Jackalmonkey

Word. The slo-mo and the (unskippable!) repetition amount to a massive time sink if the player uses VATS every time it's up (i.e., if they use it as intended). It is boring. My point about the acronym is really that it could have been anything. It could have been PATS, or PATH, or ATS, or AT (or FAT! lol, fat), for instance, and yet they said to themselves: VATS. Yes, VATS.

QFT, brother. VATS was a win button. The mechanic had few practical limitations (aside from being bafflingly pointless for CQC) and no drawback or penalty associated with its use. Meanwhile its benefits - a massive DR bonus and a chain of criticals - allowed the player to godmode through the game at virtually any level. (cf. the recent DAC article.) The only gameplay drawback, really, was the excruciating 5-10 seconds of unskippable slo-mo "carnage."

This was actually a gameplay element intended for Van Buren. As I recall, Speech was going to be broken into two skills, one of which would be Deception, which allowed characters to create and use disguises to avoid combat. There was a lot of talk at the time of removing XP rewards from kills, and so the ability to circumvent enemies was especially appealing. EDIT: More information on disguises in VB.

The time-stopping/slowing mechanics of Chain Shot and Fury make for a significantly overpowered character. Combined with Shadow Operative and second-tier Brilliance, you're effectively in god mode. (I can imagine problems with picking, say, SMGs and Shotguns, as both are highly situational weapons - to the point where I honestly don't know why they'd have their own skill trees. They ought to have fallen under a more expansive "assault weapons" category with assault rifles, thus broadening the toolset of a so-so skill. But aside from those two categories, all the skills available are excellent in their own right.) The dialogue is superior to ME or Dragon Age (where speech skill and morality options kill real dialogue choices) - in fact, it's the best dialogue in recent memory, though I agree with the prevailing view that the options are often vague. And I'll say it again, for the sake of raising the issue: No RPG has ever done stealth gameplay as effectively as AP has. Other non-RPG's have done it better, and high-level Shadow Operative is a win button, yes - but as RPG's go, this is the best we've yet seen. If you don't like the FPS combat (and frankly, who likes FPS combat aside from teenaged nerdragers and manchild aspies) stealth is a viable and entertaining option.

I didn't see this as a problem. Mike's sarcasm and glibness allowed him to remain relatively consistent despite the various dialogue options. Unlike past RPGs, where you're often free to bounce through an array of wildly different responses like a Magic Eightball of multiple personality disorder, all three of the dialogue stances seemed like plausible facets of the same personality. Mike might be a smug bastard, but within that personality is the potential for a wide emotive range - you can picture a smug bastard going hardass or softening up, depending on the situation. The alternative would be a relatively bland and occasionally bipolar blank slate (i.e. Commander Shepard).

From "Upping the Awesome Quotient": What in hell is a 'sex casino?' Anyway, nice to see that traits are back; they seem appropriate to Sawyer's general principle of, "Oh what, you want +1 STR? Downpayment of -3 AGI and (BANG) your left kneecap. Punk."

It's a nonlinear RPG in a contemporary setting, with viable stealth and nonlethal gameplay, no magic/force powers/biotics/psychic nonsense, designed by Chris "The only music I love is the sound of Fallout fans roasting over an open flame" Avellone of Planescape: Torment. So this is the only game I've ever preordered, because it's the only game I've ever felt was made specifically for me. Though I have to admit, I'm still ambivalent about the game, and I spend way too much time trying to reckon whether my present enjoyment is because the game really is that great, or if this is just a case of cognitive dissonance produced by the preordering.

That's exactly the kind of info I DON'T want to know before playing the game. But not everyone minds spoilers as much as I do, I guess... I hear what you're saying, but I think it should be possible to include some bits in a trailer that show non-combat stuff and yet still manage to avoid being spoilery. Precisely - you can give an audience an idea of a game's premise and what's at stake without "spoilers." Movie trailers do it all the time. It's not asking too much that game trailers do the same.

ASPLOZHUNZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was expecting a hell of a lot more from the trailer. Here's the information that the trailer suggests: 1. Someone somewhere doesn't like eyebots. Why? Who cares! 2. GUNS! 3. Environments and enemies! NIGHTKIN! Push ups! Dancing! 4. GUUUUUUHHHNZ! 5. You may have an opportunity to walk away from an explosion in slow motion. 6. The eyebot escapes - 7. ...or does it? The trailer in no way clarifies the plot, characters, conflicts, or the stakes or goals of the gameplay. It does afford a sense of the setting (Las Vegas) and the gameplay (Fallout 3). In other words, there's no information in this trailer that isn't already conveyed by the game's title.

Item 3 of this list puts it pretty well, I think: And given that you can bypass any minigame by way of spending a single common resource, the EMP grenade (or, for alarms specifically, by using the radio mimic), you can opt out of the gameplay if it doesn't suit you. It's smart design all over the place.

