BruceVC

This software implementation at this new customer I've been working on is going really well, despite some initial teething problems due to environmental issues I am about 60% done. Its been interesting because the customer is relatively far away from where I live, say 60 km one way. But its given me a chance to go to a different gym after work and almost experience a different culture. That's the thing about living in big city, there is always the risk of becoming insulated as we visit the same shops, malls and recreational places on the weekend. So this has been a nice change and given me an opportunity to see other parts of Johannesburg

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63420-the-heart-attack-grill-las-vegas/ Guys this old post of mine is relevant to this discussion, for me it highlights just how completely out of control some companies are around making a profit at the expense of the health of consumers. To be honest I feel the Heart Attack clinic is an excellent candidate for federal government closure or forcing them to make fundamental changes to how they choose to conduct there business. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone cannot be supportive of government intervention in this example.

I can actually. The writing doesn't stand out much (as most of us agree), but that goes both ways. Not bad, not very good. Serviceable. And then there are some gems. It really is good enough for me. Not every quest, every line of dialogue must be a pearl of wisdom to cherish in your dreams and write sweaty fanfic about. Remember, it's such a vast game compared to something like Planescape: Torment: The Corridor Simulator: The Novel Wannabe. There will be highs and lows. Overall I've had a very positive vibe from this game. The quest design. Well, I have never played any game with such a varied set of quests. I've gotten quests from eavesdropping on people, from reading random notes in the wilderness, from reading books in bookshelves, from picking up innocuous swords, from sleeping in the wrong inn, from killing the right person.. I even got a quest because I picked up a red, annoying flower! I LOVE THAT!! I love that anything can evolve into a quest! I picked a random safe in some random building in some random village, and lo and behold, one of the items triggered a quest. Fantastic! I've helped a weirdo fix his wagon, I've hunted trophy animals for a crazed hunter, I've competed in an archery contest with some girl on a mountain top, I've explored sunken ships for stranded captains, I've fought the demons inside a mad god's mind, I've stolen goats from giants, I've invaded castles together with an army, I've competed in a drinking contest with a cheat (and I might have ended up married, not sure), I've helped a dog return to his immortal master, I've joined up with a ghost girl to reclaim some honor and some treasure, I've hunted down bandits, vampires, werewolves, assassin's, you name it. I've so far done over 300 quests and sure, some of them were not worth the time it took to complete them, but man.. I've had a lot of fun with this game. I've mentioned this before but I haven't played Skyrim yet, I purchased the Legendary Edition on Steam and plan to play the game soon. To be honest most of the opinions on this forum have had a negative sentiment about Skyrim so its a refreshing change to see some positivity. Your feedback on some of the quests has got me even more excited so all I can say is "yay, nice one " ( I think people also tend to focus on the negative in a game and that overshadows the positive experience) Ah, but I don't charge you for reading my pearls of wisdom- it's a service I provide for free for the betterment of mankind and as such I have no obligation to be in the least bit interesting. My posts are also not intended to be entertainment (most of the time), entertainment is meant to, well, entertain. I literally cannot remember doing anything entertainment wise and thinking 'wow, that was serviceable, an average experience which was neither overly good nor overly bad'. I'm sure I have thought that at various times, but if the experience was that bland and unremarkable then I will have forgotten about it near instantly. On the other hand I can at least remember stuff that was rubbish as well as stuff that was good, but the 'average' stuff? May as well not have happened. Zor maybe the reason you think that the writing in Skyrim lacked creativity was because you didn't understand what they were trying to explain? It happens sometimes in games. Also did you play the English version.. maybe the NZ version lacks the depth and eloquence of the English version. Think about it...its possible ....

