Enoch

I do agree that it's a poor choice for a pure sequel-- the stories of the main characters all reached a point where further inquiry would detract from their appeal. But a nominal sequel that's different story in the same setting could work pretty well. The setting was really the only thing about the first film that was truly remarkable to me. The plotting was strong, and Ford and chick-who-played-Rachel gave good performances. But the rest of the acting was pretty bad and the dialogue was mostly terrible. The art direction, though, was absolutely fantastic.

I like Blade Runner okay, but it's a pretty shaky foundation for this particular argument. Seriously, how many different first-run, second-run, altered, re-edited, directors-cut, abridged, unabridged, no-that-last-director's-cut-wasn't-really-what-the-director-wanted-but-this-one-totally-is-director's-cut, 18-volume DVD box, etc., etc., etc., releases has that film had?? The Keanu line was funny. But to the extent that he has a real acting gift, it's in playing characters who may not be entirely real. Which is a very good fit for a P.K.Dick-style piece. He was pretty good in the film adaptation of Dick's A Scanner Darkly. Given Rutger Hauer's prominence in the original, I can't really see how Blade Runner fans can get too snobby about acting skills. [Edit: Daryl Hannah, too.]

To be fair, he did say "publisher," not "developer." While Bliz's success has given it the luxury of being able to release games when they're done, most industry projects have a target release window, which usually involves some serious developer crunch time to hit. Obsidz may not be the best around at managing it, but they're far from the only shop that frequently ends up cramming for deadlines.

I was reading a Raymond Chandler book the other day, and the descriptive phrase that stuck in my head was "she had a mouth made for three-decker sandwiches."

I was a child in the brief period of time when Construx were available. We had them rather than Legos. Fun stuff, in that you could build rather large things relatively quickly. I remember being discouraged whenever using legos at a friend's house that it took forever to build anything that resembled anything recognizable. With the Construx, you could get a reasonable 4-wheeled vehicle together in a couple minutes. (And then add helicopter rotors!)

Two Worlds Two.

I just can't get past the "pay money and endure pain for the purpose of optional decoration" thing. I can't even be bothered to shop for stuff to hang on the (rather austere at present) walls of my house-- the mental investment required to decide on stuff to permanently "hang" on my body is way beyond me.

I don't have any basis for judging the years when its use was/is most prevalent, but I think I can explain a little bit. "Epic" is the best shorthand for the probably most important element of the ego-gratification appeal that games (and especially CPRGs) have included for decades. It means that, unlike your humdrum actual existence, your actions in this gameworld really matter to a lot of (imaginary) people. That's a key part of the sell for almost any game-- a bit of entertaining escapism that, unlike books or movies or whatever, makes you the player feel important. "Epic" is shorthand for an experience that goes even farther-- an "epic" game promises to make you feel really important, the individual upon whom the lives of nearly everyone you meet depend.

Are there even melee weapons in DE:HR? All the previews, etc., I've seen have described melee combat involving the use of your augmentated body parts as the weapons, rather than anything you pick up and swing around.

So... it's just like every other genre of music? "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind" -Duke Ellington

The number of people who watch 30-second commercials (either on TV or on a site like youtube or gametrailers) >>>>>> the number of people who read gaming media preview articles.

It's not all that different from one of the grindier segments of DA:O. The big differences (IMO) are: 1) the game starts with a pure action sequence rather than the exposition-laden Origins, 2) the defined, voiced PC and the "general tone"-based dialogue choices allow the player to just react rather than read and reflect on choices, and 3) although the game preserves DA:O's tactical pause function, it is even more designed to cater to players who don't want to use it.

A much more worthy application of the phrase "minor C# lesson" is the one that involves learning .

Because the game had TV commercials that convinced him it was the totally awesome New S*** of racing games, of course! (Seriously, though, the disconnect between DA:O's marketing and its content is probably a big reason why they had a not-insignificant number of people try the game who didn't expect or want the kind of experience that it offered. And now we have the tail wagging the dog-- the marketing doesn't accurately reflect the game, so they change the game to resemble the marketing.) Edit: Or, what Niten just said.

Probably. Here's the first hint:

Re: Graphical comparisons to the Witcher 2: It's easier to make a game look pretty if you're focused entirely on development for PC and don't have to worry about making your engine scale down well enough to function on limited xbox hardware.

Um, no, over half of Libya is now completely controlled by the protesters and defecting army units. Only Tripoli, the capital, remains fully under Gaddafi's control. It hasn't been about whether Libya will oust Gaddafi for a while now, it is about when. It's also about whether, in the absence of Qaddafi, the protesters and defected military will just keep fighting with each other. Tunisia had an opposition-in-waiting ready to step in. Egypt had the widely-respected military leadership to serve as an interim government. And both had behind-the-scenes guidance from patrons in Western governments. Libya has none of the above-- Qaddafi brooked no opposition, the army is fractured and not particularly popular, and Western influence is minimal apart from the people who buy their oil. If Qaddafi holds on long enough for his opponents to turn on each other, he might have a chance.

I was going to say that the PC mage has about 8 times the health as the two warriors in the party.

If you don't own this already, you're not a gamer. What if you bought it (at a similarly cheap rate in a previous sale), but never installed it, because both HL1 and Portal gave you motion sickness?

Cart escalators generally go in where acreage is at a premium-- if you've got the land, it's cheaper to build a store that's all one floor. Europe is more crowded than the American midwest. Here, in the DC area, I can think of a couple Target stores that have cart escalators. But not much else. Most multi-level stores probably think they're too classy to offer shopping carts. The nearby Ikea has a bank of elevators.

Hey, where else can you get lingonberries served with your meatballs? The wife and I actually went to the Ikea near us for the first time a few weeks ago. While we didn't notice any particular ethnic trends among the clientele (or the staff), the sheer hugeness of the place staggered me. I thought we were done and headed for checkout when we rounded a corner and found the housewares section, which was just as vast as the furniture section that we had already been through.

Demo crashed for me about 3 battles in. Hopefully it auto-saved at some point, as I didn't make any saves. Back to F:NV for tonight. Kwik Impressions: Loading before/during cutscenes is annoying-- if this is actually in the final game, it's a pretty huge problem. ("Immersion" is a pretty meaningless term, but to the extent that it means something, this destroys it.) The transition from battle to the unintentionally hilarious "you will not have him" cutscene was quite jarring. (Also, remember when darkspawn blood was regarded as dangerous?) KotOR-Camera is annoying, but could be adequate if the game's level design caters to it (i.e., small battlefields). Dialogue so far is kinda funny-- everybody seems to be speaking as if they're having tea in Dashwood Manor instead of fleeing for their lives. The "aggressive" (or whatever the red gavel-insignia means) dialogue choices are the only ones that make any sense at all, given the circumstances.

Which is fine in a tactical party-based game-- managing the vulnerability of the mage and nurturing his/her development until they reach the pwnage stage becomes an interesting gameplay element. But in a game where the player identifies chiefly with one hero, it really sucks. (Note: it also sucks in a PnP setting where each player gets one character.) Wizardy types start off feeling useless, and end up plowing through enemies like a hot knife through butter. Non-wizardy types do fine early on, but spend the end parts of the game being upstaged by the casters. (More on topic, demo downloading now.)

Some people do. But some other people would rather explore something new than repeat something familiar. Or they reserve repeats of past favorites for long intervals, when they can regain a glimmer of what it was like to experience that particular work for the first time.