RPGmasterBoo

Update on the latter. Its scary. Has this slowly building atmosphere that creeps you out more and more the longer you play. All psychological stuff, none of those "zombie jumps out of the closet" tricks.

Storm in a teacup. I don't see why everyone is going emo over it. I was fooled but I expected to be able to DL my games once again - as was promised. Seeing as how it wasn't true, I don't see why everyone is having a nerd rage. It smells like emotional insecurity. It smells like... a new Bioware romance plot.

Exactly. One would assume that no one likes well packed babes when they grow older. Besides, the Witchers qualities in graphical, world, sound and story design (+ humor, and a developed main character) are what really pushed the game into being a major success. Most of all the Witcher had character. Doing its own thing, with a devil may care attitude. Soooo necessary after the puritan, polished, desexed, never rude (but still ultra violent) Bioware stuff. The Witcher is a purely european game built on the best american tradition. Me loves it.

Burned through Worms Reloaded in one day. I think I'll try Amnesia: Dark Descent

The only thing I want to know is, what of the other segments of the game, apart from combat - have they been dumbed down from Civ 4 level? I was always a builder/expander/researcher, turn based combat never interested me much. On this hinges my decision whether to buy the game.

I strongly suggest to give it a try, you just might like it. In my opinion it's easily the best rpg since Mask of the Betrayer. And I never quite got why people critizise the sex cards, they are basically the same as the completed romance achievements in Bio's games, they just come with nicely drawn pictures.. and nobody is forcing you to "collect" them. They criticize them because they're trying to ignore memories of fappin to those same chicks in Heavy Metal magazine when they were teenagers.

All hail the king has arrived.

Dragon Age is a rip off of everything Generic Fantasy. It takes from so many sources you can tie it to anything. Even the name is probably random generated. Unlike the Witcher which has a modicum of originality. Less so in terms of written fantasy, but definitely different when put alongside other PC RPG's. Some things are borrowed from it in DA, but DA is really just another repackaging of KOTOR, just like Mass Effect. Everything is the same except the flavor. Fume on. It won't make no difference.

Finished SCII campaign. My 2 cents: The overall impression is good. In engine cut-scenes are well done, characters are passable, the missions are fun - with varied and interesting objectives. For a strategy game, the campaign is on the whole very well made. The bad: -Almost all of the mission have a puzzle structure, that revolves around abusing the one unit that is revealed for that mission. When you find out what is required of you, the missions become too easy. I finished the game on hard with very little trouble. -The characters and dialog are as clich

Yo, RPGMasterBoo imma let you finish but the Mongols had the largest empire of all time OF ALL TIME! They also had two successor states make the 19th century, if only barely, blatted the east slavs badly enough that it took centuries for them to recover, conquered China, squished the arabs so badly that they never recovered, set the stage for Safavid Persia, etc etc. Better targets of ire, from a historical perspective are the Aztec and Inca, both important less than a century; Mali which lasted barely longer; the Sioux, the Celts and Vikings who were never organised 'empires'; the Holy Roman Empire (famously none of the three post Chuck the Great) etc. True, but really: = Mongols (or the rest you named)? No. @Nemo: are you being dense on purpose? If you include a wonder of a certain civilization in a game, it only makes sense that the wonder be represented as a product of that civilization. Fixes and changes might not be relevant on minor issues, but changing religious imagery as a result of conquest to make it seem like its something its not is a major issue. If they wanted to include a famous mosque, by all means - if you want to put in Hagia Sophia the minarets are plain nonsense. Unless you're suggesting that support columns are this wonder no other civilization could ever think of, therefore the Ottoman turks get some sort of credit for keeping HS around? I like the Byzantine civilization, which is why crap like this pisses me off. Hell they aren't even in Civ 5 but Iroquois, Aztec, Siam and Songhai are. WTF is Songhai??

Come to think of it its ridiculous that Civ IV had to wait for two expansions to include the Byzantine civilization. I mean, it lasted for over a 1000 years which is more than you can say for most of those included in the vanilla game. Like the Mongols which lasted for two centuries, and its even debatable if they're a civilization considering they didn't last long or have much of an impact. Christ you'd think they'd have someone to advise them on world history if they're making a civilization building game.

Having been there, I kind of doubt that it's a wonder of the world as a museum. Considering it was built as a church (to Holy Wisdom), and was later converted into a Mosque, it kind of defends on what bonus the wonder gives, is it faith based (look towards original use), or epic war booty... That said, the "current" image is probably the most sensible way of approaching it, the one that doesn't seem like an obvious political statement. It is also completely misleading as it implies (to those who may not know) that its the product of another civilization. It stood as a christian church for a thousand years and is the crowning achievement of the Byzantine civilization, not the Ottoman turks which just tacked on the minarets and ruined the internal decoration. It was a world wonder in a true sense up until larger cathedrals came to appear in Europe, and the only thing that makes sense to me is for it to be represented in its original form - in a tribute to those who actually created it. Whatever was done after Byzantium fell is irrelevant as it doesn't change the fact that the Ottoman empire has really nothing to do with it.