Can you explain how informing people that drinking soft drinks,that is bad for there health, instead of water every day is somehow about power and control? Remember as I mentioned the WHO has no legal mandate in your country, they don't "control" anything. They can merely inform. And to be honest I can't see individual governments being able to enforce these prudent measures because of the resistance from people saying " governments are interfering in our constitutional right" ..like in the USA with the attempts to implement gun control. So if anything I would be concerned about powerful lobbyist groups and how they protect there own vested interests irrespective if a change benefits the common man

Typical comment from a communist, attack the big business that's making our economies grow

Guys lets not get carried away by this link, it does make sense factually but we need to see it in the context of a per country perspective. Firstly the WHO will never be able to enforce some kind of global ban or reduction on alcohol and sugar, they can only advise countries. Secondly there is such disparate implementations of good health practices throughout the world that we are never going to see a monolithic "one method" suits all. For example in certain countries in the Middle East you are able smoke in hotel foyers Finally there is a huge problem with obesity and unhealthy lifestyles in places like the UK and the USA where the governments of those countries do have the best interests of there citizens in mind. So I would make a point that you can't really have enough awareness campaigns of how people can improve there overall health because there are real health problems that have become so ubiquitous in many parts of the world. I also think that reducing your alcohol and sugar intake makes sense on a number of levels if you don't use a semblance of moderation

Same here. All i remember is that i paid too much for ME3 and that it finally had decent UI. If ME or ME2 had the same UI i might have even entertain a thought of replaying either. But as it stands i will probably skip every Bioware game for the next decade. And the only game of theirs i might replay is BG ( played enough BG2 and expansion pack to last a lifetime). Mmmmmm, you treading dangerously close to contradicting yourself and losing credibility. A while ago during a heated discussion you said " you would never play another Bioware game ever again", but I suppose you meant new Bioware games and not the older IE which I feel is reasonable so don't worry about any judgement.

I think you did, I only killed her near the end and I scored several runes by not killing her

So I've just finished Dishonored and it was brilliant, one of the best games I've played in ages. It deserves a solid and well deserved 80/100. I really enjoyed many of the features around game design that included The general narrative The fact there were many alternative methods to complete missions The usage of the heart to read secrets of people The way they encouraged you to explore the maps to find runes and bone charms The special abilities were a nice component of battle Some other things I'll discuss that I did during the game under a spoiler warning for those who haven't played it I'm looking forward to the sequel

Shepard is the main character and the story is basically about this synthetic alien race called the Reapers that wants to wipe out most of the current, civilised and intelligent life forms to make way for the next cycle of evolution. Your job is to stop them doing that ( I think that's right )

Guys if you enjoy cute dog videos you need to watch this and read the history underneath the video http://za.news.yahoo.com/video/german-shepherd-caught-red-nosed-103322010.html

Do you think that it would be viable to do the same with a game like Skyrim where following the quest marker was all you did and descriptions where lazy? @Alanschu: I understand what the mechanic is and i'm not against it; although the point brought in the article about the level design are valid, but the amount of information the player has in a game dictates the extent of their strategies. It can be an inane thing as it doesn't affect what the most viable solution is, or it can be a cheat button such as in the latest hitman. It wasn't the same in DX:HR because it came with a cost which balanced its usefulness. Ultimately I don't believe that is a faulty mechanic but that it is being used lazily to "handheld" players and make sure they don't get lost, something that could be solved with good level design, quest objectives and a map. I have to confess I haven't played Skyrim yet but its going to be on my game list in the next 2-3 games. I have been researching exactly what you mentioned about Skyrim and there are some Mods that remove map markers and apparently one that adds more details to quest information so you can find what you looking for through decent exploration

I know this may not seem relevant but it ties in Alan's point about "not using a certain ability" I'm playing and loving Dishonored at the moment and I'm enjoying the functionality where you can choose to hide the quest markers so you need to explore to find where you going. The only issue I'm finding is at times I turn it back on because I'm lazy on certain maps

Personally, The ending was one thing, but the lack of a distinct cohesive narrative that followed through the entire game (instead of being almost episodic) bit the game. I mean, the Events of Tuchaunka and that entire segment of the story only have consequence for the 15ish minutes after the segment ends. Then it's onto the next segment of the game with the next "gutpunch". You know how a lot of people say that Call of Duty lost a lot of it's emotional punch when it was killing protagonist characters as a "thing"? With that big moment in MW1, and then in MW2 they do it twice(?) and by the third Modern Warfare it'd just lost all possible emotional impact it may have had. It's like that, but shoved into one game because the devs wanted you to know that WAR IS BAD MMMMK? Interesting assessment, you make some good points

