Zoma

Well, here's hoping Feargie has awesome PR skills to convince THQ as he has manged to convinced Sega to let Obs make an entirely new IP. On a furthernote, any idea what happened with the Warhammer IP? Last I'm aware of, Mark of Chaos was co-published together by Namco and Deep Silver though there is no telling which company owned the IP though.

Because I personally feel so far Sega has a good track record for being a reliable publisher in the west? Games like the Total War series, the Condemn series, Universe at War. Furthermore, I thought Sega is being generous with Obsidian in production values of AP and Aliens RPG which is IMO, a rarity to do so with a first time collaboration for an RPG game which is yet to be proven. In addition, I recalled reading an article some time ago that the developers in the west rated Sega highly as a publisher. I'll paste the link if I can ever find it since it was a year ago article. Is the WH40K license exclusive to only THQ? A pity if that is since the only RPG we are getting from them is an MMO. As for Atari, eh, I'm not sure how is the company functioning anymore to be honest. Isn't it zombified by now? Even the licensing of D&D sounds more of a loan to me.

How can you forget Ivan? You can feel for him man, he's finally learning English!

Ugh. Hitman 47 is a bloody unforgiving game.

Is Onyx a party-based or a 1'st person viewer engine? If it turns out that OE develops a new and much smoother engine than NWN2's KotOR-core engine, an engine you'd much rather work with over a period of time, would you consider creating a new D&D crpg or a series of "upgraded" NWN2 modules with such an engine? Or is that outside the.. realms of possibility? N. Its not possible to simply 'change' the graphic engine from Electron to Onyx without involving major rework as both graphic engines are a completely different beasts. Furthermore, with Onyx engine comprising of other third party functions (Like Physics and Unreal 3 engine), it is not seen profitable for all the work made just for a NWN2 series as that would mean licensing those parts as well. It would be much more ideal for a new series perhaps. Furthermore the issue is not the graphics engine I believe that affects the 'smoothness', but rather how the core engine where it processes the functions and data is outdated and by today's standards, unresponsive. Like you, I love to see Obsidian work on a new D&D RPG with Obsidian's new engine. This time Obsidian could afford to discard the unresponsive 3.5 NWN engine and rebuild on their own pace the 4.0 rule edition engine. Maybe once Obsidian proves to be successful under Sega's belt (Aliens and Alpha Protocol RPG), we can consider hoping Sega to purchase the license from WotC to make D&D games. Personally, I hope Sega would buy a WH40K license for Obsidian to work on instead. D&D franchise needs to cool down a bit until the 4th edition ruleset is completely fleshed out.

Some WW2 female fatale spy game if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, the ending was good. Yar. If only the story is as meaty as Hitman 2. Imagine how the game would be like with an awesome ending combined with a good story. As it stands, it just has an awesome ending presentation. That's it.

Don't think Obsidian goofed since the story and idea of Zehir must had gone through intensive QA phase with WotC beforehand in order to maintain consistency in the setting. Seeing that WotC gave the green light, I don't think its a mistake though I share everyone's curiosity what WotC's intention? Zehir apparently is a new deity in the 4.0 rule edition. I can't comment further than that since I remain ignorance of PnP stuffs.

Gameplaywise, its the best Hitman game (In my opinion) in its series. Storywise, it feels disconnected and disjointed and in the end, very lacking. If you want a good story, Hitman 2 has the best story in the series because it has a far more personal goal as well as exploring the depths of 47's mind and his sought for redemption. Unfortunately, Hitman Blood money is mostly told from a third person with 47's character suddenly taking a confusing drastic change from Hitman 2 leaves alot of fans a lack of satisfaction. Aside from the faults of storywise, the gameplay is an experience that I would highly recommend you to indulge in. It has: Great maps. Variety of weapons. Many many many ways to kill your targets provides the needed linearity. Awesome soundtrack. Like chris, I recommend you to play it on normal difficulty at least. Otherwise you will be tempted to simply run and gun your way in and out which pretty much defeats the purpose and goal of the game.

