SteveThaiBinh

Pictures, anyone?

Good to hear. I suppose I'm mostly interested because the setting is a bit different, and I quite like Greek mythology, but does the game have much to offer someone who doesn't really like fighting/action/combos and all that?

Well, that appears not to have happened. Buffy is iconic and needs no defence.

I really hope this thread can remain open and be a place where conspiracies are discussed in an intelligent and respectful manner. If this doesn't happen, we will of course close it.

So if the rumours are true, we're going to get double helpings of Baldur's Gate 3 - a full game developed by whoever, plus this mod based on the original design. How brilliant is this?

Nothing, as far as I can understand from the article, so I'm changing the title of the thread. Llyranor, if I've misunderstood, please feel free to get in touch.

I thought that had been delayed.

I watched Aladdin today on an Arabic satellite movie channel (English sound, Arabic subtitles). They edited out all the scenes where Princess Jasmine was sassy and talked back to her father or Aladdin (her future husband). It was a hoot!

They're all fembots. You just don't find out until the sequel. I don't like having it all capital letters. It's not easy on the eye, and if we're supposed to be reading at speed in order to choose a 'stance' and generate a fluent conversation, it will get annoying, I think. Maybe it's customisable, he added hopefully?

Nothing. My desktop keeps crashing and I don't know why, though that amount of dust can't really be helping. I think I'll have it serviced.

Off the top of my head: 1. The Doctor (don't ask me which version - that's a whole other list) 2. Blackadder (same) 3. Rab C. Nesbitt 4. Sarah Jane Smith 5. Francis Urquhart 6. Buffy

Did you get the (massive) patch? I know SoZ broke the voices for MotB, but I didn't realise there were other issues. I'm a few hours into the game, and loving it so far. No bugs yet, and the death system and random encounters do feel a bit like Baldur's Gate (that's a good thing).

I'm getting the same message. Perhaps they've taken it off-line to make some changes, or it mights just be a standard internet glitch.

I had mixed opinions about the mini-game in Fahrenheit. It was the first time I had ever encountered 'button-mashing' (which I guess says a lot about the kinds of games I usually play) and I thought it was an interesting attempt to vary gameplay. On the other hand, it was a shame that you couldn't sit back and enjoy the scenes properly because you had to focus your attention on the little coloured symbols.

I guess there's a perception that the United States market is very intolerant of subtitles in the cinema, as indeed are the British. I don't know if that necessarily applies to games, though, but perhaps the industry assumes it would. What do our US forumites think of that? On the other hand, many Japanese dislike going to see English movies dubbed, or at least most I know do, and prefer subtitles. So ideally, local tastes would also be considered before making a decision over which language to use and whether and how to 'localise'. There's a lot of discussion of 'immersion' in video games. Nothing destroys immersion for me like hearing a fake accent (unless it's supposed to fake as part of the story), and I can usually hear them in languages that I speak, even just a little. There was a character (the Abbe) in Gabriel Knight 3 who spoke in such an appalling French accent I can't bear to hear it when I replay the game. On the other hand, reading online I discovered that many of the German accents in Gabriel Knight 2 were equally bad, I just didn't notice, because I don't speak German and have never lived in Germany. I can only hope the Saudi Arabic accents in Alpha Protocol are okay. I'd like to see fictional languages more in sci-fi and fantasy settings, but it has to be done better than Bioware's KotOR, with just the four or so recordings per language. That was painful.

I don't really see the problem with dialog and dialogue. It's unlikely to cause confusion or misunderstanding (as 'there' and 'their' would). It doesn't have the problems of appropriacy of style that 'thru' has. Perhaps Josh, working in the computer industry, you are more troubled than others by the inappropriacy of register - 'dialog' belongs to the world of computer language, your own professional world, and you don't like to see it used, or misused, by 'outsiders'. I suppose I would still see 'dialog' (for conversation) as an error, but I can also see the attractiveness to non-native speakers of the simplified spelling (though it would be a shame to lose the similarity with 'monologue', unless we're going to have 'monolog' as well). Perhaps it will become a standard alternative spelling in International English. Rouge for rogue is objectionable because we don't need any more homographs, thank you very much. Plus it's difficult to see rouge supporting the correct pronunciation.

I started playing A Vampyre Story and I thought exactly the same thing. I wondered if perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood, so I put it aside to play in a few weeks, but if you're having the same experience, maybe the humour is indeed faulty. Yes, and you get to phone Nancy a few times in the game. I didn't have to look her up on Wikipedia, because I'd heard of (though not seen) the movie.

The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft. Not a bad adventure game, actually, with some decent voice acting. I'd never heard of the Hardy Boys, but Wikipedia informs me they're quite a big thing in the US. Don't forget to mention all the irony.

Bizarre new atlas comes to the Great Land of the Tattooed An atlas with all the names changed to reflect their literal meanings - a very nice idea! Here you can see the Northland of the Home Ruler: And here is the Great Land of the Tattooed:

It'd be nice to have a relatively bug-free game at launch, and I think it would be good for Obsidian's image, too. I guess they're working as hard as they can. On the other hand, I wouldn't want them to be less ambitious in terms of what the game will do.

Out of curiosity, what are your laptop's specs? I'm also without a proper gaming PC at the moment, and avoided NWN2 because my laptop would probably cry itself to sleep if I tried it. Intel T5750 Core 2 Duo Mobile (2.00 GHz) 2GB RAM Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS 256MB Graphics It wasn't bad until the rain came on - I suppose there might be a way to turn weather off, but I'd rather just wait. I read somewhere (either during installation or the opening sequence) that deities, alignment, skills - everything in fact - had an impact. It sounded unlikely given the sheer number of different gods they'd need to cover. So basically, not much impact then.

I tried to play it on my humble laptop (which had just about managed NWN2), but the rain in the opening scene defeated it. I guess I can wait until next week when I get my computer back. Creating a party was fun, though, and now I'm having lots of ideas for what I'll do. Just a quick question (please answer in spoiler tags) - does the game really respond to the choice of gods for your party - I mean, do your party members get speech options and other effects based on their choice of deity?

Congratulations. University is great fun. I did two 90-minute exams today. I had to travel three hours to get to the examining centre (and three hours back), but I think they went okay.

I'm not interested in discussing with you if you're going to take that tone.

I haven't read the thread for a while, so forgive me if you've answered this already, but how exactly will the operation of the free market lead to reduced health care costs? Please lead me through the process. And again, how will the operation of the free market enable people such as your wife to get health insurance, or will she get health care without insurance?