Enoch

The problem with doing less than full VO (besides suspension of disbelief) is that it becomes a way of communicating meta-game information to the player. ("I know this character is important because he has a voice!") You end up with important/interesting characters voiced and unimportant/uninteresting characters silent. Which begs the question: Why are all those uninteresting/unimportant characters in the game to begin with? The ideal solution to me isn't to cut VO for characters. It's to go at your script with an axe and cut any characters who aren't interesting or fun for the player to talk to. (Or reduce them to non-verbal interface. For example, there's no reason why shopkeepers need to put timewasting chitchat between the player and what (s)he wants to do-- I'm looking at you, Mr. Normandy SupplyGuy!) I view the uninteresting dialogue as akin to uninteresting grindy combat-- either make it fun or leave it out. (Sidenote: I originally bristled at DA:O's "Sack O' Quests" tasks as a lame shortcut. But I later realized that just reading minor missions from a list saved me lots of chatting with boring NPCs who have little more than "go fetch my slippers" to say. Ultimately, dialogue with interesting quest-giving NPCs would be the best outcome. But, failing that, a simple list of quests is a better result than the inclusion of lots of boring conversations.)

I think the challenge is designing one that highlights the level of reactivity that makes the game unique. You need a mission fairly early on that isn't too backstory-dependent, too spoilerific, or too sensitive to decisions Thorton has made earlier in the game, and that features some meaningful feedback on your decisions within the mission itself. Maybe a pairing of 1 dialogue-only mission and 1 ops mission would work. But I don't know if the game as designed has any missions that would fit that profile.

Maybe it's some functionality built into the agency PDA Thorton gets. Some targeted broadcast of an interfering signal or somesuch. That would be roughly on par with the verisimilitude of Deus Ex's consumable auto-hacking devices.

Oh, I agree that it's not that different from ME1. It was poor design then, and it's poor design now.

I really don't like that one. I'm OK with taking the conversation skills out, as they didn't add much to the first game and generally led to very poorly written ("you should reconsider" "oh, yeah, you're right") conversations-as-cover-for-a-skill-check. But this essentially ensure that, as in KotOR, the metagaming utility of conversation choices is going to trump roleplaying. Players will pick early on whether to go from the top or bottom of the dialogue wheel, and just do that over and over again for the rest of the game, or else risk the ineffectiveness of their character when higher level checks start coming in. They might as well just make it an option at character creation and take the dialogue choices out altogether. Maybe the companion loyalty meters can make this a bit more complex, but I'm not optimistic.

"Crap" is probably too strong a word. It's not the kind of main story that keeps you playing through gameplay you don't enjoy, but if you're generally having fun with the game, it's adequate. Fairly typical for a fantasy game, and not unlike the BGs in this respect. Parts of the game do get grindy. But those are also the parts with the most interesting and fun boss fights, so the grind is rewarded, somewhat. See my first point, above. Not the most logical story in the world, but I don't see how someone who liked, say, BG1 or ME could object on these grounds. There were some fights (usually random encounters) where the game tended to throw the party in over its head. Tough, but nothing that couldn't be resolved by messing with the difficulty slider. Also, since I've played it, some of the patch notes claim to have adjusted this. I can only speak about my experience, which has been pretty clean, bug-wise. Most of what I've seen reported has been DLC-related. True, unless you're really into one of the handful of characters who are most involved in the plot resolution. (I was not.)

Unknown; probably more up to Sega than it is to Obsidian. Mission-centered structure; no "open world" exploring. (You're a spy-- you're there to complete your objective, not to stop and chitchat with shopkeepers and rescue kittens in trees.) No. From the videos we've seen, vehicles show up in cutscenes, but not under player control. While vehicle chase scenes are indeed a staple of the spy genre, IMO, games tend to be better when they focus on their core gameplay rather than add in extras like vehicle missions.

isnt that only the Collectors Edition? No, Shale was free for all registered copies of the game. The whole point isn't to sell CEs; it's to take a bite out of the "used games" market that has kept retail games establishments in business for the last decade. Each retail copy of the game gets a free DL of an add-on that contains near-essential content and that is otherwise priced at around $15, which is an approximation of the price gap between buying new and buying used. (Really, given that the used market is so much of their business, I'm surprised that the Gamespots of the world are still cooperating with Bio/EA on promoting the products, including special pre-order incentives, etc.)

