Slowtrain

My thoughts exactly. I find the original location of the nazi research lab far more interesting. But, to be fair, when I was following Fallout's development, despite the fact it looked so cool, I had a hard time gettign really interested because the basic premise of finding a waterchip seemd too stupid to be interesting. In the end of course, that game became one of my favorites ever, so I'm not going to judge the plot of the story too harshly since its how the game performs as a whole that will determine whether I like it or not.

I just finsihed The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, which is one of my fovorite books ever. I'm starting The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald which I haven't read in a very long time.

I just finished watching the Battlestar Galactica miniseries for the fourth of fifth time. I remember when they first announced the remake and I scoffed and said it would be the stupidest show ever. Which may be the most wrong I've ever been.

Jagged Alliance gold with the 1.13 mod. Slowly working my way through the campaign as I find the time. I'm on hold with Oblivion until the expansion and inevitable patch is released.

Despite what that article would like to lead us to believe, there's nothing there to indicate that either obesity or gaming were any factors in his death. It doesn't even say how long after his gaming session he died. For all we know he was hit by a bus on his way home. Nice bun of loaded propaganda bull**** trying to link gaming obesity and death. Typical

Less expensive? $400 USD versus $240 USD? Less than a pain? Hanging the PSU from a wire off the floor versus you install then its done, and then it works. If I were to go to a Vista system it would mean either upgrading my current pc substantially or buying a whole new one outright. Either way its more expensive than an Xbox. Plus if I upgrade my current unit that means most of games that currently run on it will no longer work. Plus I'll have to buy a new anti-virus and other software that is Vista compatible. Its a big price tag plus a lot of work. And I don't see the point. I'll keep my current XP system which can run older games like SS2 and Jag 2 and Wiz 8 and run newer games on an xbox.

I'm going to buy one too, sooner rather than later. Mostly because it is less expensive and less a pain in the ass than dealing with Vista. I'm just waiting for some games I really want to show up on it that I can't run on my current XP pc.

A world without phat l00t would be an empty and sad world indeed.

Well, for my part, I finish almost game I play. The excpetions are games that I am just trying to see if I like them. Obivously, if I am just trying something and I don't like it, then I'm not going to finish it. Those decisions are usually made in the first 30-60 minutes of play. Games that I have invested serious amounts of time in and don't finish are very rare: Baldur's Gate: I played this game for a lot of hours but each time I hit the level cap, I lost interest and stopped. There just wasn't any reason to keep playing once my party stopped leveling. So I didn't. If the level cap had been properly matched to the game I would have finished it. Fallout 2: I loved Fallout 2 and spent a lot of hours with it, but it was SO similar to Fallout, that the further I progressed into the game, the less I felt I was playing something that was actually new. Even the story was almost identical. Eventually I just petered out on it. I was pretty close to the end by the time I stopped, I think though. Diablo 2: Same thing as Fallout 2. Diablo2 was so similar to Diablo that I lost all interest in it shortly into Act 2. It was a fine game, but I had spent hundreds of hours on Diablo already, so I just couldn't find it fresh and interesting Thief 3: I played well into the game, but eventually ran into some bug that got me stuck behind a chest and I couldn't get free. I had no save that was even remotely recent, and being stuck like that really irritated me after all the time I had invested in the game, so I just quit and said I would wait for the patch. The patch came out and I never started a new game though. I might play this again soon though. I love all the Thief games. I'm sure there are a few others. Can't think of them right now though. Liek I said they are pretty rare. I even finished PS:T which was a game I didn't even really liek all that much. Heck, I even tried to replay it, but that didn't work out so well.

I am pretty shocked at how many people have not finished or even started so many great games. I guess in the end the developers are right, people don't in fact finish most games, heck they barely start, so why bother giving them a game that takes more than a few minutes to finish. Depressing.

Why is that redundant? I don't prefer any particular genre. It couldn't be more irrelevant to my choice and or enjoyment of a crpg. I do however prefer games that come in small boxes to games that come in big boxes.

I only played one of those. And yes, it was pretty similar mechanically. But I didn't find it very fun. Although I didn't play ti for very long. Because I didn't find it fun. Sort of a viscious circle there. eh. ANother very similar game was a TB human vs alien game called Incubation. ALthough again, more specifically mission based. Also not tremendously fun however. I at least found Tactics fun enough to play most of the way through several times even if it wasn't the most demanding game I;ve ever played.

It's getting to the point with todays pcs that you need to have dedicated 30 AMP circuit run especially for your computer. Anything less is liable to either pop your breakers or start a fire in the walls. The amount of power required and heat put out is really nuts.

Speaking of odd comparisons... Its not a perfect one or even close, I'll agree. But it was the best I could come up with at the moment. In truth XCOM is unique game and there's nothing I can think of that has the same mix of gameplay. To me though, both the Close Combat games and XCOM are going to appeal to a more limited audience than Tactics.

hmmm. Nope. Saying the same thing twice doesn't make it any more clear. I was hoping for a little more explanation on how you were conencting the two. To me it seems as if you are saying that: the closest thing to a Porsche I've experienced is a Yugo. I mean, technically, I see the accuracy of your statement since they both have two doors and four wheels and an internal combustion engine, but it's not a connection I would immediately make since there is too much difference between them. XCOM is a pretty hardcore, grognard-friendly dynamic campaign game with both well implemented tactical and strategic areas. Tactics is a linear mission-based rpg mixed with lite squad combat that isn't particuarly tactical. XCOM is much closer to, say, Close Combat than it is Tactics.

Odd comparison. I don't see the two as being remotely similar beyond the isometric view and that they both model some degree of tactical combat.

Heh. Guess so. I'd have less of an issue with long dungeons if I found the combat systems compelling enough to warrant it. I seem to notice this applies a lot more to the more recent one. Its that darn real time with pause!

I agree. I've never played a flawless game. But wiping out a goblin cave can be quite fun and enjoyable even if there is little or no larger context for it. There's no real connection between a subjective thing like fun and enjoyment and any sense of a flawed game. Something isn't neccesarily flawed simply because it doesn't interest them.

Besides what constitues a tedious task is totally subjective in the first place. I find anything related to sports mionstriously tedious because its not the least bit interesting to me. It doesn't however mean that sports are tedious by nature.

Which is of course because one of the main points behind playing a CRPG is to develop the PC how you want. If someone doesn't want to do this, then they probably shouldn't be playing a crpg. An adventure game or action game of some sort shuld be more to their taste. It's like me saying I hate sports game because I hate playing sports. well, duh. Which is probably why I choose not to play them.

Long novels tend to contain a lot more than movies. But then if I start a book, I prefer to finish it without a break, if possible. I guess that is just my take on entertainment media. We'll I'm not saying it wouldn't be great to finish a book or game without a break! Just that as you point out when you have a real world to live in often that isn't possible. And I don't neccessarily think that the answer to that problem is simply to make all books and games short enough to fit into a tiny window of time. But still, that's just my take.

Not necessarily in a weekend, but it usually requires having to allocate reasonable contiguous periods of time. People read long novels over a of period of weeks though, and don't seem to lose the impact of the book.

@Diamond, isn't it possible to enjoy a long game over a period of days or week as neccessary? Does a game have to be played in just one or two short sittings over a weekend?

You just have a short attention span. Well, in fairness, I went evenually reinstalled the game and enjoyed it more the next time through. I would have finished it probably if the level cap was more closely set to mtach the actual experience gained in-game. Or if the story had been more compelling. But lacking both, eh...