Warmaker

In the Prequels, of all the starcraft shown, only 3 were nice. Venator Star Destroyer Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter from Ep.II ARC-170 I do love the way the '170 looks. It has that Old Republic elegance yet still sturdy looking appearance. Plus, it's multi-crewed, so it is a rarity for modelers in Star Wars subjects.

Trailblazers, aren't they?

Snatcher? I loved it on the . I was terribly dismayed Kojiima didn't bring Policenauts over to the US. Snatcher itself was a big nod to Blade Runner. Kind of fitting for this thread in a funny way.

I've been waiting for DICE to get off their Bad Company rears and actually get back into their real Battlefield lineup. I put alot of time into BF2 & 2142 so I'm anxious for news on BF3. I'd like to see more trailers with vehicle combat since that is half the traditional BF game. What I don't want to see is another Modern Warfare "Me Too" title.

There's good and bad in this. Bad: Blade Runner, IMO, was quite good. Very hard to come out with a decent sequel after that. Especially decades after the original. Whoever takes up on this project will have their hands full. I just hope they don't use the original movie's characters, namely Deckard and Rachel. Good: The setting. Hollywood doesn't really do this kind of setting often. In a way, even though they're following a well received movie from back in the day, they have quite a bit of a free hand.

It doesn't surprise me that playing as a magic-oriented character is easier in DA2. It's just like back in DA:O. My first character, who I stuck with for quite a while was a Warrior type. Lots of problems in numerous battles being very close and frustrating. I roll a mage, and in combination with several other magic-oriented party members and a meat shield warrior, the game was absolute Easy Mode. In difficulty, the contrast was like night and day.

Bwuahahahahahaha!!!

I'll be back from deployment by then, so that's nice timing. I'm expecting the main usuals from Bethesda regarding their TES series: Very light central quest, big open game world to explore and get lost in. They also have a tendency to release pretty buggy games, at least going back to their first game that I played, Daggerfall. Never tried Arena, but I've played and owned every expansion Bethesda has had ever since. Fallout 3 was a surprise to me in that they actually got the rights for it. And a final nod to Oblivion: [ ] Go To Jail [ ] Pay Fine [X] Resist Arrest

Digging up my old copy of Oblivion and installed it on the PC (putting in mods took a while). Wanted to play it again after seeing a promo trailer for TES5: Skyrim. It's about damn time Bethesda went back with their flagship franchise and do a proper sequel. At the same time, I recently got Tactics Ogre for my 'ol PSP. Makes me think alot of old school Ogre Battle on the SNES.

I saw that on AMC back in October. I thought it was a pretty weird show. And that was BEFORE the time travelling car rolling around in that kind of setting for Frankenstein A Delorean's better for that kind of job.

I've been gone a long time collecting anything related to Patlabor. And wow with how the "toys" have come along! Getting the Yamato 1/24 for sure. First mecha-related product I've bought in years. CLAT... sounds like something I have to warn my troops about before liberty / going out in town

I'll tell you why TPM did so well. It came out when people were still very hungry for anything Star Wars. Think about how things were leading up to TPM's release. Return of the Jedi came out in 1983. Phantom Menace in 1999. It had been 16 whole years since the last SW movie. When TPM came out, George Lucas had a reputation still where he literally could do no wrong (everyone forgot Howard the Duck, but not me). The older fans still had quite fond memories of the original flicks. TPM was carrying the fabled "Star Wars" name and franchise. The imagination and expectations were running wild leading up to TPM. And to top it off, despite Lucas' missteps with work from TPM onwards, promoting and hyping was not his weakness. I had to admit those trailers were very nice. Anyways, thats the general stuff that led into why TPM did well in the box office. But you're going to have a tough time finding fans putting in a higher light than the Original Trilogy, specifically against ANH & ESB, despite the big money TPM made.

They did mess around with it. It's called Aliens 3 & 4. See how well that turned out? And then there's the AvP thingies. Because why stop at screwing over 1 beloved franchise when you can do TWO in a single movie!

It doesn't surprise me. Consider that a bunch of companies do cross platform releases. So what this means is that for simplicity's sake (or whatever), a cross platform game will be made as uniform as possible. What this usually means are lazy ass ports to the PC with all the bad qualities this entails. Console style Save Points which is not a tradition on the PC platform. Not taking advantage of the power and flexibility of a PC. No option for people with better rigs to really spice the game up. Just stuck at lower resolutions and low quality settings. UIs that make sense for a hand controller that the majority of console players use, but are absolutely horrid for Keyboard + Mouse users on the PC. The UI issue is a constant problem with the cross platform releases that include the PC. If you want a shining, big name title example where the developers gave absolutely no consideration whatsoever for the PC UI and designed purely for the console... is the MMORPG of FF XIV. Nevermind that the PC version hit the market FIRST, and now the PS3 version is on hold until further notice since Square Enix screwed the pooch hard on this. Each console generation is naturally stuck at their respective specs. They never, ever have (so far) improved in performance with later productions. But PC users will upgrade or replace their rig every few years. Some alot more frequently to be that guy with the cutting edge stuff. Majority of developers have a "make for console first and foremost" high on their list. Then, if at all, do lazy ass ports to the PC. The only big name company I know of that actually went out of its way to make better PC ports recently is Capcom. So yeah, that's the situation we're at now.

