Amentep

I don't like or dislike crafting inherently; it really depends on how its done. I'm not wild about the scavenger hunt aspect of most crafting in games though. And I'm not wild about the "keep trying combinations and wasting your raw materials until you can make that low level armor that is worse than the clothes you started out in!" method of crafting in some games. But the only time I think it breaks the game is when you are forced to spend an inordinate amount of time crafting just to get decent equipment.

I was afraid to move past the most obvious of conclusions. But clearly I meant Fallout 2 was a lot like Fallout 1. And it was. same engine, same mechanics. Bigger in scope, certainly. And not a bad game. I've probably played FO1 and FO2 about the same amount of times.

This is one of those questions that I'm not sure there's an easy answer to. Fallout 1 was a very fun game. Was wary initially of the initial main quest being a timed quest, but it ultimately worked out. Fallout 2 was a lot like Fallout 2 but bigger in every sense (both good and bad). I didn't mind the humor as much as others, though. They aren't on the list but I never played Fallout: Tactics (never had the money to buy it while it was out) and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel was just a poorly done game IMO (and this from someone who enjoys action RPGs and enjoyed the two Baldur's Gate games on the same engine). Not unplayable, but ultimately just not very interesting or fun to play. Fallout 3 has been fun so far. But like FO:BoS, its a very different game from the first two Fallouts. Not bad, just different. It makes them hard to compare; for what Fallout 3 has set out to do it has done well, so far in the game though. So at the moment, I'd probably give Fallout 1 the nod for the best of the series.

I certainly agree that it can kill immersion if not well done. As Morgoth points out, respawning was OK in SS2, mostly because it was pretty subtle. Far Cry 2 has respawning that is about as subtle as brick to a head. Yeah the respawning in Far Cry 2 kinda made me unhappy with the game (although the motion sickness from driving a jeep didn't help ) But handled well it certainly isn't necessarily a detriment to the game. It really just depends on whether its sensible or not for the situation.

Good point. When the rules of the game universe only applies to the player Yeah! That! The thing is that there is there is to me at least a limit to how far you can go to limit the players options but allowing the opponent to go on before it starts being a problem with the game. As in my example, when an opponent can target you from a distance with a weapon or spell and you can't attack back with the exact same weapon or spell then something isn't right. And when the game then additionally forces your party to stick in a bunch guaranteeing that every area attack spell sent over that great distance will hit your entire party...that's not fun, that's an exercise in constant reloading because your party keeps getting wiped out. I understand the need to limit player options, but I think there's a reasonable side to it and a broken side. Any game that has a really, really long prologue that isn't skipable whether its a tutorial, in game character creation or similar can be a pain. Particularly for inveterate game restarters like myself.

That's kinda why I figure it won't effect much in the short term; a game complete or 90% complete probably won't be scrapped, but I could see a publisher/developer being wary about commiting to a lot of projects down the line. So if they start making less games we'll see it 2-3 years or so down the line. A bit how studios balked at funding now a Steven Speilberg/Peter Jackson version of Tintin. Not that they couldn't make money on it - those names alone would sell it in the US where Tintin isn't as big as it is elsewhere, but the immediate cost didn't make up for the potential future profits a couple of years from now.

One thing that really bugs me about game design - and I can't think of a recent example so maybe developers have moved away from it - opponents who have vastly better abilities or options than its ever possible for me or my group to have. The best example I can think of this atm is Wizardry 8 where your party is forced to stick in a group (yet the villains aren't) and where enemy magic casters could regularly cast area spells at distances that I couldn't (meaning that they could tag my party all day long while I tried to move the distance to where they were at without ever being able to attack them).

Yeah I hate games that require precise jumping. Which is probably why I've moved away from platform style games. I remember spending a weekend where the only thing I'd do on a game was try and get one timed jump just right (IIRC I had to jump at just the right point on the platform AND at just the right time in order to not be whacked by something). And it was very frustrating (I'd have to turn the game off and do something else for a couple of hours). So while the idea of this seems intriguing, I imagine I should steer clear of it (which I should have done with the last real shooter I got too; I can't shoot for crap in games).

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Thought it held up fairly well to the first viewing back in the summer. It has its weak moments, but I've come to the conclusion that it compares fairly favorably with the original three films. That was followed by The Deadly Duo aka Shuang Xia which was an okay Shaw Brothers film. All over the place in its narrative, it had some colorful villains amidst its frenetic plot.

Depends on how long it lasts; in the short term people might buy less games, but even a 10+ hour game is more cost effective than a 2 hour movie, so I think as far as entertainment goes, the general game player will keep buying games. What effect you'll see now will most likely be to games down the line (ie companies may be less inclined to start a large number of projects) as opposed to immediate collapses in companies (unless the company was already near collapse anyhow). But a long economic downturn will lead to changes in buying habits, which in turn could affect the publishers and developers. Or something.

Ugh, that sounds pretty terrible! I dunno, it wasn't that bad, although I found myself humming the theme from "Moon Patrol" while playing... While most of the planets are similar, they're relatively easy to break up between the main quests without finding them monotonous. The vehicle did control like ass though.

