Amentep

Is that the head going down a sword loading meter or something else? I thought it was kinda...weird.

Yeah, but so do half the regular discussion topics on the internet. The other half take the circuitous route. Everything on the internet goes to hell eventually. Indeed!

That's a horrible analogy. Van Gogh is widely known and discussed everywhere where art is discussed. PST is something that very few people even know exists. I'm not so sure that people discussing the art of movies, the art of architecture or the art of literature would discuss van Gogh much. In that sense, van Gogh is not discussed everywhere. Art always intersects people's lives differently and through different media. People are more inclined to think of the art they have the most personal experience in than in other forms. If you're not specifically talking about the visual arts and the medium of painting, van Gogh may never get a thought. PST has some respect within the community that looks at the media of video games, so the possibility of a wide discussion is limited (particularly given that video games haven't really been acknowledged as an artistic medium yet, as far as I know)

For any time, Sargy. It's one of the best games ever. I really enjoyed Vagrant Story - always surprised it didn't do better sales wise and for some time it had a fairly low reputation.

True. Weird War (not related to the Weird War PnP RPG?) was intended as the sequel to Another War, but it was never released. Which is a pity, considering all the interesting stuff you heard about it Nope, not related to the Weird War PnP RPG as near as I can tell. Its addictive. Very addictive. That's the whole purpose. The game never ends. The game never starts either, if I spend all my time going into a pit of eternal battle trying to level up my equipment so that I can take on the second story section of the game. I like having options in games, but there is a case to be made that there can be too many options.

Yeah, but so do half the regular discussion topics on the internet. The other half take the circuitous route.

I've found the recent NIS games too "fidlelly". When you not only are worrying about leveling your characters but your equipment the game is expecting far, far too much investment of time for me.

I think it'd depend on how its handled; a number of action games with mana systems allow for rather unsophisticated enemy bashing by mages. Not having a weapon tree doesn't mean you can't bash (or does it?) just that you're not as good at it as someone who dedicates themselves to the fine art of bashing. I dunno, I remember our school plays and a lot of time we winged it (we had a vague idea of the dialogue and where it was going and when we forgot we just said a bunch of stuff). Or maybe I just went to an elementary school with a bunch of low memory kids...

Looking deeper into it, it looks like "Weird War" was presented as a sequel to "Another War" http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/456/456360p1.html Techland doesn't list it amid its games - maybe it was never released?

Thanks but no luck. Oh well. HA! I found it, it's called Weird War and here's your yellow submarine: Your Google-fu is weak, grasshopper. I'm pretty sure that the game actually came out as Another War, and ultimately wasn't published by Techland but by Cenega Publishing. Never played it but reviews on the net seem to be mixed to negative. I loved Culdcept; the card art is fantastic. Sadly I have trouble with and game with more than one opponent.

I've never planned spells. I take a bunch that I think will be the most most versatile for what roll I want the magic character to be and stick with it. Very rarely do I make any tweaking, and that's usually because I found some spell slightly more useful than some other one. I suck as a magician.

I blame the thread subtitle, "The original sequel to Baldurs Gate?..."

I thought D&D memorisation uses mana as "memorisation points". Isn

Except computer/console D&D games that keep the memorization structure (or at least spells per day as opposed to rechargeable manna) still do away with the actual studying part of the equation. And components. And verbal/non-verbal actions. And since most of the games allow you to rest anywhere, they're not functionally that different from rechargeable manna (and not all games will recharge manna in real time anyhow, making the end effect very similar, I think). Oh and I'm not sure I'd call D&D's magic system is original since its taken from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.

Personally I think Spirited Away is better than Princess Mononoke. And Porco Rosso I'd personally rank ahead of Mononoke as well. I have (but haven't watched yet) Totoro, but I'm guessing it'll leap frog pretty high in the list of my enjoyment of Miyazaki films.

Wasn't Secret of Evermore punishment enough? That's not to mention Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (developed for the US Market) and Shadow Madness (developed by former Squaresoft USA employees).

The original US flag also had a circle of stars on it. I can't imagine they're the only ones.

Actually it was Dragon Force for me. I got it around December of 1996 and due to having a large time off for Christmas that year I think I spent a full month where everyday I got up, ate breakfast and then played Dragon Force for the rest of the day (often until 2-3 at night).

The "Confederate Battle Flag" (a combination of the actually used Confederate battle flag's colors on the second confederate naval jack design) became a symbol of the south and the confederacy after the civil war, supplanting the original flags in representing "rebels" and "the confederacy".

Sega Dreamcast is probably the console I ended up with the least games on because the US got crap all on the system. In terms of how often I played it, the Saturn easily outranks it, and at the time the PS2 had many more games released on it in the US market. (and of course, it actually came out in 1998 in Japan...)

I watched The Beyond. Is it just me or does Lucio Fulci have a bit of an obsession with eye-injuries and throat ripping? Its a good film if you buy into the total dream logic plotting (which is greater here than typical in Italian Horror Films, IMO).

And...Warner Brothers restructures DC Comics; they've created DC Entertainment to try and maximize cross-departmental use of DC properties: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22870

As for exisiting settings, I'd still love to see a Deadlands game made. The people who made CoC:Dark Corners of the Earth had the rights to make one, but they went under (and they seemed more in line with making it a shooter, but still)

Swearing in real life is often a verbal tool (or crutch) and in dialogue as long as it meets a certain degree of appropriateness (with character and situation) then I have no problem with swearing. Use of swearing in ways that are inappropriate or disconnected with the situation at hand are always going to stick out like a sore thumb as I play.