Calax

*inquistor* gooodd...... goooooood....

Not really... but he would eliminate many of the departments that are currently a part of the USA... including the Fed. That would cause SOMETHING to happen right damn quick. The issue right now is that the banks are just to big, and need to be cut down.

Technically Champloo did have a game, but I think it was just a fighting game.

Paul is the hard line small government. He wants things trimmed back to basically "regulating interstate commerce and defending the nation" for the feds, while the states each handle everything else. And he wants to go to a Gold standard again.... meaning that every dollar would have at least some amount of gold backing it, which would be a minor disaster.

Hm, I hadn't noticed that much of an issue.. Although, on consideration my Sith Inquisitor probably did "die" a fair bit more then my Smuggler... but my Jedi Knight hasn't had survivability issues as such compared to others. Granted, he's still on Act I, so not too far into things.... the knight doesn't start to get clobbered till act 2 or 3. I have a knight on belsavis who gets killed in one or two mobs because he's not a tank, and when I keep doc out it takes forever to kill anything

The dialogue with Ashley annoyed me, mainly because she happened to be my love interest for that play through. Yet a lot of time after missions, she had nothing more than a Zaeed/Kasumi response. Ashley: Horrible what happened on Thessia. Those poor people. *click on her again* Ashley; I hope Liara is holding up. *click on her again* Ashley: Those Reaper bastards. *click on her again* Ashley: Commander. *click on her again* Ashley: Commander. *click on her again* Ashley: Commander. This is my love interest, the one that's supposed to be so close to Shepard, yet that's all I get when discussing one of the major moments of the game? (PS. I think it was after Thessia. It might have been after Rannoch. Either way, it was a major story point mission) It feels stranger if you're running around with Liara as your love interest. Mainly because she acts as your XO and after every major event/debrief she pops up to give you the secondary string of objectives for that segment.... and NOTHING else. She might talk about how terrible the devestation is and how she hopes certain people are all right, but there is NO closer interaction going on UNTIL the designated romance point. Honestly, if I were to re-chop the game, I'd slash Tali as a recruitable (maybe put her in as DLC), and put Legion in her spot. Although I'd have Legion recruitable much earlier, maybe with more foreshadowing about the incidents on Rannoch and what happens there. I think having the Virmire survivor being a returning squad member AND a love interest was a bit.... backwards given the reaction in ME2. Vega? I can understand. He's supposed to be the "new guy" on the team who exists to receive exposition for new players. It's just that they didn't play up the whole "not really sure what's going on" aspect of his character. If he felt more like a rounded our character (I know he's only got one games worth of history to him, but COME ON! He could at least act as XO to give him more face time), instead of a stereotype he probably would have gotten along better. War Assets? Probably ditch them, at least in their current iteration. Maybe for the scanning/assets mechanic design a wargame system where each of your assets could come into play. Think Battleship but with bonuses for different assets, and maybe assets showing up. From a fundamental story level, I'd play up the fact that "Hey, a war is going on" MUCH more. Have Shepard and the Normandy be used for a few more combat extractions, or jump into the middle of a fleet battle or SOMETHING, rather than just have everything be very placid in space. Screw the "we wanna mess with your SOUL" bit, bring home the fact that people are fighting and dying by having you jump into a system and watch a turian battleship get ripped in half by a reaper as you try to duck and not get killed yourself. Make Harbinger the main "face" of the enemy, give him a personality and such and have him interact with the Normandy crew more so that it doesn't feel like you're trying to get a graph to max out anymore.

Black Company and/or Instrumentalities of the Night as a book setting would be fun. Another interesting one to do would be Nova, the Marvel Comics hero. And maybe a western dev making a Gundam styled wargame (with my avatar, I had to). A good throw at the Animated DC universe would probably make for a good game. Finally, Give S-cry-ed a shot. The entire set up seems built towards a video game..

