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Isn't that what pulp espionage is all about?

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure Descent Rise of the [expletive removed] Triad Colonization Civ 2 Starcraft Fallout Fallout 2 Baldur's Gate 2 Vampire: TMB Edited by SteveThaiBinh

STALKER was so muddled plot-wise (probably due to weird translation, but that can't account for all of it) that it'd be difficult to fault at least some players for getting bad endings.

Might've been the original engine, which had UE3 syndrome, in that all the characters who had normal bodies were the emaciated ones, and the "normal" characters were all giant dwarves with wide bodies and huge hands. No wonder Rosa lost weight.

Ethan Hunt seems to have gotten younger as well. And he's got a beard. In the first game I could've tagged him as any of the older dudes from CSI.

A hasted bowman with all the arrows of detonation you can buy made short work of Sarevok's entire party. I'm playing BGtutu, though, so I don't know if those arrows are added in from BG2.

The Witcher The Witcher The Witcher The Witcher Fallout Fallout Age of Decadence Age of Decadence The Witcher The Witcher Because I'm serious about gaming.

I'd go for the former, actually. New tech and all.

We've used trade sanctions against China for human rights violations before. It was the only thing keeping Cambodia out of abject poverty for awhile, since they picked up the business. Anyway, the olympic torch was extinguished at least three times in Paris due to protest.

There are a lot of supernatural elements to the game, but the question of whether or not everything you see in your head is brought up a lot. Nobody else can see the demonic street thugs you do, of course, and nobody notices the black oil and ceiling-pod people.

If by "brow beat" you mean "starved", har har. In recent years a younger generation distanced from the Cultural Revolution has come of age, but Mao's nationalist streak lives on, which is why China is not going to let go of Tibet under any circumstance (and why saber-rattling against Taiwan will continue far into the future). It's theirs. Still, a program of "patriotic education" is currently underway in Tibet, and residents are being forced to affirm allegiance with China and denounce the Dalai Lama. Probably won't work, but you can never be sure. People probably thought the Tiannemen Square protesters wouldn't be crushed, but boy, were they. Don't underestimate the power the Chinese government is ready and willing to bring to bear against dissent. As for the Olympics, well, they've made exceptions for South Africa under Apartheid, as they should have, so I don't see why they can't take positions. They obviously won't, but there are reasons why they could.

Native chinese don't see Western media. Poor bronzepoem. One of these days they'll catch us talking about this and this site too will be banned. Shut up you guys, you're making it worse!

It's not very good at all, honestly. The horror is stock Monolith fare, all skelingtons and black oil (the mannequins still manage to be a bit creepy) There's an added emphasis on firearms, which isn't a very good design decision at all, given the game's tight environments and low visibility. And they haven't improved on the melee combat, with melee weapons now wearing down and breaking and the addition of hand to hand combat with (ugh) combos. They instituted a few arcade elements too. There are the magical forensic investigations (with added arbitrary "choices"), of course, but there are also high-frequency sound emitters that you have to destroy and TV's / Radios that you can "tune" to find hidden messages and broadcasts. There also might be meth labs or other such items that you can destroy. At the end of the level the game tallies up all the things that you found / destroyed, and depending on how many you got you get bonuses that don't make much sense. First you get a kevlar vest, then you get brass knuckles that give your h2h attacks slight knockback, and then you get the ability to holster a pistol (why you couldn't do this before, who knows). Thankfully enough, the plot is not indicative of Monolith's tradition of borrowing liberally from other media. FEAR had Akira, the original Condemned had Se7en, but Condemned 2 is somewhat original in its plot. It's just not very good. There's some occult conspiracy at the heart of the story, but it never really starts to make sense. The characters are pretty predictable and have actually become less interesting going into the second game. The best thing about it as far as I'm concerned is the licensed use of Jagermeister. There are bottles endlessly strewn about the gameworld and you can slam them for added gun accuracy (that you don't pass out after downing a liter of Jagermeister in 10 seconds is used to define your character as an alcoholic). You can also throw them at people.

Also a ripping RPG!

I don't think the past performance of the games have anything to do with it. The devs have the IP, and presumably they are interested in it.

Actually, wasn't the reason IW felt so cramped was because the engine had to be constrained to Original Xbox specs? It doesn't account for any of the other terrible design, but the multiplatform aspect had an effect. Whereas these days, in most respects the differencs between a multiplatform and PC-exclusive title are control scheme and an extra helping of ****-tugging for graphics whores. Wouldn't it be nice if game studios aspired to the same fate as United Artists Pictures.

Yes, all this talk of proper grammar is unsettling.

Oh, absolutely. If people want to give me money, more power to them.

Considering how small the teams are and how long their planned development period is for DE3 we might as well just sit and wait until 2011.

Insect plague was affected by magic resistance, it only worked against dragons if you hit them with lower resistance / pierce magic at the beginning of the battle, and they didn't work at all against constructs. Not that it really mattered. All fights with mages were basically over once you got a successful breach spell off. What did work the way Enoch describes, interestingly enough, were the monk abilities. Going around Suldenesslar (sp?) and using quivering palm on iron golems was always fun.

Wow.

As interesting as that book looks, "Emotioneering"? He seriously uses that term?

As I've gotten older I haven't really seen a decline in the quality of the games I play. Maybe it's because I didn't latch onto any of the niches that dried up in the scheme of things in the 90's, like adventure games or turn-based tactical combat games. Or maybe it's just because I'm not convinced that what I loved when I was 16 was the pinnacle of everything good, or that fidelity to the ideal ostensibly set by those games ought to be the goal of game development. I don't enjoy playing games as much as I used to, but I'm not going to convince myself that the medium has changed in any fundamental way that would allow me to cast blame on plebians and their taste, or that it has turned away from the importance of player choice or whatever (The Witcher was chock full of player choice and it felt and played like cough syrup tastes). I just don't have the luxury of 12-hour endurance runs anymore. My brain isn't malleable and young anymore.

Well, my indignation is certainly righteous.

If you're looking for nice headphones I'd recommend Sennheiser. They haven't let me down yet. Expensive, but what isn't?