Qwerty the Sir

Weird night tonight. Was Marian Gaborik really just held back in Minnesota's system? Also Mike Green played the worst game defensively I have ever seen him play.

Does it seem that a lot of stars are out with injury so early in the season... :\

Anyone know if there is any plan to port this to PC or even Xbox?

Yeah, I skimmed through that when it came out. The Nameless One was named "Thane"... :S The game, however was simply one of my favorites. I actually didn't like the entire premise of being amnesiac and immortal and trying to find your identity but the way the game handled the arching storyline with the reincarnations was quite the save. The level of detail in the story was amazing and the atmosphere and setting was very cool. Not to mention you had by far the best companions and other characters ever! :D

9 minute powerplay?! It came after a big (I guess most would say clean) hit by some guy named Sloan (don't know of him) on Daymond Langkow; Rene Bourque got kinda pissed and jumped Sloan in retaliation. Got a 5 minute major for fighting (no fighting major for the Caps player) 2 minutes for instigating and 2 minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct (I think he said something to the ref) which were counted as penalties to be served (he also took a personal 10 minute misconduct). The powerplay execution was so bad, that through the halfway mark of it, I was hoping the Caps wouldn't score. It's not as if the Flames were amazing penalty killers either, just such a fail. Technically, 7 minutes into the powerplay, the Caps took a penalty themselves (they deserved it, there were a lot of kinda questionable make-up calls for the flames after that one though), but still... Oh, the Flames just won.

lols the Caps failed to score on a 9 minute powerplay :D

Denis Savard was fired as head coach for the Blackhawks. I don't understand why they wouldn't have just fired him in the offseason though, I had heard they wanted Joel Quenneville for awhile (maybe it was some of the off-ice issues I've also heard rumors about). Can't say I agree with the move. Not only did Savard bring an exciting style of play to his team which was good for us fans, but it was the right way for that team to play given their players.

OK, nevermind, NHL 09 for computer will not be next gen. Maybe next year...

You really are missing out if you don't get to use the skill stick, which I don't think the PC has. I know but I don't have Xbox.

I hope to get that game (for computer). I trey and selectively buy all the good NHL games (94, 2000, 2004, 2006). This one looks good.

My man Bobby Lang was the Habs best player tonight (maybe best player on the ice). He was motivated and he's always had a great shot and great passing skills and great creativity. He actually played defense too and did something I never saw him do in Detroit (or in the few games I watched of him in Chicago): try to block shots. :D Kinda half-assed it on the shootout tho...

Detroit's defensemen looked mediocre from 1 to 6, and the whole team defense thing was pretty shoddy too.

Some really sad stories here, I kinda wish I didn't read the thread. This is also why I don't drink. I'm hope you guys (awsomeness and qt3.14159) are doing ok, surprised and sad that this kind of thing is very close to more than one person just here. Personally, I feel that things that fall under 'moral luck' shouldn't be punished (and I'm not saying this case of the burned baby is just simple negligence, as pointed out earlier there seems to be more than that here). Say there was a guy who was drinking and driving and went over the curb. Say there was another guy walking on the curb. If this guy was hit, did the drunk driver do something worse than if pedestrian jumped out of the way? If the pedestrian died is the driver more to blame worse than if he was just injured or unscathed? Because I know for a fact (where I live) that the penalties would be drastically different even though the drunk driver didn't mean to kill or injure anyone. I would personally say they should punish him for drinking and driving, and not necessarily for whatever unintended consequences of injury or death. I know my words really have no efficacy whatsoever on law or different peoples' morals, but it's just something I think about a lot. It's just so amazing what different circumstances can do...

Descent: Freespace was the first computer game I ever played (a demo with the first third of the game came with our family's first computer) and it was a pretty fun experience back then. I remember really looking forward to getting Freespace 2 after that, but never got around to it (back then I had a quota placed on how many games I could get and I went with Age of Empires II which came out at the same time). Two years ago, I suddenly had a craving to replay all the good old games that I had thrown away or lost as well as games I never got the chance to play, and so I got myself a copy of Descent: Freespace among other things. Playing it again after all those years I found that the graphics held up surprisingly well, especially when you consider my tastes. I don't mind old 2D graphics at all and I think old games like the Mario platformers look great even today, especially the ones with colorful and detailed background. 3D graphics are another story. Half-Life was a game I really wanted to like and I thought had some great elements but the experience was made bad by the graphics which I really didn't like (blocky everything and textures that were sparse and blotchy and blurry when present). Neverwinter Nights also had some pretty poor graphics, I preferred the look of all the Infinity Engine games to it. Descent: Freespace was different though. Sure when I zoomed in on the ships, I got that same ugly texture look, but the game generally looks decent, space looks simple and nice, and zooming out and watching a big battle is pretty cool. Another thing I found was that the controls were really clunky and hard. This is a game you'd definitely want to play with some kind of joystick. I don't think any other game I played had as hard of a control scheme on the keyboard and mouse. It will definitely take some time to get comfy with the controls. Lastly, one thing I noticed was that in quite a few missions there's a lot of time spent just flying through space. Maybe I get bored too easily but I found that frustrating. Those are all the 'negatives' in what otherwise was a really fun game. Maybe one day I'll be able to pick up a copy of Freespace 2 (played the demo and it looked a lot better for starters).

