hugh_jazz

I'd say for a new bike, £200 wouldn't do you at all if you wanted something reliably good. In my experience, modern bikes are notoriously hard to maintain; too many moving parts, not enough care taken and sloppy engineering. I'd say go real cheap for a simple one, £400+ for a reasonably good new one or buy one second-hand, at which point a price limit is moot. If you can find an old second-hand gear bike from the 80's, I'd imagine you could be set for life. Those things never break.

Keep in mind I'm converting from Euro. Dunno what the prices are like in Britain, neither do I know what the general quality of bikes is.

@Grissefar: I think it would be a fair assumption that the quality of a game funded by Obsidian and as such not affected by a publisher would be different. I would also posit that the quality of such a game probably would be higher, to the detriment of scope perhaps, as the studio could entirely plan the game on their own knowing how much capital is available.

@BlackLagoon: I never really noticed that with New Vegas, but for all that is holy I surely hope you're right and that word of mouth would have an effect.

@endaround said:

@Hugh_Jazz: Obsidian is Black Isle. The staff of Obsidian is closer to the staff of Black Isle than any developer is to itself 10 to 15 years ago.. Fergus has been openly musing about doing a IE type game for about a year now. People know.

Then the connection is strong in reality(I had figured that it was just the core talent that was the same, as people do tend to move around a bit over the years), but as evidenced by my ignorance that isn't necessarily too commonly known. Just like Tim Schafer brings to mind games like Full Throttle out of at least my childhood, Black Isle brings to mind the games that they made, also memories from my childhood. That nostalgia is a powerful thing, and Obsidian isn't old enough to have had any games out that I remember fondly through those glasses. I'm afraid that's the same for a lot of people who don't connect the dots between Black Isle and Obsidian.

Hope to God they get to make another classic RPG. I'd be down with them for that.

@TerraMantis: Yeah, ditto on all of that, but I'm assuming licensing is pretty much out of the question when it comes to things like Kickstarter.

Planescape Torment is my favourite game of all time, which is pretty much the whole reason why I don't want to see another Planescape game. I don't want that association mucking up anything in my mind.

For my money, I'd rather have them work on something entirely original, see what comes out.

@damnable_fiend: There's a lot of love for the old Black Isle games, for sure, and that'd probably be the thing that makes any Kickstarter project successful for Obsidian. I'm just doubting if the connection between Black Isle and Obsidian is strong enough in reality, if people are cognisant enough of the connection and whether Chris Avellone is a name that means as much for RPGs as the name Tim Schafer does for adventure games.

What I tried to convey, and I assume failed miserably, is that if you have a look at Avellone's blog post, there're a lot of comments detailing exactly the type of game that should be used for this Kickstarter project(down to setting, atmosphere, budgetary considerations), when naturally it's the job of the developer to come up with that design. The promise of a Kickstarter project, just like Double Fine nailed, would have to be for a concept more than an actual product in order to be successful. I'm not sure Obsidian can promise to make the RPG Black Isle fans have been wanting them to do, because I'm not sure Obsidian's reputation can lend weight to that promise.

That said, if Obsidian does do something like this, I'm there day one with my money. They still haven't made a game to disappoint me.

I'm not sure that making just any type of game would work for getting all that Kickstarter money(obvious, I know), which seems to be that a lot of people are taking this as. He asked after the type of game people would like to see and would back with donations, but I hardly think "A game with these features and this setting" is the point of that question. The Double Fine project was successful because a Tim Schafer adventure game is a big deal regardless of anything else, since we remember them so fondly. I think, in order to be able to garner attention and interest, they'd just need to make something that they're known for. Sadly, Obsidian isn't known for a lot of good these days it seems. Black Isle is no more, Chris Avellone isn't a name that carries much weight these days, and Obsidian hasn't had a runaway success for people to fondly remember.

Keeping in mind that there is an old school RPG crowd somewhere out there creeping about, I'd say the game they should kickstart and would probably be the most successful is a Chris Avellone RPG.

The seasonal foliage and flow-based water shading were really impressive to me, would love to see them. Sadly the first one would probably require seasons in the first place.

Also, spears is what I've always wanted in these games.

Also, Skyrim SDK with Steam Workshop integration is awesome.

PC.

@Seppli said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Seppli said:

@SeriouslyNow:

I put some effort in my Darksiders review. 10 out 11 readers found it useful. Read it if you must.

That's a review. A written review. That's not live to air gameplay or even recorded gameplay. That's you in a place where you can edit yourself and present yourself in the best light possible. And it's just once. It's not a daily, yearly or decade long exercise in repetition.

So what? I'm no reviewer. Not a videogame professional. Doesn't invalidate my demand for more professionalism. Like if somebody played a game for 50+ hours, I kinda expect them to execute gameplay basics to a with some level of proficiency. Being able to accurately identify and describe core gameplay mechanics. In written word and in live broadcasts.

To be completely honest, I think you might be demanding something from game reviewers that they in general wouldn't be able to accommodate, because of time constraints etc. They are catering to a demographic that doesn't have a need for that in depth analysis. Game reviewers are doing nothing wrong just because they're not catering to your specific needs.

Put short: If a lowest-common-denominator game review isn't doing it for you, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

It occurs to me that there is probably a body of people out there that does have that skill, from whom you can receive criticisms on games.

I'm talking about theorycrafters.