Lord of Lost Socks

I'm mad as hell too. They missed an update, I mean COME ON. What's next? Project Eternity cancelled? I want my money back now.

Trolls from Troll:

Baldur's Gate: Revengeance On a more serious note. No to endless sequels, and don't mess with complete stories. I want new stories, I don't want someone to mess with old stories that ended on a high note.

Wait, you're surprised about this? This is the direction that gaming is headed and has been for years. I estimate we're only a year or two away from games coming out with a special edition you can buy for a cool $20 more where you don't get the game at all, but instead you automatically are awarded all the achievements so that you can show off your SKILLZ and your ePen1s can grow. As sad as that sounds it wouldn't really surprise me... I once heard someone slamming a game because it was "too long", so it took him "too long" to finish so he could move on to the next game... I died a little that day. Tbh, any game that forces me to run around picking random **** up is wasting my time. However, that would never make me buy a time saver package, because I don't want to encourage devs to balance single player games around a pseudo-F2P model where they balance the game to be a chore unless you pay more. The DLC is stupid, so are collectibles. And grind is bollocks.

Voted turnbased, partly due to OP being so manic about it, partly becausse I don't care either way and partly because it's more faithful to the PnP game, making it easier for the devs to implement it and lessen the chance of a ****up.

You know, I really hope they make a Torment: Waves of Earthsea, or something, after Numenera just to see this entire discussion done again.

"A spiritual successor,[1][2] sometimes called a spiritual sequel,[3] is a successor to a work of fiction which does not build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material."

I know right! And it even makes sense and looks completely space.

New Limit Theory dev blog: This looks absolutely gorgeous and the guy who makes it works so hard on it. What stunned me was 14:00 onwards.

Megapatch is live. It does seem big. http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/22810/game-update-v1-2-0

I think that taller trees will be reserved for smaller areas where you'll never/rarely go behind the tree, and the smaller trees you see in the pictures are in more open explorable areas. This is probably intetional to avoid having the problem of your character being behind trees half the time. It's a gameplay decision. One I don't care for either way.

