Volourn

And, how is the US going to enforce this? It's nonsensical to even think they could. One should follow the laws of the country you are in. Simple as that. It's why I plan to never leave NA. There's enough sneaky laws here to run foul of let alone other places where they cna't even drive on the right side of the road. LMAO That reminds me, Killian, I'm guessing that Amerikans should be allowed to drive on the side of the road they do in NA no matter where theya re so they can follow Amerikan laws? L0LZ

"I've just played a soldier/infiltrator in my games so far, and shooting everything in sight is what i'd been doing." Well.. shoot and run. Just don't them gangrape you,a dn you'll eb fine. If a couple get in melee just punch them to death. Any more than that just run back and.or around and shoot them again. Point is biotics tend to be awaste of time and effort.

" everything else is a waste of ammo. " No. "Most depressing of all is that, despite all of that, 2 is still better than 1" Not character system or combat wise. Or main story wise. The edge goes I'm not sure. I'd call ti draw. ME2's dumbed down combat and characetr system REALLY, REALLY hurts it. "You have the wrong powers and/or squadmates. If on Veteran or below, take Throw Field or someone who has it, problem solved. You can spam this so fast it's ridiculous. You can also substitute or combine that with squad Cryo ammo, too, for amazing CC results. Even Concussive Blast will make a mess on a bunch of unprotected husks." You are oevrthinking. Just shoot the husks repeatedly. Heck, that's the best strategy for eveyr battle in the game since biotic powers are pathetic inn comparison. LMAO

But, we diodn't win the over all medal count, which imo, is what matters. Grats to Crosby and Team Kanada for winning the only gold - only sport - that truly matters at the Olympics. <. Good job by our Southern neighbours in giving it their all.

"Your worldview where everyone fits into two neat categories is disturbing. Especially ones as questionable as good and evil." Don't be hypocritical as you are currently seeing things in black and white. There are plenty of things I seein shades of gray however soemtimes things ar eback and white. Unless youa re gonna claim something like rape should be seen in gray? I sure hope. Or the holocaust. If you don't see those things as evil then your worldview is rather disturbing. We were discussing Red Wiards of Thay. They are evil. There is no getting around it. Youi don't get to be a Red Wizard by accident or by being a nice guy. Not gonna happen. "That kind of fairy tale morality is the reason games, DnD, Forgotten Realms etc. are immature. Its time games moved away from that. That includes Bioware's games." Says the guy who champions a stupid mouse in a BIO game - the most black and whitegame series of all BIO RPGs. LMAO

So true. R00fles!

"I found the origins the biggest turn off from a second playthrough." 'Nough said.

Go to the Codex. Or you should have been on the POR2 forum when it first came out. Believe me, on the internet, no matter the subject, you will always find at least someone who takes an extreme stance one way or the other on anythinf. And, I'm not talking about those who do stuff like for lols; but actually mean it.

So... you are punishing DA for one of the features that is actually different and better than other games because later on all character share the same areas? Wow. That's impressively Codexian in nature. P.S. The preview above seems very nice. Let's hope it works outs.

"some people" L0L Some people. And, 'some' people think POR2 is awesome game. What does that even mean? "And I still disagree with ME2's combat being "dumbed down"." The combat itself is dumbed down. Combat boils down to literally hide n seek, medigel/healing was changed/removed,biotic powers are pathetic and nowhere near as useful (or fun), the lack of a type of combat (run and gun and vehcile combat: mako 4 THA W!), less talents, the facts that ammo is now a talent ability, the fact that skill with weapons is not player choice but based solely on class, enemiesm never miss, etc., etc. Yup, ME2 combat is dumbed down in com parison to ME1,. But, like my fellow ME fan says, it's still better than most crap.

"the kind of nonsense in FR where the Red Wizards of Thay are all practically evil by default" Actually, it makes perfect sense. People don't become Red Wizards by accident. By the time one becomes a Red Wizard, they'd likely have to commit tons of evil acts. Not just anyone is elevated to the ranks of RW in Thay, and the powerbrokers certaionly don't want goody goodies ruining their fun. It's the same to be said for mobsters. btw, Just ebcause the Red Wizards are evil doesn't mean all of Thay is.

On another day, Russia would have beat Kanada or Kanada would beat the US. *shrug* Everyone knows how it works going into the tournament.

"Vol, if he offends your morality leave him in his cage --- the darkspawn will slay him when Lothering falls. No problem. " Next time, please read my post before responding to it. "Sten is the best NPC in the game." Nah. Not even close. Sten is an irredeemable character who no worthwhile characteristics, and very little entertainment value.

Hey, have you heard of Awakening? 'Nough said. DLCs are not meant to take the palce of expansions, and I don' t know why people expect to pay $5 and epxect to get 10+ hours of game time out of it. Come on, now. Plus, it's not always about x hours. One of my favorite RPGs of all time - FO - wasfully completeable under 10 hours (15-20 if you stretch it out). heck, one of my funnest games, was a agme that basiclaly repeated the same 10ish screens over, and over. Some of the most fun i've ever had. R00fles! Anyways, now to Obsidian DLCs... Just expect them to keep them good. That is all.

"The shots against goals statistics went 25-25. " It's not always the number of shots; but the quality of shots. Alos, the qulity of the shooters and the goaltenders. Sorry, US skooled Finland in every single way.

"I just finished it as a mage" There is no mage. "and while combat was better" Combat is the one thing that is much worse along with character creation and devlopment. " almost everything else was worse(not by much) than in Mass Effect 1." Almost evetyhing else is as good if not better than ME1. "Exploration was more tedious and total lack of vehicle sections was dissapointing."\ Exploration was alright; but I feel ya onn lack of vehicles. Mako gets such a abd rap. Tsk, tsk. really wish they'd just have improved it instead of removed it. Dumbtnutz. "Story had no sense of urgency" I dunno. It had some urgency at trimes espicially near the end. " and felt like a filler material between 1 and 3" Fun filler. I can live with that.

