[quote name='Gamelore']I'm also undecided between PC and PS3. This is like the 5th time this happened, and I usually end up buying PS3, only due to higher resale value.
My rule of thumb for these PC games, "If it launches with a console version, that's how it's intended to be played."[/QUOTE]
Here are some impressions from someone on a forum I frequent who had an opportunity to play/see in action the PC and 360 versions at GenCon:
Impressions:
As I mentioned in my quick blurb earlier, this game screams "Baldurs' Gate" to me, at least in its PC incarnation (see Xbox comments below). When zoomed out, it is extremely similar to the BG games. Circle indicators around all party members an enemies, quickbar icons for spells, pause and give orders, etc. I tried to capture some of this in my gameplay videos today, but unfortunately I'm at the mercy of other players to provide me good footage. I'll try to capture more of this tomorrow. The mouse wheel can zoom into a 3rd person action view that is MMOish in feel, and you can transition between the two easily.
The various UI screens are all very clean and user friendly. I intend on spending some quality time with the inventory screen in particular tomorrow, to see if Bioware has learned their lessons from Mass Effect. When making a character (limited selection in this demo) you can pick starting spells, and spells get better based on experience (various ranks, or you could spend choose to take new powers). You can customize the AI behavior with presets or setup conditional rules. (ie- specify that when health reaches 25%, use this spell).
Performance on the machines they had there (Core 2 duo, unknown speed, 8800GT) was great and running flawlessly at 1920x1080.
Xbox version:
I didn't play this yet, but watched some of it being played. There is NO zoomed out mode on the Xbox, and you have to play it in 3rd person action view. A Bioware developer informed me that this was removed from the game for performance reasons and because it was hard to control on a controller. You are limited to 6 preset quickslot items (3 shown at a time, right bumper acts as a "shift"), but you can change these on the fly. You can also assign skills to different "layouts" that can be toggled (for example using a different weapon.) Performance on the Xbox version was decent, but paled in comparison to the PC version 6 feet away. What struck me when viewing the two games is how different they feel. They managed to make the same game appear very tactical and deliberate (BG feel) on the PC and very action focused (MMO feel) on the Xbox. I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing considering the different audiences of the platforms, but past PC enthusiasts who have adopted an Xbox only position may find this concerning. Still, you are able to pause and give orders, so you are not stuck playing it only as an action game.
Level editor:
I got a 5 minute level editor demo that allowed me to barrage questions. I'm not sure how much of this is already known, as I haven't been following the editor development at all. In random order:
- 3d models can't be imported into the game (as of yet, but maybe!) but you can bring in your own textures.
- Terrain modeling looks very rich and allows complete customization of position/rotation in 3d space.
- Scripting is handled in a C based language that appears to be quite powerful, allowing event delegates and some amount of OO coding.
Other random facts:
- After the "Origin" portion of the game (unique for each class), the game converges into the main area that is nonlinear. I specifically asked how this compared to BG2's Amn nonlinearity, and was told it would be similar. That is, there is a main quest line that is fairly linear with a great amount of sidequests branching off.
- Ship date for the game is 11/3, with PS3 version "about 2 weeks later". PC version is completely done already. Xbox version being tweaked.
Based on his impressions, the PC version is much more appealing to me, so I pre-ordered the CE from Amazon.
order, but if the Mass Effect bonus is same system I may have to go with 
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