Conan the Destroyer (1984) - Movie Review by Lord of Lost Socks (includes spoilers) “Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, sword in hand. It is I, his chronicler, who knows well his saga. Now, let me tell you of the days of high adventure!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYt0oy9ZoPc Plot: The plot starts off with Conan kneeling before an altar with his friend Malak, the thief, when they get attacked by unknown men. After defeating them, the leader of the attackers calls her men back and tells Conan that she needs him for a quest. Conan at first declines, but after the leader, who is in fact the queen of the area, promises that she can bring back Valeria, Conan’s girl from the first movie, he agrees. So they travel to the capital city where the queen tells Conan that he is to escort the queen’s niece, Jehnna, to find the horn of Dagoth, their god, a.k.a. the Dreaming God. The niece was born with a certain mark that allows her touch, without dying, a diamond that allows them to find the horn. When Conan is off-screen we hear the queen and Bombaata, Jehnna’s protector, discuss killing Conan after they have found the diamond. Bombaata’s mission is also to protect Jehnna’s virginity, since she is needed for sacrifice. Jehnna does not know anything about this, naturally. This comes as no surprise to anyone, since they’re all dressed in black and the high priest has a staff with a skull on it. Of course they’re evil. We learn that the diamond is held by an evil wizard. It’s hopefully clear to everyone by now that the mission is to wake the Dreaming God from its slumber. So they embark on their quest and Conan sets out to find his own wizard, so he rescues Akiro from cannibals. Akiro is the Wizard from the first movie, who is mentioned by name for the first time. So, they start their trek toward the evil wizard and on the way encounter Zula, who is a Zulu. Get it? Zula pledges to fight for Conan, because Conan rescued her after she was caught raiding. They eventually reach the wizard’s tower, but the night before they enter it, the wizard sends a magic bird and kidnaps Jehnna in her sleep. Conan and the rest of the party wake up in the morning and notice that she’s gone and immediately set out to rescue her. The wizard’s toward is situation in a lake and it’s made of ice. This is where it gets a little odd that Conan is not cold without a shirt, since the temperature is cold enough for us to see his breath. They encounter the wizard, who turns into a troll-orc and kill him. Afterwards they follow Jehnna who intuitively knows where to go and find the horn in an old ruin. On the ruin walls it tells how Dagoth will destroy the earth if awakened. Either way, on the way out they encounter cultists who want the horn. They escape from the ruins, but not before Bombaata takes Jehnna and the horn and leaves them to their fate. Conan, obviously, gets mad for being betrayed and travels with what’s left of his party back to the capitol. There he sneaks in to the temple right when they’re about to sacrifice Jehnna (who we are now told must be sacrificed so that the queen can control Dagoth). He fights Bombaata and kills him and saves Jehnna. However the ritual has gone too far and Dagoth is awakened, so they fight him and manage to kill him too by ripping out his horn. The movie ends in a classic movie cliché where the heroes are awarded their rewards by the newly crowned Jehnna. Visuals: The visuals in this movie are a bit mixed. The sets and the scenery is still top notch, apart from the wizard’s tower that is unfortunately pretty poorly made in some parts. The costumes still hold up to Conan the Barbarian’s standard of looking authentic but still rich with classic barbarian fantasy aesthetics. The scope of this movie is for the most part much larger than the original. Whereas in the original they fought a cult with relatively little magic, in the sequel they fight cultists, other cultists, a wizard and a god. And cannibals. The problem with this is that the graphical effects do not deliver in all of these scenes. The fight against the wizard and pretty much all his magic looks pretty bad to a modern viewer and the entire set in that scene is also pretty poor. Dagoth looks a bit strange, but I can understand the technical limitations here, and the god does still look fairly terrifying and grotesque. The wizard in all his terrific glory: The fighting choreography is not quite as good as in the original either. Pretty much every scene with Zula fighting is pretty bad. She fights with a spear, but it doesn’t look convincing at all. Malak, “fights” with daggers, but it’s mainly him just hiding and stabbing people who are already down. It all really leaves you wanting Subotai from the original back. Conan’s fight against the wizard is not that well choreographed either. Here you can see Zula fighting. As an added bonus you get to see Jehnna's terrible acting. Audio: The movie has practically the same soundtrack as before and it’s still very good. Acting: And so we come to the acting. This is worse across the board, to be brutally honest. So I’ll go through the most important characters. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his role as Conan has deteriorated slightly from the original. He isn’t as convincing, and I believe one of the reasons could be that he has more to say. However, the difference here isn’t huge, and some of it is probably due to bad dialogue which I’ll discuss later. The biggest offender in bad acting in this movie, and I’d be hard pressed to find anyone worse is Jehnna. Once again, her script and part in the movie is generally horrible. Half the time she is shouting for help, or trying to find out how to seduce Conan. However, the actress Olivia d’Abo makes the entire thing cringe worthy. It’s abysmal. If you watch this movie, you will notice this in her first line. Malak, played by Tracey Walter, is also terrible. Once again, this is probably due to a bad script, but a good actor can overcome that to some degree. Zula (Grace Jones) tries to play the role of a warrior woman, but once again just doesn’t manage it. Her fights are awkward and the way she acts is not believable. The entire effort to seem like a warrior is ruined in a scene where she spots a rat and jumps away like any old frightened woman (according to cliché) and is then laughed at by the rest. Shockingly enough Mombaata played by none other than Wilt Chamberlain, a famous basketball player, does his job relatively good compared to the disasters above. Mako, who plays Akiro the Wizard, is for the most part really good as per usual. However, one criticism I have is the opening speech he is responsible for. When he talks in the first Conan movie that intro is awesome and delivered perfectly. In Conan the Destroyer, however, the intro is not delivered with the same impact and seems almost indifferent when he says it. I have a feeling he had too much to say for the time he was given, forcing him to rush it. Just listen to both of the and compare. The first one is from Conan the Barbarian, the second one is from Conan the Destroyer: The rest of the characters do an average to decent job. The Wizard’s monologue lines aren’t really that impressive, but his entire character is pointless anyway, so I can’t exactly fault him for it. Dialogue: So, remember all those memorable quotes I posted in my Conan the Barbarian review? That wasn’t nearly all of them, and they were fantastic lines, I hope you agree. Now in Conan the Destroyer, there are none. There’s not a single line that I can remember that was good and memorable. Some were decent, some were memorable due to being bad, but that’s it. What happened? Instead we get lines like these: The one who wrote the script should seriously have given more thought to it. This is yet another black mark when you compare it to the original. Personal Opinion: The plot to me feels a little needlessly convoluted for a Conan movie. In Conan the Barbarian he had one task and everything he faced was Thulsa Doom’s henchmen, with a few minor exceptions. The wizard that they fight is completely random. We are told nothing about him, other than he holds the diamond. He could be the protector of the world for all we know. And after they kill him and try to take the horn, some random cultists appear that want to fight Conan again. Then they also fight the cannibals when rescuing Akiro. The worst part about it is that it would probably be alright if the queen turned out to betray him in a shock twist at the end, but no. It’s blatantly obvious to everyone except Conan & Co. that she is evil. Another thing that always bothered me was that when Conan fights the wizard, he finds the wizards weakness purely by accident, which makes the entire scene feel like Conan just got lucky, which is in direct contrast to the earlier movie. All the new side characters just make me wish we had Valeria and Subotai back. Malak is the replacement for Subotai, and he's just an annoying guy who delivers some slapstick quality humour to it. Did they really think Conan needed that? Zula as a character does nothing other than stare menacingly and tries to be strong. Thank the heavens Mako returned with his character Akiro. You may have noticed this review is fairly negative. It’s not really a bad movie. It’s okay. This was the first Conan movie I saw when I was younger and I loved it. I still like it. The only reason it sounds bad is because I really, really liked the first one and this comes across rushed in the first seconds of the movie. However, it’s still a Conan movie at heart. I do recommend it, if you liked the first Conan. If you thought the first Conan was campy and funny, well, this is more of that. Regardless, you should watch it. My god, this turned out longer than expected. Thank you if you managed to read it all.

