Amentep

Yeah, but I guess though while playing the game I never really thought about it. I mean there's a wooden structure (an old house that had a barn across the street) that I've watched slowly fall apart under its own weight over the last 20 years as its on my way to work (well the barn was torn down to make a subdivision, the old house is still there, partially collapsed). Looked like they were made in the 40s. But that's the thing, its terribly bad conditions for wood locally (very moist, loads of termites). The Wasteland seems dry and arid, and no giant irradiated termites (so far). So maybe that's how wood can last that long. Still doesn't seem like it should protect you from minigun fire though. Actually its too bad you can't sneak into some of those building where the raiders are situated, set explosives on the support columns, leave and explode them, collapsing the buildings on the raiders.

Wouldn't that depend on the wood? I mean well preserved wood could still be usable after a length of time and be as good as new wood. Besides, maybe all the old wood houses/shacks were made of petrified wood...

Global Mods have to be willing to tattoo all the continents and oceans around the midsection of their body

Well I remember them, but other than talking to Sulik and being vaguely amused by his bone in our first chat and that Marcus talked with Worf's voice, I don't terribly remember much about the others. Wait, was Myron the guy who was kidnapped and held prisoner?

Hmmm, I haven't got enough levels to get the extra AP perk (I would have if I hadn't restarted 4 times).

Well I know there are more joinables in FO2 than FO1, but...I still don't remember them having a real personality or anything. Heck I don't even remembering getting extra quests for having them.

Really? I confess I don't remember (and its been a few years since I played the game) interesting interactions with any of the joinable NPCs in either Fallout game. Add that to the fact that they were either prone to running into my line of fire, or blatantly just shooting me in combat...well I can't say I've ever viewed the Fallout series as strong in party members (and this from someone who tried to take as many party members as I could have - including the forced spouse - through the entire game).

Do what I do and only use VATS. Dont' even waste your ammo shooting in regular mode. Oh, and you gain XP faster the harder your mode, so what is most likely happening is that easier is harder because you ought to be a higher level during your encounters. Nah, it really is that I don't tend to think through the encounters. Like "try to pay attention when setting up for a fight outdoors that you don't have a car behind you kinda thing". I'm a bit too rash. I'm also prone to thinking I can take one three supermutants at once, which isn't true if at least two aren't equipped with nailboards. I do favor VATS in combat, but even with a high agility I tend to run out of AP fast on it. Maybe I'll inch it up to normal and see what happens though.

Man...now I want radsalmon in my game.

Given how often I've died playing it on the easier settings, I imagine if I turned up the difficulty to its highest settings on Fallout 3 I'd be Shooty McShotinthefacevictim. I can't strategize in action games to save my life.

sales is one of the few readily available objective measures we got. is not a measure o' quality, 'cause quality is inherent subjective, but sales IS an objective measure... of sales. *shrug* btw, folks who scoff at sales numbers is being foolish. developers make and sell games to make money... and unlike cheese (HA!) or cars or other stuff, you can't survive in pc publish/development by making a specialized product with a limited clientele. makes a more quality game is possible? sure, but unlikes other products, pc games has a relative fixed price. given the fact that all games is pretty much sold at same price, sales is a pretty damn important indicator in guaging success... as 'posed to quality. HA! Good Fun! I generally agree with your point, but high sales doesn't determine "why" something sold. Its a solid number, but the interpretation of why the number exists is subjective. But the fact it sold is objective, yes. What I was trying to get at, though, is for example that Game X might sell a lot of units, but beyond saying it sells a lot of units, and therefore is a good selling game, you can't really argue much about the numbers without moving into the realm of the subjective ("Game X sold well because...") That said, you make a good point in that sales are numbers that developers are creating games for and the gauge they use for success, so the subjective interpretation of why the game sold well is a moot point in some respects (although probably a question the developer will try to determine so as to recreate the success).

Hey, don't diss those movies. That's the kind of inspiration Michael Bay drew from, you know. Something has got to explode and burn during a movie. He just took it one step further and made entire movies about things burning and exploding all the time. I love 50s and 60s horror movies, even when the giant old mansion starts burning down for unclear reasons!

