Raithe

Having a yen for urban fantasy. Currently working through Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld series... Although it strikes me that an awful lot of urban fantasy is written by female authors and gets labelled as "romance". After reading so many, I have to say, the same sort of stories, with the same character interaction, written by a guy.. would never get classed as a "romance". It's kind of interesting how publishers decide to "fix" certain genres like that... Or is it just the "anti-fantasy" snobbery that goes on a lot?

Hm, the Dalish Elf origin had the taint come from the wounds caused by the mirror exploding.. the magical item had tainted mystical energies, and having shards of the mirror embed in your flesh and the mystical energies taint caused via that way.. Which is why the "proper" taint of becoming a Grey Warden "heals" or at least counters the taint caused by the exploding mirror..

According to that model, it turns a single-player game into something that you never actually purchase outright. And that's like saying "hey, this board game cluedo, you have to pay monthly fees to keep it in your house and play". MMO's, I can understand the monthly fees due to the services and costs involved. But for a single-player game? No way in hell.

I think the movie sequences in Privateer 2 were a strange mix of awesome and appalling. Quite often at the same time... Although again, a rather stellar cast of hollywood acting throughout...

And then of course, WC3 & 4.. and WC Prophecy.. had some interactive fmv sequences in them... Although finding some of the "blooper" reels for them can be amusing. - Maniac stood gazing out of the window.. Blair walks up.. Maniac glances over..double takes.. and stutters "Aren't you like.. that dude from Star Wars??!"

Ah..and I have such fond memories of some of those adventure games with fmv and all that... Who can forget Dennis Hopper in the Black Dahlia game?

Well one of the endings for Jade Empire is.. losing.. Sort of. You can be talked into sacrificing yourself for the "good of the empire" if you (as the player) belive it.. and then you get this nice ending where everybody is basically tinted by black magic being controlled by the main villain as Emperor... So I guess you could count that as "losing".

Stumbled on Clue going cheap from Amazon and got nostalgic and picked up a copy.. Sat down and watched it with all three possible endings A little silly, but still a classic comedy. Tim Curry does brilliantly as the Butler..

Hm, I really can't see how dlc would work well for this game. One of the key features is the choice and consequences and how choices from one hub can affect the others.. DLC won't work that well with it. Hm, I mean, sure they could have it so choices from the "normal" game hubs would affect the DLC stuff.. but nothing in the DLC would affect the rest of the game. So unless the DLC is designed purely to be stand alone stuff that runs outside of the games story.. (which I guess could be possible) there wouldn't be much point to it... But hey, that might just be me.

It's nice to see a new trailer.. but to my mind, it looks like a trailer for the next season of 24.. or the Bourne Generation Film X rather then a computer game trailer... I can understand why they went that way, but eh.. I'd like to see a new computer game trailer for it

Hm, I never did get into consoles.. I skipped from the old Amstrad 6128k with a tape deck to a low powered ibm compatible generic pc with a 40MB harddrive It's always seemed that most of the console games were overpriced compared to pc games.. and until the last decade didn't really have the wide variety of game genres.. (wow.. being able to casually talk about a decade like that makes me feel old..) Ah well. I guess I'm a pc gamer through-and-through.

It's that awkward balance isn't it.. I'm really interested to see how the c&c actually turns out.. and the whole concept of modern day spy rpg twitches my deus ex nostalgia... But after all these delays there's that feeling that all the excitement/longing for it is going to be seriously disapointed.. which is a little worrying. Ah well, Amazon are going to be shipping it to me on the day of release.. and the pre-order's been in existance a little over a year now...

"To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor." Now that's a fun opening line to a book. Silent in the Grave, regency era mystery/detective style. Entertaining read with some humerous twists. Makes me think what might have been produced if Jane Austen had been writing Sherlock Holmes..

I never could bring myself to finish the first Far Cry.. I think I got about 6 hours out of it.. then stopped playing for some reason and never got the ooomph to get back into it. Pretty graphics, but no real pazzow factor in the storyline or gameplay to keep me going..

Try the Liaden Universe books by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee.. space opera with some fun dialogue.. Described by certain criticts as "a cross between Star Wars and Pride and Prejudice". Michelle Sagara has a series, Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight, Cast in Secret, which have an interesting mix of fantasy and detective/mystery thrown in together with mysterious powers in the background. Also, if you can still find them Deborah Doyle and James D Macdonalad did the Mageworlds series, which is a quite good space opera collection. A mixture of roguish adventure, hunting a parents assassin, high political shennanigans, conspiracy, set with the potential for a galactic wide war in the background..

Because if people enjoyed a certain game/licence, they want more of it.. Who doesn't want more Nolf or Smac? Going with the "I loved this game, it would be great to see a followon to it where they tightened up the odd flaws in it" seems a fairly simple way of suggesting what type of games you'd like to see in the future I mean, sure, I'd like a solid rpg with heavy storyline, snappy patter, lots of choice and consequence, and something other then a "save the world from the big bad" ending.. as it is, I'm just going to have to wait a couple of months for Alpha Protocol to arrive and see how that satisfies my cravings for that sort of game.. And it would be nice to see a few decent rpgs made that aren't purely fantasy based, (or even when non-fantasy based, don't have people doing the "that's the equivalent of the fighter, that's the equivalent of the mage..."). Genres that would be interesting would be a Victorian adventure/detective .. the cyberpunky near future... a space opera or even fairly hard sci-fi.. Of course, the more "modern" you make an rpg, the more "shooter" elements you'd have to put into it because I don't really see the console section appreciating the old Fallout 1 &2 style of handling ranged weapons..

And that's why I'm glad to deal with straight English. It might be a mixed bastard of a language, but it's fun.. "We are the Anglo-Saxon collective. Your cultural and linguistal distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your biology will adapt to service ours. Cultural identity is irrelevant. Lower your pants and prepare to be boarded."

That's always the trouble.. "honor" is defined by the culture...

"For his weapon is choice.. choice and a pistol. Yes, for his two..two main weapons are choice, a pistol, and an unnerring sense of......"

But yes, will there be bonuses for people who've already had the game on pre-order for over a year?

to paraphrase.. "I am shocked, shocked to find that an actual release date has been given!"

Just finished off Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy... Entertaining read, some original aspects thrown in. Although I do think book 1 (Mistborn) was the best of the three...

Hm, I think I can agree on a couple mentioned.. Nolf 3. Majorly worthwile.. Kotor 3 - single player crpg wootage . The Old Republic MMO might be interesting, but I want my single player version. Alpha Centuari 2 - More smac... has to be a goodness Just to poke a bit at obsidian (well, sega as well) Alpha Protocol

The romance effect will be interesting to see in ME3... I mean, if you romanced Ashley (or Kaiden) in ME1.. and you go through the bizarre behaviour they give you on Horizon in ME2.. It certainly sounds like breakup material. Although, you do get an email later doing the whole "maybe I overreacted, I thought I lost you, I don't want to lose you again." But really, does a single email make up for that whole rant? So if you then get into a romance with one of the ME2 team.. and you turn the picture of Ashley/Kaiden face down.. What sort of reactions are going to turn up in ME3..

Limited ammo can add to the suspense of working your way through a level.. especially when it depends on what sort of play style you have..