Amentep

Sprigg! My goodness, been so long since I played the game, I'd forgotten about her. Then again Chrono Cross had a lot of characters I rarely used...looking Sprigg up I didn't use him. Sounds like an interesting power idea.

Maybe he's thinking of Kid/Harle from Chrono Cross? Or the Mimic class from Final Fantasy? The only doppleganger I recall in Chrono Trigger was the Doppel Doll

I think that - ultimately - that's why the series went with a Circle Mage for the initial game making the player nominally in compliance with Chantry law/Templar requirements (even if you could be a blood mage there too - awkward). I think by the time Meredith sees you, you're supposed to be too big to fail...er...to be too involved in the fight/famous to stand against but that creates a problem too since it seems like most people in Kirkwall agree with the Gallows and Templar treatment of mages, its weird they'd rally around an apostate PC (seem like it'd be more likely they'd hail Meredith and bury the champion under the Gallows). I kinda think that the whole mage sequence is kind of a "what if" that doesn't work. I imagine if there ever is a canon Champion it'll be a warrior or rogue w/Bethany not a mage w/Carver.

I was joking. I agree its borked.

Ahhhh...yes! That was it. I've also been thinking about DA2...why do the Templars not monitor everyone who buys magical robes and staffs? You have to have a high magic to use them and for the most part only magic users would be able to do it. They could set up "To Catch A Mage" style stings, offering low-priced, high quality robes and staffs and then when they come in to the store they nab the apostates.

Does that happen often in games for you, tep? Nope. Although my brother - who suffers from motion sickness in real life - does have the problem with other games triggering his motion sickeness problem.

Driving in Far Cry 2 triggered motion sickness in me.

The first two points were intended to be silly and I won't argue otherwise! To tell the truth the third I think that the third was actually the intention - for example Sophitia's outfit doesn't fit the time period either (hearkening back to classical Greece) but is supposed to represent the character; in that sense I understand why Ivy's outfit is the way it is, although I also understand that sometimes its possible to undercut a character by how you design them; as Ivy's outfit has gotten skimpier, its been a bit harder to take the character as something other than fan-service. (That said her alternate costumes that look based on Victorian-era dresses wouldn't work for combat either...) I'm not really calling for Kratos to cover up, either, sorry if that seemed to be my intent but instead it was to suggest that one could argue that Kratos' design could be seen as potential fan-service for women (or gay men or both) since the design divorces itself so heavily from the period (although you could argue that since its not completely inconsistent with the period like Ivy's that its not done with a thought to sex/sex roles as well). Oddly enough my biggest problem with Katrina's design (and coincidentally Ivy's design - or at least her initial design) has nothing to do with how much skin she's showing but that' she's fighting/wandering the countryside like Kane in Kung Fu while in heels...

Distract male opponents in a fight? Allow her to spend more money on training by cutting down on fabric to make her outfits? Or alternatively you could argue that its about challenging the societal norms of the time period (late 16th century); Ivy has lost her mother and father due to his obsession in finding the cursed sword; she finds out her real father is a pirate (a bit off societal conventions there) and turns to alchemy to create a weapon to try and destroy the Soul Calibur sword (briefly putting herself under the sway of Nightmare - could he have turned her to the outfit since he originally controlled the spirit of her sword?) so she's pretty much bucking western tradition of the period - why not translate that into the costume as well? (You could, BTW, say the same thing for all of the Soul Calibur women, pretty much, in terms of dress. Its all pretty much silly.) Re: Kratos - do only 90 pound weaklings put on a shirt? Or at least a toga covering half their chest? One can argue that Kratos is exploitative in that sense - after all women's desire to see men's well built torso is the long standing rationale for why so many male western character from the late 50s and 60s ended up shirtless, tied down on burning sand (or other traps) by outlaws (see many, many episodes of The Wild Wild West, Cheyenne, The Rifleman, etc). Mind you God of War is probably worse about the female characters than most other games, so probably no point going there anyhow.

I believe they referred to Varric as being necessary for charm/persuade (which obviously he wouldn't) which they complained about being missing from the game.

I wasn't a big fan of Snowblind Studios' Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance but did like it. Ditto Black Isle Studios' Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 although I probably had less fun with it than the original. I had a lot of fun with Snowblind's Champions of Norrath and Champions: Return to Arms though and am looking forward to Snowblind's LoTR: War in the North. My hope is for another fun hack/slash game. It seemed for many years there was always something in this genre to play (the BG: DA games, or the Hunter: The Reckoning games from High Voltage, etc. going back to the days of the SNES/Genesis with things like Arcus Odyssey) but that there's been a real drought of good console co-op hack and slash games recently.

