Tigranes

I've just preordered TW2 on GOG.com. For those of you who have; 1) When do you get to choose your classic game? 2) Divine Divinity or Realms of Arkania 1&2 (or 3)? I already have Gothic 2 Gold. I've no clue about how RoA is. I remember trying Divine Divinity for 30 minutes years ago then being put off by how 'clunky' it felt, but really that's not much to go on.

So, not sure at all? I agree with Wals et al about the dangers of an arbitrary self appointed committee in charge of all this, but that still doesn't mean that a 'democratically' run self appointed committee isn't preferable to Assange's Club. Of course, the degree to which Assange has been a 'dictator' hasn't been clear so far, but I guess the kind of stuff we're hearing is going that way... but then, you have to be sure these days when you read news about that man.

Wow, that was like a machine gun full of bad cliches to the face. Maybe I'm just older now, but it seems like the more cinematics we have in games, the more terrible they are. Gameplay please, Blizzard, Diablo wasn't that cool, it was fun.

Yeah, I agree with your points - basically I'm saying sure, there will be some people out there who pretend to 'hate' graphics or think good graphics = bad gameplay, but (a) I don't really think they're the majority when it comes down to it, and (b) I think there's very few people here that fall into those pitfalls. Anyway, not a big deal. Hassat's point is worth addressing, though - as ugly as FNV is at some points it's nice for me that it thus runs so well on all kinds of computers.

Oh, really? My bad.

Well, if you want a short, concise version, I suggest you are making clever remarks that don't really address the issue but rather reflect the silly and unrealistic polarity we now have between 'elitists' and 'halo whores' these days. Certainly there are some of those out there, but [see my position above].

There's the risks of the whole movement splintering, factionism, information leak becoming a business of its own, etc - basically a trajectory where Assange's excessive political power play & high profile leaking inevitably pushes the practice of leaks towards an 'industry' of leaks. There's no question that WikiLeaks needed to take on more of an editorial function at some point or another instead of just being a dump, but this is likely to bring up new problems over the next few years about power structures, accountability and organisation amongst leakers themselves. Main variable at the moment is just how much momentum OpenLeaks has at the moment, what happens to Assange's legal situation - ideally OpenLeaks can 'inherit' all from the sinking ship of WikiLeaks, not so ideally we get the two roaring at each other or OpenLeaks petering out.

Actually, I hope it *is* ME3, so that (a) they can finally be done with the stupid trilogy and make something else, (b) because if it isn't, the screenies look so ME-ish that it's not likely to be very interesting new IP anyway. I mean, seriously, even if you love ME, 'new game hype' with a couple of screenshots showing a sniper with a ridiculous haircut and what looks like grey-filtered dilapidated urban ruins in space? Not sure what they're doing with their PR, at least THIS IS THE NEW **** had a purpose.

So are you saying (1) In today's market, graphics matter and many gamers care about this. (2) Logically, this means that those who say they don't care about graphics are insincere and only pretending; (3) and that to not care about graphics is an incorrect/invalid position because of (1). ...because, as you can see, (2) and (3) don't follow from (1) logically, at all. In any case, the argument often expressed is that good gameplay is more important than good graphics, not that gameplay and graphics are mutually exclusive. I know we get tired of the kneejerk "graphics whore" talk, but overreacting the other way doesn't get at the reality, either, IMO. Anyway, personally it's funny to me because I don't think most AAA games these days look that 'good' at all. Now I have a terrible eye for such things, but there have been very few games since the 3D era that have made me just wow at the beautiful scenery and just look around for a bit. There have been moments in some particular games, but to me it really feels like the linear trajectory we draw of technological advancement just doesn't reflect the reality of game graphics. Of course sometmies you get games generally looking better after generational jumps, but to me it's a case of - there are mostly games that look meh/good enough, then a few games that look really good in different ways - that includes old games and new games. Of course, I think I have no authority on visual matters because my fashion sense is so bad, I don't really notice much wrong with the crew in that latest DA2 screenie. Maybe I'm just so used now to wacky fantasy attire in games...

Yes, but I never used crafting in FO3 or FNV - I try but then you need to gather so many idiotic odds and ends and carry them all around the wasteland and keep track that it's just annoying.

Explosives was pretty fun but it can't sustain you for the entire playthrough. No matter what you do there simply aren't enough explosives, and you have to back it up with something else - for me it was guns - and the thing about that is, guns are so good in this game that you start to feel like you're sabotaging yourself deliberately, at times. However it *is* very fun, especially, I'd say, up to level 7-8 and up to the point you get a follower. Much more fun than with guns, the feeling of sneaking up on people and lobbing dynamites at them and trying to get them all in one. I've now made the GECK adjustments to several melee/unarmed perks, so I will go full Unarmed as soon as I find some power fists. Backing up with explosives, melee is pretty fun so far - last night I ran into that area with radscorpions near the Mojave Post, and found that the Sledgehammer is the only thing I have that can overwhelm their DT. Queue lots of running and lots of swinging. In the end I was out of health, stuck in that little caravan camper, with a Giant Radscorpion waiting outside but too big to come in - the only one with enough DT to resist the sledge. In the end I had to wait, wait, then make a break for it and run all the way back to Primm. edit: you also learn a move from the Great Khans if you are Accepted by them, throwing sand in people's faces. I also remember that there's another unarmed move you can learn from someone, if you have 75 Survival... but I forget.

