Quick Look: Divinity: Original Sin

Oh jesus. I just started a new college semester. Fuck me

more rorie in everything

Something I will continue to support.

Whenever Rorie starts talking about these deep PC RPG games, it just makes me think of his giant essay/review thing on Dark Souls.

And to think, some people didn't think he knew games when he came over to GB. Picayune.

I thought this would be a modern Baldur's Gate, but it looks more like a fantasy Fallout game. Will definitely have to check this out when I have time.

@eternalgamer2: Agreed.

I want to say thanks to @brad & @rorie for this RPG QL and also for playing a good bit before the QL. Looks like a really good CRPG. It's nice how they've come back into favor with this, Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides Of Numenera. I had remembered seeing this on Kickstarter but had no idea this is what it would be since I hadn't heard much positive from past Divinity games. Looks like I'll be having a fun weekend.

From the manual:

"If you kill all the important NPCs, you’ll have a hard time gathering experience, but you can still finish the game"

You can kill whoever, just don't let other people see you especially guards.

Notice the button wasn't highlighted? Again from the manual: "Note that not all items will be highlighted. The items that are shown are dependent on their distance from your party and your party’s level of perception."

It also says if you, say, set a wooden door on fire, it'll burn down. It's meant to be open to as many ways of playing as possible. Sold.

Edit: OOH OHH: "You can throw one pyramid behind enemy lines in battle for a tactical advantage." "you can leave one pyramid in the pocket of the other main hero, split up, and teleport to one another" Cool.

It's not that...

Suppose this was a site devoted to books and literature, and the new guy only ever read Maxim and Sports Illustrated.

It's not a feeling of superiority, it's more like pity.

If Rorie hadn't been here, what would Brad have talked about the whole time? Other than explaining how inventories work and what mutton is....

Here's a pantsu sniffing Brad:

We have a problem, gentlemen. This looks really good and I do not have a free 90 hours in my game schedule.

@jackburtonme: good news! Average battle is around 10 minutes and you can quick save. Its actually fairly friendly to small burst play.

This is, so far, my GOTY.

@eternalgamer2: The difference between Dan and Jeff is that Dan still likes Nintendo wholeheartedly. Also he's from the midwest and apparently doesn't know what Mutton is?

@steveurkel: Usually it takes a bit for Youtube to finish processing everything and get it up to full FRAMALATION.

Except it is a pity that comes from a feeling of superiority. Seriously, reread your posts and you don't think that you come off as smugly condescending? 'Cause that's a pretty apt description of you at the moment.

I loved me some Baldur's Gate back in the day, but it isn't hard to imagine people not being into it. Dan isn't into D&D which puts him in a fairly large crowd and all the pretense of D&D being intellectually stimulating isn't going to change that.

@tennmuerti: Agreed. Dan's tastes seem eerily similar to Jeff's at the moment. His personality is perfect for the site; I just hope he gets a chance to show off his knowledge in areas different from the rest of GB Prime's soon. A man with as much experience as him surely has a niche he can call his own.

@mooseymcman: Dan did speak! He was talking about how he doesn't know anything about Dungeons & Dragons or how it started or what a Dungeon is and btw wtf is a Dragon.

@arbitrarywater: @unangbangkay: Oh I worded my post poorly. As I recall, you are right, just that Maxos seemed pretty keen on getting rid of that demon based tech from Dragon Commander which is why I assume it is not so prevalent in what I've seen of the other games...especially if they are in the distant future. Canonical was probably not the best word for that...but thanks!

EDIT - Oh man. I think Vinny will be most missed for instances like looting smelly panties as a quest item.

Flashbacks to Mercenary Force with the group formations

@bonorbitz: I don't know the processor (last year's best Intel for around 300 bucks?) but I'm pretty sure the GPU is a 660GTX. Not top of the line but it seems to get the job done. I was impressed by the speedy loads considering it's an HDD and not an SDD.

I love this game! I've been playing co-op with my friend. We're both addicted to the game. Played 7 hours straight yesterday, couldn't even watch this live. It's so good.

FISH VENDOR OP

@darkeyehails: If it's condescending to point out ignorance, sure. (hint: it's not).

If you're watching a sports channel and one of the commentators is ignorant of basketball, it's neither smug nor condescending to bring up his shallow knowledge base. Get off your high horse. Don't tell me why I feel how I feel, nor read your own feelings into my words. Feeling bad for someone, pity, is not a negative emotion. I pity the homeless without condescension. I pity the ignorant the same way.

If I'm ignorant of something (as we all are) I welcome education, especially if it's a topic in my ostensible professional field.

Thought about getting this but I'm not sure I'll have the skill to handle these sorts of games.

Heard nothing but amazing stuff about this though, which is always nice to hear.

It was more your tone than anything else.

post/username

Brad yelling "STOP STOP STOP" at that bomb creature is my favorite quick look moment in quite some time.

