Amentep

I kind of liked it, but I thought the first twist was given away in the trailer. What I'd consider the second twist, I didn't see coming, however, until the end. Probably was a bit over-long though.

Having never played any of the Warriors Orochi series, how does it compare to Dynasty Warriors (which I confess to a soft-spot for).

As far as I know you've named them all - 1926, 1949, 1974, 2000 TV movie, G in 2002 and 2013. Trailer for the lost 1926 version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asajgm-ciWA which was adapted from a stage play version of the novel rather than the novel itself. Neil Hamilton (better known to TV audiences as Commissioner Gordon in the 1960s Batman TV show but who was a matinee idol in the silent film era) plays Nick Carraway in this version I watched THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS (BKA The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists in large portions of the world). I thought it was pretty amusing stuff; kind of fun to try and guess the voices too.

Yeah, Soul Hackers is out. I haven't gotten it yet. Yet. Cool, may have to get a 3DS before too long, Code of Princess and Fire Emblem: Awakenings looked good too.

Squeenix, Capcom, Konami, etc. I wish Konami would get off their asses and do another Suikoden. Let's not forget about Atlus also. They're pretty much my main source for jRPGs these days, on account of my love affair with MegaTen. I'm looking forward to Dragon's Crown this August. 3DS is getting Soul Hackers and MegaTen IV so I'll probably be getting a 3DS haha. Oh wait, Soul Hackers is supposed to be out now, innit?

Squeenix, Capcom, Konami, etc. I wish Konami would get off their asses and do another Suikoden. While my interest in the series died after playing 3, I'm guessing 2012's Genso Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki probably won't be translated, given the PSP's position here in NA?

My character is 169 (only gained two levels on the island so far). So you could say I really liked the game. It was easily game of the year for me last year. Its not perfect, but it is very enjoyable to play, IMO, and a very nice game to replay and just run through doing crazy stuff to see what happens. Unfortunately I'm offline only, I think I'd enjoy messing with other people's pawns.

This depends, I think. Is having "9" values much different from checking 7 values - Quest, faction, reputation, Int, Wis, Chr, Speech? Realistically you're always going to use a "general impression" and then NPC specific reactions based on other elements in the narrative. I suppose really the question is how robust is the general impression? Lets assume that the 9 listed values from the first post are actually considered clustered reactionary states of NPCs And lets cluster them as such Sympathy / Indifference / Disgust = for charity Affection / Neutrality / Hatred = for fellowship Admiration / Respect / Fear = for following Now each individual could have a personal and faction based reaction so Xn = personal charity A = faction charity Yn= personal fellowship B= faction fellowship Zn = personal following C = faction following and where n = specific NPC Also, characters may strongly value some personal reactions over others (a woodsman may never follow another man but may value fellowship with others for example) so lets tag α, β, δ as how an npc values charity, fellowship and following So then reaction becomes Charity = αXn + A Fellowship = βYn + B Following = δZn + C Now some quests may create some things may create a situation where a character will never like - or always like the PC and we'll give that a value of ♣n and K will represent the total "quest reaction" where Kn = sum of modifying value specific quests might give a PC. So we get general impression := ♣n((αXn + A) + (βYn + B) + (δZn + C) + Kn) where -100 = Each Faction Reaction can be A + B + C for each faction Town Reaction can be ΣT ∞ T1 Xn + Yn Zn + F where T is the townspeople at that local and F is the reaction of the dominant faction of the town. Overall Reputation can be plotted as the the sum of faction and town reactions in the world. Or something. I mostly just wanted to use sub- and superscript and pseudo-mathematical notation this morning.

That sucks. Every few years or so, all the departments at work gets the sexual harassment speech. My department is a bit of a tight knit group. We have low turnover, and have been together for years, so we pretty much know each other well enough that we know what everyone is comfortable with. The assembly lines can be a different story. The story about the ex-maintenance guy is nuts. It's once in a blue moon when I hear stuff get that crazy. Part of the reason though we get those speeches is kind of for this same reason. Someone leaves on a bad note, and/or starts complaining, people that had nothing to do with the original complaints can start getting targeted if they feel it is an atmospheric condition of the workplace. That's why most of my jokes at work are just making fun of something I might have heard on the radio. Ah CBC: You rarely disappoint me. Good luck, eh. Hopefully you get through this just fine. Our HR people have told me that people leaving OR someone under the threat of firing is very prone to make anonymous complaints with no merit simply because they want some form of revenge for perceived wrongs in the former or they want to deflect attention from themselves in the latter. I've had to talk to some employees - who've worked together for years - to not joke with one another in such ways simply because they may not take offense at each other, but some third party might hear it and take offense or worse hold onto it until they think attention is coming to them about their performance and try to cite the incident to pull the attention away from them. Welcome to the working world - CYA as primary objective.

So faced the (a?) new dragon type in Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen. Took me 20 minutes to beat him. While a lot of the monsters I've seen - like this dragon - feel familiar, there's still some challenge in them; even using the typical dragon tactics the fight was difficult based on how the dragon behaved. Still haven't figured out the giant Death Ghost thingy, though. Luckily I'm a very mobile character and able to flee well. Sadly a couple of my pawns aren't and got insta-deathed. Oops. One brand new monster was a minotaur. Faced him in a tower that was 90% narrow stairwell. He kept knocking me down and stomping me. Luckily I'm a high enough character that this doesn't matter much HP wise, but I wasn't doing much damage to him HP wise either. It was like the long 1 on 1 fight sequence between John Wayne and Victor McLaglin in THE QUIET MAN. But with a minotaur and my PC and less Maureen O'Hara. Killed some corrupted pawns (at least I think that's what they were; I confess they acted weird and seemed to be smoking and so I killed them without really asking.) And some blue harpies. Not sure what they can do because I shot them all in the face rather quickly while one of my pawns remarked "A blue harpy?". Archery FTW!

