Fallen Ghost

This is it.....it's all over for Holland/Netherlands.....the octopus has spoken and it does not have good news for the Netherlands: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-0...-cup-final.html We can now safely write off the Netherlands.

Most of the game was dominated by Spain as Germany adopted a defense/counterattack strategy which ultimately didn't work as they only ended up having two shots on goal(that didn't materialize) and Spain beat them by 1-0

I get the impression that Spain has been saving their cans of ass-kicking for this last match. Germany did good but they burned their cans of ass-kicking too fast and were left empty handed against Spain......I can see why they did it......England and Argentina were no joke but they were still left empty. The Netherlands used up their cans of ass-kicking to eliminate Brazil who always uses three cans of ass-kicking per match and they felt it badly against Uruguay where they were really close to being eliminated. But NOT Spain.....nooooo sir.....their cans of ass-kicking are still unopened and ready to use. I hope he Netherlands are ready to have the charred remains of their behinds handed to them on a silver plate.

That was glorious. Now Spain just has to break the Netherlands and they'll win which I think is the likely outcome.

I was thinking along the lines of a close call between Spain and Germany with Spain the likely winner unless a draw drags them to the penalties in which case I think Germany will probably win. Still my feeling is that this will be something like a 1-0 or 2-1 victory for Spain. I also think that Germany will play better and generate more scoring chances but Spain's defense will ultimately prove to be a wall very hard to pass.

Marijuana is hard to detect by the police when they pull you over. There is no effective means of testing you for it on the spot. If this gets legalized the amount of accidents caused by intoxicated drivers is going to go through the roof and the police won't be able to do a thing to prevent it.

Hmm I don't know.....Germany also lost by a goal to Serbia in the group stage and barely won against Ghana. They did good against England and got a clear victory over Argentina but they aren't anywhere close to infallible.

I think it will be interesting to see if Spain gets past Germany on Wednesday. On paper Germany was about evenly matched with England if only slightly the underdog with 2 less victories and they beat England. Now Spain and Germany are about evenly matched on paper with Spain being slightly the underdog with 2 fewer victories and 5 fewer goals. If they get past Germany then they'll probably win.

Judging by his opening post it seems like he's indeed talking about Sis except that her in-game profile clearly says late teens and SIE's profile says SIE is in her forties so it sounds like he's just clueless. Now when I look at his signature it becomes apparent that it's a troll so that may be it right there.

EMPs will not work at all in any way shape or form without 1 point in sabotage after the broken tutorial.

No that got me stuck on my first playthrough. It's a perfectly legitimate bug and proof the tutorial is broken. The tutorial should give you 3 advancement points and tell you to purchase one skill in Sabotage and ONLY then it should tell you to use an EMP grenade on the door or alternatively it shouldn't let the door be opened by the EMP grenade unless you have one point in sabotage. Letting me continue thinking that I'm fine as long as I have a couple EMPs on back-up for 80% of the game only suddenly and without reason have me need an EMP only to notice that it's useless is simply a bad design choice. So if you think for one second I will or should delete that complaint then you're the most stupid person I've seen post around here.

what do you think are the bad parts of the game? the only weird thing I noticed is sometimes the enemies accidently shoot each other I saw it happen twice during the saudia arabia mission and on my first playthrough I saw an enemy fist fighting the air. Other than that I haven't noticed anything wrong with it to tell you the truth Let's see.... Broken achievements that you can't unlock by doing what they tell you to do like.....letting your gun do the talking. Bypass minigame in way of mission critical point required 12 nodes to be bypassed in 20 secs where no other similar bypass required more than 6 nodes to be cut. Tutorial lets you use EMP grenades to open a door without any sabotage skill and without telling you that in order to ever use one again you'll need one point in sabotage. Poorly unbalanced economy......AP has enough funds to throw on luxurious safehouses and a zillion TVs and computers without ever leaving a money trail(since nobody knows of them there's no money trail hence they don't answer for where the funds went) but you have to scavange and pickpocket the dead to start hoping that at the end-game you can afford one good weapon without hope of better stealth armor or upgrades as gadgets and intel cost a lot. Most missions insist on forcing you into fights even though the game clearly reprimands you many times for not going stealth and the major emphasis is on stealth. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/v...-Bullet-Massage Poor AI......often stands looking at walls....I entered a few rooms surrounded by enemies all around and none saw me because they were literally watching the walls. Saw enemies glitching trying to run into a turret already occupied by another.....stuck half way down between a high point they jumped from and the ground and so on. Horrible pop-in textures. Ultimately the game is too happy to let you sink your points in skills that will be useless in a few key situations effectively leaving you stuck. One time when I was at the train station in Moscow I entered this short dark tunnel, interacted with a switch that closed the door behind me and didn't open the one in front of me forcing me to restart the mission. And so on......I'm sure there's at least a dozen things I'm forgetting about right now.

Yes that was my first reaction too.....what's all the negativity about this is great. However the longer you play the harder the game becomes to defend as you star slamming head first into the bad parts of the game. Ultimately while I enjoy it I can definitely see why it got the poor reviews and why it shouldn't have better ratings.

