The right answer is Assassin's Creed II, and I have an Assassin's Creed tattoo, which must mean...something? Maybe? *crickets*

WHAT KIND OF CRAZY TALK IS THIS??!

That pun made me happy.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words. I'll still be around (I am not dying after all--I hope!), and I will always have plenty of opinions on video games. In case you want to keep up with whatever I am doing, here are some helpful links to the usual social media stuff:

https://twitter.com/fiddlecub

http://fiddlecub.tumblr.com/

http://www.twitch.tv/kevinvanord

https://www.youtube.com/user/fiddlecub/

https://www.facebook.com/fiddlecub

Lots of reading indeed! Pillars of Eternity has *some* voice acting, but it is inconsistently used, so you will be reading the majority of the story--and there is a lot of it, even more reading than most role-playing games, I would say, some of it required, and some of it optional. As for the learning curve, it depends on whether you have played Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, or another party-based isometric RPG of this sort. If you have, you will be moving along in no time, once you become used to the endurance system. If you haven't, it will probably take you time to get used to this particular brand of combat. When in doubt, once combat begins, pause often and consider where you should position each character, and remember that with each party member, you can queue up commands by holding the shift key when you issue them.

I wouldn't say the the combat is overly demanding, however; Pillars of Eternity, on the whole, isn't as difficult as, say, Icewind Dale. I'm willing to bet you will have a lot of fun.

@encotopic: It's difficult to cover something when there is nothing to cover. I approached the PR agency handling this game several times because I wanted to provide coverage; they were unable to even provide advance review code, so I will have to download the game when everyone else does.

You will have to approach the developer and publisher if you have any problems with the lack of coverage.

As for the console focus mentioned above, you realize that we review more PC exclusive games than any other system exclusive, as well as more PC games in total than other platforms, right?

Spellforce and Spellforce 2 look dated now, but they're pretty cool mixtures of RPG and RTS mechanics. Maybe Men of War, Majesty and Majesty 2, Warlords Battlecry 3.

As an aside, what you see as "silly" can be remarkably important. It pains me to think that people will miss out on clever, potentially awesome games in favor of "bland shooter #129." You might be willing to pass judgment on games based on looks alone, but I am thankful that so mnay game developers--and so many game players--aren't so shallow. 

It's GDC--one of the biggest and most important game industry events of the year, so yes: we actually are going to priotize our coverage of that event, and games shown at that event, over a review for a game that EA did not send to the press in advance. It has been a busy week, and we bought the game Tuesday; between GDC appointments, I still managed to find time to play this game to completion and write a review, which will go up today.

If you have any issues regarding EA's failure to send this game in advance to a single publication, you'll need to speak to them. In any case, I've been working countless hours this week so I could attend appointments, and still play and review this game. I am sorry that it wasn't enough to satisfy you. 

I see a lot of misconceptions about this game in this thread. I will say more in the full review, of course, but a few points must be made:

1. You can have up to six units, not four, and ultimately use SHIVs if you like, instead of soldiers. 

2. Soldiers have inventories. Not every class can use every weapon, but as you conduct research and buy foundry upgrades, you gain access to all sorts of weapons: plasma, laser, and so on. And of course, there are different types of armor and peripheral equipment, such as grenades, health packs, the S.C.O.P.E., and so on. You can customize your loadouts and customize your teams. You can customize the looks of your soldiers and rename them. 

3. There are various abilities to earn as you level up. including an ability to shoot after you have sprinted. (Someone above mentioned that one specifically, so I wanted to bring it up.) Abilities include things like additional boosts offered by smoke grenades, suppressive fire, the ability to fire again if you use your first move to fire, and on and on.

Most of the complaints in this thread just have no basis in reality, and all of that information is actually out there in preview coverage.

I gave it a 7 on PC because many of the issues were fixed. I gave it a 5.5 on consoles.

Edit: That was meant to be a reply to the Lost Planet 2 post. Stupid Glitchspot.