SteveThaiBinh

That seems unnecessarily violent. Gagging him would be enough.

I voted Juhani. I like her character and story, an interesting contrast with Revan - someone who chose to come back to the light side, rather than having it implanted by the Jedi Council. It was a surprise to find her on the beach in VtM:B, though.

Every time I read this thread, someone gives an example of a dreadful song, and immediately it comes floating through my head. Now I have the Spice Girls in there. It's one of those 'Think of something else! Think of something else!' moments, before it can establish a foothold.

Let's hope so. I get some graphics problems with the picture becoming corrupted after a couple of hours play, so I took a look at the civfanatics tech support forum. After seeing all the nightmare problems people are having, with invisible units, no fog of war and system restarts, I decided I was one of the lucky ones. This game got rave reviews. Will the reviews that come out a month after release be so positive, if there are so many problems? Sounds familiar...

I agree that it probably can't be stopped, unless or until attitudes in wider society change. But it can at least be contained, so it doesn't start leaking back into other arenas of public life. I don't play on-line games, so it doesn't affect me, but reading about this makes me much less likely ever to give them a try.

It's not new at all, but it's very important that adults and non-racists make it clear that they object to this kind of language, otherwise it will increase still further. Racist abuse used to be acceptable behaviour in public, in school and in the workplace. Now it's not, and it's taken a lot of effort to get us to this state of affairs. There is still abuse, but usually the system forces it undercover. Unless we keep beating it down, it will get up and start spreading again.

Yet it (the ability to reach absurdly high levels) was apparently a thing that, after Kotor 1, gamers demanded. I preferred the Kotor 1 approach, with a maximum level that you reach on, or in the run up to, the Star Forge. It made the game seem complete, and calmed worries that you might not be up to the final challenge. I may be in the minority over this, though.

Apart from the whole 'turn evil and wipe out half the galaxy' thing? Revan (reformed) was wrong to leave his friends. There's no way he would have survived the quest for the Star Maps and Star Forge without his companions, so why would he be able to survive against the True Sith? Plus, it's out of character. Revan, even good Revan, was supposed to be a great general, and a general doesn't balk at taking (sending, really) comrades into danger if it's necessary for the mission.

I played the beta version of Ultima Online before the retail version came out. I played for about five minutes and then it crashed. That is my total experience of MMORPGs. I doubt they've changed much. Every designer working on an MMORPG is a designer who could, and should, be working on Kotor 3.

Tim Spicer, eh? I remember him, and Sandline. Why are mercenaries even being employed in Iraq? Not enough regular soldiers to do the job, perhaps? By being there, by having people like this there doing things like this, the coalition is making the situation worse, and the longer they stay, the worse it will get. That said, I'm no expert on videos like this. I've watched the video three times and I can't see anything that suggests it's faked, or not what it appears to be. Anyone else? I wondered about this. In the first sequence, you notice that the following car begins in a group of other cars which pull over and stop when the shooting starts. There's not a huge reaction from the other side of the road, but then I thought the drivers may simply have decided that stopping is the worst thing to do - better to keep driving, as their original course takes them away from the shooting.

I liked the dialogue of Kotor 2, but it suffered in parts from the same problem as TV sci-fi/fantasy shows - too much exposition, too much moving the (overcomplicated?) plot along, and not enough consistent differentiation between how characters speak. The ideas expressed in the dialogue were interesting and far beyond what you'd get in most games, but there were flaws, too.

Stepping gingerly away, avoiding sudden movements, from the subject of Israel's biblical borders and Bush's alledged Christian fundamentalism... Every news organisation is biased, I agree, but the BBC is less biased than most. And though the Hutton Report did expose some failings in how the BBC checked its stories, the actual content of the controversial report was largely vindicated by the later Butler Inquiry. So Clinton had their embassy bombed? Come on. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, it's their own fault. The US military went on and on in the first Gulf War about how accurate their targetting systems are, minimising the risk of civilian casualties and so on, that now every time they hit something 'by accident' it's assumed it was done on purpose. And would it really be that surprising if it were not an accident?

Malak, one of nature's henchmen, rose to become Sith Lord, thus proving that the Sith philosophy of 'the apprentice replaces the master' isn't practical.

I'm glad I haven't seen it. They're showing adverts for the DVD on the television at the moment, and these include images of the Martians which they were careful never to show in the publicity for the cinema release. They needn't have bothered - they don't look all that impressive to me. I don't see anything in the near future that will drag me to the cinema. Plus Christmas TV isn't what it used to be.

I also vote Kreia. I just wish the writers had been a bit more subtle in how they played it. She admitted all the details too easily, and she came across as too evil when a more genuinely neutral/ambiguous portrayal would have had greater effect.

It does, but I think most religions would regard it as heresy. Though you may show respect for the body, the soul is definitely gone. If you believe in the soul, that is.

When did that ever stop anyone? I doubt there's a last relationship there, but the very fact that the relationship is so unlikely would probably increase their mutual attraction. I can definitely picture them together, and I can picture all their friends telling them there's no chance of it working. Been there, done that.

Some of the more conflict-driven relationships were potentially interesting and could have been expanded upon. In particular, Carth/Jolee was a good opening conversation that might have gone further, and I wanted to see some real tension between Handmaiden and Visas if I took them out together.

I use flurry, too, but I don't usually use it until I get master level. Before that (mostly on Peragus) a lot of the special attacks don't work for my characters - attacks tend to fail or I get hit a lot. So for the first part of the game I go with regular attacks only. Sometimes I kill the Jedi masters easily, sometimes they kill me easily. It's hard to see any pattern there, as the game is supposed to spawn them to suit your character's level. Maybe I put too many points in non-combat areas in the beginning. But yes, with Vrook in particular, I often have to use regular attacks, plus all the shields and boosters I have.

Obviously someone tried to give it a karate kick. I blame interactive exhibits at museums. I watched Bruce Lee films all night once with a crowd of drunk Japanese students, before I could speak the language. I can testify to his ability to bring people of different cultures together in mutual semicomprehension and beer.

And you are nearly finished two years of college, or not in college yet, or what?

You should take some pornographic magazines and sixth-grade essays, in case you get withdrawal symptoms. Have fun, and wear gloves. Those fruit get sprayed with all kinds of nasty chemicals.

It's odd to think that one might form some emotional attachment to what is essentially a corpse in another form, however each to his or her own, I suppose.

I watched Grosse Point Blank on TV last night. I love that movie - funny, smart and great soundtrack. Plus anything with Minnie Driver gets my vote.

I'm listening to BBC World Service right now, and there was a report of a different company offering the same service (product?) in Mexico. Apparently, they think it will sell well because of the big cult of the dead there. Alas, it takes 12 weeks, plus it must be hell to get it through customs.