I would finish Chronicles of Riddick, and then play Ninja Gaiden, but that's apparantly just me...

I'm with you on that. Once Chronicle is done, it's DONE.
As to NJ, you actually get a sense of accomplishment with it... and it's so purdy.

Yep, and they did suck.  For instance, Aliens Vs. Predator.  I was there opening day, and man...it did suck.

I found AvP to be better than any SNL movie, and frankly I was expecting crap, so when I got somthing slightly-better-than-crap I enjoyed it.

Oh god I hope this works for Electra.

As to Daehawks picture post...  

The install went wrong somehow, so I can't uninstall it the "official way" in Add/Remove Programs.   Is it enough to delete the directories and the files in them, then the registry keys for RealNetworks under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE ?  Will that exorcise this abomination from my computer?  Should I also uninstall and reinstall Firefox (the browser I was using at the time)?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Don't force it, get a bigger hammer. Time to reinstall windows.

And how am I wrong for pointing at a lot of suck and laughing?

Allow me to point out "teh suck" in your news posting (from firing squad/gamers.com)

Peter Molyneux, OBE  
Tuesday - January 4, 2005 05:18:00  
According to GI.biz, British game designer Peter Molyneux has been named Officer of the British Empire.

He isn't the first British game developer to be granted an OBE, however - Argonaut founder and keen entrepreneur Jez San is a previous recipient of the honour, which was instituted by King George V in 1917.
The New Year Honours are granted by the Queen on advice from the Prime Minister, who receives nominations from ministers or from members of the public, and are awarded for exceptional merit or service.

It's a common misconception, particularly outside the UK, that the OBE, which stands for Officer of the British Empire, allows the recipient to be referred to as "Sir" - in fact, this distinction refers to the award of Knights Bachelor.

Check out the GamesIndustry.biz article.

yeah, and send an invite to purge.

Multiplayer is the reason to own, not rent, this game.

If they have a blanket "Goods and Services" tax then it would apply. In Canada we have a nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST) at 7%. <shrug> We have healthcare and Employment Insurance and Welfare and yadayadayada... it has always applied to any services that originate from inside canada. If the goods/services aren't available within the country then we don't pay tax on it.

If we have something shipped here they will charge us tax on it. We can put a claim in to get reimbursed if that product is not available here.

About a 15 years ago they introduced the GST, and the way they did it is WAY shadier than this little snafu.

What to call a beach full of politicians buried upto their necks in sand?
Not enough sand.

I still love the game man. I wouldn't say it's untested or unfinished, it's just not as polished as Ninja Gaiden (for example).

Kung Fu Chaos was fun... play it to unlock the multiplayer levels... this game is a fun party game.

uh, Ninja Gaiden, Otogi. I really liked Oddworld as a platformer... I dunno.  PoP ?

good luck deciding, buddy. You've got your work cut out for you.

Man, I hate this game.
But I love it. Grr.

The multiplayer is a blast, but the single player is like a talented singer missing every key by one note. You just wanna yell "Dammit, try harder, it's almost perfect!!"

The sad thing is, it's not. The character interactions in this game are about as wooden as Dolph Lundgrens acting; no wait... worse. It's like Brute Force. The people are beautifully rendered to look exactly like people, and then the similarities end there. You remember the old puppet-animated Pinoccio show? You know, the one where he's jumping around saying he's got no strings... ah, good times. MA2 hopes to grow up and perform as well as that annoying effeminate puppet. :/

Onto gameplay : Well done, with 2 VERY frustrating levels.
[spoilahs coming!!]
There's one where you have to defend a communication tower from mechs and all you have is one VTOL and a stationary turret. I stepped down the difficulty to easy on this level, based on blood pressure. I was inventing new words to describe the act of shoving a fully decorated christmas tree up a designers rectum. Most of them contained a few 4letter words, and I won't repeat them. Oww Hole-y Night was probably the cleanest.  I digress.

Yeah, so you're supposed to first take out a bridge with the missiles on the turret (think redeemer rocket with less oomph). 2-3 does it, but then you have to kill 3-4 mechs that rush your position (Lackmans or something like that) and a couple tanks.  Since the missiles can be unwieldly to land the hit, you end up with at least one mech blowing up near you. Or your VTOL. Or the tower. Or the turret. It was worse than the Library in Halo.

Then there's the boss fight (in an armored suit).
Step 1 - crack his armored skull with normal plasma blasts to the face while picking up powerups that the VTOL drops. Dodge a slow seeking bolt and avoid raining shots and the obligatory stomp attack that makes you fall.