Yutzing around in my 7 day trial They don't seem to have fixed the Jedi/Sith very much in terms of survivability vs leveling, but I'm having fun just yutzing around on my sorc. I get the feeling this game in general is going to have a faster burn out rate than most simply because of the VERY linear structure of leveling planets

The two MASSIVE difficulty spikes that I remember were the Ogre fight (where, in theory, you're supposed to beat the bejesus out of it and have Alister stun it when it picks somebody up), and one of the side missions where you've got like three mages and a dozen archers plinking away at your team before you have time ot blink. One of the issues with encounter design in open world games is you have to either A) provide a very directed course of where the players should go (with going "out of order" being a challenge mode) or B) design everything to auto-scale to the players. Personally, I think that the best "boss" would be one that both challenges you, but also isn't based around one character in particular. For example, charging into a fight with a head assassin, mid fight they leap away and a number of weaker assassins show up to try to kill you.

Issue with GL is the fact that the rings would be somewhat limited.

Tie Fighter Homeworld this is more of a remake, but Xenogears (so that the second disk actually has a more open feel to it and so much crap doesn't get cut). Myth

See I didn't get that at all from any of the endings. It's from the basis of "Mass relays exploding take out the local stars... and intergalactic travel". Realistically what'd end up happening is a jury rigged version fo the mass relays being put up in a few generations (after people blew the **** out of each other)

I think it's more likely that Obama is going to take a much harder stance on his values because he doesn't have to worry about a second election.

There is a libertarian candidate bopping around who's trying to get into the white house. He's just been "Ron Paul" d out of the media.

I know, it came across more as a petulant "NO IT'S NOT!" to the stereotypers screaming "YES IT IS!"

http://kotaku.com/5899489/no-jrpgs-are-not-stale-old+fashioned-archaic-obsolete-out-of-touch-rehashes' A kotaku editorial on JRPG's

Previously on Battlestar USA... a bunch of old guys, a woman, and a black man fought to see who could loose to the incumbent president. Another woman decided to be a tease but never committed and everyone else laughed. I suspect that Romney might try to gambit a woman running mate, but one with more... ability and life than Palin.

I liked Gran Turismo meself.

A LOT of the PS1 games can be dl'd on the PSN store. I know Xenogears is there, and Parasite Eve.

Interesting point, I would counter with the fact that for most of the game I felt like a figurehead rather than an active player. The silent protagonist routine doesn't really bode well with your notion that you are an important person, specially since most of the time Lucretia was the one coming up with the strategies everyone else agrees and your character just nods his head and the linear course follows its motions. Funny that you compare it to ME3 since most of the choices offered by both game mirror each other; they are basically variations of "Choice A: do what the game wants you to do" and "Choice B: Be an ass and do what the game wants you to do". The only major choice that alters the course of the story in Suikoden its whether you want to go into a campaing for yourself and it's destined for a cinematic detailing how badly you lost. Plus I seem to recall jumping through some hoops to get people to join me, like having to train a geriatric party member because a turtle wanted me to show him that I respected old people by putting them in harm's way. Or Oboro to whom I had to prove that I had a knack for detective work and without whom the whole foundation of gathering all allies was unsteady. So I really don't understand your reservations since both genres seem prone to the same tropes just with different approaches. Yes and no. As I said, in V there were other options about what you could do, and they had consequences about who lived and died. (If you held out at your keep or moved your troops out to fight in the field for example). And while you did still do some really bizzare stuff, it was all to give you a very direct benefit (one of the 108 stars of destiny)

