Drowsy Emperor

There's nothing wrong with regulated hunting. It brings a lot more money to the institutions that take care of animal populations than any green activism ever could. They in turn make sure the hunting grounds are always well stocked and that the animals breed at a good pace. Anti hunting people just shift the discussion into the realm of ethics - which are a human concept and have no place in this discussion. ^Regarding the necessity of shooting deer in the head. That's utter idiocy. Firstly, it ruins the trophy. Secondly its harder to hit. You're more likely to graze the animal and make a mess. Even amateur hunters know that shooting for the heart is the safest bet. With a good hit the animal either collapses in place or runs a couple of dozen meters and falls down. And you cant use the dogs either? That's not even hunting anymore, that blatant sabotage.

WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE ANIME http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RykvzEfZ6ao

Same thing here. I blame the LotR movies. They made epic fantasy mainstream, but only that kind of epic fantasy.

Oh I agree, the vast choice of possible settings is incredible compared to what's actually used.

I wasn't aware that somebody actually wanted Jade Empire 2. The game did some things right but the gameplay itself was utter ****. Strictly speaking one had to pay more attention in JE than in KOTOR, a game I think a 10 line script could play as well as any human player - but it got a free pass because of the license. Seriously, I never want to see BW make games with as ****ty gameplay as KOTOR and JE had. In ME you at least had to aim, and juggle the companions from time to time.

Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken. Chairman Sheng-ji Yang "Looking God in the Eye" Note: Does not apply to Total War In other words, no.

I wouldn't know, I haven't been keeping up with the reviews

Cheap CDKEY deals: http://www.go2arena.com/?adid=MEM1_20130429&id=1 Metro is currently on discount

Hmm I'll have to open my case, remove all the dead cats and missing relatives and see what I have.

Can my 350W power plant actually power the 7850? And will it work with my motherboard DG965WH: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/15052/eng/DG965WH_TechProdSpec.pdf I appreciate the help guys Which of these models? Not all are available even though the prices are listed... These four are available: http://www.itsvet.com/proizvod/sapphire-radeon-hd-7850-2gb-gddr5-11200-07/comp_comp_vga/130/3427 http://www.itsvet.com/proizvod/sapphire-radeon-hd-7850-2gb-gddr5-11200-00-20g/comp_comp_vga/130/3171 http://www.itsvet.com/proizvod/sapphire-radeon-hd-7850-1gb-gddr5-oc-11200-16-20g/comp_comp_vga/130/3327 http://www.itsvet.com/proizvod/sapphire-radeon-hd-7850-1gb-11200-16-10g/comp_comp_vga/130/3319

GTA IV had the best story and the most realistic city. But yes, the game was duuuuulllllll. I think GTA spent the fun of the original mayhem in the quest for ever greater realism. I don't expect much of no 5.

And to be perfectly honest, we pretty much have Bioware to thank that we're playing RPG's today at all. They're the only one who demonstrated that a big budget RPG could make money. Without them the big budget RPG would be as dead as the dodo. I still think the price that was paid was too high. I'm going to read reviews of ME4 and DA3 and watch gameplay videos to see what they did this time around, but I'm not going to pay for those games - or play them. Partially because the gameplay is likely to be more of the same, partially because I hate how generic1 the settings are - but mostly because they're likely to be the same EPICTM storyline that BW has been pushing since forever. 1 Take heed: these are the people who managed to make a space station boring. The place where you can see all the wonders of the universe, from the worst killers in the galaxy cleaning their nails with deadly blades to the intergalactic carnival teeming with all sorts of aliens, fantastical creatures and impossible technology. Not the same 10 drones standing around like PEZ dispensers waiting for the PC to talk to them in half empty corridors and halls.

Its not skepticism keeping me away its just that I don't currently have access to my desktop so I can't play any newer titles. That said, my neighbor, who is much more tolerant about game flaws in general very quickly grew bored of XCOM. I still want to try it though.