Literally all I can remember from DS are the gatling guns, and how embarrassingly weak they were in practice.

Especially in light of Icewind Dale, I can see how this might play to the studio's strengths. And "generic fantasy," insofar as it's decried here (and rightly so), is a far sight better than contending with yet another D&D franchise, which tends to be little more than institutionally claustrophobic and canonical "generic fantasy."

As other people noted, enemies may spontaneously "pop-in" five to ten seconds after loading a game, and I experienced this bug about half a dozen times, since I reload frequently. I experienced two other apparent bugs which I won't bother detailing here. Nothing game-breaking. The graphics are comparable to anything else on the 360. Considered alongside the art direction, I'd say this is easily a better-looking game than the dull (and oddly bload-spattered) Dragon Age, though admittedly that's not saying much.

I'd buy and play any game that shares AP's strengths, sequel or otherwise. I doubt that reviews can have much effect on the chance of a sequel - the sales figures will likely (and should) have more impact. And from what I can tell, it's always harder to launch an original IP than it is to develop an existing one, almost regardless of the original's success. Based on this assumption, we can say that if Sega wants to publish another spy RPG in a contemporary setting, it'll likely be an AP sequel.

What's with the undue negativity - how is this "desperate," for instance? When you don't have the financial assets of a publisher, I imagine that any job would be a good job. This particular job will diversify Obsidian's products beyond the type of games they've already shown they can make, while further establishing their presence within the (increasingly broad) RPG niche of the gaming market. Maybe it's not what you'd want most from this particular talent pool, but I for one am happy that the right people are working and making money. (And IMO, all of Obsidian's sequels have been marked improvements over their predecessors.)

The stealth gameplay is not as fully realized or integral as in Thief (no comparison to Splinter Cell, since I've never played it). But what no one here has yet mentioned - and no reviews seem to mention - is that this may be the best stealth gameplay seen in an RPG. Offhand I can't think of an RPG that has more intuitive, responsive and rewarding stealth mechanics.

I hope Aram appreciates this. Christ on crutches, I'm having flashes of Aram's 5,000-word manifesto on handloading back during Van Buren.

I tend to play my 360 games on a portable/wireless widescreen SD display, but had to move to a 1080p display when I ran into the first hacking minigame. Given that one Obsidian developer has recently complained about games making it through TCR despite the illegibility of their text in SD, I'm pretty disappointed. And I'm honestly wondering whether any AP hacking-induced seizures will turn up as news items in the coming weeks.

OP: Are you trying to use SMGs exclusively? The game makes a fairly explicit case during training that SMGs and Shotguns are extremely situational weapons. At any rate, my first playthrough is as Yeehaw Aggro Soldierboy, and my specializations (stupidly, deliberately) are Assault Rifles, SMGs, and Toughness. And so far SMGs seem to be working as intended: they're good at dispatching multiple enemies at close to medium range, and not so good at much else. At long distance and outdoors I rely on the assault rifle instead. Finding the right tool for the job at any given moment has so far been pretty entertaining in its own right - though Scorch's approach sounds enjoyable in its own special way.

Though on its face this sounds logical enough, bear in mind we're talking about fictional characters and events. And as such, you're putting the cart before the horse. The writers needed a justification for their decision to make Marston into a relatively passive accomplice. In this regard, the language barrier is in service to their plot and character decisions. It's a convenient rationale to make him function as an errand boy for a dozen missions or so. Any argument re. verisimilitude seems more than a little disingenuous given his ranch's proximity to the border. And bear in mind that the Mexico storyline (as interminable as it may seem) isn't the only instance of Marston's implausible passivity. The plan to invade Fort Mercer in New Austin is engineered entirely by Wes Dickens. The means of luring and combating Dutch's men in West Elizabeth is devised solely by the Bureau and the American military. In both cases Marston is either a gopher or an outsider.