Nobody noticed the Star Wars reference? What's wrong with you? The perk for bluffing two guards is called "These Aren't the Agents You're Looking For".....in Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi uses the force power known as Mind Trick on some Imperial Troopers to let them past the checkpoint with the droid the troopers wanted to find(R2D2) and uses the phrase "These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For". Not to mention this reference is a shout to all the Star Wars and Obsidian fans who played the epic KotOR II.

1.8 mil for ME2 is way too low....the actual sales of ME2 are around 6.6 million copies. And the link you're in so much denial about: "Mass Effect and, of course, its 6.6 million-selling sequel Mass Effect 2, which was released earlier this year." http://www.vg247.com/2010/04/14/muzyka-and...eynote-develop/ That's not the only one either......there were dozens of news reports from back in March or April when BioWare and EA announced they shipped 6.6 million copies of ME2.....and those are just physical manufactured copies not even counting digital downloads. If I were you I would have taken his 1.8 mil figure without a whisper and hoped nobody pulled up the real 6.6 mil figure because the 1.8 looks a lot better for your argument.....it's only 1.6 mil over .2 mil rather than 6.4 mil more. Who said I'm arguing? I only stated that if your going to make a statement without backing it up with facts, you would be talking out of your ass. Reading comprehension is a wonderful thing. In any case, thank you for providing factual evidence regarding the whole "argument". Considering that ME2 is one of the most acclaimed games in a very long time and has one of the highest Metacritic scores of all time(96) why would you even bother asking for proof to a figure like 1.8 mil? If anything it should seem low(and it is) but expecting one of the highest ever rated games by the games industry not to have sales in the millions seems.....pointless. Not to mention the heavy advertising campaign ME2 had on TV and during the superbowl playoffs and a lot more. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/...ss%20Effect%202

1.8 mil for ME2 is way too low....the actual sales of ME2 are around 6.6 million copies. And the link you're in so much denial about: "Mass Effect and, of course, its 6.6 million-selling sequel Mass Effect 2, which was released earlier this year." http://www.vg247.com/2010/04/14/muzyka-and...eynote-develop/ That's not the only one either......there were dozens of news reports from back in March or April when BioWare and EA announced they shipped 6.6 million copies of ME2.....and those are just physical manufactured copies not even counting digital downloads. If I were you I would have taken his 1.8 mil figure without a whisper and hoped nobody pulled up the real 6.6 mil figure because the 1.8 looks a lot better for your argument.....it's only 1.6 mil over .2 mil rather than 6.4 mil more.

OMG I was sooo expecting Mike to punch Darcy in the face when he went back to calling him Mikey 2 or 3 sentences later but that never happened....so much for the editor's cut lol

That sounds like the Bourne movies' credits theme except with lyrics 100x worse.

I did not have the B button option at all.....that is only there in two instances....to use an EMP if you have one AND the skill or to bash the door in....it wasn't there. At any rate NO I have never needed to bash a door I unlocked...EVER...because upon unlocking a door(either with EMP, lockpick or bypass) the doors always opened themselves with one exception in Saudi Arabia because when opened the door triggered a cutscene so that was the ONLY door in the whole game that needed to be opened once unlocked.

So it's his own fault if he doesn't read up on stuff?So glad you agree. No I simply thought it was appropriate that he hold himself up to his own standards which is why I just put his quote back at him. I have played RPGs almost exclusively for the past 7 years with rare exceptions and I have never ran into the problem of being stuck because I didn't check out a skill the tutorial said I wouldn't need anyway.

NOT without a point in sabotage.....you can detonate a million EMPs right in front of a door critical to mission advancement all day and it will NOT open if you have 0 points in Sabotage. You clearly did not know this either at the time of the post I'm quoting so you obviously did not read the same thing I'm being blamed for not reading. Sooo....."Also, seriously? You didn't read up all skills? Come on, this is an RPG... what the hell dude?"

Why would I look into a skill I don't care about when the tutorial clearly said I can use EMPs to disable electronic devices without further requirement and when I didn't even need to think about EMPs for 80% of the game? I read over all the skill enabled activated powers but had no reason to look into passive powers when I had no real problems. Your logic is ONLY amounting to one simple argument: It's my fault for not assuming the game's tutorial was broken and not assuming the game would inadvertently and for no apparent reason put an impossible obstacle in my way really late in the game because I all of a sudden need a skill the tutorial clearly spelled out that I'd never need. Your argument would be valid if there was a warning on the box somewhere reading: "Assume all features are broken" but if it did I wouldn't have bought it to begin with.

The minor issues encountered in all the games you mentioned fade away like tiny little ants next to an elephant when compared to the bad AI and balance issues of Alpha Protocol.

WRONG: in the tutorial you can use EMP grenades with exactly 0 points in Sabotage.....to EVER use an EMP grenade again you NEED at least a poing in Sabotage which I only found out 80% through my first playthrough when I ran into an impossible minigame and I NEVER cheated or modded or exploited anything at all. The game just randomly decided to put a 12 node bypass in the way of my mission objective and give me 20 seconds to complete it....it IS impossible with a console controller. I ONLY started modding after my 4th playthrough and it NEVER influenced minigame difficulty in my playthroughs but this is irrelevant to my point....the game's tutorial IS bad....this all happened with NO modding/cheating/exploiting of ANY kind. That is a FACT.

I've played all major RPGs since KotOR(2003) and none have such a bad AI, a bad tutorial or nearly as many balance issues.