Humanoid

Finished Monaco multiplayer (combination of two-player and four-player play depending on availability), although we have to go back and 100% the final mission. Meanwhile, started knocking over the game single-player, getting through the first campaign today. Was worried initially that it'd be pretty dull doing so after the madcap multiplayer, but it's still very fun and challenging in a different way. At this stage it's my game of the year.

As a kid my reading material was more along the lines of astronomy and dinosaurs! That said, if there really is a DL book named The Legend of Humanoid, then yay.

Heh, I've seen the name and am aware of the Dragonlance connection, meant to say I'm not familiar with his work: I haven't read a word of either his writing, or of any Dragonlance material. But yeah, it means that I did have the impression for a couple of decades that Dragonlance as a setting was the work of two women, which I thought was pretty cool for the genre.

Because all I had to trade was a 4-pack of the base game. (And I've still never played it)

All the dual-platform titles are the ones available for a buck anyway.

Hickman is writing for Shroud of the Avatar, for what it's worth. Not familiar with him personally (up until this year I thought he was a she....).

It was technically in the initial launch version, but was locked away unless the game was modded (and supposedly designed to unlock only you beat the game on impossible anyway). A later patch just enabled it for everyone (and fixed the bugs, a lot of the options were downright unusable in their initial state, hence them being disabled).

It's the range of options that modify gameplay settings in various ways, usually making things more difficult. They're not necessarily meant to be balanced, and certain combinations can make the game literally impossible to win.

The new resource gathering bit of XCOM is the only real negative I'm drawing from it now. Unless it's a tactically useful thing, it sounds like simple busywork. Looked a bit at the Sims 4 coverage, and it does look quite a bit more intuitive than the mess that was controlling its predecessor, but I guess hoping for pure autonomy, which would have really sold the game to me, was probably wishful thinking.

Worst moment was probably when he launched the whip/chain thing at nothing. Some intelligence at guessing what the player is attempting to do would go far.

-RPS That's TWO good news stories about EA in a week. Now as bad good news comes in threes, what'll be the third? EDIT: Don't see any reference to it, so I assume it's not the case, but it'd be nice if the policy applied to retail keys registered with Origin - i.e. being able to reclaim the key within the timeframe.

I get that, and fully admit my unfamiliarity and consequent indifference to the setting influences my position. But in a tug-of-war between a better game and a more faithful game, I choose the former every time. Ultimately I think a question those with similarly indifferent opinions of the gameworld have to mine would be along the lines of "why does the act of hacking a couple of turrets have to be such a big deal that it needs its own game level(s) and mechanics to do?" So while I understand some purists may be horrified, I see no problem turning what would have been Matrix sections in the (future) design documents into simple decking skill checks - of which we already have implemented in a number of places anyway. For if that's the cost of getting more game with your full party and full complement of skills rather than the abbreviated ones, then I think it's the sensible trade. The issue of the Decker class is a comparatively minor sidenote. We already have D&D skills heavily modified in pretty much any iteration of the CRPGs, rebalancing Deckers to give them more 'real world' utility is an easy enough change. EDIT: And a genuine question from an SR newbie: What is it about the Matrix that makes it less acceptable to cut than the Astral Plane (which totally not familiar with)? And surely PnP players play not-irregularly with modules and parties which include no explicit use of the Matrix?

We know Microsoft are closing down their GFWL Marketplace and the associated points system in a few days. But some information that was put on then taken down from the Age of Empires Online page indicates that Games for Windows Live in its entirety is getting the kybosh in the middle of next year. While in a sense it's good riddance to bad rubbish, it's unclear what the fate of those with GFWL-encumbered games is if the developers/publishers don't choose to act. Grain of salt and all that, rumour and images blatantly stolen from this thread. Another unsourced image sort of backs the above.

For what it's worth, it's a game I intended to replay after finishing it on the first weekend of its release. But I delayed and delayed and ended up not doing it. I feel it's in a similar place as vanilla NWN/2 (except unlike both those campaigns, I did finish the OC), it's waiting for it's MotB. And maybe I hadn't been paying enough attention during development, but I had fully expected Berlin to be as big as the shipped module, so the news that it will be isn't so much 'good' news as much as dodging a revelation that would have disappointed me. I'm going to go against the flow regarding the calls for more Matrix or similar alternate realities though. I'm sure it's a big part of the Shadowrun universe, but in terms of making a game with budgetary and time constraints, I'd rather the effort be focused on the larger part of the game instead of pseudo-optional content. I don't know how the Matrix plays in PnP, but in-game, it's just a stripped back gameplay area with fewer or non-existent opportunities for interesting interactions and decisions, so in a one-or-the-other development choice ...well, I'd pick the 'real' world every time. And rebalance Deckers with that in mind.

