Bartimaeus

Bride of the Atom - Thrice Majestic Eye - Herd Under Social Hypnosis

If you're referring to storyline or dialogue choices, then I don't really consider that to be a defining or essential feature of the genre. All RPGs have to have some kind of numerical progression in place, but not all of them have to have storyline and dialogue choices. A lot of the old RPGs didn't even have much of a storyline or dialogue at all, let alone choices to make. Choices are just something that has been taken from the adventure genre later on and added to RPGs in order to give them more flavour and complexity. It doesn't matter how you interpret such choices, they are by no means a defining feature of an RPG on their own. I can't help but notice that a game within the genre we're supposedly discussing would be called a Roleplaying Game, not an Increase Your Meaningless Stats Game.

This is actually the reason I can't play through Fallout 3/New Vegas. I absolutely detest the leveling/stat system. I think they're "okay" for non-combat skill checks - like determining if you can defuse the bomb in Megaton - but for active gameplay, like (and especially) combat? I can't stand a weapon artificially being absolute garbage - both in terms of accuracy and damage - at the beginning of a game, and then becoming absolutely awesome in both by the time you've maxed out your "skill" in whatever relevant stat dump. I would love to play with a more Stalker-esque system, where a weapon is what a weapon bloody well is, exactly the same for everyone - for better or for worse - and you can't do squat to change it, except aim better.

Touche. I just got done manually modding back in the cut mutants for the ZRP mod in Shadow of Chernobyl myself. I dream for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2...

I actually prefer Half-Life 1 to Half-Life 2...overall. I liked some things more about Half-Life 2, but all the NPC so transparently gushing over you - particularly Alyx - drove me crazy. Half-Life 1, on the other hand, was very much a solitary adventure.

U.S. impeachment also differs from European impeachment. Isn't impeachment the actual act of conviction in the U.K., for example, whereas U.S. impeachment is merely the go ahead for the trial to take place?

I hoped they've already changed the name. Er...why? Haha.

Robobama would have eliminated republicans, as he would no longer be restrained by Human emotions and morals, instead having nothing but a heart of cold and lifeless steel. Silicon is superior to worthless human flaws, Who cares if futurist morality goes against your human laws? Morality carries no weight here, no-one ever heard of it in cyberspace, Cyborgs are my companions now and I play the human race.

I'm not sure if I necessarily agree or not, but these oh-so-contemporary (whether contemporary for now or ten-fifteen years ago, ) posts found in this particular topic for this question are kinda making me think the same thing...but then again, as a normal person, I don't see any other way to really answer the question, regardless of what your reasons for your [non-]choices are. So I guess let us be us...and don't let pseudo-intellectualism get in the way, particularly if it's built off of debasing others. Don't mind me, just internally monologuing here...

You have a problem, but not having a girlfriend isn't it (nor necessarily one in general), I don't think... (e: in retrospect, that probably should've been a to seem a lot less passive-aggressive...)

Thanks.

Ignoring the implications, those are pretty cool pieces of work.

Sprite-based a la the Infinity Engine games, (or, in other words, there's only so many frames per animation, so by increasing the FPS, you increase the game speed)? Has to do with how animations work. One of the first videos of the game was about it. Could you link to it, since I'm curious? I must confess to not liking South Park, but I'm interested in that particular facet if they explain it.

1. What're you talking about? What would you be using a magnifying glass for? 2. Are you kidding? Buy a whole new one when you can just fix yours for pennies in comparison to the total cost of a new one? Why?

How'd you determine it was the motherboard?

Sprite-based a la the Infinity Engine games, (or, in other words, there's only so many frames per animation, so by increasing the FPS, you increase the game speed)?

Froze to death this morning because we have a garage underneath our apartment and the jerks who own it keep leaving it open...

If you think it's temperature related, have you opened up your case while it's on and checked to see if your CPU, GPU, and PSU coolers are working properly, (and/or checking temps like mentioned by Humanoid)? A non-functioning CPU fan would definitely cause something like that, for example. If nothing there looks funky, I'd probably start swapping out components. I would definitely not throw everything away...lol

Holy clutter, Batman...

In what way do you think they are not supported compared to desktop cards? Your video card is essentially for running a modern desktop interface, and fairly unintensive indie games or games that are fairly old (e: at high settings), (>4, 5?). There's not much more to squeeze out of a 710M... I think the fact that you were even *TRYING* to play XCOM at higher settings and weren't running into severe difficulties suggests that the drivers are performing very well indeed...

(I still can't tell if the "genres" they list are actual genres, or if they're making fun of themselves...)

None. All of my opinions are the only correct options. Um... 1. I don't really like any of the MEs anymore. I say "anymore", because I did like the first one at the time I played it, was more or less ambivalent when I played through the second, and was rather sick of the series by the time I started the third. Keyword here being "started", because it had nothing to do with the ending of the game, and all to do with the (shooting) gameplay generally being a complete bore and/or chore to get through. I wasn't an advocate of the "let the game handle the dialogue so you can get through it faster" option, but I honestly don't think I would've minded a reverse of that - a "skip the awful gameplay" option would've been grand. I was only playing for the (now, in hindsight) rather subpar (but nevertheless rather enjoyable) story, anyways. 2. I've never liked any turn-based CRPGs, (actual turn-based, not internal timer turn-based like the Infinity Engine games). 3. I think romance, (or rather, how romance is done in games today and in the past), can right shove off. Especially in games where it's either romance or nothing, (a la Baldur's Gate 2, where if you say one "mean" thing - and where your options are either 1. don't be a jerk, 2. be a jerk, 3. be a jerk, 4. be sort of a jerk maybe depends exactly on how it's said (basically, be a jerk) - to most characters of the opposite gender, said character(s) never ever talks to you again outside of "scripted" interjections). 4. Honestly, I really miss the internal round timer that the Infinity Engine games used. There's something about it that makes combat seem a lot more "solid" and quantitative, so to speak, to me. Something more appealing about a +1/2 attack per round stat on your weapon as opposed to 23% faster attack...I hate numbers like that being used as percentages, for some reason. Probably more.

I have the MK550 combo myself - though I use a G400 mouse instead. I am mildly satisfied. Its comfort isn't as good as my old Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 that I thought I ruined by washing it, I have to admit, though, (it's actually perfectly fine, but was shorting out for a while, which made me think it was broken). Keys are a lot harder to press down, too, which can create cramps after excessively typing for long periods of time...I always think about going back to the Microsoft keyboard, but I never do thanks to the bunch of Fn macros that this Logitech one has...

I don't think I've ever used a real mechanical keyboard...are there any decent "ergonomic"/curved mechanical keyboards? (P.S. This might be more suited to Skeeter's Junkyard...although it is a fairly quiet section...)

If it makes you feel any better, I've never bought anything on Origin.