DanJW

Anyway, Vader isn't as cool as he used to be, now that there is a whiney emo brat underneath the mask.

Also the dev was Climax. And Climax's writers suck balls. Fact.

Hahah I was going to post this also. It is fairly ridiculous. As Vimes says, they can work as crazy bonus unlockable characters, but playing as vader in story mode would be... odd. Also the trailer shows vader locking blades with Mitsirugi... I never would have guessed that katanas were made with cortosis.

That site deserves an article all to itself

There's a way I can see it working... and that is if they tap into the meta fiction of The Hobbit. You see to square it with the larger mythology (especially the pre-revised edition) Tolkien considered The Hobbit to be not a "factual" account, but the story as told by Bilbo. So we could have Ian Holmes as an old Bilbo at the beginning, telling his tale to some young hobbit children (much as we saw during his leaving/birthday party). Then it could skip into his tale and any unavoidable inconsistencies would at least have a get-out clause. Of course, most screen-play writers aren't as clever as me.

oops, yeah I forgot about the second page. I meant the splinter-thread.

Excellent article, and on a classic Thumbish subject: design flaws and gameplay philosophy.

Burnout 2 (takedown was it?) was clearly the best, and each game since it has moved further away from what made it good. It begs the horrible supposition that even the developers don't know what it was that they did right before. Like the George Lucas of gaming maybe.

Now that was entertainment! Be sure to click the link towards the end.

Heh, you're in luck then, because it's first in a trilogy. As for the inventory... yeah it's pretty bad. Another thing that Bioware are still working on I guess; an inventory system that works well on console. The typical drag-and-drop backpack just isn't feasible. Is there any console RPG that has had a decent inventory?

I was playing with Garrus and Wrex, which as well as having the most amusing characters seemed to flesh out my squad while still keeping a combat focus. But yes, Garrus did die too easily. I think you might have picked right with infiltrator. If I wasn't playing soldier I'd go with that. But as I said before most of the classes don't seem to know what they are, and the support classes are a bit rubbish for the main character, since you can all the benefits from companions.

I played a few hours of the game on Spaff's 360 before Christmas, up to the final seection of Novaria, and I had a great time. I can see the flaws though; the mako really is horrible, and the combat is a bit awkward. However I was still getting used to the fighting and it felt that it might take off once I got the hang of it. Maybe it doesn;t. That would be a shame. I was playing as a soldier and I think the game is suited to that. Spaff played as an adept, and the magic system is pretty weak so he hated it. In fact I think the classes are very undefined. I guess since abandoning the D&D model things like classes will take Bioware a little while to figure out for themselves. But the dialogue, oh man I fell in love with the dialogue. Best conversation system ever. I was playing pretty much rogue (with Frau Shepherd, the nazi goth bitch from outer space), and the intimidate were always fun. But then I'm a Bioware fanboy so mountains of good voice acting are something of a wet-dream for me rather than the slog it might be for other people. All in all, I was hooked on the game, and since I don't have it I had to resort to replaying KotOR to get my space RPG fix. I look forward to playing the game for real.

I tried out a bit of comedy material early last year, about how geeks forge new ground, and then it becomes popular and they are forced out by cool-seekers. Meanwhile the geeks go in search of the new thing. Geeks are basically pioneers. Hopefully it was funnier than that, but that was the message. Maybe I'll pick it up again sometime.

Am I allowed to read this if I haven't palyed it yet?

Terry Pratchett predicts that the last words spoken before the world ends will be "what happens if I press this?"

I don't understand why subs are ever anything other than white with a black outline. Surely that's not difficult?

Super Mario Galaxy review. Is it me or does Yahtzee sound really tired in this one? Guess he's in new year recovery mode. Still some good gags though.

Yeah it's nice and challenging and probably the most open-ended battle they have designed so far. You can approach it in several different ways. Plus some nice special effects when the builsings get destroyed.

:tup: :tup: Have a thumbtastic year y'all! :tup: :tup:

Thanks Spaff for recommending Wristcutters: A Love Story to me. Great premise, very quirky, very funny in an extremely off-beat way. Might be a bit too indie for some people, but I found it an easy watch.

Yufster, you told me you didn't like it because it was too confusing or something. But if Toblix says it is good then I shall watch it.

Well he probably has, seeing as he smashed it open.

That was indeed, hilarious. I am curious too about this crazy box.

I Am Legend wasn't half bad. Despite an anticlimatic ending and the fact that the monsters were neither believable or scary, I liked it. The thing that worked best was the sense of loneliness and Smith gradually losing his mind. Oh, and as a dog owner his relationship with his dog Sam felt really sincere and touching. That dog can really act!

Just saw the film. Yeah, it was pretty bad. A lot of good stuff went into makiing it - some good actors, excellent visuals and so forth. What ruined the film was the screenplay. You know how there is an outcry when a film adaptation cuts out sections of the book? Well this film proves why it is necessary. It visits every location and character from the book, but only spends about 5 minutes on each. As Ginger told me, there is not a trace of character development. The dialogue and acting could have turned out well if it had time to develop, but it doesn't. Most annoying is the way the characters self-narrate everything. Every tiny thing that happens, every plot development and motivation, is made explicit by someone saying "lets do A because of B". At no point are the events allowed to speak for themselves. You know this is going to be the problem right from the first scene, some kind of magical scene-setting montage that is teeth-grindingly clumsy. The bears were good.