Closest thing I can think of to rekyl in English is Jekyll (the proper name, from Scotland; well known from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Its supposed to be pronounced JEEK-ull, but has - thanks to a movie - mostly become pronounced as JEK-ull. So I'd say the average person from the US would see it as REK-ull not REEK-ull

It hasn't been added to Atari's Digital Downloads yet. Dunno if it will be or not.

Well Atari's website has: Minimum System Requirements Operating System: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor Memory: 1 GB RAM Hard Disk Space:8 GB free hard disk space DVD-ROM Drive: 6X speed or faster Video: ATI Radeon X700 or NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or higher Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card DirectX: DirectX version 9.0c (included) or higher Multiplayer:Broadband connection for multiplayer online play Input: Keyboard, Mouse Recommended System Requirements Processor: 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D 805 or AMD X2 +3800 or faster Memory: 2 GB System RAM Video Card: ATI Radeon X1950 512MB series, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 512MB series, or higher I'm guessing that's what's planned to be on the box.

You've made 3 different accounts now for the sole purpose of advertising that site. Why? Spam site promotion, surely? Maybe. On a quick glance, though, it looks like a genuine UFO fansite. I guess he thought we looked like a gullible lot. Well its still spam promotion of the site, even if the site is legit (possibly a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Aliens forum).

You've made 3 different accounts now for the sole purpose of advertising that site. Why? Spam site promotion, surely?

Ohhhhh, okay. Totally didn't pick up on that.

CoC:DCotE did get advertising when it came out; I certainly remember seeing ads for it because, frankly after its long development, I was actually surprised to see it come out.

House is moderately defensible , I'd think. Stock of storage goods is okay for one person, not so okay if it goes over that. Lack of major distance weapons hurts a bit, but I tend to think actively attacking zombies outside of "must fight or die" situations to be just asking for trouble. If the zombie apocalypse comes while I'm at work, I imagine that I'm dead meat. Lots of people, lots of glass doors, few really defensible locations. Actually this raises a question I've discussed in real life, is it better to have a place with one exit so that exit can be fortified for defense, or more than one exit so that escape possibilities raise although the building becomes more vulnerable to penetration? Also: and

I wouldn't say that, but I don't see why the editing limits is a problem. But maybe I don't go back and re-read my posts enough 15 minutes after making them...

That 1st definition confuses me. How can "being a juggalo [be] about individuality" when a juggalo can be defined in such group identifying ways as - "eating ramen noodles... drinking faygo cola... and sporting pro wing shoes... made fun of in school..." And if a juggalo is "never accepted by anyone", does that mean juggalos don't accept one another?

I've seen a number of objects flying through the sky that I couldn't identify, so in that sense yes I've seen some UFOs. But I've never seen anything that I've been convinced was ship of extraterrestrial design. That said, I don't think such a ship is impossible, but have no experience with such.

But then the first person could claim that the original post quoted in the reply is in fact a fabrication made by the poster to "put words in their mouth". And then someone would point out the edit notice on the edit and then the person would come up with another story, etc. I don't mind the edit limits other than when I type some grammatically horrible sentence or have a severe number of typos and don't catch it before posting.

To be honest? I thought it was because The Force Unleashed was going to be an action game, which tends to be a bigger market than most RPGs. Yeah, sales could be a factor, but sales doesn't have to be the reason for not making a sequel. They were also over the same time period they were developing CALL OF CTHULU, developing a Deadlands RPG/Shooter hybrid game. Headfirst seemed to have sunk a lot of money into both games before they had a publisher. Yup, but there are a lot of games that sell well that never see a sequel (or another sequel) and sales isn't the factor. Found this: 2003 Gamespy Interview with Brian Fargo GameSpy: Do you potentially have access to any other IP from Interplay's past, or be interested in working on it? Brian Fargo: Well normally I wouldn't comment on it, but because of the public records of it ... We've also secured the Wasteland trademark. And there's no issues with that. That was actually kind of a funny story. Konami got the Wasteland mark and I went to Konami and asked what they were doing with it. They were using it as one of their umpteen-million Yu-Gi-Oh! characters, like Wasteland Rick or something crazy like that. And I said "Can I use it?" and they said "Oh no, we want to use it as one of our many characters." And finally they decided that they're really not going to exploit it anymore so they let the mark lapse and I stepped in and filed it and now it's been granted to me. Very interesting. But that's about the Wasteland trademark, allowing them to title stuff "Wasteland" without being sued by Konami (or other rights holders). Doesn't seem to be about the IP rights to the Wasteland game...

Some random thoughts (or misconceptions) I had: I thought InXile only licensed Wasteland (and Bard's Tale) from EA? Headfirst spent so long developing CALL OF CTHULU I was surprised it actually came out. Given the rumoured problems in its long development (well before Bethesda became the publisher), I'm not surprised it came out with problems. And I thought KotOR 3 was ultimately nixed because of the refocusing of the entire LA video game lines (and the decision to ultimately back The Force Unleashed).