Diogo Ribeiro

For me it's a mixed bag. He seems coarse and drab. On the other hand, I can't help thinking I wouldn't mind being manhandled by him.

.... I thought I was your secret crush

You could kill him the first time you meet him, or you could kill him later at the request of the Athkatla paladins. This was also their last Paladin stronghold-related quest. Either would result in saving Garren Windspear's whelp. However, you could also double cross Garren and tell the Big Red that you didn't care for Garren's whelp, but would recover the land deed and give it to Firkraag. This resulted in Garren's child being killed and you having to get the deed from Garren. Thievery or murder were just fine, and stupidily enough didn't seem to incur in any penalty. You could also help him than betray him, or ignore him, but in a way that's possible in a great number of quests anyway, even if betrayal just means "do quest for NPC than stab him right after". Funny thing is, if I worked for Firkraag or just ignored Garren's assistance early on, no Paladins ever chased me for having killed the Paladin group that approached me the first time I reached the Windspear Hills. Ha ha.

I noticed that too about cover not working in Direct Control. That's something I really like about the game, the ways in which soldiers can interact with the environment such as sticking to a wall and ocasionally looking to the sides to exchange gunfire. The very way in which I handled that small lighthouse area was very cool (if not cinematic for some): after swimming up to the small island, I whiped out the Welrod and shot the guard then quickly went prone and took his machine gun from his corpse. When the other soldier came by, I also killed him with the Welrod. After that it was a pretty tight gunfight with the others patrolling then I made a break to the house. I had the soldier provide distracting fire against the two men mounted battery until I readied a grenade. He then threw it at them, killing them off. I eventually went prone again and headed for the battery, all the while looking at the movement patterns of the two guys on the boat. When they turned their back I mounted the battery and just killed them off. Of course, the nightmare began when reaching the shore. But thankfully that's gone now.

Well, it's also got multiplayer, available mods (for those that care about them), an incredibly intuitive control style and a genuinely spiffy graphic engine. But frankly, I don't care much for graphical quality, the mods or the multiplayer so Space Rangers 2 wins out for me. Besides, SR2 has very competent graphics as well and they don't detract a bit from gameplay. I understand the multiplayer component of Freelancer is an attractive option, judging by alanschu and jags' ocasional screens. I would be tempted to join them were it not my computer suffers from random bursts of a digitial version of PMS. That, and I don't have the game.

Yup, all the way. I realized it was a necessity when I noticed AI-controlled units aren't as responsive or accurate as when they were controlled by me.

Thanks for the help, I'll be sure to ask for it when the time comes. I'm not even saying "if" it comes because I'm sure it will

Ha ha. I (unknowingly) bought this Sold Out range version (I thought I had purchased the original version) and these versions have the latest patches either already applied to the executable or are automatically installed right after the game has been. However since I don't recall it having been installed that may be the case - for reference, the version I currently have is 1.0.28.0. I'll look around for possible patches. I did use the pause and slow motion. They really help but the problem is that sometimes the characters are destroyed by a combination of death by superior firepower (cannons against one puny soldier? oh dear) to enemies being somewhat resistant. However I did manageto finish that Lighthouse mission yesterday (unsurprisingly thanks to having captured the main cannons in the camp, hah ha!) so we'll see what's up next

I'll take Dan over any candy.

Comes as a free bonus in the DVD of Space Rangers 2 :cool: EDIT: Go here, buy it, and never look back!

I totally roleplayed Squall's angst.

