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You beat me to it. Default Shep is one of the most handsome characters I've ever seen in a game. But how are they going to justify Morrigan's pathological obsession with collagen in-game? I haven't played the last PoP, and I doubt I will. The last game of that sort I played was GoW2, and I was so bored with it that I couldn't bring myself to endure it for more than two or three hours. But to answer your question, repetitive gameplay is a game breaker for me. In fact, once a game starts getting repetitive (by design or by virtue of a bad challenge curve), my interest level takes a nosedive. If the story or other elements have me hooked and there's nothing better around, I may finish the game. But you can bet I'm not replaying it.

Gophers are vermin. There's a damn good reason to shoot them. Where's the "violence" in that? It's not like she became desensitised to violence by doing drive-bys on homeless folk. There's also nothing "macho" about it. But then I think bullfighting is pretty retarded too, so what do I know.

That's all I have to say about the matter, really.

One day I'll tell you about this game where Trotsky took power in the USSR... Perhaps you could afford the luxury of ignoring the media, but the publisher can't. And you can't ignore the publisher... Exactly. I'm surprised that Purkake had to resort to Torment when point-and-click adventures are a much better example of games with no combat whatsoever and a strong focus on story. Still, those games have their own gameplay mechanics, and those must be good enough so that puzzles are fun to solve. Thanks for the heads-up. Looks good.

Yeah, but you have also conquered the world by 1947, so you're cool.

I think that's supposed to be a joke...

Yes. If you can't lose, you can't very well "win". Uncertainty in the outcome is one of the necessary conditions for something to be a "game". If you remove that, you no longer have a game, it's something else. I don't know why but lately I'm getting this weird idea that game devs in some genres are attempting to minimize the chances of losing as much as possible, while keeping the illusion of challenge -- "excessive" losing can result, as alan points out, in the player giving up on the game, and devs don't want that. Of course, what constitutes "excessive" is up for debate; however if you keep lowering challenge standards, then we'll eventually reach the point where a game without a win button will be deemed "too challenging" by some people that aren't interested in actually playing... they simply want plots and characters spoonfed to them. Why have we seen huge advances in graphics but innovative AI and gameplay design are, for all intents and purposes, stuck? Nah, couldn't be. Better tell my shrink. That's your problem. I play games for GAMEPLAY (who woulda thunk it?) If you are looking for "experiences" in that vein, books are the way to go.

Couldn't that be easily solved by an exponential XP-level curve? You'd have a hard time for maybe two hours after the confrontation, but your new companions would catch up pretty quick. Just thinking aloud here.

I'm going to trust you on the "impossible to proceed" thing, because you have actually played the game and I haven't. It's hard to think of a recent BIO game that puts the player in a situation that's worse than having your tank (Sarevok) turn on you for the fight with Melissan, though. I have to say, having the player's actions result in massive NPC hate which in turn leads to their deaths sounds awesome... shame they watered down the consequences.

Are you suggesting that this is a dev gimmick to prevent metagaming? Because I get the feeling this is a dev gimmick to minimize, at worst, the piss-off factor of writing railroading, and at best, the consequences of poorly made choices. Sarevok and others had some chance to turn on the player in the final confrontation of ToB. The player could find ways to metagame around that but... so what? The line between metagaming and cheating is fine indeed, but that's irrelevant because it's a strictly single player game we're talking about. If people want to metagame or use cheat codes... who cares? It's their own enjoyment of the game they are compromising, not mine. This is no big deal because I can always forget about NPCs back at the camp. But I still don't understand why.

Wait, wait. Are you seriously asking for financial advice? Here? \o/ Ahem, seriously now. I have a friend that can help you double or even triple that amount in the blink of an eye. Something to do with Nigeria, guaranteed profit. I'll PM you the account # where to make the deposit.

For a game that puts so much emphasis on story, this setup makes no sense at all, from a story perspective. What sense does it make dumping the faithful, battle-hardened companion Z, who has been with the player since day one, to take the green companion X that has spent the whole game sitting by the campfire, for the EPIC END FIGHT? Imagine Frodo suddenly going, "sorry Sam old chum, you'd better go back to the Shire. I think I'd feel safer with, say, Elrond once I cross the Black Gate..." Also, the alternative has worked fine in the past. I just don't see the need to constantly re-invent the wheel. Virmire revisited? Ok, ok. I'm stopping now... We're discussing the gameplay. This is a game, last time I checked. Feel free to comment on other aspects... but since the game isn't out yet, we gotta work with what we're given. People complain about this and that. You complain about people complaining about this and that. Where does that leave you? Is there a weekly quota of hours spent here you must fill or...?

Yet another delightfully bad translation work, apparently. Even the summary features awkward grammar that's a staple of the genre. The game looks fun, though.

Oh, I agree. Where would we be without the great tinkerers? Case in point. Pretty much. Gravity was enunciated by Newton in the 1600s. Not only have we NOT found a way around gravity (despite our discovery of flight)... science has been further reinforcing and expanding Newton's postulates. You can only sidestep the fundamental barriers of nature so much.

Actually, it was not only conceivable... it was predicted.

Yeah, big IF. Especially considering that the distortion of space-time (gravitational wave) does NOT travel faster than light.

Yeah, I just had been assuming that when you said "3x 'A' exercise max" it meant working to failure. As for working to your measured max with a minute and a half rest between sets...

From what I've read, photon entanglement-based communications still requires that you send packets over a distance. It isn't FTL, as mentioned in p.37 of the ESA doc you linked to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation "Effects" aren't delivered magically across space. In the case of gravity, it's a field that transfers energy (they are trying to find the particle responsible for that). Gravitational waves (effectively the equivalent of sudden changes like "moving the sun") don't travel faster than light -- they preserve causality.

Okay, I don't understand what you're doing. This formally tested total is the 39 pushups you did in the first page? And are you seriously shooting for 3 sets of your tested max with 30-90 secs rest in between sets? I'm confused.

Semantics. AND misrepresentation. The choice to reload imposes a penalty: you get to repeat the segment where you screwed up, until you perform adequately. The choice not to reload has a penalty as well: the game becomes harder from that point on, due to the loss of a companion. Saving at any point doesn't nullify those, but a lack of that feature would undoubtedly make the game less forgiving (if not necessarily more difficult). However, the lack of permadeath doesn't mean there's no penalty for failure. It doesn't mean it's impossible to fail, either. The overall difficulty is lowered, though.

Get out of my head!

You are mad. When it says "3x pushups max", it means you do each set until you cannot perform any more reps. Not to your theoretical max. That is with a given rest time. On the other hand, if you are shooting for a given number of reps in each set, you should rest as much as you need to (reasonably) hit your target. Rest days are for resting. Stick to your plan and don't be greedy!

I see. So, then the answer is "yes".

Feeling a bit cranky today, are we?

No, I mean the speed at which one processor does one calculation doesn't depend on how many processors you have sitting next to each other.