Aristes

Yeah, Las Vegas itself is in a basin and the I-15 corridor tends to be open with mountains to the sides. I wish I had a better camera, but frankly I had to really gut the image quality just to fit them on here in the first place. I mean, you get the feeling of wide open spaces framed by elevated areas all around in the desert out here. The Dustbowl would just be the same idea only so dreadful a PC could not reasonably pass through it.

I have someone on Windora. If I ditch WoW, which is boring me to hell and back these days, I'll restart my LotRO account and get in touch with you guys.

...But I don't think that the whole running through mountain caves has been done to death. For that reason, I don't really mind them having us do it. I will say that I appreciate your statements now that I understand them better. Frankly, that's the real topic. Will the locations be interesting and will they seem genuine to the player. I don't mind the idea of making locations 'realistic,' but realism is overrated. Believability is better than realistic and interesting trumps both. In terms of the larger discussion, I think the use of the asian estate is more cliched than the use of mountain caves. On the other hand, I agree with Gromnir's point in a different thread. Some Cliched ideas aren't bad as long the design team does them well enough.

If the rest of the family ever jumps ship on WoW, I'm heading to LotRO myself. I thought it was great. PVP is less than a laugh, I warn you. Atmosphere and story are much better, though.

I suppose the mods might want to stick this post in one of the FO threads. I don't think it should be but... *shrug* Maybe I'm talking about the old Interplay game. The wife and I are staying up in Mesquite for the week in order to catch some plays at the Utah Shakespearean Festival up in Cedar City. Mesquite is about ninety miles northeast of Las Vegas on the I-15. It

Hot Diggity, Gorth. Going to give me a spin on that bike of yours? Hey, now, don't read anything... erotic in that comment. I just want a good spin. I mean... Oh hell, just give me the keys and stay home!

My Old Flame -- The Duke Ellington and his Orchestra

Just now the wife and I toasted to KQD and wished the two love birds a long and happy marriage!

Well, it is true that Fallout 2 had a chess playing rad scorpion. haha I dunno, the alien zaniness has always been a part of the Fallout franchise. It's all about spoofing 50s and 60s sci fi movies. Hell, if it were set in Japan, we'd have Godzilla cameos.

How do you take an idiotic comment like, "the Fallout 2 devs didn't get Fallout?" Hmmm, cast aspersions on the person saying it? Naw, too much effort. Fallout 2 is my favorite of the franchise. Of course, it's not uber realistic like Fallout 1 or 3. *gag* Too wacky for some folks, but just right for me. Truth to tell, I liked them all, so I can't complain about the franchise. I never played Tactics or Brotherhood of Steel. I'm looking forward to New Vegas, though, in a big way. I'm guessing the devs will "get" Fallout. Maybe, if we're lucky, as much as the devs did for Fallout 2.

Damn it, KQD, I really wanted to wish you luck. Grrr. ...But I'll settle for slapping you on the back and telling you congrats! Holy crap, man. Awesome. The wife and I are going to open a bottle of vino tomorrow and toast your soon to be wed arse! Huzzah!

Hey, bro, I'm in Mesquite even as I write. We plan on heading to Utah this weekend, but I'm really looking forward to seeing Valley of Fire and Lake Mead again. Good stuff! Keep the pictures coming. ...And when I see trailers now, I look at the driver to see if it's you, although I think you're in Northern Utah if I recall correctly.

Of course, it also depends on how the story unfolds. If the PC goes to the Middle East in order to take part in an operation to hunt down a terrorist currently believed to be hiding in mountain caves, you might chafe at the inference, but as long as the story-line is credible, it won't matter. If the part in Taipei takes place on an NPC's private estate, then it really says nothing about Taipei in the first place. Regardless of assurances to the contrary, all we have is anecdotal evidence that absolutely no 'asian' style estates exist in Taipei. Because it's someone's personal estate, however, it really doesn't matter. Using the credibility rule, as long as someone could create such an estate, it's perfectly legitimate to place such an estate in Taipei. It's certainly just as legitimate as, say, having an enemy who dual-weilds pistols accurately, and far more believable. Creating an 'asian' estate, by which I mean an estate with items stereotypically associated with asian cultures, such as zen gardens and pagodas and the like, says very little about Taipei and is surely not a question of accuracy. Like my numbered friend says, it might be a sign that Obsidian has created a carricature of an asian character, but does not really reflect anything about the accuracy of Taipei, which is also true the mountain cave in the Middle East. The 'Middle East' clearly has both mountains, and caves, and mountain caves. The question is what Obsidian is trying to say about the people living in the cave, not the cave itself. ...And the villain (or friendly NPC) living in the mountain cave is probably no more offensive in terms of the story than any number of literary ideas in the spy novel genre.

