4th August 2004, 10:03 PM
Yup, it's a Mind Flayer. Classic D&D monster. Very tough, with a wide variety of mind-affecting attacks...
Yes, you're a very active participant in the conversations. It's a game where your character stats matter hugely to what story you see. I know, Wisdom and Intelligence can seem useless for some classes in D&D, but trust me on this. Put a lot of points into them in this game. Those are the two prime stats that determine what dialogue options you get... it works on a principle that if your intelligence/wisdom (it depends on the conversation and the circumstances of course) isn't high enough you won't even see the options you're missing. That could be frusterating if you want ALL the story and don't get it (which is, honestly, likely), but it adds both replay value and user interaction into the game... and it provides a way to avoid a lot of the combat. For the first half of the game you really won't have to do much fighting at all... some, but not a lot. And a lot less if you actively work to avoid fighting as much as possible... to an extent greater than most games you can choose how much you want to fight. Though there are is at least one or two fights that are utterly unavoidable and a lot of places where 95% of people will fight, especially in the second half of the game. But it isn't the focus of the game. Even as you get far into it story has primacy... and as I've probably made clear I don't just mean the story of the mystery of your character, or even of your party (you can talk to the other members of your party! Which is very cool...)... I mean lots of detail about the world you are in and the other people in it. Sure, Random Pedestrian #23535 won't have a huge amount to say. But there are a lot of unique characters (ie not just standard inhabitants) that have quite a lot to say about all kinds of things. It really fleshes out the world you are in... that and the fact that you can click on a good number things to get text descriptions of things on screen. There are way more of these points than there are in any of the other Infinity-engine games (though they all certianly have some), and I loved it... :) Sure, the graphics aren't the best, the character list is pretty limited (6-character party, and there are 8 or 9 in the game playable, some hard to find), the combat mostly melee for a long time... But none that matters much at all.
Yes, you're a very active participant in the conversations. It's a game where your character stats matter hugely to what story you see. I know, Wisdom and Intelligence can seem useless for some classes in D&D, but trust me on this. Put a lot of points into them in this game. Those are the two prime stats that determine what dialogue options you get... it works on a principle that if your intelligence/wisdom (it depends on the conversation and the circumstances of course) isn't high enough you won't even see the options you're missing. That could be frusterating if you want ALL the story and don't get it (which is, honestly, likely), but it adds both replay value and user interaction into the game... and it provides a way to avoid a lot of the combat. For the first half of the game you really won't have to do much fighting at all... some, but not a lot. And a lot less if you actively work to avoid fighting as much as possible... to an extent greater than most games you can choose how much you want to fight. Though there are is at least one or two fights that are utterly unavoidable and a lot of places where 95% of people will fight, especially in the second half of the game. But it isn't the focus of the game. Even as you get far into it story has primacy... and as I've probably made clear I don't just mean the story of the mystery of your character, or even of your party (you can talk to the other members of your party! Which is very cool...)... I mean lots of detail about the world you are in and the other people in it. Sure, Random Pedestrian #23535 won't have a huge amount to say. But there are a lot of unique characters (ie not just standard inhabitants) that have quite a lot to say about all kinds of things. It really fleshes out the world you are in... that and the fact that you can click on a good number things to get text descriptions of things on screen. There are way more of these points than there are in any of the other Infinity-engine games (though they all certianly have some), and I loved it... :) Sure, the graphics aren't the best, the character list is pretty limited (6-character party, and there are 8 or 9 in the game playable, some hard to find), the combat mostly melee for a long time... But none that matters much at all.
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