SteveThaiBinh

So does this not lead to people opting to endure a chronic, treatable condition rather than face (or have their families face) expensive bills later?

This is the forum of a game developer. Unsurprisingly perhaps, news about games is usually of interest and very much welcome.

Remember Giuliani vs. the NHS? He said he had better chance of surviving prostate cancer under the US system, somewhat missing the point that he had a level of health insurance unavailable to many Americans, whereas the UK's less stellar service was available to all. My understanding has always been that the US had better health services for those who could afford it, but European state-funded health systems had greater access, especially for the poor. Is that inaccurate?

How long does a single playthrough take? Aren't you supposed to go from amoeba to intergalactic civilization or somesuch?

Let's get off the subject of sex before lines are crossed and PMs start flying.

Sarah Palin's positions on gay marriage and abortion, while I disagree with them, are what you'd expect any Catholic politician (for example) to believe, and it would be disgraceful to say that you didn't think a Catholic should be Prime Minister or President. The policy that's most off-putting to me is creationism, because that's so alien and unfamiliar to British politics, I think, but there's really no reason to say it disqualifies her from office. She's shown herself willing and able to stand up to her own party while in office - that's a big plus with me. Has she shown herself able to compromise and build consensus, though? Alaska is a pretty Republican state, I gather, so maybe she hasn't needed to, but as President or Vice-President she's responsible for a country that's very divided over a lot of issues. Can she work with people on the other side of the debate? I guess it will be difficult to tell during the campaign as apparently (says BBC World News) the role of the VP in an election campaign is to be an 'attack dog'. I don't think that will be particularly edifying, but never mind.

I would probably hesitate to condemn a game that was trying to be different after only a few hours of play. I'd think it was possible that I simply hadn't got my head around what I was doing, and resolve to come back to it after a few days with a fresh approach.

Don't be snarky! We all promote things we have a particular interest in. Since I've heard Heavy Rain is to be a PS3 exclusive, I'm trying not to follow news about it as I don't see myself every being able to play it. Shame, Fahrenheit had a lot of potential.

I don't know whether weapon finesse actually works. The silver sword calls itself a 'universal sword', so you'd think it would function as whatever kind of sword you have feats for, but how that actually operates in practice...

8th September is apparently the start date for the beta. Sign up before midnight 7th.

What? That I'm prepared to put up with DRM I really don't like for games that I really want and can't get by any other method? Not everyone will make the same compromise. Plus I'm less likely to buy titles unless I'm really keen on them. So how does that not damage sales?

There's an expansion pack coming out soon(ish). I'm waiting for that, as hopefully there will be some more bug fixes and graphics improvements then.

Me too. I wish Baldur's Gate had a turn-based option. I know, however, that others have argued here that by trying to implement both realtime and turn-based, neither were particularly good. I'm not a connaisseur of combat, so I don't know these things.

I did. Several Sims expansion packs, too. Go ahead...

DRM exists because software companies believe it helps combat piracy, rightly or wrongly. I get that. I also get the feeling that some of the DRM/download restrictions on games are nothing at all to do with combating piracy. A group of execs have sat down and calculated that by imposing restriction X (maximum no. of downloads, limited re-download period etc.), Y perentage of consumers will find themselves paying a second time for the game, and this will increase profits. I'd like to see gamers as consumers start to put real pressure on the industry to regularise good practise in this area.

It depends on your own tastes, of course, but I think for a lot of people BG2 visuals beat most later games. They represent the apex of that particular generation of graphics, with gorgeous 2D locations still leaving a lot for the imagination to do. However, if Bioware had decided to stick with that generation and not move on to 3D, they would have gone bust by now. Got to move with the times, eh?

No. User Account Control is evil and was designed to stop all games from working except the very latest generic Microsoft own-brand fluff.

Jolly good. There was a furore in the UK some months back about Muslim student doctors refusing to learn about, or treat, alcohol-related illness. I imagine Mr. Bush would support this whole-heartedly? I, on the other hand, do not.

The King's Quests are fine - the Quest for Glory games have particular issues with fast computers that surfaced right after they were released and continue to give nightmares to anyone who tries to play them. I'm really hoping that someone like Good Old Games will take them on and get into the scripts to deal with all these issues.

Grrr... All the way through QfG1-5 until almost the very end, then defeated by a bug in the storeroom. It's happened before and seems to be getting worse - I'm not prepared to spend hours and hours looking for an alternative solution or uninstalling and reinstalling, and I'm not playing these games again until they're properly updated. Even DosBox isn't the cure-all for QfG3 and QfG4 that it used to be, and it doesn't apply to QfG5. *sigh* I knew there was a reason I hadn't played these in a while.

Infrequent levelling-up is fine by me - remember Baldur's Gate? Mass Effect was fun too, though. Stealth is an interesting one. Do we even know if Alpha Protocol has an XP system? Bloodlines rewarded you with character points if you completed a mission without killing anyone - rewarding the stealth route, but in one big lump at the end, not many small rewards as you're describing.

Yes, you are right. For Putin is the saviour of journalists, and would never do such a thing. Gosh, that video is so perfect, isn't it? Is it what it claims to be? What's the origin, does anyone know?

Tell me Fighter, who do you think was to blame for the killing of Anna Politkovskaya?

Have they said there are only 3 base classes in all, or only 3 available to the player?