GreasyDogMeat

I loved Anachronox. Along with Chrono Trigger, it was the only Japenese style RPG that really hooked my interest with great areas, music, fun characters and stories that didn't take themselves seriously. I found myself actually lol multiple times during cutscenes and the characters were all so unique and enjoyable. My only complaint was the 'to be continued' ending that, obviously, wont be continued. Another thing both games did was to pull a few attempts at tear jerkers, which actually succeeded in a few ways because they break up the humor of the stories and situations, but at the same time didn't take it too far. Planescape Torment stands out as the best example of great writing in a CRPG. It is really hard to pick the best examples in PS:T. It was one of the only CRPGs that was able to carry itself in many spots with writing alone. That says a lot. The worst example of writing for me was Temple of Elemental Evil. The dialogue was bad, but what made it truely awful was the voice acting. It literally sounded like Troika had gone out on the streets and said: "Hey! You! You wanna make 30 bucks? Come in here and read these lines!". I know ToEE was a remake of an old module, I LOVE remakes of old modules, but you don't have to leave the dialogue as bad as it was and not updating the writing.

I'm working on a module myself, and I can say the things that keep my progress slow are: 1: This is the first time I've worked in a toolset/editor EVER. 2: I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I keep going back and doing little touches on areas, I've restarted areas completly and while working on my module I have a habit of starting the game up to check every little change I make in the game.

Did you add the fix to a current game, or did you add the fix before starting a new game? I think if you add it then load a game you are currently playing it wont fix the problem. I can confirm that the fix did in fact fix the problem for me, but I added the fix before starting a new game. Unfortunatly I think your options are either to just finish the game you are playing with the quest broken, or start a new game, unless someone else can shine more light on the situation...?

Shaky Cam has been way overused since Saving Private Ryan. There are times when it works well, most of the time it is just annoying and kills an action scene. Just saw Hot Fuzz. Has a great and hilarious twist and some very funny moments. Unfortunatly the action scenes were kind of disapointing due to bad editing.

No... Yuusha. He uses the atom bombs as his... 'mascot' for why he hates the U.S. government. I have nothing against people who feel the bombings were wrong and that they shouldn't have occurred, I actually enjoy discussing history, the whys and what ifs. To use WWII as a reason to hate current America and to obsess over the bombings just to enhance negative feelings bothers me though. In a way he acts like this just happened yesterday.

I honestly have come to believe that you don't give a damn about what happened to the Japanese victims of the nuclear bombs. All they are is ugly pictures and statistics to feed your own anger and hatred towards the U.S. You remind me of those lawyers who represent a burglar who breaks into a store, injures himself in the process and then sues the store owner. As for 'powerful' images... I'm not into images that show how much humanity sucks... especially not in this case when the sole purpose (of the OP) is to show how much the U.S. supposedly sucks. The 'most powerful' images to me are images that show human imagination at work, scientific advancement... things like, as a previous poster mentioned, images from the hubble telescope.

It seems almost as if this is the first time you have seen these images Yuusha. It IS sad, it is awful, but there comes a time to move on and discuss the event from other angles. I hope this isn't some yearly morbid ritual where you sit down and stare at disturbing images of past tragedies on their anniversaries... because all that does is harden your heart and place hate in it. As Xard said, most of us have already seen the images, studied the event, mourned it and moved on. It IS always important to better understand history... to go back and look closely at the whys and hows. If this is your first time seeing the images, then I'm sorry for what you must be feeling, but there comes a time where you either need to discuss it and gain some perspective of why it happened and how to prevent it in the future, or a time to move on and not dwell on images like this. You made it clear in a previous thread that you viewed the atom bombs as a terrorist incident worse than any current muslim extremist attack. The thing is, to then create a forum displaying horrible images of this event, that comes across as an attempt to breed hate and anger. This is why I don't yearly, on 9-11, sit down and view images of body parts and people jumping out of the twin towers to escape the blaze or images of the holocaust.

