DanJW

Ahahahahaah! I like how he contradicts himself every other sentence Not that I consider Edge a bastion of sensible scoring (far from it) but that is just a temper tantrum.

yeah I think people are being unnecessarily sceptical about The Old Republic. Sure, their spokesmen were a bit more dismissive of story in things like WoW than they should have been, but they doesn't invalidate their own efforts. If anyone can add a bit more oomph to an MMO storyline, then it's Bioware. So basically, shut up Spaff

Not a bad examination, but anyone that thinks Gaeta turned 'bad' or 'evil' is missing the point of the series entirely. Gaeta's actions were entirely based on trying to do the right thing. His judgement is just at odds with that of Adama et al. This is how real life works: everyone disagrees while also thinking they are more in the right than the others. There is no good and evil, just differing opinions. This is what we call 'tragedy'. Gaeta just got more extreme in his method because he's desperate to prove to himself that he is in the right, following the Number 8's big reveal in the webisodes (and all the other minor tragedies that have befallen him). That and he's kind of lost his faith in everyone else. I'd say the episode was a study in uncompromising idealism. Just before he gets shot, Gaeta's leg stopped hurting. Why? It was a symbol of his feelings of guilt. It stops hurting because he knows he tried to do the right thing. It didn't matter how it turned out, just as long as he knew he tried his hardest in good faith. It kind of pisses me off that the audience is so inured to childish morality fiction that they immediately start labelling people as good-guys and bad-guys when they come to blows, like they were wearing white and black cowboy hats or something Fuck you, io9 commentors.

It does smack a bit of the old "status quo is restored, hooray!" However, the Quorum has been wiped out, so government might have to start over. What this will do is probably force Roselyn out of her stupor. But then I'm also expecting Roselyn to die soon (the prophesies said she would die before reaching their new home, not before reaching Earth specifically). In the meantime all political opponents to the Roselyn/Adama hegemony are handily removed, allowing them to do whatever they want now with little argument. Also we saw what might be a genuine change of heart for Gaius. Actual remorse, and feelings of responsibility. Is he in danger of growing up? I hope we get some more Virtual Six and Virtual Baltar before the series ends.

oh the smilie thing is just a minimum character count. Add a couple spaces before and after and it should be fine. Or post two smilies

that was so weird, it seems it wouldn't let me post the phrase 'bargain / kill' with the spaces either side of the backslash removed. Try it yourself!

The only problem is that the example they keep trotting out to demonstrate the "complex morally-grey decisions" is... well it isn't very complex, just a typical 'bargain or kill and loot' binary. Hopefully it is not actually representative of the other chocies in the game. (BTW I had to double-post because Idle Forums decided to refuse my paragraph in it's entirety. Ask Nick - he couldn't post it even with mod powers. Bizarre.)

Do the ghouls inevitably slaughter everyone? I only went back to Tenpenny Tower once or twice but I saw ghouls and humans living in harmony. Meh. Maybe there is scope for a mod to rework the karma system. At the very least making invisible shouldn't be too hard (then the only way you would know would be by listening to GNR and which group starts hunting you). It might even be possible to add a rule like "cannot reach exemplar if you have committed a bad action in the last n minutes" (and opposite for minimum karma). There does seem to be a start of a backlash against the whole light side/dark side morality systems in games. Bioware's upcoming Dragon Age will allegedly have character specific reputations - different NPCs will react to you differently depending on how you have dealt with them and their friends; and there is no objective morality measure, just consequences.

my turn to test

I think Cigol was just being cute, Marek. Gaeta's dead alright. With Tyrol, I got the impression that he was having a vision/projecting, but we didn't see all of it yet. I could be wrong of course. It was a great episode I agree, but now that the political turnoils are sorted out, I can't say I'm not keen to see what happens next. Caville is out there somewhere (and so is Ellen presumably). Oooh, I just had a thought. What if Tigh's poison tea doesn't totally kill cylons?! Silly Tigh, always check the pulse. tip: never let Tigh make the tea or coffee. It's terrible, he adds too much sweetener.

