Calax

so... basically it was the muslim equivalent of rednecks who did this? *rimshot*

The original DF is actually pretty good. Although you'll have to do a heafty amount of tweaking to fit into what you're used to because it was made with the idea that you SOLELY use the keyboard as the control scheme. Used the arrow keys for movement, the strafe was > and <, Z was crouch, ctrl was shoot, space was jump, x was... something. Basically it took doom's concept, gave it a star wars skin, and actually built upon the idea just before half life appeared and redid everything. The basic story is that you're Kyle, First level has you steal the death star plans and transmit them, then you're sent on an overarching campaign to find and fight off this weird new enemy called dark troopers which annihilate things. There are 2 versions that you fight mainly (mini bosses basically) the Mk 1 is basically the terminator with a sword and reflective shield, and the mark two is a massive armored brute with the most powerful weapon in the game. One of the more... memoral moments in the game is Kyle being forced to get in a fist fight with a Kryat Dragon (two if you're on the hardest difficulty). Yeah, that's right, Kyle got in a fist fight with a dragon, and won.

If you want a depressing read Way of the Shadows (Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks) is pretty good. One of those books where "Kids are raised in the slummiest slums of the capital and get brutalized". The authors wife is a councilor for *cough* troubled children and he uses some of the situations from her job in the book (although an 8 year old sexually abusing a 5 year old (both boys) and making the younger wear a dress did kinda kick me in the gut). And then I've been reading Garden of the Moon. It's hard to get a feel for it, instead of being upbeat or depressing it's just kinda... a-tonal. The setup and characters are interesting and it's really pushing towards an epic world. Although sometimes it feels like it relies on you having the map in the front of the book to keep track of where on earth you are.

So... over the past few days I got my flight from home to family canceled, and ended up driving, saw Jeckle and Hyde at a community theatre (where the sound guy was an idiot), visited with the family, and came home I have now officially drivin every mile of Interstate 80

Well... that's one of the problems we sorta kinda ran into. We're in Ames Iowa. The entire economy revolves around the students from top to bottom. They're gone and thus the place is basically shut down with VERY VERY little to do. We ended up seeing a movie (Tangled, pretty good actually) and snagging dinner. But beyond that it's not like we can rush out and find something, or dig up some other form of entertainment. This place is probably the closest you'll get to an honest to god "college town".

They did. But honestly My idea of seeing them isn't just lying on my back on their bed at the hotel while they futz around with different things (the paper and the computer). If we'd been discussing what to do, or doing something or whatever it'd be different but I could get the same exact experience in my own place alone.

Woke up and was surly because my parents decided to tell me last minute before going to breakfast that "We were planning to go for a walk!" when its' 15 degrees out and light snow. We ended up just eating then going back to their room, I opened presents then just kinda sat around for 40 minutes while my mom read the paper and dad messed around on the laptop before asking to get driven back to my room here at school because I was bored as heck. And my dad promptly got indignant that I didn't want to spend time with the family... doing absolutely nothing.

And the dungeons were no different than the outside world. Go Figure.

If you're not going for Online, I'd at least pick up Coh and opposing fronts. Tales of valor's improvements are really more cosmetic and experimentation than anything.

by the way, this is exactly how I played WoW... I'd gotten to lv.50 before it got really boring. seriously, the zones are too small, the mobs too few, the quests too repetitive. playing it as a single-player game (I wanted to fill the void between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3) is a miserable attempt at a computer game. definitely not WoW's strengths. And we're pointing out to you that as time goes on, things change. Tis the nature of the mmo no? They've completely revamped the old world (1-58) to be more cohesive and varied, they've added the random dungeon finder (which you happily ignore), and they're constantly adding new things, raids, dungeons, lore, you name it. And to respond to your "Diablos dungeons have more levels! HAW HE HAW HE HAW!" Just gonna point out, that Diablo1 had ONE dungeon with three separate entrances and sections. Diablo 2 had more, but it hardly beats the 20-40 dungeons in World of Warcraft (including raids). They're different games with different design philosophy, WoW can't get away with having 400 mobs on screen that you wipe out with a single blow, the computers couldn't handle it. Instead they just give the same level of killing power to a solitary mob, amp it up by about 20 times, and throw it at a raid to take on as trash. As to the combat system and interface, that's personal preference. Although WoW's interface could probably be recustomized to have the same one as Diablo if you're really itching for that. I personally don't see how the combat system that's superficially "slam my mouse button a hundred times on a pile of mobs" is better than something that requires more execution.

