miffy495

It reminded me that I own both Baldur's Gate games and prompted me to start playing the first one tonight. I bought them on reputation, having been 11 when BG came out and not knowing about it, and man is the tight camera ever bugging the hell out of me. Those who have lots of experience with the infinity engine, is there a way to zoom out or even rotate the damn camera? It's driving me crazy. None of the other archaic elements of the game are actually bothering me at all, but I wish I could see what the hell was going on around me better.

Just finished the game, and was super happy when the "foxiest of the hounds" achievement popped up. I guess those can't trigger alarms, so I got by just fine. As mentioned, I didn't get the no-kill cheese mint thanks to and the tutorial, but whatever. Watched all the endings, after laughing when I saw that it really is just 4 buttons in front of you after you fight the last boss with each button leading to a different ending. Really? Oh well. You could see that they tried to work a judgement on my play style into the each ending, with all of them having some variation on "most of the time I resisted the temptation to abuse my powers for a quicker solution" or some such nonsense, but it really came off as trying too hard. I was also biting my tongue the entire time wanting to scream "THIS IS THE KIND OF POP-PHILOSOPHY BULLSHIT THAT MAKES SO MUCH OF THE WORLD THINK IT ISN'T SOMETHING WORTH STUDYING!" Not to be too negative though, because I actually really enjoyed the game with the exception of the boss fights and run-up to the end. After you stop spending time in the city hubs and get moved to more straightforward facilities/warehouses/what-have-you the game loses a lot of its charm, but those hub sections were worth the price of admission. I immediately uninstalled the game after finishing it. We'll see about the reception that the DLC gets, and I do intend to replay it at some point, but I think it a replay would be better served if I give myself a year or so to forget some things about it. Those 3 missed side-quests that I have sort of gnaw at me, but I'll get 'em next time. Finally, just on a nit-picky sort of thing, did anyone actually find the augmentations that were specifically labelled as "stealth" worthwhile? I didn't buy a single one of them, which actually meant that that and the typhoon were the only things on my chart which had 0 praxis put into them, and still finished the game without setting off a single alarm. You'd think that speccing myself as a stealth player would mean buying at least one "stealth" ability, but nope. Weird.

Thanks to a Sega sale on Steam, Alpha Protocol is currently $2. At this point, it doesn't even matter that I personally think it's a brilliant but unfortunately deeply flawed game. You can find out for yourself for a dollar less than taking the bus will cost you in my city. Check it out.

Oh, that was a good "god damn it." I was worried. I've been quite looking forward to picking this game up sometime soon, and you had me concerned that it sucked in some way.

god damn it?

I did it. It was tricky, but definitely do-able. A little hairy in places, but using the silent run mode (I couldn't turn invisible by that point) was enough to get me through the game. Look for vents and sneaky opportunities.

Hahaha. Fair point. Still, I thought it was worth a look.

Still took a good number of do-overs though.

I am somewhat reluctant to revive this thread given how heated the discussion became at points, but this article I found through the RPS Sunday Papers was a phenomenal read. Part 5 was particularly meaningful for me, as it describes with remarkable similarity something that I went through with my own partner a couple of years ago, and set me on the path to being unashamed to self-identify as "feminist" (which really has only come to fruition in the last year, give or take). It's definitely worth a read, and I hope that a bunch of people who read it will have one of those eye-opening "oh shit, is that really how the games industry/community treats women?" moments thanks to a few of the things it discusses. Check it out, yo.

I think I should point out that the DLC pack released today (The Gamer's Pack, or something) allows you to dress your wizard as Purple Tentacle. Fucking yes. This will be the first DLC I have purchased for this game.

Anyone know what the mouse and keyboard controls will be like? My laptop is the only PC I have that works with the 360 controller, and it's been locking up worryingly frequently in games of late. My desktop is awesome after getting a new video card a couple of weeks ago, but I can't use a control pad with it. I'm mostly asking Marek here, as he's involved somewhat with the game, but anyone who may have had a chance to check out a PC preview or something?

Fuck. I must play this game.

I think you're dismissing me pretty quickly there. As I said, I did end up exploiting the barrels in order to finally beat him. The thing is, it still took me far too long after figuring out that I should be throwing barrels at him for that method to work. About half an hour into my hour of retries, I started trying to run around the environment, hiding behind pillars, grabbing barrels, and throwing them at him. Half the time I would get shot up sprinting to a pillar or barrel, the other half he would blow up the barrel while I was holding it, killing me. Even using the environment properly and using my sprint capabilities to their full, I was getting slaughtered constantly. It was only a lucky throw of an EMP grenade (my only grenade or mine) disorienting him that finally allowed me to get the upper hand. If I hadn't had that, I probably would have given up on the game right there. I actually agree with you that games (especially ones like this) should have consequences for the way you spec your character, but there should still be an out. There should be a vent in the side that I can use to sneak around him and get behind for a few potshots during the fight or something. If I'm able to turn invisible and run silently, I should at least have the chance to sneak up on him within their arena. In that respect, the third boss is much better designed because I could get around corners, jump over those walls, and generally duck away from his line of sight without having to break the AI. He was still fucking rough, but that's ok. It was a rough that you could handle, and a rough that the environment allowed stealth players to be ok with after a couple of tries.

