Raithe

Although you do have to ask the question.. Adam Jensen doesn't get a choice on being augmented or not.. his boss decides to have it done to save his life.... But just what kind of boss then turns around and says "hey, since we're giving him cybernetic arms to save his life..let's like.. put big, retractable chisel blades in his arms! He can use them to open cans!" Just what was the thought process there?

It's always fun when there's some baggage you just can't seem to let go of.. and every now and then something brings it to mind when you're not expecting it.

Well they already wrote a sequel trilogy of books to Bladerunner.. It was only a matter of time before someone returned the idea to hollywood.

Frankly, if you have enough personal confidence in yourself.. or absolutely no understanding of why your peers might look down on you for it.. You should never need an excuse...

Snap. I had that when I was a kid. Also the big yellow technic jcb with the pneumatic parts...

Heh, some months back whilst sorting out cupboards, I stumbled on a batch of the really old space lego stuff that was still stored away.. (none of the actual bricks though) and in a random nostalgia moment I somehow ended up building this over the course of half an hour :

They also include a "this is the most impressive attempt to make the decisions a player makes in a game mean something"... I'm not sure whether to take this as a good sign about the whole "10 year evolution of a city depending on what you do".. or whether to automatically dump it in the "bad games journalist who doesn't really know what he's talking about" cynicism...

Although I do have to admit, whilst I enjoyed reading Deathwatch and seeing just how they've set it up ..... I do kind of get the feeling that they did it less for the sense it made as a roleplaying game.. and more for the "It's Warhammer 40k. We have to let them play space marines somehow!!" As an agent for the Inquisition, or as crew for a Rogue Trader I can see all sorts of potential roleplaying arenas and potential hooks and places you can use... But Space Marines by the very nature of what they are seem quite constrained. Then add on top the secretive nature of the Deathwatch adding even more constraints... You're going to roleplay training and meditation. Then you're going to roleplay them travelling to some combat type zone. Then you're going to have lots of combat with potential recon/info gathering/ possible diplomacy talk with other members of the imperium.. then you're going to kill large amounts , before you go home. Then start all over again. I can sort of see how you can expand it a touch... but I don't know. Something just never feels quite totally solid.

I am not a skipper. Garrus is not a mighty sailing man. Wrex isn't a millionaire, nor Tali his wife. Liara is not a movie star. Joker has never taught in academia. You, Ashley, are not frickin' Mary Ann. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE So absolutely no Gilligan's Island references?

So for the really worrisome... The UK Government has decided to spend around

Heh, one thing I did notice when you unlock the character creation side.. If you don't want to import your saves from DA:O, they actually provide several different optional "world histories" you can choose from (with notes highlighting the key differences) such as king / queen / joint rule, if the main character died killing the archdemon or not.. all of that. So that's a step up from ME2's "everything is renegade" style of automatic play. Of course, it's probably because it's just the demo (and a fan-mod unlocker for character creation) but I also noted when I ran through the "import save" that while it tells you all the key plot points of your save.. it identified half of them as wrong for my saves...

And takedowns will be different depending on whether you've stealthed up on someone, or are running into them face first... Throw in the context sensitive aspect of what the surroundings are like as well, and they might prove quite entertaining..

So far everything they've said when specifically mentioning melee is indeed either the lethal or non-lethal takedowns you can do with fists or blades from the augmentations. Also, every takedown you do uses up some "energy" from your bar. The first segment/bar of energy replenishes itself slowly, but any others require food and snacks eaten to restore bio-electric energy... Which apparently is part of making it very hard to be wildly melee, especially early in the game. There is the close-range stungun/taser prod thing though... I don't think there's been mention of whether it's a short range gun or a melee style weapon...

Paul Plenty of in-geek pop culture references littered throughout. A serious amount of in-jokes. Although I think most of the actual "alien" dialogue felt weak compared to the normal banter.

One of those nights where dreams leave you waking up in the wee small dark hours of the morn, with your fists clenched, grinding your teeth, and feeling like you want to attack something. Not the most conductive to a restful nights slumber.

Just for the geek humour.. from the writer of Schlock Mercenary...

There are many lines I could use in response to that.... However, I'll go with the "yes, in actual fact I'm a 300lb alsatian from canada who goes by the name 'mandy' on the weekends."

Yes, that's the author. He was also involved in writing Deus Ex Human Revolution.. so he has that inside track from that. It's not bad. It was worth the couple of pounds I spent on it. It's got that awkward timeline, since it's not totally a prequel and it spans a base of time. It starts up at x point and then near mid-point you have some references to the attack at Seraf Industries..and then runs along a bit more post-Seraf attack. There are characters who are connected to it, but you don't get any real detail on what happened. One weird thing, the couple of characters in the book who are also in on the attack on Seraf.. I could never quite decide if you were getting a bigger feel for them in the book (a fleshing out more as it were) then we will in the game, or that they were being kept a touch flat to not reveal things we'd find out about them in the game. Although it is more about a seperate line of the Illuminati's plans. Highlighting how they use lots of small manipulations to build groundswells in certain directions. Another point in it, technically this was around the date when the game was originally planned to be released... So I'm guessing the book was meant to be published at the same time.. rather then x months earlier. Edit: Heh, and James Swallow turned up on the Eidos forum thread about the book.. and when asked if he prefered orange or lime-aid.. passed the test with " I vant oh-range". And for the internet win..

That being said, I was thinking of picking up my own copies of the books for my personal library.. and good god the price. Although what really blows my mind is if I try picking them up from the shops here they're

Finished off reading Deus Ex: The Icarus Effect earlier.. Not bad actually, set just before the game, and runs into that 6 month period when Jensen's in recovery. Nicely adds to the surrounding world and has a few nods to the fans. Mostly bounces between the perspectives of two characters , one a secret service agent suspended for investigating the shooting that claimed her partner's life, and the other is a former special ops guy turned mercenary who gets recruited into an "off-the-books" black ops outfit. Even throws in a young Gunther Hermann and elaborates on how he ends up so heavily augmented... so a touch of fan-service there. Nothing about it really jumped out as potentially spoilery towards the game's story so far (at least nothing that made me go "curses! that's ruined the game for me by knowing that ahead of time."). So , more running parallel to those events with a few hints and nods towards it.

I take it you're obviously missing the "Commander Shephard" basis?

Trying to do a minor c# lesson / challenge involving triangles. (in between having to deal with various other tasks and chores completely unrelated to programming). Of course, even as I try to figure out what specific maths functionality there is in c#, I'm realising that my math skills are pretty dead and trying to remember how to actually use three given lengths to work out the angles and types of triangles..... The things you forget how to use....

Well I meant I'd enjoyed Freedom Fighters.. and Homefront looks like it's going to have certain similar styles in some way. But they've talked up about how you interact with civilians and other resistance members can have further consequences down the road.. So it's possible there might be a bit more c&c to Homefront then the simple ones of Freedom Fighters.

Your lack of awareness and attention to detail does not make them the evil mastermind though.. I always tend to cycle through the options whenever I install a game, just to see what's there... Not because I'm a paranoid sufferer of OCD. Honest.

I'm actually contemplating picking up Homefront in a couple of weeks... I mean, I enjoyed the old Freedom Fighters game, so it might be worth it.. and they have talked about how you can get different consequences in the game depending on the choices you mae and how you handle the resistance ... So I'm a tad curious how well that will play out.