Dark Helmet

Still, you're not answering my question, only reiterating that Gaza is under control by Hamas. Let's put it this way so you can understand it easier: Why are Hamas in power in Gaza and not in the West Bank? If I recall correctly, back when Fatah and Hamas were killing each other, Hamas had more people in Gaza, and the reverse was true in the West Bank. Fast forward a few months and Hamas decides to go back to shooting rockets at Israel since they couldn't figure out how to solve things politically. When your government is unpopular, just start a war with an even more unpopular one, and people will forget all the promises you made to get elected in the first place! It's really an impossible situation, as a moderate PA government will never receive support from the Arab league, but a radical one will never accept Israel, which isn't going away any time soon.

Perhaps pointless in that the perceived threat was untrue, but not pointless in the mission to rebuild Iraq. Of course the rationale to go to war in the first place was wrong, but we owe it to the Iraqi people to see this misadventure through to the end, in my opinion. I think it's a complex scenario that's not appreciated by a lot of people... there's a lot of mistrust of the "American empire" in that part of the world (rightly so). I remember the New York Times posting an article on how a shark was discovered in the Tigris (think it was the Tigris, might've been the Euphrates), and the local populace was convinced it was the American occupation that put it there. There's also a lot of mistrust of our motives in our own country, and in others, but I honestly think that the war was not politically strategic, or for oil, as evidenced by the first oil contract being won by... China! My best guess is that Bush genuinely believed he was doing something right... some journalists have observed Mr. Bush being more reflective, with some possible regret, whereas Cheney (who profited quite a bit from this mess) has been more defiant. I would think he was misled by folks like Cheney into thinking Iraq was a big threat... I'm sure Cheney didn't really believe that, but saw the potential for fame, money and maybe oil. As for us soldiers, I would say there's a lot of different viewpoints... some people (like one of my buddies) think all Iraqis live in mud huts and are terrorists, some can see Iraq for what it actually is (or was): a fairly advanced, secular country, albeit one ruled by a dictator. Anyway, my take on it is that there's more to the story then either the "big bad American empire kills civilians and steals oil" or "the great American democracy kills terrorists and rebuilds nations", which I think is what usually is presented by both sides. America is quite capable of being a generous and benevolent country, and I hope the next administration can combine that with common sense and fiscal responsibility. (Sorry if that was a bit rambly... gotta say, I like this place a lot more than some sanitized sections of the internet - Bethesda land -, but it's also a tad more sophisticated than some other places. Nice to be back ).

Definitely agree with these two choices. I recently got Jade Empire, and while it was pretty short, the music was definitely great. And Planescape goes without saying. Seems Jeremy Soule isn't too popular (understandable), but I really liked his work on Dawn of War. The music was fantastic, and I thought it added quite a bit to the atmosphere.

Probably because it's hard to defend the claim that Oblivion is awesome sauce as an RPG, so they go on the offensive instead.

Er, Iran and Iraq were HUGE rivals. One was the champion of secular pan-Arabic politics, whereas Iran wanted (and still does) the whole region united under a fundamentalist banner. They fought for eight years (1980-1988), with about one million casualties on both sides... and there's still a good bit of tension today. I don't think Iran will go to war unless they are sufficiently able to justify it as defense. The Iranian president isn't too popular at home, but I think any dissent would evaporate if the United States or the U.K. started a war as the agressor. Hopefully this'll just be like the spyplane in China; all over the press but no big deal.

I think I remember reading in the patch notes for the first game that it fixed a bug that crashed the game when you entered the apartment areas. So it wasn't game-breaking, but still annoying. I think it was only on computers with low specs, though (like mine). Good games, had to play around with the first one a bit to make it run on my machine, though.

It's my last planet, and I didn't mean Mandalore. It's the bolded part in the planet quest timeline... Gone to Dxun -> Go to Onderon with Mandalore -> Leave Onderon -> Get message from Jedi Master guy via Mandalorian -> Return to Onderon/divide party for palace battle/Sith battle -> Finish planet. I figured it was something with my disc or something.

So after I finished the first bit of Onderon, and came back to Dxun... the Mandalorian who's supposed to show up on the Hawk... doesn't. It did this to me the last time I played on my old PC, and I can't figure out what to do... I've reloaded and redone Onderon (no effect), and cleaned the disc... not sure what else to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

26, 27 with my Dark Side guy... I didn't know you could get above 30.

Gah, my friend hasn't finished buying all the $40 3.5 books yet!

