This is the best press release they've had ever, I think. They usually botch their huge announcements and they just let this one out quickly and quietly. Works much better than what they've done in the past.

Well, it's out now if any of you have a desire to be a cool person.

In other news I played for like 45 minutes today, so that's 45 minutes more than I've played in the last 1.5 weeks.

Correction: "May be afraid to seek help." It's been a hard day at work, folks.

The block text kind of hints at regret, but personifies the Princess in a way that makes it almost explicit that it's an actual person. I may have been assuming too much, but it really just came out of nowhere. I think Fallout works as a commentary on nuclear war because it takes concepts we are all familiar with such as anger, violence, and other base emotions and pasts them on a recognizable backdrop. Braid uses a fantasy inspired theme (although there are hints in the artwork) that doesn't really support that kind of left turn at all. I don't usually like to say stuff like this, but it felt like it totally M. Night Shyamalan'ed at the end.

I haven't seen any of his movies since Signs to be honest.

It really comes down to what you want out of the game more: combat or story. The story in the Baldur's Gate series is pretty good and typical fantasy fair, but the combat is a very well balanced and fun part of the game. On the other hand, Torment is almost all story and hardly about combat at all. In fact, the combat in the game is pretty much trash and could have been tossed out completely. I speculate in my review that the team may have been forced to put combat in, even if they originally didn't plan to, because it came out after Baldur's Gate and is an Infinity Engine game. It can get a little annoying in my opinion.

So, your options are pretty much as follows:

Story-- Planescape: Torment

Mix of Story/Combat: Baldur's Gate

Or, if you want full combat with almost no story: Icewind Dale (which I love)

*fantasy fare -- The editor

I very well may be. As for writing, I can't think of many other games that do have as competent and impactful writing. Actually, what suggestions would you have on that front, Gary?

There are three complete games: Shadows of Chernobyl, Clear Sky (a prequel), and Call of Pripyat. SoC is very good and set the stage for what it was. Clear sky took it in a more directed focus and had lots of problems and bugs some people don't like. I've never played it. Call of Pripyat takes all of the great things in both games, puts them in a complete package, and optimizes the game engine as much as it will probably ever be. Although the original is well loved, I think everyone considers Call of Pripyat to be the best. I don't think it is connected to the original in any way other than setting, either. I may be wrong, though, haven't played too much.

The Atmos-Fear mod looks absolutely incredible and is available for both Shadows and Call of Pripyat. The only problem is it will push the limits of your graphics card. It also seemed to destabilize the engine causing constant crashes, but when I have more time I may investigate it as I'm sure they've fixed it by now. As you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAomiCEqlzs

I'm almost finished and had a good time with it, but it certainly helped that I had a good idea of objectives from previous attempts. It's taking me about 10-15 hours to finish, but if you don't know what to do I would double that. Some stuff is a little esoteric and maybe impossible if you don't take note of EVERYTHING. Definitely worth a play, though.

I actually did pretty well Monkey Island. It was certainly more 'fair' than this one. Ultima 4 gives you everything you need, but many of the solutions are a little obtuse. The biggest culprit is the word needed to enter the final dungeon is represented in rune form after ascending each virtue. What look like simple vertical lines or nonsense have to be written down, translated, then rearranged like an anagram to get the word. Most of the other stuff is pretty easy, though.

Lost all my progress I made. Turns out I had two copies on my computer: one on the HD and one on a flash drive I was using to test moving save games around. The desktop link was attached to the flash and not the HD meaning that when I deleted its contents to give a friend some files... *POOF*. No more party. Need to restart and cry.

I'm convinced I can finish it in under 10 hours with all my notes. Already about 25% complete in an hour or so. We're doing this.

I normally don't get this serious about games, but this one holds a more symbolic meaning for me w/r/t my past. Gotta see it through.

Well, less than five hours into the restart and I am almost back to the point where I lost my data. I would guess maybe 2 or 3 solid hours to finish. Definitely can be done in under 10 hours.

I finally finished the doggone thing. A piece of my past finally left behind. What a good game, too.

The first part of the game (getting virtues, stones, and dungeon diving) took about six to eight hours. Then, the abyss took two play sessions for a total of one and a half or two hours, so I would estimate it to be a ten hour game. As I posted, though, that's if you know exactly what to do. A clean run with no prior knowledge could easily take twenty hours or much longer depending on how quickly you grasp the objectives. The game is really amazing, though, and still comes through as innovative and something special after almost 30 years. It would be tough to get it to appeal to younger people, but if you can get past the graphics, it's super fun.