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I agree. However, although Lovecraft's fiction is an incredibly good source for inspiration, a game based entirely on one/ several of his texts would send at least me beyond the wall of sleep (pun intended). Don't get me wrong, I like his style and I have basically everything he ever wrote at home, but CoC:DCotE convinced me that you need to go beyond these stories and instead try to understand and capture the general feeling in the texts, not the specific narratives, places or characters. It's like, a game that takes place in Tolkien's Middle- earth would be cool, but the actual game based on the book is still very un- cool.

Just take few ounces of Max Ernst, mix thouroughly with Nash's and Spare's renderings of WW1, and pour the finished art design over a solid story with a few interesting sociopolitical and psychological perspectives in a highball glass. Garnish with some of Lovecraft's early works and (optionally) the mythos of an extinct civilization. The medieval and WW2 settings (for example) have been done a hundred times, I think developers right now should be looking after entirely new settings. We all know how well Fallout mixed art, design and fashion of entirely different themes (Mad Max, Art Deco, 1950s) to create a solid concept for a setting that has become very popular. More entirely new ideas, please! Just mix enough, and it WILL blend!

"What a strange and beautiful world I beheld, but dangerous too, I was certain. And I was friendless and homeless. And so I prayed." And to think that Interplay once published and/ or developed great games such as Torment, Baldur's Gate, Giants, Sacrifice, MDK, Messiah and Fallout. And then what happened? They got bought by Titus, and chose to make action- oriented spinoffs of their earlier games. That has to be the epicest fail in the entire games industry.

Right now I'm listening to Ozric Tentacles - Bizarre Bazaar.

In my opinion those are languages which are easy to listen to and transcribe to text, with the exception of Danish and southern Swedish dialects (Sk

LOL, actually that does sound a little bit like Swedish, if he would only cut down a little on the diphtongs (does not apply to certain dialects of Swedish).

Ok, I checked and I've actually played for 13h and 49mins. The thing with F3 is that there's a lot of small details that are well designed, but when it's all seen as a whole it's kind of a letdown. For example, take the Blade Runner- inspired side quest. It was a great idea from Bethesda but when I finished it I was left with a sense of dissatisfaction. It's like if they took part of the story from Blade Runner, but deliberately avoided trying to make any of the points the movie made. It's the same thing they've done with the Fallout setting. It's duplicated nicely (except for the music, ouch) but it's not really used to any great extent. Dialogue is minimal except for a few NPCs, of which a few actually have a personality, but the blandness and lack of interaction here leaves something out that I think is essential for a RPG, at least one that I am supposed to like. For example, NPCs you meet through exploration. I feel it takes from the joy of exploring when you meet a talking super mutant and all you get is something like one greeting phrase. Regardless of how many of these NPCs there are, they add up to nothing in my eyes if they don't involve they player in the game world more. Meeting a friendly super mutant should shatter the player's predjudices of what a super mutant is and question the reflexive antipathy towards "game monsters", it's a great opportunity to invoke different feelings, like pity or disgust. But this is hardly even exploited at all. In short, the game lacks personality too much, which ironically is just what I thought about Oblivion.

Grammatical and orthographical laxity will inevitably become a serious issue for English in a not too distant future. English will eventually diverge into different languages because of the geographical obstacles between the different speakers. It is plain to see that the only solution lies in pedantic teachers enforcing the conservation of the language in its current form. If we're not strict enough, maybe we'll end up speaking incomprehensible gibberish, like the Danes. Like we say in Grammar Nazi land, deteriores omnus sumus licentia.

Um. Thanks for the review? No problemo. I just think it's just a little bit overrated. I mean, in which way is F3 a groundbreaking RPG? I've played it for perhaps 10 hours and although initially I was impressed by the art direction and the game's interpretation of a post- apocalyptic DC, in the end the game feels "shallow" in a way reminding me of Oblivion. F3 feels like a game that's focused on exploration and freedom, yet this is not very rewarding. Congratulations, x more square miles of bland wasteland. The story is weak and the although some side quests are built upon interesting concepts, the game never gets anywhere with these.

Honestly, I think Fallout 3 is pretty boring.

