Drowsy Emperor

Its an attack helicopter, what do you think they're using it for. It can transport a squad as well, but still. Its not like they removed the weaponry and are using it just to ferry troops around.

The way people talk about Bloodlines makes me think I was playing a different game. I recall terribly wonky combat, empty areas and a game that progressively got more sparse and lacking in content, all tied to a story that was vaguely confusing but mostly unimportant. On the other hand the game was very atmospheric and interesting... when it worked... and a breath of fresh air in the somewhat stale genre. But no less flawed. Still, I understand why people like it. I don't get the praise for Arcanum though. It was ugly and broken, with some good ideas tied to poor in game mechanics. In fact, for every good thing in Arcanum there were at least three that didn't work. I don't think it has a single defining feature apart from the unconventional setting that makes it worthy of the best titles in the genre.

Finished Shadowrun Dragonfall. Best fun I've had in ages. More fun than South Park, ME3 and the Witcher 2 combined. The story kept me engaged all the way to the end, and even though it has plenty of cliche moments, its still well written. It must have been, since these days I can hardly force myself to read RPG dialog. I tend to glance over it and choose whatever feels right, but in Dragonfall I read everything, since the game has no voice acting, and enjoyed it. The thing is, I know the new generations hate anything to do with reading, but the old RPG's, which tend to be written with "book" type dialog in mind are simply more interesting to experience that then new ones that go for "movie" type dialog. I can't sit through 15 minutes of slowly voice acted dialog (yes ME3 and W2 I'm looking at you), which is by necessity shorter and generally simplistic compared to the written type. So i skip through it and the voice acting ends up being pointless. Also ,my imagination is still stoked far more with characters who are a well drawn portrait and have something to say, than uncanny valley, badly lip-synced 3D models. *shrugs* I played a rigger, which I assume is the most overpowered class in the game. A rigger controls drones at the cost of action points. The thing is, those drones are quite competent and have more AP than characters... And you can control two at once... at the cost of your character being incapable of action. But you get triple, or even quadruple the AP of a single character to do as you please, and the drones are veritable killing machines. The two drones combined killed more enemies than any member of the team. If anyone is going to play Dragonfall as a rigger I advise using the combat drones only, the support ones aren't all that useful.

Link? Of course didn't see this reported on the Dutch news and too tired to google-fu now (0:40AM) so hopefully can read it fresh in the morning with a nice link http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-14/why-are-ukraine-troops-using-un-helicopters-russia-foreign-minister-asks

Explosive food supplies. Isn't that rust on those wrecks.

Dunno, but at this point Kiev is basically shuffling some ragtag gunmen around, trying to beat the regions into submission but all that has achieved is alienating the population there and ensuring that they end up without a foothold in what was previously an undisputed part of Ukraine. There is no way they're going to retain control without massive bloodbaths and demonstrations of power... that are beyond their capabilities, if not beyond their inclinations (>Odessa, the Maidan snipers etc.).

@sorophx Its certainly not the best game in terms of design, but it is the best RPG story ever written.. probably the best story of any game, regardless of genre. Btw, people should bear in mind that according to my last count (back in the day when I had a higher tolerance for tedious tasks) there were around 170 or so cRPG's (minus MMO) released altogether, so getting into the top 70 ain't exactly as prestigious as it sounds. The number is a guesstimate now, since I stopped maintaining the list ages ago, but it shouldn't be too far off. I'd say that a top 20 would more than accommodate the best that the genre has to offer, but, that's like my opinion, man.

Can't help but lol at Arcanum's and Vampire's high placement (half broken, half incomplete games in the top 10, really?), Fallout 2 being above BGII ... among other things. Many of the pre Fallout/BG ones are borderline unplayable and don't belong in any top list made in 2014 except as a historical footnote. Thanks for bringing it here though.

I agree, they're some of the most boring monsters ever devised. Bioware has managed to invent something new that ... hasn't got a single original thing in it. A contradiction there, but true in a way.

The scandal with the UN helicopter is hilarious (or would be if they didn't use it to kill people). It really speaks of the state of the Ukrainian army if they had to put a mission chopper into use, presumably because it was one of the few undergoing regular maintenance and thus, reliable.

Please don't start another sexism discussion, lest my hemorrhoids develop hemorrhoids of their own.

I wish it were but the real thing has 20+ tools. I dabbled a bit into lockpicking for fun but everything but the old design tumbler lock, handcuffs and cheap padlocks is very very difficult to pick. Basically there are 10 ways of getting around a lock and every one of them is better than lockpicking.

Pah. I want real reptile skin. From a lizard slain by a naked Dave Gaider atop a mountain. During a full moon. All you'd get out of DG climbing the mountain of bad prose he uses as inspiration is "Charizard Mountain", the first game to feature a gay lizard companion.

