 hours enjoyment over 15 hours even if it means that I don't finish the game. But I understand that some people don't like leave their games unfinished, in which case I also would pick 15 hours enjoyment option instead of 40 hours of dullness. Personally I'd say a good game is never too long. If it is it's just not a good game. (it might be "decent", but "good"? Nope). I might call the first half (or x percent) of the game good (or great), but I'd never call the entire game "good" (case in point: KotOR2)

I probably should have specified that said person considered the game he was playing to be a good game. Also I didn't really consider DA:O to be too long...on my first playthrough, then the lack of sidequests and the railroaded "Go find allies." got rather annoying (not quite as annoying as the snorefest that was NWN1's OC though, nor quite as retarded as having to go catch some escaped critters)

Wait, you're surprised about this? This is the direction that gaming is headed and has been for years. I estimate we're only a year or two away from games coming out with a special edition you can buy for a cool $20 more where you don't get the game at all, but instead you automatically are awarded all the achievements so that you can show off your SKILLZ and your ePen1s can grow. As sad as that sounds it wouldn't really surprise me... I once heard someone slamming a game because it was "too long", so it took him "too long" to finish so he could move on to the next game... I died a little that day.

It's probably just because we have so many games that have a lower case o in the acronym, so it looks more natural. WoW, PoP, CoD, etc. It's not really something I notice much. Yups, that's why. It should indeed be GOG of course. (though I do like recursive acronyms)

Drat, and here I was thinking they killed off the Origin service, that would have been great news, alas...