IIRC the letter says that time is important - maybe the Champion is just always too late regardless?

I heard you can only do that as a rogue. Dunno if it's true however. I did it as a warrior. Tale - I know every character has options to interject; I was merely addressing a complaint I'd read that it was only possible to get that specific outcome with Varric in your party as an illustration of lack of communication skills for the PC; not sure that you can replace Varric in *every* instance, or if you and Varric are in the party together if you'll get the option to do it yourself, but it was interesting to me.

I read a review (here? somewhere? my motivation to check died a few minutes ago. Poor little guy) that complained that the persuasion ability was taken out of the game and now you had to rely of Varric. Turns out if you make the humorous/diamond (what does that represent? "You're a gem?") you can actually do the persuads that Varric does without Varric around whereas my previous character couldn't do that, taking mostly kind/rarely mean dialogue choices, but avoiding the funny. Of course not taking the nice route I find I can't persuade people to being nice fluffy kittens (which sadly has meant a little death for people. Oops). I've also noticed that my funny character has actually started conversations differently (ie funny) from the other character (who usually started conversations like a kindly grandma or questing knight or something). Now I actually want to play the game using mostly the red icons - giving people the fist! - just to see how I start conversation. Love some of the funny dialogue

I saw SUCKER PUNCH and quite liked it; I think it isn't going to be a film for everyone. Its a heavy visual film; much of it metaphor since the story is a double layered fantasy about events that happen in the real world (that is barely glimpsed). Kinda wish that hadn't cut most of the musical numbers - what we see in the end credits looked grand.

Errr...not CHECK I think. Sucker Punch's plot is - AFAIK - about a girl injustly imprisoned in an insane asylum who concocts an escape plan with fellow "inmates" which is presented as a series of fantasy adventures for the girls as the line between their realities and their fantasies blur subjectively for them. So what would you call the strange WW1 stuff? Its part of the girls' fantasies. I can't call it counter-factual r/w history because it doesn't claim to be historical; ie the setting isn't an alternate universe WWI.* *as far as I know - with a title like Sucker Punch I'm expecting a swerve. Will know after I see it...

Errr...not CHECK I think. Sucker Punch's plot is - AFAIK - about a girl injustly imprisoned in an insane asylum who concocts an escape plan with fellow "inmates" which is presented as a series of fantasy adventures for the girls as the line between their realities and their fantasies blur subjectively for them.

That's just being boring. There's bed..there's the bath, the shower, the kitchen counter, the dining room.. Sometimes you just have to enjoy exploring the house in fresh ways.. What I've understood so far is that you chaps have hidden hot women in my house, and I have to go find them. Let us know when you find them all.

I agree. The combat plays like DA:O to me too, except where you could press a button and let it go (not recommended) in DA:O, in DA2 pressing a button and letting it go will cause your PC to attack once and stand around like an idiot (really not recommended). The choices for Warrior/Rogue/Mage in combat terms feels different and - if I have any complaint about JE it is this - in JE no matter what attack styles you took, your character always played roughly the same in the end (because of the paper/rock/scissors system - every player ended up with a martial style, a weapon style and a magic style hotlinked to switch between because you had to be prepared for enemy immunities and they all the types in a particular style roughly did the same thing, ultimately)

I gather she likes the branching storyline and choice and consequence of RPGs and - short of "Choose Your Own Adventures" that kind of thing is few and far between in the printed page. I gather that what she thinks would appeal to the currently-not-a-gamer woman would be a hybrid RPG/Point and Click adventure. Something with the ability to customize a character, but where armed conflict wasn't the problem resolution tool of choice.

Can I just say that, while I was away someone decided that using "awesome" in facetious way repeatedly was the height of snarky wit, and I for one find it annoying? Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. As to the Vault Dweller's review - one thing that I kinda agree and disagree with is the use of magic and everyone failing to notice. It *is* odd, and they kinda hamstrung themselves a bit with it because of how they did the setting but its also not terribly odder than no one batting an eyelash at you walking into their home or place of business and rifling through all of their locked chests if a rogue character (and this is more egregious a fault in other games where you can loot not just chests, but drawers, lockers and other things as if the inhabitants of the world decide to dispose of unwanted goods by dumping them into their cupboard until the next wandering adventure comes along and relieves them of it and saves them the trip to the local store through monster infested swamps to get the one copper the junk is worth). Probably just me, but I chalk it up to being part of the game mechanics and not the story portion of the game. Otherwise there are some fair points (although the constant shout outs to things not about the game are frustrating, IMO).

