Zoraptor

Good bomb or bad bomb ? Within the first 30 minutes I was thrown down a cliff, robbed, and punched out. They're going for some strong Gothic vibes. So far I'm really enjoying it. I got brutally murdered by some sort of mutant turkey, just like in Risen 1. Ah, the memories! I did, however, manage to kill a rat on my first try. That good, huh? Better. It's a perfect 5/7. (A bit consolised in the UI, my ancient 5770 could probably have handled the graphics, the narrator sounds like he was dragged in off the street and told to do a US accent, and the main character doesn't sound much better. So far it's very much G1/2 or Risen 1 in the things that actually matter though. As well as in the voice acting department. I'm pretty much sure already I'll get my money's worth, albeit for some reason it only cost 35usd here so effectively started 30% off)

When it comes to linearity and being believable SS2 is an odd game. It's absolutely fantastic at making you want to think it's non linear and believable via its atmosphere and level design; and that's absolutely the most important thing. But, there's actually very little either intra or inter level non linearity, and the ship layout (especially the RIckenbacker; but also things like the 'radiation tubes' in engineering, or having the cargo bays so far from the lift, or having cryo tubes only accessible by ladder) makes little sense if you think about it. Fortunately it's extremely easy not to think about it.

Dead Space would be okay-ish at being a System Shock game, but only so-so. Good thing we have Prey now! Arkane was actually doing a SS3 for EA as well at one point, it was one of the first projects John Riccitiello killed when he got in as CEO. Haven't played Prey (2017) myself and won't unless it goes steam free so I can't comment on its similarities to System Shock or which I prefer in that regard. Dead Space however is... very strongly reminiscent of SS2 which is one of my absolute favourites. I'd bet just about anything that they'd read its original design docs since some parts are nearly directly lifted from it- you're even looking for a woman and following her instructions who turns out to be dead and the game's main antagonist. Which was arguably done better than in SS2, as I was sure Polito was dead well before she was found while I wasn't in DS. I don't mind the similarities at all because DS is a very good game in its own right and it's taking its inspiration from a great game which is what a sequel ought to do yet many don't. I also don't mind the dissimilarities since, to be fair, SS2's gameplay tended towards being a smidge janky. I had a list of the similarities (SS2 had proposed zero g/ vacuum sections, hydroponics in SS2 was intended originally to be exactly as DS hydroponics turned out, the cutscene endings are... thematically similar, shall we say; and more but I've forgotten them).

Looks more or less official that Raqqa is fully captured now. That probably means that the foreign fighters did leave in the transfer deal as well as the locals, and over especially french objections. Lots of rebuilding needed anyway, Raqqa wasn't a huge city but it looks like a moonscape. Rather less comment on that than there was when it was Aleppo. They probably tolerate each other somehow. Probably. Plenty of people on both sides who'd be spoiling for a fight though, and plenty of flashpoints for them to get excited over- oil, roads to Iraq, enclaves, Raqqa, Tabqa and its dam. Plus Turkey isn't at all keen on the SDF. Depends a lot on what the US does once ISIS is finished and also on how democratic the Syrian Democratic Forces actually are plus how flexible the government will be. Even just taking the 'arab' out of Syrian Arab Republic would probably go a long way as a goodwill gesture.

I was wondering that as well. Then again, from what we heard about SoT they could hardly have been any more hands on this time around. When it comes right down to it Obsidian is a far better fit for SP than any corporate studio except perhaps Rockstar or Volition. That's Los Santos. San Fierro is the 2nd city in GTASA, where you go after you get betrayed by those despicable traitorous snakes Smoke and Ryder; it is definitely a San Fransisco analogue (GG bridge, steep roads with 'flat' cross roads to throw sparks and get air off, prominent gay quarter etc, and the name). But anyway, this is distracting me from far more important things: Elex! Elex! uber alles!

Bit sad about Visceral. I'm a big System Shock fan and Dead Space was good enough that I'd have been perfectly happy if it had stayed as System Shock 3.

Giving a South Park game to Ubisoft San Fransisco was always a red flag. I only know SF from television (and GTA: SA) but apparently it's full of people being unbearably trendy, generating smug and smelling their own farts. Not a great fit for South Park. Anyway, have you fine people of the forum heard the good news about our lord and saviour: Elex?

He isn't- he's just right wing- but the electoral system means that his most likely coalition would involve the Freedom Party who would almost certainly demand a complete stop to muslim immigration. Only other alternative would be a grand left/ right coalition.

Empty cans of generic bourbon and cola or a 20 year old knock off Metaliica T shirt is more the bogan style of memorial.