That seriously made me laugh out loud.

I played Lionheart and so I can give you my impression. First of all, it got a lot of bad press. Unfortunately, it deserved a lot of bad press. Some of the criticism was unfair, but some is unfair about every game. The part leading up to and including Barcelona was actually quite good. Not game of the year good, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The part after Barcelona was not universally terrible, but it had some serious shortcoming. What were those? Okay, first of all, the enemies were soooo numerous that it was a grind. Think of Diablo grinding away at levels sort of grind only Diablo was fun, which takes me to the next problem. The loot wasn't all that. You could grind away in a fun game, but the payoff in terms of loot needs to be good. Lionheart didn't provide that. Okay, grinding away for lackluster loot? That sucks, but at least you might expect interesting and entertaining monsters, right? Nope. You grind away through tuff mobs, but they're boring also. I mean, who wants to fight a tough as nails mob like 'English Soldier?' These guys don't give up the ghost easy, and they don't exactly have good loot on 'em either. Like most good soldiers, you probably don't want to fight folks who don't have anything worth taking in the first place. ...But, hey, at least it has some good role playing opportunities, right? I mean, no one could waste such a ripe setting as that? *EERRHHNNNNN* Wrong again! The vast majority of your fun role playing comes before or in Barcelona. Once you leave there, your just a luckless bastard fighting tons of tough bastards for their meager loot virtually none of whom want to ask any questions before they stab, shoot, poison, or occassionally cast spells at your sorry ass. However, I did enjoy it for what it was worth. I even found a non-combat ending, which was a surprise, considering all the combat you're forced to endure to get there. I cannot really recommend the game, but you can find value in it, if you're willing to work hard at it.

That would be a good stop, then. The people at Temple were friendly and helpful. I mean, yeah, they were clearly hoping for converts, but weren't rude when I said I was a Catholic who didn't intend to change religions. Anyhow, it's their Temple. I expect them to proselytize. I'd go there again if I had the chance. A lot of interesting stuff. Hope you have fun!

Thanks, bro. I can't really drink much anymore and I just got home from a horrid meal at my outlaws. Of course, they gave me a check for my 40th birthday and they clearly went out of their way to be nice to me, so I can't complain. :D Anyhow, have fun in Salt Lake. I went to the Temple there not long ago out of curiosity. I even had them send me a book of Mormon and talked to the guys about it when they delivered it for a long time. I think they finally left when they realized I had no intention of converting, but all around decent guys. If you get a chance to hit the Temple, you might find it interesting. I did. What was most funny to me is that I went with a friend who has Mormon relatives. I thought it was most amusing that the tour guides for two guys in their early thirties were two pretty girls in their mid-twenties. Coincidence? I think not! ...But I had fun and thought it was quite informative. The only problem for you is that you might not want to have religion talks with the kidling and she'd probably find it boring and therefore fuss.

Student Aid

Durlog's Tower is awesome. Still plugging away at the next level of Max Payne 2, second run. Great game.

Watched Gran Torino. Oh my goodness. It's soooo funny. I need to buy this film.

Have you no shame, you half baked Brit? You're English, for crying out loud. You should be drinking gin. ...Or at least Irish whiskey or Scotch. Good Lord, and do you complain as much about your favorite booze as you do about Bioware? I don't have a lot of hope for the MMORPG, but I don't have time to play it even if I liked it, so no biggie to me. WAR was super buggy for me, but Mythic might have learned their trade by now, I guess.

Thanks, unpronouncable name guy! That's awesome. I've never played it, but it's a free game legit copy and I'm downloading it now.

That romance with ol' bike tailed Annah and The Nameless One is the only one I've played that actually felt 'sexy.' I don't mean in a slutty sort of hawt way, either. Well... I mean... I'm a guy, so probably that too, but I just thought they handled the sexual tension very well. Most of the time, sexy banter between two toons in a game just creeps me out. Let's just say that the Witcher did not break that trend. *shudders* Had to be Annah's tail, though. Hell, she looks better with her tail than a couple of my former girlfriends did without one! Arrroooooooohhhhhhhh If Dragon Age can pull off relationships like PS:T, I will be quite exstatic and you guys will get tired of hearing me sing its praises.

No, I think the one with Aerie (or whatever her name was) is actually a decent example. In that case, you've saved her and the dialogue that gets you in her pants is more or less reasonable. I don't think you could count on having her as a love interest if she weren't 'damaged goods,' but at least that rings true of real life. You know, you get a lot of points for saving the cheerleader, so to speak.

We watched Taken last night. It was a great flick! I mean, I laughed the last half of it at the over the top violence, but it was still funny. I bet that's one teenage daughter who tells her dates to get her home on time! "You don't want my dad to be angry!"