Or they made a bunch of moves, they are nervous because "games with female protagonists don't sell" (which IIRC was mentioned in an article specific to this game having to fight to have a female protagonist) and decided to create some super special moves related to SFII that will maybe encourage fans to pre-order so they can sleep at night rather than worry about the game tanking. But realistically - to me at least - if the game has 20 different move combinations that you can build into 125,000 different 10 move combinations*...are you really going to miss 3 more moves to use? I played JE on the keyboard and it was fine - but I was familiar with the game, so I'm not sure my experience is the same as someone coming in with no experience in the game at all. Really used it more because its a game with different weapons/fighting styles in each version, but IMO neither feels inferior to the other. There are plenty of other choices in the game to satisfy the player (ie Me in this case). I should play it again on PC (my Xbox being boxed in storage as it is). *I have no clue how the system will actually work, I'm just saying if you have a bunch of options that satisfactorily achieve the intended experience, why are you going to miss 3 moves? Unless you're a Guile, Ryu or Chun-Li player, i guess...

I'm much more put out by pre-orders or day one downloadable content that has some actual content to it - extra companions, extra storylines, extra areas to explore. I find those to be more difficult to take than "miss out on this special item (that doesn't really add anything different to the game)" or "miss out on this optional additional element (that again doesn't alter the game or gameplay)". I suppose its because items and fighting styles above what is normally in the game to me is an additive element. I miss something I see as optional. Missing NPCs or areas seems to me a subtractive element, I'm missing content and thus my game experience is altered. I certainly didn't find JADE EMPIRE, for example, different playing it on the PC and having a Rhino Demon transformation and viper fighting styles vs on the X-Box where I had neither of those but access to the Tien's Justice weapon. Ultimately the game was the same the only thing changed was some cosmetic differences to how I dispatched enemies.

Most companies sell their digital comics at cheaper prices than the physical.

Wouldn't that be more like "if you don't pre-order you don't get some bonus fighting moves that aren't necessary for the game but only exist as a fun pre-order incentive"? I don't see this as any different from, say, the pre-orders getting equipment bundles for FONV that gave you different starting equipment. Nice, but it certainly wasn't necessary to complete the game. I seriously doubt its necessary to flip out and throw some Street Fighter II moves to complete REMEMBER ME.

Weirdly, I take no pride in buying or not buying games. I just buy the games that interest me and don't buy the ones that don't.

I just finished the first two trades of IDW's Popeye series which is awesome. Its a great distillation of the E. C. Segar comic character, the Fleisher cartoon character and a few other popular elements rolled into a great comic. Now working through the first trade of Axe Cop...

A, B, C, D, F, IP, I, W, WF, WM, K, S, U, V are the approved grades here.

I don't really disagree; Booker seems to hold onto the idea that the Vox are going to give him an airship like its a floatation device in a storm.

I have to finish getting Modesty Blaise - really liked the series I've read so far.

Got the expansion for DRAGON'S DOGMA - Dark Arisen yesterday. Managed to mess with some of the new stuff in character creation (new hair!). Then went to Bitterblack Isle. Met some difficult but not impossible monsters, but one I couldn't even damage and another killed me twice before I killed it (rather a novelty for me at this point in the game and definitely a reminder that I can't be as cavalier in the new labyrinth as I'd become playing the regular game). Some of the game changes are also nice to see like the inventory additions.

As Orogun mentions Its not odd - as I understand it Elizabeth can only open alternate worlds if she existed - however briefly - in two different realities at the same time. Other reality hoppers never get the ability to manipulate the tears and I think this is the reason. Realistically, though, there should be an infinite number of Elizabeths who exist but never have the power to open tears because their Booker never tried to stop the deal. Elizabeth indicates that she once thought she was calling into being worlds she wants to have happen (which is part of why she breaks down at one point). More likely her ability allows her to pick the timelines that she wants; ie one in which a deal was made and has the guns. They don't ever really "know" the deal is on - even when Booker takes the deal he doesn't really know if Fitzroy will renege on it or not. I'm not sure the story actually plays out as if they're in the PRIME universe. If they were in the prime universe the Vox would never have their weapons so it actually couldn't play out the way the game does. What they do get is a succession of worlds that gives them the outcomes they sought - even if ultimately I think they might not have wanted those outcomes if they realized what they were asking for. I think they stop caring because they realize by the time things get rolling good that they're not going to be able to get what they want by going back to the original universe. By the time they get the gunmaker, there's no way for them to actually get the guns (the Vox have them IIRC). I think this is a problem with their plan to design the game with an illusion of choice. There doesn't appear to be real diverging paths or choices (which makes the fact that they give you a choice but the game won't progress unless you make the choice that furthers the game narrative all the more frustrating). If there was a shooter that really needed branching paths for the story, this one was it, IMO.

And that strategy worked so well with Aliens: Colonial Marines...

Although the Chechen's clearly win in the manly beard sweepstakes too, so its not all buff bods.