Hrm. Sterilization or orbital bombardment. Both are just as bad

Depending on your PC's alignment, be it paragon or renegade heavy, there are some significant dialogue changes that reflects your character. For example: If you are a paragon and you saved the council, the Council would comment what a goodie goodie things humans are and all races in the galaxy should take guidance from the race and blah blah. On the other hand if your character is a renegade, they would comment how ruthless and efficient and blah blah the human race are.

Automatic weapons trait gives you less accuracy penalty when firing burst mode. Even lesser when you have expert automatic weapons trait. Combine the traits with a prone stance, a tripod for your gun as well as a good support machine gun = PURE WIN.

One of the first recruitable NPCs, Irena I think, is a doctor. Terrible combat skills though, but learns fast.

Tau = Communism for those who are not aware. Nothing wrong with being a commie, its just that Tau's fictional communism actually works that would make Marxist proud unlike our real world counter parts.

Resting is the only way to heal properly as well as removing your merc's crippled state. The reason is that depending of the % the merc is being bandaged up, the more it affects his/her mobility. You will discover that they are incapable of using more action points than when they are in perfect health. That alone will put your team in a disadvantage in combat. If I am not mistakened as well, it affects the merc's max hitpoints as well as his maximum fatigue. So in the end, its best not to get hit or severely wounded at all in the first phase of the game since time is against you afterall until you are able to secure fundings.

Pyro unlocks and achievements for TF2. This Thursday baby!

If attacking enemy hostile sectors seems difficult, I suggest you create a character who has a night vision traits or get night vision goggles asap and attack the enemy bases at night. If you have a sniper rifle, even a bigger plus since you are able to see the enemies in the dark plus the AIs tend to stand under bright areas that is emitted from the buildings which you could pick them off easily.

Here's hoping Onyx is also built with multiplayer games in mind in the near future.

It seems you are unaware Volourn, that the Aurora engine in multiplayer is unable to hold a party larger 5 with 6 already pushing it, the server's performance. Often any party bigger than 6, even though there are 30 players online or just 8, will bring massive lag and server slow down just because of one party. Hence the DM always made it known whenever the quest he is DMing has more than 6 players involved, he will make a condition that the group is to be broken down into 2 parties instead of one. I do not know how it performs for single player as NWN2 has a max of 5 playable characters (Including Shandra) which is within the safe zone from slowing down the game due to heavy burden on the processor. Perhaps those who had tried the mod that manages to include more members in the party could comment on it.

Yeah. Its unfortunate since the basis and core of the engine had always meant for the purpose of multiplayer where controlling one PC is the focus. The controls and functions still remains awkward and clumsy for a party based based single player games. Functions like formations, auto-pause and a fluid bird's eye view camera contributes much to the tactical aspect of the Infinity engines. Something that are sorely lacking in NWN1 and NWN2's engine.

I wonder if the engine could survive with 6 PCs in the screen at one time. Its a known issue that familiars will cause FPS drop for unknown reason, imagine having 6 wizies/sorcies/rangies summoning their familiars. NUKE PENDING!

I read the spoilers for the ending and *Spoiler spoiler*

*Nukes Kaidan*

I had hoped for Jagged Alliance 3 to continue the gameplay of sector based control game while its turn based aspects being improved on, which is already done as it is using Silent Storm's engine. Even better if the players have access to building/upgrading stronghold(s) similarly to X-Com: Imagine building a helicopter pad gives you access to air support. Garages for light tanks or humvees. Armory to store weapon loots as well as bonuses for repairing weapons. Medicbay is self-explanatory. Radio comm tower grants access to communication to the outside world to receive international community's aid in form of finances or the blackmarkets depending on the player's reputation. Unfortunately, Jagged Alliance 3 is seen to be a game that is taking the short cut's route: Simply a Silent Storm 1.5 game with a modern setting. Me a sad panda. The combat interface using Silent Storm's engine would be groovy, with updated aesthetics of course. What I enjoyed in Silent Storm is the ability to sidestep, unlike in Jagged Alliance 2 where if the enemy is positioned at the corner behind the door, entering it will guarantee a 100% interruption from them since your field of vision is obstructed.