Don Cherry said that Alex Ovechkin wont get any better, and frankly, I have to agree on this one. If the guy goes for 70 for a several years he joins Gretzky and Lemieux and Bobby and Brett Hull in terms of goal scoring.

A couple of my favorites were: Icewind Dale - loved that Jerrod's Stone tale and the fact that Belhifet was the narrator NHL 99 - didn't like the game too much (the last of a long line of NHL games between the legendary 94 and the great 2000) but the intro was one of the best with a great song and great clips Michael Jackson's Moonwalker - car transform and the coin flip jukebox thing... all I remember thinking was "omg so cool and so pro" Planescape: Torment - creepy and interesting

My man Bobby Lang traded to the Habs! :D :D :D :D The looser, more offensive based Eastern Conference style of play is just what Langer needs to get going again. Plus he can line up with Kovalev again. Memories of 2003-2004 when Lang challenged for the scoring title until his injury? Probably not but hope so!

Haha yeah, that's the series I've only watched like 30 minutes total of. I don't watch much of Wild-Avalanche either. The others are (were) good ones.

I like to pretend I have a pack of slaves.

My favorites on computer and console: 1) Icewind Dale (plus expansions) 2) NHL 94 3) Age of Empires II (plus expansion) 4) Baldur's Gate (plus expansion) 5) Planescape: Torment 6) Super Mario World 7) Baldur's Gate II (plus expansion) Neverwinter Nights 2 9) The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past 10) Mario Tennis

My playoff predictions basically agree with all yours so here my regular season award guesses and personal picks: Hart (most valuable player): 1) Alexander Ovechkin: 65 goals and 112 and took his team into the playoffs 2) Evgeni Malkin: second in scoring and carried his team without Crosby (I don't think anyone else is very close to these two) Pearson (most outstanding player): 1) Alexander Ovechkin: does the most important thing in the game better and more than anyone else - score 2) Daniel Alfredsson: most complete player in the game and exceptional defensively 3) Evgeni Malkin: Pierre McGuire said "he's changing the parameters of hockey" :D 4) Jarome Iginla: like Alfredsson a very complete player and good leader 5) Vincent Lecavalier: best player in the game for much of the first half and played last half with injury 6) Henrik Zetterberg: another complete player who was also hampered by injury (I thought there were a lot of top players very close this season) Norris (best defenseman): 1) Zdeno Chara: Lidstrom will win but I believe Chara was better this season as he does everything 2) Nicklas Lidstrom: never a bad choice also does everything 3) Sergei Gonchar: really picked up his defensive game and helped carry his team Vezina (best goalie): 1) Martin Brodeur: always thought he was overrated but easily his best season this year and he is definitely the best 2) Evgeni Nabokov: him and Thornton were the Sharks for more than half the season 3) Dan Ellis: probably the most underrated player in the game right now Selke (best defensive forward): 1) Ryan Kesler: not much to say but he is a great checker (I think the trophy should go to the best defensive forward instead of two way forward like it has done many times in the last 15 years and there are a lot of players who are very similar so I just picked one) Calder (best rookie): 1) Patrick Kane: consistently great player for a team he shouldn't have made 2) Jonathan Toews: would probably win if he wasn't injured so often 3) Nicklas Backstrom: started slowly but heated up when Ovechkin did though there's no denying he helped him as well

I found the most "nonsense" to be in Half-Life. I want to get into it, and I like the shooter format of it and all, but there are a lot of problems. I don't like the in game scripting at all, because I can barely hear what people say or figure out what is going on without a walkthrough. I'd much rather stick to cutscenes. Also, there is a ton of annoying puzzle type and box jumping crap in the game. Then there's the jarring sound of the game. It's so quiet but the alien voices are obnoxiously loud. Coupled with really ugly graphics (I know it's an old game, but I prefer the old 2D graphics to old 3D graphics) I find myself interested in the game every month or so, but am only able to finish half a level before I get sick of it. Every Infinity Engine game and Neverwinter Nights 2 had the boring stretch areas, but the first chapter of Neverwinter Nights takes it to an extreme. So mind numbing. Rome: Total War had terrible battles because the computer was too smart for its own good. Every unit tried to flank, making for some retarded battles. It was really annoying to train units one by one in Age of Empires, though I did play Age of Empires II before it. Earthworm Jim for Super Nintendo had some ridiculously hard levels.

I remember playing Mortal Kombat III with my friends! We thought we were such superpimps when we beat Motaro and then Shao Khan. :D As for Tarnesh, I'm on my second go through of the game so I had leveled up and gotten superior weaponry by the time I met Tarnesh, but the first time he was really a hard fight. I ended up using Xzar and Montaron as decoys for the spells and waited till he engaged in hand to hand with me. It was a very hard fight (on par with the Sarevok fight) but it wasn't a gamebreaker for me.

That game pretty much summed up Tampa's season.

The first part of the Chris Pronger hat trick is almost complete. He'll be suspended for sure. Now we just have to wait for him to blast the Canadian media and reinvent physics. :D Sucks to be Anaheim though. I wouldn't say they're in any real danger of missing the playoffs but you never know...