Amentep

Yeah, the LEGO games are insanely easy and quite repetitive, yet at the same time they're charming and enjoyable. After playing a LEGO game I'm not eager to recommend it to anyone, or even tell them about it, but I'm also not unhappy with my experience. I've played and enjoyed (to greater and lesser degrees) all of the license based Lego games. Looking forward to the marvel one! EDIT: As to what I'm playing, I beat the main campaign in DA:O and went to DA2 - I remembered the games were different in mechanics but I'd forgotten HOW different they were. Also had to throw my initial character concept out the window when I looked at an old save and realized I was recreating the last character I'd played in DA2... Plan on going back and doing the DA:O expansion after DA2 but with a new character (I've never tried the expansion without porting my character over from the other game).

I think I have a Ren and Stimpy games...but it was for the Genesis - Stimpy's Invention I think?

Er...squish it down until it fits? That's what I've always done. Seems just wrong to eat a hamburger with a fork .

This could be a case of reading things that aren't intended, but many of the posts in this thread - including the first one - indicated to me the desire to have co-op in PE now, not in some future undefined game. if PE does really well and they decide to do PE2 and think that in having created a lot of infrastructure for PE1 they can add co-op without compromising the game at all, no problem.

Where is the moral or ethical problem? They're not selling illegal items nor are they forcing you to patronize their establishment. I think you are. The problem with smoking has always been (at least in the sense of curtailing where people can smoke) in the claims of second-hand smoke - in other words the problem of your right to imbibe in carcinogens vs the rights of others to not be forced to imbibe in carcinogens by the simple fact that you and they are in the same place. There can't be any health risk here to anyone who isn't assuming the risk themselves by patronizing the establishment (and arguably their embracing the unhealthy-ness of their food does the same as a health warning on a pack of smokes). IMO

I've bought multiple copies - I actually think I had 3 or 4 of Planescape: Torment but not at one time (because I gave my game away to friends who I thought would like it and then bought myself another copy). I do have two copies of some games because I got the "Game of the Year" type version (Fallout 3, Morrowind, Dragon Age: Origins, Age of Mythology, etc.) ...and I've bought multiple copies of some games due to getting them in "retro" sets. But I can't say I travel much with my games (so no need for a traveling copy).

The Let's Play made me want to play Arcanum again - may be I'll go diplomat!

Every time I go to buy a new console, I put the old one in its original box. With the exception of the Atari 2600 which I'd bought a plastic container designed to hold the console and its games (and the whole thing now sits in a box). And my NES, C64 and SegaCD which were bought secondhand. But I admit to being a bit of a hoarder, in that sense. I've only recently started to get myself away from keeping the packaging games come with (putting them instead in folder sleeve container things).

I want LAN as much as the next jerk but lets be realistic, we're looking at an expansion, sequel or mods, not Feargus having a psychotic episode at the office one day. I just wish people would stop sniping at the very idea of co-op, obviously a lot of people want it - nearly 50% according to the poll in this very thread - so attacking the idea amounts to a circular firing squad. I'm only attacking the idea of putting co-op in games that were explicitly stated to be designed without co-op; had PE been stated from the beginning to have co-op play I'd have not said anything as its inclusion is a neutral to me provided it doesn't compromise the single player game. However since the developers have stated that including co-op play in the game would take attention and limited resources away from the single player game, since co-op was not part of the original pitch for the game, I personally find the continuing clamor for co-op play to be included puzzling. Who supports a game that doesn't have co-op, a fact explicitly stated early in the campaign, and then agitates for it to be added (drawing resources away from things already promised) once the game is going to be made? Its about as silly - in my opinion - as supporting a PC only game, explicitly stated to be PC only, and then demanding it be ported to a console. It makes no sense at all - unless that development option was one under consideration from the very beginning. Which it wasn't (and I say that as someone who has consoles and could certainly play PE on a console if it was ported to one - but that's not what the scope of the game was ever about!)

Based on the last bit of the footage...I'm thinking its neither. EDIT: IT could be part of a social connection thing, but that seems odd. Just not sure.

This would be ok if you only have one choice to make across the board; like, giving a little expletive-riddled speech motivates the Fighter, but doesn't do anything for the Mage. Choice and consequence. A bad example would be giving you the choice to treat every character in the way that goes over best with them; taking aside the Fighter, then talking to the Mage. That's the "choose the most comforting dialogue option" minigame I resent. If Charisma is given a meaningful role in character development by being the "party" stat, ok. That could easily unbalance Charisma though, unless a) stat points are really scarce or b) your followers are pretty incompetent (Fallout 1&2). I think we're roughly in agreement here; when I say charismatic I'm not really looking at charisma as a stat, per se, but some representation ones personal magnetism crossed with leadership (I'd actually prefer a combination of stats creating a composite charisma stat under tight upper/bottom limit - like an asymptote line - so that there are effect min/max to how effective any individual can be than a personal stat that one could up to infinity and allow you to convince 5 gods to join your party to slay some goblins.)

