Yst

Beowulf simply uses "land dena" and "dena land", but "denemearce" and "denamearc" are also attested. e.g., a particularly geographically rich passage & of Sciringesheale he cw

As for English noun gender up until the point in history when grammatical noun gender died out (11th and 12th centuries), it's arguable that English favoured a feminine 'earth', I think. Though the Anglo-Saxons did not literally associate feminine grammatical gender with feminine anatomical gender in any way, so it's purely a historical relic. Some words for "earth" or "the earth" in Old English along with their genders follow. Keep in mind that the Anglo-Saxons didn't tend to think of the 'earth' in the planetary sense we do now, and 'earth' in that larger sense tends to be a theological concept (that which God created; the realm into which men are born and from which their souls depart) where it does appear. The single morphemes implying 'earth' most literally are Feminine in gender, I find: e

Yeah, and even going back a while, I love FFVI's ending. Really incredible for its time.

I think I may buy the used Xbox of a friend once the Xbox 2 comes out solely in order to replay Jade Empire (which I have already played on a borrowed Xbox, having been unwilling to purchase one). This is its sole relevance to me.

There was a guy I used to work with, married and over forty, who thought she was hot in the first film. I tell you there are a lot of borderline p

I was fine with KotOR I's engine and I was fine with KotOR II's engine. I've come to associate the appearance of the models and the environments used by that engine with that universe and remodeling it in another engine would be a bit alienating, I think. I would not care if KotOR III used the same engine, but the odds it would do so, given it would be released on a next generation system on very different technology are very slim. Personally, I think graphics hit a very critical point somewhere around Half Life's release at which it was finally possible to depict reasonably convincing 3D human beings occupying reasonably immersive 3D worlds, and development past there is more window-dressing than fundamentally crucial technological advancement. And in fact, it can introduce problems. If anything, we reach a bit of an impasse as we become able in real time to render humans with greater lifelike detail than we're able to effectively model. The result is what people may perceive as an eerie (one might say unheimlich) not-quite-right quality to ultra-realistic modeled humans, because things like facial expressions, personal bodily carriage and visible emotional responses are vastly harder to model accurately than we had once imagined.

Crude and offensive does not equal funny. While intelligent posters are doing their best to lighten up the heavy-handed sarcasm (if that was what was intended), the sandbox is still too kind a fate. I'm with Kalfear. The only really funny part of this poll is "please state nicely below". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Indeed. Stupidest thread concept ever.

Teraflop? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Indeed, a Teraflop! It can manage a Trillion Floating Point Operations Per? Imagine, a Trillion Operations Per! Floating Point Operations Per, no less. Remarkable. From the people who brought you the Gigahert, no doubt I'll be revealing my new Yst Brand Automobile this month, capable of hitting 220KP (Kilometres per) on a straightaway, consuming only 40L/ (Litres per).

It's a hip and happening name that just screams how *extreme* the Xbox is. I guess you just aren't down with the jive that the groovy kids all talk these days.

I consider Steam a Good Thing, from my game-buying point of view, because it offers a method for cutting out several middle men who I have absolutely no desire to see personally benefit from my gaming dollar. The more that goes to the devs, the better.

Reviews look poor enough there's no way I'll bother with this one. There are enough good games out there that playing a mediocre one just makes no sense at all to me nowadays. I'd have to do absolutely nothing but play games and sleep just in order to have enough time to get through all the games in the "great" category and on into the "pretty good" category of releases in turn. Mediocre doesn't even register on the radar.

So, I love a fast and furious frag fest (mostly due to the alliteration), and, constrastingly, I'm more than anything else a CRPGer, so I enjoy good character development for its own sake, but I really have no place at all in my heart for the contrived scripted "things jump out at you" events of survival horror (think Doom 3) or tiresome "flip the switch/walk on the pressure plates/open the door" style puzzles of Action-Adventure (think Ocarina of Time). Does HL2 in the opinion of the gamers here have the visceral impact and speed that, for example, Doom had and Unreal didn't? Or is it thick enough in RPG or story-telling elements that those are worthwhile for their own sake?

I would have voted for Sam if I were choosing from the list, but my choice would be Doom with the jdoom engine and texture packs if I had any FPS to choose from, so I voted Other.

I used to be Chaotic Good on the first round, and seldom if ever Evil. Lately, I've been playing Lawful Good on the first round.