I'd like to clarify my above outburst a bit... as I came off as "OMG someone criticizing the US bomb droppings! RAAAGH! LIES BOMB DROPPINGS GOOD!". Yuusha has stated in numerous threads that he isn't a fan of the US government... really, who is these days? That's not my problem. My problem is that he has done everything but come out and say that he considers the atomic bombs the worst terrorist attack in the history of human existance... he considers muslim extremist who cut heads off of people on TV, fly planes into buildings and bomb civilians to come nowhere near the atomic bombs and the US gov that authorized them. When I saw this thread... it was just another of his 'LOOK HOW AWFUL AMERICA IS... WORST TERRORISTS IN THE WORLD' threads. If anyone else had posted this thread, I would not have reacted like I did... but when it comes from such a skewed perception... one unwilling to even admit or discuss other attrocities in the world... it is angering. The atomic bombs of WWII were a horrific event, but an event that, with 100% certainty, saved the American, British and Russian lives that would have been required to take Japan in a ground war. I'd like to think that maybe the situation could have been handled differently. Maybe if the US had launched a missile into the ocean to show what he had... but I honestly don't think that would have worked either. The Japanese government waited six entire days after the second bomb hit to finally surrender. If you actually understand the culture and propaganda of Japan during WWII, you would understand what surrender meant to them at the time, how the civilian population viewed America, and how truly brutal a ground war would have been. Frankly, I truly believe actual civilian casualties would have soared above 180,000 if a ground and aerial war were fought on Japanese soil. Look at the Okinawa suicide cliff, where women leaped to their deaths rather than surrender to American soldiers. They truly believed that soldiers would brutalize them and their children. Statistics of battles fought in the pacific show an extremly low rate of surrender on the Japanese side... it was dishonorable, hence their barbaric treatment of prisoners. People who surrendered were nothing but animals. While there is plenty of disapointment and anger that the atomic bombs were dropped, I would honestly like to know how people would have handled it differently if they were in charge at the time. What would you have done? Packed your bags and gone home? Invaded Japan with a land/aerial war after 30,000 US soldiers lost their lives taking Iwo Jima? What do you think casualties would have been like on the homeland of Japan? I think these are interesting questions, and I honestly ask them without malice. What would YOU have done? As I stated above, I would have preferred to have dropped a 'show off' bomb, to show them what we had at the time. Hindsite is 20/20 though, and looking at Japanese mentality at the time... I don't know if it would have worked. The celebrations in America after the bomb droppings were not "Yay! Japanese died in horrible firey death!", the celebrations were... "Thank god this miserable war is OVER! Our sons and daughters can come home!". For Yuusha, in a previous thread to compare this event as worse than 911, when Al Qaida celebrated people burning, dying and falling is, imho dispicable. This begs another question... do you believe that the atomic bomb droppings during WWII was equal, or worse to current terrorism and that people like me who do find the bombs horrible, but a necessary evil of WWII to end it to be no different than an Alqaida terrorist? Please... explain.

Saw the recent Rage trailer at www.gametrailers.com. I think the game looks amazing and the whole FPS, racing and adventure aspect has me very interested. The one thing I think id needs to work on most though, is AI. I'm really hoping enemies jump over things, hide etc instead of just charging up to smack you.

If you are into images of horror at its worst then I'm sure you've heard of Google. I've seen enough images of the holocaust and abused POW and I'm not going to make myself anymore depressed looking them up for your bloodlust. Yuusha has his own agenda and slanted view of the world... he is willing to show things for shock value, and aims it in one direction, but he is unwilling to truly think of the event or why it occurred. By all means... discuss... I'm simply disgusted by his tactics and had a little outburst.