@thebigj_a: You're clearly an intelligent person so there is no reason to dance around the fact that the way you phrased that initial post sounded shitty. Not everyone grew up with PC's and thats fine - there is no reason to feel like Dan is a lesser person because he's completely clueless about D&D and oldschool RPG's. I'm sure you had no ill intent but that was a really crummy way of pointing something out.

@thebigj_a: I'm pretty sure saying that Dan Ryckert is in the same category as homeless people for you because he didn't grow up playing PC cRPGs falls under the category of "condescending"

And even if that isn't, the "He really seems like a Halo/CoD/Madden guy" bit certainly is

I love that they still call these 'quick looks.'

@likeassur: Yeaaaa I have to kind of agree. (sorry rorie if you're reading this! >_<) I find he can be kind of overbearing and a little annoying some times. Though he absolutely deserves to be in Quick Looks for games like this because no one else there can provide enthusiasm, especially now that Vinny is not in SF. Rorie is great in stuff like this.

And yea I guess Dan still has some meshing to do. I'm hoping after something like this that he'll be reflecting on it and want to provide conversation instead of sitting in mostly silence for 2 hours. I have to agree that while his personality seems like a perfect fit for the site, his tastes are very similar to Jeff's and Jeff is pretty rigid and narrow on what he does and doesn't like. I know Jason is supposed to be a production guy but I hope they get him up front on occasion and talk about and show off the sort of stuff he likes.

I can agree with all of this.

You would. -.-

I dont know what I like more rorie and brad going back and fourth on somewhat deep stuff about the game or dan no knowing what the fuck is going on.

@asantosbr: Be nice, now. Not everyone has the same gaming background.

Amazing game, very nice QL.

I would love to see them do the Pathfinder thing with Dan in the party. He seems like he is totally fine trying new stuff, I think he would be hilarious playing an RPG!

@rorie@brad good quicklook! This game looks awesome! i would have never guess this would be a game Brad would be into.

i like Dan's wtf is going on :D........the first Divinity was awesome and weird.......i don't have time to play this though

This looks really good. I'd love to see more of this older D&D kind of games preferably on consoles as well,controls make it hard but Diablo 3 did a good job. Always good to see them sticking with PC and honing its style for it specifically. How were the other games? Remember demoing Ego Draconis and not being too impressed yet it had some charm and interesting mechanics.

Man I would love to see Rorie do a bombastica on some classic rpgs.

This game looks... like the Dragon Age Origins sequel that will never happen (and with some striking similarities in design, that might not have been an accident, but it's still very welcome).

I'm going to pick it up as soon as I'm through with my current gaming obsession.

Also "Baldur's Gate was D&D?"

Alright guys, that'll do it for Giant Bomb West! Stay tuned for Giant Bomb Canada, coming in 2015!

@masterbrief: As much as I love Diablo, this game is much more D&D than Diablo ever was. A game like this (or Baldur's Gate or Fallout 1/2/Tactics) would be fairly difficult to put on a console. It could be done, but wouldn't you rather have the speed of a mouse?

Oh just stop it. You were literally saying ignorance stems from his lack of knowledge on a very particular subject within his field of work. Whatever your day job is, don't believe for a second you know everything there is to know about it. Do you think all police officers know the law? You'd be surprised how little they'd know about it. Not to mention the understandable situation where they don't fully understand a specific part of it.

You were condescending. Otherwise, we can safely assume you are more ignorant of games than Dan is. I bet there are entire genre's that fly completely over your head. Just because you happen to know this one in detail you feel it should be common knowledge. I disagree with @humanity. Your idea that the things you know should be known to those you encounter shows the opposite of intelligence.

I like a quick look that is good because of how funny or entertaining it is, but it sure is nice to watch one that is good because it is played well and shows off a good game that was not on my radar.

Will definitely grab this the next time it goes on sale.

The Fish vendor and Cheese vendor should be ones to go on this epic quest of yours since there higher level then you.

Great choice to have Rorie in this! If only he would be in more quick looks...

Rorie's word correction is driving me a little crazy.

Not confusing. Intimidating. Not hard. Uncompromising. Not unforgiving. Logical.

The graphics card is a 670, paired with a Core i7 3770. I think 16gb of memory. Still a totally sturdy machine, although not quite as beefy as it was a year ago.

What's with the Rock-Paper-Scissors part, is that how they settle arguments in this world? Is this set in the Alex Kidd universe?

@eternalgamer2: What you say is accurate, but I still think Dan is willing to expand his horizons. He at least saw the appeal in the One Piece game and this one, even if they weren't games he'd normally play himself. I think it'll be fun when him & Jeff and Vinny & Alex start their Persona 5 Endurance Runs.

Him asking if D&D came after videogames was a bit shocking, but he is only 29.