Erkki

I really don't like that dead eye thing. My instinct somehow always tells me to hold the button down, but that'll take it out of dead eye pretty soon. And it AUTOMATICALLY MARKS INNOCENTS. I've killed a few and lost honour simply because I moved the cursor over a person I was trying to save (he was between two bad guys).

Agreed. It shows in this game more in GTA for some reason. I've wanted Grand Theft Horse since GTA III came out, but now I'm thinking I'd prefer a western themed game like Fallout 3 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I was somewhy expecting it to be more like that, but most of the non-enemy NPCs are there mostly as decorations, like in GTA and the other ones are there to start a mission with a cutscene when you enter their marker's range. The only way to interact with a person on the street short of killing them (or lassoing them, I guess) is either bumping into them or threatening them... Also, the saving seems inconsistent and the game makes losing horses easy. By just trying out things and groping for the boundaries (like can I make a horse go off a cliff?) I can lose progress. The horses seem a bit too fast, at least for console controls. I am losing all those random fights that just pop up here and there, either by being too slow, messing up with the controls, or accidentally shooting the guy I tried to save. I guess the Dead-Eye thing is a must for these situations, but I haven't got the hang of it yet. Mount & Blade's mounted combat seems like a piece of cake compared to this, but the horse handling is not bad at all. I like the look of the world, it is very beautiful occasionally. The game is great, but yeah I think rockstar's formula is showing it's age.

not really

I'm in a bit of a voluntary crunch mode in the early stages of a project to avoid it later. I'm not sure if that's smart or stupid.

Is it out everywhere already? I'm so busy at work and playing mount&blade that I forgot the exact date but I plan to get it as soon as possible. Probably will play through the single player first though.

I pretty much agree about the saving feature. I think I initially thought it was somewhat stupid, but when I thought about it more, it seemed not that different and actually good.

Approaching 150 hours... god damn, I can't remember the last time I played one game for so long. But then again, I haven't played many multi-player games. I really like this one, and Red Dead Redemption will have to be really good to drag me away from it. BTW. Giant Bomb has a quick look http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-mount-blade-warband/17-2414/ It's slightly annoying as it get's most of the facts wrong, but it gives a general overview of what the game is like. Oh, and if you haven't played the game and watch it, levelling up single guys is just one button press, not the level up screen that was shown (that would be unmanageable).

So I'm the only one finding that water stuff utterly ridiculous?

Yeah, I think it was fairly recent

iPhone probably, unless I was just temporarily insane. And yeah that typing correction on those is a piece of shit. I haven't even looked at if it can be turned off, though, don't type that much. Some barely understandable SMS-s have been sent out though, but nothing too awkward.

Paying one cent is pretty stupid though. I don't know off hand how much the various fees are in a credit card transaction, but probably some 1000% or more comparing to the amount paid in that case.

The only shooter that would workbwell on the ipad us Close Range

The OnLive guys boasted about 80 ms lag or something, I think. Or maybe that was for the video encoding only..

GameTrailers TV has some more scoops on the game: http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/gametrailers-tv/91?ep=91 Can't wait to play it.

In case of the OnLive service you have to be within a certain range from their servers to be able to play. And they invented some kind of video encoder that encodes faster, to reduce lag. But i don't know about this particular one.

Well, it's not going to catch on for FPS games I think. You just can't have good controls for many games on the device.

Achievement unlocked: I have spent 100+ hours playing Mount & Blade. Earlier it was only single-player, but once I tried the MP I didn't go back, so most of it has been multi-player battles.

And not having cars, planes will make it seem even bigger, I suppose.

I don't see it advertising anything though. Maybe they are getting dumber.

Oh my Lord, you should not speak so.

same here

Yeah, can't think of any I've played besides Thief and Arcanum (and I din't play that one much). Too bad the wots-its-name game that was developed by an aussie studio got put on hold.

He left? He should team up with Tim Schafer and make Monkey Island 3.

Yeah, Scrobbs, you shouldn't feel bad about that at all. Miffy, congrats and I'd also like to read it!

I played the MP almost the entire day yesterday, but I suck at it. The only thing I'm even remotely good at playing are cavalry units, but there are only a few maps where playing cavalry is fun (Ruins, Field by the River). Ok, perhaps steppes also. And I can choose between about 5 servers where I have ping < 100 that aren't otherwise limited.