dagas

Played it on Heroic and it was just like Halo 3 on heroic, mostly quite easy, but 2-3 spots in the game where I kept dying and dying and dying. It's frustrating as hell the few times you have to play a check point over and over, but I think it makes up for it because IMO normal is just too easy most of the time and I rather take too hard in 2-3 spots than too easy 95 % of the game. What really is messed up is legendary, I've only finished the first level in legendary and gave up after that.

Shenmue, if more people would have liked it it might have saved the Dreamcast and the series wouldn't have had to end without an ending. 

I bought it for €15 on 360, I expect similar prices in the rest of the world. Probably even cheaper on PC. 
 
@ArbitraryWater I kind of agree with you, it would be nice to be able to talk to anyone you want, walk around and explore the world etc. however they probably didn't have the budget for creating something like The Citadel in ME1. They had to focus on something and they focused on the choices. Sure it would have been better if they had the resources of Bioware, but since they don't I think they made the right choice. Good gameplay would not have meant anything if the rest of the game sucked because there is already a huge amount of third person shooters on the market. I rather have something that feels unique but flawed than just another good but not awesome game. It reminds me about Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines which had a combat system that would make AP seem great in comparison, but it still managed to stand out because of the great characters and atmosphere. 
 
I wish someone took a chance one day and made a game all about choices. It seems to be an unwritten rule that you have to have combat in between, but to be honest I just plow through the combat to get to the choices, characters, story etc in games like Dragon Age, Persona, Alpha Protocol. Unless you can make combat awesome like Mass Effect 2 then it's just in the way of what I want out of the game. They could have skipped the entire dungeon crawling part in Persona 3 for example (at least in Persona 4 the dungeons had something to do with the story but in P3 it was just a generic dungeon).  
 
Even in Dreamfall: The Longest Journey they felt they had to put combat in there even though it's not very good and doesn't really help the game at all. In the original point and click game The Longest Journey they didn't have anything like that, but I guess they felt they had to have combat just because they made the sequel a third person adventure instead of a point and click and the unwritten rule says you need combat in a third person adventure game.

I was expecting people to say "the game sucks, you suck, noob, go play a real game like 1337 ppl l1k3 m3 etc etc" but I guess it's not just me who liked it =) Good RPG's are like flight-sims, hard to come by these days (not like in the 90's when there were at least a couple of games for every fighter jet or gunship that existed or was a prototype), especially on consoles so I take whatever I can get even if it has flaws. I'm already at least 1/3 into my second game and now I'm being a complete a-hole some dialog between Thorton and Madison while she is sitting in the sofa at my place he: "Bitch" she: "Asshole" ^^ 

I just finished Alpha Protocol. I did it in two sittings (would have done it in one if I didn't need to sleep or have work). Sure the gameplay isn't on par with say Mass Effect, but OMG does the story kick ass. Choices really do seem to matter, unlike most games. I got the feeling that pretty much everything could have gone differently had I made other choices. The ending (at least my ending) was one of the best endings ever and as my handler put it "Alpha Alpha Protocol!". All I want to do now is play it again and make other choices. My expectations were low after all the negativity about this game, but I don't think it has more issues than Mass Effect 1. Too bad they won't make AP2 or it could have been for AP1 what ME2 was for ME1.

I have them on 360 and PC (it was cheap on steam) already.

"I don't think Xbox Live Arcade will do very well" - Jeff Gerstmann 
 
Not a great prediction there ^^ 
 
Rich Gallup predicting that people will buy games just for easy points even if the game is crap. That's a good prediction ^^

Thanks. I still expect Rich Gallup "Still your only audio source for all the hot topics from the world of video games" every time I start listen to an episode of the Hotspot ^^

I read the first book before the game was out so I didn't have the problem of knowing what would happen. The first two are pretty good, but not as good as the first Dragon Age book. The third ME book is on my reading list. If you like ME and you are not against reading a book then I suggest reading them even though they don't compare to playing the games. 

White wine is best for dinner, also works with snacks but a perfectly poured Guinness is best if it's just drinking and no food or snacks. If it's a party and I need to get a bit drunk then vodka and coke, or vodka with just about anything really, I can't drink such hard liquor on it's own.