gogoblender

I'm trying to imagine how good the spider is going to look animated... Do you think it's going to get a webbed attack? if so... Cool! gogo

Thanks DaveO I'd love to know how this CA actually plays out... and if it's really worth developing it or not. gogo

Good for you regarding Tony, Knuckles. The neutral approach always seems to work wonders. And in this case, you still get to keep faith in Tony. We can never have enough happy endings huh? +++ gogo

net cam! gogo

This is a brand new pretty comprehensive read... take your time to sit down over a nice cup of hot cocoa to read this one... and it seems... the inquisitor's mount is ... dom dom dom ...A spider? gogo Taken from Gaming Excellence: April 17, 2008 - I was recently given the opportunity to meet up with Mario Kroll, Director of PR with cdv USA, for a hands-on demo of the upcoming Sacred 2. I played Sacred when it came out, and was amused at its free-roaming action-role-playing-game formula. It was like Diablo, but bigger in scope and idea, with a much bigger world and a whole lot more to do. It also had horses to ride which was pretty neat back then. “I can kill things from horseback?” I asked myself, “That is totally boss! Or…rad! Or...bingo?” I’m not really sure how I spoke back then. When Sacred 2 was announced, my ears perked up at the prospect of a sequel to what some called a Diablo-killer. Sure, the first one was kind of buggy, and felt a little unfinished in areas, but it had some serious promise; promise that seems to have carried over into its sequel. And if what I’ve seen so far is any indication, this promise will be fulfilled. Hopefully, in any case. Sacred 2: Fallen Angel actually takes place two thousand years before the events in the first Sacred. The world of Ancaria is still somewhat young, and the High Elves still rule. The humans are treated like underlings behind a giant wall, and all sorts of evil runs around in the land. There’s also a civil war brewing between two factions of High Elves: one faction wishes to use the energy to keep order and peace in the world, and the other wishes to kill everybody else, plain and simple. This is the world you’re thrust into. You get to choose between six unique characters to play through the storyline. In addition to your character, you pick whether or not you’re on the light or dark side (good or evil), and what deity you worship. This deity will actually grant you certain powers depending on your choice, as well as subquests to follow if you so choose. The light/dark choice will affect the main campaign, and though the general plot will still be followed no matter what, your character’s actions and motivations will change. As for the characters, the one I played with the most (because it’s the most complete) is the Shadow Warrior, a near-undead man brought back from the dead, but with a powerful-enough will to avoid becoming a mindless undead creature. His character focuses around melee combat, but he also has control of some undead. Summoning the corpses of your foes as your minions is excellent. The High Elf character is more magic-oriented, with three magical disciplines, but also has some melee at her disposal. The Dryad is the typical ranged character, using a lot of those types of weapons, but also has the ability to command nature. Probably the most unique character in the game, however, is the Temple Guardian. This Anubis-lookalike is part creature, part machine, running off of the energy of the land. He has a lot of skills at his disposal. These four characters can be taken on either the dark or the light path. The two remaining characters, however, are locked in their alignment for obvious reasons: the Seraphim is an ancient warrior, charged with protecting the world and keeping the balance. The other side of the spectrum, the Inquisitor, is everything she is not. He is as dark as dark can get, and his abilities and ‘lovely’ personality reflect this. The characters, as far as I experienced them, have obviously benefited from a lot of forethought. Sacred 2 eschews the typical ‘ranged-melee-magic’ triplets of most action-RPGs, and instead has made unique characters, each with a personality and back story to match. I recall one encounter I had as the Shadow Warrior: as I cut a swath through a group of kobolds, I heard the gruff voice of the Warrior cry something out, almost singing in German. Mario laughed. I asked him what my personification of death had uttered, and he replied “Ten little, ten little, ten little kobolds…” The ability system is also something of an anomaly, at least for people who’ve played hack-and-slashers like this before. The oddity is this: you start out with all of your abilities unlocked already. There are essentially no level requirements. As you level up, you gain skill points that you can attribute to any of your abilities or raise things such as weaponry skills and defensive abilities. While some might raise a questioning eyebrow regarding this choice, I for one found promise within it. The ability to use all of the abilities without investing any skill in them means not having to worry about what kind of ‘build’ I should have, and feeling like I’ve wasted skill points after spending them. There’s nothing quite as demoralizing as saving up skill points to spend them in “Armageddon Explosive-tacular” only to find out that it’s a somewhat-large burst of fire. The ability system also brings in a lot of customizability to your character, and the question of if you want to specialize your skills and grow powerful in particular areas or to generalize and have a bevy of abilities at your control is yours to answer. And with fifteen abilities per character, there’re a lot of choices to make. One of the alluring aspects of the game that was likely the most apparent thing of the alpha build I viewed was the engine and its technical abilities. The world is massive, and takes up hundreds of square kilometres of space. Mario mentioned that if one was to start from the top-left corner of the map and walk in a straight line to the bottom-right corner, it would take about six hours. That’s large. Often the issue with a map that big is that there’s a lot of empty space, but considering all the maps segments have been crafted manually, it’s hard to imagine that happening. Down the roads I walked, there was always something catching my eye. Whether it’s a babbling river, a run-down house, or a few monsters that wanted my blood, I was impressed at the variety of everything around me. The game’s great ability to convey ambience and atmosphere (helped by the new engine) made this easier, and didn’t feel like you were just running through cookie-cutter areas that were all the same. The stark contrast between the bright, howling desert and the foggy, muffled marshes really emphasized this. Walking around is seamless and completely without visible loading; though entering the dungeons meant seeing a fade-out and fade-in (which took less than a second, I might add), I was told that the goal was to have that fade-out removed entirely and make entering the dungeons as seamless as the rest of the world. Read More Here

