Nonek

The Hand of Glory. Thievery comes at a price, and for the bold prince of thieves that price was his death. Bold and slippery as an eel the prince would not let the matter end there however, consulting with a master Cipher and paying a price beyond any he had ever stolen the prince bound his soul into his skilled and subtle sinister hand, so that when he was inevitably caught he could live on and continue his craft. Now his left hand is all that remains, a skeletal claw bound together by a strange magical thread, that some say is his immortal soul. When it is pressed to a door or any other locked portal it will come to life, its fingers scratching and skittering over the lock and gaining an impression of its complexity, it will then turn palm upwards and be still. It expects payment for every lock it opens, and the coins it recieves will simply vanish. When payment according to the complexity of the lock is given the hand will extend one finger into the lock, forming a unique skeleton key and open it with ease before going silent again. It may have other powers worth experimenting for, but payment is not optional on any of its favours, the prince is a professional after all and has his standards to maintain, even in death.

Don't you think that an examination of that in itself would make a good game? Say you're stood over that mutant family in judgement, men, women and children all bear the tainted mark of chaos, and their fate is in your hands. These are seemingly good, honest people who are faithful to the Emperor, but through no fault of their own have begun to change. Do you radio in an Arbites death squad to purge and purify, do you walk away in disgust and sound the all clear letting the corruption of mercy eat away at your zealotry, or even organise an escape in the hopes they'll lead you to the source of their change or an even greater nest of heretics? Undiluted pure service to the Golden Throne, a fall to chaos through single merciful acts and every step in between.

Sorry to say this Mr Rule but i'm a proponent of number 4, it may be harsh but it's also a clear case of choice and consequence, which i'm always very fond of. This may also lie in the fact that I find such open aggression distasteful, and as a method of empowering the player rather clumsy and cheap. In fact i'd add the secondary mechanic in Torment arguing against such slaughter, mazing as a warning followed by being enwrapped in the Ladies shadow.

I want to be Dog/God from Dead Money.

Half century next year, the knees and back have a few years on the rest of me however.

Got to say old bean, I don't think i'd look particularly good in those leaf/carapace bikini's, bit too hirsute to pull them off.

Legacy of Kain rpg, medium sized, tight, brilliantly plotted and voice acted with Unity or Onyx engine graphics in 2d like the original Blood Omen. A smaller project that doesn't need the massive resources of Tomb Raider, and is far easier to generate a profit from. Obsidian are one of the only studios i'd trust to develop the franchise outside the redoubtable Ms Hennig. A dark and dreary film noir adventure, in the mold of Alpha Protocol. Set in one of the more distinctive decades of american history, playing as a hard boiled gumshoe or an ice cold dame to kill for. An interactive Chinatown. Warhammer 40 k Dark Heresy rpg, agents of the imperial inquisition tasked with battling all of mankinds enemies, internal and external. Genestealer cults, the ruinous powers, warp entities, Eldar manipulations etcetera, etcetera. One can dream.

Well there are a number of reasons for the state owned banks being bailed out in the UK, not least among them being the fact that the politicians (of either side) and the bankers went to school together, mix in the same social circles and any MP can usually retire into a comfy executive position at such institutions come the end of their tenure so long as they've not rocked the gravy boat. Politicians of any party are fairly much in the business of perpetuating parliament, not representing the will of the people, and if they've not got their noses in the trough over here they've usually got a position in Europe where they can lap up the cream of unaudited expenses. In a rather cynical mood today, sounding a bit preachy as well, sorry about that the subject always gets my dander up. You'd think i'd be old and wise enough to not care any more. Edit: Zoraptor makes a brilliant point in that while Labour over here has fairly much divorced itself from the unions, the Tories have become the lapdogs of the banks, a vicious circle of alliances and cronyism.

Mrs Thatcher was doing just that with all of the nationalised industries, which were mostly running at a loss. Her hatchet man in the steel industry had for the first time in years made it profitable, but cut jobs massively in the process. As I remember he was then appointed to oversee the mining industry and came into immediate conflict with the unions. When it finally all boiled over into the general strike it was revealed that Mrs Thatcher had been stockpiling coal in case of just such an action, and the unions lost their ability to blackmail the government through energy cuts via their striking.

Well nationalised a fair while ago, but though technically under the governments auspices it was mostly the NUM (national union of mineworkers) who ran the show in reality through striking and picketing. Some attribute the fall of Mr Heaths government to their industrial action, can't remember whether that was 73 or 74.

Touch anglocentric, but these little movies are rather nice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGFb1Pu-YA

One would think that Annah would instead of trying to make her father commit suicide, simply stop his involvement in Wounded Knee, from whence he came to the baptism to be shrived of his sins. This is before he became Comstock, so if the suicide works then by virtue of a normally functioning universal temporal system, anything earlier should also work. To be honest the more I think about the defeatism and predestination of the ending the more i'm sickened by it, truly a slave obeys. I think Ken Levine ought to have played the Legacy of Kain games, or at least spoken with Ms Amy Hennig, they deal with predistination and the manipulation of time in a far more tasteful manner.

