Bartimaeus

Playing Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Good lord. This game is a lot harder than Blood Money, that's for sure. A bit more arbitrary, too. I didn't quite understand how the scoring system worked, where I assumed, like in Blood Money, any non-target kill that can't be ruled strictly an accident, (a chandelier falling on someone's head, being pushed over the side of a boat's railing and drowning, etc.), will immediately downgrade you from the Silent Assassin rating, which made beating the first two missions nearly impossible, as the knockout drug doesn't work the same, (instead of being permanent unless found and woken up by another NPC, it's just a timer until they wake up), and they'll cause an alert no matter what. I then Googled to figure out that, hey, you actually can kill a non-target via normal methods under certain circumstances, which would've made the first two missions about a thousand times easier than what I had to go through. Additionally, disguises don't work remotely near as well as they do in Blood Money. You're discovered after about two, three seconds of walking in front of an enemy while disguised, as opposed to Blood Money's basically infinite amount of time (by comparison). However, in spite of the difficulties I was having, it was kind of fun devising methods to play it harder than required by even the hardest of the ratings, but...I think I'll enjoy the slightly less masochist standards I'll be employing from here on out from knowing what I do now.

I can't believe I sat through a minute of that song before it hit the vocals and I realized I hated it.

162 - Outside the Mosque

In Baldur's Gate, I generally liked having two spellcasters - usually a sorcerer and a mage-cleric - and then two melee DPS classes - usually a fighter and a thief. I'll probably play through the game a few times, assuming it's actually good and has at least mild replay value, not really paying attention to class composition and just using who I like best, but then later make my own party. Depending on how XP is handled, (split between party members a la the IE games? Or a flat modifier to all (possible) party members like NWN2 OC? ...), I might try soloing, too...probably with a spellcaster of some sort, though it kinda depends on exactly how strong spellcasters are. But I can't imagine they'll be weaker than non-spellcaster classes, at the very least, so...

No, I think he proved that your guys' definition of "undead" is silly.

Eugh. I thought it was pretty bad in the very beginning of the game, when it hadn't even really started yet, but I figured the game would cool down on the whole thing. Nope. It just got worse and worse and completely spiraled out of control. I'm not really sure what the developers were thinking. Nothing within my realm of thought, that's for sure, lol @Lost Alpha: I'm really, really hoping it'll be good. Just looking at the game map from the PDF manual is making me excited. Alas, I have to wait until my/a GPU comes back to really play it properly...

You know, I've almost played this so many times and never got around to it. I'm going to buy it next time its on sale now, thanks for the recommendation. The fighting mechanics are a lot of fun...once you get used to them. I quit several times (for a few days each) because I had so much trouble with them. But you should end up having fun if you stick with it. The biggest problem I had with the game was the plot...and...the..."romance" options. You're forced into a romance. It's really bad. I quit about 2/3rds the way through because I just could not stomach it anymore. Did anyone else notice the release of the major Stalker mod, Lost Alpha? I didn't notice, and of course it would be released the week I send in my GPU for RMA. Typical, really. Waiting for it for years and it's released on the very week I can't play it at all for technical reasons...

If you just started, those guys have way too much health to effectively fight yet. Go up the mountain side path instead and you should find it much more possible, (that was the first place I started going as well, and it's really just not a good way to go as a beginner).

define routine noun: a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program. adjective: performed as part of a regular procedure rather than for a special reason. verb: organize according to a routine. I would assume it was expected, otherwise they're using the word "routine" incorrectly.

"The Steam servers are currently down for routine maintenance. Friends will automatically reconnect as soon as they (be?)come available." Would be nice if they announced it in advance...

I wouldn't be too concerned about the memories bit, personally. I think I'd be much happier knowing I and everyone else were to be reincarnated. I mean, it's not exactly perfectly ideal, but it'd surely be a grand step up from what we currently have.

Is there a source on that? Seems very popular and Steam seems to have gotten a lot of Indie game sales because of it. Is there a source on that? Seems very popular and Steam seems to have gotten a lot of Indie game sales because of it. The internet has a tendency to pronounce things dead. Especially the gaming community. Just take PC gaming. I hope when I get pronounced dead, I'll be as dead as PC gaming http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-looking-to-discontinue-steam-greenlight-and-steam-os-may-have-exclusives/1100-6417155/ http://www.shacknews.com/article/82660/valve-steam-greenlight-will-go-away http://www.examiner.com/article/valve-to-do-away-with-steam-s-greenlight

I've liked all of the instrumentals by this artist I've come across, but it seems like all of their songs that have vocals are usually much too vulgar for me...dangit.

I'm not sure why, but the SIG 550's been my favorite NATO rifle throughout all the Stalker games, even though it's supposed to be a lower grade weapon than, say, the G36...or even the FN2000, (I like the G36 almost just as well, but I really do not care at all for the FN2000). Although Strelok really always seemed more like a Warsaw Pact kind of guy to me...but maybe that's just projection on my part, as I tend to like them more than the NATO weapons.

