alanschu

All I remember is when I hit the Undead, I went "Ah, boo" and didn't really keep playing the game. I had similar experiences with Farcry and Silent Storm, when things just started to get a bit too weird for me.

I may be confusing it with the second one then.

You start fighting the undead.

I liked Thief, but IIRC, didn't it go all supernatural?

True, but I remember him talking about convo skills specifically I can't remember if it was in one of the videos they released prior to shipping or from those developer diaries that Gamespot featured. Either one. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, there were quite a few times when I tried lying/bluffing, and after failing, Neeshka would chime in instead. Same goes for Kelgar and Intimidate, and sort of stuff like that. I don't remember games off the top of my head that seemed to use it as extensively.

Wooo, my air force out of Amboina hit the pay dirt. The Japanese got a little too close to it with a couple of carriers, and once I realized it, I switched out the commanders of the bombers with exceptionally aggressive leaders. I suffered fairly high losses, especially compared to normal, but after a few days of withering the Zero CAP, I was able to get multiple torpedoes and 500 lb bombs to hit a few of their carriers. I sunk one, and damaged one as it limped away. And as luck would have it, I stumbled across it limping away with a submarine, which put more torpedoes into it, sending it to the bottom of the sea just south of Japan. That's 2 fleet carriers, 2 light carriers, and an escort carrier I have sunk. As a result, I'm feeling even more aggressive with my carrier Task Forces. Carriers Wasp and Hornet just completed their rounds, operating out of Wake Island. They caused extensive casualties, primarily to shipping fleets heading into the Marshall Islands. After doing a few rounds, they retired to Pearl Harbour for the October Upgrades (seems 80% of my fleet was eligible for some sort of refit on 10/42). Most of my fleet is in harbours, enduring upgrades at the moment. But I'm not too concerned, as the loss of 5 carriers (to none for myself) has to be exceptionally devastating for the Japanese Navy. Enterprise and Yorktown are continuing a sweep of northern New Guinea, and have made devastating hits against the merchant fleets heading to Rabaul. Planes operating out of Guadalcanal sighted some heavy cruisers, as well as some battleships. They were able to score some hits with some bombs, but the ships were able to move away before my carriers could get nearby. The Southwest Carrier Task Force is returning to Darwin, and is expected to head down to Sydney for upgrading. I am also getting a new ship type quite frequently, called the SC (Sub Chaser). They are armed with light guns, a Mousetrap and two twin depth charge racks. They aren't very experienced, but after some Shakedown cruises, I've dispatched them to Australia. While not being particularly devastating, there are constant reports of submarines off the coast of Townsville, and on the east coast of New Guinea. Most of their casualties have just been the ASW patrol craft hunting them, but they are becoming a pest. The Air Forces flying out of Port Moresby and Townsville have been invaluable however, sinking several submarines themselves. Still, hopefully these subchasers can give them a run for their money. The Mousetraps are significantly more accurate (since they are a forward firing weapon that explodes on contact), albeit not quite as powerful. Once the Destroyer Escorts start coming out (in about 100 days), I'm hoping for it being rough times on the Japanese submarine fleet. Until then, the crappy Flush Deck Destroyers, Minesweepers, and Sub Chasers will have to do.

At least the end of the game was very entertaining. I'm sure Petr Nedved was very happy to score a PP goal his first game back as an Oiler.

I don't necessarily mind that some stuff is only PC specific though. Otherwise, some of those choices in character development don't necessarily mean anything. The same thing happened in KOTOR 2 with item deconstruction. If any person could deconstruct it, there was pretty much zero incentive for the PC to ever put skills in repair, since there was already a few that had it. It's gamey, but it ultimately lead me to have differing playthroughs through KOTOR 2.

I have played all those, and the only one I'd consider dislodging Half-Life would be Starcraft.

Agreed. Now to just finish off setting up that base on the Northern end of New Guinea, and Rabaul will be permanently cut off, and uh...er..... So yeah, about that War in Iraq.

Isn't that when Fry was responsible for giving up like 200 points in a few minutes of a basketball game? Heh, as a funny aside, in my War in the Pacific game, I just invaded Tarawa for just that reason :D

I can still replay the original Half-Life and have a good time. The only part of the game I find lacklustre, even today, is Xen.

Oh yeah, we're both evil. We only do stuff for money (well, in the dialogue that is, we'd do the side quests anyhow for the xp). We've tried to kill Neeshka and the dwarf and we were trying to be rude to the druid, but they still forced themselves upon us. Now, every time they end up in an argument, we're like, "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!", but they never do. How can you tell what your skills are without multipliers and bonuses? I mean, the prerequisites say a number, naturally I check my skills page and see that they are way above that. Do I somehow have to recalculate them myself in a backwards fashion to get some seed number that only a true D&D geek would know? I don't get it. Another thing that irks me is that Neeshka's build seems to be exactly the same as my own (tiefling, rogue). That means, she's useless in combat, but when the combat is over she'll happily run off and pick the lock on whatever she gets her sights on. That means I'm mostly standing around in combat, trying not to get killed. When combat is over, it's a race between me and Neeshka for the role of feeling useful. She often wins. By the way, is there a good prestige class for an evil half-elf Warlock? Not that he needs it right now (as his character is useful) but it would be fun to have something to aim for for him too. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's possible to tell Neeshka to never open doors or disarm traps (which is useful, so she doesn't do it during fights). I'm sure there's a place to find your base skill in something. I *know* you can see it at level up, since the numbers at skill allocation are just the base numbers. IIRC, if you haven't decided to not put points into a class skill, it's value is 3 + level, so if you're say level 4, you should have a base rating of 7.