What makes the mine closures even more tragic is that half the workforce never voted for a general strike, Arthur Scargill did not even have a majority when he chose to try and oust the democratically elected government, many pits were never balloted. The miners who refused to accept his unvoted for action, and returned to work suffered intimidation, violence and social pariah-hood, and a lot of them squarely blame old shredded wheat head even over Mrs T. It's an extremely sad and far from simple tragedy, that resulted in cultural wastelands, and allthough her role was significant Mrs Thatcher cannot be portrayed as the only instigator of it. Mr Scargill and the NUM had overthrown one government, and were intent on doing so again.

I'm not asking for conversion to be the sole purpose of Eternity's priests Fashion Mage, but to be a holy duty that no faithful son of the church can overlook, and as Tsuga says even a little acknowledgement of holy responsibility outside being a healbot would be nice to see for once. A priest of knowledge in a den of Half Orc illiteracy and barbarism, you beard the smart, wily old Shaman and teach him the power of words and knowledge. He'll soon see the beauty of holding secrets and the power one may wield when one knows more than others, self interest leads him and his tribe to your god. Tithes for the church, an increase in its sphere of influence, the smartest of the tribe sent to study with your church so that they too may go out to spread the word. A priestess of the killing god, a little old woman who mostly sits at a desk and scribbles orders and missives all day, her hands have never known the touch of anything heavier than a quill. She is a gifted orator and fine administrator however and thousands have been drawn to her god by the dark charisma she commands, the passionate fervour with which her hands fly in mid speech. Her orders have mobilised entire armies, the faithful crusaders of mother church and prompted the shedding of blood across entire continents, what are a few murders when compared to the genocides she has ordered. The church is the means to an end, the empowerment and domination of its god, and his revelation as the one true divinity. For that to come to pass, all must acknowledge his glory. I'd also like to see holy strictures of mundane nature brought into the game, fasting on holy days, feasting on others, labour being outlawed for the duration, peculiarities of clothing and diet to be adhered to etcetera, etcetera. A list of saints and angels for every religion might be going a little far however, imagine the work.

To state that there is only one method of stopping Comstock when you have all the powers of time and space at your disposal seems a little feeble, I can think of a dozen ways of ensuring he doesn't get born, from before and after the baptism. From before DeWitt was even born in fact. The storyline limits itself for absolutely no good reason. The baptism is an artificial point of decision, and the urge for suicide to me at least distasteful, even with Booker's dying brain conjuring up that last pleasant delusion.

A stunning landscape. Wonder if we'll see any more waterfalls, say for instance something as gargantuan and awe inspiring as the Iguazu falls on the Brazilian Argentinian border, as featured so memorably at the beginning of the Mission.

The fact that she became Prime Minister in a country that is still ruled by the Old Etonian boys network is something in and of itself, never mind that she was a greengrocers daughter from Grantham, one cannot say that the woman lacked ambition, strength of will or direction. I'd prefer her rule than the current generation of spineless, non confrontational, corrupt fops that we are currently saddled with.

For me the method of how to tackle sexism is simply to not be sexist, and I don't need a game journalist preaching to me on that point, if I fail to notice my other half will tell me in no uncertain terms if i'm crossing any lines. As for game developers, they could look to making more characters like Kreia: Strong willed, able, self motivated and intelligent rather than half dressed, idle, idiots whose only form of empowerment is pointless slaughter, as we've been requesting for years. Ultimately I don't want developers to feel that they've got to work to checklists and focus groups however, that's a recipe for the "accessible" games we are currently saddled with.

I remember the years before she came to power, hillocks of rubbish in the streets, intermittent or no gas or electricity, dead bodies remaining unburied, fairly much every public service on the verge of collapse. Maggie might not have been the Prime Minister Britain wanted, but she was certainly the leader we needed. Of course in dragging the country into the modern world there was a lot of damage done, and there are poorer areas of Britain that have still not recovered entirely.

My wifes been celebrating since the news broke, find it a little distasteful to crow over an octogenarians passing but then again my home village and industry weren't decimated like hers.

Personally i'd see that as preaching, I doubt that I have the authority to tell people what to think (I certainly don't have the inclination,) or that my code of ethics is superior. I am responsible for my family and myself, nothing more, going beyond that is not to me the right thing as no matter how objectionable ones view I believe they are entitled to it. The moderators maintain the standards of the site, and they seem to do an admirable job in that regard.

I can't see what exactly i'm supposed to do about other peoples behaviour, that's their business. I have no desire to enforce my morality on anybody else, in fact i'd find that utterly distasteful.

I stopped reading RPS a while ago, the endless articles preaching of sexism in the industry were not particularly bothersome as that's nothing to do with me, I just happen to think that their standards have plummeted rather severely lately. That Nathan Greyson chap especially is quite clearly trying to network a job in the industry rather than undertaking unbiased criticism, the mans interviews fairly much function as a developer bidet, except when he's trying to wedge more sensationalist claims of sexism into an unrelated topic.

Seems to be an eminently nice place on these boards, i've yet to experience any behaviour I would regard as overtly aggressive or confrontational, but then again for me it's only a virtual reality and hardly something to be taken seriously. It's nice that there's less parroting of the latest popular memes and other internet obsessions, such as that childrens cartoon about equines or the massive preponderance of smilies that inundate the less articulate of writers prose. The other half admits that it seems a little too high brow for her taste, but she's a yorkshirewoman of extremely grounded sensibilities.

Yes and Tyris Flare should be taking off her brassiere if Ax Battler's got to go shirtless, fair's fair. How sad that I remember their names.