Cycloneman

Plenty of people of Middle-Eastern descent have light colored skin. Also: is the symbol on that guys beret real?

Of course he will. It's a non-extradition country. There is literally nothing the US can do to get him here. Well, except kidnap him, like we've kidnapped people before, but I somehow doubt that's going to happen.

Karl Rove was recently subpoenaed to testify before a House Judiciary subcommitee regarding allegations of political pressure placed on the Justice Department. He refused.

Too bad judges are treated like elected officials and lawmakers are elected officials, which means that's exactly what happens, so wishing that random social whimsy didn't determine the law is a waste of time. And I do not see the removal of a child from a home to be an "excess." It's like our requirements for getting a tax exemption as a church - you can preach whatever you like, you just won't get a tax exemption if you preach some things. You can do or say whatever you like, you just won't get to raise children. That's the system we'd have if the parents were infertile, why does the ability to biologically pop out a baby give them the right to raise children? I never said SOCIAL equality. Legal equality is the treatment of all people as equal by the law (though admittedly that's turned out pretty ****, lawyers making the rich get off and such). If people can't raise their own kids if we hold them to the standards required for adoption, one of the two is off (or both, I suppose).

By that rationale, you can also lose your right to live, since cops can gun you down. Flimsy.The right to life is already pretty damn flimsy - the state kills people in cold blood all the time. And did they violate it "arbitrarily"? I guess it was "arbitrary" when the federal government forced the South to desegregate its schools, overriding what had been considered a state issue? I guess it was "arbitrary" when the NAACP filed a federal lawsuit and pressured the mormon church into allowing black boys to lead LDS boy scout troops? I'm afraid we've "arbitrarily" given the government a whole lot of power to combat racism. Keep the emotionally-charged blather out of this, please. There's a reason why the state must circumscribe its actions to what is prescribed by law. No amount of appeals to emotion justify an exception to this rule. "Being terrible parents" isn't a crime by itself. And your counter-argument is... my argument is emotional. Frankly, it's not. It's perfectly rational based upon the idea that there is supposed to be legal equality in first-world countries, and allowing some children to live with horribly racist parents and not allowing others based upon their genetic origin is pretty much the definition of inequality.

Hahaha. Are you familiar with the concept of "Rule of Law"? The state can't act in excess of legislation in any case. The right to breathe isn't mentioned specifically in the Constitution, either. Because the constitution is the only major document outlining human rights in the world? Beyond which, raising children is CLEARLY a conditional right since you can lose it (by having your children taken away) That means **** and has zero to do with this. Should parents be made to submit to adoption screenings and in the case of failure, have their children taken away? Should children be made to suffer with terrible parents (such as these) merely due to an accident of birth? Are you for punishing people for being born to the wrong set of parents?

To this article: Waah, these racist parents got their kids taken away. Ugh, christ. You have the right to be racist, sure. But allow me to ask you a question: is there any point where the right to raise children is mentioned, in any major document? If these "white pride" parents had applied to adopt, would they have gotten a child? **** no, and you know it. So why, just because these children have the misfortune of being biologically related to their parents, should they be left with them?

Maybe they leave at the end of conversations, eh? Did you consider that possibility?

You know why games don't include obnoxiously heavily hidden **** anymore? Two words: Game. FAQs. Bam, your "heavily-hidden, trek across the world fifteen times before you find it" secret item is discovered in the half a minute it takes to check the Codes and Secrets section on the appropriate page on GameFAQs. And you know why they're made so "everyone can beat them"? Because people don't want to spend twelve hours to beat each level. While there is certainly a feeling of accomplishment in being good at a difficult game (I can beat the first three levels of Metal Slug without dying! Woo!), most people who play video games do not belong to the small market share who will do that. Face it: video games cost too much to produce for them to make games for you, person who posts regularly on an internet forum about your favorite video game company. Video games are made for people who play video games a couple hours a week. They aren't designed for people to put a whole lot of energy into before any rewards are reaped. Because most people who buy video games don't have a whole lot of energy to do that, and will just give it back to GameStop. Just play on higher difficulty settings, Christ. As to "why is realism boring," maybe it's because they actually tried making the game realistic and it was boring?

Look, I know how trolls work, I've been one. That is not a troll, that's a Republican.

Obama plans to lower income taxes on American workers by giving a tax credit of up to $500 dollars for individuals and $1000 dollars for working families and heavily simplify tax preparation to save people lots of time. Because getting tortured gives you the experience necessary to become president! Let's go to Guantanamo Bay for the next president then! Are you really that ignorant? Obama's father became an atheist prior to his death, even before he moved to the US.

I notice you aren't answering my question from earlier.

Since Alpha Protocol is a CRPG the use of skills fits in the context of the genre and setting it is depicting. If you don't understand that then you do not understand the nature of RPGs. I have a feeling you do understand this and you just want to be an obstinant jerk towards the other posters here, basically trolling. No, since Alpha Protocol is a CRPG, the use of skills fits in the context of the game system. It does not fit into the spy genre or the action genre, or the modern era or the superspy world, none of which have people become more powerful in one thing by doing another thing a lot.

It's just a game mechanic, not a part of the setting. Sometimes the two get divorced for the sake of both. I mean, would you prefer it if the setting was altered to reflect this game mechanic? Like, they invented the Humphefal Device which continuously decants bullets, and that was mentioned over the course of the story?