I've read a bunch of manga over the years, but there's only 4 that have remained great to me. Appleseed: My first manga that I ever got into. Just saw a copy on the way back from Jr.High in the late 80s. It was a later issue and I went to a comic store that thankfully let me buy the other issues to catch up. This is before the days of the great "Internetz" so catching up to anything required quite a bit of legwork. Anyways, I absolutely loved Masamune Shirow's style, mechanical designs, and attention to detail. As someone who loved to draw machinery, the details he shows for all sorts on that subject (mecha, guns, gear, etc) blew me away. Ghost in the Shell: Bought the big volume by Dark Horse Comics here in the USA in the mid-90s. Loved it for the same reasons why I liked Shirow's work in Appleseed. Watching the GITS movies after reading the manga was a big disappointment. Felt nothing at all like the manga. Blade of the Immortal: I first got into Hiroaki Samura's work when I was stationed on Okinawa in the late 90s. Found book 1 by Dark Horse over in the exchange at Camp Foster. I really loved his artstyle, the characters, and the basic story. Even though it's essentially all about revenge, it thankfully didn't just come down to "What Itto-Ryu Guy Dies This Issue." The manga is still going, and the waits between books kills me. Ah! My Goddess!: Something that I catch up on here and there. First got into it in the mid-90s. If you start from the beginning and just go a few volumes, you've already seen what the series is all about, really. Right now, IMO, it's going in a circle that isn't getting anywhere anymore. What I liked most about it is Kosoke Fujishima's art style. Even better is that you can see his artstyle drastically as time went on. His style is the only reason why I pick the books up.

The pilot for that '190 was still listed as missing. Sad, but that's just the way it is and there was many more with that same fate. 2 places in WWII you didn't want to be downed aircrew: Eastern Front, because we know how brutal things were between the Germans and Russians, and in the Pacific for the same reasons... with the added bonus of all that ocean to be stranded in.

It's going to be hard to top the last effort. Good luck with it!

Like someone else said here, DRM. I've been a paying customer but because of that, the companies see fit to make things difficult for me to enjoy their product. And some go waaaaaaaaayyy overboard in their DRM attempts to a point where I won't buy their product because of their Draconian measures. "You can enjoy this product but you first need to cut off your left testicle." F**k 'em. Cell Phones. I hate them to no end. I don't own one and have no desire to get one. I had one for a while because my job FORCED me to have one while doing this one particular assignment. My friends and coworkers are simply bewildered by it. I swear I'm the only one that hates them in a world where everyone, including little kids, have one. They just simply wouldn't know how to live if they didn't have a Cell Phone. To me, the biggest reason they exist is that they act as a Dog Leash, regardless of where you're at and what time. And sure enough, when I did have that work cell phone, I was being pestered every few minutes. "What're you doing?"* "Where you at?" "What are your numbers?" "You need to do this/that." "Are you sure about that?" * Usually work bastards will say this first and not even bother saying, "Hey, how you doing out there?" or some other false, semi-polite greeting. Having a work cell phone was everything I knew I was going to hate. It was also a very convenient means on giving bad news conveniently without seeing someone face-to-face like a man. Dog Leashes. Freakin' Dog Leashes... It's also annoying when I have someone that's constantly... constantly... on their Cell Phone. You might as well surgically attach it to their head (hey, that will happen years later, mark my words). That or texting every 5 minutes.

M1A1 has an NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) overpressure system to protect the occupants. I doubt it'd survive being near a nuclear blast, but being able to operate in an NBC environment? Yes it can. FAS: M1 Abrams "Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) warfare protection is provided by an overpressure clean-air conditioning air system, a radiological warning system, and a chemical agent detector. The crew are individually equipped with protective suits and masks." The tanks that they showed in the show weren't Abrams. Not quite sure what they were, but I'm guessing they were mocking them up to be M1's. They weren't old M60 series of tanks or anything related to it coming out of the US after WWII.

