Meshugger

Ratio of boy bands are strangely high this year. Still, i will watch it. I hope that the irish win, since they look so damn goofy.

He also recommended heroin against cough and anxiety. But anyhoo, the killing of Bin Laden might've stirred up his believers, but this really was the death-blow. He enjoyed watching infidels practicing pre-marital sex with each other. The movement will never to recuperate from that. Or even worse, maybe he had a thing for lesbians.

I am still a bit dumbfounded after watching this. The kid must've had the balls the size of a belltower to pull that off.

Always relevant and hilarious.

I said before and i say it again. The Soviets military superiority dwindled due to one.simple.economic.reason. People can spew a wall of text of god knows what but they still have to face a simple truth: The Soviets didn't calculate the costs of logistics.

Rubbish. Nehrim's writing was leaps and boundries over Oblivion. Still, very buggy and some of the other design choices felt a bit stupid. "Avoid" it like a fly over a heap of manure.

Oh, i stand corrected then. Thanks.

Oh, and i forgot: 1) Why do have to play as a human? Why not a dwarf or elf? That was one of the good things with DA1. 2) Voiced Hawke and dialogue wheel before anyone asks: Little opinion as long as it doesn't affect the roleplaying.

Ok, time for my review (or mostly a rant). *SPOILERS, AND A LOT OF THEM* Before playing I didn't bother with the demo, but i peeked at the artwork and the general ideas that Bioware tried to convey with DA2. Since the influence was clear, the optimist in me hope for something like this Think about it, a personal story with main character trying to find his place in the world. You get to define your ethics and morals carefully over the span of several years, bonds and friendship are formed and your actions carefully determine who you are, who you wish to be and what consequences your choices will have. Intrigues, political philosophy about ruling and serving will be the norm. Is there a divine destiny for every one of us? Or do we even have a free will, or atleast some sort of control? Yes, yes, and yes. I like the sound of that. While the premise was great, the execution fell completely apart. Changes made compared to DA1 As earlier stated, the story is more character-focused that saving the world focused. Good. The design has changed as well. Some notes about this: - The color palette has been more varied, but only slightly. Brown, red and gray are still the most used colors. Yuck. - The Qunari has changed their appearance completely and they actually look much better. Good work there Bioware. - Elves now look like a bad rip-off Avatar and mashed it with some korean/japanese mmorpg. Aesthetically they look really, really ugly. As an example: When some other company seem to have a more sound idea on how they should look: - Combat is way faster and has gone trough a complete overhaul. I'll talk more about that in a separate paragraph. All in all, a lot of changes were made, but does that make it better game than its predecessor? Lets find out, shall we? The Combat I will not go into the details about the mechanics since that is not my area of expertise, but i will tell you this. Why the hell can't warriors dual wield, or mages for that matter? For the naked eye, it seems like for a completely arbitrary reason no other than to piss players off. The only motivation that i can come up with on top of my head is that combat would be too imbalanced. But guess what, that is your problem Bioware and not the player's. If the gameplay doesn't take to account that some people like to dual wield no matter class they choose then you do not simply just remove that ability. There are demons in the game that can summon hundreds of minions, take control of NPCs and turn a whole neighborhoods into a wall of flames. And oh, there also a woman who can turn into a dragon. But you can not dual wield, nope. For some, this might be nitpicking, but all i want is some consistency. Is that too much to ask? The combat itself is faster, which would make sense if you're a rogue. The animations are also better aesthetically, but they fall apart when you are playing as warrior. Because when you see NPCs use two-handed swords like they defy any form of gravity it simply looks silly, and the fights loses some of their credibility when melee weapons are used without any sense of weight in them. This wouldn't have mattered as much if the enemy encounters were often pretty much stupid. Enemies sometimes, and that's already too often, literally drop out of the sky. And often there are artificially placed blocks in the way that makes sure that you fights enemies in just that particular spot. This constricts the player, again. It is simply not fun to play when you have no use of your environment. Locations I wouldn't normally reserve a separate paragraph for this, but it has to be mentioned this time. Why? Because you are stuck to one single town and its surroundings, which often happen to be barren. The levels do not look the same, they are the same. Sometimes you can walk through a particular door and sometimes it is locked with no option to open it. At other times, a big rock blocks the way for a passage. It is a lazy and infuriating design. DO.NOT.DO.THIS.****.AGAIN. Kirkwall in itself has some good things though, like the design of the gallows. However, there is little art and architecture that would give some sense of a place with its own culture. Better than Denerim, but still lacking. Do people in Thedas hate music and poetry that much that it is non-existant? I also understand why people say that it feels more like DA1: The Addon. Too little locations, too little places to go. Partymembers and other NPCs While some of them simply look silly, they do have their own lives and agendas. They even have their own places where they stay throughout the game, which was a great improvement. I also found that the complaints about male party members hitting on you being overplayed. If you show no romantic interest, then neither will they. A quick roundup left the following impressions: - Anders was loopy at best and completely bonkers at worst. While incredibly stupid, he was atleast consistent. And i also like that you question his bull**** without going "shepard collargrab" on him. Also, letting the player be able to kill him was a nice addition. - Merril was incredibly annoying and even Anders thought of her as a lost cause. The only reason that i helped her to rebuilt the mirror was a hope that she would've learned her lesson. She didn't. I think that i ended up with 90% rivalry with her in the end. - Fenris looked too goofy to even be taken seriously in the beginning. But he was surprisingly well written and much less broody than i originally though. No problems there. - Varric was my favourite. Constantly harassing moody and broody and pretty much everyone else. Very level-headed. Easily my favorite. - Sebastian was included from the package for me but was otherwise a DLC and it showed. A goody-two-shoes and nothing really interesting to add. It felt like he was included as an afterthought since you were never able to visit Starkhaven. - Isabella had probably the most stupid outfit. So out of place and the body-proportions looked like a parody of the women in The Witcher. Almost like she had a "THIS IS A LOVE INTEREST"-sticker on her forehead. The character itself was pretty ok and it seemed like she actually developed mentally through her time in Kirkwall. - Aveline was pretty good as well. Predictable, but consistent. No bull****. Like Varric, she seemed to have her feet at the ground at all times. It was actually quite cute to help her to find a new boyfriend. - Bethany was ok. It is pretty difficult to write in family for the main character in a RPG and sadly Bioware didn't succeed there. She simply knew too much that the player could not possibly know and that hindered conversations greatly. - An interesting note though: All the characters in the game that you could romance were Bi-sexuals. The only heterosexuals where where nono-zone. Quite odd if you think about it. - Another thing. Why couldn't we change clothes on party characters? They simply had the same crap on all those years? yuck. Story It started interesting with a great premise, but fell great in the execution. DA1 was a typical hero-adventure, save the world and all that, but this time it was more about one character surviving and become stronger because of it. The problem was that he or she still had to be the champion of Kirkwall, you could never let the damn place burn to the ground. The second one was that it was forced tragedy on hawke's family. Your mother will die, and either your sister or brother will also die, become a grey warden or taken to the circle/templars. You will lose you family no matter what you do. So much for C&C, *sigh*. Third, if the game is about the character, then why remove skills from dialogue with other characters? If you define your character by being nice, witty or aggressive you will lack the most important part of a character driven story: dept. No matter how you spin it around choices, they are still superficial if you spend 7-8 years in one town by being either nice, witty or aggressive. Where was the talks and situations that challenged different philosophies, different ethics and ideas? They were simply far and few between and mostly they were about saving or not saving some mage or two. Meh, talk about wasted opportunity. Lets now break down the story into parts: Part 1: Get rich or die trying. That was pretty much it. Didn't motivate me the slightest except for i hoped that something more happened down the line. Also, suddenly Hawke knows people that the player has never met. What is the point of showing the player that Hawke has a lot of friends if the experience is taken away from the player? Weak, weak design. Part 2: Qunari vs the Chantry. NOW we're talking, freedom vs destiny, ruler vs servant. YES.........Oh crap, you still have to fight the Qunari no matter what. Another wasted opportunity. Part 3: Mages vs Templars. YES, same things again. Maybe now things will open up. Finally.....no wait, Anders blows up the Chantry tower no matter what? You can not stop him no matter what you do? You have to choose sides? You cannot tell both factions to go **** themselves silly? Gnnnn, well atleast i get to choose which endboss that i fight, right? No, you still have to fight them both. You have the choice though to pick which order though, yay. That's the main problem with DA2 in almost in every way. So many ideas and opportunities but failing in execution. RPG, C&C It is strongly tied to what i said in the story paragraph, but it still deserves one of its own. You have several choices to make, but the outcome has little of impact of Hawke. He or she is still the champion of Kirkwall no matter what you do, which goes against the premise of a personal story. Your family is still stricken by tragedy. Add all other complaints from before into the mix and it just feels pointless. And if the consequences feel pointless, then why bother try to play it again? Infuriating game, if anything. Last words The game ends like KotOR 2, but without Hawke non the wiser. Talk about double letdown. Some characters were well written and showed some dept...and that's about it. I will not rate it in numbers, but instead in terms of actual worth in monetary units. About 4,95. Thank you for your time.

