DeadYorick

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True, but considering the fact Mass Effect 2's production started before Mass Effect 1 was completed, it can be assumed that EA had less creative control as the project was underway already. EDIT: Accidentally put "post" before production

EA Bought Bioware when Dragon Age Origins was done, and when Mass Effect 2 was nearing completion. Then we get news of Dragon Age 2 being a fantasy Mass Effect.

Who would you rather knocking on your door at night?

Outselling the development cost is the primary goal when a game is first released. If a game doesn't it is very likely it will not get a sequel. TFU did so and then some.

I had to lol at that pic. It's far more comical to see Jar Jar frozen in Carbonite

Cairn had begun to grow restless simply sitting in a tree. The darkspawn horde bellow him had grown strangely melodic in their speech patterns. The same grunts seemed to repeat themselves between the shorter and taller ones. Great... I am beginning to learn their language. The prospect of talking Darkspawn aside, Cairn was still fearing for his life. Twice now he suspected one of looking directly at him. Every so often he would hear their growls stop for a few seconds, and resume shortly thereafter. While he was hearing the cacophony of Darkspawn symphonies, he began to hear something else through his knife-like ears. In the corner of his eye he spotted a large burly black bear. Foraging in the bushes, and for some reason at night when it was supposedly hibernating. The confusion came to mind, yet Cairn formulated a plan rather quickly. He stood up as best he could, and whistled toward the bear. The Darkspawn gazed around, looking for the source of the sound they just heard. But found themselves distracted by a bear rushing toward them. Cairn jumped for the tree as he watched the Darkspawn go to attack the bear. He aimed to jump on a tree adjacent to him. However, as he attempted to do so he felt his hand slip on the branch. The air underneath the elf was unforgiving as he crashed down to the ground bellow him. He scrambled to his feet suddenly, noticing they were still distracted attacking the beast, and ran. The adrenaline flowing through his veins eventually ran short, and the elf noticed he put quite a distance between himself and the camp. But as he looked on toward the camp, he saw something else. What looked like two, unrecognizable figures moving about. His distraction was short lived as he went back to fleeing the scene as quickly as possible.

Yeah but then you have to deal with the fact they are frozen stiff with a look of horror on their faces... Okay never mind, that might make some readers actively campaign for "Collector Rights" just so they might get a chance to put some swarms into action.

I am finding it a little odd they are intending to stop planning for a sequel to a game that hasn't been released yet.

Speaking in hypothetical of course. If there was another Jedi Knight game, would you purchase it? I am asking this as over the years the major theme of Jedi Knight fans is they want another Katarn centric game by any means necessary. Even if it means removing everything they liked about the series to begin with. Jedi Knight isn't exclusive to this either. Some fans would adore a dumbed down sequel to Grim Fandango or Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, and some think the Max Payne series died with the second game. (I am one of those people). So much so they refuse to even try the sequel game simply because of their feelings toward it. So if there was another Jedi Knight game. Even if it lacked dedicated servers and a released SDK or was horrendously consolised (the most likely thing to occur), would you get it simply as a predisposed notion of "loyalty" to the franchise?

Somehow I always imagined EA as being an enigmatic alien race from beyond the Omega Four Relay

If they are the "best military/semi military personnel in the galaxy" what use would an assassin be? Thane isn't supposed to see active combat, he's supposed to use stealth and kill a single target for money. Yet what Bioware projects this as is using him as a combat ready soldier archetype that uses guns in a firefight and biotics. If anything Kasumi's use of tactical cloak was much more like an "Assassination" technique, and she was a thief.