Indeed. I did not take up the answer to the riddle of steel, because it varies from person to person. I agree with you, in that the answer is flesh and steel together. (The latest Conan kinda confirms it with its "Mystery of Steel" which was "Which is most important when forging a sword, Fire or Ice?" The answer was "Fire and Ice") However, there is also the view that the will of man is the most important. Not flesh or steel, but how you intend to use them. But I always considered that to be kinda the same thing. I also, forgot to mention the full circle of Thulsa Doom cutting his mother's head off, then later Conan cutting Thulsa Doom's head off. I always enjoyed imagining Conan at the end when he sits on the stairs contemplating his victory as him wondering what has changed. The only thing his quest for revenge made for his personal life was that he lost his love. Let me explain. By killing Thulsa Doom, he set himself "free" of his quest for revenge, and also "freed" the cultists from Thulsa Doom's lies. But free to do what? Same things they could've done earlier had they the will to do so. Really emphasizes the futility of revenge in the end. And yes, the movie is not faithful to the books. But I do believe it captures the spirit of the books and converts it into one fantastic cinematic experience. This is what happens when you write a review 3 weeks after last time seeing the movie. You forget things.

I'm negative simply because CA doesn't know how to do anything but Total War, and lately I've started to doubt that.

Actually, I've already made a promise to review Conan the Destroyer, and talk a little bit about why I think the sequel did not quite live up to the original. After that I might tackle the new Conan. I just need to find the time to rewatch both of them since it's been at least 8 months since I did and would not want to forget anything.

Heh, as he states in the video. He's not particurarly concerned about himself, since he can easily handle these situations. But for example, in the case of NukemDukem, who has a respectable 75 000 subscribers has had unfair flags on his account for weeks. Smaller channels are the ones who suffer.

