Zoraptor

Well, I guess the city looks nice enough. If I'd had the sound muted and drunk enough to destroy my short term memory I might even have thought it was a decent trailer which showed promise.

Meh, I find the whiff of 'poor naive egyptians, didn't know what they're voting for' a bit unpalatable, that is all, as it can equally be applied to a whole bunch of europeans buying into stuff naively. That, Wals, is why I used the Cool Brittania/ Tony Bliar dichotomy. People buy into the Blair myth, and when it gets punctured it becomes the Bliar myth- and it's always the same person, same political party, same political philosophy; and often interested in the most trivial guff even when there's far more important stuff to deal with. If the Egyptians in general bought into the MB myth- which no doubt some did, it's only the numbers which would be in dispute- then they're no more or less naive than anyone else. But as I say, I don't find the theory that a large proportion of people who voted for the MB did so under a misapprehension or because they were naive very convincing since the MB's agenda and philosophy was very well known. It'd be like claiming that westerners are astounded if a typical right wing party cuts benefits and privatises stuff, they're a right wing party, it's what they do. An Islamist party believes that Islam is the fundamental bedrock of a state, that's what they do, writing Islam into the constitution is as natural to them as an environmental agenda is to a Green party.

Don't know about that. Certainly, there are a lot of people saying that, and saying that the military has majority support, but I'm sceptical on the numbers and extent just as much as I'm sceptical when I'm told any such figures, because they're very easy to say but far more difficult to provide real evidence for, let alone prove. They're suppositional and assertive only, the only objective measure is how many people voted for the various parties. Might as well claim that Obama or any other western leader's election is illegitimate because their broken promises and unfulfilled pledges means a proportion of people voted for them under false pretences, and thus any military coup against them was justified. Simply put, the MB was always honest about being a Big I Islamist party and if you were an Egyptian liberal or anything else and voted for them thinking they were anything other than that then you were an idiot, plain and simple, and you'll probably vote idiotically next time as well. That is, after all, what happens in mature western democracies as well, people buy into the dream of Cool Brittania and end up with Tony Bliar a few years down the track. Mainly though, this whole set up is only going to benefit one group long term, and it isn't the army or liberals. The people who voted MB- for the sake of lack of argument, the committed supporters- are unlikely to vote for Ahmed El Iberal or Mustafa Ah Mefan after all this is over and the MB is banned again, they'll vote for another Islamist party, and likely the second largest elected party in the just dissolved assembly- the Salafists. Who'd like to turn Egypt into a clone of their paymasters in Saudi Arabia, not some fluffy western daydream of tolerance. If even half the MB supporters do that you end with them in the position the MB was holding.

It's all a bit murky. The Egyptian 'constitution', such as it was, was established under the military with the understanding that it would be rewritten by the elected officials after an election. The MB won sufficient seats to be able to write the constitution without needing to rely on those they were ideologically opposed to. There is, of course, an argument that they should have written a more inclusive constitution anyway- but equally there is an argument that Egypt was getting exactly what was voted for. 2/3+ of the parliamentary seats were won by either the MB or Salafists, their argument would be that they could write their constitution for the 2/3+, or for the remaining 1/3-, not both. Ultimately the problem is that any overtly religious party whether it be muslim, christian, hindu or whatever claims it's mandate- ultimately- from their religion rather than the voters. And you also have situations like the minaret referendum in Switzerland, for example, where it was the christian majority making the law, or the headscarf ban in France that was worded neutrally, but clearly intended to enforce a dress code on muslims.

Iraq and Afghanistan made those agreements while under US military occupation, not of their own free will. Lebanon, Syria and Sudan have all been bombed by Israel in the past few years without retaliation. Lebanon in particular had Israel running around the south- having their tanks getting comically blown up in a 'safe' area in front of the world's media, even, and flattening suburbs in south Beirut- and the Lebanese state did literally nothing about it.

Yeah, it's not as if the MB actually won an election or anything. Two, actually, given they won the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, both handily. Brave crusaders for democracy and right, so long as the right people win the election, of course. If the roles were reversed it'd just be different people shouting about the 'glorious martyrs for democracy and freedom' rather than the 'glorious martyrs for democracy and the Muslim Brotherhood'. Funny too, how when it was Syrian security forces killing considerably less people that was heavy handed mass murder and the claims of police being killed was 'propaganda', yet when it happens in Egypt... brave coppers fighting brutal civilians! Have you seen what their thuggish heads and extremist chests did to the brave and patriotic bullets fired at them? Just needs the claims of foreign mercenary gangs for it to be complete... oh what? The military has already blamed Hamas you say? Well, I'll be damned!