Old Llyr suggested me to acquire two games, Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday and Soldiers: Heroes of World War II. I'm currently trying to play Soldiers, but I'm finding out the hard way I suck. Soldiers is a classy game. The engine is very fluid and features very interactive environments, with great animations, has several fun interaction possibilities, allows players to shift from automated to direct control of any unit, and there are multiple ways to go across levels. But it's kicking my groin hard. It's got to be the hardest game I've played on account of the seemingly impossible odds of each mission. Of the four available campaigns - which follow a Russian, British, American and German perspective - I've only tried the first missions of the British and Russian campaigns. It was only after a 5 hour stint of frantic loading and saving that I managed to get through the first level of the British campaign. On the Easy difficulty setting. I don't mind a challenge, I actually enjoy it. I also appreciate games which require a fair to high degree of patience to be played, or else I wouldn't be investing in games like this or Hidden and Dangerous 2. But when your very first mission is to control one single character and send him to an enemy encampment and: Destroy search lights; Deal with armed guards; Deal with batteries; Scuttle a patrol boat; Off any resistance you encounter to allow the rest of the team (which is only comprised of 2 other soldiers) to reach the shore, and said resistance includes:Armed guards, both patrolling and reserves in nearby barracks or bunkers; Watchtowers with guards using automatic fire, stationary machine guns Half tracks; and cannons You immediately know Llyranor has to be a gaming god to proceed without much hassle. Or he expertly handles the interface. Or both. This isn't some firstperson shooter or anything, it's a thirdperson realtime strategy game so imagine controlling one weak unit against all these others in that framework. The other mission I couldn't get through in the Russian campaign also pitted you against unsurmountable odds. You have to wade through German troops in a town called Chepel and liberate it with a small force. If this was Hidden and Dangerous or Commandos, you'd get an idea of how the odds would be. Now imagine the odds in those games and multiply them. By ten. You'll have two infantry units, one tank with four infrantry units, and a small vehicule with a mounted weapon and controlled by two additional units. Sounds fair, until you notice the enemy has like 100+ infantry, more than a handful of 88mm antitank guns, and like ten tanks. And there's a minefield of sorts there as well. When you factor in that even in Easy mode the difficulty is high and that you have to switch across these few units to fight against all of that, you're in for a challenge. And from what I gather pretty much every level is like that. I feel your stares Llyranor, and I'll make you eat that grin of yours when you read this. I can't even imagine how Doomsday is going to be.

I'll answer that by making a small list of advantages Space Rangers 2 has over Freelancer. You're not forced to follow the main storyline. You can follow it or not. You have the ability to block scanners from detecting your cargo. You can have a fleet, based on your leadership skill and funds. You can explore uncharted planets with probes. You can also somewhat customize how the probes will scour for information. Your dealings with other races aren't as easilly reversible as faction dealing in Freelancer. If you considerably pissed off some planet's inhabitants or government you wmay be arrested next time you land on it. That is, if you're not blown away by ships scouring for you when you're in the vicinity. There are more than kill missions, or not so subtle variations thereof, available to you in planets. 5 races and five classes. Character skills you can develop. You can fight the story's main baddies in your ship and in a Mechwarrior-styled RTS subgame on planet surfaces. The gameworld is actually dynamic. Supply and demand is actually factored in, so you can forget about getting rich easilly by buying and selling out static priced goods. Some quests are text-based, more akin to adventure games. These are based on several things that happen to you - like getting arrested - and can have all sorts of outcomes depending on what you do. The only thing that's unfortunately missing is boarding other ships but that's what Escape Velocity: Nova is there for.

You could also choose hair color for characters. And which weapon you'd kill orcs with. And when to uninstall.

I'm telling you there are some titles out there which have a much more engaging experience than Freelancer ever managed to provide from a singleplayer perspective. Space Rangers 2 is pretty much one of those games.

Microsoft only wishes they could make something as good.

Just came back from watching Spike Lee's Inside Man. Very good movie with solid direction, well worth seeing.

There was also this homosexual officer who wouldn't fall for April's smooth talking, and there was Burns Flipper who besides having some of the best comedy lines in the game was also a walking (hovering) reservoir of suggestive ones. April: Can I help you with anything? Burns Flipper: Thanks toots but no, the will to do that disappeared along with the legs. Or something similar, been a long time since I played it.

I always hoped April would Oh well, the rest of the game was worth it.

Chill. It's not like I'm that important that you'd need to apologize so profusely. No harm done.

I didn't know I had any sort of honor to begin with. Though I suspect I do look like a brat - Llyr's and Nick's picture is mine, only edited to look more manly because we know eyepatches and moustaches are all about manliness - I am not a real pirate because I only pirate games but don't use an eyepatch.

So I'll be a midget or were the cats gigantic?

For what it's worth, I wanted to express my regret and give heartfelt apologies for not having participated on this Friday's session. I'll be trying to join it next week, if all is well with Eldar and he manages to cut me in.