Diogo Ribeiro

Manic Street Preachers - Faster

While the books are a good mean to expose and explore the lore of the gameworld and this feature works well in other games as well, I don't think it hardly merits saying they enrich the main quest. Perception of the gameworld, though, I'd agree. It's a pity that it has to be the gamer to go out of his way to make the game challenging instead of playing it how he wants and not stumble upon poor balance.

The Cliff Racers I could tolerate because they would at least give off a sort of warning sign whenever they got close. The minute I heard a certain kind of screech I knew what it meant. I had more problems with other kind of wildlife because I could never hear any sound that would allow me to understand what was going on. I remember being attacked by Alits, Dremoras and Ogrims out of the blue and being given no audio feedback that humanoid-sized or giant creatures were attacking me. It was like "hey that's a nice ruin to explore", then something would suddenly go CHOMP! on my butt. Why I could hear Squibs pouncing around but could not hear something my size make a sound still remains a mystery. At best I had to resort to hearing the combat theme in the background.

I think one of the things Arcanum lacked was the ability to create a handful of characters to accompany the PC trough the game, much like Baldur's Gate allowed for with its multiplayer workaround or like party-based dungeon crawlers allow. It would be a trade-off, of course: unique but premade NPCs vs empty but customizable ones, but it could be worth it. Then again the game was already unbalanced in some situations, I suspect adding something like this would worsen it.

Morrowind can be fun. Exploration plays a large part of it and treking trough the land can be rewarding, wheter you stumble upon some forgotten, Daedric ruin or you just discovered an uncharted location. Wheter you get a thrill from finding new items or have a sense of dread when walking trough strange and foreboding locations, it can be appealing. Problem is doing these things turns out to be frightfully dull because dungeons are largely about entering a place filled with enemies and ransacking them. That's pretty much all there is to the game's dungeons. And once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Had Bethesda invested in keeping Daggerfall's random dungeon generator perhaps the repetition encountered in Morrowind could have been mitigated. And when you're not exploring the land, you're talking to robotic NPCs, or coming to terms with an unsatisfying combat model. It has its merits, but I found it a pretty shallow game underneath the surface.

You'll be enthralled by the vast landspace of the game and will devote some time to explore all the locations. It will not be uncommon for you to find yourself at 3 AM going "just one more dungeon, just one more, then I'll sleep". Then the boredom will set in and you'll realize just how empty and lifeless it can all feel. I'm sure someone can recommend you a handful of mods that do the job Bethesda should have done in the first place, though. Me, I had more games to play in my spare time instead of trying to come up with reasons to play it or justifications for the team.

Good to know someone else likes the game. It's unfortunate the game does not get more love. I was a fan of the when I played gun-oriented characters, though I must also speak of the merits of the following guns: I haven't played many Arcanum mods, but I suggest visiting the Terra Arcanum boards and ask for suggestions (the same forums which hosted the level upgrader).

Playing chess with oneself can be cool. Especially if one is at an age where he knows how to use the pieces for intimate, rather than intelectual and strategical, purposes. In any case I had the game in my sights but it'll take more than a gushing review to make me go for it.

But it would be foolish to award a game objectively and keeping in mind all its positives and negatives, right? Right? Right. How nice of them to know about my tastes before I even do, and to know they will completely overlap any value I would personally attribute to the game. Willkommen to ze Hype und Thought Kontrol Polizei. Ve are ze Enlightned Ones. You are ze sheep.

To add more power to my rejection of claims I'm intelligent, I figured out the problem. There were two "<$BlogItemCommentCount$> comments" lines that needed to be replaced by the new code. It's fixed now, until the next Big Code Fubar. Thanks for the help

I was trying to replace: <script type="text/javascript">var a = <$BlogItemCommentCount$>; if(a == 0) {document.write('No comment');} else if(a == 1) {document.write('1 comment');} else {document.write(a+' comments');}</script> with <script type="text/javascript">var a = <$BlogItemCommentCount$>; if(a == 0) {document.write('[b]N

I am a lawyer.

For those who are knowledgable of HTML in general, I have a quick question. I have been tinkering with the HTML code of a site, and while I think I've finally changed it to my ignorant but happy heart's contempt, I can't seem to make a small change - turning a comments system's display from English into another language. The original system is basically in English but I want to change the display of "comment" and "comments" into something else. The portion of the original code that handled this read: <$BlogItemCommentCount$> comments I've replaced the line with: <script type="text/javascript">var a = <$BlogItemCommentCount$>; if(a == 0) {document.write('No comment');} else if(a == 1) {document.write('1 comment');} else {document.write(a+' comments');}</script> Where any displayed instance of 'comment' or 'comments' will be changed to what I want. Now the problem is that while I've tested this with dummy sites and managed to have them work, it won't work on the one I want (which for reference its this one). No matter how much I change the code it will retain the original use of the words in English. I've been told the problem could be solved if I placed the new line outside of the <MainPage> and </MainPage> or <ItemPage> and </ItemPage> conditional tags.... Only problem is, I don't know where I should put them. I don't know if this will fix it, or if there is anything else in there that doesn't allow it to be changed. Thoughts?

