lobotomy42

Holy shit...when did the site become a podcast? How did I miss that? Is this the end of Thumbs the...repository of well-written articles?

Hey, I absolutely loved the dancing mini-game in Sid Meier's Pirates! I think you may have just sold me on this game!

Also, from here, about eight minutes in: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarstheoldrepublic/video/6199708 (Note: This is just an observation about the game industry and gamers, and not really a criticism of Bioware or TOR.) To me, this is something that could only possibly be a selling point in the games industry. They are advertising the fact that, after "dozens of hours" of playing, you can make a irreversible decision that might negatively affect your enjoyment if the story. As in, if ever want to do a second playthrough down a different path, you'll have to start a new character from scratch. ("Isn't it great? You can spend huge amounts of time developing your character and progressing through the game, only to make the wrong choice at a critical moment and regret it for the rest of the game! This is what makes your choices meaningful!") If this were any other type of product besides a game, no one would dream of marketing how punishing it was. ("In this book, you can't turn back to a previous page! You can only start over from the first page!") Obviously, this isn't the first time a game developer has bragged about the difficulty of their product. Although it is a little perverse, I think, to take pride in how difficult and punishing your game is. (Or at least it is if you consider games solely as entertainment products.) But, hey, everyone does it, and I have to admit - it does make me interested in the game. Ergo, gamers are all insane masochists.

That's fair - I don't *know* for sure that the interest on their part isn't genuine, but, likewise, you don't know that it is. My speculation was mostly based on my own preferences: If I wanted to build an MMO, I'd certainly want to start everything fresh in an original universe where it makes sense. But it seems Bioware feels differently. Exactly. It's not that I have qualms with the existence of MMOs or people creating them and playing them. I just personally dislike them, and would rather see Bioware devote its resources to a KotOR 3, or any kind of attempt, really, to wrap up the loose ends of KotOR 2. An "Old Republic" MMO is fine, not necessarily my cup of tea, but fine. I just wish it didn't have to mean that I'll never get to see the game that I really wanted to see.

You know, I could get behind a persistent world. I could even get behind a monthly fee. But interacting with other people - live people - is just too much. I don't want my Star Wars corrupted by talking to a bunch of my fellow nerds while I'm in the middle of it. It completely kills any suspension of disbelief! I play games to escape reality, not talk to more of it. On the other hand, I *love* the KOTOR games. Seriously, they're among my all time favorite games. So the decision to go this route could not have annoyed me more. In fact, it seems like *exactly* the kind of decision that came out of a board meeting. As if someone at Bioware suddenly decided "Hey, let's do a MMO!" and then everyone decided Star Wars was the safest route, IP-wise. I honestly can't imagine the writers of either KotOR 1 at Bioware or KotOR 2 at Obsidian would have wanted an MMO to wrap up the story... Except they openly admitted that they aren't even going to bother attempting to wrap up the other games. Great. So it's not like "KotOR 3, 4,5 and 6" at all. It's just Yet Another MMO, this time in the pre-saga Star Wars universe. Hmm. But part of me still has hope. Maybe I'll just buy it, play it for a month, and then cancel my subscription. And, you know, ignore all those obnoxious "players" during that time.

Dear everyone, My country (the United States of America) is going down in neo-conservative flames. Please help me escape. I want to immigrate to Europe pretty badly. i used to be dead-set on London, but after six months of trying and failing to find an immigration strategy, have expanded my goal to "anywhere that could conceivably be called Europe and where English is spoken at least enough that I might actually land a job somewhere." As these boards seem to have a fair number of Europe-folk on them, I was wondering if any of you know of a relatively painless way to immigrate and, ideally, get some kind of work permit. I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and a fair amount of web development experience, so I'm not totally unemployable. You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not. I want to get out so badly, it hurts. Love, Greg

TR Legend was surprisingly good. I haven't played the original series or Anniversary, but I'll probably get Underworld. Legend, in its best moments, reminded me of Prince of Persia. As mentioned above, the exploring the mansion level was particularly fun. The gunplay and plot are kind of boring. I wish they'd stick to platforming and puzzling.

Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

I honestly don't mind a game with nothing but quick-time-events! What matters is that the writing is good, and with a master story-teller like David Cage... Oh, right.

You know, I feel dumb saying it, but...Soulcalibur IV is kind of sweet. I guess it's not really noteworthy since it's basically...another Soulcalibur. But it sure is fun. And pretty. Actually, I think part of the reason it strikes me as so pretty is that it isn't grey. At all. If anything, it seems like each character and environment is overloaded with as many different colors in as many different nooks and crannies as possible. On the whole, it's quite preferable to the popular alternative of "grey." Also, the character creator is pretty addicting. Has anyone figured out what happened to Team VS? In SC II there was a mode where each player selected 2-8 characters and they fought in sequence. (I.e., when one character died, your next in line jumped in, and you kept going.) I can't figure out if I need to unlock it or it's just not present.

Yeah, it's the Dreamcast Soulcalibur. I played the demo through as Xianghua, and it was fun, but short-lived. And, ultimately, not that different from the new one.

Still looks pretty uncanny valley ish to me. I will admit - it looks far better than what I expected. The trailers for Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy were pretty sweet, though, too. And that turned out to be an enormous disappointment.

5 months later... I finally beat area 5! Go me! I didn't get the "she still lies trapped" message, although I did get a "but you still haven't seen the whole story..." message. Huh? Oh well. I'm satisfied that I finally made it.

Nitpick: It's not a beat-em-up! It's a fighter!

Keep in mind that the preview in question was part of the general Xbox 360 conference...meaning that they were trying to sell the game to the Halo/Gears crowd, not the Mass Effect / Classic Fallout crowd. I have far more faith (and interest) in the RPG portions of the game than the FPS bits. (Fallout was a relatively action-lite series anyway.) All the previews I've read have focused far more on the dialogue / decision tree side of things than the action bits, so I'm not so worried.

What do the "improper" versions lack? Blood?

Phew! I finally beat it. I don't have much to say except...that was awesome! There's more depth to the combat than I thought, and even buying costumes is kinda cool. And the ending is pretty hilarious. I love Suda51.

Well, that's disappointing. Silicon Knights did a great job with Eternal Darkness - I was really hoping they'd have a hit with Too Human as well. I'll hold out hope. And probably buy it anyway.

I like Eternal Sonata so far. Mass Effect is pretty good. The others...*shrug*

The DS version has been out for at least a month. I played it for 20 minutes or so. It seemed kind of...meh.

Anyone else thinking the art style looks a bit too Warcraft-y? Warcraft does cartoonish fantasy well, but Diablo never struck me as a particularly happy place. I can't tell if it's the move to 3D or a slightly altered art direction, but the video and those screens sure seem a lot less scary than I remember Diablo being...

Umbrella Chronicles is fun. Pointless and kinda stupid, but, you know, fun. If you enjoy, uh, reminiscing about Resident Evil, then it's slightly more fun. I mean. You point and shoot. It's hard on single-player, but pretty easy on co-op. I don't think they adjust the difficulty or ammo or anything when you switch modes.

I second Battalion Wars. Yeah, it was pretty much my system of choice for that entire generation. In fact, I still think it has a generally better lineup than most of the current consoles do now. Not because it had a *ton* of standout titles, but because it had one or two stand out titles for every major genre, or at least it felt like it. So, it's lineup wasn't fantastic, but it was consistently spread across genres and generally high quality. Also, the choice JRPGS, if you're into that, are: Fire Emblem (turn-based tactical) Tales of Symphonia (real-time battles; optional 2-4p co-op) Skies of Arcadia (if you didn't already play it on the Dreamcast...) Oh, man. So many memories on that little box. *Nostalgia*

Chibi-Robo!!! Check the icon!! Chibi-Robo is *amazing* Also: Killer7 Eternal Darkness

I'm lobotomy42, but I only have silver, so all anyone can do is exchange messages and compare Pac-Man Championship Edition high scores...