I thought I played that game as a kid, but the levels didn't look familiar at all. Realised that the game I played was actually Ducktales 2 - I didn't know there were two games. Would have been nice to combine the two into one rerelease given the near-identical gameplay. It'd be tricky to sell it standalone later anyhow given that. Random aside: I thought there was something wrong with my computer graphics. Turns out Firefox just has a new icon. Yeah.

Huh, I don't remember replying to this thread, but then it was nine-and-a-half years ago. Apparently I was using the green monochrome bearded retro from Privateer as an avatar back then, which I wouldn't have had for a long time at all. I'm not sure why it was even used it the first place - did the initial iteration of this board software disallow animated GIFs? The Ultima 8 Avatar is blatantly stolen (then cropped) from DOUG the Eagle's Ultima 8 anti-walkthrough. I've used it since the initial migration from the Black Isle boards (where we common rabble could not choose custom avatars) to the Interplay one (where it was a free-for-all). I didn't really post on these forums for several years - I'd have averaged about one post per year throughout the remainder of the noughties. The early part of that at the Lair and the balance spent maintaining my own forums, which was notionally for the WoW guild I co-ran but really was just a random off-topic board. When I came back here, I saw that everyone who was someone had their avatars modified with the Alpha Protocol tag (to this day I still have no idea why that was a thing), so as an obedient sheeple, I had to do the same. The colour compression is quite a bit off compared to the 'genuine' ones because I had no idea how to use the GIMP (and still don't) - this is the first and only image I've manipulated with it. Used to use JASC Animation Shop before Corel bought them out.

Hopefully it's alteration/transmutation magic rather than illusion/phantasm or enchantment/charm magic.

So much for a nice relaxing Sunday of gaming. After a routine restart, Windows is acting up, popping up error dialogs everywhere. The file checker reports errors it can't correct, and chkdsk threw up thousands of errors. Trying a repair install now, but fearing my old 2009-vintage SSD might be at fault here. I have a second, newer SSD in the system I could use, but I'd rather keep it as a games drive and just buy a new system drive if it's indeed the fault.

Answering my own question - second hand info and not sure what the source is (besides this stolen screenie), but anyway:

Don't suppose there's any news on whether any additional titles will be unlocked? Haven't really followed the previous HB's enough to tell whether such a thing is guaranteed or not. Would be the difference between buying to make a donation and buying to play stuff in terms of amount.

Except that preorder bonuses are a different but still shady business ploy meant to counteract that reprehensible idea that is the customer making well-informed purchase decisions.

Same, 75% shooters, and Sims3 which everyone probably has. Still, happy enough to donate guilt-free even if I got nothing, plus never played a Burnout game before (and technically, also don't have Sims 3:High-end Loft Stuff). Anyone know if Sims 3 disc edition content is compatible with Origin version Sims 3?

While good that MS will no longer be spying on you (visually at least), it does mean that the console now ships with a non-optional $100 paperweight.

We have a public holiday? Oh, bloody Queenslanders.

What I liked about the progression of FO1 to FO2 to NV was the effect of time, as opposed to geography, had on the world. A bombed-out wasteland is a bombed out wasteland no matter where it is, what I want to see is the experience of reconstructing society. NV has been criticised by some in comparison to FO3 for being "too civilised", but I think that's looking at it from the wrong angle. Do we think humanity in a post-war scenario such as that presented will forever remain in the hole they've dug themselves, doomed to just counting out time? Indeed I'd go so far as to say the timeline is actually too slow, and the content of the later games set in an "unrealistically" far future compared to the backstory. I'd be interested in seeing whether there is support for taking part in evolving the world, to the logical end-point of a post-Fallout world, either with the emergence of a new renaissance where the bombs are just articles in history books, or with the final snuffing out of the final flicker of humanity. Or is the setting just a Mario-esque repetition of the same theme, where time has no meaning?