Amentep

I never hated the mako. That said, it'd have been nice if there was an easy way to tell what mountains it'd scale and which ones it wouldn't without trial and error.

Eh...SeeD, Solder...its been quite a few years since I played FFVII... VIII I always thought everything was manipulated by Ultimicia from the end of time - could be wrong though since like VII been years since I played it. Tidus, I dunno his desire to get back at his dad...still I could be wrong. Hmmm, I may have to poke around and read some reviews.

I never thought Kefka or Sephiroth were a women. Seifer never really struck me as effiminate either.

The thing is - to me at least - there's no difference in an internal force (being born better) or an external force (an anointing) in terms of whether the story falls under a chosen one criteria. Yes, to look at Cloud any of the SeeD candidates could have been used by Sephiroth like Cloud was - but the point of the story is he does it to Cloud. Without that Cloud has no way to follow what Sephiroth is trying to do. The same could be argued about Mass Effect - it could have easily been Kaiden or Ashley (or looking broader some other person from the shortlist of human SPECTRE candidates) who could have been brain blasted by the Eden Prime beacon. But it was Shepard who was. In both cases choices outside the direct influence of the protagonist end up with them being the one person uniquely positioned to defeat the villains. In the case of Tidus, its Tidus' dad who went on the last Pilgramage. I don't remember it being coincidence that he came out of the (fayehd?) to be involved in the events, but actually directly tied to his dad's actions. Note I say this as someone who wouldn't still be playing video games if it weren't for the Final Fantasy series and I mean no disrespect to those games which I've spent many hours on. I suppose we see the "chosen one" differently; I think there are circumstances that follow incidental involvement (FFIX comes to mind as Zidane gets involved totally due to circumstance) and those where - to my mind at least - events outside the control of the hero force their involvement . I never finished the 1st Drakensang but my experience with that is the protagonist gets involved in the main plot coincidentally (having gotten a letter from an old friend), but in FFVII I really think Sephiroth's choice of Cloud as an experiment subject puts Cloud on a path he has to follow just as much as if he'd been born with a specific destiny. Certainly the Breath of Fire series (you're the only dragon!) fall more into the "born different" category of chosen one (more akin to NWN2 or BG series) than the FF series as Orogun01 suggests, but I don't think that's the only form of "chosen one" story. Of course we may just end up disagreeing ultimately. Moving away a bit from this debate as someone who loved most of the FF series but has found himself slowly moved away from it (never played FFXII), is FFXIII worth returning to the series for? Was XII worth playing?

Really? The protagonists in VII, VIII, X, and XIII aren't exactly the "chosen one" or have "a special destiny" that ONLY THEY can pull off. In VII Cloud has the backstory connection to the antagonist, but that doesn't mean that he is the only one who can possibly beat the creatures coming at him and his party. In VIII you're kind of a victim of happenstance, in X any summoner could have done what the main protagonists did, and in XIII the characters are hardly unique in their abilities. Unlike, say, Baldurs Gate II where you're the son of bhaal, or Planetscape where you're an immortal and the only one of your kind, JE where you're the last of the only crew that can restore the world, ME where you're the first and only guy to even see the threat coming and only because you're the one who got really odd visions in his head... Are they special in terms of what ends up happening and the consequences? Yes, but in JRPGs you usually aren't that special at the beginning of your game (where most western RPG's have your character somehow having that unique thing that makes them different). I've only played the first 11 main series FF games, but I'd argue that 8 of them - FFI, FFIII, FFV, FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII, FFX, FFX-2 - follow a Chosen One motif. Note that for me a "Chosen One" motif is built around the idea that some external force "anoints" the hero or propels them into action. This can be internal by birth (the Bhaal-Spawn in BG or Terra in FFVI, the protaganist of JE, the shard bearer in NWN2) or external (the protaganists in FFIII being granted powers by the Crystal of Light or Sheppard being the one to use the Prothean Beacon, the protaganist in KotOR2 surviving being cut from the force, Sephrioth messing with Cloud's mind and body, Ultimicia arranging a lot of the events around the orphans and Edea). Accidental propulsion into the plot (the IWD protaganists happen to be the survivors of the group traveling to the beseiged town, Zidane getting involved in the events in FFIX) wouldn't count. FFI - your characters are the warriors of light, bearing 4 special orb (Chosen One) FFII - Your characters just happen to survive an attack; go on to defeat the villain FFIII - your characters are granted special powers by the Crystal of Light and the power to restore balance in the world (Chosen One) FFIV - Cecil and Kain are the only survivors of a failed attempt to protect the water crystal FFV - Group is charged by the shattered Wind Crystal with protecting the other crystals (Chosen One) FFVI - Terra is a half-esper and her being used by the Emerorer is the begining of the resistance against the Empire (Chosen One) FFVII - Cloud is given memories of Zack and zenova cells by Sephiroth, making him uniquely suited to tracking Sephiroth (Chosen One) FFVIII - All of the characters grew up in an orphanage run by the current host of the Sorceress Ultimicia (Chosen One) FFIX - Characters get coincidentally involved in main plot FFX - Tidus and his dad Jecht are actually summoned entities from a dreamland version of Zanarkand that Sin is actually protecting. (Chosen One) FFX-2 - Yuna's path is tied heavily into the events from the previous game (Chosen One)

