SteveThaiBinh

Overrated: Photoshop Underrated: Paint

As Karka said, Troika's Arcanum and Bloodlines are strong in offering multiple solutions to quests, with at the very least a combat and a persuasion option. For example, getting rid of the brigands at Shrouded Hills has a combat (good) option, a persuasive (good) option, or you can do a mission for them (evil). There might be more, I can't remember. Dialogue options seem rarely to allow you to express different personalities or alignments consistently; at best you get a good and evil option. Arcanum does have a fairly good and consistent 'low intelligence' set of speech options, and Bloodlines has Malkavians. I don't think most developers have many good writers, and once again I really wish developers would start employing writers as writers, and separate the job from the computer programming role. They don't mix well. Kotor 2 doesn't allow you to change the fate of the galaxy because all storylines lead to the same outcome; that's because Obsidian wanted to put the focus on the character of the Exile, not the bigger picture. Unfortunately, the low production values of the ending interfere with the enjoyment of that. However, it does imitate Arcanum in that Kreia tells you of the impact your actions had on each planet you visited and on the lives of the people you met.

Not having a TV is wonderful. I missed the whole of this year's Big Brother. Two years ago, once the UK version of Big Brother 4 had finished, Channel 4 started showing the US version instead, eventually coming down to 'Jun' vs. 'Alison', who had managed to make themselves so utterly hated by the other participants that they could barely manage to stay in the same room. What amused me was how much people's behaviour is determined, not by their personalities, but by the rules of the game. The US version featured open scheming, alliances, and the contestants all negotiated their votes directly. In the UK, the contestants aren't allowed to discuss nominations, and the eviction vote is always a public telephone poll, so contestants can't afford to behave too nastily for fear of losing public favour. It's so easy to get sucked into watching this show, but in terms of really watching and following what's going on, once or twice was probably enough for me.

Well, yes. Spread out, and mixed in with some people appearing to use the wrong term for the patch they were talking about. Plus I was bored. It's amazing what you can find yourself doing when the alternative is actually doing some proper work.

I'm calling them 'Force Masks' because it's easier than calling them 'The Items of Headgear Which May or May Not Be Force Shielding Visors, Shielding Visors or Advanced Shielding Visors' (TIHWMMNBFSVSVASV for short). It's only short hand. Since you can't recover the items from the corpses, how can we possibly know what they really are?

There are some standard systems for writing Japanese in roman script (roma-ji). They use the letter 'k', never 'c', to represent the sound /k/ (we use 'c' or 'k' for the same sound), so I suppose they changed the English form of Corea/Korea to fit in with the Japanese language.

Video card issue? A lot of even fairly powerful video cards fail to show Force Sight properly.

I don't think even George Bush is quite that stupid. I would believe what some bloke down the pub told me before I believed US intelligence. Amerika-mura in Osaka is a happy, fun place. They have a Disney Shop. That can't be bad.

Marvin managed to live several complete lengths of the universe (admitedly he was pretty lame by the end). Well, you know how it goes. First one arm needs replacing, then a few years later the head gets replaced, then the processors go and the droid consciousness is downloaded onto new hardware, then the legs get upgraded. Of course, it's still the same old HK, except that there's no material of the original left. As for the definition of science fiction debate, most bookshops are sensible enough to have a combined sci-fi/fantasy section and avoid the whole issue.

Could well be (most likely, that is - there are probably lots of exceptions). I always play my own sex on the first playthrough of a new RPG, and the opposite sex the second. You could do a poll about it if you like.

Again and again and again and again...

Sing along (and legally, too ) The golden rays of golden sun fall on your golden hair And I brush aside the golden sheet and see you golden there And I wonder what you and I are going to do all day But I can't think of anything I want to do or say And so I'll have to do what I did yesterday And sing you Meaningless songs in very high voices With a thousand violins Meaningless songs in very high voices In a pair of tight gold jeans Meaningless songs in very high voices And "aaaaaooowww", whatever that means The world is very, very large And butter is better than marge And love is better than hate And the world is very, very big And bacon comes from a pig But it's you I really want on my plate So I'll sing you Meaningless songs in very high voices And then a little scream, "Ah!" Meaningless songs in very high voices Peaches slopped with cream Meaningless songs in very high voices Until the record ends And when it does we'll simply start again Meaningless words, meaningless words Ah, ah, ah, ah, laaahhhh Meaningless words, meaningless words Ah, ah, ah, ah, laaahhhh, aaahhhh (repeat) ..... The Heebeegeebees (not sure of all the lyrics :"> )

It makes no sense at all. I assumed the poor quality was to fit everything on the XBox disc. They can't have been short of space on the PC, because look at all the cut dialogue files that were left on.

