theodacourt

Great list OP! I am looking forward to The Witness perhaps as much as anything else and I want to see Tomb Raider do well and be good but that's more hope than expectation. I'm really looking forward to game announcements too. I'm sure there'll be plenty of stuff announced at E3 that should fill out the end of year schedule. I can't think of that much coming out late on that is amazing.

I think your original post was almost there, but it says nothing of intention and I think there has to be that too. My general thought on it is "Something that is designed with the intention of causing a reaction or achieving a goal, using an exemplary level of craft or thought."

I guess my meaning covers pretty nasty stuff that isn't beautiful or appealing because plenty of people have created art that is repulsive because the reaction they wanted was one of repulsion, whether than be associated with a central theme or not.

Brad almost stumbled upon a point that puts Skyrim above SR3 in my opinion but he didn't follow through on it. He said something about one aspect of SR3 being pointless. It's my feeling that the experience in SR3 is ultimately pointless where as Skyrim is a world that is much more involved. Patrick said that having to bring yourself to the table to become engrossed in Skyrim is what makes it so amazing and such a personal experience. Saint's Row is less so just because everyone gets much more of the same thing because they're not bringing themselves into it at all. Skyrim compares to Star Trek, Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings films in the terms of a large world which goes beyond the scopes of what you actually see where as SR is like Mission Impossible where afterwards you say it was neat and it doesn't resound of stay with you.

That's just my feelings though.

God damn it, I'm going to have to think about Duke Nukem Forever on Christmas day. Shitter.

It seems a little to obvious for Valve. They would be this obvious if they'd already announced something but they haven't so I'm guessing not.

I'd like the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle pls. I have things to give away for next time, what would I do if that is something that I wanted to do?

Renegade Ops DLC is now available in the form of two packs!

The first piece is a new campaign comprising of three stages. In it, you will face the villain Coldstrike in a series of frozen wintery levels that change up the visuals pleasantly. I've only played the first one but it had a pretty cool section where you're racing down a hill and wasn't like anything in the main game. Other than that it was a lot of shooting and collecting citizens, so business as usual. It's 400 points or $4.99/£2.99/€3.49 on PSN and Steam.

The second piece is called "The Vehicle Pack" in the US, but I prefer the name "Reinforcement Pack" that it has elsewhere. It adds a couple of new characters, one is called Crystal who has a forcefield protecting anyone within from incoming fire and the other is the stupidly named Blazemo who turns himself into a fireball whilst you throw him toward enemies. I haven't tried them out but they seem like unique abilities if you were into the first game enough to max out all the characters skill trees then they seem worth while. It is 240 points or $2.99/£1.79/€2.99 on PSN/Steam

I haven't told you the best part yet though. The reason I decided to write anything here at all actually. If you owned the game on Steam before the 19th of December then all this DLC is free as an apology for the lengthy delay of release. Pretty awesome, huh?

Thank you Avalanche! Thank you Sega!

I don't think a bunch of people choosing their favourites and saying that that's the one that should be played is really helping. It seems like a pretty even bunch. Your OP made the impression on me that you haven't played many/any fantasy RPG's before. If you're coming from Mass Effect then I wouldn't recommend Dragon Age as like someone else pointed out the combat is inspired by Baulder's Gate. I tried playing Baulder's Gate 2 recently and I found it literally impossible, but that said Dragon Age is probably easier to get a grips on just by being more modern. In terms of easy to get used to combat I think that it would be TES > Witcher > Dragon Age.

If you don't care about difficulties in getting to terms with the combat then you're surely after the story of which I think all three are fantastic options. Dragon Age is probably a similar tone to Mass Effect, except fantasy. The Witcher is a bit moodier and the character's feel fleshed out and as such the world feel's bigger as everything has more importance. TES is probably a bit more light hearted than the others, but not without it's darker moments. Perhaps it's a little cartoony in a way, because not many of the character's are truly memorable because there are just too many of them to flesh them out all that much.

I'd say TES is the most accessible much like Mass Effect (2, especially) and the constant pausing to line up attacks from multiple character's in Dragon Age isn't that appealing to me which is why I haven't gotten around to playing it yet (or even setting a bunch of if/or/then sequences). I think the sales of them supports this viewpoint alone and the witcher get's the least because it's PC only and it's made in Poland.

Oblivion was my first RPG after years of Half-Life/MoH/CoD/Thief etc. If I'd have played something else first like Neverwinter Nights or Baulder's Gate I might not have bothered with any of them. Hope I've helped!

@thisseemstobeworking #thisalsoseemstobeworking

I always wanted to be able to @reply to the writer of an article and I couldn't do it. Now I can!, but I fear for all the staff inbox's so maybe I won't. Maybe @replying to staff should be turned off unless they've been commenting in a thread or something?

@Veektarius: he's just making it up because EpicSteve won't know that it's made up.