Is this a confirmation of there being no gay sex in this game? This is really a travesty!

I'd guess dark but with larger-than-life characters and situations. Something like Watchmen or W40K, I guess.

Wow. Do you make a point of thinking up new fallacies to post, or does it come naturally? What fallacy is in my post, good sir?

Right back at you.

So far no developer has given a good reason, in terms of setting and story background, why there are skill points. If there is a solid story based reason behind it Obsidianites, then I am 100% behind it. The big issue that I personally have with skill points is setting and tone. The whole spy thing, with all the JBs, Bauer, Bond & Borne brings up images of spies/agents using their wits and skills to win, but such characters never become significantly more skilled over the course of the story.

Dude. She's jailbait.

I think it's worth noting that in the scans of EDGE, you can't see a lot of the detail on "pink haired double pistols" chick. I'm pretty sure the pink hair is part of the overall punk aesthetic, not one of those anime "pretend this isn't a weird hair color" things.

I'm expecting obnoxious teenager. Am I wrong?

You might want to avoid killing people, or you might like the unarmed mechanic more, or you might want to be able to fight in close combat well (a gun is not a melee weapon), and there's always the possibility that melee combat will have other advantages over shooting folks (like it's even quieter than a silenced pistol or something).

Okay, quick question before we continue: If the amount of ammunition you could easily carry for the various firearms was so vast and the method of maintenance was so commonplace that unless you just shot bullets all over the place at random, it would be pretty much impossible to run out of ammo, would you be okay with that? If not, please stop using arguments that would be invalidated in such a situation. Functionally infinite ammunition (of that sort) is basically indistinguishable from infinite ammunition. It's a waste of time and resources to build such a system. Ammo starvation "you have eight bullets to kill sixteen enemies" is for survival horror games, not games where I'm supposed to be an incredible superspy. Yeah, sure. But limited ammunition is an incredibly distinct way of being forced to do something. When I'm in Resident Evil 4 and I'm forced to use harpoons to kill the lake monster, that's one thing. I never had a choice about the harpoons. It's not as though if I had done something differently I would be able to kill it with my machine gun (note: I never tried, just roll with this example). But with ammunition... I could be doing what I want to, and that fact that I'm in a situation where I could be doing what I want, but I can't because I didn't play "correctly." Why do there have to be power rankings to weapons? Which is better for getting past a bunch of armed security guards: a silenced pistol or a high-powered assault rifle? Depends on how you approach the task. A high-powered assault rifle is going to be **** for making your way through stealthily, and a silenced pistol is going to be equally **** for blasting your way past them. And scarcity-based logistics in terms of ammunition is hardly a key element to action games or RPGs. It's fine in games where it actually remains relevant, like survival horror games, but let's face it: limited ammunition for anything other than rocket launchers does very little, since if you run around with an assault rifles enemies will die, and then you will pick up bullets from their assault rifles. I can sympathise with the feeling of frustration when a game forces you to take a certain approach, when others that would appear completely consistent with the setting simply are not presented, without explanation. What I do not agree with is using that as an excuse to explain things that obviously don't fit with the mood of the game. AP is supposedly a somewhat serious spy-themed game, set around present time. They ran out of ammo in The Matrix. Bond runs out of ammo, as does Bourne. But simply because you don't like to be forced to a conservative use of your one favourite gun, that is reason enough to implement a design element that makes no sense whatsoever, from an in-world POV? I don't think it's a matter of realism, but a matter of setting consistency. People die when they are shot, and guns can't fire forever. And if you get shot you can't just walk it off or pick up a medkit to instantly bring yourself back up to full health. When you get hurt, you lose your ability to fight well, rather than remaining perfectly capable until the last slimmer of hit points go down. In spy movies, there is no HUD or pause menu (except for whatever you're watching it on). I don't indiscriminately use my resources, thank you very much. Except for the pea shooter gun in Metal Slug, but that's because there are enemies every three inches to pump full of lead, and it's best to shoot them before you can see them.

Shortened to reduce wall-of-text factor. You want my thesis? Fine. Thesis: I do not like video games forcing me to do things. It is one thing if a video game doesn't support a given option (like it's Metal Slug and I can't sneak around), it is another if I could be playing it "my" way, but because I didn't give my daily sacrifice to the Great Merchant God, I'm forced to play it some other way. I can't imagine why, in a game where almost all guns have a finite supply of bullets, the one that has unlimited bullets, it doesn't do anywhere near as much damage. Really, I can't Yeah... unless you hit a Krogan with one of the "stop them in their tracks" abilities like Throw, on Hardcore there is no way you're going to kill them in time. I can't come up with a single reason why that's not a serious argument except "I want to force other people to play through with multiple weapons even if they don't want to, because if they aren't playing the game the same way as me, they're playing it wrong." Infinite ammo design is better because: • Forcing me to play scavenger hunt/shopkeeper whore just so I can use the weapon I like is not cool. • It helps me focus on actually playing the way I like rather than counting bullets (whatever "the way I like" is, stealth or gunplay or trapping). • It helps supply a reason to actually use machine guns and similar high-power ammo-eating weapons; with finite ammunition, that would end up with you out of ammo pretty quick if you did it often and your character's special personal firearm didn't just so happen to use the same type of ammunition as various grunts in different countries.