So far the only Islamic government with nuclear weapons is Pakistan's, and I don't think it'll be working on a terrorist-friendly portable version to hand out to the extremists, as it has as much reason to fear them as we do. Terrorists are probably working on such devices, and corrupt government scientists could be co-operating with them, but the government itself is probably working hard to stop that happening. I'd guess that if Iran's government developed nuclear weapons too (not its stated aim) it would similarly not put the weapons into the hands of unstable terrorist organisations. The relationship between terrorists and the states that support them is complex, but the states are always careful to keep the balance of power in their own favour. The five 'official' nuclear powers would have more success enforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if they lived up to their own commitments by the same treaty and worked towards complete nuclear disarmament.

I would very much like to know if HK-47's inclusion in SW Galaxies was planned before the recent troubles that game has had. I don't have strong opinions for or against it, but it does smack somewhat of desperation, a need to win back fans, and quick.

No, they were originally intending to improve the quality of the music. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but there's apparently a process you can perform on the low-quality files that improve them. Better-quality music was listed as one of the project's main aims, and Markssun (I think was his name - hey, he doesn't seem to be part of the team anymore ) was going to do it. When Obsidian told us about the movie/music patch it was put on hold.

I do. I'm a fan of Amuro Namie. The New Year's Eve Pop Contest on NHK is the most fun pop event I've ever watched, even beating the Eurovision Song Contest. That's a thought: Overrated: Live8 Underrated: The Eurovision Song Contest

Perhaps a little disambiguation, Wikipedia-style, would be helpful for newcomers: The 'movies/music patch' or 'multimedia patch' is a patch which will improve the quality of the music and movies in Kotor 2. John Morgan told us about it here. Nothing has been heard for so long that there are doubts about whether it will ever come out. The 'content patch' doesn't exist - Obsidian made a proposal to LucasArts to create a patch restoring some of the content that was cut in the later stages of development. LucasArts rejected this. John Morgan told us about that here. The Sith Lords Restoration Project will be a fan mod, not an official patch. It will restore some of the cut content that was left on the CDs of the PC version. Their project is here. They've no date for release, but it's unlikely to be in the immediate future as it's a big project. There were two 'bug-fix patches' already. The first was a tiny fix for non-North American versions only, correcting a problem with the manual.pdf file. The second was a regular bug fix, and there's a link to it on Obsidian's home page. It fixes some problems, fails to fix a lot more, and creates a few new bugs as well. Nothing has been heard about any further bug-fix patches, so it's unlikely they will ever happen. The Sith Lords Restoration Project has a page with fan-created mods that address the most serious outstanding issues, particularly some broken quests and some problems in Telos Academy.

Overrated: BritPop Underrated: JPop

Wow, I guess they got their wires crossed recently. They actually condemned their communist masters in Nepal for bombing schools, and defended children's attendance at private schools. That's not in the Communist Manifesto! What were they thinking? UNICEF is not a perfect organisation. I take issue with the way it conceptualises women as mothers and little more, promoting women's education only for the benefits it brings to the children, not to the women themselves. I wouldn't say it was communist, though, and I wonder if there's anywhere it's not welcome.

I believe so.

The Common People cover really doesn't work for me. I'm listening to Z Scars - Starp tevi un mani

T1-N1 was a rebel. Not a psychopath like HK-47.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Many people have had this problem. Two solutions: 1) Download the Telos Academy Imprisonment Cutscene Fix from this page. Unzip it into the Override folder in your Kotor 2 folder (if there isn't one, just create a new folder called Override'). Then load a game from before you enter the Telos Academy and play normally. 2) Try different dialogue options when you first speak to the Handmaidens in the Telos Academy. Some of the options produce this error, but there are some that avoid it.