Nepenthe

I'm having that day of the year when I'm in full agreement with Volourn. Somebody's been sneaking to the nostalgia cupboard.

Well, it's a good thing they got Toufexis to do Jensen, if he shows up in any of the sequels. He should manage.

Overruled!

You're just saying that so that you can make more dramatic statements about not buying them!

This. The BG2 romances worked because they didn't end once you did the deed, they continued and had a lasting effect on your relationship with that person. Sex shouldn't be the goal of the relationship, it should just be a side effect. Eh, I can't see much difference between bg2+tob and ME2/ME3, for instance, in this department.

Well, I suppose one way to end a debate is to make something mandatory. It's also a way to stop people buying your product. I was under the impression you weren't buying Bioware games any longer, so it wouldn't matter, right?

We've established that Monte actually IS afraid of strong women.

They usually just give me one.

Same here. Along with Deus Ex, Deus Ex HR and Red Alert 2. Been a year and a half since my last Mass Effect 1-2 playthroughs and I'm not sure how likely I'm to approach them again, but they are quite high in the amount of playthroughs as well...

I'm not sure I'd agree, especially given you picked Garrus and I don't recall feeling the same way (and extending into ME3, he's probably one of my favourite "friend characters" in a lot of gaming). I found one of the (few) major improvements in ME3 over ME2 was that character development for several characters didn't become a matter of "calibrations" if you weren't in a romance for them. I remember actually writing to Casey Hudson about it and getting a reply that it was definitely something they were going to improve, back in the days when I still cared.

I'm losing my memory in my old age, so I might have said this before, but another blasphemous opinion: Longer =/= better.

When we take into account the expensive golden pixels in modern graphics have to be built from, there just aren't enough hours in the day or memory on a disc to have a game as big as Deus Ex 1, when all the characters looked like origami-figurines made out of sand paper. There's no weapon specialization; Adam could swipe up an alien plasma gun and instantly be aware of how to use it. And you get enough upgrades to be skilled in pretty much everything -- In that respect, the gameplay becomes not so much "finding the route that works for you" as "taking whichever one's quickest, then going back to loot all the others for ammo and Mars bars." Disregarding all that and the ****ty boss-fights, which were fixed in a Director's Cut sure, but it kinda needs to be there from the start. It's a solid game. Well, obviously DXHR isn't as big as DX (which IM heretical O isn't necessarily a bad thing), I'm refusing to accept that as "streamlining". The "can instantly use guns" argument has been going on since, well, at least the original Deus Ex, where people found it ludicrous that a highly trained agent wouldn't be proficient with common or easily usable weapons. Certainly this would be even more poignant in the case of Adam, an ex-SWAT officer. Not sure how the upgrade thing is any different from DX - certainly the original Boss fights weren't. tldr: Let's not repaint issues that have existed in games for decades as a sign of console-influenced decay.

Thi4f wasn't made by the team that made DX:HR. Same studio, different teams. Which is what I said.

This is usually what they always do in this day & age - Simply look at Hitman Absolution or Splinter Cell Conviction.Nah, keeping my eyes on Deus Ex Human Revolution. I had high expectations for these guys, even if it was an obvious B-team. My comment was merely meant to point out the ham-handed handling of the stealth genre today -- Putting scripted events and pretty scenery on top as opposed to sprawly sandbox-fun. That's a big no-no. Thief is simply stepping into line. Human Revolution was a great game although it's no secret that it too was severely streamlined which is still distressing. Not sure I agree re HR's streamlining...

This is usually what they always do in this day & age - Simply look at Hitman Absolution or Splinter Cell Conviction.Nah, keeping my eyes on Deus Ex Human Revolution. I had high expectations for these guys, even if it was an obvious B-team.

I'm decidedly under the impression that not saying bad stuff to your face speaks more of wisdom than cowardice Still dumber than the proper "yes, sir, sorry, sir, won't happen again, sir" I would've gone with

The two games look close enough that I doubt I'll be able to see a practical difference between the two, certainly with my rig. The difference being, of course, that I know I'll be able to run DAI, but I'm not sure about twitcher3, yet.

Neat idea, and I'll keep it in mind, but I'm going to wait to gain some assurance that he won't choke to death trying to eat the dice before getting him started on the arrpeegees. Maybe when he turns 25. I think it's... *lowers voice and looks around furtively* diceless...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Russia

I suppose they'll later claim that the license plates prove that they weren't francs-tireurs.

Not even Île de la Cité?

I have, it's like seeing somebody who's taken a direct hit from an RPG, just spread over a wider area along the tracks (around 150m along the tracks). And to complete the mood whiplash: That's great to hear, and congratulations on the mini-Enoch. Some friends of mine make an early "my kid's first role playing game"*, just in case you want to start him early! *In light of the upper part of my post, I felt the need to clarify which RPG is in question.

Uh-huh. You were addressing some unspecified "above" arguments. The post above yours (until oby's posts were approved and appeared magically in between) was dealing specifically with Crimean self-determination. That you spin the issue to disregard the opinions of Crimeans to make it exclusively about Vlad getting his way, does not mean the matter in question is actually about that. Who are "the people" happy to pull a Chamberlain? Because Rostere has explicitly mentioned a referendum, i.e. very much not a Chamberlain scenario. Quote them directly and get your hands dirty instead of burning down strawmen with passive-aggresive remarks. I wasn't trying to paint you as a hypocrite before, but come think of it, you can be a hypocrite by inaction, or rather, by selective action. So there. Perception's a funny thing, I had you down as the strawmanner. Still do, though I seem to have kissed Rostere's referendum point, in which case mea culpa. As I'm not conducting a scientific or legal argument, I will feel free to address the general tone of posts over a few pages as opposed to providing footnotes. At least until other people start doing it.

I'm now regretting making the comparison to the Munich Agreement. I made it in the sense that the west may end up just handing the land to Russia because the alternative is unthinkable and the original owner doesn't have enough political clout to resist on her own. The similarities end there. Of course, I should have foreseen that any references to Hitler's foreign policy would immediately trigger the atavistic fears of Nazi military expansionism given shape by hindsight and dilute any factual value that a comparison could have. What exactly do you find unacceptable about asking the people of Crimea what would they prefer? Let's assume a OSCE-supervised polling scenario, here. Because otherwise, the alternative would have to be putting Yanukovych back in power and going by the terms established in the agreement that was to end the Maidan protests, until elections were held no later than december. You cannot have only one side abide by "international law". Also, reminder that WWII was precipitated by the Allies' snap-border redrawing after WWI as much as it was by Hitler's personal insanity/delusions/egomania. Hitler was aware that his initial demands made sense from a historical and ethnic point of view and played that and the reluctance of the Allies to go for a rematch to obtain a huge initial edge. This is in relation to your comment about "divvying countries up according to random perceptions". It's A-OK when we do it (border drawing in Africa), but not when anyone else does, unless it's to our advantage somehow. (can I be the "Powerhungry Demagogue of the Obsidian Order"?) Let's look back to where I was talking about the Crimeans and the right to self-determination... Right I wasn't. I was talking about the people happy to pull a Chamberlain and let Vlad get his way. By definition, the people of Czec^H^H^HCrimea don't need to be asked their opinion by the appeasers, after all, they don't have to live where the borders get moved around a little... Not sure where I posited that drawing borders in Africa is acceptable, either. I'm sure there are valid counterpoints to my views, but you've spectacularly failed to put forward any by attempting to paint my views as hypocritical and/or inconsistent...