Raithe

To jump back to the original story a moment.. Part of the issue is not that the "jokes" were there, but that the memo also contained serious aspects. So it couldn't be dismissed just as a "joke memo" going around, it was a working memo that had a bunch of serious stuff, and then had the "jokey" stuff mixed in.... which blurs the edges of how it would have been taken. Plus a lot of people are tending to get the perception that Catholics (and other forms of Christianity) are getting very short shrift on political correctness matters these days.. Such as the amount of jobs where people are not allowed to wear crosses or such as visible symbols of faith for the potential "offense" it might cause non-christians. Whereas plenty of non-christian religions have some very visible symbols that have staff are allowed to wear because it might offend their religion... So there's a certain level of "if it was x religion rather then the Catholic Church there would have been a bigger fuss and someone would have lost their job already...". Personally I'm standing on the sidelines and playing devil's advocate from both sides. I'm cheerfully agnostic, and tend to feel that any organised religion has a tendency to shift personal faith into peer-pressure symbols where the belief is in the rote activities rather then in the faith.

Now it might also be my paranoia running rampant But also half the cabinet the past decade were also scottish marxists... Makes one wonder... Scotland gets its own parliment, can make its own laws, and now gets a say in how the UK government (which is all the government England has..) is run.. and gets access to the whole tax base.. The same gets said for the Welsh parliment that's up and running.... It just seems to me that makes a rather confusing mess... "we want our independance. we want our own government. oh, and while we're at it, we want to be able to interfere in your government, and have your taxes." The other funny thing over the 13 years of Labour running things.. Have you noticed how many census forms, or general official forms these days where you have to note your background offer up choices of "Scottish, Welsh, Irish, or British" , apparently according to most official forms you just can't be English these days....

Ah, the question of how much are spoilers, and how much is just pure tease... At least tis but one more month before I can sink my teeth into this..

It's actually true. Although I can't quite define the term "rabid", but yes, during their college/university days they were all seriously socialist marxist followers... Then it became the general political joke a decade ago that the UK no longer had a leftist government party and a rightist government party.. we just had three confused parties that met somewhere in the middle..

The silly was restrained for the early fallouts? The game box came with a "this game is rated mature due to violence, drug use, and extreme use of monty python references" sticker on it...

Because democracy in action is about a popularity contest for the mob? And long term issues rarely appeal to the masses. Short term, shiny things work better during election times. Or is that just me being a touch cynical?

Activation limits are annoying.. but I don't know.. when you get the activation back when you uninstall a game, I don't really see that much of a major problem with it.. (although it's pain if your machine crashes out big style and you need to reinstall everything without being able to uninstall it first..). But with 5 or so activations that isn't a huuuge problem. It's when you have activation limits that you can only use once that are the serious issue.

"If there was a way to get magic for free, do you really think I'd have spent so much time sacrificing children to my dark gods? For spells, I mean. Obviously there'd still be sacrifices. A hobby's a hobby." - But threadwise, hm, just think what Deus Ex would be like...

I keep feeling like I know Mike's voice from somewhere... but tsk.. nothing springs out from his imdb listing.. It's starting to annoy me now...

Wait, is that subsonic ammo only being available if you have the stealth pack pre-order bonus, or that the ammo type is in the game regardless of your copy but you get to start of with some as the bonus rather then having to wait and buy it via your safe houses later in the game? Subsonic ammo would seem a very important aspect of playing a stealth route in the game, and would kind of suck if you could only get access through a specific pre-order that's only available in the states..

Shame on you. Kate Beckinsale in that outfit... and you ahven't watched it?? To visit the topic, have they actually shown much of the Saudi Arabia hub apart from the weapons dealers depot out in the back of beyond? I kind of get the idea that a good weaponsdealer / terrorist isn't going to stash an arms depot in the middle of the city.. I mean, it might not be the most realistic for aesthetics in some areas.... but that's one devil's advocate thought.

There's also Biowares new concept of making "free" DLC as part of the whole "buy a legit copy and you get access to this on day one". It's a semi-effective way of approaching piracy and the second-hand game market. Develop one sort of extensive DLC (ala Zaeed and Shale) specifically to coax people into buying the game first.. Then some months down the line release other similar versions for the cost of a couple of drinks from a cafe.. I think Kasumi's mission made a more interesting setup then Zaeed's. The whole "run around a factory on some jungle planet" was very similar to other areas within the game. While Kasumi's "mansion party break in" was something a bit more shiny and different from the rest of the game.

As I recall, you can't exactly master every skill in one gameplay.. and part of replaying is to choose different skill sets as you play through, changing the game play as well as the choices you make within the plot... Sure it can be fun to play through from the start with some bonus type things from having completed the game before, but eh, that's not what replay value is all about. It's about having a new experience within the game, not the same old expereince just with better skills from the start... So far the word is that there's roughly 20-30 hours of gameplay to go through the game once... And that there's about 12 hours of cinematics, of which in a single play through you'll probably see about a third of.. So to explore the game fully, you'll need what, to play it through at least three times in extremely different ways.. and spend about 50-60 hours playing it? That's not even counting the idle curiousity of mixing/matching choices to see how different combinations might have some effect on the story and the fun of seeing just how you manage to make friends/enemies... Value for money, pretty much any game that lets you play 20+ hours for the same cost as a couple of evenings at the pub with friends seem good to me.

Clash of the Titans (the new one) .. eh.. it's an average'ish movie. watchable, but I'd say more for the dvd then a rush to the cinema for it. Some nice acting, and the cgi doesn't get too in-your face for the majority of it. Kind of wish the Medusa had more of a speaking role then a slither and hiss.. I didn't get quite the same "epic greek" feel to it that I had watching the original version for the first time. Admittedly, I was about 12 when I saw that first.. but still... And no nods to the Harryhausen school of stop motion either..

Wasn't the best preview with the repeated comparing things to Bioware games... And yeah I saw that "hacking being a nod to Mass Effect" and had a wtf moment. I really do get the feeling that a lot of people seem to get very focused on a very basic approach when they look at some games...

There I was, reading this thread and giving some thought to actually buying a copy of this to play when it's out.... and then I suddenly remembered it's Ubisoft and that craptastic new drm. Which slides it into the automatic rejection pile. Ah well. I shall focus on the joys that Alpha Protocol should bring when it arrives instead

Amazon.uk pre-order is

a hobby is always a matter of perception and perspective.. shame on you Purkake, lame to one person is exciting to another.. tis the way of the world.

And at least while they do compare it to ME...they also mention that it was being made before ME was released..

I'm fairly motivated for it's release... Obsessed might be a touch extreme, but it's the game that I'm really focused on this year.

I'm pretty sure I recall there being some mention that not all missions relate to the main storyline.. That there are missions which you can choose to do just for the benefits of improving relations with certain NPC's, to gain intel on others.. things like that... Of course, that's relying on some hazy memory of earlier interviews...

I'm theorising that it will have passive abilties that reduce chance of knock back/down from cqb attacks, and such like... Rather then greater health, just a touch more likely to shrug off damage or act as if it isn't so bad. "Tis but a flesh wound..."

Taking the interviews together, it sounds like increasing skills with particular weapons will give you improvements to their use (damage, amount of recoil, the small things) and open up a mixture of passive / active abilties to use with those weapons.. but at the same time they've built it so that people who have serious "twitch" skills can treat it like a standard shooter if they don't bother to improve the gun skills..

Not a bad little interview...

Good luck then with the shift in work. And enjoy San Fran.