I'm enjoying Dragonfall more than South Park or even Witcher 2. Its vastly improved over the original Shadowrun campaign, the writing is tight, the characters are interesting and the missions are more challenging. The game will never blow you away - its far too obvious they were working on a tight budget, but the story will keep me going right to the end, even if it is a variation of "ancient evil returns". I actually gave up on ME3 a couple of hours into the game to play Shadowrun. As for ME3... Its boring. The same thing all over again. Massive ego stroking - captain this, captain that. Everything that walks and crawls is kissing your ass in that game. Pompous voice acting, cringe worthy melodramatic dialog and a massive tool of a protagonist. Bland corridor levels, with bad shooting mechanics and controls made up specifically to annoy PC users. Multiple commands bound to a single key? Really Bioware? Why don't you just let space bar do everything in the game, like making all enemies on the screen blow up as in a space shooter, cos gameplay wise - ME3's differs from it only in perspective. In my opinion, the cover shooting fad was always a bad gameplay design in any game, and when you get that out of the way ME3 is all standing and talking. A sequence of linear shooting broken up by dialog and a minigame, kept interesting only by the brevity of each individual component. It worked once, or twice, but now its time to retire it. As in permanently. The second game had some interesting locations, at least a bit of exploration to keep the tedium at bay. ME3... not so much. It has one designated experience and you can't even fall off a cliff to save yourself from it.

You may be joking but I'm pretty sure there are people out there buy it to store it on the shelf and never open it. disturbing as it may sound.

You know, I'm all for fancy collectors editions but in the last few years, ever since they (most large publishers) found out what the market would tolerate, its just a money grab. Most of the stuff you get is crap and the prices are sky high. In an RPG collectors edition I'd be perfectly satisfied with a nice cloth map. Everything else can't be made at a high enough quality without driving the price up.

I know its not, that's why I'm interested. The first game was though.

I played the first Divinity game and thought it was a really good Diablo clone, but the series didn't hold my interest as I'm not too big a fan of Diablo like games. But this one... it looks great, like they put a ton of effort into the game. And all that content I've seen in the videos leads me to believe that the editor is going to be really good If I had the money, it would be a day 1 purchase.

I played through most of Shadowrun Returns (the first story). Its mildly disappointing because its like NWN OC, basically a demonstration of what the tool box is capable of. The world is not very interactive, the areas are mostly small and story and characters are somewhat bland. Yet I can see the possibility of a nice game coming out of that toolbox. I've started Dragonfall and it looks like its the better of the two. The introduction is certainly more interesting.

Is it true the switch to integrated is to conserve power when the laptop is running on battery? I read a question/answer about the 8750M/4000 software switch and it said to plug in the laptop's AC power cord while playing games and the discreet card will work correctly. Yes, when it runs on battery power it uses the integrated card for most things. But when its plugged in (and mine is plugged in all the time) the software tells it which card each application should use. The problem is with the game itself, I've already specified that it should use the discrete card, and its using it - just detecting the other one. Most games do that and detect my card as Intel 4000 but what they don't do is remove settings from the menu just because they think the card isn't appropriate. They'll benchmark the machine and default to lower settings (if there is a benchmark application with the game) but then I just bump it all to maximum and the games work fine. Shogun 2 makes options it thinks don't work unavailable, which is nonsense really.

Its a laptop, but its way better than what is necessary to run Shogun 2. A lot of people have the same problem, the result of the graphics chip switching software crap that both NVIDIA and ATI use. Basically the game is using the Radeon 8750M card but detecting it as the Intel 4000, which doesn't have Dx11 so its blocking the Dx11 settings. There is no fix for it apparently.

Doesn't work, defaults back to whatever it thinks are the proper settings. I run the benchmark, it tells me that ultra settings aren't supported on my card, I run the game it tells me I have a Dx 11 graphics card. Ultra settings are solely Dx 11 dependent. But it actually runs at Dx 9 limitations, regardless of what the in game video options say. Incredibly stupid.

That is very philosophical.

Getting very frustrated with Shogun 2 because the game won't recognize my discrete graphics card and persists in using my integrated one. Only its not really using the integrated one since I can set everything to high and play well (and that should not be possible on integrated graphics). The problem is that because ti doesn't detect my discrete card (even though its using it) it removed all the ultra settings from the options menu. When I change it in the script in the shougun folder it still dumps me back to high settings claiming that ultra setting aren't supported, even though they are since its a Dx11 card. Bah

You can't really hold impartial elections in an atmosphere charged with nationalist fervor. The Kiev junta now seeks elections to legitimize its unconstitutional seizure of power, but any elections now are a sham. If they believed in their own political success they wouldn't have deposed of the legitimate president in the first place.