Enoch

Yeah, that's not worth the time spent typing in the 20-digit code.

Oh, and I just got an email from Amazon with a code to unlock "Inferno Armor." Any reason I should bother? (I never did the Blood Dragon one that came with DA:O, either.)

From what I've seen out of Japan, that seems like a perfectly appropriate translation to me.

Yeah, I know that's my issue (2 gigs system, video card is the 320MB version of the 8800GTS). I've been putting off an upgrade because I'm still on a 32-bit OS, so I want to pair it with a new OS install, which means that I'll want to do a HD wipe, too, which is just enough of a chore to make me continually put it on the "maybe next month" list.

They are long. Especially when I'm just changing floors in the ship. Apart from that, I am impressed by how well and smoothly the game runs on my 3-year-old PC. Everything looks good and runs solid at my monitor's native resolution (1440X900), despite the fact that I'm near/at the bottom of the recommended specs.

It's also a real historical monument.

I only got to play for a couple hours last night, after the first night's efforts got me up to the point where you get your ship. So I went off to My imported character was 80/20 Paragon, but I've been doing pretty close to the reverse so far in the sequel. The Renegade responses just feel more credible and less "being an jerk for no reason" than they did in ME1. And, really, dying, being resurrected by one of your worst enemies, and being compelled to work for them would make anybody cranky.

Can we call the most expensive variety the MaxiPad?

It's not a limited-time thing-- he should be free for everyone who bought a new retail copy and registered the "Cerberus Network" card that came in the box (much like Shale was in DA:O). I was able to download and install him yesterday on my PC, although there were delays in getting the DL ready for Xboxes. (I haven't gone looking for him in-game yet, but the quest did show up in my journal.)

Aww man, does that button of epic multifunction even work like it should? Or do you often accidentally jump over cover when you try to run to new position or somesuch? Well, the "vault" function actually requires you to be pressing "W" (or whatever key you use for "move forward") while you hit the spacebar. And I haven't used the "charge" function, except where you have to in the intro. I haven't really gotten the hang popping into and out of cover yet, but I suspect that, once I do, it will be less problematic than ME1's "automatically glue you to cover whenever you come within 5 feet of it" system.

A few minutiae from the first couple hours of play: -- I thought it was odd that the installation didn't create any desktop/menu shortcuts. -- The savegame import worked fine, but could definitely have been better designed. -- I actually played the twice, because by the end of it, I hated the custom face I had made and wanted to go back and do it again. -- -- I was disappointed in how they handled the "who is the human Council member" decision. In ME1, I always took the "not my call" option, because I thought that both Udina and Anderson would be terrible Council members. But when the choice was presented in ME2, it was binary, and when I picked a name (I picked Udina because I suspected that he would've been most likely to win absent a Shepard endorsement, and because I'm a contrarian and the first game tried so hard to make the player hate him), Shepard started talking about how she endorsed him. It's irritating that one of the supported choices in ME1 wasn't supported in ME2. -- Hacking/Decrypting: Shockingly easy, so far. It's basically a test to see whether you're paying attention. (Does it get any harder later on?) Although I did have some trouble with the first Decryption I tried (that's the one where you match the colored text, right?) because the game didn't tell me that I should be using WASD/spacebar instead of the mouse. -- Why is Run, Take Cover, Jump Over Cover, and Use Item all bound to one key? Feels like a lazy console port in this respect (and in some of the menus). I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it's an odd decision to not even let PC users re-bind these to separate keys. (You can change which single key does all that, but not split the functions into different keys.) -- I like the limited ammo-but-we-won't-call-it-ammo system. -- I'll reserve judgment on the rest of the new combat systems until I see how other stuff works (e.g., upgrades).