There have been a few hundred jihadi left and Raqqa has been about to be captured in the final assault for well over a month now. The transfer deal they've done would usually be the end of things (and despite the coalition complaining about transfer deals vociferously it's at least the 3rd the SDF have done with ISIS) but there will inevitably be plenty of fighters who will prefer to die for their 'capital' rather than run off to Abukamal to die in a couple of months time. ISIS is almost completely irrelevant at this point anyway, all it has done for the last six months is lose territory at an increasing rate to everyone; the big question is who gets what from them and if the government and SDF in Syria are going to end up fighting instead of broadly tolerating each other. Most significant Syria/ Iraq development of the past month was Kirkuk being taken by the Iraqi government over literally the last day only. It was inevitable that the Kurds couldn't hold Kirkuk since it's on a big plain with few natural defences- and the peshmerga are nowhere near as competent as their media reputation makes them out to be- but I think everyone thought they would at least try. Instead they routed instantly amid accusations of betrayal and basically no fighting besides some very minor skirmishes. Makes the independence referendum look exceptionally dumb in retrospect.

I've run into a couple of skill 6 locks even on Reaper's Coast. To be fair, they were both 'short cut' locks where you'd get the key eventually if you kept playing (eg the door to the lich under Mordus's house where you get the 'key' in the Mordus battle anyway), but you don't even have optional persuasion 6 checks since the skill won't go that high. I haven't finished but I'd agree 90% with Labadal's comments as well, most of them wholeheartedly. I really couldn't list skills as a positive though. The root problem is largely the shield system*, that's a given- indeed, I'd presume a party with only one physical damage character would have the reverse problem to mine- but the fact is that status abilities relying on your parties' minor damage type are almost entirely deprecated while buffs and especially summoning (root skill and any sub abilities including those in different schools) retain their utility across almost any party build and any encounter; making them disproportionately useful. Warfare is also the key utility skill on the physical damage side, but that's way less extreme. *I'm still decidedly grumpy about it even after more than 3 weeks. I said it at the beginning and it's still true, that fix is far worse than the problem of DivOS1 combat results depending a lot on who got their status effects off first.

It definitely was the Austrian Presidency vote but it was largely symbolic (non executive Presidency) and a fair while before the German one. The Freedom Party candidate only just lost that but they came 3rd this time around which I guess is technically an improvement.

EU lurches from one crisis to another. Kind of a shame the Austrian election wasn't before the German one, Merkel may have done even worse if two of their neighbours were refusing to bail her out of her refugee problem instead of just one. Disappointing that Austria is so irrelevant really, apart from Bateman references (and he really ought to have been chasing muslims with a chainsaw while in his budgie smugglers in my previous post) we could also have some Apocalypse Now references too.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to take Austria's new leader seriously, his resemblance to Bale's Patrick Bateman is such that I'm going to be expecting him to start waxing lyrical about the philosophical merits of Huey Lewis and the News or Phil Collins in between wanting to expel all muslims. NBC should rightly be raked over the coals, but the New York Times and NPR have been all over it, and they are very liberal. NYT allegedly spiked at least one Weinstein story. Given what happened with Jimmy Saville in the UK I'd be surprised if pretty much every major news organisation hadn't spiked at least one exposé.

It's the same situation with The Expanse and Riverdale as well I think- nearly everywhere except the US they're on netflix next day, in the US it's on SyFy/ CBS paywall and a very few other places have special deals like The Expanse being on Sky here. Orville ought to be very easy to watch in the US though, it's bog standard Fox network, 930pm Thursdays after Gotham.

The main balance for lucky charm is that you'd want to put it on your lead character as that's who is going to be opening most chests and containers, but that's also the character who gets into most of the triggered conversations so needs persuasion. And there are a lot of persuasion checks in the game. You can of course use one character for leading exploration and another for checking containers but I couldn't be bothered doing that consistently as you'd have to do it probably thousands of times. OTOH one of the things about social skills is that most of them top out at 5, so I'm in the situation now that the lead character is getting points in lucky charm, so the last 1/3 of the game may see more loot bloat. One of the odd things about the game is that thieving skills don't top out at 5, and in order to have a proper thief you need points in both lockpicking and stealth- so unless you can find decent +skill theivery items you're stuck with a mediocre lockpicker or a mediocre hider (or both) while your lore or barter guy is already sticking points into a secondary skill. I now have some decent gear and I'm crushing everything in my path again. It was an order of magnitude harder going from lvl 10->11 and 11->12 than going from 12->14.

