kalimeeri

The problem I've run into with some games is the USB joystick. Older DOS games can't relate to it, and it's almost impossible to find a gameport version any more. (Wing Commander in particular; I haven't even attempted it in DosBox--that's what my 500 Pentium is for.) And even a 166 Pentium is too fast for WC1 and 2 without Mo-slo.

Maybe the difference is on the manufacturing end. Mass-production facilities for games would likely have an installed base of older equipment, which is expensive to replace and still works. Just a guess. It's also possible that structural differences between CD and DVD formats needed some ironing out. I remember Pandora Directive shipped with both multiple CD's and one DVD in the same box, but I could never get the DVD version to work.

Awww.. now that ain't fair. I went and cleaned the thing up. Sort of. What am I thinking? ...... You're on.

Foobar 2K.

Y'all are going to make me post a picture of the Cave, aren't you? Spent yesterday rerouting and sorting out the wires, washing/waxing floor underneath, so the top is completely unnavigable at present--and that's where the camera is. I think. People with messy desks have nothing to fear=The Cave ftw. Yikes, I just found a power supply to something I know not what.

FWIW, I recently installed a 6800 with 512mb in my daughter's machine and it would not work until we adjusted the graphics aperture in the bios. Not one of the places I would normally think to look, but... finicky thing. User forums are a good place to look before you buy, too (although I usually don't remember).

Talk about old skool ... Final Fantasy VII for PC. I have one of the few remaining copies of VII and VIII that were put out on CD Rom--have played VIII many times but not VII. I wish Square had continued porting to PC (other than XI, not into MMO); I would really like to play FFX.

Four SW games still reside on my hard drive: Kotor 1 and 2, Xwing Alliance and Jedi Outcast. I pretty much favor them in that order, k1 edging out 2 only because of K2's unfinished state at this time.

For sure! But Freespace (1&2) still rocks ... getting time to play them again. I was waiting for the Wing Commander Saga mod to be finished, but haven't found anything recent on it.

I haven't ever been able to face Disciple, but have heard he makes a decent Jedi. Personally, of the rest, I'd pick Handmaiden. Hate her attitude, and she's never impressed me at all with her skills. As LS, I figure she'd be one of the first to fall to the DS. Bad move, making that one Jedi.

True. But people do. What's sad is that those kind of habits are being ingrained into the children as well--I worked with a girl who stopped by McD's every morning on her way to the day care and bought her kids french fries for breakfast. Guess what lunch was? And she was most always too tired, too busy, etc. to cook dinner. I don't think it's as simple as a physical addiction, but he did have something there. I can't think of any other reason why people would wait in a line that snakes around the corner, as opposed to going to the Wendy's right next door, which is practically empty. I've been to that McD's, and I know it has nothing to do with the service or outstanding quality or freshness. I wouldn't go there even if I hadn't watched the film.

I liked the psychological theme beneath the whole story. Exile (and Bao-Dur to some extent I think) were victims of a post-traumatic stress reaction. All Kreia was actually doing was slowly conditioning him to accept the past and return to the world that he turned away from. But he would not have accepted any of it had she just told him--he would have run fast in the other direction. That was why she did so much manipulating. She was a very smart lady. And while she did it partly to prove herself and her teaching methods--and to break the Jedi/Sith cycle the Force created--she was pretty selfless when it came to Exile personally and the future of the galaxy they lived in. A sad but heroic character. Excellently done, CA!

Sad, but true. Alienware was too small to be a real competitor, unworthy of a buy-out for that reason. Dell has a big corner of the business market, but are lacking on the gaming front. But with their leanings toward making their own 'proprietary' versions of hardware and their lousy outsourced tech support, expect the quality to go way down while they trade on every ounce of Alienware's rep.

I don't agree. It's what's inside the box that counts. A good speaker set should be balanced, so that you hear clean, crisp highs and mid-ranges, not overshadowed or muddled by bass. You should hear all of the music at low volume, without crackling or buzzing at full volume. Unfortunately, bigger speakers and even more $$$ doesn't guarantee that. I use an Audigy2 ZS and was lucky enough to get my hands on a set of thin Monsoon 5.1's, which they apparently don't make any more. There was only one vendor who was still selling them at that time, but they were worth hunting for; they put my home theatre system to shame, and I threw away my stereo. Creative simply has perfected the sound card. I went through ProAudio and Turtle Beach and some others over the years, resisting Soundblaster as long as I could. Just stubborn that way. But there has been no real competition since the Awe64 Gold; if you're going to put $ into a sound card, it's Creative all the way--if only for the fact that drivers for the thing will be around for the next ten or so years. And you won't always be wondering if you were missing something.

Not going to upgrade at all. I think Vista is going to be a hard sell. The majority of the installed PC base has not even upgraded to Windows XP; and Microsoft has not shown enough in the way of improvement (i.e. 'features') to make it worthwhile, at least for the consumer. For the hardware manufacturers, oh yeah. From what I've seen, it grades your PC on a scale of 1 to 5 during installation--and with most of the machines being built right now, you're lucky if you get a 3. In other words, buy a PC off the shelf today, and it will 'fail' the test. Don't see the percentage in messing with a reasonable, solid-running machine just to use the latest and greatest operating system--because basically that's all Vista is. It enables conversation with the hardware. And security? Yeah, right. All I care about is whether the apps I use run smoothly and quickly, which they already do. My older games run fine, even a little too fast. But on the positive side, when it does come out, I should be able to pick up some mighty fine hardware really cheap.