It is insane. Here's NukemDukem's take on the situation, and he has the same problem with Sony.

Conan the Barbarian (1982) - Movie Review by Lord of Lost Socks (includes spoilers) “Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Conan, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!” http://youtu.be/xteoc9zrC2w Plot: The plot of the movie centers on the barbarian archetype Conan the Cimmerian. Cimmerian’s are a warrior people that live far to the north of where the majority of the movie takes place. In the introduction we are introduced to the young Conan and his tribe and family. His father tells him of the Enigma of Steel, a.k.a. the riddle of steel. When doing this he is referring to how man found the mastery of steel after a great battle between the gods, led by Crom(the god of the Cimmerians that lives under a mountain), and giants. Soon after this Conan’s entire tribe is killed by a group of men wielding a banner with twin serpents. Conan himself is sold to slavery were he spends his entire teenage years and early adulthood doing slave labor that hardens his muscles. After this he is sold yet again to a group of men looking for a new fighter for their arena. Conan, strong as he is, survives better than expected and is rewarded with advanced combat training by his masters. Conan eventually escapes and finds an ancient tomb with a throne upon which rests a skeleton clutching a sword. Conan refers to the skeleton as Crom and takes the sword. After this Conan earns plenty of riches through adventure while at the same time trying to find the men who murdered his tribe. He eventually tracks down the men to a cult that uses the very same banner and is given a quest by a king to rescue the king’s daughter that has been seduced by the cultists. His friend Subotai and his love Valeria consider it too dangerous, but Conan driven by the need to avenge his tribe leaves alone in the night. During his attempt to rescue the daughter and find information on the murderers, Conan meets Thulsa Doom, the leader of the snake cult. In a memorable scene, Thulsa Doom and Conan(who is badly wounded) share this great dialogue: Conan is eventually joined by his friends again and by a new character referred to only as the Wizard and together they eventually take down the cult and rescue the king’s daughter. Valeria, on the other hand, dies in the attempt. The scene where the leader of the cult is killed is hauntingly good. Thulsa Doom attempts to convince Conan not to kill him, using his powers of persuasion the same way he had charmed all his followers. Conan does not fall under his spell and kills him, proving that Thulsa’s understanding of the riddle of steel was not enough to stop Conan. The cultists who consider him a god see his head get cut off and thrown down the stairs. Realizing how wrong they were all the cultists leave quietly grieving and ashamed. Here is the final scene: Visuals: The filming is great and throughout the movie it feels like a true high-budget movie, especially if you watch the Blu-ray version. You can barely tell it’s filmed in the 80s. The graphical effects for the most part hold up incredibly well, considering the movies age. There is only scene that I can think of where the special effects are a tad odd, and that’s the scene where spirits are trying to steal Conan’s soul. Otherwise, the magic in the movie is actually incredibly low-key, to the movie’s credit. There are no fireball-hurling wizards here. Conan’s friend, the wizard primarily performs only ritualistic magic, while Thulsa Doom does simple things like turning a snake to a poisonous arrow. The costume design of the movie is also top notch quality, though the style might seem extremely 80s to some. However, this style was already set partly in place in the Conan art designs and was after Conan the Barbarian copied a lot. Conan is still to this day, the quintessential Barbarian. Personally, I really enjoy the costumes, they’re really metal, except maybe for a few goofy helmets, but even those I whole-heartedly accept. The fighting scenes are for the most part well-choreographed and are most enjoyable to watch. The scenery in this movie is also beautiful and it really gives the movie a sense of scale and wonder along with the, for the most part well thought out sets. Audio: The soundtrack of this movie is in my opinion one of the best ever created. It sets the tone perfectly for “high adventure”. It is a great orchestral score created by Basil Poledouris. Acting: The acting is perhaps the weakest part in the movie. It is not exactly bad. Arnold Schwarzenegger does a fantastic job as Conan. Indeed, it’s probably Arnold at his best. He fits perfectly, due to his accent and weak grasp of English. It is just what you’d expect from a northerner that has received no education and spent most of his life as a slave or a pit fighter. Perhaps the weakest performance in the movie is that of Valeria, simply because she does nothing to distinguish herself. It’s competent, but nothing special. The Wizard plays the role of the hermit extremely well, and I knew I recognized his voice from somewhere, and it turns out he’s the voice of Aku in Samurai Jack (among many other things), my favourite cartoon as a kid. He is also the narrator/chronicler of the entire movie. However, hands down the best performance of the movie actually comes from the king, who only has one scene, but he performs it to near perfection. Just watch: Dialogue: There really isn’t that much dialogue in this movie, compared to others. I suspect it’s partly because of Arnold’s weak English, but I don’t know. However, what little dialogue there is is practically instant classics. They are simple, but very powerful, and therefore easy to remember. Conan doesn’t philosophize, and when he does, he does it in a very down to earth fashion, fitting his character. Here’s a selection of memorable quotes: Personal Opinion: So, as you may have noticed, I really like this movie. I’d put it in my top 5 movies of all time. It is a bit cliché to modern eyes, but it’s cliché because this movie made it cliché. It’s like faulting Tolkien for being too generic. Keep in mind, Conan and Lord of the Rings was first conceived around the same time. Conan, in my opinion is equally ground-breaking as Tolkien’s work, though perhaps a lower class of literature perhaps of lesser quality (assuming you care). I recommend anyone who hasn’t seen this movie, to watch it. It was the standard that other fantasy movies strived to reach until Lord of the Rings was released and still holds up incredibly well. The worst case scenario is that you will find it incredibly campy, but really funny. Either way, you should definitely see it. I’ll do a short write-up of the failures of Conan the Destroyer if people are interested. Thank you if you managed to make it this far!

