Metalmickey

Heh, me t... waitaminute, my housemate has registered on this forum

I agree that bows are usually frustrating wastes of time in many RPGs, but think the lameness mainly comes down to range considerations. Ok, so the damage is unrealistic too, but only in proportion to all the weapons. I.e. So a single well placed arrow could realistically drop someone, well so could a single well placed chop from a sword/axe/halberd/etc. I've played Morrowind and used the bow a bit there and I agree with Rodi that apart from the random 'to hit' roll even when you've placed it perfectly on target, the bow is definately useful if you get the drop on a distant, slow moving foe (or are just damn good at aiming!) However, since Morrowind is a 1st person game, the range of the bow is pretty much limited only by the draw distance you've set in the graphics options and your own skill at leading targets. Games like Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the other hand are a different story. In order to have any kind of satisfyingly detailed character animations in 3rd person RPGs, the view is usually limited to seeing about 5-10 metres around your character. I mean, that's a stupidly low limitation for a specialised archer! I guess that's why such games have to make such odd efforts to increase the damage per shot factor and end up giving the bow such odd looking powers such as being able to fire shotgun style spreads of 5 parrallel arrows and so on. I mean, I can imagine magicaly aimed or charged arrows, rapid firing and so on, but how many fingers would you have to have to fire a spread of 5 simultaneous arrows? That's gotta be some freeaky looking hand! I think to make it really work in those kind of games, there'd have to be some kind of clever, automatic camera angle change, automatic scrolling of the screen to potential targets, or the ability to spot and target enemies from a radar, way before they're actually on screen. Something like that anyway.

Damn, can't believe you had to ask that. Shame on you. Shame, I tell you! Go and sit in the corner or something. No cheating, mind...

Oh yeah, I suppose kneeling over a fresh corpse, taking out the knife, and carefully attempting to slice off each of the 27 detachable hit zones in Soldier of Fortune 2 must seem pretty sick to some people. Of course, time was a factor as the parts and main body mass would disappear after a while. Lighting was also not always ideal and if the body hadn't fallen quite so, sometimes the cuts just didn't fall right. Occasionally, removed parts would actually bounce of a nearby wall and interfere with the remaining sections of cadaver. Of course, many was the experiment also foiled by ne'erdowells who would round the corner seeking the source of the slicing sounds... much to their short-lived horror. With such poor working conditions, was it any wonder I had to try this on a LOT of corpses before reaching my satisfaction. Still, I failed to remember this on my last post as I don't feel this was immoral in any way. I wasn't taking perverse pleasure out of it, I was 'testing', ok??

Heh, great topic for a thread Slightly disappointed by most of the answers so far though, with the obvious exception of the 'Game Over' one You really could see her nipple on that infamous image! Unfortunately, I admit that I'm adverse to being immoral in games, and tend to confine my evil thoughts completely within the safe confines of my mind (where anything goes). While testing a port of Tomb Raider 1 to the point of mind-numbing insantiy a while ago, I must have swan dived sooo many times just to kill Lara with that perfectly aesthetic silent, gracefull dive, to instant neckcracking thump 'n slump. Camera angles were the key, and favourites were: diving off the top of the Sphinx halfway through the game (preferably immediately after loading from a save in said area for extra camera-panning bonus points). Wielding twin uzi's and firing them whilst falling upside down towards the lava whilst fighting the huge legless boss-thing near the end. The muzzel flares looked like mini-rocket jets propelling her to her doom. The simplest one though was in her training mansion in an area with a short, twin staircase, and a passagway underneath with several wooden crates. Stand on the left side (from Lara's POV) of the balcony above the passage, face the railing, jump backwards once, then swan dive forwards. The confined space below means that after cracking her neck, the camera slowly and gracefully descends until looking down the entire length of her dead, face-up body, from right beside her shoulder. So beautiful in her eternal slumber. On a related note, one of my friends used to love larking around in the ASCII character rogue-like, ADOM. He'd particularly like entering the nearest village, and throwing wooden sticks, gold coins and leather shoes at the innocent children until they either died, or the townsfolk set upon him and chased him out of town.

I like playing magic the gathering

If I had a phone capable of downloading and playing high quality games, then paying a small fee each time for the next chapter in an large ongoing adventure sounds like a great idea. On the other hand, I currently don't use my phone for anything except the occasional call and a text or 2 a day, and I don't really see myself changing that pattern regardless of what phone I have, what's out there, or how good an idea it is. I guess the survey's really intended for those who actually do pay real money for mobile games (does anybody know any of them?) Perhaps quite a different demographic. And lastly, for my utterly needless boast (or guilty admission, depending on your view of the game): You know guys, I just happen to be listed in the in-game credits of BS3 as a QA co-ordinator. In fact, I may even have just emailed Charles Cecil about this wonderful thread... or did I?