He gave you Valium? I thought that it was more of a sedative than an anasthetic. I wouldn't be surprised if you felt pain. As for the nerve damage, I was told straight up that there was a possibility that the nerve would be damaged, and that given how impacted my bottom teeth were, there was an increased (meaning still small, just not as small) chance of it being damaged. I actually did have extended numbness on the right half of my chin, and it lasted for about a month. It took about a year before it didn't have dulled sensation compared to the left side of my chin (everything from the lip down pretty much) and it felt "normal." I don't necessarily believe in suing surgeons based on misfortunes like that, as long as it's not due to gross negligence. It was wierd only feeling with the left half of my bottom lip for a while though. Putting a glass in my mouth was an odd sensation. Could only feel it on one side. Fortunately, it got better!

The Rage128 is olllllllllllllllllllllllllllllld.

Pfft, it all pales in comparison to the father that runs his paralyzed son in marathons and triathalons because his son made a comment that he didn't feel paralyzed when they were doing it.

The original game still continued to sell after Counterstrike (and Day of Defeat) went retail.

They did release Half-Life: Source, which did have some updated lighting and water effects. I guess they decided against redoing models and whatnot, as the original versions held sentimental value or something to that effect. This was in conjunction with the idea that they'd like to move forward with the company, rather than remake old games. As for the franchise only getting more popular, that may be true, but there sales of the original game are among the best all time for the PC.

Actually I have not played Harpoon. That I do. Carriers also have a "Max Sorties" which is basically how many missions you can fly, so once that's out, the flight operations stop. There is an ammunition ship, but it doesn't really become effective until 1945, when the boats are able to reload at sea.

There is a quicksave. But I'm long past the sinking of the Pennsylvania. I would have had to probably restore prior to the attack to save it though, or perhaps try sending it to the slightly closer Johnston Island, which has a much smaller port. I ran into a roadbump in Canton, China. Since it was my first offensive, I was getting excited. But it seems much of my success came because the Japanese were suffering from insane disruption after the attacks on me, so it made them easier to counterattack. With every attack I did, it made for more disruption on my part, so I wasn't able to capture the town by the end of the month. I do have more reinforcements incoming, and I have still done wonders on eliminating a lot of their guns. I'm currently fixing most of my shorter range mortars, and when I get most of them operational again, I'll give another push. And the invasion of Tarawan Atoll was a success! A surface fleet spearheaded by the BB North Carolina bombarded the crap out of it, and provided cover for the troop landings, while Dive Bombers from 4 carriers performed heavy attacks. I'm now moving in a pair of Naval Engineer Divisions, as well as a Base Division, to repair the infrastructre and start improving the airfield. It's possible to upgrade this airfield enough to launch B-17 fighters from it, which will go provide heavy air cover over the Marshall Islands. And north of the Marshall Islands, the Carrier TF consisting of CV Hornet and CV Wasp absolutely demolished a small convoy heading into the Marshall Islands. They've since retired to Wake Island for Fuel and Supplies, and will continue patrolling the convoy routes. A pair of aircraft carriers seems so much more effective than a couple of submarines

I requested an IV to knock me out.

I have never had a cavity either meta! This is inspite some rather suspect brushing habits as well. Go figure. As for my wisdom teeth, the top 2 were fine. Just pull them out. The bottom two were fully impacted, and required chisling into the jaw. The bottom right one had a Dry Socket which was excruciatingly painful. The doctor had to put a some film in it to cover it up to dull the pain (prevents that annoying substance known as air from touching the exposed nerve). The process was so painful I apparently passed out. I'd rather be kicked in the testicles than go through that again.

Best expansion ever? Admittedly I haven't played it, but outside of the end boss (which wasn't really THAT bad), Opposing Forces is still my pick after half a decade.

A small update about the war effort. The troops along the Indian-Burmese Border have cross over into Burma, and are converging on some town with a really hard to type name. Airstrikes were done at Mandalay to cripple the airfield there, and now the air campaign is focusing on the target. Also, the war at Canton has taken an unexpected turn. I tried making an offensive push, and was pushed back quite handily. Unfortunately for the Japanese, he figured it'd be an appropriate time for a counterattack. Japan did much worse in the counterattack than I did on the initial attack, with well over half of her artillery guns being put out of commission in the failed counterattack. As a result, I've been able to make continued attacks, and have begun wearing down their fortifications. It's August, and I expect Canton to be liberated by the Chinese (with some help from a few Indians and some British as well) probably by the end of the month, if not sooner. This should cut off Hong Kong, and make it relatively easy pickings.

Wooo. Of course the one PPV game I don't watch is one we play well in!