Humanoid

Good news, certainly. The last thing Fallout needs is to go further into the future and making the setting even more improbably dead and desolate. I'm generally not big on the idea of prequels for every game and its dog these days, but I think Fallout needs a bit of a rewind.

Well yeah, that'd be a game killer right there. But there's also the compulsion some game designers have with taking this type of option where they'll make a simple "I want to kill this person" into a big set piece fight as if doing otherwise would be having not enough game content. Yet they're perfectly content to make the speech option a single-click "I win" button. DXHR took the opposite approach of course in making both approaches require "work". But at least it generally didn't contrive to turn things into big set piece fights if you failed. Vaguely related - since I'm done with XCOM and have little to do, I'm toying with the idea of finally finishing DAO, a game completely murdered by its combat, with instant combat win cheats or mods (no idea what's available). I'd love, absolutely love the idea of doing the same with TOR, but obviously that sort of thing would be rather frowned upon in an MMO. They're not even games I think fail in terms of combat because there's too much of it, because the way I play, I'm finding any amount of combat is too much. Just like Darklands before it.

Repeating myself somewhat, but that's not really good for roleplaying - taking the option that's mechanically less hassle because one can't be bothered micromanaging it, as opposed to the one that's in character. A speech check is a click or two, killing someone might end up being several minutes of combat - bah, screw that. Executing people through dialogue should be an option in every conversation!

Ended up not voting due to apathy. It's the type of game where I'd be happy to just enable cheats and autokill everything, frankly. Some element of schadenfreude in the reaction perhaps, but in terms of good business sense, I think it was a misstep to even pose the question. But in the end, just like most other games I've backed, I've blissfully ignored the minutiae of the development process.

Just finished my C/I XCOM game and yeah, basically the strategic aspects of the game were gradually overtaking the parts I play the game for. XCOM is a very binary game in terms of its outcomes, and while that suits the combat layer just fine, as it does in chess, I think it's a bit heavy handed when the matter of a one hour delay in some event occurring can make or break your game. In a case of the game getting in the way of the game, it went as it always does. Give me more random map abduction missions and less of, well, less of everything else, frankly. That said, if I had all those heavies in the early game, I'd have the biggest silly grin on my face ....then proceed to rocket EVERYTHING. Would be the perfect Impossible team early game, but again, while I reckon I could handle the combat of I/I reasonably, from what I've seen the economic management aspect looks blatantly unfun. I'm done with the game for now. Might go back in the future and try a training roulette game and some other interesting second wave options (not many are), but I'm hungry for a more fundamental change in the game's structure. Final score breakdown was pretty typical and close to the averages presented. 293 days, 61 missions won, 0 missions lost, 781 kills, 3 losses. Inflated somewhat by leaving my home continent uncovered so that abductions would keep happening, and leaving Exalt up until just before the Temple Ship. P.S. Temple ship is just as big a letdown as ever. The new alien types don't even show up, and even when I screwed up badly and took my situational specialist snapshot sniper instead of the mainstay squadsight one, the game didn't come near to punishing me for it. Ah well, Merry Christmas aliens - I'd planned on leaving you alive until the new year while I optimised my squad with genemods and psionics and whatnot but ended up not bothering. Final squad only had the volunteer with any psi capability worth mentioning, and probably a half dozen individual genemods between the whole squad. Eh. P.P.S. I've kind of changed my mind about Exalt lately. Initially they bothered me because they're basically nothing but a firepower test of fending off wave after wave of reinforcements, DA2-style. But by the end, I saw them as an opportunity to blow off some steam and try crazy things given their relative ease.

Something altogether more low-tech, been using this Nokia 515 for a week. Had to import it from Germany as it's not presently available locally - picked the white one. Why this? I'd become unsatisfied with the battery of my older dumbphone, a Nokia 6300, which used to reliably last a week, but now manages a bit over half that. This? Well I didn't even fully charge this when I got it a full week ago, where the battery was showing three bars. Now it's showing two bars. Objectively, it's bloody overpriced for what it is, being about double the price of the next model down. But I'm happy with the purchase because no one else is doing this sort of thing.

I love this game too! Let's see.... FF7 Super Mario RPG ...and that's all I've played. Put them in that order because the silent QTE in the latter game pissed me off no end.

I know the dot is there, but don't see how it's relevant to anything.

As was Superman 64.

So, Bethesda NPCs?

So while most of the new Enemy Within content is relatively fresh and interesting, there's also the matter of Operation Progeny, a planned DLC that was scrapped and included as part of the expansion. Short version is that it was rightly scrapped, it manages to be worse than the first DLC, which was awful, but at least had some cool hats included.