Step 2 - Now try to jack him to defeat force field over exposed brainpan.
Once jacked, try to launch a mortar shell (not 1, but 3) into his brain. While jumping. And avoiding unavoidable eye laser beams. And firebreath. And doublestomp. (he's tall enough that you almost exceed your jets to fly over him).And he chases you. And you can't get the goddamned mortar shot in. But you think you did. Over, and over and over... oh, and then he hits you with a stomp and laserbeams your ass before you get up and you die.

Step 3 - Finish pulling hair, and then head back to Step 1, my adventurous fellow. We'll be seeing you at step 3 in a minute or five.

I'd have more luck trying to breed a monkey with a chicken to produce natural "Chicken Fingers".

So I beat the bastard. Apparently the secret to getting a steady enough shot off is to boost as high as possible and then get hit with the laser beams which seem to hold you in one place. I had 3 direct hits for that jerk to fall. Oh, and them lasers don't tickle either. Make sure you've got some health nearby first.

I am never playing the single player campaign again. Ever.

I used the wide german-looking plane (you get it from the cavern area). As to ignoring everything else and just hit the boss, repair station, wash-rinse-repeat.

Man, that was a long time ago... I got there right when it came out. (2003)  Haven't played it since.

You know it's so hard to guage what will go wrong with a game when it's released.. oh wait, this is an X-Box game

Seriously, you have to wonder how some of this stuff makes it through, especially with a stanardized platform like the X-Box.

Networking bugs are harder to predict and troubleshoot, although I have to say that we played it tonight for 4 hours and there was only one problem (teamplay count bug on host, he restarted and it's ok and never came back).

By teamplay I mean that on TDom (team domination) we had 12 people, 6 blue 6 red, and EVERYONEs said the same thing, but on the hosts machine it said 3 red 9 blue.

When we started the game, 3 blues would spawn in our base, and if we killed them it told us we were teamkillers. We ended the game twice, and it started up the same every time. He powercycled his Xbox, and after that no wierd stuff.

So does the Xbox version really have the horrible framerate/crashing problems that so many people are complaining about on other message boards?  I loved the Xbox version of KOTOR last year, but I'm wondering if I should hold off for the PC version on this one...

Yup. Korriban (in the cave section) hung on me 3 times, and I had it happen once in Enclave on Dantooine. Save often in these locations.

As to game time, I managed to take 80 hours on KOTOR1 light side, and 40 hrs on dark (I spent less time doing the nook-n-cranny search the second time around).

I'm about 45 hours into KOTOR2, (playing a model light Jedi Sentinel) and I can imagine having to play this game a few more times to get the different flavors.

You can't get your lightsaber on Telos; I got mine right after leaving (went to Korriban first). <shrug> I'll be heading to a different planet next time around, we'll see if that's why people complain about having to wait. I suspect the parts are going to be avail regardless of where you go though; as rebuilding HK-47 yielded duplicate parts I accumulated from different planets.

I loved/hated that level.

The design was amazing, but I could never beat it.

I'd take out all the generators, fly in both sides and take out the fans, swoop down and take out one of the targets, and then I'd run out of time.

After 6 straight attempts (no timewasting either) I still kept losing based on it knocking over buildings.

1) Generally female characters are saddled with the "finesse" fighting style, which I often prefer over brute strength. (Mithra, for instance)

2) If I'm going to sink 5-20 hours per week looking at a digital butt, it ain't gonna be a Tauren male (or Galka) in a thong.

3) I dig chicks. I put posters up of well-done artwork and enjoy the female form. having a female character in a game isn't a representation of me to the rest of the world, it's a preference for my side of the screen. I don't give a flying rats ass what other people think.

4) Mithra NIN/THF named Stabbetty are cool. In WoW, I shall too be named that and play a rogue... I'm hoping to find some old FFXI buddies that way.

So I was feeling mouthy this morning. Congratulations to him for the award, and it must feel pretty good to know everyone has to address you as Sir henceforth.

*this* morning??? Right, and Mr. Skunk says "Ooo, I seem to be a bit stinky this morning; how unusual."

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing the Queen never played Black and White or Fable.

Despite WBS's little commentary there, I'm happy for the guy. He's brought a lot of innovation and "gone out" on limbs to try to bring new stuff to the world of gaming. We don't have any me-too FPS games coming out, and I for one enjoy the games he's put out. Not every song by Sir Elton John has been a chart-topper, but as to B&W and Fable, they've made more money than *I'll* ever see.

I'm guessing that he's received knighthood as he represents an ideal, and is an outstanding british game developer who has put his heart and soul into the work he does.  

Kudos to him.

If I install my WoW monday, I can provide you a key. PM me if you still need one.

Aww, just play it.  You know you want to.  Heck, all of us are playing it, else we wouldn't be here talking about it.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

searching.... searching...  :shock: Dammit.  :evil:

I will install it.... later. I guess. I don't wanna waste my free month on time I won't be able to play. next week (early) is most likely as I'm off all next week.

