Raithe

Hm, looking back over the years.. let me contemplate the ways.. Planescape Torment Deus Ex For the first two, no explanation needed NOLF 1 / 2 humour and story in such a great combination. KotOR 1 /2 both had good points and bad points, which makes it hard to choose between... Fallout 1 / 2 although I think 2 might just pip 1.. Civilization - the original , for that first time you sat down...and lost the next 24 hours to conquering the world.. Hitman Blood Money - the whole series was just so... coldly enjoyable, and the last one tidied up all the problems of first few. Alpha Centauri - It's just so damned addictive. Privateer - my introduction to serious space trade / mission / fight.. Wing Commander III / IV - well, hell, all the wing commanders fed my space opera geek but damn it, they had some fun.

There was even something about being able to select civilian clothes and/or loose bounty hunter type outfits as well as the armor for some areas... So that'll be added curiousity.

Finally got around to finishing off the Mass Effect game on Insane, and finishing off the ally achievments... Still have the 2nd run through on Dragon Age to jump back on... Thinking of having a break from gaming for a few days, or maybe trying out some Prototype.. Although I did dig out an old copy of AvP2 (from back in 2002) to have a dabble with at some point... Mostly just waiting for the new year to arrive with those awaited game releases for the PC...

Well there was some mention of armor customisation.. specifically along with the "you don't have to go around with pink armor now..." So beyond having 5 pieces of armor.. apparently you get to custom paint it or some such...

Maybe the hype has only been in certain circles, but there's been chunks of it going on for the last year+ over "there's this totally original concept that Cameron's been working on for years and finally got greenlighted thats going to be the most awesomest awesome". On a level of "I'm a sci-fi geek and it looks interesting" I'm going to watch it. But there's a point where tv adverts, online adverts, magazine adverts, hype in forums months before its released, movie news and rumours hit an emotional wall of "for crying out loud I'm sick of seeing Avatar!!! every other time I look around, turn a page, or flip a channel.". That's the sort of hype that pushes me into the "nah, I'm going to wait awhile." When I don't get a mental cringe from seeing the film's name, then I'll be able to sit back and try enjoying watching it.

The over=hype and the extreme amount of adverts hitting about it are kind of pushing me in the "eh, I'll wait" in regards to the cinema experience.. It's getting to the point where every 4th blockbuster seems to have the "films will never be the same again!" tag in some format.. But I did flick through one of those "Art of Avatar" books the other day, and I have to say the concept art and development art really hit my imagination buttons..

If it goes "modern age" setting, it could be really bizzaro.. And the franchises combine.. Assassin's Creed : Hitman.. where it turns out Agent 47 actually has genetic material from....

Ah the joys of forum threads when they sideline into the arguments over what games are RPG and what aren't... to add gasoline or not.. Next thing you know there'll be discussions of Jedi Truths...

I've actually been doodling around a bit with Mass Effect again... that pre-prep to remind myself of it all before ME2 comes out in the new year...

The thing that I do wonder on (sort of , in that occasional way fanboys of any subject can) is that if you look back at it, people started to say the pacing slowed down and too many "meandering" lines appeared when the authors illness first kicked in and the first delay in publishing occured... Looking at it from the sidelines.. (and maybe with a certain squint) makes you wonder if the "one a year" schedule kept going would people have found the books to be as "slow" as they did when you had the various pauses and hitches in their delivery? The other thing is, an author laid up in bed, is probably going to end up looking at his stories, and tweaking them, and having cool ideas (at least in their own mind) and just naturally... adding bits and pieces. Of course, when there's hordes of "little" tweaks and addendums added to your central plotline and assorted subplots... Which might be what you call getting "sidetracked". Sort of random thoughts, but there you go..

There's always room for a Blofeld cat. And where better then an AP forum?

