DemonKing

So hard to choose from to pick a favourite... The one where Brent gets canned is a classic, but for pure Pathos you can't beat Tim's birthday from series one. Also liked the one where Brent tries to welcome the new team and also the one that ends in the dodgy nightclub.

I love it - it's something that everytime I watch leaves me in hysterics. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the XMAS specials yet because I live in Germany and will have to wait for the DVD release, since it's unlikely to be shown on German TV (and if it is, it would be dubbed). I find it hard to believe that Charles gets the joke...I mean it's funny for me because so much of what you see in the Office is scarily close to real life...but I somehow doubt Charles has had similar "working" experiences.

I saw the Slither video on MTV and thought it rocked pretty hard, although why don't Slash and Duff look like they've aged much - surely they should have beer guts by now? Anyway - the video also scored extra points for the slutty looking rock chicks in it...reminded me of my clubbing days about 10 years ago...

I nominate "The Crying Game" for nasty surprises... If you mean films I thought would be crap that turned out ok...I was pleasantly surprised by the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" recently.

I have a sennheisser digital compatible headset which rocks, and I've heard rumours they will soon bring out one complete with microphone. Cost me a bit more than $50Aus though.

Try Lucasforums. Good for all the SW games plus you can talk about the movies/EU as well.

I want a QA job with Atari - I can't think of anything better than being paid to sit on my butt all day and do absolutely nothing. B) I might have trouble getting another job in the industry though if anyone sees TOEE or Driver 3 on my resume.

I think 'rasslin peaked for me in the mid-90s - they had classic characters, great matches, engaging and edgy storylines (compared to the 80s, at least), and two major companies competing for viewers...now there's only one company left, and while the matches can still be good on occassion, the storylines generally suck (necrophilia anyone? date rape? anything involving the MacMahon family?) and all the top talent is either retired or off in Hollywood.

Got to go with Palpy/Sideous. I mean the guy goes from a freaking Gungan infested backwater like Naboo to ruling the Galaxy with an iron fist? He's a model Sith if anyone is. Vader is a **** who whimps out at seeing his own kid die.

I guess I am a bit of a nut - saw the first film when I was 7 in the cinema and have been ever since. I collect all the bad-guys as far as figures/vehicles go, so have tons of stormtroopers, bounty-hunters, Sith-Lords etc but not an ewok or Luke in sight. Haven't read too much of the EU stuff but have been getting into the Empire series of comics.

I wish he would put both the special and the original editions on DVD - but no doubt that will only come later, when he needs to refill the coffers. Sigh - I was 7 when I saw the original in the Cinema and seeing Han gun down Greedo in cold blood made him "cool" and added to his rougish character. Watching Greedo miss an unmoving target from two feet away just looks stupid. I just wish someone close to Lucas had the balls to tell him to leave well enough alone sometimes.

The girl with the white hair looks like Paris Hilton in a kimono with a light saber to me. Anything that even vaguely looks like that brainless bimbette makes me want to barf.

I've been playing off and on now for over 20 years - while D&D has always been my favourite game, I have played a lot of different RPGS and I would have to say the quality of the game experience rarely comes down to the system used, but rather more to the quality of the players involved. If you have a good group, you'll probably have a good game. If you have one or more disruptive players, then your experience will likely not be so good. We used to have a great group of friends from uni that would get together 1 or 2 times a week and play to the wee small hours. Sad thing is now every one of us lives in a different city, and most in different countries! Damn careers and women get in the way every time.

I presume because he still needed to learn from a master...just because there were more than two Sith in this period doesn't mean you don't have to learn your skills/powers from someone more knowledgeable than yourself. Hence the Sith training grounds you visit.

The problem occurs when romances are there because people seem to expect them - not because they add anything to the overall game/plot. For example; I played through KOTOR the first time with a female character - but the only NPC I could romance was the extremely annoying Carth. Frankly I would rather have a relationship with Canderous, Joelle or even the wookie or HK47 for that matter! So I ignored Carth and rarely travelled with him. Not romancing Carth didn't seem to have any impact on my experience or make the end-game any less rewarding. It was clearly a tack-on solely for people that equate CRPGs with NPC Romances...which frankly is not part of the core CRPG experience to my mind. Now if there was a subtle romance that furthered the overall story-arc then I would be all for it...but this constant, stilted and artificial "It seems Carth has something on his mind, maybe you should talk to him" kind of romance adds nothing to games, IMHO.