As to my playing style, I really did enjoy the level of escape that FFXI offered, and since you were forced to party it only made sense that linkshell people got to know each other. I wish I could still get in contact with some of my old FFXI buddies and link up with em on WoW

Only because 75% of the time with it was spent looking for a group, and the other 25% of the time was a sheer cliff of an exp grind worse than any MMORPG to date, barring the infamous Lineage 2.

World of Warcraft is approximately 200,000,000 times more enjoyable than the fetid trash FFXI was.

I think attitude played a role in getting into parties... I used to build 'em, and DAMN was I good at that. I didn't piss people off (and could be tolerant of annoying people). I left that game of 10 months with 2 people on my /blist.

The only place I had problems getting decent parties going was in Valkurm and Kazham; and that was only when the glut of PS2 people joined. I made some friends, had fun, and payed through the nose for it.

The level grind was, however, my reason for leaving.

As far as I know there is no expiration date on them.  I used mine months after I got it.  You can also check when your Xbox Live expires via the Xbox Live section of the menu.

you can use them anytime, it just extends the time (adds credit to your live account)

I did this when I got a second live kit (v3) for 30CAD (~25US)

you can also go through the single player missions coop in Rainbow Six 3, although it's not really the same full co-op experience (no cutscenes, etc).

Haven't played 2, played 1 through once and enjoyed it. The mods went untouched for me (as they came out after I sold the game).

The "New York Minute" held no interest for me.

No, wbs is talking about community developed mods, not just the stuff included with the game.

Yeah, I was referring to the fact that after I beat it once, I didn't feel like playing it again, and the only thing they give you is the New York Minute mode... I got rid of the game before the community mods came out.

I would get it but I haven't seen it for XBox yet. Is it only out for PS2 now?

It's out for Xbox.. look for the scantily clad women on the front of the box. They're totally unrelated to the game, just like a *real* pinball machine.

It seems like to me that you really do not want to play the game and are trying to find excuses to dump the CE you got.

Go ahead and sell the CE since it looks like you want to dislike the game (like your buddy does apparently).

The thing is, I was in the final beta and stress test, and I did enjoy it. I played the hell out of FFXI, and that game had longevity. It's not that my buddy hates his game, but he's finding it hard to go back to it. I dunno. I'm not looking to dump the game... I'm still on the fence as to whether it's worth it to play the damned thing or get rid of it.

The only knock against the game that I have is that it could chew up a LOT of time... how easy is the final retail to play for a while and then put it down? Also, I've heard the PK'ing is rampant on all servers... how does it work? I'm not against killing (or being killed should I be careless enough) but I really don't want to get smoked over and over again...

I'm not looking for an excuse to sell it; that's the easy way out. I'm looking for reasons to keep it.

By the way, did you notice at the end of the demo it said available, "Winter 2005"???!!! :shock: Uhhhhhhhhh,,,,,,, we're kinda getting the hype machine going a bit early?

They're referring to Winter of 2004-2005.. not 2005-2006.

 I didn't see anything in the release notes for the firmware about it, but oh well.

That's a pretty common practice; they'd rather not reveal flaws unless they have to.

WBS, whatever happened with this? (read:bump)

News flash: you're on the Internet.  In a community exceeding 250 people, you cannot stop asshattery.

or phrases such as "Asshat".

It sucks.  You need to drop it now while the collector's edition is hot.  Please contact me to arrange a trade for it  :twisted:

BTW, if you decide to part it out I've been searching for the 10 day buddy key that comes in the collector's edition for weeks.  I would be willing to trade for it if necessary (I don't have any friends who bought the collector's edition).

Yeah, I know the value is dropped (about 60US rather than 110US) at least according to ebay.

As to the 10 day buddy thing, why would you need it? Does it also give you a pet?

Now, I know it seems like a goofy question to ask this, but I have the collectors edition sitting beside my PC and I'm not sure I want to install it. Maybe I should just sell it. <sigh> I've heard that it gets old quick, and that it's just more of the same.

I've held off on installing based on the fact that I didn't want to waste my first month over the holidays, but the more I think about it, the less I think it's a good idea to play it at all.

If the game was still sealed I would have likely sold the game online... (I got it for ~35US based on trading in 3 crappy games that cost me 25US, and paying the $10US to upgrade from standard to collectors ed. with the art and the pet thing). I guess I'm looking for someone to dissuade me from selling it; I really did want to play WoW a month ago. All the negative comments from my buddy and some of the stuff I've seen on the boards has thrown water on the fire.

Also, what does the pet do for you? (zergling/diablo/panda)

Any comments welcome.  

Anyone?

