Raithe

Hm, for those folk still wandering about the voice actors of Saints Row 4 and who is returning and who isn't.. In case you hadn't found out yet: The Cast: Keith David - As himself Danielle Nicolet - Shaundi Jennifer Jules Hart - Shaundi #2 Natalie Lander - Kinzie Kensington Terry Crews - Benjamin King JB Blanc - Zinyak/Phillipe Loren Michael Dorn - Maero Neil Patrick Harris - DJ Veteran Child Yuri Lowenthal - Matt Miller Arif Kinchen - Pierce Washington Tim Thomerson - Cyrus Temple Mike Carlucci - Zach Rob Van Dam - Bobby Rebecca Riedy - Asha Odekar Andrew Bowen - Josh Birk/NyteBlayde Michael Yurchak - CID TC Carson - Big Tony Ursula Taherian - Tanya Ogie Banks - Warren Williams The President: Nolan North - The Player Troy Baker - The Player Laura Bailey - The Player Robin Atkin Downes - The Player Diane Michelle - The Player Kenn Michael - The Player Sumalee Montano - The Player

Well, I'm not sure it's purely about the resources. If you right an npc so they're intimately linked to a specific story archetype : ie, revenge, loss, etc.. Are they going to be suitable to follow a completely seperate storyline? Would it work to the same depth if their range of emotions are tied to something else? If they aren't tied to that, are they going to have a suitable depth to really connect to the storyline and to you as the player? If they're going to assume a completely different personality type, is there any point in them being the same NPC?

I think on one hand it could be feasible ot do that on certain technical levels, but I don't think it would be able to engage as emotively if it was set up like that. Part of the reason those sorts of stories can work is because the characters (npcs) involved are fleshed out and provided with that background and depth. If you try to make each npc fit a whole bunch of different stories depending on whether you picked up x,y or z... you'd have to shift the focus on each specific character and provide too many story linkages. So you'd end up with shallower characters with the potential of linking to multiple arcs.. Also, that could mean that each NPC's "own" brand of story would be set aside in favour of the new one. So at what point would that choice be made? Or were you meaning that rather then each NPC having their own storyline, there are a dozen or so stories that randomly get linked to the NPC's travelling with you depending on choices you've made and how you've interacted with the world and them?

Far Cry 3 has some weaknesses, but some amsuing points as well. On the one hand it's got the whole "go through hell to rescue your friends one by one, make sure they can hide out safely while you get the rest, provide them an escape option from the island.. and then the moment you say 'you guys go, I'm staying here' you get accused of being a jerk who always runs away".. On the other, you get a german mercenary with some snappy "evil. huh, I lied to get in this group and because I'm german they assumed I was evil and on their side. I only got the promotion because of my accent.." type of snark.

Heh. "You nuked an elder god. You didn't think he'd notice?"

Chasing up an assortment of bank things today. Pondering on whether to try the barber's in this weather.. Also have assorted furniture moving/going through piles of crap and sorting what stays and goes going on at the moment... Although right now I'm pondering on a quick cool shower to fight off some of this clammy heat.

BBC News - Nasa tests 3D-printed rocket engine fuel injector

Wait until you see the third in the series.. 2&3 were directed by Jonathan Frakes (of Will Riker STNG fame..). When you have russians trying to find a chalice that is connected to Vlad the impaler, and Stana Katic doing a lounge singing, parisian vampire impression all set in New Orleans.. you know there's going to be chuckles.

We all know most civilised life stops half an hour past the Watford Gap...

Yes, but think of the neighbours you'd have to deal with there?

Part of the fuss seems to be the balance on this. There's another trial just completed where a black woman was sent to jail for a silly number of years for firing a weapon near a guy who was threatening her. So when that's held up as one standard, and then Zimmerman on the other, a guy who from all accounts basically went out, started a fight by verbally harassing a teenager until said kid threw a punch, then when he was losing pulled a gun and shot the kid (who happens to be a black teenager), and he gets away fairly scott free... There's going to be a whole heap of fuss.

