Hurlshort

I've been teaching my students for years that the Chinese were way ahead of Europe when it came to nautical exploration. Zheng He led huge expeditions. But the Ming dynasty isolated China after his death. I'd say the real issue is that China had plenty of resources, whereas Europe was hungry.

Well, even if it is an MMO, it should be mentioned that it wouldn't be released for another 3-4 years. WoW took about 6 years to develop, maybe seven. Even if the alleged Starcraft MMO has been in development secretly for a couple years, you can expect it will still take awhile for them to even reach the closed beta phase, and that alone took two years for WoW. So it wouldn't really be competition for WoW, it would simply be a next generation game.

Kicking people with your leg muscles developed your arm muscles? :D And still playing Titan Quest. After so long not being able to play games much, it's nice to spend some time kicking monster behinds. Uh, when you lift heavy stuff like cars and elephants, you are supposed to lift with your legs. Trust me, you don't want to throw your back out when attempting to hurl a garbage dumpster at a bunch of hooligans.

The Theme from Shaft

Yeah I'll pick Anaheim and Buffalo. I'm so bummed right now. I wonder what San Jose will do now? I don't think they will get rid of Wilson. Guerin will be gone, and Hannan is unrestricted now. They will probably try and work out a deal with either Rivet or Hannan, but not both. I still don't know which goalie they will trade, but it looks like Toskala will be the trade bait. He's got a cheap contract and he had a great regular season, so the Sharks should get a decent value for him. Some folks are talking about Marleau being traded, but that's tough. I guess if it was for Drury, I can see it, but Marleau is still a mainstay in the organization. Yzerman and Sakic have had rough playoff series as well, but you don't trade a captain after just one bad round. Marleau's playoff numbers are pretty staggering over the years.

I wonder if they can get James Earl Jones to do some voice over work?

I'm not sure what you mean by today's vision of a cowboy. Bull riding is more popular than ever. The term cowboy covers a wide range of jobs and demographics. Sure, there is a stereotype, but I don't know why that would keep you from a childhood dream. I used to want to be a police officer. I ended up teaching middle school. I had a cop once comment about how my job is dangerous, so I guess I achieved my childhood dream in some fashion.

I gotta blame the defense on the goal that Nabakov put into Datsyuk. They both pulled up, and neither tried hard enough to catch him. You can't just expect your goalie to make that play. I miss my Sharks Power Play

Steam also has UFO: Afterlight. They aren't, in any way, the same game. ET is an attempt at recreating Xcom in almost every aspect, including turn based combat, UFOpedia, etc. Afterlight has some of the Xcom spirit, but it's a real time combat game.

Or you could go buy UFO: ET from www.matrixgames.com and experience Xcom with an updated graphical engine. Seriously, it's a very nice tribute project, and it's already recreated a few Xcom moments for me.

Use the Force, Barry Pepper.

QFT

Is this anything like bulls-eyeing a womp rat?

UFO:ET is now available from matrixgames.com. It's been getting decent ink as a tribute to Xcom, so if you still try and boot up the original, this one is probably a good buy. I'm downloading it now.

d20, with a crit on a 19.

Welcome to the wonderfully complex world of PC hardware. Is this a laptop? Seriously, you could buy a better graphics card than that for $60.

I don't know, I just think San Jose needs to stop getting two goal leads. It's like a death wish.

Folks are just upset because they created a monster MMO. Plus, this is a board that really enjoys deep RPG's. Blizzard rules the Action-RPG world and now the MMORPG world, which are both basically shallow versions of story telling RPG's. Personally, I think they are great for PC gaming as a whole and I loved WoW.

*crosses Gfted1 off the baby sitting list* Fascinating.

The trouble is, Ottawa has had an extremely talented team that typically dominates in the regular season for years. But yeah, they've been unable to translate tha into a Stanley Cup, and that's the real test of a team's greatness.

Oh my gosh, they are totally like little daggers. We bought a bunch of mittens after we got home from the hospital, but she manages to Houdini out of them rather quickly. We trimmed them, but that's a fairly stressful event for the entire household. Luckily they have these little shirts that look like straight jackets.

UFO: ET is supposed to come out today. I just watched an impressive gameplay video, it really does look like the original Xcom with a graphical overhaul, and that's just fine by me. I heard a rumor that soldiers don't die, they go unconcious and spend time in the med center. That;s an odd decision, but hopefully the hospital stays will depend on the injury. I don't want a guy who gets torched being ready to fight in three days.

A lot of these suggestions really come down to, specifically, what type of gameplay you want in your realistic shooter. Rainbow Six, from what I've heard, is all about keeping a small squad alive. Typically your handling hostage situations and you need to think very carefully about how you respond in a situation rather than just trying to stay alive. Battlefield games are all about multiplayer survival. Sure, you can work in a squad, or you can lone wolf it. The fact is death comes easily, but can be avoided with caution and care. Operation Flashpoint has a great single player campaign and focuses around a realistic military feel. I guess Armed Assault is a spiritual sequel? But what setting are you looking for? That's a major question too.

I've heard that Red Orchestra is extremely realistic. I prefer the Battlefield games, as they are semi-realistic but still easy enough to jump in and play.

Starcraft 2 seems a heck of a lot more likely than a new Blizzard MMO. I can see them beginning development on an MMO now (like WoW2 or something) with the idea of releasing it in 4-5 years, but they have absolutely no reason to take on an MMO with WoW still running strong.