FO1/2 had its horrible bits, but I think the combat was a lot more fun. It had a lot more memorable and engaging moments. Like when you need your flamer or minigun or rocket launcher to hit just the right tile and hope you get all the super mutants down before it's their turn, when you have to work with limited AP to make things work - you get a lot of situations where it really is "if i don't get this right i'm dead". VATS doesn't translate any of this, it's just a glorified autoaim for all the good it does to make combat exciting. Patch tomorrow, that's early. Hope it's save & mod compatible, though I havent patched my NV once yet.

I like the feel of the buildings in that one, though. And the short bling bling guy looks pretty good.

Oh, I think I might. I've started the game already but it should work - makes sense, after all. We'll see how it goes though, in the first few hours I've found that combat mostly involves running around in circles spamming left click with the baseball bat, hoping to connect on something. Due to the nature of the enemies (i.e. not really a lot of humans) the melee combat feels way worse than Morrowind or Oblivion.

Wow, non-UK/US 1 million? That's pretty amazing. Well done Tw2.

Boredom is a powerful motivation to break those walls. And the reward is great. I actually sort of miss the original FO look, now. I think FO3/NV did a good job but it won't really stick in your mind as powerfully.

I've been playing it a fair bit. 80% of it is great, but 20% of it is ugh haha. I created a Power Forward as My Player and have been in general having fun with it. I am a backup PF on the Spurs (drafted 20th overall) and have got my rating up to about 66 now (from like 40 lol). The most frustrating thing about the game by far is how often the game takes control out of your hands. It's retarded how often you get "stuck" in some animation. It looks nice and all, but if I push to move away from the guy, I should turn away from the guy! The MJ mode saved the game for me though haha. And now that I am familiar with most of the intricacies of the game, I find it a lot more tolerable. It's been a remarkable experience, mainly of how when you are thrown (or, in my case, throw yourself) into such an unfamiliar landscape full of vocabulary, tables, pacing and movements you try to make sense of, it all becomes a sort of blur where you then pick up on things in a very distracted and piecemeal manner. I've now played three full-length matches and am only now starting to 'see' the actual game in terms of sport - before it was just a mass of bodies with rather awkward collision boxes sliding around. So hard to tell in my case about the animations, but I think I can see it. I detest the unskippable intermissions (cheerleaders, crowd reactions, etc) but then it's an ironic appreciation of how central they are to basketball as a spectacle now. I think the worst thing is the absolutely horrible menus, the worst I've seen in a long time (for everyone else, think of like 9 or 10 different sets of menus with no centralised listing, like you are messing around directories in DOS and they keep changing depending on context), but the plus is they've clearly pulled out all the stops to create a comprehensive NBA experience. To show how horrible I am at the moment, on Pro/Simulation as the Miami Heats I was trailing 10 points to the Mavericks with 2 minutes to go, just got it level, then finally won 81-79 on OT with two late free-throws. Free-throws which I had chunked down the difficulty so I could score a reasonable amount. If there's one great thing about NBA games it's how you can customise just about every imaginable setting to your liking. RPGs could learn from that.

The point of supersize me was just to turn that knowledge everybody has in the back of their mind to a shocking and memorable image that sort of zooms around over their eyelids as they contemplate a fast food lunch. Which, as a one-off, was not the worst thing to do to the situation, really.

Could have avoided a lot of grief if this was available earlier, or rather, if OE had put it in as a PC option. I don't really need it but it's definitely nice to have around, actually. Simple but smart.

Trying NBA 2k11, and I'm discovering just how arcane sports can be, especially American sports, if you've been out of the loop for a while (read: ever since you were 11). It's whole nostalgic play-as-Michael-Jordan thing is helping, but hell I know more players from '97 than I do now, and also all the jargon is driving me nuts.

I skip Christmas almost every year, it's been good. Girlfriend went back up to another town for family last year and she will again. Although I guess that obliges me to pre-Christmas replacement celebration thing.

Cant put it perfectly - they are ridiculous within the story. BOS were never meant to be the face of Fallout; they are not the heroes of the post-apocalyptic world, and arguably only barely a major player in the entire timeline. They are not meant to be like the NCR. I think it's perfectly suitable that they fade out due to their extreme isolationism - I think it would be ridiculous if in a postapocalyptic world every organisation had a classical trajectory of rise and fall. It makes a lot more sense that despite doing so many things right, some factions with good motives would fall apart and die out, leaving their work undone and adding to that wasteland setting. I mean, the FO setting in a whole was never about giant robots and large armies in power armour marching around the wasteland. It's always been about the strange juxtaposition of vast populations without water or power intersecting with several organisations or individuals who at certain points would have access to amazing technology and power. I don't think the BOS 'prospering' in a general sense would do much to make the setting interesting.

The DC situation doesn't make sense on multiple levels, but that's a different story. Bethesda wanted a more robust and kickass BOS and they got it, for better or for worse. You get those patrols even if you stick with McNamara, if you persuade him to lift the lockdown.

In that case I'll talk about overcoming the adversities of North Korean reeducation camps, they shouldn't be able to tell the difference.

It's a single line from a rumour section of a video game magazine. That's like a triple-whammy of credibility right there. Everyone knows that it's not an unlikely turn of events, and that's about as much as whoever wrote it knows, as well.