Nepenthe

Nah, the truly elite, the deep undeground, they are only whispered of in the pale moonlight.

He sounds like a Helm's kind of guy!

I wonder if an Alien game is ever going to get released...

Picked up Battlefield: Bad Company semi-accidentally yesterday. Have found it to be a lot of fun so far, the feeling of freedom is refreshing after a couple of years of virtually no other FPSs than CoDs. I'll be sure to pick up the second one soon (in fact, I thought I was buying that one, damn allergies), and probably BF3 later this year. Ok, brain not working today (either), so double-posting. Also, I have I think... 5 xbox games (deus ex:iw, dark corners of the earth, kotor 1-2 and jade empire) and I think Jade Empire is the only one that actually works. DXIW isn't even theoretically supported, kotors are but don't work and dark corners apparently has some issues, haven't tested.

It's limited. Frankly, if the next gen lacks extensive backwards compatibility, I'm probably going to skip back to PC gaming. Or going to a beach resort instead of a monastery. More seriously, though, you don't need a tv for console gaming any more than you need for PC gaming. All my gear is hooked up to the same display, via the same ht amp. I can understand preferring mouse+kb, I used to be that way before I started actual work (not studies) on a computer, now just touching a mouse feels like work to me. Still, it's clearly a superior format of input (for most games, sometimes it's close and I've gotten pretty good at console shooters), I just like to do my gaming in an, ahem, semi-recumbent posture, and for that, console controllers rule. In fact, your comparison of reading magazines instead of books might be surprisingly fitting. I do legal research for a living, and a side effect of that is that it totally burns me out on reading anything but a hifi mag most of the time. I average 2-3 books a year outside my holidays, but then I really start cramming. PC gaming also becomes a lot more interesting at those times, hmm...

Sure, but I kind of doubt that's the spin they are putting on it on Fox.

Denis Dyack After the "Too Human", I bet this guy points to magnetic wrong on just about everything. Why would social gaming fail? Social gamers outnumber us hardcore gamers at least ten times over and games are really cheap to develop for 'em. If individual social games go belly up, there's always some new Angry Birds or Farmville type of game around the corner. That was my first response too. He doesn't seem like a guy with a finger on the pulse of gaming or anything. Isn't it sad how he just rides on the coattails of his more famous brother, Donald? Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.

Wish I could remember the source, I'm pretty sure it's been years since I read it (good memory is a curse when you are a scientist, you'll remember all the amazing stuff but won't be able to reference it since you have no idea where you read it 15 years ago... ). I'm pretty sure that the author was of the opinion that "defensive use of force" had occasionally included defence of the best kind, so to speak.

Well, I still own only three games for the x360, and I've found it to be very worthwhile. PS3, bless Sony's security deficient souls, originally came into the house as a blu-ray player, the gaming has mostly been a bonus...

I've always assumed that those are only brought out when the discussion turns to gay rights... But more seriously, this is a very complex situation, both ethically and legally. As in, what a state of war (referring to the congress resolution I think I linked to above) against a non-government entity entails. I don't applaud revenge, but I can see the need for occasional harsh justice or straightforward use of military force. It's not even a new problem, the Brits kept fidgeting between treating Northern Ireland as either a police or military matter, I've heard people say that this indecisiveness alone extended the conflict by some decades.

PS3 for LA Noire here, as well. It's also supposed to have one extra case (probably due to originally having been a PS3 exclusive game... which is another reason why it might be one of the 1-2 multiplatform titles that are actually better on ps3). Of course, I'm sure that PSN being out is going to f it up somehow...

You aren't that one guy that finished the game 20-30 times according to the BioSpyWare, are you? Nothing quite like that. In fact, just counted it and it's just a bit over 300, with the longest single run being 56 hours.

