StillLife

The Xbox 360 is as interesting as watching paint dry. BioWare continues to slide further downhill as they perpetually struggle to remain Microsoft's lapdog. Two Xbox exclusives and not a PC game in sight. Way to remember the people who made you successful in the first place guys! Hopefully we can get the wilted, moldy table scraps two years later like with Jade Empire since that's all PC gamers are worthy of these days, amirite? The evil honey badger in me hopes both things fail miserably, plus the game never has looked all that interesting in the first place.

Been waiting for Blizzard to make a movie in the Warcraft universe. Trying to tie it into the WoW MMORPG is retarded though, as if the setting wasn't already established. It better have Thrall or it will suck.

Just for you I checked the Steam store (from the get steam here link). Can't say I call 30,- for an expansion, $10 for original Half-Life, $30,- for Half-Life2 less expensive than in the stores. Quite the opposite... Not a single new game has a price listing there either; only older ones. And I mean $10 to play deathmatch ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, if they really want digital distribution to pick up steam, it would help if some of the increased cost efficiency would be brought over to consumers with more regularity, especially since you're going to a little more trouble to download plus you're giving up the physical materials that come with games. It would probably take a joint industry effort to force retailers into dealing with the reduced download cost though, while still carrying the game for full price in their stores. Slightly reduced profits are still better than no profits for them after all. It's doubtful that would ever happen though. That's why the game in this discussion sounds good though - it will apparently only be available through download. $30 is fairly cheap, even for something that might not be quite as long as a full game should be.

Is "Retro" Samus' replacement or something? So how smooth and interesting did the actual handling of the Wiimote look? Did it come off like a fairly unwieldy gimmicky sort of thing, or did it actually look like it could be a truly viable alternative to how Wii( )play games?

I understand that. Something bugs me about only owning something that's on my fragile little hard drive - not a physical copy. Still, it may be a small sacrifice to make if it helps support developers making the more nichey games I like and enables them to be financially successful with them too.

Ah, interesting. Oops, missed this earlier. Well the last time I played the SNES one must have been around 14 years ago? And it was excellent back then to me.

Think you're right about that, at least for games in non-mainstream genres. Anything that lowers the cost of games for consumers, and puts more money in the pocket of the actual developers is good.

Hmm, I seem to recall seeing swastika's in most WWII games, even modern ones. RTCW: Weren't they in games like COD and Hidden and Dangerous too?

Good point, I don't disagree really. I was more or less pointing out why the exsistence of the ESRB is good. Lately they've been struggling to prove their system works, ever since the Hot Coffee incident and before government intervention takes place. Sawyer did make a good point in that it's already proven politicians and the like will freak out over even hidden content that requires a mod, so though I think it's going overboard, I can't really blame the folks at the ESRB for getting pro-active. Rather than blaming them, it's really the crotchety old folks who don't understand that video games aren't just for children, making a fuss. I'm pretty sure the ESRB is actually run by industry insiders - better them than anyone else.

It's only happened once that I recall in the last 5 years. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That reminds me, I might have had a Gromnir alter ego sighting once, though he was posting under a different name I think, it was fairly obvious to me who it was by style, plus out of habit he did the "Ha! Good Fun!" thing accidentaly too. I was getting verbally gang-banged on a board that shall go unnamed while trying to defend some kid who was being too rational, so it was nice to have someone that wasn't an irriational, unreasonable ass hop in the discussion. Gromnir's a good guy in my book, even makes a good point on occasion.

Than they need to get their act together and start being a parent. Take an active interest in their child's life. Like movies, they do reviews of games in game magazines, they do a brief description on what the game is about on the box. They are not totally ignorant to what they can buy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> C'mon, reading reviews in magazines? That's a bit too much pressure to place on parents. Toys have age ratings, movies, etc. The ESRB system is good, otherwise you'd have a bunch of 10 year-olds ending up with GTA and that's not something small children need to have access to. Woth point out that before the rating system, politicians and lawyers were going crazy cracking down on games with even a hint of mature content and they're starting to look for more opportunities now. "There is blood in your wicked mortal combat game!!! YOU DEVIANTS ARE CORRUPTING CHILDREN!" No ratings system = no mature games.

Just because it's rumored to be a FPS doesn't mean it can't be an RPG. It could be like Bloodlines. Hell, I like the Shadowrun setting enough that even a standard FPS might not be bad, though not near as good as a real RPG. As long as it's not a simple, crappy Diablo/Gauntlet clone ala Fallout: BOS. What pisses me off is the mention of only Xbox 360. There's absolutely no way in hell I'll ever buy a 360 after I essentially wasted money on an Xbox. Microsoft needs to get their head out of their ass and realize they've got a significant interest in encouraging people to buy PC games as much as they do Xbox ones. Same here, that game was excellent.

You would think the disclaimer about how "Online experience may change" near the rating would cover that.

Fight the power!

