Maria Caliban

Um, spoiler warning much?

You were saying? dictionary.com - "Origin: 1250

In vain. From the Latin vānus, meaning empty. Puzzle Quest: Galaxtrix for the PC. 02/24/09. Puzzle Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena for the PC. 04/07/09. Action-adventure Demigod for the PC. 04/14/09. 'Team-based action/strategy with RPG elements.' Velvet Assassin for PC and X-Box. 04/14/09. WWII stealth action

nope. We dont need no more games, there are plenty of the,m Games are so two years ago. What's now in the world of entertainment is interpretive dance. Butoh is the new black.

I notice Pop's theory on changes to the character skill/level up method, and I'd be all for that. Yeah Hurlshot. That conversation will go nowhere. Wouldn't you rather argue with Volo on whether EA is developing Mass Effect 2 or not?

I wouldn't call concept art misleading marketing hype. They're not saying the finished product will look like this and I think most people are aware that outside of a strongly visually stylistic game like Psychonuts or Okami, rendered 3d models never look like concept art. Edit: Which is not to deny BioWare's problems with the visual aesthetics of their games. I suspect Diablo III will be more visually evoctive than ME 2.

It's slightly anti-party, but really it's pro-plausibility. Long ago, role-playing was something you did with a bunch of friends where almost everyone in the group was a PC. Everyone came up with a motivation for being an adventurer, or why they were all at that tavern tonight, and how they got together. Plausibility was less important than getting the group together and starting the quest. GM: You're in a dusky tavern. There's the bartender, a wench serving drinks, a group of mercenaries huddled by the fireplace, and a dusky skinned elven lass sipping a drink

More Prince of Persia In terms of visual appeal, the Courtisan and the (end) Father are my favorite. I like the way they captured a very feline movement and feel with her. That and the bright pink was pretty. A shot from the end.

The Prince sucked. He could have been replaced by a monkey with a big sword and add just as much emotional impact. The Sands of Time was great because the Prince managed to utterly destroy what he loved through his arrogance. He matured as he accepted this, vowed to fix what he

Just finished Prince of Persia. Wow, what a crapy game. I just found out Prince of Persia: Epilogue is coming out as DLC Feb 26.. for XBox and PS. Not for PC, which is what I have. Apparently, people were upset about the ending of the game (can't imagine why ) so they're puting in a proper 'happy ending.' I won't go into details to avoid spoilers to the original ending.

This is big one for me. GIVE MY ACTIONS CONSEQUENCES. Logical repercussions are good with a few unexpected ones as well.

Explain to me the difference between exploring for mutitools vs healthpacks. There isn't one. That would be my point. Explain to me what your argument is because I'm confused. What I hear is: They need to have *health packs* because searching for *health packs* is a key to exploration. To which I responded, there are things other than *health packs* to search for. If your point is now that we need some incentive to explore, and it doesn't matter whether that incentive is health packs, passwords, multitools, alternate routes, etc. and that multi-tools can perform the exact same function - ie, an item you want and will go out of your way to look for - then what is the emphasis on *health packs?*

According to Liara, she

Making staying alive a key reason for exploration in a game where people are shooting at you with plasma rifles is doing something wrong? I don't understand what you mean. How can it not be a key, even THE key, aspect of exploration. I already listed why *I* explored in DX. As someone who stealthed through as much of the game as I could, I promise you that I never explored for health packs. Upgrade canisters? Yes! Passwords and logs. Yes. Multi-tools? Those I loved. I explored to find stuff I that interested me, and I didn't need a great number of health packs. It seems you played a more fighter oriented character so those health packs were probably more desirable to you.

If you wanted to heal, all you had to do was press 'Q.' If you popped open the inventory during combat, no wonder you were frustrated. I find shooters difficult in general because they involve skills I suck at. VATS was a life saver in Fallout 3 because instead of wasting my ammo shooting at the air around the super mutant running at me with that super sledge, I could pause and have my character - who is actually a good shot - take aim and fire. The same is true for the pause function in Mass Effect. Why? Because things are easier to see when they don't move. In shooters, things constantly move, and you get l33t points because you can track them. Now, the convention is to have some things not constantly move, but there's no reason for that other than convention. Complaining that the health bar is now on the character's back - unlike other games - is like complaining that instead of being able to head shot everything - like other games - you have to dismember it. That's fine if you don't like it (I dislike it as well) but that doesn't make it poor design or implementation.

Yes, but only at the expense of finite resources. Trade bio energy for health, but risk not having it for other things. That's an all together different argument. We

No one said that the regenerating health was for immersion. And while we're at it, every DX game has let you magically regain health. Yes, it would be easier if the health bar stood still. It would also be easier if the monsters held still. Dead Space simply takes the basic idea of a shooter - the player must track objects on the screen in real time - and applies it to health and ammo.

Right. You can shoot a psychic chimpanzee with its brain hanging out whose standing in the middle of a dark room a mile away, but you can't see my response because of all the smilies. I ain't buying it.

I *did* respond to your outrage. And then you'd get those agents that blew up when they died. The original Deus Ex has the 'dart handcrossbow.' Possibly the stupidest weapon ever. It was weak, the range was bad, it only worked on organics, and if you tried the non-leather darts, it took five hours for them to die while they ran around alerting everyone around you.

Yeah, that's what she's talking about. She could have been a bit more clear, but I got her meaning. I think she has a good point about games needing to be more accessable, but I haven't seen her present a compelling arguement on how 'more accessable' nessarily hurts innovation or quality. Also: she, her, girl, woman, bwebs.

Spam? I'm quoting from the original game and making important points. If others can't understand how an adorable kitten adds to that, it's not my fault.

There's a difference between exploring levels and exploring levels for healt packs. I explored levels for alternate routes, so I could sniper/knock-out everyone, for upgrade canisters, and for passwords and data logs. I usually walked around with a stack of unused health packs because I'd found the console to turn off the turrets and security bot with the rockets, and killed all the gaurds from the top of the building. - your science is too cruel.

Reading the thread, I sighed a bit. I get tired of people saying 'Developers think we can't handle anything complex!' and 'Consoles are dumbing down games!' arguement brought up whenever a developer make a choice different from a poster's favorite ten-year-old game.

It's been pushed back until November. I'm wondering if DIII will even hit the shelves this year. While you're waiting, you can pick up a cute, diablo iii t-shirt.

At least the landscape has personality...