The first third of Gaidar's comment is spot on. The second part is... needlessly inflammatory and contradictory. The worst objective thing about Twitcher2 was the "I romanced Shani in TW... Oh no you didn't!" situation which stuck a large silver sword in verisimilitude. If you aren't going to make the choices you offer count and be taken into account, then just don't offer them. There's no absolute requirement for all those characters to turn up, it shouldn't be like the BG/2 transition where no matter how many times I chopped that cretinous ranger into minscmeat in BG1 he always turned up in Irenicus's dungeon, things really have moved on from that. And if I happen to miss out on some content due to offing the wrong person (or, for that matter, leaving the wrong person alive) then diddums; choices and consequences, I'll just have to deal with it -> (with thanks to Gorth) style. I guess at least it won't have been the current PC who'd done the killing, but that's small mercies. I'd make an exception for someone who is genuinely plot critical- like potentially Leliana- and who therefore has a very good reason and explanation for their survival, but if it's just to have fan service and say hi to the Warden's/ Hawke's buddies then just leave it out (or include alternatives) if they're dead.

Well, you agree with me then. Indiscriminately slaughter some guys and that's fine and doesn't make real life slaughters less serious or anything like that as it's a game. Right ? I guess all the righteous SJW anger will come up tomorrow. How will RPS cope? They loved the original Hotline Miami and now the sequel has a rape in it. Oh, the dilemma! I'd guess the reason for the difference between how murder is viewed and how rape is viewed in video games basically comes down to; if you really don't like murder in video gaming then you probably don't play many video games. But most people simply don't think of conquering a city in Civ as being your bunch of soldiers raping and pillaging in an expansionist imperialist fervour, or killing a guard in Thief who has a new born child he's raising alone and working two jobs for and who will now end up in the Shalebridge Cradle Orphanage, or pirating in Elite being murdering someone for their goods. It's a bit more difficult to make the mental gymnastics necessary to justify/ ignore a rape though, as it's... more personal than offing Joe Random#23664 in an fps. It also has the reputation for being a 'cheap' shock when used in television, used to boost flagging ratings.

You might think that, Walsingham, you might very well think that, but I could not possibly comment. I haven't seem the US version yet and how much it follows the brit one/ books but since the second was 'To Play the King' I wonder how they could have had a plausible US version/ 2nd season.

Like Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan et alia, perchance? I broadly agree with the rest, but one of the big problems is the attitude that other countries only ever provoke Israel without reason, while Israel has to retaliate to this provocation. Or the reverse, Israel only ever provokes and all its enemies do is retaliate towards that provocation- who wouldn't in their position? Both circular arguments.

Yep. Have seen barely a whisper of "PREORDER/ DAY1 DLC PARADOX CUT IT OUT FROM THE MAIN GAME!!!" and the similar style complaints made. People threw wobblies at 'Project $10' and things like Sten and Zaeed when they were permanently free if you bought a copy at any time, and not just preorder.

Gonna wait until it hits 100% off, personally. Also loling at the various people on the internets who hate on EA for Day 1 DLC yet think Paradox's veritable lahar of release day dlc is the epitome of customer friendly and completely different! basically because it's paradox doing it. Meh, fanboys gonna fan, should know since I was one.

I've heard it said that they remove the warhead quite often to increase range (that's certainly what I heard said about the ones fired at Tel Aviv in the last flare up, which were a Grad variant iirc), so all you get on impact is a friction mark. My brain says that they'd potentially have problems with the ballistics if they did that but I'm, er, not a rocket scientist and they certainly aren't the most reliable of things performance wise whether they do that or not. In any case their rockets are clearly intended more as a "we're here, don't relax" rather than an actually useful military weapon, and cost a lot more to shoot down than to make.

They seriously haven't, it's a tiny overclock, PS4 is still quite a bit more powerful. Yeah, some way, not most of the way- and they are still stuffed unless they can drop the base price, hence the suggestion as to why kinect may be going as compulsory. I'm not sure how much the power difference will matter practically for non exclusive games since the underlying architecture is so similar, I'd suspect in most cases they'd simply be written with the on3's lower specs in mind rather than the PS4's anyway.

Joker gets and wants props for engaging autopilot- but that is consistent with The Shep being... not exactly the brightest star in the galaxy, intellect wise. S/He gets betrayed/ manipulated how many times over the course of the series? S/He managed the extraordinary feat of eliminating two mafia dons for a third mafia don without cottoning on, for example. In fact there really isn't much about ME you cannot retcon by simply remembering that Shep has the mental faculties of a small stick of broccoli, including Joker's 'skills'. OTOH I can't remember the DA protagonists being quite so consistently dim, especially The Warden.

I'd not be surprised in the least if it becomes an optional paperweight. It's a very good way to make up the price difference between it and the PS4, and they've already gone some way towards making up the performance difference. I just don't see MS caring that much about people thinking they're spying, whereas being able to reduce the price of their console to a more affordable level and having another peripheral to sell, that I can see. Kind of depends on how the Kinect is connected kinected to the main console as to whether that is practical, of course.

