RPGmasterBoo

What's troubling about games is that they don't exist in a material form and that they are dependent on an external source to exist (one which changes very rapidly), which is a huge detriment to their longevity. Obviously such is the case with all art, but with games this is much worse.

true. If its not "art" it could be a perfection of craft. I like to compare games with toys since their purpose is similar. The rubiks cube, the classic wood rocking horse or a handmade doll house, - are perfect in what they try to achieve - to be a toy. Its not art, but its the very pinnacle of that particular craft, which comes close. I think there are many games that are a perfection of the craft of making a game. The mentioned Super Mario/Pac Man/Tetris are good examples. They achieve their purpose entirely - to entertain and as far as form is concerned - they are perfect. they are great toys. What sets the art above craft is the achievement of being above the demands of the craft. Something universal, a value which will be recognized equally many years from now. Torment goes above craft in storyline, Homeworld in the visual, audio and narrative segments (and their integration) and Shadow of the Collossus in the mood, mystique and visual part. They are so far above the competition that I can think of no better label than art.

Yeah, maybe, But what is art? That's the bigger question and discussions of it never go anywhere. Art is what competent people agree has lasting, universal value and having passage of time confirm those opinions. The fact that we are here ten years later still talking about it is at least half the argument. The games industry however lacks competent, credible people to praise artistic value in the occasional outstanding game, and it will remain so for a long time. If it were up to me, and I obviously consider myself competent (presumtious but there you have it) only Torment, Homeworld and Shadow of the Colossus are "art", as in games that rise above just being games. Perhaps Grim Fandango could also be included.

Oh god that is horrible writing. I have printed the entire novelization and the parts where the writer included things to tie the dialog together are functional. He never intended to screw around with the plot, or write a novel but merely to deliver the dialog in a cohesive manner. I have re-read it many times, enjoying it each time. Torment is art.

You could also go through the entire romance by simply never moving with the game paused (i.e. no passage of time at all in the game) when you were in an appropriate location for romances to fire, since the romances were based on the real time clock. True but that's very unlikely to be the case with the average gamer. Most of the time, plenty of time passed before anything happened. In each of my 5 playthroughs of BGII it took a long time for the romances to unravel if they did at all and I cant say I felt them rushed at any moment though the dialog could pop up at awkward times. But the randomization had a charm of its own, in my opinion. In fact the random scripts were sometimes the most fun parts of BGII even if they could be inconvenient.

Its not a matter of justification, but mere facts. The impact of piracy on sales is blown out of proportion for the sole reason that piracy does not equal sales lost . Most of the people use it because its free and the chances of getting caught are slim to none, but they would not in fact buy the product most of the time. Places where piracy is rampant are those that don't have a legal market (like my country), so no dev/publisher is really losing anything since their products are not even there in the first place. Finally the irrefutable argument is that developers kick the bucket because of bad games (or a good game that just doesnt sell)- not because of piracy. That has been the case for as far as I have been following the scene and I think a decade is long enough. I do not endorse piracy, but the fact is is that its the 5% of "natural corruption" in an otherwise very functioning and flourishing industry. Just like every government and business has its "free riders" that get something for nothing. Good games rarely have trouble selling and that's all there is to it.

Wow. So basically you are calling the people who don't rip off developers ignorant? You've got it backwards. When I was young and dumb I though only about myself. In High School I went to a FTP sites and downloaded games. When I grew up I realized that not only is it morally wrong, it is also counter productive, because I'm hurting an industry that I enjoy. There is no justification for piracy. You do not need games to survive, so if you can't afford it, you go without. It is immature and selfish to pirate, accept that. How very convenient that you stopped pirating games at the point when essentially you have the least amount of time to devote to them. The industry has been growing since forever, piracy doesn't hurt it one bit. If it did it would have collapsed long ago. Piracy is nothing more than a bogeyman for the corporate people who cant stand not getting that 5% more profit. When you give me one developer that went bankrupt over piracy and not over releasing a string of crap games, I'll agree with your point.

Empty moralizing leads to nowhere and anyone who says they never played a pirated game or used a pirated program is most likely lying. The only people who don't use them are the clueless users who use their pc for watching movies and playing solitaire.

