Istima Loke

Little fun internet game

I started watching ".hack//Sign". I've seen 4 episodes so far . They seemed decent enough (or maybe good enough, I don't know, the pace is somewhat slow) and since they are interesting, I will continue to watch this. I hope the pace will pick up later on. Also the last Naruto:Shippuden episode seemed like the first decent episode in a long time.

All I care about is when I install a game that it works. If it doesn't, its bad programming. If it does, then its all good. As a game PLAYER what else do I need to know? You need to know that the the bug is, technically speaking, the programmer's fault (though it's impossible to not happen) but the fact that you bought a game with bugs is QA's fault.

Call of Duty 4. And he actually likes it. And it's true, he's funnier when he bashes games.

I have to admit, it's always a pleasure to read VD's stuff. He has that crazy sense of humour and most of the time he makes good points, or at least points that make sense. It's a nice -out of the ordinary- interview.

That's really good news

I don't know about other countries but here it's illegal to drive a manual car if you have a driving licence for an auto car. I like this. Is it illegal to drive Auto if you have a Manual license? No, if you have a manual license you can drive an auto car (or at least that's what the driving tutor said). Though I don't think it matters much, 'cause in Greece most cars are manual.

I don't know about other countries but here it's illegal to drive a manual car if you have a driving licence for an auto car.

The plot was exactly what Yahtzee said. It was awfully dragged. The plot begins and nothing new ever happens until the end of every chapter, where they remind you what you are supposed to be doing. It's pace is so slow it, at times, becomes tedious. It needed some more complexity (and when I say complexity I mean more things to happen/develop) if they wanted to create a 80 hours game. Anyway, as always it was funny. Yahtzee's points are (most of time) true, if not a little exaggerated. He just never mentions the good parts of the games and I think that was the point in the Witcher as well.

Raccon city. I like the blue fog and I can't stand the white.

I started Arcanum for the first time. The character system looks complicated/unknown to me and I am worrying that I will end up with a weakling as a character. So I will read the manual to learn a few things and then maybe start anew with a better character. Also, I hate how in this game there are all these little annoying mechanics and interface problems that distract me from the actual game.

Crysis.

EDIT: Nevermind. P.S. Am I allowed to do that?

I was not thinking about a happy resolution. He is a witcher. He is a man that single-handedly destroyed a salamandra hideout in the village, who is not reluctant to kill for money. He scared the priest away. What made the villagers think that they could possibly kill him or the witch? Or did they valued the death of a witch more than their lives? Also he could just take the witch and ran away. Everyone dying is the same with living happily ever after. It's a far fetched outcome. The happy one is used to comfort people the sad one exists to shock. A more in between resolution to the situation like the witcher leaving and then the villagers killing the witch or just taking the witch (and possibly Alvin) and leaving the village is the more realistic (I think) resolution.

I mean, even though it gave the option of neutrality, they forced you decisions that look evil when easy and obviously better solutions (including but not limited to conversation skills which don't exist) appeared. For example I think that some of the elven/dwarven and order of the flaming rose bloodshed or the slaughter/witch kill in the first chapter could be easily avoided. So when in the end the spirit of what's-his-name tells me that I took part in manslaughter and let people die, I feel cheated by the game. Generally these "lesser of two evil" situations (speaking out of my gaming both in PC and PnP experience) are very hard to create without making the player feel limited by the GM rather than feeling stretched by the in-game situation. The only "problem" I had with C&C was those cut scenes; these felt (at times) rather silly. But other than that C&C in the game was definitely good. Also I have to say that the world/atmosphere of the game was great. I remember when I entered the city for the first time, seeing the architecture of buildings and streets. It's absolutely beautiful and it really dragged me into the Witcher universe.

So I finished the game and I have to ask. What do people find so good about the story? The only thing that I really liked (talking about the main quest) was the "Alvin being the Grand Master" touch. All else seemed quite dull and dragged way farther than it should have. The story was revealed in chapter 5 (partially again) and then in the epilogue. Maybe they should have made it smaller and more focused. Or maybe I'm not into political intrigue stories... I think it also lacked from how events followed one another. Most of the time it felt like I was doing a quest just to activate the next irrelevant quest. There are far too many coincidences which made the flow of the story look artificial. Examples are: a great deal of the second chapter where you search for clues and the forth where you try to bring harmony between the water people and the village. And I didn't like the "lesser of two evils" and how racism was handled. I would describe "forced" the first and "superficial" the latter for the lack of better words.

Just finished The Witcher. The ending was better than the rest of the game, but it was a great let-down for me (the game not the ending). Maybe I will ask some stuff and say my thoughts in the spoiler forum/thread later. All in all a good game but not anything special as a lot of people presented it.

Currently playing the Witcher. I am in the 2nd chapter in the city of Vicina (I was never good with names)

I was "stuck" at that point at my first attempts. I also reached the 188 record.

Pseudo-medieval setting? Harry Potter is obviously modern. It takes place in modern earth. There are cars and trains and TV shows and newspapers. Where do you see the pseudo-medieval? Also I am not a fan of the series but the last time I saw some HP movie there were no elves or dwarves. EDIT: And Harry Potter is just an example. Earthsea is doesn't have other races (like dwarves and elves), eastern settings are not pseudo-medieval and so on. The only common between them is magic, and in cases it is presented different from one to another.

So by your definition Harry Potter is not fantasy? Now I am confused.

I am currently playing this small game. It's quite fun.

Not that I want to show off my LotR nerdiness but the eagles fly after the ring has fallen into the pits of mount doom. Sauron is no more, the nine rings lose all their power and so on. If you search for "inconsistencies" like this one, you will find in every work of fiction. It has little to do with fantasy but rather with fact that humans make mistake. And most times in works of sci-fi that kind of inconsistencies are more obvious and more annoying since the writer presents the world in a realistic way. Magic is as Tale said. You choose what it can and it can't do the way you want to.

In a post apocalyptic scifi world there cannot be a TV show as well. So should all post-apocalyptic games be banned? Generally there are a lot of plot hooks in fantasy as well that cannot happen in space opera or whatever. Also there are a lot of ways to present a fantasy world. If you read Tolkien or Le Guin or some FR novel or some Dragonlance novel (we are still in pseudo-medieval) the worlds will look vastly different. Some people like the one over the other and others don't like any of them, and these worlds present possibilities along with restrictions. The same thing happens in scifi. The only difference is that since we live in a world full of technological advancements, the human mind will find it easier to use this everyday things to produce plots. Fantasy is generally more difficult to create, but usually (if it's used by someone capable) will bring more possibilities and variety than scifi, since it's (in an abstract sense) less restrictive than scifi (and especially hard scifi).

Which book were you reading? The first book written about Earthsea (which if I am not mistaken is supposed to be read first) is "A Wizard of Earthsea".