True. Nothing says "Baldur's Gate" better than attention seeking, sex starvedpsychologically disturbed female elves. Viconia

Obsidian should not be making NX3, they should boycott the FR setting because of the 4e changes. Now Arcanum 2, THAT would be something. (No, I don't know how they would acquire the intellectual property) I like the idea of a planescape expansion, but I fear such an expansion might somehow draw the attention of the 4e DnD guys... You wouldn't want that to happen.

I'm happy Obsidian decided to support their game after the release with a 300+ MB patch, if you think of it, what would be the alternative? I bought SoZ 2 days after the release (US release) and have played the game with the patches from that date until now and I haven't encountered more bugs than I think is acceptable. If Obsidian want to further enrich the SoZ gaming experience with this patch, I can easily spare the miniscule amount of time required to DL 300 MB. At least for me, the OC was much worse, it actually had bugs which would prevent you from playing it properly (that is to say, most bugs and nuisances in SoZ are inherent in the Aurora engine. We should know what to expect ). On a side note, do you think the ongoing financial crisis makes SoZ more interesting, being a RPG with a focus on economy?

My first impressions: First of all, I have to give my compliments to Alexander Brandon for the music, which feels like it has a character of it's own at the same time as it ties in with the theme of the game very well and reminds me of the music to the BG games a little. Second, when I first heard what other people had said about SoZ I became afraid that Obsidian had changed course from their earlier games (like KotoR 2 and MotB) and instead went for a game with more sparse dialogue with a greater focus on combat. After playing the game for a few hours I must confess that while this is in part true, the game is also unmistakably an Obsidian game and fans of Obsidian's other games like myself will not be disappointed. I have not really gotten into the trading aspect of the game and the new crafting system yet, but so far both seem interesting, especially the former one. Traveling on the overland map offers the player a way to explore the game world which was sadly missing in MotB and in the OC, but is it just me or are those encounters a little tedious (since you have to watch a loading screen twice for X secs every time you get into a fight)? The only real complaints there are regards the game engine in itself. The camera is buggy at times and the game doesn't always run as smoothly as you would expect one with a 2- year old engine to do. The interface is also very ugly but I guess there wasn't really the option to change that all over for SoZ.

Perfectly true, I couldn't agree more.

Similar to the tripartite system of political power, the division of power between unions and employers is in place to prevent any single one of them from acting only in their own immidiate interest. No one is ever required to give in to a unions demands if they are too high, and if someone does, the members of the union themselves will suffer for it in the end (compare Prisoner's Dilemma). For society overall it is best if both sides make sound demands on wages, working hours et.c.. We can only look at history and see what has happened when the scales has tipped too much in favour of either one of them. A people without history is a people without future... or whatever.

Arcanum with guns? Doesn't make sense, somehow...

I just played through Arcanum again, to get the blessings of the gods right this time... It's so sad there's no Arcanum 2... I'd even be happy if Bethesda picked up the rights to make a sequel! ... or maybe not

You should check this out: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_43.html The number of Afro- Americans in the US: roughly 39 million. The number of Caucasian Americans in the US: roughly 223 million. Based on those numbers, Caucasian American criminals should be a little more than five times more common than Afro- American criminals. However, the FBI study clearly states that "white" criminals outnumber "black" criminals only by slightly more than 2 to 1. Only three different crimes are commited by as many (proportionally) Afro- Americans as Caucasians: Driving under the influence of alcohol, breaking liquor laws and drunkenness. Conclusion: Afro- American citizens have a remarkably high rate of criminal behaviour. I also checked this matter at the Swedish Council of Crime Prevention (BR

Honestly, vanilla EU3 needed the addition of the "Autosend Merchants" option in Napoleon's Ambition badly.

I love strategy games, and one of my favourites is this game.

I have no problem playing both male and female characters. I don't know if I get into the roleplaying too much or if the NPCs react differently, but all men seem like **** when you play as a female.