It's basically the top-shelf blend made by the people who do Jameson's. And it comes in an attractive wooden box.

I think that going with a Bourbon would defeat the point, to a certain degree. Bourbons are American products-- Shryke is talking about duty-free shopping in the UK, so presumably he's looking for recommendations on booze from Ol' Blighty. (Also, Wild Turkey Rye > Wild Turkey Bourbon.) @Shryke, if you're focused on a blend, the high-end Johnny Walkers are very good. Or, among Irish whiskeys, try Midleton. Very smooth (but very pricey).

Currently, on the BioBoards: ME2 related: I just finished my ME1 game. I had forgotten that, at the end of the game, there is an option to defer the selection of the human Council representative. It is, I think, the most appropriate option, given Shepard's status as a Council employee. (Plus, both Anderson and Udina would be terrible choices, for a variety of different reasons.) I wonder who wins by default... Sidenote: The way the three Council members finish each others' sentences in the final cutscene (when they are saved) is hilarious. I picture them rehearsing it together and arguing over who gets to say which part.

I plan on continuing my DA:O policy of not going out of my way to get any of the bonus items. My experience with the one item that DL'ed automatically ("The Edge" dagger that was given to everyone who registered prior to a particular date) was that it was destabilizingly powerful to get such a nice weapon so early in the game. I prefer the game as balanced without the marketing-based Monty-Haulism.

The Scotch I've had recently that I was most impressed with is Oban (the 14-year). It's nicely balanced-- both geographically and flavor-wise, it is roughly midway between the dry, smoke-heavy island malts, and the sweeter, lighter Highland malts.

I think the human race v. dog breed comparison fails because they are fundamentally different concepts. Dog breeds are not naturally occuring variations in the species-- they are the results of thousands of years of human-directed selective breeding and culling of a species to highlight certain features and eliminate others. Human intervention caused a species that at one time uniformly looked pretty much like wolves do today, and, based on the needs of particular human populations, bred some of them into Pomeranians, and some of them into Mastiffs. Sure, human races are variations in human genetics based on geographic segregation of populations. But that's not always what we're talking about when people say "race." Generally, they're referring to the social constructs that human societies have built upon those genetic variations-- humanity's instinctive tribalism writ large across a global population. Certainly, nobody can deny that certain genetic traits vary consistently from continent to continent. But those variations aren't all that more significant (except in superficial ways like skin tone) than the variations between individual people, even people deriving from the same general genepool. To say that there are no human "races" is really a shorthand for saying that the social constructs that human societies have built upon these minor genetic differences is without any rational basis.

I ****ing hope not. That's so annoying. Screw realism. If there's no gameplay difference between a lethal and a non lethal takedown, the choice becomes essentially meaningless. I'd guess that the there won't be a gameplay difference within the mission. (At best, the animation for non-lethal takedowns will take a little more time, thus presenting a greater risk of being spotted by some other enemy.) But we do know that in terms of mission results, perks, achievements, and faction influence, the decision whether to kill or to incapacitate/avoid will have some importance. I'd love it if, say, a repeat visit to an NPC would find him surrounded either by the same (very angry) guards you incapacitated or avoided before, or by newly recruited (either stronger or weaker) guards to replace the guys you wasted the last time around. Edit: I think the better example is how many gamers tried to play Deus Ex non-lethally, even though the in-game feedback on your killing/sparing enemies disappeared once you were through the first 2 or 3 levels.

I ****ing hope not. That's so annoying. Screw realism. No non-lethal takedown is complete without zip-tying the victim's wrists and ankles together. (And, where possible, attaching said bindings to a stationary object.)