Charles Mingus -- Hobo Ho. Let My Children Hear Music is a very frustrating album. The first 5 tracks range from decent ("Don't Be Afraid, The Clown's Afraid Too") to fantastic (the above, as well as "The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive-Ass Slippers"*). Then comes "The Chill of Death" and "The I of Hurricane Sue." The latter is a little too far into the chaotic for my tastes, and the former is just awful-- background wacky music over which Mingus records a painfully terrible spoken-word poem, complete with cringe-worthy forced rhyming couplets. This kind of thing sort of worked a few albums prior, with "Passions of a Man" from Oh Yeah, but that was because the spoken-word stuff on that track was utter nonsense-- made up langauge with a few recognizable words thrown in-- which focused the listener on, well, the passion with which it was spoken. *-- If you are a fan of Mingus' song titles, as I am, you will be interested to know that "Shoes" was a re-arrangement of a previous piece Mingus wrote, titled "Once Upon a Time, There Was a Holding Corporation Called Old America."

Interesting. I think I'll wait and see how the world responds to this one. None of their upcoming games are on my radar, anyway.

Well, your weapon skills have gone the way of the shooter, and (early on, at least) cover is more important than equipment, but you still level-up your other abilities, and you still have the all-important pause function in combat where you can issue orders. Equipment itself is more sparse, with character progression defined by squad-made upgrades rather than by looting gear with a higher roman numeral at the end of its name. (I still consider this valid RPG progression; it's just more granular than ME1's was. That said, I haven't gotten any upgrades yet, so whether they provide noticeable benefits remains to be seen.) Plus, a large part of the appeal of the game is in dealing with the NPCs, and, according to Pop, they've built in at least a little reactivity to your decisions. I don't know where that puts the game on your personal the "Action RPG -- Shooter w/ RPG Elements" continuum. As someone who doesn't generally enjoy shootery combat, I'm still having fun. Caveat: I'm playing as a Sentinel, which allows me to play in what is probably the least-shootery way possible. Tech Armor gives you some freedom in ignoring cover from when you want to, and you've got a non-firearm power for every occasion.

I've only played up to the point where you get your ship, but so far, they are more apt to charge ahead to take the piece of cover I was aiming for. I shoot them in the back more than vice-versa.

As I've said before, the ideal Garrus love encounter should have involved him spawning a facehugger to do the deed. Also, Cerberus clearly took some liberties in giving FemShep a couple of non-essential enhancements.

Damn, the Zaeed download is almost half a gig. Should've started that before I ate dinner.

Thanks, Pop, although you're either a gaming savant or a dirty stinkin' pirate. This: "Subject Zero and especially Grunt are not nearly as ridiculous as they might seem initially. Mordin remains the best character." was particularly good to hear. I have passed the first test: Getting the ******* **** DVD package open. Will install momentarily.

Not bad. Kinda tough to judge what any of that means without knowing how quickly you would earn that XP normally, what all the minerals & credits can be used for, and how much of each is considered "a lot." The alignment points are particularly confusing-- what is that on a scale of?

Because it wouldn't be a Bioware DLC without some activation fiascos: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/769183/1 Apparently, if you enter your DLC code on the social site before you do so using the in-game activation function (which the in-box documentation says will work), your code gets used up and you can't download your DLC. @enterix: Someone earlier in this thread posted a site that is archiving ME1 saves that other people can DL to import into ME2. So, if you decide to go PC, you can look there and pick one that approximates your ME1 playthrough.

I can let you know later today, but I didn't think that ME1's interface was too console-ized, and I haven't heard about them changing much in that regard. Except for inventory and shopping, both of which are radically different in the sequel, the only interface-based ME1 complaint I had was that mousing around in the galaxy map often took more real estate than was available on my mousepad.

Actually, I missed the best quote:

Yeah, that's probably a stronger point than the one I made. Picture someone new to D&D or AD&D, reading over every spell description and trying to figure out which ones are most useful. (And then again with feats, classes, races, subclasses/PrCs...)

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/01/7th_circuit...ungeons_dra.php So, some dude doing a life sentence for 1st degree murder in Wisconsin starts a D&D campaign with 3 other inmates. A stoolie tips off the guards about how these guys were "recruiting" for their "gang." Guards confiscate D&D materials, and the prisoner sues, alleging that his due process and speech rights have been violated. From the case: