Amentep

I find it sad, not funny.

Got Dragons Crown yesterday. So far I've been fairly impressed, the controls are easy enough to pick up and smash stuff with but there seems to be a good deal of finesse you can build up to. They've made a looting system that is fun with multiple players (so far). Unfortunately I didn't have as much time yesterday with it as I'd hoped.

Pretty sensible reaction when some stranger yells at you. not really. I remember getting caught in an impromptu 'wookie off' in a motorway service station. With a whole bunch of strangers making wookie noises at each other. Okay, my first thought when reading the term "wookie off" was not what it ended up being.

So did you post this via the phone or the kitchen stuff? Its actually only sprinkled here...which is a changeup as we've had a couple of months of storms, a lot of them thunderstorms

That trailer does look interesting but I hope the game isn't in that grey colour? It is, that's what they're saying. Okay thanks and for clarity sakes why would they make the game in grey? It apparently looks interesting, fits the story and setting and ramps up the suspense. I really wasn't talking business so much as - IMO - they've been making a lot of terrible games, and have been for some years now.

Just because people lacking your refinement have dubbed the Aphrodite of Melos "Venus", doesn't make her less Greek. I think this wasan appropiate and fitting 4000th post >_ The original was a bronze cast as with most Classical Ancient Greek statues, those marble replicas were made by the Romans after the original. So when you see a Greek marble statue is probably a roman copy, hence Venus. I thought current scholarship dismissed the claim that it was a Roman copy but instead thought that it was a Greek copy (of course, IIRC, there's still some debate over whether the statue represents Aphrodite or Amphitrite anyhow, but I think we're up the garden path at this point...)

That trailer does look interesting but I hope the game isn't in that grey colour? It is, that's what they're saying.

I find your distinction between scenarios to be arbitrary. A bit like asking "would you rather have cake or a poke in the eye with a stick?" "There's no proper context because the bandits just pop in out of nowhere" As does the cop in your scenario (who has no motivation ascribed to him as to why he wants to pull you over - just as the bandits have no way to assume you have money the cop has not been given a reason to assume you need to be pulled over) "and you never hear from them again." This isn't a fault of the scenario, its the fault of the world not responding to the players choice. The cop could be bluffed and go away and never be heard from in your scenario - does it make it bad that that happened? So some bandits jump out and attack you. You get two initial choices - fight or flee (your cop scenario only gets one more option dialogue which could easily be implemented for the bandits). That doesn't mean, however, that the game couldn't make the bandits part of a larger faction. That it couldn't be built into the narrative. It doesn't even mean that it doesn't respond to your choices (maybe the road is one of two choices, and one is known to be patrolled by bandits. Maybe the local guard hired you to travel the road because of reports, maybe you choose the road because it puts you closer to where you want to go even though its more dangerous. IMO the problem isn't the bandit scenario, but of motivating the story elements and creating a context and consequences around even the most minor of game element. Which then comes down to story vs verisimilitude IMO - how much do you want the game to mirror a novel (where everything happens for a reason) vs real life (where everything doesn't have a logical motivation as people collide within a framework that allows for the random and unmotivated and surprising). In that sense, I have no problem with the random encounter.

Lets see, I've seen THE PHAROAH'S CURSE (1957) - fun period horror mummy film. Usual trope of mummy's curse befalling archeologists/semi-grave robbers. This time the mummy sucks blood. Better ideas than execution. Big let down was the end, which seemed to just happen rather than make sense in the story. THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (1977) - gory late 70s Horror film. Astronaut affected by space radiation becomes a cannibal monster. Very schlocky (supposedly it was originally planned as a parody but AIP thought they could get better money by making it a straight horror film). Still its fun in that low-budget 70s kind of way. The lead is so deadpan, I can't help but figure no one told him it wasn't a parody anymore (or that they changed it so late they couldn't change what was shot and his performance no longer fits the film). JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (2013) - IMO the story never really comes together as it feels it should. There is to me a seeming lack of focus; nominally its about Jack - but its about the Princess too. And about the King, the King's advisor, the head of the guard, the power struggle amid the giants, Jack's relationship with his Uncle, etc. There are some good bits (the villains do everything but twirl mustaches in their villainy) but the final sequence lacks any oomph.

I have to admit, Sega buying Atlus worries me a whole lot - particularly since Sega can't seem to get their act together, I can only fear how they'd run/ruin Atlus and Atlus' games. Also I'd have to figure some of the niche games Altus USA publishes wouldn't get picked up under Sega. but maybe I'm being too gloomy & doomy Also I'm not a superfan of 1st Person Shooters, but that Betrayal Trailer looks interesting.