I wonder if Yuusha ever feels 'sad' for victims of Japanese POW camps. One of my personal favorite events was hearing a first hand account of a POW, either American or Australian, who was going to the bathroom over an outhouse hole. For the 'fun' of it an officer decided to stab him with a bayonet and force him down into the outhouse where he was heard crying by the other POWs for sometime after. Then of course, the Holocaust and all of it's horrors. How many times would you have to multiply the admittadly awful body count of the two nuclear blasts to get, what was it again... 5 million holocaust deaths? I wonder if Yuusha will feel 'sad' on a Holocaust remembrance day. Then again, maybe Yuusha doesn't even believe the holocaust happened. What's the difference between these horrible events? One of them was motivated to save the lives of the 10s, maybe many many times more, thousands of lives it would have taken to invade the mainland of Japan. Not only American lives, but British and Russian lives. 50%... FIFTY PERCENT of the 60+ million lives lost during WWII were CIVILIANS LOST IN BOMBINGS AND GROUND WAR. Did the allies stop bombing Germany? Did Germany stop bombing London? The difference between these bombings? As horrendous as it was... the final bombs got RESULTS. They ended the bloodiest war in history. Those 5 Million Jews... bah, it was probably a lie anyway!. Over 3,500 allied POWs dead, many from starvation and abuse, so what, a bunch of swine westerners... No... the TRUE Atrocity was the atomic bomb, the 180,000 lives lost and damn it all... the end of the war. I'd love to post all the horror images of the holocaust and the POW camps... but I'll refrain because they bring up old hatreds. I'm sure that wasn't Yuusha's intention though... 'look at what those horrible Americans did!' Knee jerk reactions with no thought of the gravity and weight of the decisions and times... just images of the horror of battle to provoke anger and modern hatreds. I don't hate the Germans, I don't hate the Japanese, why should I hate the United States for the nuclear bombs. We sit here and debate the bomb... but can you debate the mistreatment of POWs? Can you debate the Holocaust? I'd love to hear your defense... because you sure the hell couldn't use the 'It saved lives!' argument. Then again... maybe Yuusha could.

"Would you please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply." Bratta bratta bang bratta boom! "Thank you... for not smoking."

I don't know how many times I have to say it... the bombs of WWII were dropped to avert a larger and very likely more horrific ground war. Please give me an alternative... without some knee-jerk "THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE DROPPED THE BOMB". Please... let us hear what you would have done to end the Pacific Theater. To compare the U.S. government with murderous terrorist who chop heads off innocent people on TV, brutalize their own if they don't follow their twisted religious doctrine to a T, directly target women and children, hide behind innocents and fire missiles from these locations, bomb historic land marks, and act as some of most racist people on the planet, directly targetting and murdering Christians and killing their own women if they date outside of their race . You really do fit your own insult of ignorance.

I'm trying not to sound rude, but he keeps making statements that my views are 'limited', asking to discuss US foreign policy, which I really don't see as relevant to the OP's article. Unless of course he is blaming us for their extremist views, attempting to justify their actions, or trying to make them look small fry in comparison to supposed US attrocities. The thing is, whether it is Christian extremist terrorists bombing abortion clinics, or Muslim extremist terrorizing Israeli food courts, or KKK members burning crosses on lawns, it is all terrorism and equally abhorrent. He claims to understand this, but sure doesn't have much to say about it. I frankly find his lists a little disturbing. The US not wanting Vietnam to have a seat in the UN in 1976, a year after the end of the war. Gee! America upset with Vietnam after the Vietnam war... That also really compares with terrorism and is something important and worthy of mention. While I can also understand that he might be upset about the US not condemning certain civilian shootings, we aren't getting all of the facts. Remember that many of these extremist terrorist organizations love twisting the truth and hiding behind civilians. Fire missiles at Israel from a populated civilian area, then call foul when Israel retaliates and civilians are killed as they hide behind them. Whether it is in the Kuran, or they have twisted words, they believe anyone not of their faith, and many with slightly different interpretations are nothing but dogs and that they can lie, cheat, do or say anything to discredit their enemy. I'm not completly surprised at all of the extremist beliefs, we are talking about many areas that feature cartoons with kids blowing themselves up as they shout 'Allah Akbar!'. While I am not Christian, if there is a discussion of Christian rooted terrorism with friends or family, abortion clinic bombings, KKK, etc. there is rage and disgust. The thing that frightens me about far too many Muslims, is that if Muslim extremism comes up the conversation somehow shifts to how awful the US and Israel are. That frankly frightens and disturbs me, but surprises me less and less. There are some truly bright and courageous Muslims though. I've been particularly impressed with the intelligence and passion of one outspoken woman who has been on interviews recently. Can't think of her name, but she has a book coming out soon.