Sales - while often treated as being an objective evaluation of a product - is ultimately a subjective evaluation (an perhaps not of the product, but of the advertising/marketing of the product). That said, if something sells and continues to sell, there must be some inherent value in that thing; perhaps not aesthetic quality, but the ability of the product to fit a need of some type. As to FO3 being a continuation of the Fallout series, an interesting point to consider is that Dracula (1931) and Dracula (1958) are both Dracula films, both hugely successful in their time, but not terribly related otherwise. I have no problem with seeing Fallout 3 as both Fallout and not really likened to that which came before in the previous games (which in turn wasn't terribly similar in some respects to its inspiration, Wasteland).

You might as well as why a house/building/castle had to burn down at the end of almost all the 50s and 60s Horror movies.

I just got some funny looks laughing out loud at this.

Does get a bit silly for those action movies not set in or around temples when suddenly one pops up to collapse at the end though.

Yeah I can't really top that advice.

I knew a lady who'd regularly roll off her bed... ...and never wake up because she had so much stuff piled around her bed, she just rolled over onto it and kept on sleeping. Although in retrospect, maybe the clutter (books mostly) was a coping mechanism for dealing with a nature prone to rolling off the bed in her sleep. But that's really not slobish - or not what I'd call slobish anyhow. I have known some women who'd leave dirty dishes around the house, which is kinda gross. But some of the worst incidents I've heard of uncleanliness involved women - leaving rotted food and dead animals lying around in trailers amid mounds of dirty crud and such - although none were people I knew. Still I imagine its down to personality and circumstances more than gender.

Oooo, okay, I totally misread what you were getting at. Sorry. Generally speaking, yes I believe that baring an actual proof that something cannot without condition exist, then I have to accept the possibility that it could exist, even if I feel that it is incredibly unlikely to exist. In essence I'd liken it to a "probability of existence" with me having personal judgment calls about how I feel the probability of ghosts or whatever existing but accepting that there is a chance, no matter how small, that it could exist. If that makes sense. Thought it was worth salvaging. Yeah that was actually one of the best bits about ghosts over there. Really liked that as its an interesting approach and one which I think if done could really assist in removing a lot of conjecture from various "ghost phenomenon" by trying to nail down things a bit.

I can't say I've ever really seen the appeal of being able to kill anybody so games that don't allow the freedom to do so have never bothered me. I got bored with the cowled wizards in BG2; just for fun I decided to have my wild mage character upon returning to Athkatla start casting buffs, which led to the Cowled Wizards attacking and I just plowed through all of them. After awhile it got boring and I loaded an earlier save...

Well there was the photograph of Vesper (with her boyfriend) that appears in QoS...

Restarted my Fallout 3 game with a slightly different character. I should have named my character Shooty McFaceshooter though.

Good and Entertaining are both subjective terms, so they're going to mean different things to different people, and why one can be entertained by things that aren't particularly good or to think things good when they aren't entertained by it personally. Ergo, arguments about such things will need to determine what is Good and Entertaining for the sake of the argument, or risk having people talk at cross purposes.

Really, so you have an equal 'belief' in unicorns and Xenu too, do you? I find it odd to gather how you get I can get that I have some sort of "belief" in unicorns or Xenu from professing to neither believe nor disbelieve in ghosts. My general feeling is that if someone says ghosts exist, they should try to the best of the ability to prove that they do exist. If someone wants to claim they don't exist than IMO they need to prove such impossibility. Otherwise, my general feeling is to accept that some people feel like they have seen a ghost, while others will try to rationalise that it had to be something else. I have never experienced anything ghostly, so have no personal experience I could say fuels a belief in ghosts. While I tend to think the possibilty of extraterestrial life - whether it visits us or not - is strong, I think that ghosts are more interesting to theorize about. Should an extraterestrial visit us, I think that understanding the why of it without some form of interaction to be near impossible. More interesting instead to look into ghosts because then it means that either there is an intangible spirit connected with humans or some sort natural "distortion" of time/space/whatever which in turn would be worth probing or it indicates something about the psychology of human beings and/or physiological perception problems. Its easy to reject human perception and just assume that the cause was due to some physiological or psychological issue or even just the human ability to create patterns where none exist, but I just tend to favor not leaping to conclusions.

Saw Quantum of Solace. Really liked it and felt it was completely in keeping with the previous film. It also involves Bond actually doing some vaguely spy like things rather than just flinging around sci-fi gadgets.