Sonofagun, you're right - now I just wish they'd made that button mapping as clear as they had for all the other inventory controls. Having beaten the game as recently as last night, I can say it was rather entertaining and well worth the price. The gameplay mechanics are reasonably varied throughout, though mission combat is very simple, and doesn't sufficiently take advantage of the variety of tools available to the player. For most missions your best bet is your repeater rifle, which is a true shame, because the throwing knife, shotgun, and pistol all handle well and are excellent tools in their respective contexts. Unfortunately, those contexts (stealth, close-quarter, or quick-fire, respectively) are rare indeed, and you'll find that most of the conflicts are en masse and at range. At its best the story is derivative - and granted, given the genre, it's hard not to be derivative: westerns are essentially a set of conventions and homages within a very specific period and location. I know that it's asking a hell of a lot for this game to defy expectations when that's exactly what consumers are purchasing it for, but couldn't it distinguish itself a little? The beginning and end of the game are pretty good. The rest is a retread of old ground and old mistakes. Thanks to excellent voice acting and a great character model (though somewhat stilted mocap) the protag is sympathetic and endearing. Unfortunately, he's just as often as unbelievably gullible as GTA IV's Nico Bellic. As in that game, we might have had a compelling story about a mercenary playing both sides of the conflict until (reluctantly but decisively!) swearing his allegiance to the more principled of the two. And as in that game, instead we get an errand boy who sullenly complains about the tasks he's enduring - often for information that any real outlaw would just take by blackmailing, extorting, or stealing. I do understand that we need a certain amount of handholding in order to present and justify gameplay, but the fact is that other games (and indeed past Rockstar games) have in the past presented us with more decisive protagonists who actually plan and instigate the plot underpinning the gameplay. Toward the endgame there's some little garble of freshman pseudophilosophy delivered without irony by the story's principal villain, Edgar Ross--though once you get over that hump, the story improves. In fact the endgame, despite being rather slow, is as suddenly and breezily plausible as the game's first two hours. So the beginning and the end are pretty good. It's everything in between (the actiony bits) that I take issue with. I'm not saying that this needs to be Deadwood (and in fact that comparison is sure to be unfair) but is it too much to ask for plot and characters on par with, say, The Shield? Everything that's "mature" about this game is just a reminder of how immature the content is. If you play the middle portions of the storyline in front of any non-gamer peers, expect to be embarrassed. Other games have benefited from hiring decent working writers--for instance, Warren Ellis for Dead Space, or Paul Dini for Batman: AA. Would it have killed Rockstar to hire an actual writer? Offhand I can think of Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello, or several of the scriptwriters who've been in Joss Whedon's stable. All are apt choices, and while not luminaries, they're a far sight brighter than the usual Rockstars.

I see your point, but I think this varies according to your playstyle. I try to avoid anything that resembles grinding (repetitive minigames, hunting wildlife, etc.), though I've done the challenges, since barring Survivalist they're all fairly entertaining in their own right. Aside from that I've been playing straight through, and assisting strangers where and when it's fun to do so (the fella with the glider and the lengthy collection quest will probably be forever grounded). At any rate, up until about half an hour ago I was sitting on $300-400 after having bought all the properties in the game. For context, I'm maybe four missions into Blackwater. Out of curiosity I took a look at my inventory, and I did have about $600 in gold bullion sitting in my bags, so I sold that. Between all the various animal bits I've collected, I'm probably sitting on an additional $2k+ of loot. But buying and selling in RDR is truly tedious--you can only sell one item at a time, and each time you're forced to wait for the selling animation and sound to complete (between one to two seconds). I don't see much point in pressing a button over and over again for a virtual reward. "Hardcore" gamers might be willing to put up with this, but I imagine most casual (or critical) gamers won't be bothered. I could go on about the additional time sink created by the way the game handles looting, but I'll leave that for another time or place.

As an aside, the fast travel is a bit obnoxious. The stagecoaches are bugged and will randomly overcharge you (to the tune of over a hundred dollars, and money isn't easy to come by in this game). The safest alternative is therefore, as Pop mentioned, fast traveling from a camp. It's convenient in that you can set up a destination pretty much anywhere on the map, but camping is a pain. Again: you can only camp on wide, flat, dry areas of land away from towns, roads, or landmarks. On its face this makes sense and doesn't sound terribly difficult, and usually isn't. Except of course, when it is. I don't know how many times I found myself way up in the boonies, trying (and repeatedly failing) to locate land where the game would allow me to camp. It's as if [protag] John Marston fast travels by air balloon and needs to prep a launch site each time. Add to this the fact that camping consists of navigating through player inventory to find the "campfire" item, a loading segment for the preset campsite area and the art assets (tent, campfire, victuals, etc.), and an unskippable cut scene, and fast travel by camping quickly becomes annoying. If a given trip already takes two or three minutes, you're often better off just biting the time sink than finding a location for the "fast travel" alternative.

The save system is just a little bit odd for a free-roaming sandbox. On its face it's the old GTA sleep-to-save convention: you save by using the bed in your house, or by camping (in outdoor areas that are flat, dry, wide, and far from towns or roads--which are often not easy to find).* The game will also autosave after completing any event that advances the completion percentage. Unlike GTA, however, death is death--you don't just regain consciousness in front of the hospital--and you have to reload from your last save. So if you're chasing certain in-game challenges (collect X of one herb, for instance, or capture a given bounty), you'll have to start all over again from your last save. A bit frustrating if you get jumped by a bear while picking flowers. The best [unintended] workaround for this problem is to have two or more deeds for certain breeds of horses. Every time you swap to a new mount, the activity triggers an autosave. I'm not sure why. *Weirdly enough, the game's campsites are actually preset areas that are geographically close to where you set up camp--you may end up camping half a mile or more from where you choose to camp. Consequently, having to actually stand in a flat area when you decide to camp comes off as oddly contrived and arbitrary.