Pidesco

An unarmed build is the best possible build in Fallout 2. After playing through it with one, I never was able to play it again without an unarmed build. It was just so awesome to run around the Enclave punching people in the eyes or, occasionally, the groin. The only problem was chasing your enemies because after hitting them they could go sliding away until they hit a wall. Being able to get 5 or 6 hits in a turn with Slayer was just incredibly powerful.

I'm glad to see you are humble enough to admit your own flaws.

Are those martial arts skills ever used on coworkers, for example, during bitterly disputed design meetings?

Also, I'd like to point out something else. The problem with this lowering of standards is not for your average student, but rather for the best in class who have a harder time achieving their potential due to not being challenged by the school system. Modern education systems probably make the smarter students lazier, unless the parents step in and push their kids towards excellence, themselves.

It's not that people are getting dumber, it's just that the more people enter school and go for "higher" education levels the lower the teaching standards have to be. I mean what was the percentage of the population that finished high school in the 50s, in England? And what is the percentage now? In fact, I'm betting people are getting smarter not dumber, even if just marginally. A not very smart guy in Portugal, in the 30s, for example, would go through, at most, the first 4 years of school. Now, the same guy would at least finish 9th grade, probably the 12th as well. That has to help something, even if the difference is almost negligible.

I understand all your points and all I can say is I do not find twitch based fun but I know many people do. I guess I do not understand why both of us cannot be catered to. It is not like there is a massive shortage of twitch action games out there. What there's an absence of, however, are RPGs with well done, twich based action.

CGI, apparently.

Some do:

Melee will be useless in Fallout 3. It's becoming increasingly unlikely that I buy the game.

I was about to post that.

Oppressing personal freedoms? When did that happen in the Afghan war? As far as I can recall they occupied Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government. Also, the insurrection in Afghanistan was led by extremist nuts.

Like we did in 1980. What China is doing to its people, to the people of Tibet, and to the people of Burma is on par what the Soviets did in Afghanistan. What, lose a war?

You could have attacked Matthew with your zombie brain. A lost opportunity right there.

A fake Chios was the final level in NOLF 2.

Moonraker!

Alzheimer's?

What? It was awesome and brilliantly funny.

Oh, I realize why actual real life locations aren't really feasible to implement, it's just that, to me, a generic Asian metropolis called "Hong Kong", has about the same effect as a generic Asian metropolis called "Pingpongyinyang."

System Shock 2 No One Lives Forever Civilization IV Alpha Centauri Planescape Torment Baldur's Gate 2 Fallout 2 Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past Street Fighter 2 STALKER Tales of Phantasia Liero Democracy 2 Jagged Alliance 2 Secret of Monkey Island Leisure Suit Larry Prince of Persia SWIV Xenon 2 Atik Atak Jet Set Willy Sim City Caesar III Quake Match Day 2 Vagrant Story MotB Ogre Battle Ultima VII I think that's 10, more or less.

Locations only really interest me if they're actually modelled after the actual real life places. Walking through, say, Stockholm's Gamla stan, in AP would be awesome.

My problem with older games isn't graphics or gameplay in itself, but rather, outdated, less responsive controls. I find it a pain in the ass to control your character in, say, Daggerfall, System Shock 1, or even Ultima 7. And these are actually fairly recent games by my standards.

Lionheart could have been so awesome... What a waste of an awesome setting.

I'm sorry, but a gun shooting unlimited kittens would be totally unrealistic. Where would Thorton keep the infinite kittens, for example? Ever thought of that? Didn't think so. Furthermore, Thorton would have to carry around infinite kitty litter boxes, and unlimited amounts of cat food. Also, unlimited kittens would take away from the fun and depth added by having to decide between wet food and dry food. Finally, all the used kitty litter would make it a bit harder to explain how Thorton is able to do stealth kills. The bottom line is that a gun that shoots kittens is only realistic and fun if there's a limited supply of kittens available to the player. This goes without saying. Even if I just said it.

As long as there's a level cap, and the levelling up is properly balanced, a classless system doesn't turn all characters into jacks-of-all-trades.

It's not a question of plausibility, it's a question of fun and things to do in the game. In NWN single player you are playing nerfed PnP DnD alone with yourself, and a retarded DM running the proceedings. What DnD computer RPGs have always done is to add the control of several characters to make up for the lack of actual role playing and socializing that makes pen and paper DnD fun. In this sense, NWN single player is like the worst of two worlds. Now, I imagine NWN is probably much better in multiplayer if you're playing with the right group of people, but I never actually tried, because at the time of NWN's release I was on dial up, and anyway, the right group of people wouldn't be caught dead playing NWN. Finally, as for the stuff that has come out in the past 2 years, first you can't expect people who hated the original experience to wait around for 5 years for new mods to come out, and second, for obvious reasons, I haven't bought NWN's expansions which puts newer mods out of the picture. Even NWN2 was hard to get into due to all the NWN1 vibes it gave me.