OMG !!! You have never played the Witcher ??? Okay you need to rectify that and soon. I was under the impression that in the Terms and Conditions of this website you had to have played Witcher in order to join as a member, but I may have misunderstood something I can't play Witcher. I've tried. I get annoyed by the awful UI and combat and general camera, movement and everything. It even seems to acknowledge it in the beginning when it asks what controls you want to use. It couldn't decide which was more awful. EDIT: I haven't tried Witcher 2, because I've always felt I should play the first one first, but that is impossible. Tried to do it 6 times and every time I quit when you get to the village part. I just can't be bothered to turn it on again.

And EA and Activision and Ubisoft. And 2K games, Sega, Valve, MS, Sony..... Probably be easier to list who we can't hate. Oh yes. CD Projekt is like the most evil company in the world. What with all the free content, no DRM, Good Old Games, and such anti-consumerist bull****!

This is also pretty cool.

They're really close to releasing patch 1.2 for BG:EE which will introduce quite a few things, most notably a new UI that allows you to scale it up to as high a res as you want and takes less space that the old one. Here's some pics: PicOne. This shows the see-through chatlog. PicTwo. High res UI- PicThree. New loot window. PicFour. Inventory, character screen etc now open in windows like this. They've also done some work on some spell effects and such to make them look a bit nicer and other stuff. You can follow the patches progress here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/the-road-to-v1-2 Probably sounds like heresy to some of you, but I kind of like it.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leafygames/pulsar-lost-colony It's the Star Trek game you always wanted. Seriously considering backing.

That's the beauty of Kickstarter in my opinion. If the new Torment, Eternity, Star Citizen, etc are horrible games. There is only one company to blame and that's the developers. I hope they realize this. Especially Obsidian who has a history of complaining about publishers interrupting development. Well, now is the chance to show what you can do when that doesn't happen. And I actually pledged to Eternity 50 euros or something, and I don't actually have much interest in the stuff I get apart from the game. I put 50 euros on the game, the digital stuff is just some nice stuff on the side.

South Park has the best chances to not be buggy, so you shouldn't be afraid about that. I'd worry about eternity way more in that department. In my experience, games that have had release dates postponed, been in development a long time and switched publishers have a high chance of failure.