birdiedude

Who's-this-in-the-what-now I would tend to disagree, most of the console "RPGs" I've played have this little concept known as save points generally preventing you from simply picking it up, playing for a couple of minutes, and then shutting the game down. (just earlier today I spent a good three hours on Makai Kingdom with no direct chance to save, but it's still incredibly fun ) On the other hand, most PC RPGs have allowed me to save anywhere, including in the middle of battles, allowing all kinds of abuse. Unless you are referring to games ported to console or created by (previously) predominately PC developers, who don't necessarily have any idea what makes a good console game. That's a different story entirely. Not that I particularly enjoy the concept of save points, nor do I think Bioware, for example, has necessarily made bad games. But this entire line of thinking seems ignorant to me, despite the fact that I've seen it spouted from many PC gamers recently. On topic: So I take it Sawyer left when he discovered there would be no PC version, or has he given any other reasons for the move?

The beginning and ending in Quest for Glory 4. Waking up in the ritual bones of a Cthulhu-like entity is an intersting way to start things.

One of the best game endings I have ever experienced was Final Fantasy 3 for the SNES. (6 for those of you who care.) I won't post any spoilers so this is safe to read. First of all there are twelve characters that are forced into your party through the course of the game. Technically only three are required to enter the final dungeon and beat the game. The final area is magically held together by the bad guy. When you kill him, it begins to fall apart. The bulk of the ending cinema deals with the characters backtracking to a point at which they can escape. Each of the characters you have collected has a scene in the ending. This scene mostly reinforces the development they encountered during the previous sections of the game. THere are some new developments, but nothing earth shattering. On the one hand, defeating the final enemy has made the world a much safer place, and you have brought about a significant change to the game world. On the other had, the ending itself only continues for roughly five minutes after the characters escape. Essentially any further development is left in the player's imagination, but we have been given more than enough info to know what to expect. The beauty of the game is at certain points character choice has a significant impact on the story. As I stated above there are only three characters necessary to beat the game. Using only those three will give you a "default" ending only showing their sections, any further characters not only reveal more of the cinema, but also alter those default scenes. For example, one of the default characters may have a love interest. If you don't have him, she simply comments that she misses him. If you do have him the scene is changed to further reinforce their feelings. What is the point of all of this? CHARACTERS! If you have a linear plot driven quest, that doesn't mean you need some hour long cinema tying things up. Even if you have a non-linear choice driven quest it doesn't mean you have to shoe-horn the plot into some default ending. The focus should be on the character's you've encountered and the one you've created yourself (I actually consider cities to be under the category of "character" in some instances). The development given to the characters you encounter should be more than enough to make this a viable way to wrap things up. If this can

The graphics are great. The story: This depends. - One of my friends went in with no expectations. He loved it, and he loved the ending. -I expected every character to betray or otherwise screw you over, so as the plot progressed the only real surprises were the specifics. Though, I admit those specifics are rather impressive. The ending rocks. Gameplay: Also depends. - The camaugage is mostly useless, because the enemies have been made smart enough to see through it most of the time. - Sneaking varies. Often it seemed easier just to knock out all of the enemies in an area rather than sneak past them. This is in the default difficulty. - Boss battles rock as well. There is some great variety if you go for a "no-kill" approach. - It seems you can completely miss certain items, and the extras have been made extremely difficult to earn. Overall I enjoyed the game. If I had time I'd play it through again.

I greatly enjoy the game. I'm playing it again after beating it when it first came out in America. I'd highly recommend Double Jump's guide if you can get it. The time limit on side characters doesn't really matter much. In a couple hours you can create a super weapon that give Marona 1oo turns to each enemy's 1 and that can annihilate even the final boss in one hit. She isn't quite as "delicate" as it seems. Only 3000 Phantom Brave makes it easier to level up, simply killing things is no longer the only option. But it doesn't matter anyway, as a the time spent leveling is better spent making the above super weapon. I actually just beat the game with an average level of 300. One hit. Phantom Kindoms, or Makai Kingdoms, (whatever) comes out March 18th in Japan.

First off, a disclaimer: I don

I didn't like any of the endings. But when you sit back and think about it, it doesn't matter. Vampires of the world of darkness have already faced their Gehenna in the official product line, so no matter what your character does he/she is more than likely dead anyway. Overall the game was fun to play in between the periods I was staring at a loading screen. As much as I would have prefered better endings, fun is all that matters.

I'm a native English speaker. I studied German for about four years, but it's been a good four or five years sinse I last used it. So "Guten Tag" is about the extent of my skill at this point. Currently I'm learning Japanese. It isn't really a difficult spoken language once you wrap your mind around the idea that some sentence structures are "backwards" compared to English. Kanji however is incedibly difficult to learn. If I had time (and there was money to be made B) ) I wouldn't mind learning more languages; learning Japanese has shown me how much thought patterns change depending on language, for one thing. Kanji is also extremly interesting in that you can often see the ideas that went into certain words either through pure individual meaning or through the meaning of base componnts.