Others seem to hate the movies for whatever reason. Myself, I believe that they're worse but worth the time. Also, they do sort of fit into the continuity of the new seasons, so I'd check them out. The new seasons start out a bit pander-y but I started to feel like they're hitting their stride and reaching a level of "just as good" about 3 episodes in. In short, it's all worth checking out, and the new stuff can be really good.

Uh... sure? As I said, though I was not specced for combat, I had a crazily upgraded combat rifle going into the first boss fight because I knew it was coming up. Using the cover system to its full advantage, taking only headshots, and using a heavily upgraded gun, I died over and over for an hour. It was only when I confused the AI into trying to find me somewhere I wasn't that I was able to beat the first boss. The second boss was whatever, and then the third had to be defeated by exploiting an AI glitch. If, as you say, Jensen starts out as a competent combat dude, I should have been able to get through handily using the guns that I had reserved for these situations. In fact, most of my inventory was needlessly taken up by guns that I was saving only for boss fights. This is not good design.

There's a button in the lower right corner of the main menu for "fast menu". I find the menu animations awesome in how unnecessary but also kind of cool they are, but if you don't want them it looks like you can bypass them. I just played through the first level and thought it was pretty fun. Foremost in my mind was "Goddamn this is a gorgeous game" but the shooting was also pretty good. I only had a chance to upgrade one gun once (bought the mortar attachment for the electrical/plasma one) so I get the feeling that the gunplay will become much more of a draw as I unlock more stuff. I actually kind of wish there were an abilitease to show me all the cool shit I'll get later, as right now I only have the vague idea of "these guns will become awesome later" with nothing concrete to keep guiding me along. I'll keep at it, but I wish I had an idea of what I was getting into. Still, from the first level, I'm optimistic. Hopefully there will be a "quicksave added" kind of thing soon though, as I died on the first level already and am not looking forward to the difficulty spikes that the RPS review promised.

I just finished my first week of teacher's college. It's quite interesting so far, but I think I've had a total of 20 hours of sleep since Saturday. Unfortunately, due to a postal strike this summer, my police background check didn't get underway until about 2 weeks ago, which I'm hoping doesn't interfere with my practicum/in-class time come late October. I just dropped about $600 on books, hopefully (unlike when I was a psychology major) I will actually use them. So far it's promising, but I'm also putting far more effort into actually doing my assigned stuff than back in the day. Amazing what a difference actually caring about what you're studying makes. I anticipate my gaming/sleeping/anything other than school and work time will fall off rather sharply in the coming months, but am excited nonetheless. Really looking forward to catching a bit of sleep this weekend though.

If people are playing the game the way the game tells them they can (choose to go through however you want!) and are giving up on it altogether as a result of these boss fights, they are not being overblown. Whether you personally had problems with them or not is irrelevant. The fact is, this is a thing that has tainted otherwise glowing impressions of the game (mine, most reviewers) and caused a very large group of people to rage-quit the game outright. Your response is "these people have been playing it wrong. Just use grenades and mines" when the whole point of the game is "THERE IS NO WAY TO PLAY IT WRONG!" I very rarely use grenades in any game ever (thanks in large part to never having figured out the curve in the original Half Life games and giving up on trying to find a use for them), and DX3 is the first time I've ever used a mine in a game. That's just not how I play things, even things that have a huge emphasis on combat. If I can play through the Modern Warfare games on normal difficulty without throwing a grenade, and never feel like rage-quitting, I should be able to do so in Deus fucking Ex. That this game, of all games, is punishing me for this is definitely an issue, and a very big one considering the promise of it and that the rest of the game allows you to play the way you wish. So yeah, it is a huge issue. No matter what your opinion of the game is and no matter if you've personally had difficulty, these fights are ruining the game for a lot of players who otherwise would have absolutely and unreservedly loved it.

I never got the typhoon and managed to get through all three of them after some swearing and a bunch of reloads. I actually beat the second one on the first try though, as the anti-electricity skin thing means that you can stun her repeatedly simply by shooting generators which no longer effects you. I blew up a generator as she walked by, she got fried, and I unloaded a bunch of heavy rifle fire into her face. Repeat two more times and she was dead without even hitting me. The third guy on the other hand, I wish I'd had typhoon for. TLDR; maybe don't worry about getting typhoon before the second boss, as the anti-electricity skin makes it easy enough to handle the her without too much sweat.

ORLY? KZ3 FTW.

I felt that boss was ridiculous. Even knowing the high jump thing in advance and having a bunch of powerful weapons (which I was ONLY CARRYING BECAUSE I KNEW THERE WERE BOSSES and NEVER USED ANYWHERE ELSE EVER. Great game design there) it still took me an infuriating amount of retries. Now let's not be too hasty. Assuming you're talking about Gears of War and not God of War (video gameS!) that last boss was also fucking ridiculous.

Yeah, when the time comes I won't think twice about the Lite (unless they remove the 3D like the internet wants to believe). I love my 3DS, but man is Nintendo seeming to do everything they can to make that not be the case.

Took me about an hour to beat the third guy. What I ended up doing was getting him to jump onto my mines, then slamming him in the face with that giant laser while he was reeling. Took about 3 mines worth. That laser actually is pretty good, but enemies don't really react to it. It's kinda weird that way.

Rodi's signature obviously states that what we need is a ground war in Carthage.

You can call me fanboy, but I am not! I know about what I talking! In all seriousness, bringing console rivalry in here is kind of silly. None of us are partisan. I'm a fan of Nintendo, but not at the cost of liking Sony things. Of course, your signature leads me to believe you're a bot anyway, but still...