Morgoth

Besides of my hopefully better becoming fluency in Englisch , I was used to learn a bit French some years ago.... actually, it wasn't that hard surprisingly, well, maybe with the exception of how they handle the numerics. 70 for example, is spoken as 50 + 20... very interesting. My sister, who resides now in France on the other hand, had never such issues with different languages...

Time limits sucks, every time and everywhere. That's Old School design, and every self-respected designer should avoid this trap, the same's for silly jumping puzzles, where you can fall down into a pool of lava. There're better ways for creating some tension... like a very tough and well balanced difficulty and events that forces you acting efficiently... but time limits... that's the evil and non-enjoying way.

Pure time-wasting if you ask me. First you read the text, then you click on it and must listen the character babbling the same again, and then the NPC can response. *yawn*

That's probably because a too high diversity of character devlopement (race, class, stats) wouldn't fit the today's RPGs standards, which are trying to be more cinematic-like and linear, probably for the sake of the "lazier" (?) way to tell a story. And since the protagonists of PS:T or Kotor are key figures of the story that just requires some restrictions in terms of character developement (Playing a Gnome in PS:T? No thanks. No Jedi in Kotor? Uhm but the story...) for proper "story functionality", it's just a logical conclusion that much RPGs today aren't really free-form in that regard. But this is not a complaint, because I like those games mentioned above including Gothic (II) all in their own way. But what I'm complainig about is that there's definitively a lack of RPGs like Fallout or Arcanum today, with a more melodramatic, emotional-driven setting.

Well, a game (and every piece of art) is actually never done, just shipped. So, it will be in stores when it's shipped (hoho, great sentence Morgoth...).

I thought the Selkath were sweet... I'd wish I had a plush Selkath that I can hug the whole day.

may be in the near future game engines will generate their own level geometry and textures, so we will not need designers and artists Wahhhhhhhhh the nightmares!!! :D

So that means we don't need a Doom3 anymore?

Ahh, FPS/RPG's like System Shock2 or Deus Ex.... that's one of my favorite kind of game-genre mixes. I also found the concept behind Omikron: The Nomad Soule very attractive... but the crappy controls prevented me to play it through. :angry: I would gladly see a game by Obsidian like this in the future...

Don't forget to dry it before putting it into the scanner.

The apology in the arabic tv didn't really have that impact, but an apology in form of a good willing act like you mentioned could be the first step into the right direction...

I can't remember that they apologized personally to the Iraqi folks.

Well, after that some of you people are probably better politically educated than me and think that I

uh, nearly 50,000 dead in vietnam... we were fighting in a jungle and were unprepared for it... it lasted nearly 10 years... NOBODY in the US liked it (at least, an overwhelming majority were against it)... we were trying to prevent the spread of communism (supposedly)... lemme see... 600 US dead (a little over 700 total, right?)... we're fighting in cities... it has been ONE year... over 70% STILL support our presence there (including Kerry, depending on which day you ask him)... we've already stopped saddam (really...)... yeah, good comparison there. um, morgoth, maybe, just maybe, you could come up with an original line that's not so ideologically straight outta the hard left liberal camp... maybe, just maybe, somebody will take you seriously. comparisons to vietnam make it sound like you read a cool news report from the LA Times and immediately hopped on the bandwagon. not very original, not really very popular, and not really very true these ideas... taks 900 000 deads at least in Vietnam war

Call it whatever you want. There were still more US soldiers killed after the "major combat is over" than during the invasion... Such statements are one way or the other for the ass if it comes out of Bush's mouth.

I don't think that comparison with Vietnam is bad... Vietnam was a sign for unconquerably worldwide, and it seems that despite one year after the official "the war is over" statement there's still war in Iraq, more terror, more suffer and more deads...Tendency rising. So tell me how the US will straighten this mess?

Yes, but the question is: Would it be really that different if "**** & Doof" are out?

If it would be that easy... Iraq is already lost. That's a major fault of the inconsiderately behaviour of the US. There's no way out of this mess... Bush wants to keep his troops for decades if necessary, to ensure to establishing "Democracy". HAHA! Iraq is the second Vietnam...there're only losers...and deads.

Well maybe that comparison about IWD and BG2 was bad, but that wasn't actually the point I wanted to make anyway. I just wanted to say that a good and informatively review needs both objectivity and a healthy portion of subjectivity... without beeing too single sided biased. Therefor someone who gives a game a very high score without loving it personally is just.... hmmm weird. Such reviews are not very usefull for me. It happend very often that actually well done games were underrated because they hadn't those cool "must have features within the genre frame". E.g. Freedom Force was mostly underrated but I loved this game.... Not very solid in some ways, but as a whole a little masterpiece. Without a bit subjectively written reviews you can't figure this out immediately...

Both had a story, but how should I know whether e.g. IWD's one sucked and BG2's one rocked when there is at least not a little bit of "bias" in the review....

Putting your own personal bias into a review without knowing your "preferences" would probably suggest the reader that this must be the crappiest game ever.... Anyway, a good review also mentions some "great experiences", or "wowsers", that sometimes tells you more than a list of features without knowing how good they work together.... IWD had technically the same features as BG2 (if not more), but the difference, quality wise is huge...

So which criterions do you then use when you're giving a game a score? I think mere objectivity would indirectly suggest that you're a bad reviewer. Giving a game 90% and then ranting the whole time about it is just a bit "irrational" for my taste. *waiting for the predictable answer*

Again the US government proved how foolish and irresponsible they were to think they could bring democracy in an other (and different) country. Democracy is something the people have to fight and earn for their own... An what's now? Suffering and costs are raising to the skies, and if the US are leaving Iraq, there are only shattered remained, an ideal base for breeding new terrorists... and so the cat beats in her own tail.

But System Shock 2 had Minigames! Schweinshirt! And no one needs to tell me that Shock2 wasn't a RPG...

Looks more like this one psychotic looking Barbie doll from my sister which I severed the head off, ten years ago.... No seriously. I like the look, really!!!