"Interesting point, but I'm going to have to disagree that plot interactivity mechanics are "gameplay". A fundamental part of games is challenge, or more accurately, the ability to lose the game. You can choose a way of conducting your character that will lead to the worst possible set of consequences, but you cannot very well "lose"." No. 'Plot interactity mechanics' are gameplay. The fact there is interactivity makesn it so. From your description only combat and puzzles could be gameplay. That's silly talk. And, yes, you can 'lose'. Qunari are evil. Their so called honour is pathetic. Sten is supposed to eb some sort of 'ideal' yet fails at massive levels. HE SLAUGHTERED AN ENTIRE FAMILY BECAUSE HE WENT EMO OVER HSI LOST SWORD. How is that not evil? And, I doubt he's unique in that course of action amongst his people. Then he tries to take over the party simply because the PC isn't 'moving fast enough' despite the fact you saved his behind. What a pathetic tool. My biggest regret of my 'goody' PC was actually feeling sorry for him. I got screwed and so did the rest of the world because I ahd a notion Sten was redeemable. He isn't. He's pond scum. Plain, and simple. " Awakening looks to have epic level nonsense. " How so? You are thinking so D&Dish. The term doesn't really work well for DA,a nd the new talents they've shown so far are exactly sounding more pwoerful than current ones. You alreayd get to level 20+ in DAO. *shrug* "To make a game like MotB means you're willing to take the risk of creating a major financial failure.": Nope. Doubtful. Expansions are relatively cheap to produce comapred to a full game, and you alreayd have a built in audince. It's almost impossible for an expansion to fail unless you make an expansion for a game that already failed which would be dumb. "We know that the developers had a limited budget and it was rushed out because the longer you wait for an xpac, the less profitable it will be." Second half is true. A isn't being rushed. It's alreayd been in development for a year. btw, That's as long as some full games, and half as long as most. And, I doubt A has a 'limited' budgetd. It probably has a lessder budget that DAO did; but that's obvious for so many reasons. The price tag is lower, you cna't epxect it to sell MORE than DAO. IE. DAO has sold 3.2 mil copies so far, and DAA will likely sell, at best, 60-80% of that. So, thisn has to be taken into account. But, limited? Nah, not in the strictest sense of that word. "Origins and Awakening are designed to show the (magical) evolution of, for lack of a better term, orcs on Thedas." Darkspawn are not orcs! Are DA ogres = orcs now? How about the archdemon when is basically a darkspawn? Or the Children?How aboutt he boobie broodmother? Is she an orc? Darkspawn do not equal orcs. Sorry, it's true. Otherwise, I tend to agree, we will likely see the darkspawn 'evolve' over the course of the games. Sounds cool to me.

DA's 'DLCs' were at least a couple of hours of play. Nothing to sneeze at. ME2 hasn't even had real DLC yet except for Zhaeed which gives you a brand new companion + a mission that is relatively as long as any other mission. Seems to me DA and ME2's DLCs are just fine in size. Wghile, like everything FO3, its DLC likely sucks. If Obsidian does DLCs, they should follow BIo's example and do it right.

"+ they aren't even dominating the game itself." If you are up 6-0, you are dominating all aspects of the game except sucking at it. Sorry. Kanada better not error tonight though I expect a blowout by them.

Why not both? DLC can be awesome. Awesome. And, it can't be worse than Obsidian's last 'expansion'. LOLZ

"And by the way, the Japanese were ready to surrender by the time the bombs were dropped." L0L I find this argument weak. 'Ready to surrender' means nothing. You meant surrender under THEIR terms. Anyways, defending the mass murder of civilians isn't cool. I din't bring that up to say it was a cool thing for the US to do or it should happen more often because we all got lucky and it worked out in the LONG run. "Japan and Germany were both doing extremely well prior to American dickery. Japan was competing with the British Empire in textiles in 1914 without tariffs. Germany had enough industrial and military power to damn near crush the French and Russians in WW1 (and, to a lesser extent, in WW2)." Germany certainly wasn't. Afterall, that's a major reason why they were still so butthurt over WW1, and how Hitler managed to finangle power. And, no Japan wasn't doing so well. Not if they were willing to join up with a country that had plans to eradicate or ensalve anyone not the same as them. LMAO The point is, Japan and Germany managed to recover and regroup despite the ahrdships they face both pre and post war. Japan had to deal with the aftermath of nukes, and Germany had to live with the stigma stink of the Nazis. Not really easy things to do and they did it. With the heklp of the Amerikans in nation building. Sorry, 'nation building' should not be the first option but it's not auto failure either. "Japan attacked a military target." Who, btw, they weren't actually at war with at the time. You don't start bombing a not quite enemy capable of counter attacking not expecting them not to do so. Don't start something that you can't finish.

Dissing Obsidian's best game. Bah.

"Yeah, everyone talks real tough in safety behind their keyboard and... uh..." P.S. DLC sound scool.

"They are just a bunch of fouled mouth gamers stuck in the 80's and 90's." Thank you for the compliment. If thios were the Codex I would have added half a dozen swears to that thank you as well. "<3 you Volo." wut?

"when we talk about forcing a national identity from the outside (ie. Iraqis and Afghans)" Um.. Nobody is trying to force a 'national identity' onto them. Iraqis and Afghanistians already have a national identity. "another undemocratic and corrupt (puppet) regieme." Welcome to Western politics!