Well, here's my two cents: Back in the day, even though games were experiencing the same centripetal, unifying forces - there was still a bit of experimentation with form. Meaning that even big budget projects could wildly differ. But even the late nineties could be considered partially uniform if you look at the haphazard cross genre games of the late eighties and early nineties. What this means is that a "formula for success" has been established by marketing and design experts, and that formula in general - and with RPG's in particular is making everything an action game. Action is more appealing than turn based anything to a greater segment of the population - thus every big project is in real time now. This "pandora's box" was really opened by our favorite IE games. They showed that and RPG could ditch a big part of its tabletop turn based structure and play in real time - and really everything that happened to RPG's afterwards could be traced to them. From BGII and PST is a very short jump to KOTOR and ME. The projects got more expensive on account of 3D demands thus more and more content had to be cut. Which is why every game today is so short. Marketing experts, focus groups, etc. refined the ideas behind these games to make them more accessible to everyone. Another thing that reinforces this theory is the rise of RTS games as opposed to the stagnation of TB strategy and their subsequent downfall. RTS games couldn't really evolve into action games and they practically died - from 2-3 Starcraft clones and other similar games per month to 2-3 games per year at best. Of course, there are other trends to consider: profitability of consoles, success of WoW, success of Diablo 2 and the rise of ARPG's etc. etc. But the gist is that RPG's had to become more like action games or, from the perspective of big business - the were not worth the time and money (and RPG's are one of the most expensive genres). Now as to why they're not fun. Well, putting subjective opinion aside - there's at least one good reason and it boils down to what Alan Moore said about hollywood (paraphrasing): "hollywood movies suck because they're made by accountants and not by artists" So much money is involved that the creative process is tightly controlled by committees of people whose jobs depend entirely on the game making more money. They don't care about the content or the "fun" - but they care about including say, bloody kill scenes, because a market survey told them adolescent boys **** to that. Obviously this kind of "do everything to make it sell and do it our way" approach leads to games being made according to a checklist of features more successful titles have and hoping that they'll strike gold too. This is why everyone is complaining about streamlining now. The offensive thing about streamlining isn't the dumb simplicity - its the knowledge that the game is pandering to you, that you can't lose and worst of all - that around the corner is something you've seen in some other game or film or comic, probably a recent and successful one. This utterly kills the sense of wonder and anticipation that one wants from a game. Finally, the RPG market is catered to by already established studios. Established studios are not going to do substantial experimentation. This can be seen on the transition of The Witcher, from a novel, sometimes silly but at least fresh experience to the routine adventure of Witcher 2. So, no big project is likely to surprise you. Kickstarter is the best and only hope for the type of game you want to play. But one thing is evident from KS and that is they don't know where to take the more tactical aspects of the genre. You can only play so many tactical RPG's and remakes of old games before it becomes stale.

Yet another person disliking XCOM. I think the gulf between general player opinion and reviewer scores has never been wider. On one hand nothing but the worst, absolutely trashy games are criticized on the other almost every single larger budget game is showered in praise. In stark opposition to this is player opinion, taken from my experience in forums and comments (for what they're worth) - something we couldn't really read back in the day when the net wasn't so big. As a general rule its the only place game faults are pointed out and something truly critical of a big budget game can be heard. Like with Dark Souls. I played for a bit on the PC and I like the game. However I don't think I've played a worse port in my entire life and I played some pretty bad ones. Horrible functionality, garbage graphics without fixes etc. etc. By all accounts DS shouldn't receive over 50% for being so inexcusably broken. Yet the game has 85% Metacritics score alongside other top notch-ultra polished PC games that usually take up that score bracket.

Didn't know you played ARPG's Monty

GTA IV chases are by far the easiest in the series. I don't think I was caught once in GTA IV. There are ways to trick the police cars easily by driving close to non destructible surfaces causing them to crash 90% of the time. Street lamps/trees etc. are particularly good for this. The most important thing is not to panic and keep holding the gas down. If you hold the gas down you will eventually accelerate to the point that you'll either crash or a small bump will send you spinning. Its impossible to outrun them if you don't drive smart.

Gamebreaking flaws?

Why is no one talking about Rome II Total War? The game is coming out soon and looks nice: An obscenely expensive collectors edition is also going to be released: http://i2.cdnds.net/13/19/618x465/gaming-total-war-rome-2-collectors-edition.jpg

So you all want a cookie now, or what?

There's a lot of QA sweatshops around, so the conditions can vary depending on the position in the food chain, as well. Well... No good product today is made in decadent working conditions where everyone has space and without child labor. "The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment." Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"

The net is flooded with reports of SSD unreliablity + they cost an arm and a leg per gig. Is it really worth it, considering that even average hardware outstrips the demands of most games now?

/

I have an: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Radeon HD 3800 (half dead, prone to overheating) Intel motherboard EG965WH or something 2 Gigs Ram Can I do anything to upgrade this or do I have to buy a new one from scratch? Worst part is that this PC is still good for all the multiplatform and console ports we get, but newer PC based games won't run well on it.

Weird. From what I know of dev teams in Serbia and Poland, their working conditions are fine. I don't know why the situation is so bad in Ukraine.