I was adressing the fact that you seemed to believe that criminals could always match the police in an arms race. I don't know how common guns and ammunition are in your country, but based on your reasoning it seems like they are. Well, I believe that it is your stance here is that runs contrary to common sense. If you're not armed or try to fight, you are also less likely to get hurt. I'd like some proof from you if you disagree with that. If you were some hoodlum and robbed someone, would you rather shoot a person who also threatens you with a gun or someone unarmed? I'm completely aware that robbery and theft have been around for quite a while. However, you must also take into consideration the many reasons crime should be lower today compared to in historic times. Today, we have a prison system that works towards rehabilitating criminals, public education, psychologists, homeless shelters - an entire social safety net which prevents people from becoming criminals. The best way to keep people from becoming criminals is to make sure they have a good childhood. I'm sure you wouldn't give the weapons we have today to people living 2000 years ago. Imagine the damage they would cause in their society! I'm not implying that "without guns it'll be Happy happy Land with no violence mass or otherwise". However, I do think that the number of people killed or wounded unintentionally during a heist, theft or whatever will decrease. The number of people killed by non- professional criminals and psychopaths will also decrease. You have a very inhumane opinion on this matter, perhaps because you forget to ask yourself why the robber is a robber? The best way to protect yourself against criminals is not to try to shoot them John Wayne- style when they are robbing you, it is to make sure nobody becomes a criminal in the first place. Would you also like to legalize all drugs, since drug addiction is also the result of an individual's action? Would you decapitate yourself if you have an headache (since it's obviously the head's fault and you have the right to defend the rest of your body)? Most of the people who live outside the law don't do that because they were born in a well-to-do family, had parents who could take care of them, had a happy childhood and then became criminals just because they felt like it. We are all partly responsible for shaping the world we live in. If you're hanging on a cliff's edge, and I'm standing above you, and you ask me for help, and I refuse to lift you up just because you have mud on your hands and because I have no legal obligation to do so, would you consider that an act of evil? "Right" and "Wrong" is not solely defined by what the law says. You also have to use your head. Just because it isn't prohibited does not mean it's not bad (and certainly not that it is good). Suppose you were a Russian marshal of the Strategic Rocket forces during the Cold War. One day, you are surprised to learn that american ICBMs are coming in from all directions, and will blast your entire country to smithereens and not leave a single survivor. Would you press the button and launch your own ICBMs on their pre- set targets, destroying the whole of humanity in the process? Please ignore any historic/ factual inaccuracies as it's a hypothetical situation, I'm only interested in your answer. KILLING AND WOUNDING OTHER PEOPLE = NOT GOOD True, there are also those situations where it's not realistic to ban guns since the law won't have the resources to enforce the ban. I bet it's hard being a country on a poor continent with destabilized neighbours.

My point is, what are you going to do with your gun when you are robbed? Do you think that you face better odds if you try to draw a gun when someone is already pointing one at you? Even if we suppose you're right and life is like a silly Western movie and you manage to draw your gun and shoot who's robbing you, you have injured and maybe killed another person. From my point of view, that is definitely a bad thing. I don't believe in evil, people are shaped into what they are by how they were raised in their childhood and by society. Surely, you must agree that countries can't start nuking each other as soon as one declares war on the other. In the very same way do we humans also have some sort of responsibility towards each other. The last passage here shows that you're a little biased from which country you're from. Where I live, not all criminals have guns/ have the opportunity to choose the gun they like. It is in fact very logical that you are more likely to be shot if you're armed. But I've already explained that. I do not think that the absence of guns will make crime disappear. It's just that having a gun makes it easier for anyone to rob anyone they like, and also increases the amount of possible collateral damage. What if anyone could acquire heavier weapons as easily as they could buy a gun? Imagine what kind of school shootings you would have then. Compare that to a country where pointy sticks were the only common weapons. You certainly wouldn't see headlines like "Boy massacres 32 with pointy stick in [insert random high school]", or "Criminals armed with dreadfully pointy sticks rob bank for $17.3 million". You might think of a country without weapons as an utopia, but I know that it is possible to at least take a step in that direction.

Well, it's a question of definition. I'm aware that Israel is not currently considered a rogue state by the UN, the reason why I chose the term "rogue state" was Israel's history of nuclear weapons proliferation plus its unwillingness to abide by international law and sign treaties concerning humanitarian issues. The two latter does Israel share with USA. USA is far better than Israel on human rights, however. It would be an insult to put the US on the same level as Israel in that matter. The sad reality in Israel would create laughable examples if you tried to compare it with the US somehow. For example, the European colonizers stole land from the Indians, but today, you won't find roads marked "No Indians" (where Indian drivers will get their cars confiscated...), Indians are not walled up in ghettoes, Indians are allowed to travel in cars registered in the US without specific permits, and unarmed children will not be shot to death for protesting against any of these things. I don't really know that much about USA's human rights record, but Israel's is definitely the pitchest black.