Diogo Ribeiro

It was an above average shooter back in the day. What is your point? At one time in the course of the game, players are actually given the chance to kill Manderley as JC leaves UNATCO for good. Is JC less of a psycho then because at that point the game lets you kill him, but he's a full on psycho if he tries to kill him when the game doesn't? Please. To consider the point is merely about the act of killing an NPC is naive. The point is about the fact that you're presented with choices which the game doesn't have consequences for, and because of this resorts to breaking the fourth wall. It's about the game giving you freedom but when you try to exercise it the game won't let you. And instead of smoothing it out with smoke and mirrors, you hit a giant brick wall. If you want another example which will avoid your 'psycho' misinterpretation, it's the same thing that applies to Gunther when you're running away from UNATCO but wind up being captured. When you confront Navarre in the subway station and run to the exit, why can't you confront Gunther in combat and succeed in killing him so you can escape the first time, instead of having no chance whatsoever of surving the encounter and having to be captured by UNATCO? "It was designed that way". No kidding. Doesn't mean it was well designed. I don't give free rides to those, either. 'Why can't I have proper consequences to the choices which the game allows me to make?' Heh. Maybe when you finally understand the difference between wanting to slaughter millions and wanting the consequences of my actions to be consistent and credible, you'll stop coming off like a one trick pony.

Never played 2 to any meaningful extent. Last I heard opinions were divided between being more of the same with some serious gameplay issues, to being an improvement all around.

Children, you say? :bon4r:

A little something to get you going. Oh, and:

Yep. EDIT: IIRC, I played it when I still had my very old Voodoo 16 PCI.

It won't be roleplaying if you're not playing some sort of minigame during the sex scene. Something like Hot Coffee only with wires attached to your hands and genitals.

The Uninstall Wizard.

Actually...

I remember playing Soldier of Fortune and really getting to the point of fixating at polygon corpses. There was something strangely appealing about slicing dead bodies which would still jiggle and get additional cuts.

I'd rather they had designed the game in a way that considered the possibility of players trying to think outside the box and came up with proper contingencies, instead of giving the player possibilities he'll never be able to carry out. Played Invisible War? In the game there was an impediment to using weapons in certain establishments which, although would seem limiting, created the necessary background reasoning for it. You couldn't shoot anyone but there was a reason for this, and gamewise it was neither creating false expectations or giving a false sense of freedom. Whereas in the prequel, you could shoot everyone but there was no reason why they'd stand there, never dying - except because the designers hadn't actually thought beyond what would happen to the story if the player did something like that. Even a ginormous UNATCO assault squad coming into the office and pumping JC full of lead after he'd kill Manderley would be preferable, as it would provide a more credible situation.

Is there any reason why my actions are negated in hamfisted ways, besides "OMG designers don't want the thin line that holds their games to disappear!"? Putting on my robe and wizard hat. And equipping the ring.

Rockman and Forte Super Ghouls and Ghosts Demon's Crest

How can I feel immersed in a gameworld that doesn't provide credible consequences to my actions, or only does so when it supports its own existence or rules?

Well, the problem is that some interaction, NPC or otherwise is good but there are multiple instances of it being shot down by ambitious design that didn't got off the ambition part. Some of the main character's interaction is either limited by a giant designer warning going "you can't do this or you'll break the game", or just not taken into account by the game. How's immersion sound when you can't kill an NPC because he's been tagged as immortal and necessary to the story? Try killing Manderley or Jock, for instance: you just can't. They will only die when and if the game determines so. You also can't kill Gunther Hermann until a given point in the game, because he's treated as immortal as well. Which in a way begs the question: why does a junior agent who will die with two headshots need to save an immortal guy who takes out NSF troops and security bots with a knife? This isn't immersive. Neither is having to go find some door code because a glass door which you could just blow apart is tagged as locked and indestructable. For something many boast the game has - meaningful choices and consequences - it would be much more meaningful if you actually needed to save Hermann, rather than letting go off on a killing spree. EDIT: By the way, was I the only one to laugh hard at the fact that killing every NSF soldier on Liberty Island will not get me any noticeable reaction from Manderley, but if I talk to Sharon in the women's restroom or destroy cleaning bots he gets mad at me? Not very credible, either.

^Action/Adventure?

Diablo, being basically a roguelike, has more in common with RPGs than Fable, which in turn has more in common with action/adventure titles like Zelda.

It's a terrible RPG... But a very fun hack'n'slash game, nonetheless.

Except Fallout 3 which will feature state of the art ghoul erosion and talking, Radiant Deathclaws.

D. W. Bradley's credibility wasn't that high to being with, but I suspect it was virtually destroyed during Dungeon Lord's development. Something about a developer claiming to want to remove the repetitive combat found in action RPGs by implementing repetitive combat found in action RPGs is too much of a hint that he doesn't know what he's doing.

ToEE's weren't that good either, with many data entry errors finding their way into the original release at least. The best aspect of the rules it got was the combat.

The ones that weren't botched, anyway.

So cold, cold and dark. It goes on forever.

The Gameboy Player Pak and a 64 MB Memory Card are already ordered as well. I had to order this from Amazon.co.uk, because here pretty much every major videogame store has stopped carrying Gamecube accessories... Ever since a year and a half ago.

If the 'C' is short for Crap, then I agree.

The fanbase was there. There were definetely several modding groups and projects at the time, but they eventually withered. Online play was also strong for a brief period, then also waned. Much like Neverwinter Nights the main portion of the game was passable but players tried to extend its longevity by using the toolset and playing online. The lack of a meaningful fanbase was not exclusively due to the main game's low points. Sure, generic and uninspired gameplay helped, but so did the game's attempt to be a varied package, and it having better competition (not necessarily genrewise).