213374U

Somehow that doesn't surprise me.

Yes, I have read the announcement, thank-you-very-much. It doesn't outright forbid the use of alt accounts, mind you. Have you read it?

Since when.

Sounds like your connection and/or your PC suck.

That part of your post I don't quite understand. Care to elaborate?

"I am Raphael! I am nobody's bitch! You are mine. I will be The One!"

"Hell is only a word... the boards are much, much worse."

Unfortunately, the game suffers from some serious balance issues. For instance, nothing short of metallic walls (and those are EXTREMELY rare) can prevent a character from being mowed down by a MG burst (pks notwithstanding), which makes burst specialists rather overpowered in the early to middle phases of the game. Also, the game is broken when it comes down to skill development as there are some items whose requirements you will NEVER meet (this is especially frustrating for engineers). I made my lead character a stealth/melee/throwing specialist, but as soon as the "soldier" types in my party mastered burst fire, it all came down to bursting every enemy to hell. Just remember to bring plenty of ammo. Nice engine, but the AI is pretty stupid, at least compared to what you can do. For instance, the AI will sometimes camp a position of advantage in front of some stairs, making your advance next to impossible due to suppression fire. However, a well placed grenade will make a huge hole in the floor that, in the unlikely event that the enemy survives, you can use to blast him to pieces comfortably. Just remember to bring plenty of grenades. Also, the game pretty much gets f*cked up with the appearance of Pks, since most of your party becomes useless unless they can operate a Pk or a RPG. Snipers are basically useless (unless you get teh uber 1337 secret rifle), as are stealth characters and MG soldiers. If only they had included a MP co-op feature... :'( Be on the lookout for Hammer & Sickle, though, a RPG that uses the S2 engine. From the previews, it's looking pretty cool.

Yeah so... how does one get "good eugenics"? /me wants

Can you say "hell yeah!"? :cool:

AvP2 was great. The AvP movie sucked, though.

Yup. That reason being mainly the fact that the last installment in the BG series was released in 2001, and HotU came out in 2003. And, at any rate, mods keep coming out for the BG series. Also, NWN was much more multiplayer-friendly than BG, which has contributed to keep the game alive. While the toolset is certainly nice, it's not one of the determining factors as mods have appeared for other games that didn't include developer tools, and the toolset is irrelevant except for those who want to create modules. And those are in the minority.

It's not any stupider than using the "aryan" noun to refer to people of obvious Nordic descent.

I am in no way affiliated with the author. And those t-shirts made me giggle... if Hitler rose from his grave, he'd probably just shoot himself again after seeing this kind of nonsense.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, I guess. I don't like playing storyless games just as I don't like eating breadless sandwiches. All I know is that if I had known what HL2 was like, I would now have 50

Yeah? Does it describe the use of fireball wands as enemas?

Funny how the article bases its most dire possible consequences 100% off the assumption that CO2 emissions are the cause for global warming. After all, what are pragmatism and scientific skepticism against media trends?

Good point! It's entirely possible that I might be seeing HL through a pink colored glass. It was a pretty revolutionary game and I had never played anything like it before. To be honest, I played it through only once. However, it was not as ambitious a project, and it didn't have a story to continue. But at any rate, the arguably thin plot of the original was better woven and better developed as well, if only because it didn't have any previous games to lean on. Even if the plot was simple, you knew what was going on. And it was a self-contained story; it didn't need any expansion packs to complete the story, though those certainly added in some flavor.

Heh. I'd circumvent a ban just to piss you off, commie.

Lie? Well, I guess you could say that we are all lying, as I haven't seen anyone reveal their true identity yet. Some even create weird online personae to conceal their true selves, for whatever reasons. Go figure. If you don't accept that posting from behind a pseudonym is a valid way of protecting one's RL privacy and you consider it "lying", then you are a liar yourself, by your own definition. If, on the other hand, you accept it, please explain to me how is one alias more valid than the next and why is it wrong to have more than one. Also, and instead of going off on a tangent about how many liars you have to deal with on a daily basis, explain how creating an alt account to circumvent an effective ban is an act of cowardice. Pretty please?

That's what I've read too. So, how is the movie doing? Any chance of a sequel? Or, even better, any chances for the show to be resurrected?

Oh noes! He's trying to steal my mojo!

What can I say, my Chi isn't what it used to be...

Sketchy, at best. Certainly not well fleshed or deep, in any sense of the word. Yes, apparently I have got caught up in my own words, as there was a plot of sorts (the game wasn't Q3A after all), but certainly not enough to support the game. 1. No way out? He's out as soon as he's managed to evade the Combine patrols. It's not like the player is given the choice to try and run away, only to find himself back in the midst of it by the hand of the Gman. Being a scientist, I would expect him to just get the hell out instead of playing hero. 2. Exactly. There is a resistance movement already in place. He doesn't need to do anything by himself, that's what the resistance are there for (if only they could stop stepping into every single mine they can find). While you might find the revolutionary leader figure quite romantic, those usually just get themselves killed when they try to be too much of an example. That is not an explanation for Gordon's recklessness. 3. Uh... what? Usually, when you want to establish a plot device like that, you lay down some premises, such as a developing relationship, in order to make the knight-damsel thing credible. In the game, Alyx is just some scruffy girl that Gordon has just met that gets into too much trouble. Yeah, she teaches Gordon how to use the grav gun and shows him her neat robo dog. Yeah, I could feel the passion. You need to read, buddy. I already said that I have nothing against a story that is presented 100% from the protagonist's eyes. My problem is not with the way the story is delivered. However, there is no such story, and I'm still waiting for you people to tell me a HL2 story that isn't based off assumptions and loose comments and observations. I want details, I want well defined, deep characters, I want a setting setup, I want motivations. Well?

I guess everyone's entitled to their opinion. I don't give online personae as much importance as Gromnir does, which makes the identity of the poster irrelevant to me. Assuming that posting from an alt is a means of saving another account's "prestige" is almost as funny as it is ridiculous. But then again, people can get real worked up about stuff that goes on here, so perhaps it's not that far-fetched. I made accounts for very specific purposes: to circumvent the moderation, or that time when I was feeling playful and cloned a few members.