((I hope Ty doesn`t want Archon to edit.)) If he had to name one thing in particular Cairn enjoyed the most about Ferelden would have to be it`s trees. Not the quality in what he remembered during his childhood could be attributed toward this. Such as easy to climb stature, or something along the lines of that. Nay, even the Sylvans rarely payed too much attention to him climbing their trunks. But, the principle thing he enjoyed in a tree now were it`s branches. Specifically their gnarled features in which he could hide himself. Darkspawn were a tricky game for the elf. Contrary to the tales he heard of them as a child, they were not a roaming demonic dwarven problem. Rather, they proved quite the challenge the first time he had seen them, in the Brecilian Forest. Cairn had taken to setting simplistic ``traps`` if they could be called that. Really, they were more set up to alert him of whatever he hunted. This worked on Werewolves before, but not on Darkspawn. He still remembered the scars received during the battle that followed. This encounter he suspected would just be the first of many, and through his paranoid mind the idea of simply watching a band of Orlesian soldiers. He had heard of the recent trials and tribulations occurring within the government of Ferelden. During the odd chance he would find himself wandering through a town big enough to have a tavern. Even then it was hard to search through the bias illiterate farmers tended to have. In the end throughout all this he did eventually manage to find one. It wasn`t that hard considering the Darkspawn corpses littering the ground around their campsite. Likewise it particularly easy to climb a tree and inspect as he so pleased. This went well for several hours, the day nestled into the night, and he observed the campsite carefully. When the drunken foray into foolishness did occur as expected, Cairn felt his motivation of simple thievery start to subside. Shortly after the only female of the band walked off, he suspected for firewood or something similar, he heard noises surrounding the campsite. "Hey Brythe, whazzat sound? It sounds familiar..." Cairn heard it as well, a twig snapping just underneath his tree in fact. Paranoia gripped the elf for a few short seconds, as he grabbed the dagger sheathed at his waist. The dagger he rarely found a use for in combat. Before long the panicking started with the rest of the group. "Shut it...Can't talk and vomit...*Bluuureh*...At the same time!" The act of repulsion calmed Cairn down for a few short seconds, and his breathing lowered to a steady inaudible pace. "Do you hear laughing, Brythe?" That was surprising to Cairn, something he didn`t hear. A tear of sweat drizzled down his neck as he held the dagger out fully in front of him. He didn`t have a chance to react as he heard one of the soldier`s scream. "Quiet you two! There's something in the..." Cairn watched as one of the less experienced soldiers stood up, drawing his claymore. Walking out of the lit sanctuary of the camp. His footsteps stopped abruptly as he screamed once more. "Andraste!!! Dar-aaaaAAAAAHHHHhhh..." and before he knew it, Darkspawn poured out of the trees around him. So many Cairn could barely see the ground anymore, much less the soldiers now butchered. The amount of time he spent stalking rabbits by hiding in trees he felt payed off. In some horrific and surreal way. Cairn watched on as the Darkspawn continued to kill, and observed one in particular gripping both a mace and a sword. He observed as it stood over one of his fallen comrades, killed by one of the actually alert soldiers. With no possible idea of escape coming to mind. Cairn waited, his dagger in his hand, observing the Darkspawn. He did not have enough room to unsheathe his bow without giving away his entire position.

On my first runthrough of TSL I boosted the difficulty directly to hard. (Mostly because I beat the original Kotor on hard only a few days before in preparation). I found myself having to return back to easy to finish the first playthrough. I don`t think it makes you weaker per-say, but I did notice the enemies being much harder to kill. This mod called: Tactical Rebalance is advertised toward making combat in TSL harder. http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/KOTOR2_Tactical_Rebalance;114797

Red Dead Redemption`s development was far different then Mass Effect. The same with Grand Theft Auto 4. What they did was their development team worked on both designing a large world the player would explore, and then setting and characters. If you compare RDR or GTA4`s missions they are exceedingly linear with very little variations except for a different line here or there if you failed it already. Mass Effect is an RPG and it isnt a sandbox game. Bioware designed large, but officially still boxed in maps the player would go through. With Red Dead Redemption all they had to think about would be what would make this part of the world interesting. That brings things like minigames to light. Online multiplayer would just require scripting and coding and I can still imagine Bioware doing it. (Look at the links I posted previously). Also I have to mention this, but budget is a big issue as well. GTA4 cost 100 million dollars to develop, and had a much larger development staff at it`s helm (roughly 1000 people). A longer campaign also removes other features from the game. Bare in mind that they do have a limited disk space and budget, and the campaign drains that heavily. So a longer campaign could result with drawbacks such as less weapons, less subquests, re-skinned modules instead of new ones etc. You can`t have both a long campaign and a large amount of good quality subquests. That IS to much to demand because it is too strenuous on both the developers and the game. The reason why Mass Effect 1 had a whole bunch of subquests that were basically exactly the same to one another was they just modified things in a txt file. (Like change the mountain size here and there, add object to this area of the map, etc.) Mass Effect 2`s subquests had a lot more depth, but there were significantly less of them. There is rarely a balance struck in this, and a lot of the times game developers have to make sacrifices. Mass Effect 2 was put on 2 disks for the console, and gamers ended up hating that.

