Slowtrain

Exactly. Its like going out in a sporting match and laying all your money on trying to get the shutout rather than the win. Its a low odds of success sort of thing. You don't aim for the shutout. You go for the win and sometimes along the way you'll get a shutout. Rather than spending gobs of money on cuttign edge graphics and hiring Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean for voiceover work and then having gto sell 2,000,000 copies just to break even, instead just match your budget with the number of copies of a game you think you can sell. Its a pretty basic business approach. Or look at cable tv. Cable doesn't have 300 channels all trying to appeal to everybody. Most channels have a specific focus and audience and they gear their programming to that group. Its a perfectly legitimate way to make good money.

[quote name='H

Your teeth would fall out before too long, I think.

ew. That's just a gross mental picture.

I have to say Arcanum is strange beast. It has one of the worst GUI's I've ever encountered - that has been TWICE reason for me abandonding the game before getting very far-, rather mundane writing, horrible and unbalanced combat and it is ****ing hideous*. But on the other hand it has fantastic roleplaying and awesome milieu. And heart you have to admit *When compared to Fallouts and PS:T that is, games I had just previously played before first trying Arcanum. Bloodlines however became one of my favourite games. Fantastic writing Arcanum definitely has its flaws, but as a crpg that is seriously into world depth and roleplaying options I think its right up there with Fallout and PS:T. Its one of those games where I can overlook the problems because the postives are so awesome.

As a medical sort of fellow, Danny can't stand the roid users. lol. No consequences to kiling Mickey other than you can't selel animal parts. I've onyl done it once or twice though, so I wouldn't say I am an expert in that particular event. Razor is just seriously awesome

But where are the excess calories going? Unless they are so sick they are vomiting or having bowel issues, those excess calories are going to get turned into fat if they are not burned off. The body has to put them somewhere.

The nice thing about the X universe games is there are a variety of different paths to awesomness. You can build a huge fleet of trading ships. Or you can build a bunch of factory stations. Or you can mine asteriods. Or collect spaceflies. Or you can blow up innocent transports and collect their cargo. Or you can just run combat missions and play it as a straight space combat sim.

I just don't like getting meat stuck between my molars. Same reason I don't eat popcorn. A good cut of beef is pretty healthy anyway, except for the cholesterol.

Junk food tends to be very calorie concetrated which makes it easy to eat too much and take in too many calories. SOmething like spinach still contains calories, it is just harder to eat so much spinach that it would make you fat because the calories are not as concetrated.

Bloodlines and Arcanum are both really good games. People badmouth Troika some, but they did a lot right. And yeah, Xardie, Brujah chicks kick butt. I am always a Brujah chick. I think it is my destiny. Can't possibly beat the thrill of activiatign celerity and potence and pummelling your enemies to death as they float around in mid air slo mo style. Its like bullet time, except with fists.

I spent way too much life playing Gauntlet. lol

I woudl suggest X2 instead of X3. Its got a lot of awesome patches and mods available for it now. X3 is good to, but I think X2 was the high point of the series so far. Heres a link to all the awesome X2 stuff you can get: http://www.egosoft.com/download/x2/bonus_en.php You shoudl also make sure you get the Artificial ife download on the patches page as well. http://www.egosoft.com/download/x2/patches_en.php

Thanks, mkreku. I'll give that one a try. I used to have a pretty decent application that converted image formats, but when I moved to my new computer I never installled. Don't even know where the cd is now. SO for the last year I've just been using Paint to do my conversions. lol. I'm so lazy. But I'll give this one a try.

The inventory is so awesome now. I am so amazed by the 1.13 mod every time they come up with something new. Here's a pic from my current game in the aftermath of one of the queens counterattacks on the Cambria mine sector. Once you wind up the difficulty it gets a little nuts.

So true! ATM though I ony have two real targets: Oblivion and Bioshock. And Oblivion I admit has a few redeeming qualities even in the vanilla game. Bioshock though is the epitome of cruddy next gen game design. IMO, of course. Most other games, such as ME, I don't really have strong feelings bout one way or the other. I don't really get the passion for ME, but it is nothing terrible. AH well. Next!

