RPGmasterBoo

Doesn't everyone have a moony swelling above their knee? They sure do when they make their knee do things it wasnt designed to Well, I'm in a cast now, munching painkillers. Nowhere to go but up.

Dont stand up to what? For me - the facts are thus: 1. Combat gameplay in "modern BIO RPG" is generally farting in constricting tunnel like levels 2. Non combat gameplay is watching a choose your own adventure Its a disjointed, fractured experience, where I'm dying to get past the boring combat to the overtly long cutscenes in which I'm little better than a passive observer - in what amounts to a stupidly linear experience. I don't give a rat's ass what what statistics, you or Bio fans say. Baldur's Gate 1 is a superior game, infinitely better thought out than any new Bioware title. It had genuine exploration of a large area, a story you could play at your own leisure while letting yourself get pleasantly sidetracked in a world that wasn't afraid to let you explore it. It wasn't a bunch of rooms stuck together with chewing gum trying to convince you of fake grandeur. It never burdened you with anything and left plenty to the imagination, thus sucking you in completely. BG1 was an Adventure with a capital A, unfettered by ridiculous constraints of a game crammed in the straight-jacket of a third rate film. In terms of the creative freedom and pure gamecraft every new Bioware RPG is a joke compared to BG1. And I'd willingly stake my kidneys that if BG1 redone in 3D was released today, it would pummel DA sales into dust.

You noticed, huh? They're bad even by rag tag milita standards. When they get into power is when it stops being funny.

I'm starting to think they have a two word summary framework imposed on them, which is why every character is like a clone factory template. However, one very important thing for me are also the graphics. I could easily get attached to the 2D portraits in BGII, but the DA doll people inspire nothing in me whatsoever. Even ME's slick faces leave me cold. Portraits may be more or less skillfully drawn but they always imply more depth and comeliness than weakly animated 3d potato faces. Game devs really need to quit the stupid slider based character generators. The only thing they do well is alienate people.

Audiomachine - Kingdom of Heaven

With Bioware the writing was always on a similar level. BGII was slightly better than everything else, and the newer titles suggest a decline. The problem is with weak uninteresting characters and endless repetition of the same personalities and similar dialog. Bioware games are full of uncinematic wankers like Carth Onasi and Jacob with mild, boring personalities. They have no presence. Even BGII had a few such characters, but with a large number to choose from it wasn't an issue.

Similar case could be made for Castro and Cuba. There doesn't seem to be much improvement following handing down of power. Because there wasn't. Raul is Castro's brother and is wholly commited to continuing his policy. Even so, Raul is only a few years younger than Castro and his stepping down is inevitable in the near future. Younger CUbans, not shaped in the revolution and cold war will inevitably come into power and some sort of change is guaranteed. Does there have to be an improvement? Is an improvement even possible? Cuba is poor, but it was always poor - even when the US mafia used it as a private gambling den and resort. Cuba has nothing of note to make money with, no valuable resources or comparative economical advantage. Cubans have some of the best healthcare around, and they aren't exactly starving and they're also independent of the US which precious few countries on the American continent can claim. Cuba is bad when compared to the american middle class lifestyle but so is most of the rest of the world.

My, I completely forgot that you could, actually, have a sense of humor. And, you know, be anything other than extremely literal. Joke is on me then.

Look, these interventions boil down to the US (with or without EU support) picking a country in which they don't have a satisfactory level of control, then systematically accuse it of human rights abuses, authoritarianism and whatnot, to justify (in the eyes of their own people) an intervention whose primary goals are a self centered, selfishly motivated increase of power and resources. You could argue (unsuccessfully) that such an intervention achieves a some good overall, if it were not for a number of countries which contemporary "humanitarian interventions" left a smoking crater of chaos and bloodshed. Even for those that didn't devolve into a protracted civil war, the damage will take decades to fix. Its wrong from a moral standpoint, its based on falsehoods and it ends, inevitably, in disaster. Gaddafi is 68 years old. What would have been wrong with waiting for his inevitable death and supporting "democracy" and "democratic" parties/factions afterwards?

Please do, common sense is not one of my strong suits.

Albania or Turkey have lower standard of living yet a high fertility rate. Religion. But you were just saying it has to do with wealth and standard of living. A 100 years ago people were ass poor yet had 4-6 kids on average. Here in the federal state of Styria in Austria politicians thought "Hey, let's make the Kindergarten free and finance Afternoon school and supervision like they do in France", yet people still don't get more children. Money has little do to with it. Well that's the official, surface reason (one could almost say - excuse). I have my own theories though. What do you think is the right reason?

The Saudi regime is at least as bad, if not much worse yet I don't see cries for democracy or intervention.

So, I take it you've been to Russia? *sigh* You know, you could make an effort to expand your knowledge of other countries beyond BBC World News. This aryan supermacy thing where US+UK+western europe+liberal democrat ideologues are the sole proprietors of common sense, best form of government, Justice, Morality and Goodness is getting really really old. Please don't patronise me, and as for the Aryan BS... I'm Jewish. Or is that really scary too? You understand what the latter sentence meant, even without the "aryan supremacy" embellishment. If you don't want to be patronized extend that courtesy to others that you may not know/understand as well as you think you do.

Albania or Turkey have lower standard of living yet a high fertility rate. Religion.

So, I take it you've been to Russia? When your dropping population like Russia is, something has got to be wrong. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article...-16/433927.html http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globa...ulation-decline We have the exact same problem here in Serbia and its not so much a problem of a form of government but a high cost of living that isn't matched by general wealth. Western countries have the same issue, slowed by their reasonably well functioning economies and statistic fixing immigrants.

So, I take it you've been to Russia? *sigh* You know, you could make an effort to expand your knowledge of other countries beyond BBC World News. This aryan supermacy thing where US+UK+western europe+liberal democrat ideologues are the sole proprietors of common sense, best form of government, Justice, Morality and Goodness is getting really really old. Everyone with half a brain can see what's going on in Libya. The supposed "democratic" movement and its "freedom fighters" fighting against the "terrible, Gadafi regime", are nothing more than a bunch of western paid and organized ragtag nobodies mobilized with the sole intent of bringing Libya and subsequently, its oil under US/EU colonial governance. Everything else is bs, plain and simple.

A voice of reason, as usual.

I screwed up. Twisted my whole body while keeping my leg fixed during my martial arts class. My knee popped from its socket, and sprung back again. Now I have a moon sized swelling above my knee, it hurts as hell and I can barely move at all.

Its a joke, or? Ah, never mind I saw the video. Pity, I've been longing for an RPG that will mix the modern and fantasy worlds. Wrote some ideas for such a game myself. I think its an interesting concept, magic vs technology that isn't steampunk.

Funny because practically everything written by Bioware since KOTOR has been more or less trying to knock off Joss Whedon's writing. Firefly was good (to about halfway) because it never took itself too seriously. The wit and fun was of more important than the plot. Its when it started to to go emo/melo drama + wit that it fell apart. You could say that Bioware writing resembles latter Firefly with its overwhelming attention to badly crafted drama.

I'm sick of the cro-magnon marine type characters/protagonists in games, like the dude in the teaser. Why is every soldier a ****ing crew cut,room temp IQ - GI Joe. Hasn't anyone watched Firefly? Is wit a deadly sin or what? Is more than an inch of hair subject to capital punishment?