I know a lot of games have been doing this recently (Mass Effect), but does Fable 3 have any such features? Just wondering if I should boot Fable 2 up and finish some things before playing Fable 3.
Peter Molyneux has said that the only change you'll notice is the things other people say to you. Nothing major.
A complete description of the relationship can be found on the lionhead forums.
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Warning: potential spoilers if you've not finished at least once
So I've been playing through New Game+ in Bastion, I'm on the 3rd or 4th Shard now so quite far.
At the start of the game, and I mean right at the start, I heard an echo of Rucks saying "Maybe I'll see you in the next one" before his first speech, which I believe was the last thing he said at the end of the Restoration finale.
Then, when entering the saloon later in the wharf, Rucks interrupts himself when talking about the bar keep and mumbles something before continuing - having a deja vu moment it seems.
Because of these two I was then expecting more of these references to the time loop throughout the game, but I haven't noticed any others. Have I missed them, are there only these two, or are there more to come at the end?
The following list of locations is where I heard something that sounded distinctly different than the first play-through:
Each narration change was minor and didn't add much to the plot. If there were others, they were subtle enough that I missed them.
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I was assigned to kill an NSF leader on a plane in LaGuardia National Airport, but Paul has been urging me to side with the NSF. My murderous nano-aug superior is insisting that if I don't kill the guy, SHE will do so. It felt like a serious breaking point with major plot ramifications.
On my first attempt, I died horribly.
On my second attempt, I was able to kill Anna Navarre, and the NSF leader actually survived! I'd gone so far as to booby trap the plane with land mines, though, and I inadvertently set one off before I could talk to the guy.
On all my subsequent attempts, Anna either killed the guy before I can kill her, or she wound up killing me herself. I finally gave up and just resumed playing from a file where both of them died in the altercation.
Does the NSF leader have anything more to tell you if you save him from Anna? Does Gunther wind up killing him? What would have happened if I'd followed my superiors' orders and either killed him outright or let Anna kill him?
At that point, you pretty much have to make a choice of trying to save Lebedev or killing him. If you choose to kill him, then that's that and you will have to face and fight Anna later.
If you want to save him, you will have to take out Anna.
If you choose to walk away, Anna will kill Lebedev for trying to 'escape' and you will still have to face her later.
Personally, I usually take the opportunity to take out Anna at that moment. The easiest way to do that is to slap a laser trip mine on the door frame just before you enter the room where Lebedev is. Anna will trigger it and get blown up as she enters.
However, even if you do save him, he is captured later on by MJ12 and then killed. His death will be blamed on you. You will learn of these events through the news.
Note, it is also possible to arrange a way so neither is killed, but it is very difficult and doesn't affect the story anyway.
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OK, I figured out that the Grandmaster was actually Alvin. That wasn't hard.
But who was the assassin in the end animation? I mean both the king and Gerald shared a weird look after Gerald unmasked him. So was that just because the problems didn't end, or was it someone from the story-line?
Neither Geralt nor the king recognize the assassin, as revealed in The Witcher 2. His noteworthy trait, and the reason why they both share a weird look after the unmasking, is the fact that the assassin is also a Witcher, as indicated by his eyes.
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So I got Touhou 7.5: Immaterial and Missing Power, but suddenly I've been thrust into a world where 12-year old girls wearing strange outfits and wielding dangerous weapons scream japanese at each other before firing off gratuitous amounts of magical projectiles in all directions. What's going on here? What is the plotline of these games?
You mean it's not clear from the translated summary? ;)
This game is fantastic fighting game. Girls do their best now and are preparing Please watch warmly until it is ready. Greatest mesmeric mist of all time. This magic mist is missing power!
Still, a slightly more coherent description is given here:
While making preparations for the feast three days away, Reimu is distracted by a strange powerful mist that is covering Gensokyo. She and many other inhabitants of Gensokyo (such as Alice and Patchouli) go to investigate.
Suika Ibuki is an oni. Although legends say all the oni are gone, Suika has decided to reunite the humans and oni by attracting them through partying. Using her special ability to spread across the land, she causes the humans and youkai to have feasts and parties. The more drunk she gets, the stronger she becomes, and she carries a gourd treasured by the oni, which never empties of sake.
Still pretty bizarre, but then, that's practically the definition of anime...
Note that there are further dialogue translations provided in that first link, that will probably prove helpful if you really want to try and understand the details as the story unfolds. Good luck with that. ;)
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In the beginning of Dragon Age 2,
your brother dies in one of the first fights.
Is there any way to save him or is this a scripted event that can't be avoided?
According to the Dragon Age Wiki, it sounds like the character that dies is based on Hawke's class. This is probably to aid in giving the player a balanced party without too many redundant classes.
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I recently completed Heavy Rain, but now I'm curious as to what effect my choices and actions had on the story. Is there a breakdown of all the possible paths and branches that the story in Heavy Rain can take out there somewhere?
