I don't play RPGs for their gameplay though. I play them for the writing and the story. If I absolutely love the characters and I feel like I'm making an actual impact on the ongoing story (and Alpha Protocol pulls this off better than most) then 9 out of 10 times a happy camper.
It's why I prefer Alpha Protocol to Mass Effect 2. ME2's gameplay may be better (save for that whole planet scanning crap), but the overarching story is garbage and does a lot of damage to the universe established in Mass Effect 1. ME2's ending left me going "what the fucking fuck was that?" where as Alpha Protocol's left me going "Holy shit!!!" (all three times even).

The fact that people panned Alpha Protocol just because the gameplay was mediocre shows me just how far the RPG genre has slipped.

Go do another playthrough and don't use any of the OP abilities. You'll find your experience will vastly improve.

Apple
Accessibility

Bhahahahahahahahahahah

All this talk of choices and no one has mentioned Alpha Protocol? Egads, that's a damned travesty.
If you want a game where choices matter, where the conversations are interesting and also how you conduct them matter, where even your play style impacts the game, then get Alpha Protocol. There are so many variables in that game that I'm on my 3rd playthrough and I'm still having a blast. The writing and voice acting is consistently fantastic and it's a shame that more people haven't played it. It's easily one of the best RPGs of last year but then, what else can you expect from Obsidian? Sure their games are glitchy but those guys know how to create an engrossing world better than anyone.

It's called Firefall sir. Look it up. :D

Wins what? Everyone who I've gotten to switch Windows 7 has commented at how easy it is to use and that it "just works." I haven't used a mac since I was in middle school, but if Itunes is any indication of your current average Apple "experience" then it's safe to say that Apple doesn't know a god damn thing about how to create an intuitive and well layed out UI.

The only solution to that would be to have boxed copies still act like full games, but then we're right back at square one. Granted, it's not like game companies care about people with slow, dodgy internet or even no internet at all. Think about Ubisoft's bullshit and the stupid activation crap that's out there.

The fix to their problems isn't going to be a new selling scheme, but for companies to just ditch DRM entirely and accept that DRM just does not work. If they want to do something productive, they need to release demos on a regular basis again. If they want to do somethng productive they need to stop releasing bullshit, overhyped games. If they want to do something productive they need to lynch Bobby Kotick and Yves Guillemot. Maybe then they'll start seeing some improvements in sales.

That approach would be ok if they initial price of the game was lower. You can't sell a stripped game and then have the balls to charge full price for it (and put the most oppressive, buggy DRM ever made on it). Now, if they want to do it old school where you pay less for your stripped game (let's say 25 bucks) and then via DLC let you unlock the rest of it (let's say another 25 bucks worth of content) then I don't see the problem here.

And it's also an assumption that it'll result in increased sales, just like it's an assumption that piracy is a lost sale. For all you know everyone that heard that performance would just go home and fire up bit torrent to yoink this guy's stuff. The whole argument is pointless because both sides are just endlessly talking out of their asses about hypothetical situations.

Does the media industry in general need to change? Yep. But I'm getting kind of tired of pirates that get on their high horse as if they were protesting the god damn Vietnam war.

And it's what, 4 bucks for that sheet music? She couldn't compromise with him, scrounge up some couch change and mail it to him? It's not going to kill you all to actually pay for some of the stuff out there.

If there's one thing I've learned with Seagate, it's that they're terrible at fixing firmware issues. Their 500GB hard drives for laptops were notorious for having issues caused by crappy firmware that never got resolved by the time I trashed mine.

38.6% 27/70. Blast, I need to work on my cynicism and inflated ego. Obviously all of you were cheating.

Yeah, I remember when I was dropped into medical hold (yay for burst appendixes) during Air Force basic training. There were a couple of heavy guys there that were basically told "get in shape, or we'll keep recycling your ass." This was back around 2002, so they're still big on recycling the overweight people through basic as much as possible until they drop the weight. So on that note, I'm confused. Is there something wrong with this system? IMO that's pretty damned good motivation to get in shape and in a hurry. The Navy shouldn't be coddling these fatassed kids like this.

Yep, the city made out like a bandit and got a convenient excuse.

This also happens to be exactly why I keep my Facebook free of anyone from work. People seem to think that they need to "friend" anyone they met even briefly and then wonder why it gets them into trouble. You can't be fired for things you said on your Facebook page if your page is set to private and nobody from work can read it. It's that damned simple.

No, but at least we'll have someone closer that we can bomb. Imagine the savings on fuel!

Baldur's Gate 1 + Tales of the Sword Coast + Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal = The best summer marathon of gaming I've ever experienced. I really should do that again at some point.
It says a lot that I've played BG more than a couple of times and could only stand Mass Effect once. The depth and scope of BG absolutely annihilates Mass Effect's very very watered down RPG experience.

You're overreacting a hair with your rebuttal. Consider this: In Morrowind you could kill anyone, even if it broke the entire game. You could go do basically what ever you wanted. Hell, I didn't even touch the main quest until after many hours of just dicking around.
Oblivion is horribly closed in and simplified, a trend that has sadly taken off with RPGs. Instead of living worlds like Morrowind and Baldur's Gate, we've instead got tightly directed experiences like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. It's a shitty trend and one I'd love to see come to and end, however gamers these days tend to not go for the old style RPGs. They consider them to be too clunky and without the constant carrot on a stick style of modern gameplay, most gamers these days get horribly lost and confused.
Thank god for those crazy Russians and the progressively more and more awesome games they're putting out.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some artifacts to go scan down.