Haven't seen Qore. Saw GTTV. Let's hit the big talking points:
Lockpicking:
Do we actually know how it works other than the videos? Probably, but I've missed that info. It looks like an Oblivion clone, yeah, and if it turns out that way I'll say that's a crap decision. Still hope that time actually passes while you do it (and it definitely looks much faster-paced than Oblivion's), but the fact that it comes up in the middle of your screen in such an artificial way hints that time will stop. Who knows, though - Thief's lockpicking did that and it was RT.
Graphics / Performance
I've never understood the whine about the graphical quality. Art design, now - it looked quite stale and boring in some of the older screenshots, and it still looks a bit too clean in those 'office' areas, but it's increasingly looking like the art design of various areas will make the game fare pretty well on that front. Faces are good but they're quite wooden, though. You could also see some very obvious slow-downs on the Qore video at the middle east sections when Thorton is running around the narrow streets. We'll see.
Hype
They keep coming up with some silly stuff every few weeks to keep the complaints going (first the bag-it-all, now the nonsensical 15 year old comparisons), and its bleh. If the game turns out good it'll be forgotten, if the game turns out shit it'll be just another thing to criticise.
Dialogue
I like the timed bar actually, fits the tone of the game. You're not really expecting particular passages to give you tingly feelings in this kind of game I think - you're really trying to get a situation going in a dynamic way and get off on the decisions you make to that situation, rather than the decisions you make in the words. Okay, so I explained that really shittily, but AM AT WORK GOT TO DO THIS QUICK. Quality of dialogue - Freeman Clone dialogue looks to be one of the first in the game and rife with the "Tutorial-Speak" that we all know and hate, but hard to judge the game's dialogue based on that. We haven't really seen any GOOD lines yet, though, just decent/mediocre...
Lollerz same as ME
Haven't played ME and won't play ME, thank God, so I don't get the vibe much. Got to say it looks more fun though, because to me, ME looked like a KOTOR clone that jsut got slightly more actiony but still wanted to pretend to be a REAL RPG and you ended up with slush. In this one they're actually concentrating on making the action good and adding a lot of things you won't see in many RPGs like KOTOR - stuff like CQC, proper cover - so I'm down with that.
Random Philosophical Shit About Whether A Game is Fun Or Not And What Is An RPG And Whether Confucius Had A Horse Named Paolo
Fuck.
Gameplay
Looks damn fun. I hope the stealth is more fleshed out than, say, Oblivion's see-notsee dichotomy. CQC looks good. Guns also look pretty good, though hard to tell yet. Hoping for more concrete examples of C&C before launch. Bag-em-all not really important or significant enough to love or hate, unless it's really grating.
Can Obsid Make It
IMO all of their past offerings were good enjoyable games with some excellent bits, and consistently riddled with flaws, so... that's enough to give them a chance. No point joining the legions of dirty prophets lining the streets here.
Skyway
Lol.
