If its as awesome as that I tell you next week when I get (pre ordered)

I'm not a huge fan of those styled games, but enjoy some every once in a while. I tried it on a free "civ V weekend" on steam. It failed to capture me or make me even want to play it after 45 minutes.

Like I said, I'm not a fanboy of those styled games, so it may have plenty to offer in the genre, but it didn't have anythingin the first 45 min to convert me to a fan. It did look quite solid, smooth, and whatnot, unlike a few I've played.

I always roll eyes when people treat system shock 2 as the holy grail, the definitive accomplishment of gog if it ever became available here. I aleways ask myself how different its status would be, if it wasn't transfigured by its position of "most wanted amongst the yet-still-unavailable ones".

And then i remember having played it. And... well, yes. Let's be honest. It WAS that good.

Most new AAA titles in the past couple years I haven't played.

this is where I am too.

Well, it's one of the 2 or 3 games that ever scared me. The others being AvP (helped by the fact that it was my first FPS, so I was all the more vulnerable to the Aliens) and Penumbra.

(Oh, and Nosferatu too, I forgot.)

Same here. It's funny, too, when you ask people to describe Alpha Centauri people ALWAYS do it in the context of other Civ games. As someone who never played any of them, trying to understand (most) reviews of SMAC was doomed to failure. Even now that I've actually played SMAC, I still don't understand half of the reviews.

In my unhumble opinion, ME2 is not the worst game I have ever played but almost certainly the most disappointing. There is no tangible plot; you just fuck around the galaxy picking up people and doing them favours afterwards. The controls felt stiff, probably due to the game's console origins. The world feels tiny. The combat system of ME1 wasn't exactly brilliant, but I fail to see how ME2's is any better. The mechanics are, indeed, dumbed down excessively. The game features the worst user interface I have ever come across, with the "settings" menu being filed under "extras", no double-clicking, no hotkeys and generally everything being shittier than in ME1. The game feels deliberately incomplete, especially the Shadow Broker thing. It's the same thing EA/BioWare pulled with Dragon Age, where a certain NPC goes on and on about what sounds like an interesting quest and then presents you with a dialogue option to purchase some downloadable content. Frankly, I felt insulted.

ME2 convinced me that I should stop buying BioWare games, at least for the time being. Make of that what you will.

EDIT: Oh, and you can't skip the 20-minute opening cinematic. Discovering this by having the game crash one minute after the intro ended was extremely frustrating.

Hmmm... Never played any ME too. And believe I´ll never go.
Civ III is one of the most addictive games of all times to me and still play nowadays. Tried the IV and V, never got the same feel.

Baldur's Gate 2, played the first probably a dozen times, love the genre and been recommended the second over and over but I missed it first time around and I've never got around to it. One day.

More recently, La Mulana caught my interest - a poster on the release thread for it said it could be considered a metroidvania with heavier zelda elements and if true that could be the perfect game for me if it lives up to the hype - definitely on my list.

As for the Civ discussion, I'm trying to get into it again by playing Civ V but no matter how much I try I can't seem to get into it. I don't mind the genre, I don't 'mind' the game, but it just doesn't click for me on any level worthy of the amount of praise the series gets, at least not yet.

For all those Civ 4/5 inquiries in this thread...I've played every incarnation of Civ since the first one back in the early 90's.

Civ V in its current form is a good game on its own if there had never been a previous Civ game. But in my opinion, Civ V in its current form is utter garbage compared to the previous 4 games.

Civ IV on the other hand is an amazing game. Especially the GOTY edition with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack. So many different ways to win and so many options in gameplay. Its been on sale on Amazon for under $5 in the past 6 months, as well as Steam (but I understand the latter is a bit of a curse word around these parts). Regardless, a great value at that price.

If you're interested, PM me and I'll give you a rundown of happenings of the story in TW1. There's no point in finishing it if you don't enjoy it really, and the rewards you get for importing are ever so small. So ... Yeah, basically, I can give you a brief rundown of what happened in the first Witcher game, and point out information that will be important in the second (not all that much)

Thanks for the offer but I do still have hope for finding enjoyment in the later parts. Also I finally have a decent PC, loading times should be rather short now so the pace shouldn't get broken so much (which is a serious issue with TW, IMHO). And actually I do love the gameplay and the dialogue (especially the Polish version is pure awesomeness and a worthy continuation to the novels), it's just that something about chapter 2 and 3 makes it quite exhausting in a weird way although some people seem to have that problem. I heard that after that the game gets much more interesting though.

Also my gamer's code of honor is keeping me from taking shortcuts like that. I recently beat Ultima 1 and 2 so you know that I'm willing to go even through some serious tortures. :D