AGX-17

Prosper, you should really branch out, a talent such as yours is wasted if you focus on this forum alone.

So Big Rigs Over the Road Racing is art? Putting in the minimum, phoned-in effort masquerading as "art" for the sake of pursuing profit is significantly different from something made specifically with an artistic vision and purpose (i.e. Journey.) Movies can be art, that does not by default make all films works of art. Games can be art, that does not by default make all games works of art. If you're going to stoop to the level of saying Uwe Boll is a misunderstood artiste, then Michael Bay is the Picasso of our times.

So is this like the western answer to Nobunaga's Ambition? Make sure to control Gifu. The implication that "bigger sword = better samurai" is hilariously bad, especially considering the inclusion of a Miyamoto Musashi vs. Sasaki Kojiro scenario, which historical accounts state (speculation by later historians of political intrigue and so on are irrelevant given the simplistic presentation/context,) ended with the nodachi-wielding Kojiro being clobbered to death by Musashi with a wooden sword.

A hierarchy of goons leading you via linearly plotted confrontations to Ming the Merciless cackling maniacally from his nefarious volcano-island-castle base isn't exactly interesting or original. Weakest boss to weak boss to moderately competent boss to adequately competent boss to above average boss to employee of the month boss to vice president of eating babies division boss to right hand man boss to the evil overlord himself boss doesn't sound like a phenomenal story progression.

And of course the general reaction is a broad generalization that Asian men are rapists. Well, that and another opportunity for obyknven to say exactly what we all know he's always going to say while failing to notice the irony of his choice of venue to make his statements. South Africa isn't exactly a shining beacon of womens' rights. Ignoring the painful irony of anyone in South Africa calling out another country for its prevalence of sexual violence perpetrated against women (yours is still the only country I've heard of in relation to "corrective rape" of lesbians,) the patriarchal rape culture is global, albeit by varying degrees. Something like 50% of the sexual assaults that occur in the U.S. are never reported by victims as a result of said culture. That is what you're implying.

Depends on whether it's interesting (i.e. not boring,) or whether it contains information I'm interested in acquiring (it can be boring, but it's a means to an end.) The premise of this assumes that the writers of every in-game book ever have had a 100% perfect success rate in people reading said in-game books until you engage this nefarious plot and ruin their champion run.

Yeah, that completely fits King Koopa's M.O. Super complex and nuanced character, I agree with your OP. If there's one thing video games need more of, it's deep characters in the vein of Snidely Whiplash and Dr. Wily.

Infinite. Infinite. Infinite. Yes. If the AI is intelligent it will use the best strategy regardless of creativity. Yes, my binary-code brain is fully capable and willing of accurately processing your AI constructs. Don't worry, Prosper, we all believe in you. We all know you're the one who's going to make the Matrix a reality.

...I think you mean an improved chance to hit. I have never heard of a real or fictional ground combat scenario where high ground was disadvantageous (barring the presence of air support for the forces on the low ground.)

New Vegas could have used a few of Clint Eastwood's love songs.

Can't we all come together thanks to our shared hatred of mages? Besides, there are apostate Qunari running around, they've already established a legitimate explanation. If an ugly elf can be a qunari in DA2 DLC, why can't a Qunari be a Catholic? Or whatever the religion of Thedas is called.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9/posts/587602 $1.3m, 28 days left. Might just hit consoles after all.

Much easier to get lost in the Obsidian cookie cutter interiors than in the desert, atleast for me. They need better world builders, badly. That ship sailed years ago. Also: excuses about Obsidian never having developed an Elder Scrolls-style open world game before (as opposed to Bethesda, for whom such games are their bread and butter,) never having used the Bethesda Gamebryo engine before, the realities of setting a game in what is, in reality, a mostly empty desert. Anyway, since we're all posting Japanese tactical games whose "RPG" status is questionable, I got Jeanne D'arc to pad my PSP game library, which expanded from two to three games. There's not a lot more comedy value than Japanese re-imaginings of (especially Western) historical events. At least Joan of Arc was actually female so they didn't need to do some bizarre mass-transsexualization of historical figures. Basically just a Tactics Ogre/FFT/Fire Emblem clone. Not bad, not great. Simultaneously cringe-inducing and hilarious (I don't think even South African blacks or Indians could villainize the British in a more blatant, over the top fashion.)

Went to the art museum to see bicycles, samurai; saw a supernumerary rainbow on the way home. Double rainbow, ball's in your court.

You Are Now Less Dumb.

How would that be a failure of the laws of physics? It's a matter of whether or not the car's roof is capable of bearing the load of the rest of the car. Which is irrelevant because Superman is the violator of the laws of physics, not the car.

