Gravier251

@shotgunblast97: It should be possible to run Neverwinter Nights on Windows 7. Have you tried the critical rebuild 1.69 patch? I recall having to patch my copy to get it to run on Windows 7. I believe this is the patch. If you have the platinum edition then you should have the game + both expansions so you likely just need the HOTU patch. Hopefully that might get it to work. I get issues at times with the intro/start up, but if it goes past that the game seems to work just fine. Hopefully that helps.

I don't really have a problem with the death scene personally, especially given the seeming overall tone of the game. I think i'd prefer that to the excessive deadspace style where Lara would likely hit the pole and explode into a shower of gore and limbs. Besides, it isn't really a first as far as drawn out death scenes in the series go. Midas' Hand as a kid was always rather eerie and uncomfortable to witness, but I don't have a problem with it. Same with RE4, plenty of ways to die but it wasn't really an issue.

There really is an excess of controversy at times. Violent deaths with a male character are fine but with a woman they are sexist, excessive and not okay is almost how it seems. Any sort of sexuality or any female characters in general are decried as sexist now. Yes, I think female characters are under-represented and it is still male centric. But people seem to be going overboard trying to find controversy and sexism even if it isn't there. If you look hard enough you can read into anything as sexist, racist, etc. (Like the RE5 trailer, which I found all the more weird because the white enemies were present in the background of the original trailer).

I want things to be more diversified and equal, but screaming at shadows seems both excessive and sensationalist. People, genders, beliefs, etc. Are all pretty varied. Representing everyone fairly and well is a good thing to strive for though very hard to attain because there are inherent biases present dependant upon the creators. The answer is not however to censor absolutely everything concievable into an asexual, cultureless mess lest it offend someone. As for feminism, as far as I am aware it is not all about just repressing sexuality, there is the more open, sex-positive alternative aswell.

Equal representation is something to strive towards. But overcompensating so much as to cry for censorship is a dark path to start treading down for any artistic medium.

I rather liked the conference and would like to be hopeful about the PS4. PS3 (issues aside) tended to have the more numerous/interesting exclusives. The video there is pretty painful to watch, good to see some positivity with Justin there. That guy sneering down his nose about "oh, you are the only one in the world to play and like dragons dogma, so you like bad things" was very irritating. I absolutely loved Dragons Dogma and there are others out there who feel likewise.

They sneer at the idea of shooters and a driving game yet at the same time dismiss a somewhat fresher (mechanics wise) game like dragons dogma and ignore the other games in the event aswell as ignoring the fact that Sony won't just unload *everything* they have in a single conference several months early? ugh. I really don't understand what people even want anymore. Still, at least there are still some positive outlooks around.

Ending on Justin dancing was pretty funny.

I loved the visuals in RE 0 and the remake of 1 especially, shame they are only available on the gamecube. As someone who played Resident Evil 1 so many times as a kid it made the remake all the more amazing to me. There are some new aspects that are pretty interesting and retreading the old ground with the vastly improved visuals was great. I expect you will definitely enjoy the remake. I just hope you have managed to avoid having the additional content in that game spoiled, there are some interesting surprises.

Back on the subject of RE 0, I likewise wasn't a big fan of the inventory system. It was interesting, but largely it just meant more backtracking as I went about hoarding all my vast amount of supplies on the floor of the main hall (vaguely recall there being an item limit so I couldn't put everything in there as well). It made me miss the magical box approach.

Anyway, I enjoyed RE 0, but it dosn't really compare to the remake. The remake was incredible.

@officegamer: Yeah in the release order would probably be best (So Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and finally Lonesome Road in that order). As for when to do them, I would say take them on before finishing the game (as you cannot continue after the ending) but after having gone far enough to be past the point of no return in terms of deciding which main story ending path you want to go down.

From what I recall there is some mention (especially in Lonesome Road) if you have done certain things in the main game, so to make the most of that it is probably best to do the DLC stuff fairly late into the game.The DLC ties into the game fairly well really, characters, locations, etc. present in them have usually been hinted at in dialogue around the world, or even within the world on posters, etc. So it dosn't feel as forcibly tacked on to the narrative as a lot of DLC does sometimes.

I can't really think of any ways that Fallout 3 is better than New Vegas.