I think whats making this more of a pain, is that there's bugger all air movement. When its hot and there's a breeze, it's not so bad. But when its just "dead" air thats hanging oppresively there as you kind of bake, it feels a lot more draining.

You guys have to remember, we're all adjusted to being pleasantly warm and strip down to tshirts for soccer games when it's around 14 C (about 55 F) or so. When the weather hits 20 C, it's just warm. When it's bouncing between 26-30 C (around the 80-88 F) range, it's feeling sweltering.

I'm enjoying my wander around in Far Cry 3. Definitely a far cry from the original game. More or a story to sink into, and a lot more atmospheric island to enjoy.

Had some really weird dreams running, being a single parent and an oddball mix of conspiracy-thriller stuff while trying to organise things with dream-friends who also had kids. That was.. a bit bizarre. Stumbled awake, got a cup of tea.. then my sister's all "fix my laptop! the screens flickering oddly!"

Well that's fun. I decide Far Cry 3 is tempting at that sale price and pick it up, get it downloaded, and think that I have enough time to give it a brief play before I call it a night. Then for the "first time run" it spends 15 minutes dowloading and installing stuff, including uplay. Then when it starts up uplay, it then spends another 10 minutes dowloading updates for uplay. I finally get into the game, 5 minutes in and it crashes out. I try running it again, and it immediately crashes. I think I'm going to call it quits for now and see what it's looking like in the morning. Still a wee bit annoyed you have to be running both steam and uplay at the same time to get the damn thing to work.

I was just going to pick up Endless Space in the sale. Alas, steam keeps hanging on the purchase point and checking payment details. I guess I'll see how it fairs in the morning.

http://youtu.be/yIIBwAO0tRM

You have more headaches than anyone I ever heard of. You have a brain tumor. Eh, it's a family thing. I'm just glad I deal with headaches, not the migraines some of the family deal with.

SR2 had that weird thing in that the storyline made sense, and you had some moments of outright grim nastiness reminding you just what a vicious environment gangs can be.. and then it wrapped it all up in that arc of sillyness and juvinile behaviour that brought you away from it and made it incredibly silly fun. SR3 had a story that was more silly and didn't "fit" into a real world as such, but was generally entertaining.

Spent half the morning in bed with a headache, but decided to try pushing through the day on a fresh cup of tea,..

Bonham Carter has limited screen time. It's like 10 minutes in a movie thats in excess of 2 hours...

The Lone Ranger. It's.. not as bad as a lot of reviews are saying, but it's not that great either. It seems to be trying to tell two different stories and bouncing wildly between them. One moment its all nasty white man and native american's being butchered and that gritty western style, then its bouncing fun action sequence and wild west superhero.. It's also a wee bit long, then a wee bit silly, a tad violent, a bit grim, a wee bit long, then some more silly. Then it has some odd mystical overtones that shut down and you're left wondering if its meant to actually be mysticness or just Tonto's bat**** crazy. Yes, Depp's Tonto is totally cracked and bizarre, but there's a solid plot reason for it, and all the other Commanche in the film are actually quite good and they all think Tonto is utterly cracked and bat**** crazy. It feels like it takes about a third of the film before we actually get the Lone Ranger, so that feels a touch drawn out and probably relates to why it ends up a long ass film. But it also has some rather nice action sequences, and when in the last twenty minutes the old music starts up and the WIlliam tell overture starts playing.. that's certainly a rollicking piece of horse stunts and train action, sixgun shooting and that mix of action-comedy merging together.

C'mon, Saints Row trailer with Keith David just rocks so many humour buttons that I want to play it. The trouble with the GTAV trailer is that it presents what looks like a really nice technical open world to roam around in, with some nice gameplay ideas.. but I'm getting no real feel of soul from the game that makes me go "Yeah, I want to sink hours into this". GTA is hitting those "oh, that looks interesting, but apart from the technical shiny, I'll wait for the sales rather then preorder" buttons.

Heh, one of my friends jogs and I tried joining him. What i found out is that his "jogging" is actually full on running for 3 miles. By the time I hit the 1.5 mile mark, I found my vision tunneling down to pin pricks. Oxygen starvation is certainly interesting. And yeah, definitely not up to that pace.