It's always the trouble with a certain amount of intricate plotting on those epic scales... how much detail you can spend on the characters developing in certain ways and moving around the "chessboard" in preperation for those end sequences and big finishes.. The first couple of books were introduction, then I'd say 4-6 were the "big ball starting to move" areas and the world really starting to notice and be affected.. then 7-10 was the orchestration, the laying out of gambits and the moving into place. Starting with book 11, and now with 12 it's the final phase and the big sweeping finish. Some people enjoy that sort of pace, some don't. But that's the way it's felt to my mind.. (now I'm prepared for the scorn to be heaped on my head...)

Hm, more funky goodness...

It was one of those interesting things, WEG were given leave to do the Rebellion era (which at the time was before the EU really exploded) and then picked up when the Timothy Zahn books came out.. there got to do the first "Knights of the Old Republic" era , but Lucasarts had the firm rule they couldn't make any rule sets for pc's to play dark siders.... They only changed that when Star Wars d20 came out shortly after The Phantom Menace... Lucasarts gave the go-ahead to dark side rules for the purpose of playing "characters that can be redeemed" etc.... It's possible to play it without the cheese factor overtaking it.. but damn it all, its space opera, so there's always a slice of cheese somewhere around..

Tsk.. I've been reading too much John Ringo.. everytime I hear "Georgia" I keep thinking "the country not the state".... Hm, although a game about black ops type endeavours being named "Project Georgia" would make me wonder if that had been going through the developers minds..(except the other state related project names..) ah well. Mind twisties at work..

Yes, it sounds like it's time for everyone to pull out their official "Evil Mastermind Plans " and provoke some incident to hurry operations along..

Persuade is more the conversational skill of the character, but the actual Disciplines of "Dominate" and "Presence" are to represent the vampire powers. Dominate is the hypno-eye-gaze control, it can be more of a hammer strike, but it's not always obvious that its being done. "Presence" was the assortment of powers that just give the Vampire more of an aura, like some people have an almost physical sense of charisma oozing out. Dominate was more outright control, Presence could just make the vamp more friendly/terrifying depending on their mood, and Persuade is just natural talent/skill for conversation and approaching people. At least, that's how it was in the pen and paper, and was the basis for the two crpgs.

Yes, it's all a big conspiracy plot to have widely different dates showing to confuse the hell out of people...

The blood splatter is fine for the combat sequences.. but it's a bit out of place in the rest of it. I turned off the "persistent gore" to avoid that small annoyance factor Although you can get the dog to lick you clean of blood...

So is that the gamer geek version of a zen koan? "If you don't notice a bug in a game and play on, does it count as a bug?"

Oh, it had its entertaining moments, and was a nice break away from Dragon Age... but some of it was really frustrating. The White House assault particularly.. Coming out of the tunnel, 3 seconds later dead. Reloads to you stood there, 3 seconds later dead. Scrub, Rinse, Repeat for a dozen times before finally managing to drop prone into a hole before death...

The majority of the voice acting isn't that bad. It's just that some of the dialogue isn't the best written. To go with the nerd quote "you can write this stuff, you just can't speak it."

Well I've just spent about six and a half hours finishing off the solo campaign... Eh, it's got some nice level designs, and some of the most goddamned frustrating ones I've ever encountered in a game. I think I only kept playing because of the couple of nice ones I'd encountered and enjoyed, and curiousity on just how the "story" would go... But when you get down to it, it's a fairly standard shooter on rails. But nothing worthy of major hype. And yeah, that airport mission does have a certain creepy "i need a shower" sensation to it.

Ah, but isn't it fairly obvious Bioware are wanting to make it a repeat use? Why make Dragon Age 2 , When they can do Dragon Age : The Next Generation, Dragon Age : Now We're Gloomy Like Witcher, Dragon Age : We Want Even More Gold....

By the time you see an enemy, or move the mage into range to throw a Fireball , everyone else will be mixing it up with the enemy already.. Unless you're very quick with your micromanagement That was a pain towards the end sequence, set up Blizzards / Tempests to take out