melkathi

Pretty good odds I'd say.

And yet, I'm glad Spec ops exists because having the criticism of modern shooters manifest in a game will likely have more of an effect than any forum post, single game journalist editorial, Tasteful Understated Nerdrage, Jimquisition, petition, etc. will. I will not say Spec Ops presented its point 100% perfectly, and I'll have my avatar's reaction when somebody argues "But Spec ops' gameplay is designed to be boring!", but god damn did I feel like I needed a cigarette when that game ended, and I hope your preconception of the game isn't heavily influenced by the opinions of a forum where everything, except some really obscure/old RPGs that even only very few fans of the very genre have played, will get tons of snarky **** I think your view of this forum is a bit biased. The amount of praise given to some mainstream games amazes me on here. If you want truly snarky, you should go to some indy game forums I didn't think I'd say this but I miss Drowsy...

Well, it turned out to be Crusader

To be honest, in my opinion of course, Spec Ops the line's story (as far as I have gotten) is superior to Mass Effect's and does no more shoving down the throat of political ideals than that (garbage) does

Just got this wierd mail from Squeenix: http://uman.eu.square-enix.com/tracker.php?doc=COLLEAN&code=751261&lang=en&page=email&id=VIDEO Seems to be their version of Greenlight.

Though I found it refreshing that (at least so far) the game is not rehashing the old nazi enemies that games seem to be so fond of since the old Wolfenstein. Or islamic terrorists. Or evil russians. Seems you can't go wrong with evil russians... Seems that a certain part of the entertainment industry in the US finds it difficult to portray bad guys as anything but foreigners. So everytime a movie or game breaks that partial taboo, I am delighted

You beat me to it. was going to post that as well

I reduced difficulty to the lowest setting, just so I can check out the story. It has a bit of a Apocalypse Now vibe going at places, and that is the only reason I play it when I do.

I had thought about adding that.

I love Runner running in the Septerra Core video Own list: Absolute favourite intro cinematic: Anarchy Online "My father taught me to use a gun. Sometimes, late at night, I wonder if I'll ever be able to put it down." Runner Up: Omikron: Nomad Soul "Are you sad and lonely? As if life is just not worth living anymore? Drink Quanta Cola!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-SM8VobyEw Other videos: Auto Assault Movie Trailer: Tablua Rasa Intro: Alien Nations: Blaze & Blade: Honorary Mention: Dune 2:

Reminds me of school. During recess a friend asked whether I couldn't quickly wiz up an adventure. "Oh, ok. Do you have dice?" "No. You?" "No... eh, just grab that eraser there and roll that."

Arkash: Legacy. I am struggling with fights, failing 5 or 6 times at one encounter. I can't remember when last I played a game that did this My main problem with the game so far is that, so far, all maps have been completly linear. Sure, at some point you take two steps to the right or left to open a chest, but you never get to explore the levels - just move from point A to point B.

I keep dying in Arklash: Legacy... Not sure if that is good or bad.

Something I forgot about Arklash: Legacy is the recycling system. Loot you no longer need you do not throw away or sell (at least not so far), instead you ctrl right click it into the recycler. Based on the item's power, the recycler starts to fill up. When you completly fill it, it creates a legendary item of the same type as the last item that was recycled.

Heh, yeah. Ranged weapons for everyone is highly recommended unless you enjoy resting/loading after every squirrel and leprecon. My own third try of finishing the game stopped about a month ago, I guess it's just not meant to be. You kill squirrels!?!?!? May your party be eternally stuck reloading!

I have been playing some Arklash: Legacy I haven't gotten very far yet. It is a party based game. Isometric view and active pause combat. You start with 4 characters, which is also the mx active party size. More characters can be found later during the game (got one so far). Each character has 4 abilities (2 at level 1, gaining 1 at 2 and one at 3). From level 4 onward, characters gain skill points with which they can upgrade those abilities. Each ability splits into two paths. Every character has a strength and weakness that makes them play slightly differently from the rest. Thus you have a fighter who uses her own health to fuel her abilities and who heals herself whenever she lands a killing blow. You have a healer who does not regenerate mana on her own, but has to drain health from a friendly target to replenish her mana. They tried to make combat interactive. You knock down enemies to interrupt spells from being cast. The heal of that starting healer is a wave attack that heals the first person it hits - regardless of friend or foe - forcing you to reposition during fights. They have also tried to add tricky boss fights. For example the boss' flunkies cast a healing ritual ever so often to heal him back to full HP. While normally that would mean you'd take them out first, the boss has a healing aura that makes killing them impossible. The solution is clever positioning: each of the flunkies sends a healing ray at the boss. If your party stands in the way of that, it can poach the healing effect. It took me a while to figure out and to then get the positioning right. Still, it gives me some hope for later boss fights in the game. Voice acting is ok, not helped by the occasional delay in playing the responses. When the party leader shouts a cheesy "one for all all for one" style rallying cry, it does sound off, when it takes the rest a second to respond. There are some typos in the text. Enough to be noticeable. I can't say much about the story yet. Your party are all Wheel Swords, mercenaries of the Goldmongers Guild. The Goldmongers are the bankers and loansharks of Arklash, and have been lending money to everyone. When payment is due, they send their Wheel Swords to collect. Of course during the latest mission of your team, things take a nasty turn. And that's all I have to say for now.

What is the opposit of deadly force? Undeadly force of course!

What details?

My university flatmate did that. I think his was a 2 week trip. He felt it was absolutely worth it.

I just got my bank statement from Cyprus. Apparently I am being charged a 25 euro quarterly maintenance fee. My annual interest for last year was 28,48 euros. That means I lost 71,52 euros on top of inflation for having my money with them. I called my bank and had a pleasant chat with them about it. Apparently my maths are completly correct. It is my perception of this as a problem that is wrong...

No idea. Don't think anyone cared enough to notice if they did.

True. But things went downhill from there in every other aspect as well, so... Rogue: "Guys, I can see more harpies comming towards us. We better find a place to hide, so climb that wall there is cover above." One hour of climbing later: DM "You all see the large group of harpies now as they are getting closer. You better hurry!" "Damn! How much time do we have 'till they reach us?" (expecting to hear a number in rounds) DM "Hmm, approximately 2 hours?" That is some awesome eyesight. I think I should have renamed my character to Bravestarr Melchior "Bravestarr" Brandybuck.

JayDGee, reread my post, the few lines I wrote about the world. That truly is all the information he gave us, even though people were trying to get more info out of him. The one sole city in the world had no name. The emperor of the one empire had no name (neither did the empire). He may have put a lot of effort into building the dungeon for this adventure. But he threw together a landmass around it and a semblence of a quest into which no discernable effort was put. My approach personally is very similar to yours. Probably the reason why now I have a very rich starting area and little else When playing my own setting(s) I always seem to have one truly problematic player in the group. The guy who, while being targeted at point blank range with crossbows, walks up to the local leader of the biggest criminal organization in three kingdoms and says "We were send to kill you. What do you have to say about that, tough guy?" (the npc had nothing to say. He did pull the trigger though)

Is that MMO still going? What's the population like? It's a very small group of people still playing. Larger than that playing WAR though, right?