HoonDing

Hans V does appear in the end of the first game... outside the resort in Aralbad. Granted, though, it's a very short meeting & disappointing for anyone who expected some epic climax.

I saw this in one of the episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

I should try & play that Deus Ex thingie too, now that I'm back on my old computer. Never got to it.

The only game where I can think of where you don't play the hero is Dreamfall. You have to save April Ryan because April is the hero. I wouldn't consider Zoe a Lancer through. It's never really explained why April needs to be saved. It seems more of an excuse to cram April in the game and make it connected to TLJ than anything else... I'd say that every playable character in Dreamfall is a "Lancer". They all just bob along without knowing what's going on. I'd pick Syberia as an example: you have to find Hans Voralberg because he is the central figure the story revolves around. Or even the Myst games, where the player character is & stays nothing more than a puzzle solving errand boy/girl for Atrus & Catherine.

The trick about Oblivion is simply to not level up and do everything at level 2... bandits/marauders stay in fur/iron armor & one can become stronger by improving skills while the attributes remain the same, keeping the game challenging... while at level 30 the game is simply tedious when even the smallest goblin takes ages to kill because of the scaled amount of health.

George RR Martin = Robert Jordan + Charles Bukowski

That reminds me, Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" is one of the most creative/original fantasy that came out in the last decade, regardless of the ridiculous "BioWare"-like contrived romance. Brilliant setting & magic-system. I still have some books of Robin Hobb lying around to be read (apparently she's brilliant) but haven't had time to read some of her works.

I just renewed my love-hate relationship with Mr David Cage by playing & finishing Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy... still a playable game, despite one of the most horrible plot-twists ever in a video game... and I still think Carla Valenti is the most bad-ass female character ever in a video game, just after Cate Archer.

The only time I remember playing online was Quake back in the day, and I got my ass handed to me every 5 seconds or so... but I did rule on the local Duke3D LAN in my secondary school. That said, most likely I will give SW:TOR a try -along with a possible TES: Online (lol)- and see how that goes. I never gave WOW a try because the gigabytes of downloads were a bit too much for my paltry internet connexion.

I've seen the amount of 100-120 hours bragged about. Would surprise me, though. Then again, as a retarded casual gamer, I probably spent more than 100 hours on Mass Effect, so who knows?

Hilariously enough, and mayhaps on a slightly completely unrelated note, the hawt chick from NFS happened to be the girlfriend of David Blaine. I never liked, nor never were particularly good, in racing games myself. The only racing game I have fond memories of, is Super Karts (as pathetic as it sounds).

Spent most of the day reinstalling NWN 2, MOTB & paches.

Indeed... certainly one of my favourites as well. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to be remembered of the many times I've been dumped.

Fantasy: The Fionavar Tapestry & Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay), Lord of the Rings & Silmarillion (JRRT), Earthsea Series (Ursula Le Guin). To a lesser extent: Michael Moorkock, Feist's early works, Robert Jordan's first 6 Wheel of Time books. And oh, Jacqueline Carey & Elizabeth Haydon's books. Sci-fi: Dune by Frank Herbert, Hyperion cycle by Dan Simmons. For the rest, mostly Stephen King books.

They took out the hawt chick?

I believe the trader caravans stop in Girdleshade (sp?) too.

You're not playing as an Orc, are you?

Bizarre, when I blew off Moira Brown's head and headed outside the whole town was on my back. Fallout 3's system is better than Oblivion's, at least. Kill some random schmuck inside a house in stealth mode in Oblivion and still a guard will come after you. Then pay some gold and everything's hunky-dory again. At least Morrowind had a "death sentence" if you killed too many people (which of course could still be removed if you were in the Thieves Guild).

I remember the game freezing intermittently when I first played it, then I did something I now don't remember and the problem solved. Since I'll 'soon' have to reinstall the game from scratch, I hope this freezing issue doesn't pop up again. Also, I remember the very first time I exited the vault I ran into the 'random' encounter of a Deathclaw getting owned by two Outcasts & not much farther from this encounter I ran into "Sam Warrick" who netted me leather armor and a sniper rifle after going James Clemens on him. It's an enjoyable game, but in the end I prefer TES and wouldn't lose any minute of sleep if Bethesda would completely outsource the franchise to Bethesda and completely focus on TES again.

I play the English version whenever I can. But I tried ME this time in German, just for the lulz. Saren sound like one hell of a mother-Fritzl. I enjoy playing multilanguage games myself. I have one of BG&E... French/Dutch/Italian/German/Spanish. The voice acting is actually pretty damn fine in all versions.

Rune was a pretty awesome/interesting game since it was one of the very few games that made use of Germanic mythology succesfully & faithfully (compare it with crap like Asgard). It had interesting levels & an unexpected twist just before the ending. Heavy Metal FAKK2 was pretty awesome/interesting too, with excellent levels & combat but way too short & a horrible cliffhanger ending. And then there's American McGee's Alice... probably the most sardonic game ever created. It's amazing how many interesting action/adventure games came out around 2000.

German is too grand & epic a language for space opera fluff, really. It fits dark heroic fantasy the best. Dragon Age will probably be 'the bomb' in German.

Guess he's called Sten because of the pace at which he spouts dark & gritty one-liners.

Prince of Persia: Two Thrones. I forgot how short & easy the game was. I might even replay Dreamfall again now that I'm on a computer that's not allergic to that StarForce crap.