SteveThaiBinh

That's very pretty, and it has a waterfall! It's now my new desktop. (I'm a sucker for waterfalls.) Edit - Ooh, my two thousandth post!

I'd quite like to live in California for a while. I'm sure it would be quite an experience.

Poor guy. Suicide by lioness is a new one on me. I wonder what will happen to the cat, if anything.

The tragedy is, that's not a joke. It happened in past, it will happen again this time. In 1994 when England didn't qualify, it actually made the commentators mention England and 1966 more.

Gothic 2 was very pretty, and certainly had its moments. There were lots and lots of very tricky orcs to kill, at a time when I could just about beat an orc one-on-one, but they usually appeared in groups. Took a long time to get past them, but it was very satisfying. On the other hand, I can't even remember the ending, although I did get there, so that doesn't say a whole lot for the story. It's worth a look, particularly since it's probably quite cheap by now and if you really like it, Gothic 3 is coming up soon to give even more satisfaction.

Well, it's Hollywood, no big surprises there. Besides, the movie manages to be both intelligent and emotional, which I think is pretty impressive and always worth a try.

I agree that the Matt Dillon character isn't redeemed, either by pulling Thandie Newton from the car or by having a hard life or a sick father, but it does point to a chance for redemption - that there's more good in him than bad. The same goes for other characters - notably Ryan Phillippe, Sandra Bullock and Ludacris (thanks IMDB ). Absolutely. When I watched the final crash, I though about how we live (if we're lucky) to fight and crash and try again another day. The film was an amazing portrayal of how people who don't even know each other can have profound and devastating effects on each other's lives - does that make us all insignificant or all super-powerful?

Oblivion. It crashes a lot. I really need to do something about my power supply and/or ailing on-board sound. Seems fun so far, though.

Cheaper flights leads to more flights, which leads to greater environmental pollution, yet they pair up cheaper flights and environmental protection as their first two points. Of course, a lot of the achievements of Europe could have been achieved by sovereign governments, individually or in co-operation, but the point is that they weren't. The UK government could have cleaned up the beach near my old house any time it liked, but it didn't - until Europe forced it to. In many trade negotiations, the EU does indeed give Europe a single voice, and as the EU position is for the Common Agricultural Policy and trade tariffs, it hasn't benefited the UK much and has probably done great harm to developing countries. The EU has, in money terms, benefited countries like Spain, Greece and the former communist Eastern Europe more, by reinforcing democratic institutions and investing in infrastructure that allows these countries to trade and prosper. In the long run, we benefit from the stability that provides as much as anyone. I have more doubts about Europe than I used to, but on balance I'm still firmly a euro-enthusiast.

Gosh, where to start? I think it's hopeful because it shows how people can do appalling things but still have enormous capacity for good within them, how so many of the terrible things we see in the world have very little evil intent behind them, which to me offers the hope of change and making the world better by human action. It also shows how miracles can happen without the intervention of a God, just because someone did something thoughtful and the ripple effects of that spread out to help others. Do you think I'm just seeing the things I want to see rather than what's actually going on in the movie?

I agree - I saw it about a week ago, and I thought it was smart, moving and very hopeful.

I can't say I've ever noticed my blood having a recognisable smell, but my nose isn't particularly sensitive. I'd imagine that dogs and other predators would be able to smell blood, as wounded prey spells a better chance of a meal.

Atton, Kreia and Bao-Dur, I guess. I tend to like characters who've been in it with me since nearly the beginning. Kreia's very useful if set to Jedi support in combat.

SteveThaiBinh = Bath in thieves That's an odd mental image, to say the least. I think I'll be showering tonight.

Dantooine, very green and pleasant. Koriban and the big valley would come a close second though. Both were designed by Bioware, but hopefully Obsidian will have found its feet come NWN2. I think the Star Forge would have been too close to the sun to be visible from the Rakata home world.

Not enough, not nearly enough to justify buying the game, however cheap it may be. Barcelona was pretty good, and would have stood up well as a single town in many RPGs, but it can't carry a whole game. Exactly. Like the tree falling in the woods, how can you have a collector's edition that no-one collects?

Portraits are no great loss, for me at least. Your character's appearance in NWN was customisable (up to a point), but then you'd either have to accept that the portrait didn't match the appearance, or spend ages making a new portrait or searching for a suitable one on the internet. The images from NWN2 aren't all that impressive at first glance, I'll grant you, and more might be done to improve them before release, but I think NWN2 has taken broadly the right approach.

No reason for embarrassment, 'Intangiblewolf'. As the starter of the 'Animal Pictures: Feel the Cute' thread, you're pretty much out of the closet where it comes to cute kitty pics.

That was really funny, thanks.

It lets you play several different characters simultaneously without getting the saved game files all mixed up. I always found it rather useful.

Have you tried clicking the 'Switch Character' button?

Thanks for that. (My connection is just fine, but this site is blocked by the Saudi government for reasons best known to them. )

The PC's backstory was only really a factor in character creation. What you do get is Virgil's conviction that you fulfill a prophecy, , but you can always ditch Virgoo if you like. The game does have serious flaws, that's true - the worst in my view is that you gain experience based on damage inflicted by your character, so it's hard to play a diplomat or healer who lets others do the fighting. That said, it's still a really enjoyable game with good replay value, and I recommend it. Has anyone played Ultima 5 Lazarus? I heard they finished it, but is it actually enjoyable to play?

Well, the developers put a lot of effort into the combat system as a major selling point of any game, so I guess they think it's a shame if players don't use it. Plus there's probably only a tiny percentage of purchasers who would want to play a completely pacifist route, so it's a lot of work for the designers to build a non-violent workaround to every problem involving, as Volourn says, some rather stilted and unconvincing solutions at times. Better to spend that time making customisable sleeves on your armour or soil erosion or various other fancy things like that. Running is good exercise.