Thought I'd launch this by re-posting my last post - Y'see, this is where I get all controversial... it's like saying men would dig chick flicks more if you made all the garbage about dating, kissing and dancing optional and threw in a few more zombies / car chases / explosions. That is to say, stop it being a chick flick. Cue lots of angry chick flick fans who want to see Bridget Jones Diary, not Bridget Jones Zombie Apocalypse (which naturally would be cooler). You can't appeal to everybody. You just freaking well can't. Bio want a game for story fans for action fans for women for men for CRPG addicts for casual console gamers for.... everybody. They are seeking some sort of mythical alchemy of game development, the ambrosia that is the unigame that appeals to everybody. And this race to the lowest common denominator is what is killing their games and, by a process of mimicry and osmosis, the genre. *shrug* I may be plebian, but I still enjoy Bioware's games. But then again I'd probably enjoy a Role Playing Game where there was no combat (instead all the attribute/skills were in other types of skills and experience would be from - say navigating a tricky political situation) if done right. And I also have to point out that I did disagree with her, ultimately. I think the problem she's trying to address is actually built from a false premise; specifically that every woman who isn't playing games is an untapped game player as well as that every game player - male or female - plays games for the same reasons. In terms of Dragon Age 2 in general - I've been enjoying it. Even considering the reuse of maps, they did a good job of trying to use the reused maps in ways that didn't make it seem like you were running through the exact same dungeon (using doors to close off/change paths, starting at different points of the map). Personally - and I'm sure I'll pilloried for this - my impression thus far of Dragon Age 2 is stronger than Dragon Age: Origins (which I confess was rather middling in my opinion until I played with all the additional content/expansions which then made it feel like the game I'd originally expected).

I get up, go about my day and stuff happens. I don't pretend to understand any of it. I go to sleep and in my dreams, stuff happens. I don't pretend to understand any of that either. Life is what you make of it. Do you want a half full glass or half empty glass? It is up to you. Also, I like fuzzy kittens. Awwww...

Y'see, this is where I get all controversial... it's like saying men would dig chick flicks more if you made all the garbage about dating, kissing and dancing optional and threw in a few more zombies / car chases / explosions. That is to say, stop it being a chick flick. Cue lots of angry chick flick fans who want to see Bridget Jones Diary, not Bridget Jones Zombie Apocalypse (which naturally would be cooler). You can't appeal to everybody. You just freaking well can't. Bio want a game for story fans for action fans for women for men for CRPG addicts for casual console gamers for.... everybody. They are seeking some sort of mythical alchemy of game development, the ambrosia that is the unigame that appeals to everybody. And this race to the lowest common denominator is what is killing their games and, by a process of mimicry and osmosis, the genre. *shrug* I may be plebian, but I still enjoy Bioware's games. But then again I'd probably enjoy a Role Playing Game where there was no combat (instead all the attribute/skills were in other types of skills and experience would be from - say navigating a tricky political situation) if done right. And I also have to point out that I did disagree with her, ultimately. I think the problem she's trying to address is actually built from a false premise; specifically that every woman who isn't playing games is an untapped game player as well as that every game player - male or female - plays games for the same reasons.

To be fair, her response was in regards to getting more women into gaming; while I disagree with her, her point as I see it was that for women who'd like to play an interactive story like a RPG, the combat mechanics will keep them from connecting with the game/medium. Ahem Perhaps I should have said "don't have a legion of game developers busting their door down with new Point and Click games to satisfy the demand of gamers who'd buy/play point and click games"? It would. Or at least reduce the combat to very specific gameplay bits. The combat was nto well-integrated into the game regardless. But PS:T is a bit of a rare gem, no? Anyway, there's plenty of room for combat free games. If BWare wants to go that way, it would probably suit them well. They seem mighty infatuated with the singular brilliance of their writing. I think PS:T is a great game. But then I enjoyed the combat in PS:T; hell I played BG and IWD at that point so I knew what I was getting into. Then again I enjoyed the combat in DA2 as well. I'm a simple man of simple pleasures.