I'm not implying that a computer romance can only be appreciated by someone who has nothing in their life than their computer, only that it's not what I personally look for when I play a computer game...when I play a game I want to do something exciting and different from my humdrum everyday life, and chin-wagging with Carth just doesn't seem like a game to me, it just seems like a poor immitation of reality. Now maybe Obsidian will come up with a romance that I find interesting and intrinsic to the game's plot, but if they're just tacking on romances for the sake of them, I personally would rather they didn't bother and used the writing resources elsewhere.

PHAT LOOT is only part of what I'm talking about - the accrual of equipment, stat improvement, skills, powers, reputations etc are part and parcel of any good computer CRPG in my opinion, as they give the player incentive to continue and a feeling off achievement. Getting it on with Carth or Annomen doesn't give me any sense of development/achievement - but if it works for you...well whatever turns you on. :D Unfortunately in a computer role-playing game, the development of this ephemeral part of the character is very difficult to realise, which is why there is such a strong emphasis on the more material sides of character development. I admit that in a tabletop RPG the kind of development you are talking about is easier to achieve. So you're saying that if I just imagine hard enough, I really could kill orcs, shoot Nazis and bring down America with my extremist bretheren? Sorry - I know my limitations a bit better than that! And as you've proved with your enlightened and well-argued points, it's comparitively easy to interact with annoying people IRL, so why force them on us in a computer game?

I'm not mortified - it's just not the reason why I play computer games...IRL I can have relationships with annoying people if I want, but I can't hack up monsters with a +2 Longsword, blow away nazis with a Thompson SMG, or lead the GLA against the imperialistic might of the USA. I guess if your main relationship in life is with your computer then you might appreciate the ability to have romances on-screen but it just does nothing for me...I play computer games to do things I could never do IRL.

Charming, but by character development I meant the gradual accrual of skills, experience, powers, dark/light side specific rewards, equipment etc. I think the development time invested in romances would better be spent elsewhere, as very few players get to experience every romance in-game. For example, with my first run through KOTOR I had a female character but I refused to romance Carth as he annoyed the hell out of me, so all that development time was a waste, at least in my case. The only vaguely satisfying in-game romance I've had was with Viconia in BG2 when I was playing a LE necromancer and I couldn't deny that given my character concept (and the opportunity), he wouldn't hesitate to bonk a hot, evil, drow chick...but frankly I don't play CRPGs to "get my pixels on" with in-game characters - I wish they'd leave that to the sad sods playing the Sims . (Also apologies to the Swedish guy for the Swedish stereotyping - but coming from Australia and living in continental Europe I also get a lot of people expecting me to be just like the crocodile hunter, so take solace that you aren't the only nation to suffer unfortunate stereotyping!).

Please, indulge us... You'll just have to PAFO like everyone else that wasn't involved. So was anyone else involved or was this a "solo" experience Michael? Actually that could be a viable "romance" option if all the NPCs are annoying prats...frankly I would prefer it if you didn't waste time on lame romances and improved the combat, character development, inventory management and other important stuff...

May I suggest we put Chris Avellone alone in a room with a hot Swedish exchange student for a weekend, record all dialog between them, and then put it directly into the game substituting all mention of Abba" with "Jedi", Stockholm with "Tatooine" and America with "Death Star". Should be about as satisfying as a Carth, Annomen or Jaehira romance, anyway.

Yeah - a bunch of plebs jeered at me at a quiz night when I protested to the judge that the first Indiana Jones film was not called "Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark" but simply "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Normally I hate to be anal but that meat tray fed me and my cat for weeks...

Or alternatively Darth Lucas wanted kiddies to be allowed into see his film so they would all go out and buy Jar Jar toys afterwards, so Darth Maul's species just miraculously happened to have guts that vaporised the moment they were exposed to oxygen...

Tie Fighter was the best - crushing rebel scum for the Empire in my tie advanced rocked big time. I liked all the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games although I think a special place goes to JO because about half-way through the Bespin level when I was pushing/choking/sabering etcc stormtroopers everywhere I finally felt the rush of what it must be like to be a Jedi (or was that just the dark side calling?). I also played the Galactic Battlefield RTS games which were half decent (Force Commander was an abomination though).

I played a female charatcer first time through but ditched Carth at the first opportunity - he was just too annoying with his constant whining, and there was no chance I'd be letting such a dweeb anywhere near my Jedi undies. Now I seem to remember Bio saying somewhere that this character had a lot of appeal for female gamers, although I find it hard to believe that any of my female friends that tinker with games would put up with such a cretin...