J.E. Sawyer

In Final Fantasy Tactics elevation was a huge part of the game. Of course, motion in that game was also really just on a 2D plane.

Last week Frank finally got our "combat fidget" animations working. Basically, when the character has a lull between actions, he or she will play a combat fidget appropriate for his or her stance. This may be a weapon twirl, a feint, or some other "quasi/prep attack". The fidgets are subtle enough that they don't look like 4 reallz attacks, but big enough that the characters don't just look like they are standing around for five seconds out of every round.

Sometimes, they can jump.

One of the posters on the Fantasy Grounds forums uses FG to run his 2nd Ed. game, so it appears to be easily adapted.

The point is that you could play the entire game without any form of flying and no free-form climbing. Hopping repeatedly on a slope so you can find the right grade to continue walking forward doesn't count as "climbing" to me. I enjoyed a lot of things about Oblivion, but I can't say that the presence of hopping made a big impact on me. I thought that the more robust toolset and multiplayer functionality in NWN2 were more important than flying and climbing. Maybe I'm crazy!

Yes, because use of the z-axis is tied directly to system performance. Lack of flying and climbing certainly didn't hurt Oblivion's sales.

If you want to play NWN2, you'll need a 2.4 ghz processor with 512 megs of RAM and a video card that supports shader model 2.0. If you want it to run reasonably well, you should probably have a 3.0+ ghz processor with 1 gig + of RAM and a 7800GT card or better. If you're below those specs, you're going to have to belly up or skip the game. It winds up being a lot of money. To run NWN2 on my home machine, I had to make about $800 in upgrades. I think PCs have much worse upgrading problems than consoles and, in general, I find using consoles a lot more straightforward. I put in the game, turn on the console and TV, and I can get started.

At GenCon, I saw a company called SmiteWorks demonstrating a software package called Fantasy Grounds. At first glance, it seemed similar to other packages, but after watching a demonstration I think it's a nice step forward. http://www.fantasygrounds.com/ The software has a player client and a DM client for acting as a "virtual tabletop" during games. It is not, in itself, a game, but an interface for helping with the most common things players and DMs try to communicate during their sessions. The system is based on d20/D&D, but it is entirely .xml driven, so it could be modified for other purposes. The tools I found especially useful were the "drag n' drop" dice and text features and the ability for the DM to preload images for viewing. The DM client also had a cool map feature. The DM sees the full map, shadowed. The players see only what the DM chooses to highlight with a lasso tool. I really liked the lasso ability because you could reveal very specific sections of the map. When dice are rolled, players and/or DMs can drag skills from their character sheets into the chat area for a roll that displays the skill/ability being called and shows the modifier(s) involved. When the DM rolls, the players see the die rolling as a shadow but cannot see the actual results. The rolls themselves do not guarantee success; the DM is still the adjudicator for all such matters. The DM could also write up sections of text ahead of time and drag them as blocks into the chat window. If he or she wants the players to read a description, it's very quick and easy to do so. The same applies for images, which can be loaded on demand from .bmp or .jpg format or pre-loaded for characters with slower connections. There's a demo available here. I highly recommend checking it out if you're interested in real-time online tabletop-style gaming.

Front Mission, Advance Wars, Shattered Union, Steel Battalion, and plenty of other franchises offer just as much complexity and depth as hardcore PC titles.

Other than MGS4, I haven't really seen anything that seems like it's a jump ahead of the 360, tech-wise. 360 also has a few games coming out soon that will probably be well-reviewed and/or big sellers. I and several other Obsidian folks are considering buying a 360 for Dead Rising alone.

They have the money required to iterate over development cycles that are twice as long as other games -- with full dev teams through most of that time.

Update with my bike (instead of Cuevas')

Poor Syd.

Zidane lost his temper, but I would not be surprised if Materazzi said a variety of wholly inflammatory things. He's a world-class scumbag. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlaqsOPlt-0...earch=Materazzi

There are so many great things about this clip. First, Ronaldo doesn't even make contact with the defender. Second, the side of his body that could have touched the defender is not the side he grabs mid-air. Third, he's crying to the ref halfway through his leap. Fourth, he basically gave up an excellent position to shoot on goal so he could dive. If anyone wonders why people hate Crynaldo and, by extension, Portugal, they just need to watch this video over and over again.

Pretty terrible game from Portugal. Two goals from Schweinsteiger with an own goal in between. Gomes makes a nice late game header but then follows it up with a dive in the penalty box in the 90th minute. To top it all off, Portugal now has the record for most yellow cards in WC history.

Diving Crynaldo is out. In the immortal words of Avril Lavigne, c u l8r boiz.

Odonkor barely played, but I certainly didn't see anything from him that indicated a bursting talent. A few bad crosses (par for Germany throughout the match) and a wild shot on goal after the first Italian point... eh. His speed certainly didn't help him. Germany didn't do that well in the game, but they did do better than many expected. Then again, historically hosting teams tend to go 2.5 rounds more than average. Anyway, Lehmann did put in a fantastic performance and Miro Klose exits with the WC scoring lead. I'm wearing my Netherlands jacket today so the ghosts of the fouled will rise up from the first round to torment Portugal!

woooooo

The ref was fantastic. He fell for virtually no diving. Ballack and Podolski were bad, but Totti was ridiculous. That "charge n' roll off the back" move was absurd and the ref just waved at him to get back up. Personally, I'm glad the ref didn't call much because there wasn't much honest fouling to call. He sure called a lot of accurate offsides and legit fouls when they happened, though.

A post strike and a crossbar strike aren't goals, they're missed shots. Then again, it's a lot better than Lahm and Podolski sailing balls 10' above the crossbar. Italy deserved to win because of the two shots they did make, but I still don't agree that they were particularly phenomenal in the second half.

I honestly don't think they played that well during the second half, but the German defense was terrible. Other than Lehmann, of course.

Jens Lehmann is the hero of Germany in this match. HE TOOK OUT THE STRIKER WITH A FLYING ELBOW!