It was infinite times better than Dungeon Siege, which isn't saying much.

No demo will be released. I'd recommend Dungeon Siege 2. Fun game, and only thirty bucks now.

Dark Helmet's first impressions! The Beginning The game opens with an impressive opening cinematic, that has Uriel Septim giving the backround of the game, before showing a panorama of the city. It's quite a beautiful view, and Patrick Stewart does a superb job conveying the Emperor's anguish. You start in the Imperial City prison, in Cyrodiil, and go through a lengthy tutorial, which introduces the new combat engine, various new gameplay mechanics, and gets you some armour and weapons before letting you go off on your own in the Imperial City. Your quest to find the heir gets off to a quick start. Unlike Morrowind, which eased you into your heroic role, Oblivion gets you started right away in dealing with the menace threatening Cyrodiil. In fact, it's likely you'll find your way into the fiery pits of Oblivion pretty quickly. The story is compelling enough, but at the start, the characters just don't have much personality. The characters you meet don't stay in the story for long, though they may play more important roles as one gets farther in the game. What's New Radiant AI is the big new feature. Unlike Morrowind, the AI now have more life to them. They have jobs, carry out tasks, converse with their fellow citizens, and even take up arms to defend their city against would-be bandits. The skills in Oblivion are also different, as many have been cut or combined. Spears, Medium Armour, Unarmoured, and Enchant have been jettisoned, and Short Blade and Long Blade, and Blunt Weapons and Axes have been combined. This lowers the total skills amount by 6, to 21. Combat has also been overhauled. Instead of Morrowind's static, and dull system of hacking until the enemy died, Oblivion has a dynamic, exciting combat engine. Duels are tense affairs, with you and your combatant exchanging blows, parrying, and circling each other. It's much more fluid, and realistic, than Morrowind's. The Good Actors are now voice-acted. While most of the voices do repeat, certain important characters get their own, distinct actor. And it certainly makes the world more lively. Combat is intense, and exciting. Blocking and attacking require timing, and strategy. It also feels a lot more realistic... instead of standing and slashing at your opponent, you have to look for weaknesses, and have to block and counter to have any success. The world is also expansive, and each city Guard has their own distinct livery, which is nice. The Imperial City has a full contingent of Imperial Legion troops, and elite Palace Guards. Their presence in the cities, and on the roads keeps you in the boundaries of the law! The Bad The inventory control scheme is terrible. The menus are labeled with icons, not text, making it fairly difficult to find anything. Instead of having your inventory, journal, and map bound to different keys, you have to cycle through menus to find what you want. Other controls make little sense. Want to drop something? You can't drag it out, you must press shift-click. Not too difficult, but it shows a lack of thought in putting it together. The RAI is quirky. It sometimes does weird things, like forget to open gates, says the wrong things, and their conversations lack... substance. Usually they aren't more than a few lines, and seem very artificial, and not spontaneous banter. And they don't seem to react to any actions, other than theft, and assault. You can wreak havoc on their furniture, belongings, whatever, and they don't care. They don't even question you running into their bedrooms or storage rooms. But take one plate, and the guards are there in no time. The Guards are confounding. They are omniscient, and can detect any crime commited. And the game won't alert you that you've been detected. Combat, while mostly quite good, has a few downsides. The first is that your character will stagger backwards if he takes a hit. Makes sense, right? Well, it makes it close to impossible to hit anything if you're being attacked by multiple enemies. The character models are fairly dismal. Most of the hairstyles are the same for BOTH genders (yeah, you read that right), and many of the models are downright ugly. I understand that many people in the Middle Ages weren't... supermodels, but when I play a game, I don't want to look awful. The Verdict! It's an excellent game, from what I can tell. Fun to play, and I have to commend Bethesda for trying to innovate, rather than sit on their laurels and sell a mediocre, outdated game to their fans. But, while they have taken steps to making an immersive game world, they still have ways to go. The game is not without flaws, and gamers may be easily frustrated with the combat, and the quests. I give it an 8/10. Had it had more time, and more refinement, it might have been a great game. As it is, it's certainly still a good game, but has too many flaws for it to be truly amazing like everyone had hoped it would be.

I can't imagine playing a Poker video game. Seems weird to me. I've been playing Dungeon Siege 2, Guild Wars... and some Call of Duty.

Yeah, I played through the game five times, never found Malak's robe. But I did find the blaster. That's all I can remember.