Knuckles, fantastic...you have to promise to take a few pics of this when it's done. And yes, Stubbie... all these food posts...cruel but so delicious looking gogo

lol, had to read those crystal numbers twice... as locutus posted, it's so rare that peeps still have those floating around. Great Haul here Ike Gratz gogo

Excellent, And a quarter cup of red wine to boot... Borg, this is outstanding, can hardly wait to try this out! Just from reading this I'd completely forgotten about adding red wine to sauces... excuse me now while I rush out to grab a quick bottle ^^ gogo

I just took a screenie for everyone so that they see exactly the box that spawns when we click on that plus sign: Very useful tool indeed gogo

I had a whole nightmare last night about the castrati thing.. *shudder* Peeps don't do that anymore...right? Or...maybe chemically doing stuff to themselves so that they retain the high voice? gogo

Wow, Scleameth, maybe then the five weeks paternal is only a Quebec thing? Yeah , I was thinking about that golf handicap...watch him come back with a tan Myles, I bet the reason why you can't get up so early is because living in a big city has you up so late at night! Give up some of the nightlife and come on and worship the sun with us... eggs and bacon included! gogo

Bravo for bringing this title back alive! You know, I'd always seen it on the shelves, and had also for some strange reason or another, found the title compelling. I could always seen in my mind's eye this old creepy house with... dunno, a kind of small group of nasties all huddling and scurrying around in a secretive way. The space under the stairs is a funny one. There's a lot of shadow there... and most of us tend to forget how big that space really is. The first time I saw this title it just stuck in my mind...what goes on in there... should I open the small door (creepy small door) that leads to that space ^^ So I haven't seen it Locutus...BUT... I will get it from our local store this weekend and hurry back home to watch and review it for you. It's been calling all these years I guess and the guy who gave us The serpent and the rainbow and the classic Freddy surely has something scary to say with this one. lol, your description of the movie was great...children stashed in the cellar huh... gogo

I've been waiting for this game for awhile. The editor and play mechanics and polish on this game have allways enticed me. Though I have some doubts about whether or not this game is going to be that great in MP. My vision of it was that we'd get to be able to go to other people's planets online and steal their most valuable resource... their population's DNA and add it to our own. muhahahah.... pretty neat /creepy/spooky huh? ^^ But...I'm not sure at all that this is the case now, I'm thinking it's mostly a single player platform...with only a few mp options. Hoping for the best. gogo p.a. and yes...there is another game coming out during September..rumors of course

Ahh, Highlander, you found the thread! I remember reading one of your other threads here about the classic Italian elements in your youth... and you even knew this dish ^^ Okay you guys, I am so now sold on having to try this... I'll make a few calls this weekend to see if I can catch a resto that makes this... I'll even ask the owner, if I can get to one, if he'll let us take pics of the dish. ^^ gogo

I hear you about the isometric, Stubbie. I loved what that did for the game. I found it made the game very "approachable" helped maintain pacing, and in turn, helped give the game a very tactical feel. I've found very often that first person games transform the game into action only. Having both a 3-d point of view as well as being able to affect it so that an isometric approach is possible will give us the best of both worlds. And, dom dom dom...this isn't a screen shot of the week...but a pic I found that someone had posted over at TeamXbox...A neat pic of the Shadow Warrior that I've never seen before...check out how well the scaling of the monsters is in the background ^^ gogo p.s. Isn't that pic of the horse and High Elf just the best though? I keep looking at the cart in the background. The keep saying they are trying to craft a real, live, breathing world...if this kind of work is throughout the game... I'm sold.