What instant change? She's kidnapped by Malak and "persuaded" to flip. Her existing character flaws, mainly pride, make it possible. The persuasion takes a day. She probably holds the record for the most easily corruptible paladin ever. The entire setup is absurd. The persuasion takes a day just like how romances in BG2 happened "quickly." Players seem to forget the idle time of the game that is abstracted out so we don't get bored having to deal with it. It just says "You traveled for 18 hours." No, you could possibly slog through the entire 150 hours of BGII without completing the romance which is what happened to me, since dialogue kicks in at odd moments. This is speaking for the Jaheira romance, the Aerie one was somewhat quicker and I never tried Viconia or Anomen. But the problem with KOTOR was that there was no abstracted time in between, the events after Bastilas capture to the point of her corruption are shown to happen in a very short time frame and the game doesnt even bother to imply that much time has passed, since it cant - because with her capture the rush to the end kicks in. @Wrath of Dagon: she didnt break under torture, she became Darth Vader and there is a world of difference there. I understand its a part of SW canon that good guys are tempted by the dark side (as dumb and fairytale as the concept is), and in fact the Anakin/Vader plot is practically the whole SW saga, but Bastilas (or Aribeth's) character change are completely unconvincing. Aribeth has the advantage of popping in much later, though she is much more forgettable like everything else about NWN so it doesn't really have much impact on the player. Bastila, aside from being insufferably annoying like Anomen of BGII, and more or less the same self-righteous cretin of a character, figures much more into the plot of KOTOR and its hardly a surprise that her sudden change of mind is jarring and unconvincing. @Deathdealer: every game has its ridiculous moments, and the only way to forgive it is with suspense of disbelief. And if the game doesnt offer that your experience is ruined as all the flaws become extremely visible. Fallout 3 was the worst case ever for me, nothing at all made sense in it (even under the rules set by the gameworld itself).

Thats the hardest battle of the game, but its not particularily difficult.

Jagged Alliance is dying for a remake, after the planned one was cancelled. I'd love to see Obsidian copy the mechanics, streamline it, pimp it up with nice graphics (as in pleasant- not Crysis "nice"), throw the usual ObsidianTM storyline in it, etc... The demands of high tech graphics too often lead to too many compromises with actual gameplay...

+1 for you.

What instant change? She's kidnapped by Malak and "persuaded" to flip. Her existing character flaws, mainly pride, make it possible. The persuasion takes a day. She probably holds the record for the most easily corruptible paladin ever. The entire setup is absurd.

It has the G36 at least in the 2.13 mod, I considered buying one for a moment, it also has several SiG pistols.

The Wii is the only console with any amount of platformers, all of them standard Nintendo titles. That once happy genre has been gobbled up into third person action games, Prince of Persia, Assasins Creed etc.

Still JA2, I'm 30 days into the game, I've taken Drassen, the small town in the left upper corner, Cambria, and I'm taking over Alma now. Mercs are packing some nice stuff now - mostly H&K G3's, one sniper M76 from my country , and an AK. Its not that hard once you get the hang of it (150000$ on my bank account, all cities have fully trained militia), the AI is susceptible to all sorts of tricks. After Alma - Grumm, the two small towns - and the capital are left. Yaay

She's not really undeveloped, you find out plenty of stuff about her motivations and feelings but the stupid instant change to the dark side at the end ruins everything.

Bastila is nowhere near Jaheira in writing or in characterization. But that could just be me, I always found Aribeth Bastila profoundly irritating.

Try this for emotional impact, the first 2 minutes: Other emotionally powerful moments: *Shadow of the Colossus as a whole *FFX endgame *BGII ToB, conversations before the final confrontation/epilogues *final scene in Mafia, even thought you know its coming *Planescape Torment as a whole

Morte. Imoen. Max Payne/Mona Sax, the guy from Mafia. The hero of the Shadow of the Colossus. Tidus from FFX even though his voice acting grated on my nerves.

There were new characters in KOTOR?

Out the airlock, BS Galactica style.

It is xenophobia and none of the other humans bitched about it. Isn't xenophobia fear of strangers? If there was a war they don't count as strangers. Semantics. The point is that I hated her because the "I hate aliens" was pretty much her whole shtick. If you were fine with it, more power to you, she annoyed the hell out of me. I really wish you don't have to have the whole crew of misfits on the ship this time, I'd just love to boot them(ice planet Kirk style) if they annoy me too much. It is xenophobia and none of the other humans bitched about it. And how many of them had any personality? No personality is less annoying than having the character be so one dimensional that all they talk about is their one shtick I agree. I'm not one for killing potentially XP giving NPC's but they were asking for it.

30-40m is rather generous for a standard 9mm SLP I'd say, but that's a geeky argument for another thread Maybe a Gucci .45 or 10mm handgun with a Picatinny rail loaded with peripherals would do that, but by that stage you might well be using an M4 system or similar anyway. I used to be a reasonable pistol shot and I was good to go with a Browning 9mm at 25 meters. Anything beyond that was luck, and modern ballistic armour would afford considerable protection against that. JA2: One of the most awesome, perfectly formed and efficacious computer games ever made, I'm jealous that you've just discovered it. Enjoy. Cheers MC It was a quote from a special ops DK encyclopedia. I don't like those books much, they are mostly picture books with too little text, but it was written by an ex US marine or something. Anyway, yes that's a flame for another day.