I can forsee a Jedi Knight 3 or even a remake of the original Dark Forces. But not any time soon. Probably some time in the future when Lucasarts runs out of ideas to make Star Wars games out of. Of course by that time everyone would have forgotten about Jedi Knight so they would be free to retcon as they like. Also monthly fees are exclusive to massively multiplayer games or Xbox Live`s service. Not much else. The PS3`s online service is free for all it`s games, not to mention the PC is still going strong with that. Your logic astounds me. Not all Jedi Knight games use a Quake Engine. To return back to the original Dark Forces, they used the Jedi engine. Which was a modified Doom engine. Dark Forces 2 used the Sith engine, which was heavily modified from the last one, the same with Mysteries of the Sith. Only Outcast and Academy are on the Quake 3 engine, and Academy isn`t seen as apart of the series. More like an expansion pack. Not to mention where does it say that a game series can`t come out unless it`s on a specific engine? That doesn`t make ANY sense whatsoever as the Jedi Knight series has already proven that. It jumped from the Sith engine to Quake 3`s. Your terminology here is also a little skewed. There are two Star Wars games coming out, the Force Unleashed 2 and The Old Republic. Kotor 3 was cancled, Dark Forces 3 is Jedi Outcast (as Dark Forces 2`s title also had ``Jedi Knight`` in it. Jedi Outcast is Jedi Knight 2 which proves they simply dropped Dark Forces from the title). But what does this prove? Absolutely nothing other then Lucasarts is simply just being how it always was, a corporation that makes or breaks series`s. It is not somehow ``honor bound`` to make sequels to games simply because the fans want them. Jedi Academy is NOT Jedi Knight 3, it is a spin off. It`s full title is ``Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy`` So really, we still haven`t gotten JK3 yet.

I am not really speaking about their current state as a company. Some games have been developed in people's garages and become popular. I am mostly speaking on whether Grim Fandango 2 would have a story as good as Grim Fandango 1. Grim Fandango 1 set a very high bar and likely the sequel will not be anywhere near as good. But it will be generally pleasing to see Lucasarts returning to one of their most loved franchises, like they did with Monkey Island. EDIT: Also I cant believe I didnt notice before, but those articles are a little outdated. One of them is from 2007, and the other is on the back page of one advertising Kane and Lynch Dead Men, also released in 2007. So any rumors that Lucasarts is developing a sequel 3 years later might be simply myth right now.

Kinda have to change your terminology of "Counter Strike 2" There are essentially 5 Counter Strike games. Counter Strike 1.5 which was the original mod for Half Life that Valve bought and later updated to 1.6. Counter Strike Condition Zero which is their follow up Counter Strike Source which is their remake and currently the dominant version of Counter Strike Counter Strike Neo which is an arcade game Counter Strike Online which is more geared toward Asian markets. So essentially discounting the latter two there would have to be a Counter Strike 4. Which is unlikely given the fact Valve never directly named Counter Strike after numbers. (the original was given numerical terminology because it was a mod and not developed by Valve till they updated it.) Sorry, just got a little antsy over there, had to pull out my nerdrage

It appears that Bioware is considering multiplayer for Mass Effect a bit sooner then you expect. http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/comments_news.phtml?id=060110_6 http://www.totalvideogames.com/Mass-Effect-3-unannounced/news/Mass-Effect-Going-Multiplayer-15279.html If in case your thinking this might be for another Mass Effect game. There is a quote to take into consideration I am suspecting Co-Operative gameplay for ME3. I do recall Casey Hudson saying in one of his dev interviews that they would have considered Coop for ME2 if it fit into their development cycle.

I remember when Fable was a game series about an epic "hero" who was essentially Beowulf, just with a set backstory fighting a guy named Jack of Blades. Now it's about a Renaissance mercenary leading a country. Fable 3 I'd have to play before I can properly critique it. But I don't aim to get it new. It just doesn't appeal to me anymore. After I played Fable 2 for a few weeks it just got increadably boring to me. The characters werent particularly interesting, the writing felt subpar, and the amount of conversations I felt rehashed from other games just annoyed me.

People dislike things that are popular, controversy sells. A big reason why Grand Theft Auto sells is because of the amount of politicians bashing it. But, nothing is above criticism. As long as the internet is a medium to express doubt toward something, people will speak their opinions. I find it a little odd you would call a certain opinion "overrated" simply because it expresses doubt toward the quality of a product. I enjoyed Bioware's recent games, such as Mass Effect or it's sequel. But I did find things I disliked about them, along with noticing patterns Bioware makes with it's storylines. I remember back in the 90's when every shooter was like Doom. Developers emulate what is popular. Just like films emulate what previous good films did before them. Future shooters are going to emulate Modern Warfare 2's fast paced "leveling up" style of multiplayer, and spend less time on singleplayer. Though things will inevitably change back the other way from multiplayer to singleplayer. All that can't be predicted is the time it will take.

-Alistair -Thane They just like to point out Bioware reuses a lot of the same character archetypes. But my problem with Thane wasn't that he was a good character or not. But why would you need an assassin for a suicide mission against a bunch of aliens? In fact most of the party members of ME2 didn't make sense, and it sounded like more of a hook to get people interested. I liken the Internet to High School, mostly because almost everything I see on it, I saw there. I do remember console wars being very common with the gaming population, specifically early teenagers.

Flight sims aren't too much my thing. Although I do remember having several contacts who played it.

Who knew the henchmen of Darth Vader could contribute to charity indirectly