I cannot agree with you more. That little button actually made the adventure of building enjoyable and relatively easy, if you were will to keep checking the button. In Mythos, that sort of option/button that you could press regarding your toon had very few statistics, and I remember being very disappointed with how few stats they showed. Seeing a statistical variance this way as Sacred had, is a quantified means of discovering growth of our character and relates very well to time spent on discovering items and seeing not only how each item contributes, but also...when modded by other items as well as the attributes and skills you have invested into your toon, gives you numbers that tell you whether or not you've actually getting the results you want. Ascaron PLEASE include this in Sacred 2 as well! gogo

Do you think that it would be very expensive because of all the work involved? This doesn't look as easy to make as a pot of sauce gogo

The High Elf on the horse... that takes my breath away. In fact...I'm having a hard time believing that anything like that is actually in-game footage... gotta be a movie...right? If the game is that sumptuous... I think I'm gonna dig deep into that world... I hope I remember to go to work gogo

I like yours better. Funki, do you think a restaurant would actually serve old style food like this? Would it be very expensive? gogo

And now I finally see what the finished product looks like: It really does look like a special dish. Knuckles, seems like you were very lucky to have been served it. gogo

Silearth... you've given me a paradigm shift here... I've never heard of Alton Brown till your post. I youtubed him and...Bingo...wow! This guy's my new culinary star! Braciole! Love his tongue in cheek method of explaining, and the way he explains the science involved in all of this. I had forgotten about very complicated dishes like this...I remember reading a long time ago about what was purported to be the world's most expensive dish... some kind of egg, stuffed into a fish, stuffed into a chicken, stuffed into a... you get the picture... Well, after going through Youtube, I was actually able to track down just one more video on this dish...and the interesting thing is that...it uses eggs! Funki, is this approach to Braciole common? lol, notice the entire video is in Italian...but you can see what they're making... looks like it's being made with love ^^ gogo

Sacred 2's screen shots of the week from the Sacred International Forum: On Sacred Wiki From February 27th (possibly my favorite) a pic of the High Elf and her horse From March 5th, a great pic of the Shadow Warrior in a swamp From March 12th, the Seraphim and (ugh) the spider From March 19th, Shadow Warrior studying a dungeon From March 26th, High Elf Explores a graveyard From April 2nd, Dungeon denizens are no match for the Shadow Warrior From April 9th, The Seraphim struts her buff From April 16th, The High Elf in the Swamp Camp From April 23rd, The Seraphim on her Tiger fighting off enemies From April 30th, The Shadow Warrior on a Horse in puruit of Orcs From May 7th, The Shadow Warrior In Rain From May 14th, Lean Mean Green Goblins From May 21st, Night Fliers From May 28th, Zap goes the High Elf! From June 25th, Non-Arachnophogic Seraphim From July 2nd, Bat Battle! From July 9th, Dryad in Lava Dungeon From July 17th, Dryad on Rearing Mount From July 23rd, Dead Dragon From August 27th, Inquisitor From Sept 3rd, Dryad Battle From Sept 9th, Inquisitor on Mount From Sept 17th, Temple Guardian Flame Thrower gogo

When I hear of all the art and "craft" that has gone into great old style cooking...it makes me sad everytime I see stuff like "lean cusine" Funki, my family's like yours I guess (cept for me, I don't remember too much of anything that went on in the kitchen ) I do remember my parents spending an entire day together in the kitchen, chopping, bashing, grinding, stirring...and the smells... the smells were wonderful. That I do remember. Our good ole nonas huh? Mine ( We call her Ammamma) was a cullinary star, she cook make, bake and curry any thing. Even things that had never been curried before. I've always thought it was that bit of daring combined with technical artistry that produced the best chefs. gogo

The voice is definitely there... but why is the song he sang so short? gogo

Course we would... gogo