For me, when I consider this question, I am compelled to conclude that to answer it meaningful, I have to change it around and ask, "which FPS best defines the FPS genre's virtues?" That's because I'm mostly an RPG and Adventure gamer and best enjoy games for the depth of their character development, quality of writing and game system mechanics, none of which areas is the FPS genre's chief focus. My vote for "best FPS" on the merits I favour in games in general would in effect have me choose the best FPS on the basis of the RPG genre's goals, which would be pretty silly criteria, in an FPS context. On that basis, from this list, it'd probably be Deus Ex. But that's not because I think Deus Ex is a good FPS. It's because it contains the RPG elements I like in games. So I think it makes sense, instead, for me to judge an FPS on the basis of the areas on which the genre itself focuses, like quality of gameworld physics, personal immersivity, visceral impact, play control and graphical style. On those criteria alone, I think the original Doom best defines for me the virtues of the genre and within this list, Serious Sam is its successor, not Doom 3. Doom 3 is more a survival horror game with rail shooter elements than it is a fast and furious visceral shoot-em-up like Doom, Duke 3D or Serious Sam. Those three, for me, are the ultimate experiences in pure, visceral FPS madness, getting the adrenaline flowing and truly immersing the player and keeping the player immersed in that fury of battle. Other games bring elements of other genres heavily into the mix and make for a better overall experience for me because I'm not chiefly an FPS player, but for the FPS in all its glory, it's Doom (necessarily, played with one of the updated engines and texturepacks available for it).

I played KotOR despite it being Star Wars. I'm a huge CRPGer, but if anything, I'm a Star Wars hater. I only played KotOR finally because it's basically necessary material for any RPG-focused gamer at this point, and because it was out on PC. TSL, I played because KotOR was good enough to warrant further play, but moreso, because Avellone and Urquhart were on the job. So would I buy KotOR and TSL if they weren't Star Wars? Yes, the happier for knowing I wasn't helping to sustain Lucas's franchise.

Currently playing Jade Empire on Xbox. And I tell ya. It breaks my heart. Not only a console, but a Microsoft console. Sigh. Here's hoping for a PC port.

Yep, it strikes me as very odd that Star Wars players should be threatened by the completely non-compulsory option to roleplay a gay romance if a player should happen to want to do so. Just the fact that other people one shall never meet have the opportunity to be the character they want to be in the game is a bad thing. That's what I find truly remarkable.

Smuggler, eh? I can see it now, in honour of its predecessor, Privateer II: Maybe If We Sell This Game Under the Wing Commander License People Will Buy It For No Good Reason, it's a worthy threequel to the classic space smuggler/mercenary game, Privateer III: Nothing Going For It But The Star Wars Name.

Indeed, the rumour itself seems highly improbable.

I think this sentiment would be a common one, and I think it likely stems from the fact that homosexuality is usually treated as inherently sexualised and immediately, directly associated with the raw act of copulation by much of western culture. Star Wars, antithetically, is a very intentionally desexualised universe. Homosexuality. It's even got it in the name. That's why I tend to use the term 'gay' by preference. A gay romance could just be a couple guys feeling romantic affection for one another. But call it homosexual and it's already got sex in it. It doesn't need to. There's no reason two male characters can't exchange words of affection, or maybe a kiss and make a romance of it. I hope that this sort of treatment becomes more acceptable. I'm quite alright with the fact that Star Wars is a sexually innocent universe, at least traditionally. But I'd like to see sexually innocent gay romanace options within it if it remains so.

Oh dear. A mistake I assume. But a little too close to the truth. Yikes.

Jade Empire allows a gay romance option? (w00t) I hadn't been bothering to play it, even though a friend left his XBox and the game at my place since release. Haven't really had time. But I think this just provided me the extra impetus I needed. Yay!

It certainly could be done, but that doesn't mean it should. Like it or not, as we all know, the force and its users and adherents are the focus of the Star Wars universe. If one wants to do a stealth/espionage game, or a futuristic FSRPG without the Force or the Jedi as key elements...why do it in the Star Wars setting at all? Like any other setting, one could theoretically impose just any internal situation at all on a part of the universe regardless of whether it's the franchise's strength or not, but it seems silly to take away Star Wars' strengths and still use it as the setting for a game. I mean, sure, one could do a Star Trek FSRPG combat game which takes place entirely on a planetary surface and has nothing to do with the Federation, but why on earth would one do such a thing, when franchise lore hinges on the Federation? One could make a Forgotten Realms pirate-themed game which deals entirely with sea-combat and warfare, but why on earth would one use Forgotten Realms and D&D for something that it isn't strong in and ignore its chief focuses and topics? The Star Wars universe revolves around the Force and the Jedi. Why pretend that isn't the case, when one could just pick a world where that already isn't the case, and where the setting's strengths inherently operate without the Force and the Jedi and the Dark Side as a basis.

I have no problem if people want to use that term for it. I would say "space fantasy". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Indeed. I'm not sci-fi purist myself. I tend to enjoy fantasy more than I enjoy so-called hard science fiction. So if people want to call space opera 'sci-fi', that's okay with me. It's just a word after all. But I do think that Star Wars, even among Fantasy, offers an especially simple moral and philosophic universe which has long overstayed its welcome as a dominating force in geek sci-fi/fantasy culture. It neither asks the human and mytho-historical questions that Fantasy has the potential to illuminate and address, nor does it interest itself in all the questions tied to technological and scientific progress which hard science fiction raises. I suppose if there weren't Star Wars, there would just be another generic McDonalds of Sci-Fi/Fantasy to take its place in getting everyone's attention without saying anything particularly interesting, but Star Wars has been so long in the top spot that I'm hoping for a change.