So I take it from these serious replies that nobody else actually checked the link B) Or maybe those who did realized this wasn't a serious topic The Magic Chef, indeed

The only show I have to disagree with here is Lexx, that show probably should have ended a bit sooner. The whole "Fire and Water" arc was interesting at first, at least until all of the episodes were the same find food, run into some problem, lose food formula. The end of the arc was actually rather disappointing; aside from the weirdness of the truth behind the planets it also left me thinking they could have ended it in the exact same way three episodes into the season. The final season wasn't much better, and could also have been ended an episode or two in. The series was overall depressing. Of course I think that's what they were going for, so I guess they succeeded. Ahh, now that I've finally vented about Lexx with people who probably have some idea of what I'm talking about B) I agree most of the shows mentioned here ended far too soon. I miss Angel the most, because that last season was dark and humorous at the same time. A lot of great episodes, I can't think of many other series that could get away with turning the main character into a muppet

There are actually many exceptionally good anime series out there. The problem is that the stuff we get on TV is either bad or badly translated. Hentai is weird, but I was scarred more when I visited a seeming inocent American website featuring Buggs Bunny and Simpsons characters in similar acts

The simplest suggestion would be to switch clients. Try Azureus, it's incredibly customizable.

A little late I know, but I'd like to add my two cents. The ending to a game is important, especially in non-linear games as it is just about the only time the writers are given free reign to take control completely away from the player. However, I have to say I don't like the Fallout endings precisely because they highlight this point; you got to see how your character changed the various places he/she visited true. But I would have preferred if these locations were changed during the actual course of the game, so that you could experience and participate in the changes beyond the one shot you were already given compared to simply sitting back and watching the effects. For example take an anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist, currently running in Japan that will be aired in the US sometime in November. In the first two episodes the main characters are in a city in the middle of nowhere where a corrupt religious leader is leading his people toward a war. These two characters end this corruption and leave the city . . . only to miss another villain that pops up and sets the city back on the course of destruction. In the minds of the heroes everything ended happily ever after, but events beyond their control dictated otherwise. Had they ever actually checked on the city it would have become apparent things weren't as they seemed. Now if the game character just makes one sweep of an area, performs all of the quests and leaves believing he has "completed" that area what guarantee is there that everyone will truly live happily ever after? It's also funny to take sequels into consideration, because many games end on a happy note only to have some other world/universal threat appear . . . . Just like KotOR it would seem. My ideal ending would probably something like Final Fantasy 6, in that game there are twelve important playable characters (and two hidden ones) throughout the story these twelve have various interactions with each other and reactions to the world around them. When you reach the ending these interactions are highlighted, reinforced, or finally tied up. You only actually see the rest of the world for a few hours after the ending, but it isn't important to see that everything was wrapped up in a nice little package because it was the characters that were the driving force of the game anyway. That's what I'd prefer to see in KoOR2 if it's still remotely possible.

I think that the spirit of this thread is that choices should be reflected in actual game play, so if you choose to be light side throughout the entire story the game should reflect this. The sudden choice in KotOR didn't support this; no one seemed to notice if you changed sides or if you simply remained the same. There wasn't enough left in the game at the time of the choice to really create a new persona. Effectively any change was rationalized entirely in the player

The problem with many of Bioware's villains (along with many other villains) is that they try to make the villain personal, something which often has the effect of diluting their "evil" for people who simply don't take a game personally. The Dark Side is also often misinterpreted, it isn't mean to be evil for the sake of being evil, it is more a reaction to losing one's balance. It's a personal fall, not something that should simply happen to hundreds of people suddenly in times of trouble.

Another problem with DnD and developers is that it seems the DnD people ended up being the "computer geeks" who got into the game industry. That basically means the ideals of a DnD game are what shapes most PC RPG's. Personally I see this as a bad thing, as if does limit creativity in many respects. Things like the physically weak wizard who must conserve their spells . . . why not make a game with the whole premise being a body builder who can only use magicz Japan doesn't seem to have had this problem to the same degree. Sure many of their battle systems are similar, but there seems to be more companies with more crazy ideas making games over there than here in America. Anyway I'm interested in seeing the next few years of game development, as console kids are now reaching the age when they can enter into the industry and express their ideas. Maybe the fresh blood will eliminate some of the cliches DnD has subjected to PC games.

I have to somewhat agree with Macolio, when was the last time a DnD setting really helped a game in and of itself? I don't think PnP players are such a majority anymore that they are a built in fan base worth anything, especially compared to the Final Fantasy fan-base (FFX-2 sold 1.2 million in Japan opening weekend, Kingdom hearts recently broke 3 mill, KotOR was at 500,000 last I heard). As far as the systems go, it should technically be possible to do DnD easier on a PC, as the computer can do all of the math . . . but then again that loses so much that it isn't worth the tradeoff. Settings aren't that great either as making a game fit the setting is probably more work than it's worth. Once again SquareEnix and many other console companies have had little trouble designing their own settings. Finally well designed leveling schemes in most console games offer either a better opportunity to customize your character or simple more positive reinforcement that you are actually doing something with your character. Fighting tooth and nail for levels just doesn't work well in video games.