Well, there was a socialist element in the party originally (as implied by the name), but it kind of went the way of Ernst R

It's 16gb. EDIT: Well, the entire game download anyway. EDIT2: Uhm, I think there's a chance that poster on GOG got it wrong, but unfortunately tracking the original post from a developer is being difficult. Basically what I got is that the game will be released on 1300 Polish time, but I think Poland is actually in DST right now so it would be actually GMT+2? That would mean it's only roughly 3 hours from now. Maybe someone Polish (like Ausir) can confirm? Of course, this is just based on the fact that they'd let you preload at the same time TW1 was released on GOG (it was released early due to a mistake) so.. Meh. Wouldn't have minded some clearer info/communication from GOG. Sometimes they can still be rather pedestrian. The whole EU has the same daylight saving. 15 minutes now, if your info is correct.

And this is the trouble with getting so much news via the interwebs.. all the "mothers day" advertisements were geared for the North American date.. so it slipped by me and I lost all my current crop of brownie points by missing the UK mother's day. I tried pointing out "hey, I did give you a surprise present for no particular reason last week." and got told "that's why you're not even more in the dog house then you are." It was also mothers' day in Finland, so it's not just NA.

It isn't always just about money, but sometimes also about time. Anybody working in software development knows that you can only throw so many resources at a project, once you pass the "sweet spot", additional resources are pretty much wasted and wont help you meet a deadline. I haven't played the game, but it sounds ultimately like a deadline issue to me, grab a dungeon that works, replicate it and change the scripting depending on context. Artists can be notoriously fickle when it comes to working to deadlines (I'm looking at you Kaftan), or the asset pipepline simply was the slowest link in the development cycle. Could platform restrictions play any role in the selection process of what goes into the game or not? Maybe resources simply got diverted to other projects with expected greater return of investment per man-hour? Maybe they expected people would be too busy pressing the awesome button and watch the gore fly? Could be a number of reasons for why they didn't throw more man-hours/money at it. I've said it before, but I think that everything about this game screams that it was wholly built on the concept of recycling areas to cut down on the man hours. The whole time-skipping narrative is just another excuse to recycle areas. I'm also suspecting that they were for some reason locked to using just one disc (ironic, considering that due to the nature of the game, 2 discs would've been a lot less problematic than with ME2) and the new engine and fully-voiced PCs resulted in disc space being at a premium. I've also posited before that it would have been "forced" on them by the spiraling DAO budget, only to be shot down by people with no understanding of budgeting or ROI.

I'm fairly sure I have a similar number in BG2. Hell, I have over 300 hours in ME2 ;D

No, there are a lot of videos with noticeable slowdowns in action scenes, and none of the previews so far as hinted at someone running it at 60 fps without dips. Granted, honestly, considering how good it looks, not-optimal performance, as long as not bad, would be okay by me, but that's probably just because the original game makes me expect the worst. It's also possible that the vid drops frames when the kbps would otherwise spike. But it's just my personal opinion - that one can't make any worthwhile conclusions re frame rate, tearing and maybe slowdowns from most online videos...

You guys do realise that most online videos run at 30 fps or something - everything looks choppy in them... /Broken record

This is a very good suggestion, but maybe some people get their jollies from bitching about the games instead of playing them? Seems that way, for sure...

Varric must a very lazy narrator as well - considering every house & cave looks the same. Well, his main oeuvre is "hard in hightown", so it could be true.

I think the main reason dual wield and archery were removed from warriors was to force some difference between the two classes. It's not an elegant solution, but hardly a logic failure. OK, I admit, I can't remember if warriors even got specialised archery in DAO. You also have to remember that you are playing a story told by someone else - I think it's a pretty good justification for the speedy 2h warriors and exploding bodies - especially as Varric is definitely on the pulpier end of narration. The issue with people staying in the same clothes throughout the years is kind of exacerbated by the fact that a lot of outfit changes are bugged - so even when they are supposed to change gear, it's not happening at the moment.

Suggesting that somebody posts this out of the blue and isn't either an alt or a spambot is about as likely as me winning the national lottery.

Being a moral and upstanding citizen, I always pick up the season blu-ray boxes, so am always a bit over a season behind everybody else. But yes, in addition to Chuck, this is the other on-going tv series I follow.