Tell you what. When you start talking about the US foreign policy and its implications objectively and unbiasedly, I'll give you my insight on Muslim terrorists. How bout it? To one as limited as you perhaps. I mean how many times do I have to say it? I DO NOT SUPPORT TERRORISM. Why the hell should I start talking about US foreign policy here... that is NOT the topic and we have gone far enough off topic discussing WWII nuclear bombs. I really can't believe some of you can't see the difference between racist physchotic jihadi targetting women and children for the spreading of terror, destruction of jews and hatred of any religious differences to a military act used to END a war and PREVENT further deaths of military ground actions. Limited as me?? Only because you limit my ability to judge your viewpoint by constantly shifting focus off of muslim extremism. It would be like me barging into a discussion of the atrocities of the KKK and giving statistics of black crime. Yeah, it is awful that large percentage of blacks have commited crimes, but what was the point of posting those statistics?? Maybe you somehow feel the KKK is justified. That is all you have been doing, shifting focus and making obvious 'I can sorta understand extremist (lynching)... but those crazy American pig dogs, (the blacks) they are just WAY out there! Look at this massive list of things they have done! Oh, and I really have nothing against the US (blacks)... really I don't!'.

Never said I was trying to descredit you, I don't even know what credit you have. You sound like you are attempting to justify terrorism when you go on and on about US foreign policy and the so called 'real terrorism' of WWII. Talk about muslim terrorists... and you just talk about it. Talk about US policies and you go on paragraph long rants. Your very first post in a forum about ISLAMIC extremism is about... WWII bombings... then another post, which you just quoted which sure as hell sounds like a vague attempt at justification. "THEY MUST HAVE A REASON FOR DOING IT!". Then another huge rant about US foreign policy. You may not be supporting it, but it sure as hell doesn't seem to uppset you as much as the big bad ol' USA. "Terrorism is not something that CAN or SHOULD be justified." That has been your most outspoken comment on terrorism so far... and so detailed and long winded in comparison.

The Japanese will to fight was not propaganda. Numerous Japenese fliers and leaflets were found that went on and on about how Americans would brutalize women and children. Proof of the effect of Japanese propaganda can be seen in old videos of women and children throwing themselves to their deaths on rocky cliffs. During many of the island hops of the Pacific Theater, very small percentages of Japanese soldiers surrendered... it was just part of their culture. Surrender was shame, which is part of the reason why allied POWs were treated so poorly... those who surrendered were nothing but animals and deserved to be treated as such. This wasn't propaganda. It doesn't take a genius to figure that a culture with such views of surrender combined with a populace hyped on propaganda of US monsters would result in a massive horrific battle if it reached the Japanese homeland. I do agree that using the word 'good' along with the nuclear bombings was a... poor choice of words, but I hold my ground that it was a lesser of two evils. Does anyone know if the Manhatten Project "Trinity" test explosion on June 16, 1945 was shown to the world before Nagasaki/Hiroshima?

What Guard Dog said. Both military and civilian casualties would have been just as high if not higher if the bombs had not been dropped. Any one ever see the old footage of Japanese women jumping off cliffs clutching babies and children as the US military ran after them begging them not to jump? We are talking about a society that was, at the time, brain washed that the US were brutal raping savages and every man woman and child either needed to fight to the death or kill themselves to prevent US soldiers from ravaging them and their children. I said "I say it was good the US dropped the bombs." not in some horrible gratified way about how so many died... but over how many US soldier lives were saved... and what I believe would have been even worse civilian death tolls. While it probably isn't a fair comparison: 10 Million soviet MILITARY personnel were killed on the Eastern Front during WWII. 14-17 Million soviet CIVILIANS were killed. Now think of what may have happened in Japan with a brain washed 'fight till the end populace' mixed with standard WWII air bombings and soldiers going building to building. The 180+ thousand civilian deaths of the two nuclear bombs is horrible to think about... but with a government that waited 6 full days after the SECOND bomb was dropped... that says a lot about how truly unthinkable a ground war would have been.