Stoat gets freaked out by snow. Stoats, weasels, mink and ferrets: the other cute predatory mammal (it bothers me in The Big Lobowski that he calls it a marmot ) Which would win; a ferret or a domestic cat? They say weasels don't bleed you know? True story.

Surely you can use equipment and armour that boost something else instead? Although the books are a waste I agree, and I see where you're coming from.

TBH Zukalous, I wouldn't worry about hording stuff before you get the mission for it. Pretty much everything is abundant and you won't have trouble finding more than you can carry when the time comes. Late in the game, money is not a problem. Just kick back and relax.

Yeah that kind of thing got to me too. Finally I gave up on keeping stuff in my inventory, and started keeping a caché in each town, and even in some places in the wasteland and DC that were on my main travel routes. Every so often you collect all the, say, scrap metal from all of your stash-holes and then flog it. Not only does this make inventory easier, it feels like something that you would actually do in post apocalyptica

I seem to remember that the toy cars are used to make one of the custom weapons. Can't remember which one though. Might be the dart gun. Pretty much everything can be fired from the junk launcher. The toy vans might be purely for collecting though. That's the thing about this game; you never know if some apparently useless piece of rubbish might turn out to be useful later if you speak to the right person.

"This game will knock you over" - IGN.com "It will lift you up" - IGN.com "It will shift you sideways" - IGN.com "It will pull you forward" - IGN.com "It will turn you around" - IGN.com "It will fetch you from a distance" - IGN.com "It will move you in a kind of diagonal direction that you don't really understand" - IGN.com

+++++++ error +++REDO FROM START+++

You're such as wuss Toblix. That's why we love you. You're angry and scared and cuddly all at the same time. Like Eyeore. In other news I had a minor epiphany about review scores. Not sure where to post it so I will do so here, just because. What if we consider review scores not as a measure of the quality of the game, but as an estimate of what proportion of players will enjoy it? Not a measure of how much they will like it - some will love it to bits and some will think it's just OK, but that happens anyway no matter the perceived'goodness' of a title. It simply says than in the like/dislike divide, say 8 out of 10 gamers will find it worth playing and 2 out of 10 will not. Suddenly it all makes sense! Ok 10/10 |100% seem an impossibility this way but then they have always been silly. But besides that I can reconsile all kinds of scores for various games. Forget your degree of joy in your entertainment experience, the review just tells you your probability of having any satisfaction at all. How satisfying is up to you personally to decide. I just saved game review journalism. You can all applaud now.

"This will blow you back to where you were previously blown away from" - IGN.com "I give it 9.95 out of 10" - Chris Remo

"Forces more polygons out of the box than is physically possible" - IGN.com "This game will absolutely revolutionise all gaming everywhere and LITERALLY wipe out all other forms of entertainment" - IGN.com "X-treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!"* - IGN.com *I nominate this one for an Idle Thumbs URL, for all you URL-buyers out there.

Just edited my post to mention the voice acting. Could that make a difference? Also I played Renegade, to go with her gothic space-nazism. Possibly the paragon path is more boring, if that's what you played (conflict is drama!) In any case I am sure there are other examples that we could both agree on. Planescape Torment maybe.

Ah, my Shepherd was a woman. A space-nazi-goth lady, in fact, and I was impressed by her voice acting and script. But anyway,.

Regarding 1st person vs 3rd person storytelling; It seems to me that 1st person is better for depicting 'the environment as character', because as noted it puts you there in that place. However to me it seems that 3rd person games are better when it comes to human character development (or whatever sentient species you are dealing with). I've mentioned before that I find Bioware's RPG portfolio much more engaging when it comes to characters than I do Bethesda's - but Bethesda's'environments are much more thrilling to explore. Perhaps like Jake says, when in first person you are playing "curious guy" - you are almost a non-person, even when you have dialogue. Often the player feels like they are 'themself' transported into the fantasy world, rather than taking on an assumed identity. Contrast that with the much stronger characterisation possible with a 3rd person protagonist like Shepherd in Mass Effect. I'm not sure Shepherd could be made to work in 1st person, it just wouldn't feel right.

Man Smuggles Pigeons in Trousers (inside his own trousers I mean, the pigeons themselves were not wearing trousers).