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All my brit friends just sort of rolled their eyes when the 10th anniversary rolled around. They're burned out on it, and for good reason. It's like the JonBenet Ramsey case across the pond. People are reminded of it so often and so forcefully for so long they'd rather just forget it, and get exasperated when it comes up years after the fact.

One day, when you go out into the world and interact with people like you would in a game, you will encounter people who, when put in a position in which they stand to gain money, will demand more than reason would dictate. We call this strange and wonderful phenomenon "greed". I know it's hard to believe, but there are large numbers of people who operate this way. In this case, the fault lies with the player, not the game. If you don't like dialogue, you can play Halo 3. Or Oblivion. But whatever you do, don't complain about a lack of character development, 'cause that would be funny.

The Vampire theme is reminiscent of "Angel" the way Ministry's "Bloodlines" is reminiscent of "So What". Beyond cosmetic differences, they're very much the same song.

So I was recently slogging through Jade Empire, and the thing about the game that jumped out the most at me as being high-quality was the music. The soundtrack was very epic in an Icewind Dale kind of way with some eastern flourishes thrown in (and although I enjoyed it, it may have contributed in some way to the general feeling on inauthenticity and shallowness in the game setting) so I procured a copy of the soundtrack and noticed that it had joined a growing collection of soundtracks in my library. Deus Ex, Fallout, Diablo, Streets of Rage 2, etc. So I decided it would be prudent to start up a thread here pertaining to game soundtracks, open it up to discussions, recommendations, and the like. I may venture to share a few of the soundtracks in my collection, as well.

In MotB, Disentegrate does not compromise the entigrity of inert objects.

hmm, there is a spoiler subforum right up there, you know. And my beautiful, awesome, beautifully awesome spoiler thread might very well make this thread superfluous. And there are no other tank NPCs. Or, I should say, there's one potential tank, but he's mutually exclusive with Old Father Bear. And as far as I know, there were horses in NWN2 proper. You just couldn't ride them. And you can't ride them now. So.

it in and of itself doesn't mean anything. Obviously TES is the first thing that would come to mind as Bethsoft opened up their MMO studio. It's unlikely they'd start with a fresh IP, and a single Fallout game wouldn't be as fertile ground for a prospective MMO as the menagerie of TES games. But then, people got all in a tizzy over Rockstar registering all kinds of GTA titles (not domains, either, but copyrights) that never came to fruition. GTA Vegas, GTA Tokyo, etc.

Was bored. Started up Jade Empire again. Some of the glaring weaknesses are still there, but it's an old game by now, so they don't diminish as much as they used to. Really, really like the main theme.

If he did, he was probably pretty drunk at the time. Nah, Schafer said it was just a new page devoted to the original game.

How is Ubisoft the second largest publisher? Last time I checked, Activision was at #1 and EA was at #2.

lol Tale got screwed lol.

Sounds like a job for Vampiric Feast.

In general I might be inclined to agree with you. Obsidian at least attempts stranger, more cerebral games. But when Bioware's on (and who knows, they might not be on anymore, although I'm not as quick to dismiss them as most people, it seems) they make merely above-average games that are propulsive and fairly engaging (JE was a sad exception) and I'm no Codex academic, so a fairly inauspicious-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things game like KOTOR can still be fun for me. Let's face it, the market for western RPGs (not counting hack-n-slash and MMOs) is pretty scant, and as far as I'm concerned beggars can't be choosy. I've no problem shunning companies like Lionhead for making inexorably bad games, but only accepting the "stunningly progressive" games at this point and rejecting softened releases from the still-not-totally-bad Bioware would leave me starving, metaphorically. That's not something that I can do. That's not to say that Bioware isn't losing its edge, it's just saying I'm not a masochist. Quite frankly, reducing myself to waiting around for Obsidian's next product isn't a great idea, because I've no guarantee that even a few years wait is going to be worth it. I don't want to become NMA, waiting for games that are never going to be made, having standards that are never going to be met. That's no better than swearing off games forever, and games are too much of a part of me that I could actually consider that.