I imagine, you mention and compare other games to it quite often. Just for my edification, what aspect of it appealed to you the most? Basically, Most RPG's anymore have some aspect of the game that throws you into a position of power. Being master of a keep, running a nation, ruling over mercs... whatever. But ultimately, they all feel like you're not ACTUALLY that important in the grand scheme of things. In Suikoden V You're the prince of a kingdom, and ultimately are just a figurehead (it's a matriarchy). But after the 4-6 hours of prologue, there's a coup and you actually feel like you're an important person. Instead of "Here sir, we got you an escort" (who dies in less time than it takes for you to eat a sandwhich), you have a party member who's only job is to be your bodyguard, and several temporary (at the start at least) guys who are also guards and just MURDER anything that comes near them. The fact that they put in these characters that actually DO something to get you OUT, rather than just showing up to be a redshirt or saying "I'll protect you!" before becoming a party member who does 1/4th your damage gives that sense that you are that weak kid and you're important because you're part of the royal family. Later, you start to build up a rebellion (well... a counter-coup), and can get a non-standard game over if you choose to not go after your sister and her throne and instead make your own nation with the force you've created. And everything about this rebellion is focused on YOU. Not on the NPC character who is the King or Lord or whatever (but still do what you tell them). Hell, at one point if you make a decision, you can have a near-perfect body double of yourself (who's a party member) end up dying because they think he's you and ambush him. Most other RPG's you play, even when you're the master of the planet and slay dragons by farting, you still get very basic fed-ex quests, and guards etc still will refuse you entrance unless "the count" or whatever allows it. In this, there isn't that. The Main Story is god, and every little bit of the side questing actually effects your progress within the main story (as most of the "side quests" are actually retrieving troops or character who then join your rebellion... the non-combat guys end up in your keep downstairs mining or whatever, while the combat folks can either be used as party members, or will show up in the turn based battles between the Coup forces and your Royalists). I compared this to Mass Effect earlier because in ME you get a war asset, and it's just a number. If it's lucky it may show up one extra time near the end, but otherwise it's inconsequential. In Suikoden, your gathering these war assets... and actually fighting the battles with them. It's not a very deep system (and Beavers are the most powerful creatures on the planet apparently), but the fact that it's there makes the fact that you're amassing an army have much more of an impact. Everything you "gather" for your war effort will either show up as a party member, or be attached to one of your army/navy units, or both (or be a shop as I explained earlier). I suppose the thing that really sticks to me is just how, in most western RPG's where you're supposed to be "the chosen one" who moves mountains etc. You still feel like a "behind the scenes" sort of guy. If the castle is attacked, it's not to kill you as a threat (at least not outright anyway), it's to get the macguffin in your bacement. If the kingdom needs to unite under one banner, it's not "For <Protagonist>!" it's "For the (NPC)KING!" If there's something that needs doing, you always do it... no matter it's consequence, and the NPC's who sent you out just sit on their thumbs doing nothing. In Suikoden, the focus and control is very firmly on your Player Character, as you're the only member of your family that can be around to raise the Royal standard. Your troops go into battle, not to save the world from being annihilated or out of some ancient treaty obligation... but because they want your characters family back on the throne. Those around you don't just send you off to collect some random piece of bat hair from the nether continent... they'll send you out to see what you can do for a devastated village to improve your PR, and make a war strategy while you're doing it. You don't have a quirky crew of problem solvers who'll fix any issue and mulch any enemy, you've got yourself, a bodyguard, your aunt... and then 105 people who will do different things to make sure you're back on the throne (including the survivors of your parents bodyguards, dwarves who'll make arms and armor for your troopers, an Admrial who had retired and is returned to put the royals back on the throne... And Gerog). Mass Effect billed itself as the culmination of an epic story where every decision counted and the stakes were the universe... but felt like a very small world. Suikoden just feels HUGE and the nature of the story made a much larger impact on me (although, these memories are getting older now.. I'm gonna retrieve my PS2 from home next month, and probably play through the game over summer). So we don't get to sidetracked. I think that we're gonna have to mention the Dragon Quest series simply out of necessity when talking about JRPG's (character designs from Akira Toriyama (the Dragon Ball guy) and it's on it's 8thish iteration). http://lparchive.org/Suikoden-II/ suikoden 2 Let's Play

Only really played V. But it was one of the most epic games I've ever played and one of the only ones where I felt like I had consequence.

it was IV. Basically because you were running around in a buggy mess as a "pirate" with "rune cannons" rather than some epic empire clashing story. Another one that people should probably give a look at is Shin Megami Tensei... well that and Persona(s) 3 and 4 which are considered some of the best RPG's to date from Japan.

Suikoden II III and V are considered some of the best. Although I'm not sure what they'd equate to in the West given they have 108 joinable characters (although half of those are just non-combat character that help with your war)

Xenogears... a game that is best known for giving Tale his avatar... And crucifying giant robots and a pink furry creature