The difficutly discussion was also quite fun.

There's a neat little tool you have yet to meet oh mindless one. It's a feature added in wrath called "random group finder" where you can tap 2 buttons and the game will make a party of five people (with a tank and healer) that will run a dungeon. In the current cataclysm system, it's a bit touch and go but before you reach heroic levels you're basically gonna be able to charge in, slaughter your way through the 3-6 bosses and 40ish mobs and get your phat lewts. Besides, every time I've played a character in Diablo it's always been "Stand in the same seven pixels clicking like a woodpecker trying to hit the mob that's charging across the screen" Are they different games? Yes, but the description that Monte posted is EXACTLY what WoW is as well. My Deathknight has a total of 137281 kills. 46000 of those were undead. I've dealt 54 billion damage. And died 1767 times, mostly in dungeons where I got my face melted by a raid boss (usually Sindragosa... a large undead dragon in Icecrown Citadel right before the Lich King).

And why not? Make them useful to society instead of killing them. Or give them the option of death or Mars. Wait, so what exactly are we supposed to do with them for the 4-6 month trip from earth to Mars? I mean are you just gonna lock em up in tiny cubicles and have them in chemical comas or something?

And pain by the bucket... the brutal kind.

And yet you hate WoW. Which has almost the exact same description... Go bloody figure.

Yeah, There's Tales of Valor and Opposing fronts. They've since pushed in O as the main idea

I only checked the most recent page, not the one before... sorry.

Have they ever said they'd return to HW ? They said they wanted to, but they didn't have the rights to the property until last year. Also, right now they're working on another DoW expansion (Retribution I do believe).

http://kotaku.com/5513694/the-modern-warfa...s-infinity-ward Acti's counter suit against west and zamp has now grown to include EA because Activision alleges that top EA execs conspired to "hijack" the Call of Duty creators while also plotting to "destabilize, disrupt and to attempt to destroy Infinity Ward."

Woke up, took a shower, sat down at my computer and looked at my email... And learned that my parents had my cat put out of her misery today because the cancer she had was inoperable.

Monte, I think most people grasp it but are you seriously suggesting that we initiate life imprisonments for criminals of any kind? Because anybody who's in prison can't perform a crime, and those who've commited seem destined to commit again based on some of your comments, so why let them out? Why not make you pay for their continued survival in a system that is (in all honesty) it's own society. Who knows, maybe we need prison prisons for when the prisons become the majority of the adult population and their children are kept outside where the "good" people exist in fear.... I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. Simply blanket declaring that the recidivism rate just means that people should be locked up more is idiotic to say the least. Sure, he might not be stealin my stuff while in there, but then he might also not be working on a degree to become a member of society once again. Of course it doesn't help that 90% of the time when a guy gets out of prison (real prison, not the county jail after 90 days) they have jack squat and don't even have the resources to support a house and food, much less pick up some schooling or whatever, so they turn around and steal or whatever again because it's the only thing they know.

What I've heard of that show makes me think the entire show is hilarious in its absurdity. And crimson, I being a cali transplant I'm amazed my car hasn't crapped out on me in this Iowa weather.

Yes... because somehow a dead person can be prosocuted.

And I'm not gonna be bale to see that because the sky is totally overcast and we have a winter storm warning.