ShadowPaladin V1.0

Seriously ? I was kind of wondering how long it would take.

Generic effects is the price of a construction kit approach. I've always felt D&D had too many spells that did the same thing as it is anyway. Being able to make your own spells is nice, but there is a limit on how many are actually useful and how many you make just to see what you can make.

Gauntlet should be unafected and he's been gone for almost a month.

Not a huge ammount. I finished the first one but never felt compelled to bother with the others.

Sounds like it's worth

Don't own it. I rented the first one but havnt bothered since then. I make an exception for MGS but stealth games are not really my thing.

They have the GotY edition over at blockbusters for

Me too, suits my flying style more. Although you cant really beat "headlight duels" at night in training planes (well unless you have an army sized budget anyway).

Well, that's a given. The trick is to work with what you have and present choices and branching storylines which don't require twelve years of non-interrupt man work. I believe Troika's games had an optimal approach to this - every area presents a set of quests or situations which can be solved in several ways, but not many present such a branching complexity that would be detrimental to the game's development. Most quests are self-contained, and only some have later repercussions. Not only that, there still remains a mostly linear path to the endgame, even if at some point during that path you can 'change sides' or motivations, be it somewhat halfway (Arcanum), or in the very end (Vampire). I'm sure this is expensive and taxing on resources... But honestly, so is full voice acting and other such features, if nor moreso. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm sure I would have enjoyed Bloodlines if it wasnt such a pain in the arse to keep it runing at any sort of speed. Having every chapter as a sort of mini "game" with it's own outcomes and consequences is definately a workable solution. I've started to lean towards partial voice acting. Can't really deny that VO definately adds something to a character, but once you have the voice you dont really need to voice every line. Of course some people just see that as lazy so you cant really win, whatever you do.

I think of Groin as the result of an unholy union betwixt meta digital and hades. Sort of reminds me of me in my late teens

Probably not But the more content you add (like entire different areas based on a single choice) the more time it takes and there is always the need to weigh up the benefit of adding something that a lot of people wont even see. Full VO does seem determental to the length of games though at least games like KOTOR (didnt seem to make any difference to FFX or X-2 and the like, although they are more like movie scripts).

The defender was a hell of a ship. Flying alongside Darth Vader is one of those video game highlight moments. I played Tie Fighter before X-Wing so X-Wing never really held the same appeal.

You only got one of those by being an elite pilot already though. I suppose it guards against the odd accidental laser blast. Normally I would just bottom out the shields anyway and overcharge the weapons.

There was a funny piece on the Bioware boards a while ago. It went something like. It's down to the skill of our writers that whether you choose the open palm or the close fist option you still end up at the same point in the game.

The Tie Fighter is a lot like the Japanese Zero. It's meant to use it's agility rather than to absorb damage. Unless you knew how to fight a Zero you were likely going to die even if your plane was armoured. No incentive in the world to make you a better pilot than knowing you are dead if you get hit. On the other hand if you have shields you may get compacent in your flying skills.

He may have beaten Vader by giving into his anger. But he "won" by turning his back on it. I think the X-Wing plans were stolen when the entire R&D division defected to the rebellion. The precursor of the Tie Fighter looks to be the Jedi StarFighter in EPIII.

The idea of a civilised weapon is a bit laughable anyway.

One of my favourites was a Watchman with twin blasters and a lot of incapacitating powers. The only time I got to using a lightsaber was in the boss fights.

It would be. If one or two applications of force storm didnt wipe all 10 out in one go. In IWD I specifically tailored a dwarf warrior to be able to stand in the middle of a crowd and be able to survive several fireballs. But that took both the application of equipment and skills. Which is something you dont need to do in KOTOR anyway.

Swarms dont have a function in KOTOR though. In games like IWD you used to have to find choke points so your weaker characters wouldnt get overun. In KOTOR there are no weak characters so no one needs protecting and the force powers make anything beneath your level fodder since it wont make its saves and wont have enough HPs to even get to you. It could just be that the system is so flawed it cant be saved

You mostly need to fight things way above your level but less of them. Swarms are ok, but not in games like KOTOR where you can simply click the area attacks with no concern for your own party.

They might be compatible. Some games are going to compatible because they will have the emulation code on the HD when it ships. Others are supposed to be done at a later date but if you dont have live your probably out of luck there.

Are they still around ?

Spiders would have increased in number too, as well as all the other sorts of predators. Probably bigger in size as well, imagine having an 8 foot spider in your bathtub :D

I was getting bored of RE but I enjoyed RE4's different spin on things a lot.