ShadowPaladin V1.0

Some people are more prone and suggestable to outside sources than others. What I find interesting about metadigitals stance, is that he is perfectly willing to accept that a game could socialise a child in a positive way, but not in a negative way. To me that is completely illogical. At the heart of this is that RPGs should offer choice, you should not simply get to a point where crime = punishment. And logically if a child who witnesses crime being a punished in game would have a postive reinforcement, then one who constantly escapes "justice" in game would have a negative reinforcement. All of which would make the game as potentially harmful as it is benificial.

Yes sounds very good. However I dont see any RL implications since Vampire blood isnt exactly available from Tesco. Such non reality is automatic protection for anyone not loopy in the first place.Which is probably as good a reason as any to stay away from the "real world" when it comes to RPGs.

Possibly, it as 5 am after all :D They could, but in an RPG your supposed to have choice. If wife beating always lands you in jail then you dont have one. Plus you have to factor in things like being caught if your simply caught that when you beat your wife that dosnt do a lot for immersion either. So if you want to maintain the immersion then you need to allow for the fact that you might not get caught and therein lies the danger. What on paper looks very simple is in fact rather complex. Which is why as tools designed specifically for a purpose I think it's an idea with merit, but not one to handled by games designers. For a game. Dont think you should touch that sort of moral preaching with 10 foot pole, games are not close enough to real life to tackle those sorts of issues and applying modern morality to a fantasy or other era game is about as immersion destroying as you can get.

Far more complex and in some cases dangerous. It's not the goal of an RPG to do this, unless it's one designed specifically for that task. Worse if you actually put yourself up as some sort of moral teaching aid, you sure as hell better be prepared for the backlash when little johnny goes nuts. While there is merit for tools of this nature, they dont fall under the catagory of game. Quite honestly games designers are not qualified for that sort of role. Any cathartic effect should simply be a happy accident.

Obviously. but if your using a baby as a firebreak then any pretence you are taking the game the slightest bit seriously is gone.The only instance I can think of would be if your house catches fire, everyone dies and you have an immortal baby in the smouldering rubble, but the odds on that too extreme to worry about and if it's an engineered fire, again we are back to square one. In order to ruin immerison, one would have to consider how likely that an action would realisticall be. In the example of FO thats certainly something that can happen as a normal part of the game, even if you never intended to shoot one. Using RPGs as some sort of life simulator dosnt strike me as particularly healthy, especially since the situations in them and real life are markedly different as would be the "solutions". Yes, but that is something that "evil players" baulk at since it curtails their freedom to be evil.

No Atton is not Carth depending on how you answer his questions Carth shows up in a cameo role. Probably Whether or not the handmaiden becomes a Jedi is upto you. Your the one who trains her. Attons "secret" is he worked for the Sith as a Jedi hunter. You can train him as a Jedi too, if you want too.

Not getting it. Since if you cared about immersion you would not use a baby as a firebreak anyway. In effect the fact the baby is immortal has no effect there. It's also very difficult to see any scenario of neglect which just isnt outright creepy being effected by it also. I can fully see how for example making a child immortal in something like FO and then accidently hitting it with a plasma round would ruin the immersion, which is why I prefer the children to simply not be there.

If your using babies as firebreaks then your not worried about immersion.

Yep thats been my experience too, seems a bit backwards dosnt it. After all it's the people who cant do the bonus' who need the help.

I got used to that pretty early on not sure which bothers me more, fixed angle where you get those sort of situation, or rotating camera where you totally lose sight as it goes behind a wall. Probably the later. It scored 6.3 on gamespot, which I think is a bit on the harsh side. Readers score was 8.7 and mine is probably somewhere between the two.

Never really an issue here in the UK since they remove killable children in games anyway. We had child free fallouts, which was fine except that some of the quests that related to children were left in.

I'm not sure, but I dont think we are talking about really young children here, but rather those teens who dont want to be scrutinised by their parents. Dont know if anything has changed in 10 years, but I did everything I could to avoid my parents gaze while I got upto no good.

My parents were/are great, really great, couldnt ask for better. But as I got older putting one over on them became a hobby. Parents cant be around all the time so while you can certainly say they have responsibility once your in your middle teens your often left to your own devices. Short of mounting a 24 hour guard this isnt going to change. So it was quite possible to do all sorts of things, which although they didnt involve games could have easily had the games actually been around. Games and RPGs can have a cathartic effect, though I dont see any in extreme violence like dismembering children, thats a job for a psychiatrist to deal with not a game. But if beating up your virtual spouse lets you vent those feelings you may have vented on your real spouse, then I cant see that as anything but a good thing. An hour of doom after school certainly put me in a better mood and adding likenesses of teachers etc and a map , well totally harmless :D However on the flipside they can also inspire. If you get away with something in a game it may inspire you to give it a go for real. For example if you beat up your virtual spouse and she becomes your submissive little "pet" that may inspire you to try it for real. Since there is no real evidence I would tend to err on the side of caution and hold back. Not being able to do some of those extreme acts in a game would be a small price to pay if they inspired even one person to try them for real.

Yep if you tap the same button as the attack you get out of the way. I'd probably agree with that, but still there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

To me they worked just like offensive and defensive blocks, your right though really odd choice of word to use.

That has to be one of the most pure fun games I've played in ages.The EP III game is pretty good too, some of the scenes are better than the movie, the Jedi Temple in particular. Although since I rented both, couldnt really include them on the list.

Short answer no.

huh?

It pretty much peaked it's difficult to see where it could have gone besides the obvious better graphics.

Well you went one better than me then. Hoovering up the battlefield drove me to distraction after a while and since a new game came out later that week I moved on. I played it a few times since but never really with the goal to finish it.

Well it had a lot to live upto and the cardinal sin which it wasnt an RPG. But personally I enjoyed the combat aspect of it far more than I ever did FO which I sort of tolerated because the rest of it was so good. Of course as a tactical combat/strategy game dosnt live upto Xcom or JA2 because it lacks those further levels of management. But my biggest "niggle" with FOT WHY THE BLOODY HELL DO I HAVE TO CLEAN UP THE BATTLE FIELD AND THEN SELL OFF EVERYTHING> !!!!!!! <sorry bout that>. If there was ever a case for not putting in an RPG type inventory into a game where you could end up picking up 100's of items after battle FOT was it.

Not if your in the UK, though you can download a patch Not a problem then, it's a classic.

I dont recall if you have to pick a side right away or after you do a few missions. At some point you will have to pick one of them. And you get a different series of quests depending on which one you pick. I dont think there are any consequences outside of New Reno.

I think I just force waved my way through that part. Rock hard to me is a boss fight that can last upwards of 5 hours

A common fault in RPGs.