How'd it start out well, out of curiosity?

The last one I really tried was AVG like...a really long time ago. "Really try" as in...had it installed for longer than five minutes. Thanks.

My friend gifted Space Trader to me as a joke/to annoy me. I tried it just because, but it didn't work. Whenever I tried to interact with anything, the game would massively lag for like five seconds, every time. Overall, my experience was poor.

Thanks, Reddit.

Are the soul level experience progression rates about the same as they are in DS1? 238k makes me think a several hundred level character in terms of DS1...30-40k was about the range I got for killing characters 10% within my level in DS1, (SL100).

Well, the lack of warnings or moderation may have something to do with the fact that your inbox is full. Happens when you used to be a staff member and you get an infinite amount of room for you PM box...

Time to get security cameras! I'd be super paranoid if that happened to me...

I like the game, but I had some of the same problems as you did, and I completely agree regarding the frankly insane fanbase. A good portion of the game's difficulty is just understanding what the heck you're doing - both in terms of gameplay mechanics, as well as actual controls, neither of which the game really helps you out at all with. Once you "master" the controls - master them as well as they can be mastered, anyways: really, sometimes it seems as though they're bad just for the sake of being bad - then it's just a matter of fighting each unique enemy either randomly succeeding the first time or not and learning to understand them in subsequent attempts. There is some measure of skill required, which I guess is something...but... For that reason, I actually liked the PVP more at times. Except a lot of people are just terrible at PVP (or the game in general, perhaps), which is not so fun when you can wait upwards of 15 minutes in between fights...or longer, depending on the time of day. It's a lot more fun when you actually fight someone close to your skill level...even if you lose. It's not that the game is necessarily bad...it just could've been a whole lot better if it was polished a bit and some sort of very basic encyclopedia explaining game mechanics or something was present in game...never mind all the PVP problems. In other news, XFX is going to RMA my video card. I'm on a $10 backup card that is...actually performing way beyond my expectations. Video card tiers are so bogus, in my opinion. For $10, I should be barely able to play anything with a decent FPS, even on low settings. Instead, my gaming habits are almost completely unchanged. Sure, I have to turn down some settings, but none of the *important* ones, like draw distance or anything. Quite frankly, I think the way video cards are priced is a bunch of baloney...this just further cements my opinion I'll never pay more than $150 *at absolute most* for a video card, and I'll probably stay close to the $80-$100 range in the future. Bah.

I'm not sure I quite understand. Can't be aware of all the things being done on their behalf? If you care to be aware, and prevent programs from acting out of line, I think can be pretty aware of what goes on most of the time on your own computer. I disable all auto-updaters (or firewall them if they can't be/won't listen), don't let programs runs all the time if I don't have a use for them running all the time, and generally know what everything currently running is for. The only thing I can think of that's "automatically" doing things is my defragmenter, but since that's mostly behind the scenes, that's fine. Your second line makes me think of a sort of limited AI...man, I wish I were in the future. I'd totally let an AI run [on] my system if it listened to me and generally followed my policies while being a completely dope AI. @Valsuelm: "Temporarily turned off"? That's the problem - it's just backwards from how it should be. The antivirus always assumes it should be turned on, when I have no need for it to be on all the time. "Temporarily turned on" is closer to what I'm looking for.

Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised if the game is as insecure as its predecessor. I like creating cheats for games I play, (though not necessarily to use, and never in multiplayer), and the things you could do in Dark Souls without the game performing any sort of check, server side or client side, is ridiculous. It would be pretty easy, and not *that* much work, to have the game check player side - doesn't even have to be server-side, so it's not any more work for the server - as to whether a character attempting to join's main stats (and any substats derived from them) compared to their soul level are legit, (as well as check the stats of theirs items). It was embarrassing that Dark Souls 1 was released the way it is, more embarrassing still that they never fixed it, and it'd be a complete joke if they didn't fix it in their second game.

The problem I have with antivirus is that they're always too far reaching, doing too much, not allowing you to downsize their role in governing your operating system. They usually have good reason for it, but as someone who has slightly more computer expertise than your average antivirus user, all I really want from an antivirus is Sandboxie combined with a basic, manually initiated scanner. I don't know of any antivirus that actually is just that...so I opt for not using one, and just using Sandboxie and my brain. The last time I was infected was, ironically, about two years ago when I installed a mod tool for Baldur's Gate that was mentioned as a legit tool in some modding communities, but had trouble finding a working link to, and found one on some random file hosting site that I sadly did not test, not expecting some dummy to infect it. Before that was about 5, 6 years ago for some garbage my brother installed on my computer without my knowledge. So I think I do pretty well.