I don't know if this was in any way responding to my post, but just in case, to clarify I was referrign to Bioshock not Mass Effect. I though thtat was what Moat was referring to there.

edit: This post refers to Bioshock (which can be conveniently refered to as BS), not to MAss Effect (ME). But what is that exactly? Its certainly not a crpg. There's not enough thinking or object manipulation for it to be an adventure game. Its not really a survival game since there is an infininte supply of everything all the time and the character can't die anyway. I can't really call it a flight sim since th eonly airplane crashes in the first thirty seconds of the game. It's not a NHL hockey game since there is no hockey underwater. A golf sim? A deer hunting game? Hmm. No probably not. Actually, it really is nothing more than a half-ass shooter. Quarter-ass actually. FOr all it's shine there is nothing else there.

STrength is very important for some characters. Load up full body armor, mortar, some shells, an autoweapon, some spare magazines, plus sundries. and most of your mercs won't be able to move. Grizzly is awesome cause his high strength makes his heavy weapons specialty very useful. STrength also affects hand to hand damage (not so useful generally) and throwing distance for grenades and knives. Also a high strength generally makes characters mopre functional in the field and less affacted by wound. On a side note: I've never seen a mercs health increase in the 1.12 version of the game. The original game went though a lot of changes as to how stats increase. Each of the patches from 1 to 1.06 made it a little diferent. The 1.13 mod has restored some of the stat increase fucntionality that was present in early versions of the game.

The only thing I don't like about some of those mercs such as Hitman and Fox and Ivan and Igor is that they need a lot of sleep. My teams tend to travel a lot on foot and I can't stand wasting time sleeping. The best thing about Razor is that he is so high strung that he only needs an hour or so of sleep a day.

My favorite Jag 2 mercs: Magic- All around coolest dude in the game. Expensive but who cares? Shadow- Second onyl to Magic in cool factor Scope (duh) - Good shot, lovely accent, night operations. What else do you need? Raider- Great trainer, good shot, awesome for sector defense Raven- Night operations, auto weapons, good shot. But no accent. Wolf- All around solid yet inexpensive merc. Night operations Danny- Awesome stats, good trainer, medic Can develop into an amazing merc given enough time Steroid-Very cheap on a two week contract. Mechanics, lockipicking, good shot Grizzly- my man! Heavy weapons, more strenmgth than a bulldozer. What's not to love? Razor- Most fun MERC merc. I take him early and he stays with me the whole game. Unles he gets killed. Maddog- Most fun NPC joinable. GOod stats are a bonus plus can lockpick anything in the game with only a little development. Its funny that a non-crpg has better npc party members than almost all crpgs, innit?

Awesome, Krezzie. I'm glad you don't ahve the STEAM version. The regular 1.12 shoudl be mostly fine. A few small bugs but nothing major. Idf you don't have a manual then there is going to be a lot of stuff you won't know about. (I think there is a pdf for the original manual on the cd though). Make sure you talk to everyone. Its a lot like a crpg in that way, Also: by right clicking on a target after you have your sights on him, you can increase yoru aiming percentage by spending additonal APs before you fire. A lot of people seem to miss this when they forst play the game. IT helps a lot. Also, the game will get easier as you acquire longer range weapons and better gear. The better equipped your team the more tactical options you have. Night operations is a good way to do a lot of damage and not take a lot in return. Yay!

I have a copy of JA2 Gold which includes UB. Is it worth playing in this case? Infinite money sounds rather annoying. Does the no-save bug apply to normal JA2 if you have UB installed? Its your call, Krezzie. The Steam version is buggy. HAving infinite money kinda makes trhe game a waste of time. You could try installing the 1.13 mod which fixes a lot of bugs by default, but I know the 1.13 mod has problems with the Steam version as well sometimes. If you are really bent on playing Jag 2, go on ebay and get the Jag 2 gold edition from Stratgy FIrst. I'm sure you can find it cheap with a little bit of looking.

Well, I wouldn't be opposed to improvements in a new XCOM, but foe me, simply being able to play XCOM in a nice high resolution with lots of colors and a 3d engine with a moveable camera would be more than enough. I can't really think of too many improvements that could be made to the game though anwyay. None of this matters though since any xcom remake is bound to be some sort of nausea inducing realtime linear mission affair anyway. The question is moot.

I think it would be great if someone did a remake or an unofficial sequel to XCOM though. I'd love to see the exact same game, just with somewhat modern graphics. No need to change anything at all. Except maybe an easier way to equip your soldiers so you don't ahve to go through that loudout screen before every...single...mission. I guess there is supposed to be an XCOM sequel/remake in development now, but unti I know more about it I reallty can't say too much positive about it. We'll see.