AGX-17

Having Liam Neeson in Fallout 3 didn't make it Schindler's List.

I've never before heard of versus threads referred to as "debates." I've also never seen anyone attempt to come up with such a needlessly verbose way to state the common-sense conclusion: "versus threads are stupid."

From The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, chapter 3: "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

Tried out Painkiller after getting it on sale on GOG. Wildly overrated. It might be decent if the level design weren't so atrocious (even for 2004, this is bad, Wolf3D had more depth to its maps.) But it's not.

I knew this would be the case from the start, but I had to check so I looked on inXile's Wasteland 2 board, and LO: http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3709 This is hilarious, though. 8 backers, $220 out of an $89,000 goal and 21 hours to go. See, I can enjoy your failure for free, Anton!

It's beyond just the noise and running. They can literally stand in the middle of an enemy patrol route, have the enemy walk into them and the enemy will completely ignore them. I am eternally grateful for this as otherwise it would be incredibly annoying trying to stealth any area of the game. Having enemies walk into your allies and not respond is a little immersion breaking, but typically it happens right before a fight breaks out and then you get swept up in the combat and forget all about it so it isn't as big a deal as it might be otherwise. Yeah, if the alternative was Tess and Ellie constantly attracting Clickers in the subway the game would be unplayable without major changes to the mechanics. A mouse for aiming would be great, four keys for movement wouldn't really work, as movement speed is variable depending on how far you're pushing the stick and movement speed is one of the biggest and most sensitive factors in sneaking, especially when dealing with Clickers. I don't know how it would work out when getting swarmed. Well, when you get swarmed you tend to get Clicked, anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Yeah, aiming on consoles is a nightmare. I don't see why they bothered to add "sway" when it's hard enough to get a headshot with a joystick to begin with. At any rate, the welcoming committee in Pittsburgh was refreshing because it had zero clickers. As long as they're distracting Clickers I have no problem.

The Last of Us. Deserving of the heaps of praise it's getting from the press. The story isn't original, but the characters, writing and presentation more than make up for that (the prologue portion of the game is especially outstanding.) On the surface it looks like either survival horror or action depending on the context, but it's fundamentally a stealth game in terms of mechanics. Trying to engage in open combat is usually suicidal. Especially with the game's zomb-err Infected. They're legitimately a bigger threat than gun-wielding humans by virtue of their different natures (i.e. AI behavior.) If you hear a Clicker, you'd best pray you have a bottle and shiv in your inventory. If it ever gets ported to PC I'll honestly buy it again just to see its environments rendered on a gaming PC. I haven't ever seen such a sublime post-apocalyptic wasteland in a game before.

No, because the majority of them are also on steam. Yeah. There are only two things that will kill off steam or make it irrelevant/ bring it back to the pack; if MS decides to bring the closed Metro/ Live system to PC- which they ought to do, really, but won't since it's sensible- or if more publishers establish Origins of their own- which they really ought to do as well. If SimCity sold 1 million full price copies on Origin that's $20 million going to EA rather than Steam, no reason why Acti/ 2k/ Ubi/ Squee etc should not save themselves equivalent amounts. [don't think GOG keys will make much of a difference either, though it is certainly nice to see Larian offering them on their boxed copies as well as, presumably, CDPR] Microsoft already did Games for Windows LIVE. With that, they've already proved they're no match for Valve on the DD front. Anyway, since Sony is winning handily, I might as well start playing The Last of Us.

Same. The multiple approaches available in most missions gives it decent replay value. The sense of humor is great, the self-deprecating achievements are hilarious. The epilogue blog thing is a nice touch. http://www.pentadact.com/category/conwaysblog/?K=4&U=31&C0=1&E1=1&C1=2&E2=1&C2=3&C3=3&C4=3&C5=3 (NSFOFM.)* "Richard Conway Professional spy. Amateur electrician. Weaponised jerk. Specialties: Super Jumping Rewiring Security Property Damage Falling Over" *Not safe for Obsidian forum moderators. Due to naughty language. All due respect.

Never could get into The Witcher, so i'm apathetic about that. If DA2 and ME3 are any indication, Bioware will find a way to make the third game worse than the already terrible second.

Ohoho, you should go read BSN and romance, cullen and toher retarded threads. Especially those with "But me want my adorabl elfu waifu!!!!" I'm already familiar with Bioware fans' attempts to "scientifically" determine what Tali's sweat and urine smell and taste like.

I just think it's hilarious that there are people who can't distinguish between reality and video games to such a degree that they freak out and demand spiders be removed from video games.

Right, it's already been established that magic will have a set number of casts per-rest, like Dark Souls. No mana, no potions to restore that which does not exist.