Even in terms of gameplay and RPG mechanics New Vegas is much superior to the rather broken, poorly balanced mess that was Fallout 3. New Vegas actually has some variety to character builds and different armour categories are actually viable. In Fallout 3 all characters can easily become 10 in all stats, 100 in all skills demi-gods in power armour as no other armour types are really viable.

New Vegas cut out some of the unwarrented or somewhat broken perks and made it so you get them every 2 levels, which prevents the player from being so flooded with perks that there is only one way to correctly build/play a character as was the case in fallout 3.

In terms of narrative and setting there really is no contest, New Vegas presents a rich, extensive setting based on years of work from the cancelled Van Buren project. Every faction has both good and bad points. Fallout 3 felt more like a fallout fan-fiction; morally pure and good brotherhood paladins vs. evil Enclave. It really wasn't very true to the more grey tone of the setting.

As for a comparison of the choices and number of potential endings, there are all of about 7 choices (right at the end of the game) that Fallout 3 factors in towards your ending. Fallout New Vegas (without addons) has 176 choices/variables for the ending, which are ticked off throughout the course of the game. Technically around 288 if you include all the addons assorted endings. So New Vegas provides a lot more information and closure.

Fallout New Vegas is a much deeper and well written experience. The only issue it really faced was bugs on launch but that has been largely resolved now. I enjoyed Fallout 3 at the time, but after playing New Vegas so much I really can't go back.

Anyway as for mods that don't really drastically alter the experience beyond a visual tweak perhaps better textures might be a good idea?

Also i'd probably recommend playing the various DLC in order as there is actually an overarching plot thread that is hinted at through all of them and is the focus of the final DLC addon.

There really is nothing to Hearthfire beyond wandering back and forth to town buying assorted ingots over and over, along with lumber mill wood, etc. And eventually after some time having a house along with the option to adopt kids. That is all of it really. Dragonborn is a lot more extensive and also a lot better in layout than Dawnguard aswell. It provides you with a self contained island to explore with new content whereas Dawnguard (especially if you have played a bunch of skyrim) tends to just repopulate dungeons you have already cleared for the side content.

And yeah, Draugr are indeed nothing new to the island of Solthsteim. The Nordic Skaal tribe have lived there a very long time and most of the names present for areas of the island back in Morrowind were Nord in nature rather than Dunmer.

Out of Dawnguard and Dragonborn the latter has been the more diverse and interesting of the two (Apocrypha especially) so I definitely wouldn't pass up that one in favour of either of the others.

You should be fine skipping Hearthfire though, unless you really want yet another house to dump loot in.

Yeah, I likewise felt the combat was very shallow. There really isn't much strategy beyond having familiars with decent stats and having them at a decent level. The AI are fairly idiotic, burning through mana rather fast and sometimes opting to melee with themselves rather than a familiar even if it only does 1 damage.

There are also issues in terms of interface, selecting what to do in the heat of battle can be somewhat problematic, even after finding out about using L2/R2 (Which I don't recall the game actually explaining?). Also there is no way to see the MP of team mates without either swapping to them or going to use an item on them. It can be a bit annoying when you are leaving the healing to a companion during a fight, unaware that they are out of MP until you start to take a beating and have not been healed in a while.

The game takes *a lot* of time to explain, over and over how to do the most mundane of things (using utility spells for side quests, etc) yet obscures the somewhat potentially deeper systems or outright refuses to explain.

e.g. Inquiring with the telling stone about elements from what I recall it makes a vague allusion to the fact that some elements are effective vs. others. No examples, no list, etc.

The game also narrows down the variety of it's familiar system as each character has an affinity for certain types. 3 each, with Arcana going spare. Given that you get a buff for using favoured familiars it largely renders using any outside of your dictated type wasteful.

It is a real shame that the combat and the systems surrounding it are so shallow and poorly communicated. I've been enjoying the game, in spite of it's combat. Enough to have played for about 35 hours so far even. I just wish the combat would provide a thought provoking challenge and have systems in place to actually be able to figure out effective party compositions.

huh, weird. Seems it has appeared in my steam library too. I didn't even notice it buried away in there.

Yeah, I am likewise pretty interested in it and from the footage i've seen it seems like it could be interesting. I'll probably wait to see how the final product looks though before I decide. The last Dungeon Keeper looking game I got was Dungeons. Which wasn't really a bad game, it just wasn't what I was hoping for.