I think 'that game' may have been Pyjamarama, starring Wally Weak. He was dreaming, and at the end you got woken up by your alarm clock after finding all the right bits and bobs. You got attacked by books flying off from the shelves and whatnot. My parents and I sat around the new CPC set up on the coffee table and kind of played it as a family for a bit. One of my earliest ever memories. My dad still says 'Wally Weak' sometimes. Also, Pappa, I totally agree. Ok, some old games just wouldn't be fun anymore, but now with emulators and cheats and instant saves, it's finally possible to really appreciate just how unfeasibly massive some of those old games were. Jet set willy was a prime example. I have an extremely vague memory of seeing the full map in a magazine once as a kid, and there must have been hundreds of unique rooms. I guarantee that back in the day, I never saw more than about 20 of them with the default 4 lives or so. Remember the giant foot squashing you on the game over screen, straight out of Monty Python?

Do you really think Goldeneye was that bad? Ah well, I haven't seen it for a few years, so I won't remember it well enough to debate the matter. I guess I also assosciate the film with the game, which casts it in a better light. Still, you must agree the lady was fine, no?

Wow, I can't even remember hearing about an MSX. Then again, I expect there are still plenty more old types of computer that I never even saw in real life. I think it's a shame that the great variety of different kinds of computer has disappeared over the last 15 years, such that 90% of all computers being used nowadays are either PCs or macs. We had X-terminals at uni, and maybe a couple of older ones that looked like Tandy's, but they're the only other types I've seen for ages now. Anyway, apologies for hijacking the thread for a little while there. Time for some more people to introduce themselves. Come on now, don't be shy (or lazy)...

No no no, it was the bad one from Goldeneye, who crushes men to death between her thighs, and practically climaxes when machine gunning those technicians in that icy Russian lab near the beginning. Umm, not that I'm saying that those are the reasons I think she's so hot, mind you . Just the easiest way to remember her from the film

Ben, dude, you'd explode!

Gazooks! Wtf is that screenshot about?? If that's supposed to represent all the potential multi-action-type combos that a player is free to chain off at will when 'free-form' fighting, I feel... intimidated I'm intrigued to see how user-friendly and intuitive it really ends up being, it could definately go either way. Some of the clips here look pretty cool. Still, I'm sure the kind folks here at idlethumbs will publish some sort of article about this revolutionary new fighting system when it comes out (hint hint ) Also, what does anyone else think about them making the artist formerly know as the prince of Persia into some sort of bad-ass, tattooed, black-clad whilrling dervish of death? 1. Yeah! 'bout time they hardened up the pansy, pastel coloured ponce. Slap a couple of axes in his hands and bring on the pain! Mine's a pint. ...or 2. What do they think they're doing?? PoP is supposed to be a platform game! The prince is an acrobat, not a goddamn trained assasin. If I wanted 3D slaughter and pools of blood, I'd get Bloodrayne or Mortal Combat 5, or whatever other crap you psychos like!

So... you roared like a little girlie, eh? That must have sounded pretty damn freaky!

I'm pretty sure that the conversion of the entire Half Life 1 game to Source is fact, I've seen some very pretty screenshot comparisons of the same areas in the original and updated engines. I'm pretty sure it's still at an early stage though, so whether or not it'll be bundled for free is another matter entirely. That would rock!

Wow, Chris and OftenK, those are also some truly ancient and sexy beasts indeed! The first PC I was ever allowed to play on whenever I wanted to was a Compaq, PC-compatible 80286 at 6MHz. The funniest thing though was that it was a 'portable'. By which I mean forget laptops, you carried this fat bastard around like a suitcase!! Not that I would have been able to carry it very far at that age. My dad found a spare EGA monitor at work and brought it home for me so I didn't have to use the 6" green screen. I think rogue and Ultima V were the games I mostly played Also, thanks for the hello

Yes dammit, the Doom music was excellent! I can still remember and happily hum several of the level themes, which is more than I can say for, oh, any other FPS I've ever played. Hence for me, the original Doom music has not yet been beaten in any FPS since, which makes the game still rock today, regardless of whether or not the rest of it holds up or not. Unfortunately, I never had my own copy, it was my dad's, who deliberataly died at the beginning of every level on Ultra-Violence difficulty, just so he could play through the level starting out with just a pistol. Still, he's getting too intolerant and long in the tooth for FPS games now, so maybe I'll go and 'borrow' some of those old classics

Perhaps I should also add that although we have a nice big widescreen TV in the living room, my housemate and I have never once considered attaching an arial to the back of it. I think I may once have caught a minute of that show somewhere, but aren't they all retarded halfwits or something? On a related note, the earliest Edd I can remember was 'Edd the Duck' from the broom cupboard on Children's TV. Not that I like being reminded of him. In fact, I always found it more respectful when people compared me to Mr Ed, the talking horse, despite him only having 1 'd'. Still, I had the pleasure of being the only Edd I knew until a few years ago, though now it seems to be quite a popular way of shortening the various Edward/Edmund/Edgars/etc out there