If it's not quantified then how can it exist in a mathematical logic-based system (a computer game)? If it's not quantified then no influence will exist. That said, I don't even know where this "players feel encouraged to roleplay inconsistently to chase after a high score" thing is coming from. Isn't that your own experience/problem? I never go into a game intending to play a certain type of character but always fail because I'm too ADD or OCD to avoid trying to get the "high score" in morality or reputation or what-have-you like a game completionist who can't live with anything below 100% on the GTA stats screen. It's essentially a given that you can't be everybody's best friend in this game, which I assume is what you mean by "high score" in this context. Secondly, if the story or quest is designed in such a way that the player character receives a practical reward for successful persuasion, then that's how it should be. Metagamers are going to metagame no matter what kind of petty obstacles you suggest should be put there to impede them. It's a game. It's less believable to suggest that persuasion should have no tangible, practical value to the player. That makes it utterly pointless as a game mechanic. If the only thing persuasion results in is either failure or "flavor" text/useless items/etc. why bother in the first place? Real people in the real world constantly attempt to influence others for material gain, why should that be different in game? How is it less believable in the face of reality?

Civ V after getting the Gold Edition upgrade for $5.00 on steam (75% off all Civ V content this weekend,) feels good to have the Inca back. And the Temple of Artemis. I paid attention and found the bulk of it uninteresting. The story was initially interesting but then the whole initial hook gets sidelined by mountains of irrelevant side quests and the story veers so far off course from the original setup that finishing the game was more of a chore than anything else.

If everyone can use "magic" in the traditional fantasy/gaming sense, well... Then we're back to TES. All you have to do is buy a self-destructing book to learn a spell and you can cast it. There are lore-based racial variables, like black peo... err... Redguards aren't good at magic because they're more suited to manual labor and physical fighting (official lore, not my subjective interpretation,) but the fundamental concept is that anyone can use it. Soul "magic" strikes me as something more akin to the concept of "chi" in some oriental cultures, like a natural internal energy which can be manipulated or projected at will, with training or talent. These cultures differentiate between those concepts and "magic," which is still specific rituals performed to call on an outside power, be it a natural energy, a spirit or god's power or what-have-you. e.g. When talking about fantastic Gōngfu (Gōng meaning "work" or "achievement" and fu meaning "man," in other words, Gōngfu means a man's work/effort in a literal sense, but more generally can be interpreted as effort, dedication and hard work, originally referring to the training and effort put into learning a martial art,) movies, you're referring to the aforementioned concept of "chi," not to "magic." In contrast, something like Feng Shui is "magic," a system of geomancy rituals meant to call on outside natural or divine forces to bring power, fortune, etc. to oneself.

Typical that obyknven wouldn't know Cadegund no longer has a torpedo-tit breastplate due to popular demand from P:E backers.

I've just answered the door with a kitchen knife between my teeth and an annoyed look, actually made a little girl recoil. The Jehovah's witnesses are undeterred by that though. I usually have more fun asking them where my pizza is and how is it that they're so well-dressed on a pizza deliveryman's pay. Thoroughly enjoying the @redweddingtears twitter. Sadistically, even. I don't want to accuse all of the hysterical Robb Stark fans of being illiterate, but their death threats, ludicrous demands for him to be resurrected (ironic in a certain fashion,) and threats to boycott Game of Thrones and cancel their HBO subscriptions is hilarious, especially given the fact that Robb wasn't actually that major a character in the books. But, if the hysteria surrounding it is anything to go by, the producers deserve praise for successfully generating a ****storm of frothing rage over something that was public knowledge before 9/11.

It's a lot of fun, although I'm still confused as to why there's an actual storyline when you choose Tutorial but none when you choose to start the game normally (I dove in blind and still haven't bothered to investigate outside of the game.) Should probably look that up, sometime. It's true that there's room for more content and customization, but at the same time, increased complexity doesn't necessarily lead to increased quality.

The main experience of this for most people recently is coming from Bioware, and Bioware's characters (DAII's being the worst offenders,) seem to be increasingly designed around wanting to crash into your character crotch-first. Even innocuous-looking dialogue in the infamous dialogue wheels often leads to responses from characters along the lines of "Oh, you do want to fondle my throbbing phallus, wonderful! Let us proceed to the fondling in suspiciously modern underwear scene posthaste!" in DAII. It goes without saying that Obsidian's not about to pull that sort of crap, but at the same time it's known that MCA, for example, hates having to write romances in games, so if a writer's not into it to begin with, it's not going to end up being very good. You found it unrealistic that someone could develop a romantic interest in someone else and not immediately have sex with them? My opinion is roughly the opposite of yours. No I found it unrealistic that person could traverse the planes, meet alien creatures, kill demons, discover he is immortal but somehow not have sex with a party member who is inextricably linked to him and he is attracted to Maybe he had high enough wisdom to consider the negative implications of an immortal who loses his memory every time he dies and resurrects becoming romantically involved with a person who he might outlive by millennia, if not eternity.

Why am I getting really strong Temple of Trials vibes from this area, aside from the room with the tesla coils and electrical cables?

That was essentially what happened in my house last night. I was more entertained by the female reactions over Robb than the Red Wedding itself (poorly handled, frankly, Rains of Castamere should have been playing over the whole thing like in the book.)

They already did it in New Vegas, it's essentially a given that they're still going to follow that design philosophy in a game which allows for a wider range of outcomes. Why would they suddenly abandon superior design for inferior design?