Dhruin

A couple of the responses here indicate the posters clearly don't know what they are talking about with Divine Divinity. The combat in DD is Diablo-inspired -- no question, but nothing else is. It most certainly has lots of dialogue, an enormous world with reasonable non-linearity, environmental interaction that is second to none and an open skill system. If you simply can't stand the Diablo-like action combat, DD is not the right game. However, you can create any sort of character with the open skill system with dozens and dozens of skills to choose from and the interactivity allows you to do things like make your own poison from plants and apply it weapons. Ultima VII modified with single-character Diablo-like combat, a huge skill system and modern dialogue trees is a fair description. The demo is only the opening dungeon - one of the biggest in the game. It does not give a picture of the outdoor areas or character interaction, so don't judge the game from the demo other than pure combat. Wiz8 is an old-fashioned party-based game much like the Wizardries and Might & Magics before it. There's a fairly large world but the focus is definitely balancing a large party effectively for combat. It has phase-based combat...and a lot of it. Combat can last 15 minutes a battle and there is a lot of them but there's a lot of choices in designing your party. You don't see the individual members of the party (the view is first-person as if from one invisible party member) so there's no tactical movement of party members, although you can place where they invisibly stand within the group formation. The demo will give you a fair picture of the final game.

You guys do realise NWN2 has player-controlled companions, right? Why on earth would they want to use an old engine rather than one they have completely overhauled and are intimately familiar with (assuming those were the only choices, anyway)?

You mean Dungeons & Dragons Online, in development at Turbine for some time?

I'm sticking with "it isn't in active production and you won't see it at E3".

Geez, it's v0.6 - only a bit over halfway done. The story and quests come after the basic mechanics are in place.

I don't know what to think of that cinematic. It's a nice flashy bit of animation in itself but the demo didn't reveal any hint of a story (which DWB kept emphasising) and that trailer didn't really set up any story, either. Guess I'll have to see when I play it.

Sure...we posted JoWood's E3 lineup two weeks back or so.

Gothic 3 is confirmed for E3.

I would think that will be there - I simply forgot about it.

The 13% means very little because it covers everything from MMOs to J-RPGs but if it's any comfort, that figure is up from 8% last year. This will be the best E3 for cRPGs in many years. I don't know how many brand-spanking-new announcements there will be (not many I imagine) but with Oblivion and Gothic 3 being fully unleashed, more Dragon Age?, BioWare's Unreal project?, more on BioShock?, Divine Divinity 2 (almost certain), Arkane's Source project? Hellgate London, Castaway's action-RPG, Iron Lore's action-RPG...more to look forward to than we've had for quite a while.

Thanks. Why 79? Well, I think that's a pretty good score - I don't like overblown scores. There's a number of small quibbles that chipped away at the score...it needed to be longer to explore the second half of the story a little better, I wanted more active attunements and more control over when to use them, could use combos or other "advanced" combat options, the major "choices" could have more impact (although actually providing the choices makes it better than nearly every other action RPG), a little bit of skating with the animation. Umm..that will do. I still play it, though - nice game.

The demo doesn't really give you enough opportunity to play with Attunements, so the full game is much better. As Briosafreak said, a simple game but well-executed IMO. It's one of my favourite few action-RPGs.

This game is the most "fun" I've had for quite some time - it's just a joy to play. I think you've missed the boat on the graphics, Rhomal. They may not be up there with the most technically advanced on the market but they are very good. However, it's the artistic vision that takes it to another level - everything replicates a 4-colour comic book perfectly. Not everything is about pumping the most polygons.

The Sorcerer's Place thing was an April Fool's joke...read the comments. Still, you won't see BG3 at E3 this year IMO.

I guess you don't know what turn-based is, then. Same basic system as BG -- and the BG manual gets it right. Each character is on an individual round...but that's not the same as "turn-based".

I must admit I would prefer Gothic had both character creation and more complex character development but it hardly disqualifies it from being an RPG. I just started replaying Ultima 7 -- and I could find many people to say Ultima 7 (or 4 or 6 or whatever) is their favourite "old school" RPG ever...no character creation, only 4 character stats. It's too simplisitic to disqualify a product from being an RPG based on one issue, other than simply not having any character development system at all.

It's not quite that simple. 6600GT cards care typically $350-$400 in Australia, for starters. Irrational sold 400k copies of FF...not bad but not in the league of the big name games and I doubt they have the luxury of Id or Valve to saturate a smaller market base. Yes, those games are selling well (except, perhaps, Vampire ) but look at the continuing sales of the original Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon (original series), Zoo Tycoon etc...all top 15 for years. BTW, it FFv3R does look great and is a big improvement on the original. It's a classic example of art over polygons.

I have played Gothic 2 3 times (each with a different "guild") and have NEVER seen this parctular line of dialogue In fact, I can't recall any conversation where someone offers to sell you a "magic sword". So my guess is that you just made that line up to give people and idea of the quality of the translations. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I wasn't going to comment on this originally because it's a while since I have played G2 -- but I don't remember this line or anything as poorly phrased myself. The inflections and timing in the voiceacting wasn't great but the text was quite reasonable - spelling errors in KotOR2, VtM: Blooldlines and even FFv3R have been more obvious to me. So, where is this line?

*shrug* One of the best games I've ever played but from your opening comments, your mind was pretty much set to begin with, so I won't bother trying to change it.

Interviews I did with Tannhauser Gate on The Roots Part 1 Part 2 It has definitely been delayed to Q3.

I think it's got huge potential if they pull it off -- and Boiling Point is indeed a better name. Xenus does sound like some alien side-scroller or something.

Can't see why variations in KotOR2 scores would be a surprise. For starters, I think KotOR1 scored too highly on average and a near-identical sequel (especially one that was rushed) was always going to bring some reviewers back to earth. Throw in the fact that MCA didn't use a huge plot twist and KotOR2's biggest point of difference -- the writing -- didn't wow some reviewers the same way that ridiculous plot twist in KotOR1 did.

Lionheart. As much because I thought the concept had so much potential and I convinced myself to ignore all the signs that it was never going to even come close.

Have to agree with Volourn.

I'm sure it happens but most of the time, it's just plain old differing opinions, perhaps mixed with the realities of meeting deadlines.