I think it's all in what matters to you. About wallets and watches, I'll go for the practical and useful every time, because expensive watches break twice as fast as cheap ones--a Timex breaks, I just throw it away and get a new one, and I'm happy. That's part of who I am; I don't buy stuff that I'm afraid to touch for fear of getting it dirty. I don't believe in the concept of 'good' china that gets dusted off once a year, and when you die it's still there, because it never got used. And I don't go to a restaurant because it's fancy, I go to have a nice meal that I can enjoy with my friends. It's no good if I'm not comfortable or feel out of place there. But that's kind of what bothers me about others telling me what I should do or use or wear (unless the purple shirt has a hole in it). Constructive criticism or logical argument I can take, but if somebody's constantly pushing, I start wondering if what I am isn't good enough. Trying to change a person's basic nature isn't caring, it's making them into whoever you wanted in the first place. And it doesn't work.

Very much so. Plus it could just as easily be a series finale, for all the interest it generated. I'm no fan of extreme cliffhangers, but it needed to end with something to look forward to besides Olmos shaving off that ridiculous moustache.

The one that always comes to mind first is Von Glower in Gabriel Knight 2. Not really a villain in the common sense of the word, I know, yet he represents darkness and evil. It's an interesting take to have a bad guy in a game subverting without violence, and solely because he wants a friend. And the whole darkness drawing the light toward it is great.

I don't watch TV, generally, and was surprised to find a show this good that hadn't been canceled before I found it. And some of it is already on DVD--amazing. Honestly, I'd passed it by, until I saw that Edward James Olmos was playing Adama. (Never could quite believe Lorne Greene in that role, sorry; he'll always be Pa Cartright). Very well-done Sci-Fi. There have been a few obvious plot contrivances, but far less than most stuff, TV or otherwise. I was a little put-off to find Starbuck was female, but it definitely works. (spoiler space) As for the rest of the cast, Adama is heavy favorite because of Olmos, but they are deep, well-done characters. Baltar is particularly interesting as an unstereotypical villain--or whatever he is. But I must say that if the writers intended Apollo to be a sympathetic character, it failed. I can't really like or respect him. (spoiler space)

The story is everything; and at least part of it arises because of the character (him/her)self. Unique characters are fine and all, but I prefer something that makes this character 'uniquely qualified' to deal with the situation that is presented. (A character trait or history, not some lame prophecy). So in general, I think it's more believable to have some aspects pre-defined.

I loved Kashyyk, Rakata Prime, and Dxun, because after all the cities and the deserts, they felt restful. But I still voted Manaan. Even though I don't like being there. Manaan incorporates the 'open air and sea' feeling into a city; and on its surface, it's a beautiful and peaceful place. The rotten fish had a good thing going. But what makes it interesting is the undercurrent of political feeling and plain old ugly human behavior. It just seems to be a statement on the 'contribution' of the human race in general. Oh, and I like the swoop track. (Still hate the fish).

'I". I think that since we have played both Exile and Revan and were deeply involved in their stories, adding a third character at this late a stage detracts from the overall storyline. He or she becomes a narrator, of sorts, who has to be introduced, brought up to speed, and then bring the tale to a conclusion--which is a very tall order. That discounts the importance of these two primary characters, and removes the player from the (promised) action. Not nearly as interesting or dramatic. If a narrator is needed in the beginning to set the stage, there are already many choices available from continuing party members. (Such as T3 did in K2, fixing the disabled Ebon Hawk). Taken as a whole, what sets the Kotor series apart from standard RPG fare is the story; and at its heart it is Revan's story (with Exile as an impact character, for good or bad). I don't want to be 'watching' them resolve it, or (worse) having someone else fix the mess they made. That isn't how a good story works.

You might try shutting EAX off in the Audigy console and then see if the game picks it up. I think the game makes a query, and misinterprets or doesn't understand the answer. Or it might simply ignore it because it's already there. Same thing has happened for me in a number of games; I think it was in NWN that the game actually refused to run or crashed if I had EAX support enabled. Some of the games that did detect it have sounded like I was playing in an echo chamber--couldn't hear the voices through the sound of water dripping--it sounded to me like the game AND the sound card were both adding effects.

As opposed to Malachor, where you run here, run there, kill Sith everywhere, repeat. Peragus had one saving grace--searching out what happened to the mining colony and finding a way off the rock. Okay, one more--you actually had a party member to talk to on occasion. Nothing to do on Malachor but kill; the environment is repetitive and ugly, and the goal is... to get nothing of any real value for your trouble except kill Kreia. Which I personally didn't want to do.

I watched it last night, and was really so not impressed (except maybe by the lizard that Obi Wan rode). I think that lizard should get an Academy Award for Best Actor.