I didn't hate Udina, but he was very much a politician. He'd kiss Krogan babies if it'd get him what he wanted/further the interests of the Alliance. I'm actually playing a maleShep for the first time through ME1 - have always had problems completing a run with him before, but I'm almost done with ME1 and ready to port to ME2 and plan on choosing Udina to be the council rep.

Only if you bookend it with : So lol is lol but :lol: is

Ya momma my volvo? Sure we know what MOTB means, but this forum isn't just for us. Someone comes in here who's new and we sound like a whole battery farm of c***s. EDIT: The fact that there are several potential interpretations of an acronym doesn't make my point less valid it makes it MORE valid. Why the f*** are we using acronyms with more than one meaning in the first place? NB: Before anyone asks, I don't know why I've suddenly got into profanity. YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary The problem is, in your hypothetical solution, the computer automagically changes MOTB to "Mask of the Betrayer" just as "lol" becomes . So how does the computer distinguish when I type :ME: as to whether I mean Mass Effect or Mirror's Edge? Or :D2: between Diablo 2 and D2? Or :AC: from Assassin's Creed, Asheron's Call or Ace Combat? From context I can understand the difference, but a computer...?

Exactly! I used to have fun when people would refer to Diablo II as "D2" when there's actually a game called D2 out there (a sequel to the game "D"), so I'd start talking about D2...

I dunno, my only problem with acronyms comes from me not being able to recognize them. So making a common one like MOTB become Mask of the Betrayer doesn't really help me. It'd be the uncommon stuff or stuff that wasn't distinct (so couldn't be shortcutted) that'd be the problem. IMO, YMMV.

I dunno to me They're a transparent obstacle put there for plot reasons, made annoying so that we, the players, can take pleasure in their eventual comeuppance. They're basically the tweedy police captain who is always hassling the hero cop into doing his paperwork and not embarrassing whichever corrupt politician happens to be mixed up with the villainous drug lords. Also, the best unintentional comedy in the series was the ME1 was Shep and Anderson insisting that the Council was crazy for not basing galactic policy on a 50,000-year-old unconfirmable psychic message experienced by exactly one person. That's just it; the council's complaints are rather easy to see IMO. They're taking a conservative approach and using what they can see and IMO have been consistent from ME1 to ME2 (and also I don't really think that Shep was wrong for fighting for what he knew even if he was the only one who knew it. Anderson might be the odd one out, but he basically supports Shep; something to the effect of "if you say it happened, then I believe you".

I dunno to me

Cannon fodder in ME3? Oddly one of the things I was wondering after playing ME1 and 2... Frankly I didn't think the reveal that the was all that big a deal. We already knew that .

The first Dark Alliance game was made by Snowblind Studios, and the second was made using Snowblind's engine. The Icewind Dale games used Bioware's infinity engine. And the D&D License is with Atari and all the games were published by Interplay. Which I think would make porting the DA (or IWD or PST) games an extreme unlikelyhood.

OMG, that's an AWESOME idea!

I always took the bit in the first game where the council basically downplays the attack on Eden Prime (before you get Tali's info on Saren) by saying something to the effect of humanity was colonizing dangerous places as implying that the council wasn't going to waste their time with these colonies if something bad happened.

Drawn by Ethan Nicolle (Age 29) and written by his brother Malachai Nicolle (Age 5) and full of awesome. http://axecop.com/ Sites getting a lot of hits, so you can also find the episodes so far on Ethan's blog: http://eefblogger.blogspot.com/2010/01/axe...orary-home.html

I think "spiritual successor to BG" means its supposed to be the next Bioware fantasy title; in other words if you liked BG then Bioware is delivering what it feels to be the next BG.

Yeah, well I don't get a lot of the scuff that goes around.

Since my 360 isn't connected to the internet, I'm playing it because its fun.

I didn't notice anything like that haha. It's listed as a Beta though. I couldn't seem to find the Fast Travel option they talked about however. It floats around the top left, between your character portrait and the character options across the top.

Egads man, think about what you're saying!

"Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux isn't just pushing the curve on Xbox 360 with now-confirmed Project Natal support in Fable 3..." Its the Xbox 260 "Controler Free Gaming" periphrial.

I'm not complaining though.

I don't think I ever had that problem. But then having to switch in and out to mod probably helped make me more aware of changing accounts.