Ok, I've never played the SIMs, nor did I ever play with anyone's Barbie dolls, but I have had friends who liked the SIMs, and have watched it being played a few times. Firstly, one of my former game-virgin best friends plays it, and though she has enjoyed the game a lot, I've also managed to get her to play and take up Unreal Tournament, Q3 arena, and Gran Tourismo 3 quite enthusiastically since then, so I'm relieved to know that she's doing fine in avoiding being the truly awful kind of person described above in Yufster's post. Secondly, I try to convince myself that the SIMs is lame, and wouldn't appeal to real gamers. I do have a vague feeling that something's not right about it, and that somehow, I'd be 'letting the side down' if I played it. If I'm being honest however, I can't justify that, and am probably just making up any feasible excuses I can in order to avoid letting it sink it's claws into me and suck my life away, just like the excuses I've made in the past to help me sucessfully avoid all those damn Championship Manager games that my mates of 5 years ago used to go crazy about, and every single MMORPG out there! I mean, I like resource management games, I'm patient, I find social interactions interesting (in an objective, scientific sense), and I like designing things and putting them together in a perfectionist kind of way. Hell, I'm pretty much guaranteed to like the SIMs... Still not letting it or the sequel anywhere my Hard Drive though

Hi all. I'm 26 yrs old, 3/8ths Japanese, and the rest English. My real name's Edd. Well, it's actually short for Edward, which only has 1 'd' I know, but I decided at the age of around 4 that 3 letters would be a far better length for a nickname than 2, this is either because 2 letters just looks plain silly, or because games back then always asked for 3 letter names in the high scores tables. My memory fails me, but much kudos to my younger self if it was honestly for the latter reason. Born and raised in a tiny hamlet, I believe the first game I played was most probably 'Artillery', an ancient tanks/Worms precursor on the green screen Commodore Pet (see this random site) back when I was a couple of years old. This was followed by some ancient catridge based Atari console with 2 controllers on coiled telephone wires, buttons 1-9 like a keypad, and a rotating wheel on the controller. God, what was that called? An Amstrad CPC 664 and (my dad's) 5 PC's later, I find myself always referring to 'computer games' rather than 'video games', though I have my own PC by now of course, a silver PS2, and a trusty DC. Due to a combination of being an only child, having no friends within walking distance, and spending considerably more time watching games that playing them myself due to my dad spending most of the evenings occupying the currently set up platform (seriously), I developed a love for games that I could think about and imagine playing for hours on end, and have remained a primarily private, solitary gamer who tends to obssess about deep, soul eating games that never end. Studied AI at Sussex uni, learnt a spot of Kung Fu, backpacked around Oz for a year, and have worked at Babel Media since 2001 doing about 10 different jobs, where I met a few of the fine people who write for/run this site I tend to remain silent for long periods, then get carried away writing essays. Hmmm, I think I'll stop now...

I downloaded the demo too. After saying that it had updated my system files and needed to restart my PC, I let it have its way... My PC hung whilst still shutting down (the first hang since installing Windows). After all the usual messages, the monitor turned off but the HDD LED on the case remained steadily on (though my PC was perfectly silent). After waiting a minute, I pressed the reset switch. My CD/DVD-ROM drives spluttered into life for a second or 2, but to all intents and purposes the PC remained hung. After turning the PSU off for 10s, I tried to boot up again. Oh, joy!! The CMOS has magically lost ALL my BIOS settings!!! After re-setting them all, I booted into Windows, checked everything was ok, and rebooted again just to be sure. Double joy!! After about 10 reboots and even re-flashing my BIOS, I concluded that my motherboard had completely lost the ability to remember any BIOS settings whatsoever. "CMOS checksum error" messages-a-bungo. Which, seeing as for some reason, the motherboard thinks that my AthlonXP 2400+ is actually an 1800+, is just bloody great My mobo only came out this year, so the CMOS battery should have several years left in it, not what I needed after midnight on a Sunday. After a fruitless search on the 'net, I decided to uninstall the demo and perform a system restore, just in case it really was the 'Rise of Nations' that was responsible. Surprise, surprise, (Le)chuck, everything is now fine again. I still don't have a damn clue why the demo fuxored my mobo, and I ain't about to experiment with it. In fact, if I ever see that file again, I'll most likely just shit myself on the spot. Bottom line: don't do it! It's evil, and it wants to eat your PC.

Yeah, there's that 1 damn line right near the end of the penultimate smartshader module that I just can't get my head around either!!