I enjoyed the entire ME series. I'm a lover of fantasy primarily so I admit I wasn't one of hard core fans who had this huge expectation for ME 3. Personally I think that ME 3 was a good game but the lack of a cohesive ending for many fans blurred there enjoyment of the entire journey, in other words the game received unfair criticism because of the ending. I think people over analyse this a little The only complaint I do have is that there weren't enough Romance options in the game

I agree with the general view of this article. This is a really about dumbing down games to the point where we don't even think anymore. But one consideration is we have become lazy to a certain degree, so when you remove something like Eagle Vision people complain that the game is confusing or frustrating. A good idea as he mentioned is some sort of penalty if you use abilities that reveal locations. I think Mana drain would be appropriate

Good to have you back

Guys what's Fable: The Lost Chapters like, I saw it on special on GameStop and it seems interesting ?

Why did you cancel your pledge if you don't mind me asking? Was it because there isn't the option to play a female from the beginning ? I'm mostly skeptical about multi-platform support in such an ambitious Kickstarter game ...and lack of elves If it turns out good then I will pick it up "and lack of elves" ...

And some people would say that you just summed up everything that is wrong with the gaming industry: You look at a game, and before playing it, wonder who will patch it, as you are by now expecting a certain amount of bugs in any and every product. That's well said, very clever observation. I'm so use to bugs I assume you can't release a game without a development team waiting to fix things Hurlshot you probably won't believe me but that's exactly why I've never bought this game before, I'm battling with the fact that there will never be another game set in the world with all the lore and characters. It shouldn't effect me but for some reason it does

Why did you cancel your pledge if you don't mind me asking? Was it because there isn't the option to play a female from the beginning ?

That's entirely not what I said. If a game has a stretch goal for, say, other platforms, I'll contribute more. I never said it was, hence the question. Just that to be on the fence and all it took was them giving an option for a female PC does indicate that the presence of one is fairly important to you. Was curious how many of these racist, homophobic games you come across. Then again sometimes that is a matter of not looking hard enough and counting percentages of races/sexes it seems. But is not much these days for sure with the outrage machine running on social media, for sure. you make me a laugh Malc with your logic which in this case is accurate You right, I can't recall any games that I specifically haven't bought because they are homophobic or racist, I may just have forgotten. But that's a good thing isn't it as clearly companies are realizing what is not acceptable as content...so this is a reason to be happy

What I'm confused about is if 38 Studio's has gone bankrupt who does the support for this game? Where are the developers....

It's ironic, because when the Russians offered help to the US which would definitely have prevented a terrorist attack they leaped to accept. Oh wait, they didn't, did they. Shame about the people who died and were injured, still at least people didn't try to blame the Russians afterwards... oh wait, that they did do, didn't they. Strawman argument Zor ( I hope I used it in the right context) We aren't talking about Saudi Arabia, but we can start a discussion about this and if they ever hosted an international sports event what would be consequences. But Qatar is hosting a FIFA world cup in the next decade or so, so several discussions need to be had about points like where can fans drink and gay rights of fans who visit the country. International sports events and conservative governments do create a dichotomous situation so thanks for putting this one on the radar Finally the USA doesn't really need Russia's help in fighting internal terrorist attacks, that's why they refused Russian aid which I question if it was sincere anyway

1) It is their fault - they violate the law by illegally crossing the border. Anything else is secondary. You are not blaming a shop owner for slippery floors because thief broke his neck in attempted burglary at night. 2) When in Rome, do as Romans do. Eating or not eating pork hurts precisely nobody yet considered as offensive by the majority of population in certain locations. Should some country practice necrophilia and will root for fellow necrophiles I doubt they would enjoy the same support gay community have. Oh Cultist darling You being such a naughty boy. I'll tell you something interesting. During Apartheid the government believed, like you do, that homosexuality was a choice that could be "cured". Anyway they had these clandestine clinics where gay conscripted soldiers were sent for reprogramming. The treatment involved electro therapy...seriously basically torture to get people to change there sexual orientation. Do you think that would work on you and your sexual orientation. And even if they did manage to somehow rewire you do you think this is what a civilised and reasonable society does? The words you need to remember are empathy and tolerance, practice them and try to follow the