Might as well ask the guy why he made that basic and egregious mistake to not save for an hour (or switch auto saves on?). The point was made in the comments. And it got me thinking-- why should the player have to worry about hitting the quicksave button whenever anything important happens, anyway? Its a rote task that adds nothing to gameplay (and, in console UIs, often involves menu navigation), except that the game occasionally will punish you (rather severely) if you forget. We only consider it a "basic and egregious mistake" because past games have conditioned us to do it reflexively, not because it's a feature of the game's (or genre's) appeal. If a well-designed system of checkpoints or autosaves can take this concern out of the player's hands, the game will be better for it.

A valid point. For me, I don't really think of game reviews as being "useful" to me anymore. There was a time, back when CGW was in is heyday, that game reviewers actually did bring knowledge and thoughtfulness to the table. While reviews are always somewhat subjective there once was considerably more authority behind them. Nowadays, reviews seem mostly to be little more than extensions of the publishers PR campaign, especially for major titles. I just simply enjoy the fact that Croshaw has enough of an identity as a reviewer that he can say what he want about the games he plays. I don't think I'd ever buy or not buy a game based on what he says about it though. Mostly I like listening to his reviews of games I've already played. The best game reviews nowadays are on the more thoughtful gaming blogs. They often take a while post-releaase, and the focus is often more on criticism (in the sense of critical theory) rather than giving scores to individual games, but you can find some useful, intelligent discussion there. I like Yahtzee's reviews of RPGs because they remind me of how awkward and stilted some of the genre conventions that I accept without much thought really are. An action-gamer's perspective on RPGs can be interesting, and sometimes thought-provoking. (E.g., this post and the ensuing comment thread has made me re-think my perspective on checkpoint v. free save systems)

I think the best explanation of the Council's "You're crazy; you're promoted" decisions is that they don't think Shep is right, but they fear that she might be. While they know that they cannot be seen publicly to formulate official policy based on the Shep's Prothean Psychic Friends Network, they can compromise and cover their ass by enabling Shep to investigate it herself with Spectre status. Of course, that explanation is all shot to hell by their actions post-Virmire. You can almost explain that away by attributing the "you're grounded" decision to Udina and the Alliance brass (who don't have any authority over Spectres, but who happen to own the ship that Shep is using and can take it away if they want to), but the Council's speech post-Virmire doesn't totally support this interpretation. Hopefully, ME2 won't require this level of interpretive gymnastics to make its plot make sense!

Yeah, I would have liked the ME1 intro better if they hadn't shown the player the cutscene of Saren killing Other-Spectre-Dude. It would've made the discovery of OSD's body more memorable, and would've shifted the focus more to that Naptime Smuggler Witness. The player believes NSW because the player has seen the cutscene-- other than that, he doesn't seem all that trustworthy. (How many humans can actually tell two Turians apart, anyway?)

RPG writing would be much better if the "I just want to fight" character archetype was abandoned and forgotten.

Some classic childrens programming for you:

No. Also, this incident happened in France, which doesn't have one either. Anyhow, this isn't exactly a poster case for it. Clearly in the "crime of passion" category, where whatever additional deterrence that capital punishment offers isn't going to be a factor.

Ideal result: Having collected lots of stuff in ME1 gives you a headstart on collecting stuff (for crafting purposes) in ME2. (E.g., the benefits of XX% of the stuff you collected in ME1 will carry over so that you can use them for whatever research & crafting ME2 is set up to support.) I typically farm a few star clusters early on in the game for the easy to get "just click survey" minerals to build up some cash. And later on, I'll survey planetside minerals if I happen to be driving relatively close to them to get somewhere. This has gotten me about 75% of the way "complete" for most of the mineral groups without feeling like a completionist drone. Hopefully whatever carries over isn't just a binary "quest completed or not" and the results I've gotten so far will have some payoff in the sequel.

I am not good at picking NFL games.