IN!  :twisted:

That's what I was afraid of.  If  a mission from level 2 is that hard, I was wondering about later missions just being ridiculous.  I'll have to play with those settings.  I don't want to buff at all, just need to gimp the amount of enemy units that come at me!

"tweak" it so you get the Balrog. That'll add a significant bend in the dark forces... I don't know that you can do this, but I'd find it absolutely hilarious to have the Balrog sitting in your main camp having tea with Gandalf.

Haven't played 2, played 1 through once and enjoyed it. The mods went untouched for me (as they came out after I sold the game).

The "New York Minute" held no interest for me.

Doopri Halo 1.5 was started by the fan. Teamxbox is saying this from a believable source.

TeamXbox = IGN ... Reliable? Hmm...

They refer to the new OXM (insider rumors)... I'll check the mag tomorrow. Those insider articles are still hit-n-miss, so I'm not sold on this. I dunno. <shrug> My next system may just be a PS3 if the only stuff they have to sell is stuff I've been playing for a year (assuming it comes out in november 2005).

As it is now, I'm even less inclined to buy the game than before, because they want to make me jump hoops even to play the DEMO!  It's a frickin' DEMO. they should be doing whatever they can to get everyone possible(like me) to play the demo, it could only help their cause(making money).

I agree that the demo should be as accessible to the public as possible; the only reason I can think that they didn't want to go that way is this :

Product A_RETAIL has set system requirements (internet connectivity being one)
Product A_DEMO should have the same requirements, as to not create a false perception of product A_RETAIL.

I know from my past few posts people may think I'm a steam supporter; I'm not. I'm indifferent to it, and if we're going to get online software distribution it's the next logical step. Hell, apps have been doing this for years (online registration to unlock full versions).

There is one other option: Half-Life 2 is supposed to be coming out for the next console system(s) ?

As to the 3 people here who haven't purchased HL2 yet: do you think if HL2 was released in a season not so glutted with A+ titles that you would have already purchased Half-Life2? I dunno, something to think about.

I'm finding it easy to ignore titles I would have normally purchased based on the fact that I already have more games than I can reasonably play.

PS - Using Windows XP as an example is pretty bad; Windows XP is likely the current most-pirated-software. I'm sure the percentages are less than the previous iterations due in no small part to activation and registration schemes, however it's not hard to find copies of XP. For reference, I own my Windows XP Pro (got it through the MS corp. partner deal for ~69US, full version, non-upgrade)

It's their bat, ball and diamond?
That's a totally ridiculous statement.
No offense, Purge, but last I checked they were a company trying to make money.

...and they still haven't got mine, even though i want to give it to them.
All they need to do is eliminate the Steam requirement.

Who OWNS the rights in the AUP & EULA? The company.
Who OWNS the licensed software? The company.
Who OWNS the authentication server that allows you to play? The company.

Bat. Ball. Diamond. This is how I see it: you can either play, or go home.

They have one of the most anticipated games from the past 3 years. They could have smeared crap all over each disk; the game would have made money regardless. I respect the fact that they are producing a quality product and taking steps to ensure both the experience, and their IP, is protected. Since they've done this (successfully, if not with a few bumps on the way) it's going to pave the way for new games. They also routed the retailers attempts to sell the game early; a sticking point with most software developers.

Remember, they already suffered once with theft of HL2 IP. Did you expect any less? The whining (internet generalization, not targeting you ) about online authentication is a waste of one's time. They decide the product they're going to release; our input on it is NOT taken into consideration.

If the fear of internet connectivity or registering your game is your concern, then I guess you're not going to play the game; or you're going to ask a friend to let you play theirs, or you're going to commit an act of theft and obtain the software illegally. <shrug>

I've accepted this change; I've voted with my remote, as it were. So have you, and I respect your decision to do so. I just don't understand the expectation that the demo of the retail would be any different.

[edited to remove the abrasive tones, and some speeling. Err, spelling ]

[(never share a bed with anyone crazier than you are)]

I'd pay at least a few hundred, more if I could afford it. Could forget about "The Ex" once and for all, too.  :wink:

Uhm, that would be bad. It means you've unlearned the lesson that she taught you. (never share a bed with anyone crazier than you are).

The greatest improvement no-ones mentioned is the removal of the awful space game everytime you hoped from world to world. Fun the first time, it got tedious awfully quick.

I've run into it once already. When going to Onderon, you have the option to flee or fight (and flee). <shrug>

Why is it unbelievable? Since the game requires an internet connection, and the demo is only available online, there's no reason for them to spend the time/resources disconnecting the demo version from their online deployment. Plus, if there are any patches it can be applied to all clients. <shrug>

It's their bat, their ball, and their diamond. You don't have to play; complaining about it isn't going to change the game.

Look for the sprint key, I believe its the same.

Yes, it's the Sprint key.