So it's more a case of in 1997, you had a canvas painting of the Mona Lisa with a bit of the bottom part chopped off. Today, you get a postage stamp depicting the Mona Lisa, with a bit of the bottom part chopped off.

I still get that Cheyenne's eyes floating out the side bug in New Vegas....

I got the quest that supposedly initiates the Dark Brotherhood questline, but never got any further until literally dozens of (real life) hours later, at which point I had more or less had my fill of the game. See the thing is, other than for hardcore RPing reasons, the game doesn't really ever give you a reason to sleep.... The Thieves' Guild quest ....well, I found writing in the denouement so offensively stupid that I just tabbed to quit the conversation (a word of praise for Bethesda, all games need this function) and left. Well, I was going to murder everyone and leave, but *surprise*, plot armour.

More specifically, don't investigate the dragon attack.

At that price for the normal version, I may have bitten. But instead they were asking closer to $30, and obviously the "low violence" Aussie version. Yeah, no.

The much anticipated XCOM base defense. To be honest, I was getting pretty bored of the game just then, as the phase of the game where you're endlessly breaching large UFO after large UFO, including, most frequently, my most hated map in the game, the supply barge. So something different was cool. Throwing the rest in spoilers, but obviously pretty mild stuff anyway. Right now though, number one on my wishlist is just a stripped down, almost skirmish mode where you just do mission after mission on the standard abduction maps. Never mind UFOs, never mind plot, screw Exalt and DLC missions, and screw economy and panic micromanagement. Just give me the core of the game without any of the window dressing.

Learned something new - Amazon are perfectly okay with shipping PSUs overseas. With it being Cyber Monday and all, there are some good deals to be had. Voltage isn't an issue because every halfway decent one has switching input, so the only difference is the shape of the power plug.

Strongly in favour of. I've been wanting to play Darklands, but can't bring myself to endure even one second of its combat system. Just make it a single menu option labelled 'fight' and be done with it.

Whale is great but unfortunately a bit of a one-time deal in terms of tension. Once you know how it works, it's fairly easy to game. Not even talking the extreme level of taking one flying unit and doing it solo (the aliens won't be able to do anything but stare longingly at you), but just in getting at close as you can to the trigger point without actually setting it off. A Jetboot mech or a jumping genemodded trooper won't trigger it until you're at the upper deck. And I assume mimetic skin will break it just like it breaks the game in general. The operation Progeny missions fail where that succeeded. The first mission just encourages people to learn every single spawn point and camp it, turning it from an unfairly balanced bloodbath to a methodical farming expedition.

Morrowind was interesting to me, but wore me out with the constant running about in Vivec, so I didn't get overly far. Oblivion I despised, I'd go as far as to say it's the worst game I've ever purchased (with CivCTP and ME3 rounding out the podium). With that in mind, I can genuinely say I enjoyed Skyrim. Didn't finish it, didn't even come close, and have no interest in the DLC whatsoever. Winced at some of the writing, refused to even go through with some of the most ridiculous aspects of its railroading, and cursed Bethesda a lot, but in the end, fully worth the money. A game on contradictions I guess. On topic, first and only planned purchase of the sale thus far, Euro Truck Simulator 2: Going East DLC.

Those are fantastic value and handily beat the blinged up competitors that cost twice as much. For what it's worth, if in doubt my preferred reference is SPCR's recommended list. As for Corsair, it pays to check out who their OEM is for each individual model. They have some market-leading products, but also some stinkers. Aside, while most PSU internal fans are soldered on, some use plugs and would be easily replaced. *Normally* it's a standard size case fan. Then again, for those handy with a soldering iron or even just happy with braiding and electrical tape, even the former isn't a big obstacle. Just make sure to discharge the PSU fully before opening it up - unplug the PC at the wall and try hitting the power button a few times. Might also leave it to sit for a while to be extra sure.

Heh, only just remembered we have a Union Jack as well and therefore would be impacted by the decision. I for one hopes it happens then just to see the reaction to having to change.

I'm not American, but my plans involve trawling bargain websites looking for cheap tat to import. Also expensive tat on discount.

I reckon these days for any remotely mobile device, I'd not just prefer SSDs, but I'd actively refuse to use spindle drives at all. Indeed I'd leave the 2.5" bay blank and just run off the mSATA/M.2 drive in such a scenario. For various reasons of noise, weight, reliability/ruggedness. Heck, the machine I'm using now only has an eMMC system drive plus a microSD card for extra storage. Those massive Alienware-style desktop replacement notebooks might be exempt I guess, but then such devices would have enough upgradability to not require the combo drive.