They wouldn't try to take over production, that's not even a reasonable assumption to make. When firms sue other firms or individuals for copyright infringement, how often do you think they try to take over production of the infringing product?

For me that's a plus, rather than a minus. I can still drive if I really want to, but in the past in SR3, SR2, or GTA <insert number or subtitle> there were times when driving to the mission location just got tedious and time consuming. Now I can get wherever in all of 15 or 20 seconds. Problem solved. To each their own, I guess. For me it's more like "why bother putting in cars in the first place?" The only point to them after getting the super sprint and jump is that you have to drive in those car thef- I mean, virus acquisition diversions. The only real value they have is comedic in the way they fly straight up into the air and disappear when you run past them with fully upgraded super sprint.

Sub-Saharan Africa? Now you're just pulling my leg. Can you even name any RPG that has a Sub-Saharan African setting/theme? Or even Saharan Africa? It's also something of a mistake to classify Hellenic (ancient Greek, distinct from the modern country or culture of "Greece,") culture as something totally distinct from "southern Europe," to lump the Italian peninsula with the Iberian in terms of culture, or to lump the Hellenes together with an arbitrarily chosen/the most well-known near-eastern culture like the Hebrews (with which the Hellenes shared very little in common.) I'm not even aware of any Western RPGs that are inspired/thematically associated with most of these settings/time periods. Nearly all of them are a jumble of the various stages of the medieval era (600-1200 AD.) Jade Empire is the only Western RPG I'm aware of with an "East Asian" theme, and it's basically a generic "Westerners showing their inability to do research/display of Western misconceptions of China" sort of thing. Whenever Western game designers look toward the far East, the result is American Ninja/Mortal Kombat-esque results. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't trust a bunch of white guys of European descent to accurately or interestingly portray any ethnic group or culture they're not familiar with (i.e. anything other than Europe.) It'd be nice to see a game with a broad array of cultures and influences, but something that strives for originality rather than reflecting a fictionalized real-world time or society would be ideal. Second after that would be something that draws on cultural concepts other than medieval Europe. The issue is that humans creating fiction have nothing to draw on but the experiences of the real world (first or secondhand doesn't matter, a fantasy novel with a novel setting you enjoy was still created with the real world having a dominant influence,) anything you imagine is inevitably going to be informed or influenced by what you know/have been exposed to. Example: Most "new" artistic movements in any given period of time emerge as a reactionary rejection of the status quo, they're an endeavour to be different from the mainstream, and are thus defined by that mainstream. There's nothing Celtic about Skyrim. Celtic culture is rarely, if ever, represented in RPGs. Or video games in general. I don't think you even know anything about it, given you believe Norse culture to be Celtic culture. Celtic culture is vastly different from Nordic and Germanic cultures (which are related.) Finally, looking at the poll results, it seems that a clear, though not large, majority of respondents prefer the status quo, which of course explains why the status quo persists.

It's too bad the bulk of the game missions/quests were just "do the existing diversions," the missions like the MGS one and Saints of Rage were absolutely brilliant. "Argh! Generic movie quote!" I miss patches who actually preformed their function (fixing bugs), rather than make stuff worse. Aaaanyway, still going strong on SR3's DLC, waiting for a sale. Can't say aliens and superpowers fill me with confidence though. It's a good game with some outstanding parts (i.e. the previously mentioned content,) but SR3 was better by a pretty sizable margin. The superpower thing is fun for a while but gets repetitive pretty fast. Kicking someone in the nuts so hard they fly 30 feet up into the air never gets old, though. The tower-climbing parts are the only ones that actually combine use of the superpowers with any form of challenge.

see Incidentally, on a positive note, it looks like Mighty No. 9 is going to hit its initial goal on day 2.

See? It's the good kind of nationalism. Russians totally aren't racist! Which is why it needs to be specifically stressed by stating that Russians are the stalwart defenders of such diverse groups as Africans and Native Americans. Any argument prefaced by an insistence that "I/we are totally not racist" is 100% proof positive that the following statement is not in any way racist. Reminder: Russian nationalists - totally not racist. Except against Europeans (especially the pig-dog anglo-saxons who are an imminent threat for whom the mighty master slav race has a massive hate-boner/obsession, despite their inferior pig-dog status,) but that's the good kind of racism.

"Proper (modernized)" social skills? You think there were no rules of etiquette or a concept of tact in Þe olden tymes (it's a fantasy game with a medieval-equivalent setting)? She was a misanthrope, plain and simple. There's a reason the ancient Greeks coined the term "barbarian," after all. Philosophers debating amongst grand marble colonnades several centuries BCE were decidedly more refined than their neighbors to the north, or merely outside the city.