The FAQ/Walkthrough of AboutLastNight5 at GameFAQs.com lists all possible endings together with a list of the conditions that must be met to achieve them.
Of course, the guide includes major spoilers and you will have more fun replaying the game without this guide.
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I recently played The Arrival and part of its storyline confused me:
It said that the Reapers would arrive through the Alpha relay, which they would use to move throughout the galaxy as it was a particularly powerful relay. OK, fine, that makes sense, destroy the thing and slow them down.
But isn't one of the central plot points of Mass Effect 1 the fact that:
the Citadel itself is one giant relay and acts as the Reapers' entrance to the galaxy?
The two plot points seem in direct contradiction. Here are my questions:
If they can get to the Citadel directly, why the fuss about the Alpha relay? If they need the Alpha relay to get to the Citadel, shouldn't we have known about this earlier?!
Unless I'm really misremembering things, it seems a little sloppy on Bioware's writers.
In Mass Effect, Sovereign, the Reaper that remained resident in the galaxy to montior biological life, was to have sent a signal to the Keepers on the Citadel to activate the Citadel relay and bring the rest of the Reapers back from beyond the edge of the galaxy. The Protheans modified the Keepers to ignore this signal, thus requiring Sovereign to have to assault the Citadel and dock with it in order to manually activate the relay. Shepard destroys Sovereign and buys some time for the Galaxy. My interpretation of these events was if Sovereign had been successful in activating the Citadel relay then the Reapers would have entered the galaxy at that point in time through that relay, destroying the seat of government and mopping up the galaxy from that point in space outwards.
Fast Forward to the very end of Mass Effect 2. A fleet of Reapers is seen heading towards the galaxy, under their own power. Rewind to Arrival; it is said that the Reapers will use the Alpha relay to spread throughout the galaxy. Doctor Kensen (was that her name?) mentions that with the destruction of the Alpha relay it would take the Reapers some months to couple years to reach the next relay. Since we know that all relays are interconnected it does not matter which relay they use really, but consider for a moment the location of the Alpha relay on the galaxy map. It is at the extreme end of one of the spiral arms, at the very edge of the galaxy. It is probably the relay closest to the Reapers who are moving towards the galaxy from outside.
To summarize: Protheans change Keepers and Sovereign fails to activate the Citadel relay; Shepard buys a little over two years time at the end of Mass Effect. Reapers "fly" to the galaxy from the outside (as seen at the end of Mass Effect 2). All mass effect relays are interconnected, so Reapers fly to nearest standard relay (such as the Alpha relay). Shepard destroys the Alpha relay, forcing the Reapers to fly to the next nearest relay. Shepard buys a little more time (a few months to a couple years) for the galaxy to prepare.
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While playing Portal 2 I encountered several drawings on the walls:
Something about someone getting shot, companion cubes, people choking on poisonous gas and Chell doing nasty things to GLaDOS.
Something about Schrödinger’s cat (?) and mathematics that don’t make any sense to me.
“The bell invites, hear the turret, for it is knell. That summons to heaven or to hell.” Apparently this is a Macbeth quote:
"I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell."
How it relates to the game however is a mystery to me. So does anyone know what the story behind them is and what they mean?
The drawings on the walls were done by the Rat Man (real name Doug Rattmann), a schizophrenic former employee of Aperture Science. He was convinced GLaDOS would continue to try to kill Aperture employees if switched on, and so took precautions when GLaDOS was 'fixed' and reactivated, thereby surviving GlaDOS flooding the Enrichment Centre with a deadly neurotoxin. He manipulated the order GlaDOS chose test subjects to put Chell first, as Aperture/GlaDOS had identified her as being abnormally tenacious and thus unsuitable for testing (hence the bell curve); his hope was that she'd be more capable of frustrating GlaDOS than he was.
The images you see around the portal gun are a retelling of the events in Portal; Aperture turns GlaDOS on; GlaDOS floods the Enrichment Centre with a deadly neurotoxin; Chell resists GLaDOS's cakey temptation and destroys her, and is put into suspended animation.
Most of his handiwork is from after his pills ran out. Not all of it is logical.
Edit: also, see acmshar's answer for the significance of the equations the Rat Man's scrawled on the walls.
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I re-subscribed to World Of Warcraft yesterday and have been playing on a level ~20 character with a friend. I've seen references in quests and dialogue to the defeat of the Lich King, and several prominent figures from Northrend like Thassarian hanging out in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Has this progression in WoW's storyline had any effect on quests in Northrend? Will my level 20 gnome be unable to witness the betrayal at the Wrathgate and the assault/retaking of the Undercity? Does the Lich King no longer make cameo appearances during major quests? Or is the continent of Northrend surrounded by some kind of lore-protection bubble?