What a long and interesting life. Think about this, by the time Beatles got big, he had already been in retirement for 7 years.

EMP bombs?

Suckers

Pssst, post #6. Oops.

I am still confused here. Was he armed or not? Who exactly died besides of him at the compound? Who were at the compound to begin with at the time of the strike? Will the video or pictures ever be released?

Snatched from the 'Codex:

SEALs have some sort of team hierarchy? I thought the novelty of their structure was that didn't have one. E.g. for one mission this guy was doing communication, for the other he would lead a group of 3. Anyways, i usually do not celebrate an act to kill to i got hand it to them for completing their mission without casualties on their side. + their kids will win every "my dad can beat up your dad"-argument, forever.

The death of Osama according to the taiwanese information bureau

I do admit that i have a sense of relief that the guy is gone but at the same time i am little bit upset that they didn't get him alive. The trial would've been incredible a sight. Ah well....

"A U.S. official told CNN that bin Laden was buried at sea. The official said his body was handled in the Islamic tradition, but did not elaborate." Source. Goddammit, you incompetent cretins. Now you have given the tinfoil-hats material for the next 30-40 years or so.

^Wuh? Blood feud? Over what? Blood pudding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTUq8r-RGdM Judging by the reactions, i guess that the war on terrorism is over and we're entering another "peace in our times"

+1 One of the best movies of 2010.

I have voted so far in: - 2 presidential elections - 4 parliamentary and communal elections - 2 European parliament elections So far, none of those that i have voted for has gotten into office, and i am neither a libertanian, ultra-nationanlist, tree-hugging green or an angry social democrat. I can't help thinking that maybe In short, horrible politicians get into office because people in general are horrible.

Bad weather. I stayed at home.

3 and 5 might as well be the same thing considering dictators with unchallenged power hate the idea of being sent to a home where there they have no power at all.