The thing about this is that Squaresoft/Squarenix has a large enough fanbase that even if they did something stupid that alienated half of it's fans they could still do very well with the other half. If you talk to many of these fans you see there are some extremely strange trends such that one person likes feature X, but not Y. Another fan likes feature Y, but not Z. Yet another likes Z, but not X. Basically if you talk to someone that has seen his favorite feature in every single game then they will be more than happy to go on about the how great the company is. Even if others have been betrayed it's usually only a single game out of the many series' Square offers, so they too can affort to support the company. Thus far they haven't really had a string of games that truly screwed with their fanbase. As I started to post earlier, KotOR falied in many respects, this doesn't mean that it isn't a good game that deserves recognition (OK I don't actually agree with that, but hey ) but that many features that sounded interesting on paper failed in implementation and so shouldn't be repeated. Personally I think the game is extremely overrated and the only reason it did so well was because 1) there are so few RPG's on the Xbox or 2) Many people were wowed by the simple things CRPG's have done for years, but that they'd never seen before. Of course as I posted elsewhere I think the CRPG thing of presenting choices every five minutes is itself overrated, but it was such a new thing to the audience that they couldn't help but like it.

I think KotOR's first major problem was that it was a console game, and no I dont mean that it came out for the X-box first. Basically many of Bioware's game have far more in common, in implementation, with the Final Fantasy games than say . . . Fallout. The problem is tha Bioware hasn't yet realized this and so attempts to put Fallout, DnD, or other PC options in their games, which leads to an odd combination when they can't do either extreme very well. Some other problems: The mini games were bad in implementation: Pazaac would have been decent if it weren't for the fact that there was no randomness in who went first. The Towers of Hanoi puzzle had the worst interface possible. And the turrents occured far too often. Cutscenes and FMV were used a little too often and in the wrong places and times. It could be just that my resolution had to be changed when those FMV's played but they constantly took far longer to load than they should have given they were worthless filler material. Most actual console games have had more experience and so know when to use cut scenes to the best effect, Bioware kind of stumbled into it years late and didn't learn from past mistakes. Probably not BW's fault but the feats were often redundent. I could probably think of some more, but I'm pressed for time .

My point with #1 isn't that you should be forced to talk to each and every person, but that you have the option to do so. Games like the Final Fantasies are set up in an entirely different manner to say Fallout in that you don't really have to focus on specific quest giving characters. Basically they take the time and effort to develop each and every character in the world to some degree. It could just be some guy saying "I have to do my laundry" but the overall effect is that it is a more immersive and developed world (IMO) than most PC RPG's in which you automatically know who to talk to and who can be avoided. Basically there reaches a point when you want to talk to everyone because you know they'll have something interesting to say, and possibly uncover a fact about the world you didn't know before. For example in FFX, early on in the game you are told to follow someone to a nearby village, if you simply do that you miss out talking to a couple blitzball players who explain the game to you. Not the mechanics, but interesting facts such as the people of this world can learn to hold their breaths for longer than ten minutes, something that otherwise would have seemed strange when it seemed everyone could breath underwater later in the game. I never got this impression from KotOR or Fallout. You'd have the talking heads, the quest people, and the random farmers/drug addicts/whatever. Sure they added to the world but in a "hey these guys have a drug problem" kind of way that didn't immerse me. Finally on this point Morrowind managed to name just about everyone. Sure the dialogue system could have used some work, but it did make some attempt. Actually Morrowind was pretty nice in developing the world through dialogue, if you bothered to read through it all what people had to say was interesting . . . until the twentieth time you see the exact same thing from a generic peasant, anyway. The chapter system was just an example of how FFX-2 managed to get you to return to other places, if another system can be done better then they should go for it. I

Improvements over KotOR, among other PC RPG

I've enjoyed Angel for a long time now, and currently it's the only show I'll go out of my way to watch. I think this season has been on the whole better than most. However, I don't think I mind it being cancelled so long as they have time to develop a decent ending. I'm not sure I trust a TV series to seriously develop an apocolypse unless it's created specifically with that in mind. So it might be better for them to quit while their ahead. Actually, I thought last season would have been a good end to the series. Angel did fullfill both sindes of the prophecy (he was on both the good and evil end), and did participate in something that could have almost been classified as the end of the world. But my thing would have been imagining them in W&H probably would have been more mysterious than actually seeing it. I probably want the series to end for paradoxical self intrest, this is the single show that keeps me anywhere near the TV (which means it's good) but if it ended I wouldn't feel the need to watch any TV at all (aside from the occasional Simpsons or something). So I guess either way I win on some level

My username comes from my sister, who hated our pet birds. I was friendly to them entirely to annoy her, so once she called me this and the name stuck. The avatar is currently Homestar from www.homestarrunner.com, but I'll probably change it if I fins a more interesting picture. The quote is from the short-lived Dilbert tv show.