I loved the realism because another thing it fostered was teamwork. I remember while doing Red Orchestra, finally figuring out how an Machinegun team of 2 works. Having the gunner (in this case, my buddy with the MG42) and me, the A-Gunner (carrying lots of ammo for the MG42 as well as a Kar98k). The gunner staked out a little spot in some ruined 2nd story of a building to cover a side street with the intention of preventing the Soviet players from flanking our team. The cool thing with the game is that moving next to certain terrain features even while not in the prone will give you support (stability) for firing. A very big bonus for a beast like an MG42. We setup and wait, figuring Ivan will be coming down once they have a tough time against the rest of our team. Sure enough they come and my friend starts suppressing them with the MG. I feed belts of ammo into the MG and in between I spot and provide close defense with my rifle and lobbing potato mashers. We do it long enough before help from the team arrives. You just can't be 100% effective with something like an MG34/42 by yourself. You needed a small 2-man team to reap the benefits. Elements like that also contributed to players sticking together. Not as much Lone Wolves running around to easily get shot up without mutual support. There is no Ost Front "Rambo." He's laying on a rubble street in a pool of his own blood in the snow riddled with 7.92mm bullets It was the same thing with my early experience so far in ARMAII. Like I said, realism is more my side. But it doesn't mean I don't appreciate a "lighter" FPS. BF2142 and especially BF2 bring alot of fond, fun memories also (again, I'm stoked that BF3 is being worked on). BF2/2142 though are "light" on realism, I do love what they bring to the table: * Big maps with varied terrain features for different styles of play. A very important feature for me, as I mentioned in an earlier reply in the thread. I despise games with claustrophobic small maps with long, tight, narrow corridors all over the place. * Vehicles, both ground and air. They add a whole lot more dimensions than a pure infantry FPS.

There's another forum I frequent and on one of the threads, the conversation drifted about the move away from SP and just primarily focusing on MP with FPS games. Your example with COD is good. MW1 provided, for the time, a memorable but very, very short SP experience. It was primarily about the MP game, which is easier for the devs to do since they didn't have to worry about actually making good AI for the NPCs, mission design, mission objectives, and all that. If you look at the big name FPS, primarily the "tacticool" style, SP games are short and the maps are nothing to write home about. Even MW1, as good as a MP game as it was, on SP the maps were extremely linear and a trend that continues with other FPS (again, esp. in "tacticool" dept). Extremely few ways on tackling a problem, *if* they even give such a possibility. It was annoying for me to know that the game will constantly, endlessly spawn NPCs until you reach a certain scripted waypoint. It wasn't really an exercise in fire and maneuver or anything like that. It's just running to the next scripted event, and God help you if you try to proceed but not step on the exact tile to continue the mission. The last FPS games that I had an outstanding SP and MP experience was Rogue Spear and Rainbow Six III. MP was good in those days, especially Rogue Spear in 1999-2000 timeframe. SP in those games was outstanding because of the planning you had to do to accomplish a mission. I took alot of joy in figuring out a plan to accomplish the mission with no friendly casualties and the hostages in safe hands. I also liked the bigger sense of danger that a shot will wound / kill you. There was no BS about hiding behind a wall for a few seconds and then you're good-to-go. Ah, but the R6 series took a s**t ever since R6 Lockdown. Then they went MW with R6 Vegas and got the SP treatment just like the current COD games. I've been fooling around alot with ARMAII. The maps are huge and varied. Infantry, aircraft, ground vehicles to include trucks, APCs, tanks, etc. are there. It's alot more on the realism side and it does have a steep learning curve. SP or MP. The MP crowd is also quite different. It's not the same feel I get when I hop onto any of the current big-name FPS.

Well, I'll put it back on topic. Maybe Will Smith can still have a cameo? Maybe he can do a Steven Seagal and get killed in his F/A-18 in the first 5-10 minutes of the movie?

Except for certain Collector Editions of a game, MW2/BOps and the recent MOH have been the only PC titles that hit $60 U.S. for a standard version. I liked the first Modern Warfare on the PC. It actually still has a strong following with PC FPS gamers today. But I stayed away from Modern Warfare 2 onwards including MOH. Well Ghost Train, my suggestion is if you're getting it on the PS3 platform, to go with MOH instead. It's actually a newer game and not a rehash of MW2. From quick glances, there's a bit more variety in maps & distances compared to the claustrophobic MW2 onwards. Now, back to FPS, at least on the PC for me... I didn't bite with MOH, MW2, BOps, and not even BFBC2. I didn't go for BFBC2 because I was wary of the roots of the Bad Company line of games and how they do FPS. I still have reliable 'ol BF2, BF2142, MW1. I've got all the ARMAII stuff with the learning curve it entails. So I got mountains of FPS to fiddle with And they get the job done. Mods here and there to change and spice things up. What I'm looking forward to are details for Battlefield 3 / BF3. I cut alot of time in BF2 and BF2142, and I loved the aspect of infantry and vehicles (ground & air) in a FPS. I also used to adore the prospect of a sequel to Star Wars Battlefront, but after not playing SWBF1/2 for years now and suddenly remembering details of SWBF2 and how stripped down it was, I was discouraged. I'll have to get my fix for any Star Wars FPS from the dedicated mod teams out there.

What platform are you going to play? If on the PC, if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with MOH hands down. COD Rolling Stones has some serious, SERIOUS performance issues (google black ops pc stutter). It's like their devs quickly and hastily coded a PC port and didn't bother to see if it works alright. "It works on a console so it MUST work on the PC without testing!"

Oh, you made me think of the movie Signs. Being attacked in the middle of nowhere, just you and your family.