At least IGN isn't owned by Rupert Murdoch any more. Dunno if Ziff Davis has any skeletons in their closet but it could scarcely be more than Uncle Rupes has. Probably will end up like GameStop buying Impulse, ie irrelevant within months. lol pirates are socialists Pirate Parties are little a anarchists, which is a left libertarian philosophy. The term may have been stolen by ancaps (ie right libertarians), but it's broader than just them.

You also have to have a very high IQ to understand The Wire. The action is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of urban slang most of the dialogue will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also McNulty's nihilistic outlook and fake Baltimore accent, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from drunk Irish descendant archetypes, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these characterisations, to realize that they're not just stereotypes- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike The Wire truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the subtlety in Bunk and McNulty's definitive "f***" scene which to the well informed is itself a cryptic reference to the NYPD's For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge filing denotation. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Paul Simon's genius unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools... how I pity them. And yes by the way, I DO have a Jay Landsman tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the Commissioner Rawls eyes only- And even he'd have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Then again I prefer my copypastas with appropriate revisions. I like The Wire but it isn't for everyone by any means. It's dense and inpenetrable, and is very slow moving while things are set up. You just about need subtitles for the urban slang in the beginning, few of the characters even approach being sympathetic or heroic, and the normal tropes of television are largely ignored. It's also unforgivingly complex. That's what makes it good to a large extent, but it also makes it something that requires far more concentration and thought than usual, and any of those things can easily turn people off before they get hooked. Especially so if you just want something to relax to after a hard day at work.

I don't think the issues themselves are important. Israel will ignore anything from the UN anyway, so long as they can rely on a US veto at the SC, and UNESCO reports are even less important than General Assembly resolutions. For Trump it's a chance to play to two of his bases, anti UN and pro Israel. This week certainly seems to be the week for Trump to try and get some brownie points from his supporters, assuming he doesn't certify Iran to go along with leaving UNESCO and trying an Executive Order approach to do something, anything to obamacare.

IIRC you're both right. BF1 is there now, mostly for the MP of course. Keeps player numbers up and some of those players will buy extra MP stuff for money. Pretty sure that BF1 was also on Access before release, as part of their hype/ beta program. Definitely a time limited version though, since it was a beta/ test.

I wouldn't want the EU regulating content though, we'd end up with green blood and the like. But their consumer protection has been pretty good, and loot boxes are a consumer protection issue.

That's two unconnected issues though- not that I'm surprised given the nature of US foreign policy. Most of the people who would be ecstatic about Hebron being labeled as Palestinian would be equally ecstatic about criticism of Syria; and most of those who hated the Hebron decision would be as well yet the US failed to win the vote they tried over Syria even despite that. Which given the nature of the rebels and their attitude to history and culture was completely appropriate. Wahhabi's hate culture, science and education, it's inherent to their philosophy of man's peak being in the 7th century.

Crap as it is otherwise I could see the EU getting involved in loot boxes and putting a stop to them. I doubt that steam would have brought in their refund system if it had only been Aus/ NZ demanding it, EU on the other hand is a lot harder to ignore. Yes. Because Denuvo isn't DRM, it's tamper protection, it says so on their site, so it cannot be cracked as it's not DRM. That's logic! It also doesn't effect performance, it says that on their site too; coder gods they are, able to make programs run with no overheads. Any dissent from those views means you're a dirty pirate who pirates dirtily, so your views are invalid dirty pirate who pirates. Dude's otherwise more or less rational, too.

Not that surprising if they're expecting to make money from the multiplayer stuff. You can guarantee that won't be covered by the EA Access fee. MEA also quite clearly doesn't have the reputation required for 'proper' sales to have a long tail and if you're buying it now it's for the dollar equivalent of only a few months of EA Access anyway.

.. Unless you are a specialist yourself, you are simply not qualified to make an informed decision on whether additive X is bad for you.. That's the critical thing. If you know much about computers then people who fall for MS Tech Support scams seem like idiots, but they just don't know enough about computers to make informed decisions and on the face of it MS phoning up about your computer issues does make sense, so does your bank telling you to change your password for security reasons. If you go to professional services- builders, electricians, dieticians, or whatever- you're usually going to them because they are experts and you aren't. You cannot be expected to easily tell a fraudulent but convincing con from the genuine article though you should at least be sceptical of deals too good to be true. Of course the first two examples are outright illegal and cannot be regulated, but you can protect against renegade professional services. As to why professional associations may want to take action against cowboys by dobbing them in or whatever, a lot of professional services have terrible reputations due to the rogue elements, and that terrible reputation impacts the good workers who get the safety accreditations and do the proper workmanship and use the right tools. And bad advice and workmanship can be outright dangerous.