J.E. Sawyer

If it wasn't obvious, I'm trying to understand your thought process, not mine. I would think that taking called shots at limbs would be more cinematic in presentation than always popping off body shots, but that's just my opinion. Also, you can't take called shots in ToEE either. None of the games you listed have "cinematic" camera angles for combat, unless free camera = cinematic camera. You're not explaining the reasons for this. You can design a first level encounter for D&D characters that is easy or you can design one that's very difficult. You can design an early encounter in any game that's difficult or easy. Whether the rules are more "RPG-ish" (whatever that means) doesn't have anything to do with it. Cinematic presentation or differing rule systems don't bind this. Ninja Gaiden has an extremely difficult first boss battle despite having a quick input-driven combat system. Before, you said it had to do with the rules, but now you're saying it has to do with limited options in combat, "cinematic" visual represenation, and ease of play. I don't think you're being consistent in your definition. Reading between the lines, it seems that you feel certain games define the CRPG genre. Games that are similar enough to those games are CRPGs in your mind. Games that aren't close enough to those games are not CRPGs. I don't have any camera angles when I'm playing tabletop games, some of the game systems with which I play have pretty basic combat systems (like Storyteller) and easiness is up to the individual DM/GM -- so saying these newer games aren't like tabletop RPGs doesn't really fly for me, either. Also, the first Fallout was pretty damned easy if you put any effort into making a combat-oriented character. Fallout's TB combat system made the fight with the Master a joke. ToEE was very difficult for the first few levels, but once I hit about 4th level, it was as easy as any of the IE games. I had more options than I did in the IE games, but that didn't suddenly make ToEE brutally difficult.

When I play D&D, I put my head in a brace so I can only look at the miniatures from one angle for the entire game.

Please explain the difference, because simultaneous real-time vs. sequential turn-based seems to be the obvious thing that separates the first two games from the last four.

Wholly original? I guess that depends on how you define that. It was based on GURPS.

What rules are valid for consideration of the CRPG label in your mind?

You've gotta be screwing around for quite a while with night vision activated for all of the charge to deplete. Seriously, I was amazed that they lasted as long as they did. Maybe it's not "realistic", but it certainly seemed to fit appropriately with the gameplay.

Well, people should believe the requirement suggestions about RAM. It's no hype that even with 2 gigs, you'll be spending about 30 seconds to a minute loading maps. Special Forces also uses a bunch of full screen shader effects that slow down my system (P4 3.5 GHz, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 6800).

Our main demo computer for NWN has two SLI-tastic 7800GTs and it's pretty nice.

It's an externally hosted "official" ranked BF2 server.

The controls are more "realistic" than games like Quake, so they tend to feel sluggish and unresponsive in comparison. Sometimes I think that the invasion of Normandy took less time than the reload animation on a machine gun in BF2. The collision detection is really, really erratic -- especially for explosions. It's a common event for anti-tank units to try shooting right next to the corner of a building and having the rocket blow up on the invisible collision volume that sticks out an extra foot. It's also common for tank rounds and rifle grenades to explode right next to people and do little to no damage -- apparently due to a bump the size of a soda can being next to the point of impact. EDIT: It's certainly better than it was in BF:1942, but it's still frustrating at times.

The tear gas is pretty hilarious to use on flags while your squad is capturing. If you're playing Support, you have a machine gun as your primary weapon and the tear gas as one of your other weapons. You can tell your squad to put on their gas masks before you fire the canisters into the flag spawn area. Lie down, take out the machine gun, and wait for wheezing rebels to come stumbling out of the haze. Also, the grappling hooks and zip lines in the expansion are pretty jawesome. BF2 continues in the fine tradition of having controls and collision so awkward that it makes Tribes 2 feel like Quake 1 in comparison. Also, the class balance absolutely sucks without the unlocks. Despite that, it's still pretty fun -- and the benefit of having a ranked server is that we can earn and save the weapon unlocks, medals, and ribbons.

I will tear gas friend and foe alike.

I played on Live a little -- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory head-to-head. There are a lot of sub-20 year-olds on Live and a lot of them resort to calling people names, racial or otherwise.

Okay. You may want to go back and edit your post where you wrote, "And, 2 year sor so for NWN2 isn't bad since they didn't start the graphics from scratch. That's a myth." In fact, that is precisely what Brian did. No one is saying that the scripting language and underlying game logic is different.

Volourn, what do you know about Electron, or about graphics programming in general, that leads you to believe that Anthony and Brian are lying? Because really, that's what you're doing; you're calling them liars.

It's pretty interesting how Anthony Davis can tell you flat out that zero of Aurora's rendering code still exists in Electron and you maintain that it's an update. In physical terms, that would be the equivalent of removing an engine from a car, putting a new one from a different manufacturer in, and saying it's an updated engine instead of a new one.

I always get eNTj. EDIT: And I did this time, too.

PC: Age of Empires III, Battlefield 2 Xbox: Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Different branches of Christianity disagree on whether it is faith, works, or faith and works that "makes it good" in god's eyes (eye?). But they all do agree that salvation is only possible through god and that pathway to god only exists due to Christ's death. Are you looking at people who were canonized or people who were not canonized? That is, rejected. By the way "the rules" changed under John Paul II. He radically transformed the process for beatification and canonization. Among other things, he abolished the position of the promotor fidei.

Both Justin Sweet and Vance Kovacs did some contract work for the Narnia film. That certainly looks like Justin's style.

I think what you're missing is that in Christianity, how one ends is always more important than how one began. A person can live a morally clean life after being immoral. In fact, Catholics believe that the state into which one is born is inherently immoral and tainted. You have to work up from there.

In Luke's story of the prodigal son, the prodigal son symbolizes humanity. All of the popes come from that group. Catholics believe in Original Sin; with few exceptions, no one escapes that. If you think that's true, you haven't read many vitae. Many saints lived lives full of error. St. Francis and St. Augustine were particularly wayward. Saints exemplify heroic virtue, but they are still (were) human beings. Similarly, the popes are also human beings. Even Catholics believe that their popes are part of the same mass of sinners that they are. Certainly the things that popes say gives the impression that they believe they are sinners.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the prodigal son is not Jesus Christ.

I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean, but the entire basis of Christian redemption comes from rising above a history of error. It's why the father is joyous at the return of the prodigal son.

Do you not understand Christian soteriology?