"Terror is not a spontaneous human action without credence. People just dont hijack planes and commit harikari (suicide) without any weight of thought to the action. No one in the media seems to ask WHY DID THESE PEOPLE DO THIS HORRIFIC ACT OF VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION?" In the end, it doesn't matter what they think, because directly targeting and murdering men, women and children is wrong. They are nothing but racist, xenophobic, hypocritical monsters and a slow painful death at the end of a noose would be too good for them. Why not emphasize with the KKK? Surely those blacks did SOMETHING to deserve those lynchings. It wasn't after all, spontaneous human action without credence. Come on... the KKK can't be all bad... it must have SOME valid reasons, just like the Islamofascists... right guys?? I also love it when people compare the nuclear bombs in WWII to brain washed lunatics blowing women and children up at a pizza spot. After the 30+ thousand American lives lost on the beaches of Iwo Jima, Japans refusal to surrender and the realization of the many more thousands of lives it would take to invade the mainland of Japan... that really compares to these nuts. I say it was good the US dropped the bombs. How many of you posting here had grandparents who fought in WWII... and how many of you wouldn't even exist if the war became a ground pounder in Japan. Yet another difference between WWII and suicide bombers... we cared about the lives lost. The nuclear bombs of WWII were a tragedy. After a bomb kills 30 men women and children in a bus... the islamofascists don't regret the loss of life for their twisted agendas... they only revel at the # of infidels killed.

No One Lives Forever 2 has an awesome coop mode. It is a side story where you play as field agents and complete various missions involving the main story, from rescuing the main character Cate Archer to gathering intel for her missions. If you or your coop buddies are killed, you can walk up to them and revive them, you can work together causing distractions to sneak by enemies. It is a shame Monolith didn't create more coop missions for FEAR.

Yeah, dexterity, gave the ability to catch pick pockets and learn from them, but it wasn't as important as the other three stats were. For me, the most important aspect of a RPG is the story. If the story is great then I'll be able to overlook other flaws of design or lackluster combat. Temple of Elemental Evil is, IMHO, the polar opposite of Planescape Torment. Great combat, but absolutly terrible dialogue and voice acting. The combat, as good as it was, just couldn't make up for the other short comings in the game, while Planescape's storytelling and dialogue more than made up for the lackluster combat.

One regret I've had is that I didn't pick PST up sooner. I had seen the game's box back when it came out, and the ugly scared face and strange locations just didn't strike me at the time. A few years ago I finally picked up a copy and it is one of the greatest CRPGs I've ever played. As for the lacking combat... really, big deal. It was an absolute breath of fresh air to play a RPG focused on story and dialogue with emphasis on wisdom, intelligence and charisma over strength, constitution and dexterity stats. It really hit me how well written the dialog was when I'd be exploring areas, doing nothing but talking for hours on end and not feeling an itch for a combat encounter. The problem wasn't that people were disapointed with lackluster combat... it was that no one bought the game, or they didn't give the story a chance. It is kind of annoying that Chris mentioned clunky mechanics as a problem with PST, when I thought the mechanics were fine, yet the recent NWN 2 is one of the clunkiest games I've played in a long time. The lesson, IMHO, was not learned.

Replace announcer's words 'Forest fire' with 'Iran' and you will see what our heroic squirrel spies were trying to accomplish. I say the detention of our squirrel spy heroes calls for military action!

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200....aspx?GT1=10150 Initial reaction: Funny story! After a moment: Why is this on a 'serious' news site? They are a bit late for April Fools. Final realization: Iran is fricken' nuts! 'There's a squirrel who lives a life of danger To everyone he meets, he stays a rodent With every nut he eats Another chance he takes Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow Beware of pretty cashews that you find A pretty cashew can hide an evil poison Don't let the wrong squeak slip Or odds are you won't live to see tomorrow Secret agent squirrel, secret agent squirrel They've given you a camera And taken away your nuts' The Iranians also think the the squrrels were brittish as they are the craftiest squirrels. I can see the saturday morning cartoon now... "007: Squirrel Spy".

Sheeple, from what I've read, are conformists. Follow everyone else like a sheep... hence sheeple. Any group could really call another group sheeple... if the group is large enough. Gives the whole advertising campaign a lot of irony though as once you defeat all of the sheeple, you spread the same damn car across the town like a virus. The deviants basically become the new sheeple. Toyota: Buy our products or you are nothing more than sheeple deserving of extermination!