Sarcasm aside, its either that, or including it without minarets or not including it at all. I mean this way its misleading. There is a S

First of all I never found Civ as fascinating as Alpha Centauri. The lack of a real grounding in history and logic made it less enjoyable for me. Granted AC is pure sci-fi thus even less grounded in reality, but I found the universe excellent and supported by its own internal logic, with truly interesting sci fi concepts. On the other hand the mix of real world civilizations completely mismatched in their time and place in history was especially jarring to me. I've no idea why you think the faction balance isn't good. Each faction has its strenghts and weaknesses that are far more pronounced than Civ's. Indeed the gameplay actually changes according to which faction you choose, which was never really an issue in Civ. I will agree that the expansion factions are quite unbalanced though. In terms of game mechanics AC's are more complex than any other Civ game. Indeed Civ 4 tried to do the Social Engenieering thing with Civics (although not as well). Diplomacy in AC, although clunky is still far better than Civ's. The faction leaders also have a lot of personality, which civ leaders dont. You can also design your own units, while Civ is stuck with a handful of pre defined ones. Also in AC: the voice acting is better, the quotes are better and the wonder movies are better. The tech tree is open to blind research which makes more sense. The mind worms are a much more consistent and threatening enemy than civ's barbarians. Factions in AC have significantly different AI scripts which also makes them more unique. Overall in regards to factions it always felt like you were picking a side because the 21st century ideologies are so cleverly represented: Gaia - Ecologism Santiago - Fascism Morgan - Liberal capitalism Miriam - Religious fundamentalism Yang - Totalitarian communism Lal - Democratic/Internationalist Zakharov - Scientism (this one isn't major really but whatever) Since the core gameplay is the same I don't see how either is more replayable than the other. You play Civ for the gameplay, not for the story. AC has the gameplay and a story, plus a lot of flavor that if it appeals to you makes the experience that much better. I think AC was the pinnacle of the Civ idea, taking everything that was good about the series and improving it. In regards to Civ 5, the issue I see with having less units is: it will probably simplify production, combat (because less units is less units no matter how you look at it) and overall lessen the level of micro managment. Given the limitations of the world map in terms of size that will mean less options available to the player. My experience with games that include tactical combat is that there is always a set of actions (more or less quickly discovered) that make combat a rote thing. Stacks of doom might not have been a terribly complex thing but you still have to produce all those units while balancing with other aspects of gameplay. It seems to me that they are unnecessarily streamlining things instead of giving Civ what it really lacks since Civ 2- flavor. I'm playing Civ 4 now, but its soooooo bland. All the leaders have the same dialog, techs are predictable, AI is predictable... nothing to look forward to. If it wasn't for the Rhey's and Fall mod and its historical goals I'd never play Civ 4. *Curiously the designers of Civ 4 really botched some things. Like Hagia Sophia having minarets.

Heh, I reinstalled Alpha Centuari a couple of months back because I was feeling nostalgic. I suddenly lost a weekend. The only thing that's keeping me from playing it is how awful it looks on my 22" screen. Although it always looked awful, apart from the faction portraits and the LSD color palette. What worries me is not "if there will be a sequel", that sort of thing is inevitable but the stupidifying policy that goes into most remakes/sequels. And that developers won't want to make such a thematically and visually dark game. When you see Civ 4's Stalin smile like Santa you know something's horribly wrong. Christ, why does everything have to be made to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I don't like the new changes. I predict its gonna make things too simple. I like the shift of the art style to a more serious tone, but its still too cartoony for me. I'll just have to repeat this until someone takes notice: Give us Alpha Centauri 2: the Remake (in which we didn't try to fix what ain't broke)!

Yeah. The refereeing on this world cup is horrible. I don't know why they refuse to study the slow motion stuff before they make their decision. It would save from much embarrassment.

Why is it signed Katherine Cheng? What are you?

Go, Gifted, go!

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/highlights/vi...1043/index.html Its at 0:42. You gotta admit its not a 100% sure thing, especially at the speed everything was happening.

You sure it was unfair? Kewell illegally prevented a goal-scoring opportunity in the penalty area. Going by the rules, that's a penalty and a red card, intentional handball or not. The unintentional handball rule only applies in situations where there is no goal-scoring opportunity for the opposing team. It was a split second thing and he did try to hit the ball with his chest. The ball hit the side of his chest and arm... Slamming him a red card + a penalty is practically deciding the game. If it was against any team other than Ghana (which can't score a goal to save its life) Australia would have been ruined. Overall I think it was too drastic.

The penalty was unfair, and I'm not saying that just because we were cheering for Australia here. Germany is good but its not unbeatable.

Damn you to hell

Unfair penalty against Australia, the guy definitely didn't play with his hand intentionally. Regardless group D looks tight. If Germany beats Ghana, and we beat Australia, both reasonable to expect, Ger and Serbia qualify further. England. I've never seen worse* play by a major team. * I forgot France.

Whoever said that Chernobyl wasn't as bad as one would think was apparently right. The area around Pripyat is happily overgrown with even some rare species showing up. The worst hit area of effect was actually pretty small (apart from the radioactive cloud that circled the globe, but its effects did not prove to be really terrible or long lasting). Funnily enough, judging by the Zone (the area around Chernobyl NPP and Pripyat) it would seem that Man is the largest ecological disaster ever. Remove man, and in two decades nature becomes pristine. The Gulf of Mexico spill is obviously far worse, its effects wider and practically instant.