Geweldenaren Van Ver (Tyrants From Afar) iis a short CG film that was showcased at the 'Rocketclip festival', which is part of the 'Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival' held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You can access their page here. It's a very good, albeit very small movie based aroun the Festival's theme, Sci-Fi. Those who enjoy giant robots and alien invasions with a retro feel will probably like it. It's too damn short, though.

Reinstalling the game doesn't seem like the answer, because this happens with pretty much every game I can think of. Recently I've tried the Dungeon Siege 2 demo: same thing. And it goes the same way with Bloodlines, Beyond Good and Evil, The Sims 2, etc.

Will a part of a DxDiag information file do? If so: ------------------ System Information ------------------ Time of this report: 8/13/2005, 00:54:49 Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519) Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese) System Manufacturer: n/a System Model: n/a BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.0 Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2200+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.4GHz Memory: 768MB RAM Page File: 224MB used, 2801MB available Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) DX Setup Parameters: Not found DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode ------------ DxDiag Notes ------------ DirectX Files Tab: No problems found. Display Tab 1: No problems found. DirectDraw test results: All tests were successful. Direct3D 7 test results: All tests were successful. Direct3D 8 test results: All tests were successful. Direct3D 9 test results: All tests were successful. Sound Tab 1: DirectSound test results: All tests were successful. Music Tab: DirectMusic test results: All tests were successful. Input Tab: No problems found. Network Tab: No problems found. DirectPlay test results: All tests were successful. -------------------- DirectX Debug Levels -------------------- Direct3D: 0/4 (n/a) DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail) DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a) DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a) DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail) DirectSound: 0/5 (retail) DirectShow: 0/6 (retail) --------------- Display Devices --------------- Card name: RADEON X800 PRO Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc. Chip type: RADEON X800 PRO AGP (0x4A49) DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz) Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4A49&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00 Display Memory: 256.0 MB Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor: Monitor Plug and Play Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200 Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6553 (English) DDI Version: 9 (or higher) Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: 6/29/2005 04:02:16, 232960 bytes WHQL Logo'd: Yes WHQL Date Stamp: n/a VDD: n/d Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys Mini VDD Date: 6/29/2005 04:01:56, 1241088 bytes Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-0909-11CF-2B6A-0820A1C2CB35} Vendor ID: 0x1002 Device ID: 0x4A49 SubSys ID: 0x00021002 Revision ID: 0x0000 Revision ID: 0x0000 Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D ModeWMV8_B ModeWMV8_A ModeWMV9_B ModeWMV9_A Deinterlace Caps: {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive {335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch {552C0DAD-CCBC-420B-83C8-74943CF9F1A6}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,2) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive {335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch Registry: OK DDraw Status: Enabled D3D Status: Enabled AGP Status: Enabled DDraw Test Result: All tests were successful. D3D7 Test Result: All tests were successful. D3D8 Test Result: All tests were successful. D3D9 Test Result: All tests were successful. ------------- Sound Devices ------------- Description: Dispositivo wave SB Live! Default Sound Playback: Yes Default Voice Playback: Yes Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80641102&REV_07 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 100 Type: WDM Driver Name: emu10k1m.sys Driver Version: 5.12.0001.3300 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: Yes Date and Size: 8/17/2001 20:19:26, 283904 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Microsoft HW Accel Level: Full Cap Flags: 0xF5F Min/Max Sample Rate: 5000, 100000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 64, 62 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 64, 62 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: Yes EAX 2.0 Listen/Src: Yes, Yes I3DL2 Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura ZoomFX: No Registry: OK Sound Test Result: All tests were successful.

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That's just one of the end results of the problems I have with gaming in my PC right now. I can't find the problem. Everything is properly connected, especially the graphics card. I also have the latest drivers installed fresh. Basically the problem is that randomly a game will freeze, or hard lock my PC. Then I get a scrambled color pattern, from checkers (above) to clearly corrupted graphics and my only choice is to try to Ctrl+Alt+Del it so I can terminate the app, or just do a hard reset. This is the main reason I've yet to advance in Half-Life 2 <_< Bah.

Before this goes out of topic - more discussion fodder. I particularly enjoyed DarkUnderlord's post.

Atreides beat me to it. It's a tough situation. I understand and sympathize with Ender's frustration, though; I also seem to be able to fix or lend a hand when it comes to others' computer problems but figuring out what is wrong with mine isn't so easy.

Source

A slimy, busty scoundrel with jetpacks using tentacles? Whoa.

I'd enjoy a Star Wars CRPG that did not force me to play a Jedi. If that was my goal then I'd play some other game of the franchise; there's no short amount of Star Wars games that allow me to do this. Instead I would enjoy a Star Wars CRPGs that game me as much character diversity as the franchise itself. Let me be a new Han Solo, Princess Leia, Boba Fett or even a Jaba the Hutt - I'm tired of playing Luke Skywalker wannabes.

I can just picture Adolf reading a guide on concentration camp sims, then logging on to Treblinka and typing I pwn jew!1!!11, with all the letters floating above the camp. His account got so hacked. Doesn't it depend on what a game is poised to deliver? I suspect the concept of a completely freeform virtual gameworld would suffer if we were to force too many arbitrary restrictions into it, while a more straightforward, conservative approach to a gaming environment would eat itself if there wasn't a good level of moderation and rules enforcement.