(I'm kind of hoping it is, because man, that stuff was cool.)
For the most part, Northrend and Outland are unchanged. What changes do exist, primarily are there to push players back to the old world at level 80 - i.e. the portals to the various faction capitals have been removed from Dalaran (except for Stormwind/Orgrimmar), replaced by a full slate of class trainers and an Auctioneer.
In general, WoW tends to play somewhat fast and loose with it's timeline and always has - the only real rule of thumb is that, for the most part, higher level content is chronologically later - but the Cataclysm breaks this rule somewhat as the 1-60 world now takes place some 5 years after the events of Wrath of the Lich King. Essentially, once you hit level 60, you go back in time for a little while to check out The Story So Far before rejoining the rest of the world at 80.
The most dramatic 'lore' change to Northrend is that the loading screen no longer depicts Arthas, but rather his replacement.
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I had seen the ending of Limbo, but at the time was distracted so I didn't catch the subtlety.
I just watched it again here.
I have some ideas about what the ending implies, but wanted to know if anyone could formulate a clear description of "What just happened?"
I don't think there is an agreed upon meaning, but an interesting article discussing several theories can be found here.
Edit with summary as per @tzenes request:
The main theories the article mentions are as follows
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Is it possible to kill Vlad? I've tried many powerful beam spells and charged shots but he regenerates too quickly.
This question specifically is in reference to whether Vlad can be killed before the fight in chapter 9.
If it can't be done solo, can it be done with 4 players?
No, you cannot kill Vlad.
until chapter 9
He usually sits there passive, until you move so far away from his spawn point, then he disappears. I think he's a ninja, because he disappears in a puff of smoke.
I've dispensed about 50,000 hitpoints on him in single/multiplayer mode. He bleeds a lot, he can be set on fire, frozen, but his health never changes.
As I said, he's probably a ninja. Right? <_<
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In the La Valette's dungeons in the prologue for The Witcher 2, if you helped Aryan La Valette escape, he will help you flee the dungeon. There are two ways to meet up with him -- the first is by getting the key to open the locked door in the dungeon, dropping down, and interrupting the Executioner's torture session.
Alternatively, if you ignore the back passage you will come upon Aryan La Valette mounting an escape of his own. Presumably, at this point, he has signed the false confession claiming parentage over the late King Foltest's children.
Does it change anything, plot-wise, if you rescue him from the hangman as opposed to discovering him mid-escape?
It doesn't matter. I need 30 characters though.
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For one reason or another I managed to totally miss playing any of the Half-life series. I have the time and money now to play these games that I have herd such great things about. So what are all the Half-life games that I should play? and what order should I play them in?
I am confused of where the episodes and expansions all fit in. And what they mean by "Source" versions. Are these even part of the same series? And what about Blue Shift, Lost Coast, or Opposing Force? So many games, and I don't know where or if they fit.
Are there any in the series that I should skip, or just read the plot summary for? Can someone please give me a run-down of what I should play, in order.
The must-play Half-Life games are Half-Life 1, then Half-Life 2. The expansions and spin-offs for Half-Life 1 which were not developed by Valve are quite skippable; Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay return to the setting and events of Half-Life 1, but portray the story through the eyes of a U.S. Marine, a security guard and two scientists, respectively.
The Source version of Half-Life is, and I quote:
a digitally remastered version of the critically acclaimed and best-selling PC game
Needless to say it's smoke and mirrors, there's absolutely no significant difference in the story.
My advice is to play the original Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and if you'd like to extend the pleasure, sequels Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 are quite good, but not as good as the two main games.
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In Half Life the Vortigaunt's attack on sight but in Half Life 2 they help the player. Could someone please explain the motivation behind these characters.
In half-life (the first) the Vortigaunts you see are slaves, as evidenced by the green shock collars around their neck. As slaves to the Nihilanth, they are your unwilling enemies.
In the second game, the Vortigaunts encountered are free agents (effectively) and thus are not inherently on the "wrong side".
The Combine wiki has more here.
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Is it possible to play Freelancer as a pirate from the beginning of the game?
(I'm already playing without story missions)
I tried landing on Rochester, but there weren't any missions available.
If not, why would anyone ever buy the Bloodhound or the Dagger?
Speaking strictly about single player vanilla Freelancer you can't. You have to play the story at least as long until you have access to the jumpgates. If that is too much story for then that means: NO.
You can however play multiplayer (even if it's just a server for you) or install appropriate mods to lift those initial restrictions.
As for your apparent problem with faction standing: Every faction has friends and enemies. By shooting members of one faction you not only anger them and their friends but also please their enemies. Determine which enemies your favorite faction has and shoot them (For pirates try shooting the police). It takes a bit of grinding and a good enough combat ship but it is feasible.
If you are interested in mp may I suggest you check out the Mod "Shattered Worlds - War Torn".
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