Gorth

Tomb Raider: Anniversary was so bad, I found it outright offensive. Probably not unlike the sentiments displayed by old Fallout fans when it went from crpg to 3rd person shooter. CD took a game about exploration and discovery and tried to "re-image" it as a B-grade shooter and action game. I'll never forgive them for that Tombraider Legends and Underworld were mediocre, but almost playable (too much effin "boss fights" and QTE's and other crap to make them "good" games). As for the first ones, my fanboyism may have been greater than yours, I gave up halfway through Tomb Raider IV. Still got the box and the disc lying around somewhere, but never bothered. TR II suffered from some horrible, timed quests, but was otherwise splendid. TR III really went downhill fast, but the scenery and locations were good. Don't remember much from TR IV other than this dull pain and a voice that said "stop... stop it now!"

I probably could... but as alanschu suggested, it's mostly "just" an instant messenger, allowing for the odd chat once in a blue moon. Sort of replacing the now defunct MSN Messenger... and I'm not very good at replying to messages in a timely manner (sometimes half a day late)

If I remember correctly, on the coastal road from the CBD to the airport. Sorry, I don't remember the exact location. I took a picture of it once, but I don't remember if I posted it here or on Winterwind (was many years ago, as I was still living in NZ at the time). There was, or used to be a penguin colony somewhere close by.

Mate, it's grocery shopping. It's not like the guest are supposed to tag along for the heavy lifting while the missus goes shopping for new shoes in the meantime, we are talking about picking a bottle of wine

Depends on the family, doesn't it? Sounds like horrible stiff and inflexible attitudes if it's considered a 'chore' to do something together. Why even bother? Screw ups happens. If you can't take it with a smile and enjoy solving a small task as a joint exercise, then you are probably better off not to have such arrangements in the first place. If he really didn't feel like getting his butt off his seat, why not just say so (in a polite way)? Sounds like somebody is just accumulating grievances and aggravations the way some nutcases gather ammo for the apocalypse. Families are different, I know and I rarely get to see mine (like once every second year on average), but when we do, we do just about everything together as the most natural thing in the world. Nobody expects to get special treatment or having a few blood-related servants jumping every time somebody raises an eyebrow. It's the entire 19th century mentality that rubs me the wrong way I suppose.

Read some of the first books. Interesting enough, but too 'slow' paced and too much, not sure what, but the stuff that makes you want to put the protagonist over your knee, spank him and tell him to man himself up a bit. Wielder of the White Gold my butt. Whiny ass emo is what he is

Pidesco does 13 damage to Gorth...what did I do??? Poor Calax. A shame TrueNeutral didn't get to turn into a werewolf in the sewer battle. Is it only the Wolfwere that has ridiculous regenerative abilities?

There are some pretty hilarious road signs around the world. Saw somebody collect some of the best on a webpage once. Sadly, I don't have the link anymore (it was a decade ago, but I guess a quick search on Google images would more than make up for it). One of the more amusing I remember actually seeing was from Wellington, NZ, which warned against penguins on the road.

A zombie plague outbreak would have sounded more likely Still, they need to work on getting those debt levels down (moving the ceiling wont help) or they'll end up like Italy.

Heh, lonliness What game is that?

I've got exactly 1 friend on my friend list (and achievements needs to die horribly, what a waste of developer resources). I do like the patching part though, as some of those Paradox games gets patches fairly frequently and it would be a hassle constantly checking their forums for when what game got what update.

Sorry to say Hurlshot, but that doesn't sound like 'different perspective'... that sounds like 'mind set in stone' and will twist any event to fit a particular worldview. Well, we don't always get to chose our family, but it seems like you made the right choice with your wife (she obviously means the world to you)

Ok, serious Mass Effect 1 question: Having played through that part twice, I still sit with a WTF expression on my face when it comes to the introduction of Cerberus. What I don't get is the 'Banes' part. It starts with thugs blackmailing Dr. Mitchell (sp?). You then chase the thugs away and get their boss' name. You then follow that lead and get told by Admiral Kahoku that he has been dead for years, oh btw. be a good guy and go find out what happened in the location his body was found. Ok, so who the heck was blackmailing the Dr.??? Cerberus doesn't strike me as somebody who is into racketeering and extortion of small businesses and individuals, their scope seems a lot larger than that (i.e. more like white collar crime if anything).

Thread getting a bit long (way past the 500 mark). More thread here

Start of old thread End of old thread Almost finished my second play through of Mass Effect 1. Will share my thoughts later when finished with the second game. Didn't have 'Bring Down the Sky' for the first game, since the Electronic Arts help page had an 'expired' Serial No. They have since "reset" the serial no. and customers who bought ME retail or Steam can get it there. Edit: "Been playing Galactic Civilization 2…I am never leaving the house again…"... is that the Stardock game?

Thanks HH, off to download it. I suppose the safest thing is to uninstall previous versions rather than install "on top" of 1.8? (Yes, I know, I could read the readme's)

It's so next-gen. Does it come with xpad controller support too? Edit: On a more serious note, I usually use Notepad++ and XMLPad for the quick and dirty stuff. Might have to see what Sublime Text is all about. Is she a nice girl?

A certain similarity to your avatar

'a team of over ninety french programmers were employed to recreate some of the most intricate hallways ever seen in a video game!'

Don't ask anyone, Do what I did: walk against a concrete beam Just do at a higher speed than me. I'm still concious so it didn't work... That's an all or nothing proposition... if it works, it's good. If it doesn't, you get a headache in addition to insomnia

Worth it, do you think? I'm disappointed they won't actually get a move on with KB2. Loved Legend & AP but didn't try Crossworlds. I'll tell you guys once I find the time to actually play them I tried both briefly and seemed like great games (always subject to taste, I like my turn based combat, thank you very much). Warriors of the North is like an improved version of Armored Princess (disclaimer - no idea how the campaign pans out if played in full) and Fallen Enchantress looked very promising what little I managed to dig into it (not a lot, so take with a sack of salt, not enough play time to get a feel for balance, challenge etc.).

It's 30 degrees (Celcius) here, waiting for the sun to set a bit before venturing out (and braving the holes in ozone layer) for some shopping Generally just procrastinating and catching up on all the "to-do" stuff that had piled up since last New Year (which was the last time I had some time off from work and didn't travel somewhere).

Yeah, I discovered that a while ago. Even my old copy of Dead Space could be registered there and downloaded rather than reading from scratchy old DVDs I've redeemed a lot of games on Steam, but trying to think of games actually bought through Steam these holiday sales (well, Ok, the last 2 months)... Jade Empire Elemental: Fallen Enchantress Endless Space - Emperor Special Edition Air Conflicts Pacific Carriers Air Conflicts: Secret War Orcs Must Die 2 - Complete Pack King's Bounty: Warriors of the North Most of them on heavily discounted sales (I cheated and peeked at my account page).

One of the reasons I never touch a Ubisoft title again. Not that I wasn't tempted by the original Assassins Creed when it was on sale. I grudgingly caved in and installed Origin (because I already had an EA account from the past), making it the only (inferior) Steam copy so far. Besides Ubisoft titles, anything with GFWL on the sticker gets to stay on the shelf too (Little Lamplight isn't the only reason I didn't bother reinstalling FO3). So yeah, I can understand the sentiment The entire idea behind things like Steam and Origin is control and tying the customer to the publisher, so they can target their sales efforts and reap your money through sales and microtransactions. Insidious, but it seems to work. Most of my purchases these days happens through Gamersgate, GoG and Humble Bundle.

English teachers need to live too