Wrath of Dagon

To me, the best thing about games is interactive storytelling. There should be no conflict there at all. The problem is many developers treat story and gameplay as separate things, but to be a powerful medium games have to merge the two.

I think Yugoslavia is a different story. There was no threat to us from Yugoslavia, and we had good relations before the conflict. The public in the US never supported that war, and most of the Republicans in Congress were against it, while the Democrats only supported it because Clinton was from their party.

My first RPG was KOTOR and it was very newb friendly. You had the preset characters and you could auto level up until you figured out how things worked. It also did a bang up job of a beginning tutorial, introducing urgency and drama right at the beginning to get you involved in the game, while pointing out all the basics you needed to play. KOTOR2 also had a good dramatic intro on Peragus. Newer games seem intent to bore you in the beginning, you kind of have to persist until things get interesting.

We didn't let him get away, he got away on his own, take a look at the satellite picture of Tora Bora. The ironic thing is, all this talk about oil, yet we sit on huge reserves of coal we could easily convert into gasoline, yet stupidly refuse to do it.

I think "blockbuster" here is in the sense of style over substance, e.g. big explosions and car chases instead of a plot in a Hollywood movie.

Anyone know how to aim the ballistas on the consoles? You can aim with the balista? I never could, but then how do you use it to fight the dragon if you can't?

Bioware is dead to me.

Anyone know how to aim the ballistas on the consoles?

Actually I read one article that said what they were really afraid of was the smallpox Saddam was thought to possess, which they realized after the anthrax attacks US had no defense against. They were even going to order smallpox vaccinations for everyone, until the Disease Control people convinced them it could cause several hundred deaths due to vaccine reactions. As to the other points, no one is disputing the invasion of Iraq was mishandled. There weren't enough troops sent and they failed to control the situation from the beginning, letting things spiral into chaos. Both the military and the civilian leaders bear responsibility for that.

If Saddam was such a swell guy, we could've just bought the oil from him and be done with it. The oil embargo was necessary to contain him and prevent him from financing his WMD program. We certainly gained nothing monetarily, as we spent far more on the war than all of Iraq's income from oil for many years to come, and we still have to pay for any Iraqi oil we get, same as everyone else (we get almost all of our oil from the Americas btw). And the devastation was caused by the terrorists, not by us (and by Saddam himself before that).

Well the Soviet government certainly thought so, as they wouldn't let any Russians out, except the rare few they deported. Really LOF, sometimes you're shockingly ignorant, but I guess that's the only way you can hang on to your beliefs. Religious fanatics have nothing on you.

Clearly the better the presentation, the more expensive it is to do content, else why would modern games cost so much? Having said that, a lot of problems with ME had to do with the buggy engine and unfamiliarity with the engine, plus a design process unsuitable for modern games. Supposedly all those issue have been fixed, so ME2 may very well be better quality than 1. However, based on ME and DAO, I have to think the design of the game will still be crappy, as Bioware has either lost the recipe, or thinks it's good enough for the target audience.

I tried the demo but couldn't get the hang of the flight controls. It's neither like a plane or TPS, I don't know what it is. It would be better if they just had jumping between levels and may be hovering a bit, instead of actual flight.

I'm not against discovering extra content, but the main plot should make sense to everybody, and as of now it doesn't. Of the games I played, and I'll throw NWN2 in here, KOTOR>JE>NWN2>>DAO>ME

They certainly did not know exactly where the WMD's were, certainly not to the point where they could bomb them. Bombing chemical weapons is not necessarily a good idea either. I do know that during the invasion US troops were constantly told to put their chemical gear on, they were always expecting a chemical attack which never came. Saddam wanted people to think he had WMD for his own political purposes, and when he denied it it was just like the boy who cried wolf.

CIA also missed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Indian nuclear program, and was just recently claiming Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons. CIA is occassionally right, but I wouldn't bet a house on their conclusions.

My point is he's portrayed as all bad.

Wasn't there a reference in the game about Loghain knowing something? At least there was a rumour about it, but a lot of the rumours weren't credible. Anyway, that should've been known to every player as it would've made a lot more sense, and also the portrayal of Loghaine should've been a lot different, like why is he when in The Stolen Throne he was a great friend of the elves? Damn the DLC, they're just sectioning games off into segments, like everyone was afraid of.

So that's an excuse? Everyone else is doing it? I think I just proved the claim was not bogus, but I agree the main reason for the invasion of Iraq was to remake the Middle East, it wasn't just about Saddam and his malfeasance.

Yes, lol at trying to make any sense out of ME plot. Saturday morning cartoons make more sense.

One of the links has this quote from 2008 Pentagon study of captured Iraqi documents:

It's pretty damn embarrassing that she did, since it was pretty damn obvious to anyone with half a brain that Iraq had nothing to do with it. I don't think Iraq was behind 9/11, but it's not so obvious Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/new-evidence-...errorism-links/

What I was saying she probably did think Iraq could be behind 9/11 back then, but she doesn't think that now. As far as Biden's mistakes during the debate, they're documented here: http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/10/03...inbiden-debate/ As far as Obama, he's said things like there are 47 states, but I'll be generous and assume he misspoke. How is that relevant? It just goes to show that her opponents are as gaffe prone as she is, Biden much more so, but of course only her missteps are widely publicisized. And again, she didn't make an ass of herself on Fox, she simply admitted (indirectly) she wasn't well informed during the debate prep.

My point was she wasn't saying she now thinks Iraq is behind 9/11, like the previous post made it look. I already said she was ignorant, that doesn't mean she's stupid and can't learn. Edit: Obama and Biden, especially Biden, even in that debate, said plenty of ignorant things as well.

That's misleading, what she said was in preparation for the VP debates she asked questions about who was responsible for 9/11.