Disestablish the military and reestablish states' militias; then people could properly bear arms as part of a well regulated militia and hono(u)r the constitution. Might actually be an interesting (if unrealistic and almost certainly unworkable) idea. The only realistic defence against the military has ever been having them well connected, grounded and integrated into civil society, so that if given an illegal order they'll disobey it. And that requires being under the control of the civilian government, anything else is a recipe for military dictatorship.

I'd be very surprised if they weren't storing pretty much everything text based- text is small, easy to search and easy to store; and easy to remove duplicates so no need to store the million Nigerian Money Scam and other spam that could gum the system up. It's a byte per letter, plus some for the headers without any compression at all. Images and audio, especially on the fly stuff, would be far more difficult as the sizes required are more massive and it's far more difficult to search effectively. Would it? They've already shown that they are willing to monitor journalists in a way Woodward and Bernstein never had to worry about, and the response to exposure has been, basically, to label those doing the exposing as criminals and traitors. Certainly, they can get a lot of useful information out of their monitoring system if they ever need leverage, because whatever anyone says people always have something to hide whether it be skiving off to go skiing, smoking a joint, having an affair or lying on the tax return about that hotel stay being business related rather than a holiday. Mostly though, it will be used to enforce ideological purity and to make sure that employees can be relied on to toe the party line much- as attempts on such systems have always been used prior. It's Panopticon Theory, a person watched or who believes they are being watched polices/ censors themselves, most of the time.

Even better if there is a spot on the doll marked 1.6% 1.6%? Pft. I'd need a 1.9% label, at the least. Why wouldn't they though? The amount of storage required to do that is truly trivial. "Walsingham visited Obsidian Forums on 12/08/13 1507 GMT" uses... about 40 bytes, without any compression or other tricks, and it's entirely plausible that it's actually easier to dragnet everything than administer some sort of always fluctuating 'undesirable' person/ site list where if you drop people/ places or miss them you may have to carry the can if something bad happens. Easier and safer to just target everyone, after all, nothing to hide == nothing to fear!

Typical Valve. Hire a real life economist and all he comes up with at the end of his contract is a microtransaction scheme for those blessed with OCD. If only he could've done the same for Greece they'd be saved. I can certainly understand selling the things since it's free money store credit, but who buys them? Someone must be doing it, and I'm torn on my reaction to those poor unfortunates. I can at least understand the reasoning for most stuff people do but I just can't quite twist my brian to understand that. I don't get it, I don't get it at all.

It's also not really much of an excuse, you simply should not have 100+ people that have never been prosecuted and aren't going to be prosecuted locked up for 10+ years. Wringing one's hands about the difficulty of it all says nothing and excuses even less; it should not happen, it should be fixed and it should be made impossible for it to happen again. And Obama did have a majority of his party in both houses at one point, lest we forget. They just spent that two years as a bunch of utterly spineless jellies, quivering and puling because of those meanie Repubs calling them names.

Meh. The judicial style used in many European countries is often referred to as an 'Inquisitorial style' system and it doesn't mean that they're all thumbscrews and red hot pokers in places even Renly never found, just that it's different from the adversarial style used by anglos. Just about every term usable for a quasi religious order has negative connotations- including, say, Templars.

Yeah, but that's just people complaining it won't be exactly like MM VI, which they've stated from the get go it won't be like. It will be like another prior game in the series though. That sort of complaining ain't constructive and is wholly subjective ("I don't want a chocolate milkshake, I want a vanilla milkshake. 2/3 of all milkshakes sold are vanilla, so I'm right!"). It's not going to change at this point, either build a bridge and get over it, or don't buy. I do have some sympathy as I'm moderately peeved about Thiaf with emo Garrett, his stapled to the ground legs and new found ability to struggle when fighting only three guards simultaneously, which is equally subjective, but that ain't going to be like anything prior in the series.

M&M 5/ World of Xeen was their stated target. They never promised VI/VII gameplay which is probably sensible since I'd have difficulty explaining a single good thing from VI/VII even though I actually liked them rather a lot. No doubt Grimrock having good sales played into the game being made at all but that was more in the 'blobber' style sense, not in making it into a strict dungeon crawler.

Arabs and Jews haven't even existed as distinct groups for 5000 years, and had a far better relationship than Arabs (Muslim Arabs) and Christians or Jews and Christians up until around a century ago. It's no coincidence that when Izzy and Ferdy went full pogrom post Granada most of the Jewish refugees went to the Ottomans, for example. And 'victory' is achieved the same way it always has, make the other side unwilling or unable to continue, or come to an agreement prior to that point.