DanJW

Except by neo-darwinian capitalism (extra selective pressure to separate the exceptional from the less fit)!

"Einstein was wrong!" - IGN.com

A friend brought me one of the blue ones back from the US at xmas. I kept the bottle. The drink tasted absolutely foul but did work very well as a hangover cure.

Well 3 days of viagra may cause considerable capillary damage

According the news I heard on the radio, the only reason the site is still up is because nobody except the creators knows where the servers are... As for the judge's comment... maybe I'm mistaken about how BitTorrent works, but is it even correct to say that the client works "at" a website? Surely as peer-to-peer it works independently of any websites, which are just there to track the torrent IDs?

Did I say you should go in guns blazing? No. Don't put words in my mouth . Even using the puzzle solutions you can get spotted or make a mess or have to take out one extraneous person, which loses you the Silent Assassin rating. Likewise it is sometimes possible to make your own 'accidents' (my favourite method), or to kill the target using a single shot and still get Silent Assassin. As for the gun switching... yeah I can't think of any other similar situations, and what would be the purpose of adding in a bunch of assets for a pointless exercise? The exchange works perfectly if you listen to the briefing and actually pick up the replica weapon right at the start. And if for some reason you didn't then you can put the gun back and find another route. edit: In fact I think you can drop your own weapons wherever you want. Doing so in this case would create a perfectly believable scenario, where the actor finds the non-matching replacement gun, and either takes it to a guard or fetches a guard to have a look at it. So after all that the game allows you to do exactly what Bistro was claiming it wouldn't. Yeah, shame about the lights though.

Does that list allow us to add weightings to the games? So that you can start playing the more worthwhile ones first, and maybe forget about any rubbish ones.

ROAAAAAARRRRR!

Oh it can be improved upon, yes. But doing so requires time and manpower. Eventually you have to declare feature lock and stop adding stuff to your game, otherwise it will never get released. And no matter how well you have done, how much you have improved it, someone out there will say it is dumb for not including this other thing. That is what I mean by being unsolvable. And as you point out this has been part of game design for a long time. Occasionally it does get annoying in this game or that game, yes, but if you still can't suspend your disbelief in a game that is as high quality and as widely lauded as Blood Money then I'm surprised that you can enjoy any games at all. edit: anyway, enough hyperbole! Time for a cuppa

I get that, but I'm pointing out that it's a problem that can never be solved, not until we have full virtual reality simulation, and probably not even then. If this kind of thing bothers someone an awful lot, then they probably shouldn't be playing video games.

It's a totally different type of gun, so no. It should have allowed him to put the prop gun back to restart the rehearsal (actually I think it does allow that). And however many obvious options you think you have catered for, players will come up with more. If you go chasing that goal then you end up with massive feature creep.

So what? The developers are meant to anticipate every idea that someone might come up with and design it into the game? That's a bit silly to be honest. They have to stop somewhere, and wherever they stop someone is going to complain 'but I can't do this thing that is really obvious to me'.

I think the system is robust enough that the AI can handle most situations, and give you an appropriate course of action as well. It's not instant game over (yeah the alerts are tough, but you can learn how to deal with them). You could have killed the guy in the dressing room, as you were trying to do. I've done it before and gotten away with it. No game system is perfect or exhaustive, and frankly I think you just haven't clicked with the game yet. Oh, and in Blood Money the key technique is to grab people as human shields, and then pistol-whip them unconscious. Quiet, and saves the sedative for special circumstances.

Yeah, they do. I read one guide written by someone who took great pride in never changing clothes and sniping every target, if possible. I still think it's a great game. The only series that does what it does, and does it as well, is Metal Gear Solid.

Well if there were no limits at all, there wouldn't be much challenge. Or much game. Of course all games would be amazing if 'what if...' Once you 'get' the game, it really is very good. Unless, like I said, it's just not for you.

Or you can pay attention to your briefing at the beginning and Or kill them in half a dozen other ways. it is kind of a shame that lighting doesn't pay all the much of a part in the game I guess.

I love it, and think it's a great game. If you want to kill people off with accidents (for the Silent Assassin rating) then it functions like an adventure puzzle game. If you want to use weapons then you can get more creative. On the whole I found the game very user friendly, a lot more so than the previous games in the series. what system were you playing on? I know some people who never finished the game because they were intent on getting Silent Assassin on each mission before moving onto the next. Those people are lame. Setting personal goals is great, but I think that is nuts of you never finish the game because of it. But perhaps it's just not your type of game.

Depends what you mean by 'failed'. I can think of only two off the top of my head that have shut down completely. A fair few have had to merge some servers, but that really only shows that they were properly prepared for the glut of players at launch. But yes, it is a tricky genre to tackle, no doubt about that.

Don't talk to me about life...

It's an American thing. They find 'couldn't' to be equally odd. It's been discussed here before.

Yeah it has definitely picked up. -- Oh, and the twist at the end of Red Dwarf: Back to Earth was quite neat, I thought.

Usual time, Sunday 12th April 9pm GMT. Versus if we have sufficient hordes, otherwise campaign. Since we are breezing though advanced campaigns these days, perhaps we should discuss the possibility of... expert. There is a small possibility I may have to entertain dinner guests Sunday evening, but I will do my best to avoid the flailing limbs, pallid complexions and frenzied munching and groaning in order to... wait I've confused myself.

Looks like a no-show this week. Hope to see you all next weekend instead!

No, fair enough. It never felt quite the same to me, but I'm prepared to accept that it was very popular. I'm a huge fan for life anyway, so whatever they make I will watch.

Yeah I wasn't certain about that so I through in the 'essentially'. My qualifiers mean something! Meh, I just get sick of all the 'MMO's can fuck off' attitude and pessimism.