I've always thought it would be great if letting characters get hurt/injured in combat too much affected their morale eventually leading them to leave. Or forcing them to march when tired. Anything that forces me to powergame my relationships is bad. Letting character X dying two times or your own character dying two times resulting in X leaving - that would be ok. It simply forces me to play in a competent manner. What's bad is companions leaving because they feel "left out", or because you don't have enough "influence" on them (you didn't choose the comforting dialogue option q_q). I think whether characters feel left out or poorly influenced should be a relationship of what the NPC wants vs what the player gives mitigated by player "charisma" (however that is defined). A soldier may expect gruffer treatment from a leader than, say, a mage who has spent most of their time locked in study. But also a charismatic leader should be able to convince his party to double march to the next location without complaint. There also should be logical arguments that could be made (if the player decided) to override objections. DAO does this a little with the persuade option, but honestly everytime Morrigan complained about helping some group I wanted the option to say "Hi Morrigan, helping the Mage's circle/Arl/dwarves/dalish/riders of rohan/whatever gives me an army of mages/arl's men/dwarves/dalish/etc at my command so by helping them a little I'm helping myself a whole lot, kthnxbai."

I'd be interested in this if EA/Bioware realeased an edition of the game collecting all the DLC in a way that didn't require it to be downloaded as MASS EFFECT 1 was done. But since I have no way to download such a thing to my 360, I only get as much "closure" as the shipped game allows...

I thought the first 90% of Mass Effect 3 was fantastic, the last 10% was a straight up slap in the face. What bothered me about Dragon Age 2 wasn't so much the change in direction or obvious consolization of the game or the ho-hum story and characters, it was the plain as day corner cutting/rush job/lack of effort evident (lather, rinse, repeat combat, shameless dungeon recycling). I can live with a game being uninspired and subpar when the developer put forth the effort and did their best, just failed. What makes my blood boil is when a developer quite obviously slapped something together as fast as possible and rushed it out the door for cash grab purposes. I dunno, to me MASS EFFECT 1 is heroic space opera; MASS EFFECT 2 and 3 try to bring a dose of "realism" to the proceedings that really make it more of a war story and its that which I don't think I ever really appreciated (because, really I wanted heroic space opera). The idea that you're playing a "war story" as opposed to "heroic action" is REALLY felt in the end of ME3, IMO. It'd probably wouldn't have been as pilloried had it been published as a side story (for a series I think that can be a strength - side games can experiment and be their own little things without impacting the main story). That said, I didn't mind the reuse of assets to be honest because the game was fun to play. But then I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing. Game wasn't perfect and yeah the assets shouldn't have been reused as much (but hey, even DAO reused assets, so...)...and yet I still enjoyed playing it for what it was (rather than what I might think DA2 should have been). ...And I had to restart DAO because I screwed up the character I was making (I was trying to re-do the Dwarven Noble save I lost when my 360 died years ago when I first was playing DAO (lost the save right around time to hit the last battle) and realized I'd messed up several early moments). So I went with an elf mage since I felt I might get bored early on if I had the same character doing mostly the same things.

I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins again. Plan on then playing DA2. And yeah I'll probably get and play DA3 pretty soon after it is released. I liked DAO and DA2 despite they're flaws; was more disappointed with ME3 to be honest (but ME2 pretty much set up what ME3 would be like; I think it kind of went off the rails there to be honest (and I still enjoyed the game despite not liking specific elements of it (hows that for nested parentheses?)))

Once it all goes download only, that'll be me out of gaming. Unless I move to a new house, at least. Thankfully it seems that's not the model the PS4s going with (for now).

I dunno, so long as you aren't too much of a stickler for the designs to incorporate "real" animals there are plenty of mythological creatures that are fire based like dragons or phoenixes. Then there's always the salamander as I said. yeah hadn't really thought magical fire animals.

Not a fan of it; seems that most people who buy a product would just be encouraged to move it out of its original packaging than quit buying the product. Also I'm not a fan of using the legal system to try to effectively ban legal things.

I never really did the Arcanum diplomacy character (I never liked enough of the companions to try to get large groups of them haranguing the countryside). EDIT: Remembered what thread I was posting in.

As an incorrigible and inveterate game re-starter, I can already see that I'm going to have a lot of trouble nailing down who I want to "be" for my first play through. Meaning a lot of "Oh let me try THIS combination..." moments leading to beginning over to see how the new idea works every hour or so...

Kinda like us humans. The pros/cons does seem a good bit like humans...

Can't they be both?

I'll gravitate out of gaming if I have to be constantly online to play a game.

I'd have played it. Even with the understanding that some things don't fit the "film" lore (ie acid blood not being a big, big issue), I'd not have a problem with it as long as it made sense in the game, understanding that what works in one media doesn't always work in another.

I liked the one hairset in NWN2 that had squid tentacles coming from the hair of the water-touched Genesai female and always used that when picking that type of character. Does kind of fall down with fire, unless they're going to be based on themophiles (which would look fairly creepy).