Which critic is that? FWIW I liked Pacific Rim.

Fallout: Cuba?

I couldn't get past the opening miniseries on BSG, I'm afraid.

Looks like its also being touted as an online multiplayer game from what I can see... Because that's what it *is*. Did anybody seriously think Capcom is gonna pour a $100 million into a massive singleplayer Skyrim-killer PS4-exclusive game? Capcom ain't a charity and financial debacles are no longer acceptable. I was just pointing out information that I'd not heard about before, particularly given the theory at the time of the drop of the original trailer that it might be more like Dragons Dogma (which has a very light and unnecessary online component) than a MMORPG or Guild Wars type thing.

I'd guess the same designer, design team or company. Not really sure what the issue is...its a bit like complaining that all of Drew Struzan's posters looked like Drew Struzan had made them.

Looks like its also being touted as an online multiplayer game from what I can see...

But is it Yahoo Serious?

Indeed, I understand that many people have been institutionalized by it. Wait, that didn't come out right...

Well, they didn't just lock him up for 5 days, they also forgot to feed him or give him any water. Which would be tough for a year to, you know...live through.

He's at his best when he's vulnerable. Like when Magneto took out his adamantium and then, for a little while before it went nutso, even his healing was reduced. That's what's good in this movie is the vulnerability. Even the part I mention in the spoiler is done well in that respect. Something I hadn't hought of... does his healing factor keep his blood cells from degradig, or is adamantium porous? Because how does his body make new blood cells with his bones coated? IIRC, his bones absorbed the adamantium and made it part of his skeletal structure, think of it as organic-metal bones. At least until the inevitable retcon. I'm with Orogun1 though, the character is extremely overexposed. Almost as bad as Batman. In the comics, the combination of organic healing factor and adamantium bonding process created "Adamantium Beta" which did more or less make it so that he had "metal bones".

Right, so why not an "opt in" system instead of an "opt out" system? I'm voting for Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch myself.

So then, why is it not the parent's responsibility to monitor the child? Its not like there aren't local solutions to blocking a child's access that doesn't make it a mandatory for all users unless they opt out.

I think this is an impossible choice in many ways simply because its by *series* and not comparing game to game. Final Fantasy is up there - two games where you create your party and two MMOs across 14-15 games that have at least 80 joinable characters (more if you count the spin-offs) vs Planescape Torment with what 7 characters and that's it? Talk about imbalance... *waits for everyone to chime in and say the 7 PST characters were written better than all 80 FF characters* Now that that is over with, I think it'd be easier to talk about what I have liked (at least from a "how it worked" perspective, not from a "was the dialogue worthy of Proust" perspective). I think the Tales games did a good job of creating characters who interacted with each other and the protagonist. BG2 also did this; I think its fun when the characters in your party react to each other as well as the PC. Makes the characters feel a little more "real". I liked how Star Ocean 2 and the Tales series had it possible to break the team up when you hit town so that you could have some out of party dialogue with your characters. In someways this is similar to Dragon Age's camp, but I felt it was handled more naturally in other games happening in towns, at inns, etc. I'm not as crazy when the Tales series forces character in/out of the party though. DA2 had a bit of this by having you go to certain places with NPCs to trigger dialogue. I liked how each of the PST characters had a huge amount of back story and it took some work to get it out of them. They didn't just offer every dialogue they had in quick succession and you couldn't bribe them to be your friends. It made it so if you didn't care about it they were meatshields, but there was layers in the onion if you wanted to peel away.

I think from an artist standpoint, I'd rather have constructive negative criticism than a polite "I like it" with no elaboration. But "you suck" is pretty much as useless as well in terms of feedback.

No his analogy is relevant as the law is intended to prevent minors accessing porn and other possibly harmful websites. If you are 18 then you could open an account at an ISP and request any filtering to be removed In both cases the child's access to porn is provided by the parent. Parent gets an ISP and leaves the child unmonitored on the internet has provided the child access to porn. Parent goes to the newsagent, buys porn and puts it in a box in the middle of the room and leaves the child unmonitored in the room has also provided the child access to porn. In both cases its the parent purchasing and then providing the access to the porn; the ISP's aren't opening up accounts to kids and selling them porn just as the newsagent isn't. The question is, why is the ISP liable for the parent's lack of monitoring and not the newsagents?