I don't really see Tom Clancy as being the epitome of all things CIA. Obsidian can do better. It's just a question if they will do better.

When did this happen? Is Activision putting stuff up on Steam?

You've obviously never played BG2.

It's a full-body suit. The guy spacewalks.

Ahmad Jamal Trio - Darn That Dream

LOLZ @ TRAILAR Basically appears to be RE4 + The Thing, possibly containing or not containing the suck of the Thing game.

Difference of opinion =/= lack of objective fact phi 101, kids. MotB shows a pretty strong thomistic undercurrent in the D&D universe. The curse is unnatural, using it disrupts the natural order, thus it is evil. The presence of objective facts =/= a counter-argument to moral relativism. Alignment systems never reflect the moral complexities intrinsic to real life, and that's why players feel restrained by them. You'll have to do better than that, pops You misunderstand me. That there exist objective facts unrelated to morals doesn't disprove relativism, but the argument from difference is logically invalid. It might be the case that morality is subjective, but the fact that different people have different ideas of it doesn't tell us that. Two different people might both be wrong, or one of them could be right. If you didn't misunderstand me, and you are in fact asserting that there are objective moral facts but moral relativism is still valid, then you need to evaluate your definition of "moral relativism". By its very definition, it cannot abide by objective moral truth, because relativism seeks to prove that morality is dependent upon the subject (the observer) rather than the object (the action), but if we say that there is moral fact in the object, then morality cannot be dependent upon the subject and vice versa, because otherwise one could be both right and wrong in the same sense at the same time, which is logically impossible and unacceptable. You can make a better case for subjectivism, which is sublty different from relativism and applies to better, more tenable theories (utilitarianism, the social contract, etc.) but there are better arguments for at least a degree of objective moral value, in my opinion. yeah, but you don't know any of that stuff starting out now do you. How could you make conscious choices on something you don't know. Consideration of conscious choice means toss all to me. This isn't the spoiler thread. The SE mechanic isn't spoiler territory, but the rest of the stuff is. So clamp it down.

Might be the best horror film ever, my friends and I are going to be watching it on Halloween night. Slasher films and torture porn ain't worth two ****s (I'm sorta with Aram on that 'un) Anyway, all you ****in' noobs better represent. behold! Eli Roth's 24 hours of horror, courtesy of the AV Club! The man might not make many movies worth seeing, but he knows his **** when it comes to the genre, no doubt. Also courtesy of the AV Club, 23 Ridiculous horror-movie adversaries! Also worth buying:

Exactly. Perhaps I was too distracted by the way the SE mechanic played into the game thematically to address it in such a succinct fashion. But I do so love analyzing the way they set up MotB from an ethical standpoint, in its dilemmas and conundrums. Also, kids, we might want to be careful with the spoilers we throw around, at least as it pertains to and such. As Cant pointed out, devour (of spirits, at least) has no real alignment ramifications so evenly dividing suppress and devour will make you more lawful and good, but not too much. But as far as I know, given craving and how engaging in one action will preclude the other until rest, it'd be very difficult to "balance" the SE mechanic that way.

I think, really, we ought to view the choice between devouring and suppressing as a choice between two natural states. Obviously (and it's spelled out for you many times within the game) you are the Spirit Eater, but suppressing your hunger is an act of will that denies what you are and, as far as it can, brings you closer to what you should be, that is, not someone who eats spirits. It should be noted that in real life, this kind of thinking is only really taken seriously by the deeply religious, especially those in the catholic tradition. We can sort of view the Spirit Eater the way a devout catholic might view a gay person, for example. It might very well be the case that the gay person feels a natural inclination, a temptation, towards being gay. However, God's Law dictates that one ought not be gay. Thus the right thing for the gay person to do (the "natural" thing, "natural" here meaning what God wants) would be to deny temptation, the way the right thing for the SE to do is suppress his hunger. Of course, this sort of thinking would be much stronger in the FR, where there's an easily discernible order and structure to the universe and the Gods obviously exist. A character like Kaelyn, whose ideas make quite a bit of sense to the modern player, is actually quite subversive as far as D&D goes. I give Obsidian a lot of credit for that.