Man, Take Two is probably gonna get real sick of putting their games on PCs soon. Damn nosey modders. Yeah, but no one wants to see games have their sales unjustifiably marginalized.

The name alone makes his opinion suspect. Oops.

Never heard of it.

Ah and there's the point. Why should I respond seriously given your attitude and the fact I have to switch over to Wiki to even know what you're saying in some of the comments?

Meta, I don't mind being outvoted, outnumbered, or whatever on an opinion I have, as most of my opinions on games would probably be pretty unpopular around here, but do you have to go through patting everyone on the back who disagrees with me with emotes? Especially when it's to points I've already responded to? Seems a bit childish in an unnecessary, mean-spirited sort of way. Bit unbecoming of a mod at least. I'm very proud of you for knowing Latin and apparently so are you, but you may want to stick to English if you want what you're saying to actually be interpreted in a message.

This is stupid. I'd imagine the ESRB is just trying to get preemptive to keep politicians and Jack Thompson from going ape**** and trying to ban video games with any mature content, but still, it's not accessible in the retail version of the game by itself. They need to put another rating category or two into their system anyway. Sort of like for movies there are five: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC17(or whatever pr0n falls under). Something between teen and mature. Friggin Halo was rated mature.

TOEE was too crummy to wade through, so I can't argue with you there. In JA2, or SS for example though, while you may have had one guy perform the same action, you were usually doing something different with at least one of your group the entire time, which required constant input per round. Otherwise if it's an easy battle, that's why auto-resolve should be present. Yes, but 30 seconds back to back--if you're chugging through a combat heavy area--adds up quick to a lot of idle watching of your characters perform for you. You'd have to manually select which survivors to pick off though right? Wouldn't work in a queue. That's an example of poor design then, if even on bosses you use the same tactics over and over. So what is the point of having a queue if you have to interrupt it frequently? I very rarely had to interrupt even full queues in KOTOR. Maybe that's mainly a result of KOTOR's combat being so simplistic, but it seems to me whenever queues are present, the combat will probably be a snoozefest. NWN is another example. Me wrong? That's preposterous! Off with your head! Maybe, but I think they're redundant in an RPG, and I've never thought in a CRPG with combat that I enjoyed, that it needed a queue. Sounds interesting, I'll make a point to check it out when I have a chance. Ah, but you're speaking of a full-blown strategy games with lots of units right? We're talking about RPGs, which have no excuse for having such over-simplified approaches when going for a strategic element, considering the small number of units. They might as well just go almost completely the action route, or make everything automated when it comes to combat. I like both aspects to be fully present in strategy games, like in the Total War series. RTS' have started to move away from simply out-twitching an opponet, though that is still an element. Take Battle For Middle Earth for example, a game which I was in the top 20 of the official world ladder for quite a while /end nerdy bragging. You couldn't do good in that game against other people(experienced players at least) without out-thinking them at nearly every turn, as well as maintaining better micromanagement in individual skrimishes. Same with other games like Empire Earth 2. Anyway, I'm obviously not changing anyone's mind here. Not surprising considering this board tends to have a fair number of fans of the two games with the function I'm knocking. I take comfort in knowing the queue in CRPGs is most likely at the end of it's lifespan though.

Glad you brought Chess up. While you may be planning ahead in your mind, rarely does it work out, nor should it, or it wouldn't be the highly regarded game it is today. That's why there are no queues to my knowledge in computer chess games. Unless you were a chess master, you'd get destroyed even allowing one move to go through without taking every move of your opponets into consideration before your next turn. If they aren't going to be tactically focused like a turn-based game, then yes, they should have reflex oriented combat experiences, like Oblivion, Deus Ex, Gothic, Divine Divinity, or VTM: Bloodlines. Even in a party-based game(like BG) where your allies are under you control, pausing to issue one set of commands per round should be as far as it goes. Otherwise they should just have an AI or auto-resolve feature where you let the game handle combat for you, that way, you wouldn't have to do anything! Fallout is getting up in the years now. It's not exactly the perfect model of turn-based combat. Yes they will. Simply typing exercises your motor functions. Sitting there watching everything happen for you? Not so much. The summons in the later Final Fantasy's were too drawn out. That's another story though.

Where at?

I already explained it's not the waiting alone that bothers me, it's waiting while my character does stuff without my direct input prior to each action; watching the battle unfold as opposed to guiding it at every turn. That hasn't been the case in any turn-based game I've played. And yes, you are getting something out of controlling the battle directly each round, your motor functions are staying more lively. If you're wanting to not use your fingers very much, you should be doing something inactive like watching a movie or playing a cinematic heavy JRPG! That's what Volourn mentioned earlier. Virtually every crappy feature in a game could use that excuse. I'm not really saying it's completely game breaking or anything, but it helps set the stage for dull combat and it needs to go after NWN2.

Well, the Chuck Norris jokes are definitely tired by now. Your mom jokes never go out of style though. BTW, tell you mom to stop wearing different colors of lipstick, she's leaving a rainbow on my...Wii.