Slowtrain

IWD2 had hard (relatively) combat. I suppose it was challenging in its own way, but it was mostly just tedious and dull. "Fun" seems a good thing to aim for, I think. If it is fun why does it matter if it hard or easy?

I think you made a wrong turn and somehow ended up on the internet.

I once saw a movie about Black Fungi from Mars.

Even the starting pistols are reasonably effective out to about 30 yards. Just lean out from behind cover and fire a lot of bullets. If you have 200-300 rounds of the 9*18 ammo just open fire from the cover of the nearby building. It takes a bit, but its a pretty easy way to get an aksu and some ammo. I usually leave the soldiers alone though, since they keep the number of bandits in the area down for a while. Eventually the bandits will wipe them out, then I go loot the soldiers bodies for their weapons and ammo.

It's hard.

OK. You can be my friend.

Why? Because I don't equate the concepts of "best" and "favorite"? *is confused* Yes ... So Deus Ex is a better game, but you would rather play Morrowind? *is confused* Godzilla vs the Smog Monster is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. I will watch it ahead of most other movies that have ever been made. I cannot however in all good conscience place it in a best movie list of all time. If I did (and was serious) I would expect to be laughed out of the building. To me that seems an obvious distinction between favorite and best. I enjoy Morrowind more than I do Deus Ex, but Deus Ex is the (far) better game.

Why? Because I don't equate the concepts of "best" and "favorite"? *is confused*

Oh well. There goes that plan. At least I never bought the game. Waiting to see what happens DOES pay off. Sometimes, anyway.

Morrowind had/has a huge following, though: if you were one of the players who can read endless pages of background info off scrolls that are left hidden in dungeons, and you like a sandbox game, then I can see why it would be placed so highly. I'm not, but that's more because Morrowind is a marmite type of game: people either love it or hate it, no in-between. Also, it's good to see Deus Ex getting it's proper acknowledgments. I don't know. I am (was) a pretty big fan of Morrowind. Spent A LOT of time with it. But however much I enjoy it; it is still broken. Maybe its a top 50 game, but I can't see it any higher than that. Maybe not even that high. Just because a person loves a game, doesn't mean its a great game. In most cases, games we personally love are games that have hideous flaws but they are flaws which don't bother us for whatever reason. Deus Ex is much more worthy of praise than MW ever will be. They are not only 4 slots of difference in greatness between them. And I would still at this point rather play MW than Deus Ex if I had to choose.

Deus Ex as number one. An interesting pick. I've seen DX high on a lot of lists, but never at tehnumb3r1! That would seem a little high for a game with such poor AI, but it is certainly a respectable pick. Unlike Morrowind at #4. I mean I am as big a supporter of ES games as anyone, but number 4? Nah, that's just absurd. It's a totally broken game.

That link mkreku posted seems to pretty much say that patch support for G3 is continuing. I hope so, I still want to play this game.

Well, you can certainly look at it and say that it doesn't have Warren Spector so it won't be a real Deus Ex. But, you can also look at it and say it doesn't have Harvey Smith so it won't be a real Invisible War. And I don't think that is such a bad thing, personally.

I still have hope for Bioshock, regardless.

I was thinking an expansion in the near future and a new game in the far future. That would be ideal. If there's no xpack planned for the current game, then I would guess we have seen the last of any patches. Don't think they would spend time on STALKER any more than is neccessary if they are already pushing onward.

Well, if they are adding an expansion, then better chance for another patch. so that's good.

If it wasn't for Ken Levine's presence, I would have no interest in Bioshock. Nothing I have seen of the game: setting, story, art, plasmids, big daddys, none of it loos particularly interesting to me. At all. But given Levine's design philosphy and his work on titles like Thief and System Shock 2, which are games I LOVE, I can't believe that Bioshock won't be at least reasonably good. So I am just assuming that game's PR campaign just ins't doing it justice. My fear is that Bioshock will be one of those games, that despite best intentions from the developers, never really comes together. Like Deus Ex: IW. I hope I am wrong, of course.

Weird. that's completly the opposite of what I had been expecting. Up to this point the focus had seemed less action and more exploration and adventure gaming type scenarios. What is meant by action though? FPS run and gun blow the crud out of everything? That woudl really hit me from left field if that game ended up that way.

I have found weapon breakage and repair annoying in a few games so I understand what you are saying about tedium, Spider. I remember in Might and Magic 6 many of the high level monsters you faced had either Break Weapon or Break Item special attacks, so there was a chance (and a pretty good one, too) that a combat hit would break either a character's weapon or an item they were wearing. So that meant at the start of every turn you had to look at all your character paper dolls to see if anything was broken. If they had a good enough repair skill they could repair it themselves, but if they didn't then you had to transfer the item to the inventory of another character with a high enough skill to make the repair then transfer it back to the original character and requip. And only after doing that about 5 or 6 times could you actually start your combat turn. Now THAT was annoying! I guess some of it is just how much one can tolerate of tasks like that and if they rub you the wrong way.

well, I do agree that the whole armor/weapon wear and tear could have been better integrated into the game. As could the trading system. I guess I just prefer to play within the limitations set by the game rather than bypass them. Also, I do just like the fact that my best gun will eventually wear out if I use it all the time; it just forces me to think a little bit more as I play. Same with the limited inventory. After all, a game without rules isn't much of a game.

erhm, I haven't played too many fps games where armor doesn't wear out as it takes damage.

I've always been a fan of item damage, even item loss and theft. Keeps the gameworld a bit more uncertain. Anyway, before my last game crapped out I had about 6 suits of high-end armors stashed for my final run through Pripyat and CNPP. Never got there, but at least I was prepared. I don't see the problem.

Doesn't that sort of make the whole trading thing useless though? It would seem to remove an aspect of gameplay that makes the game fun making it more of a standard FPS. I wish the trading thing had been more fundamental to the game, true, but you take what you can get. Anyway, its not like guns and armor are particularly rare. When one wears out, you find or buy another.

Stalker patch 1.3 released. Includes slowed respawn rates, crash fixes, etc. http://stalker.filefront.com/ Scroll halfwayddown the page. There are several versions, including a digitlal distribution version, available so make sure you get the right one. There are rumors of a 1.4 patch which will make a lot more AI changes and stuff; I'm waiting to see if that is actually going to happen before I start a new game.

It should be pointed out as well, that Josh had already made a lot of changes to the SPECIAL systems in his version of FO3 before it was canceled. To expect Bethesda to stick too closely to the system is probably asking too much, since SPECIAL does have problems and could probably benefit with a streamlining and a rebalancing. To argue the pros and cons of the systems seems somewhat moot if the game is fun to play.