The "thoughts not big enough to start a new thread"

[Kitsune]

Allo, on Japanese messageboards there's often one post on the board with the very same title as this one. [Next to nazo posts (posts where every sentence is supposed to be something somebody always wondered framed in the phrase "....is a MYSTERY!" E.g. "Why Disney never made Winnie the Pooh-branded honey...is a MYSTERY!"] Its supposed to be a place for people to post thoughts that are on topic in the board's category, but that they don't think warrant an entirely new thread. They often attract all sorts of random conversations and comments, and hey, you don't have to apologize for going off topic from the original thread intention!

The best thing about them is that people often use them to post great gameplaying stories as they arise in their day to day to life from all the different games they play.

So, I wanted to try it out here. Feel free to reply with anything on your mind that you feel isn't substantial enough to start a new thread. Pluck those stray thoughts from your brain and plant them here, and let's see what arrives!

Let's see, have you seen Konami's action game from the former Suikoden crew called Oz? It has a really infectious slogan, advertising hook that is repeated in its paraphenalia everywhere that goes, "Why would Oz be made of 3 people?" or "Naze Oz wa sannin nano ka?" Its so catchy I can't get it out of mind. The game itself looks cool because you're playing with a group of three at a time and you can command them to attack at the right times, creating combos that Konami calls rhythmical action. The monochrome art style is neat too. Trailer here, if you're interested. (http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/oz/#)

The difference between a moron and an idiot is a subtle, but important distinction. Jack Russell of Radiata Stories is a bona fide moron, while Kyle/Stahn of the Tales of Destiny games are idiots. When an idiot adds 2+2, he finds 3. When a moron adds 2+2 he gets distracted by what he honestly thinks are real, genuine purple chickens. Each one, when done well can be quite entertaining, but the moron is especially endearing. Here's to game designers who just give up and decide to cast their lead intentionally as the biggest retard on the short bus! :D

My friends and I were playing Mario Party 4 the other day and we got to the minigame where one person has to guess where the other three are hiding in four cannons and try to light the switch that will blow them away into the sea. You push a button to get into the corresponding cannon, but of course it doesn't show who goes into which. It was three guys against her and NONE of us even looked or consulted with each other as we made our choices. ALL of us chose the right most cannon and by pure luck, she lit the other three matches! That was soooooo sweet!

-Kitsune

[extarbags]

idiot - A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers.

moron - A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education.

So you've got it backwards.

I'm trying to watch that stupid Oz trailer right now, but geez, how do you people put up with the incredibly small amount of bandwidth that seemingly every web server in Japan is granted? Do you guys have like one T3 line coming into the whole country or something?

Edit: And retards ride the short bus, not the big bus. Man, this post needed a fact-checker.

[extarbags]

Ok, Oz looks like it might be kind of cool.

[Kitsune]

1) That's MY definition of moron and idiot for my purposes, thank you very much.

2) Even if it wasn't how do I have it backwards? According to your quoted definitions the idiot can't do basic things that even a 3 year old could and I said he can't even add 2+2, whereas the moron is less severe but still very stupid, where I said he can add the sum, but he's distracted by purple chickens. In any case, my point was about the nature of the stupidity, not the level of stupidity.

3) We could generate a third category of stupid with the name Guilty Gear XX Sharp Reload Slash. :twisted: The XX=excess idea was once very cute, but now they're trying too hard.

4) What's so bad about the site, is it slow for you? It loads really fast for me, especially the movies. It might be because of the difference of where we live. I've heard some speeds are really slow outside the country of origin sometimes. I wonder if anyone else has problems? Did you watch both movies BTW? The 1st might be more technical, but the second is somewhat more impressive.

5) Short bus duly noted.

-Kitsune

[extarbags]

3) Shut up :(. And I thought it was just Guilty Gear XX #Reload Slash. Where'd the Sharp come from? Regardless, yeah, they need to just come up with a new name. Then again, every time they make a game that starts with the phrase "Guilty Gear X", it's the best fighting game ever, and I have no doubt that this one will be too. So maybe they should stick with it.

4) Geographical distance really shouldn't have much impact on download speeds... I mean, it travels at the speed of light, right? Even so, if there just isn't that much bandwidth going across the ocean, that could explain it. Regardless, yes, almost every Japanese site I visit is very, very slow.

But I only saw one movie... there was another one? The one I saw was about an even mix of cutscene and gameplay. The gameplay looked kind of neat, the cutscenes looked generic, and none of it was monochrome.

[Kitsune]

The two I saw had no cutscenes in them, and it's the art that's monochrome-like, not the game itself.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/oz/b/p_m/play_m.html

That's the the two I'm talking about, I'm thinking you clicked on the old TGS PV.

And I have heard that sometimes data on the net has to cross through more -doesn't the know word in English-thingies and that's why it can be slower sometimes if you're not in the country of origin.

Chipp Zanuff and Faust are so awesome! I was playing Guilty Gear the other day in the arcade and there's was some guy who was using Faust and spouting out random crazy lines with his attacks like "Justice Plover Indignation Smileweight!" I kid you not. I have no idea what was wrong with him. Seemed like a crazy otaku. You get those sometimes in Osaka arcades you know...

-Kitsune

[tromik]

Weren't the words "idiot" and "moron" created/used for the purpose of defining who can have kids in England?

[extarbags]

Chipp Zanuff and Faust are so awesome! I was playing Guilty Gear the other day in the arcade and there's was some guy who was using Faust and spouting out random crazy lines with his attacks like "Justice Plover Indignation Smileweight!" I kid you not. I have no idea what was wrong with him. Seemed like a crazy otaku. You get those sometimes in Osaka arcades you know...


He should have been playing Chipp then. "Sushi! Sukiyaki! Sashimi!"

[Ben Sones]

4) Geographical distance really shouldn't have much impact on download speeds... I mean, it travels at the speed of light, right?

Nope.

[Nick Walter]

4) Geographical distance really shouldn't have much impact on download speeds... I mean, it travels at the speed of light, right?


Common misconception, but alas untrue. Make an international phone call sometime. The delay factor is bad enough to be human perceptable for short international hops. A call to Japan from the states has lag in the seconds range.

[Veefy]

A game based on that prison show "Oz" would probably be cool.

[Wholly Schmidt]

The only thing this thread will be good for is potentially catching up with the Dominions threads. Ok, who am I kidding, they'll never be topped.

I never like these kind of threads though. They sound like a nice idea, but if I check the forums and there are two full pages of new posts in here, I have no idea if it's things I want to read, or if they've been going round on the same topic for the last 2 pages that I didn't care about last time I checked. Eventually it just becomes a waste of time.

Why anyone likes these threads...IS A MYSTERY!

[Bill Dungsroman]

The best thing about them is that people often use them to post great gameplaying stories as they arise in their day to day to life from all the different games they play.

The end boss in Icewind Dale 1, Belhifet, is your typical RPG end boss: resistant to almost everyting, big giant HP count, and comes stocked with bullshit tactics to make it as hard as possible to kill him (B's was this sweet move where he'll teleport away from your fighters, which are being mobbed by iron golems and the like, and drop a Flamestrike on them as he does). Whatever, so what else is new? Of course, there is a super-easy-cheesy way to kill him, too. But, the first time I rolled up on his ass, I didn't know what it was. Naturally, it was pretty tough going.

But! I did it, in one try. It was quite dramatic, I must say. My mage and mage/thief weren't going to make it, for sure. Magic was utterly useless against Belhifet and the golems. So I had them run by all the golems and draw them to a corner of the room where they were summarily beaten to death. Belhifet methodically began killing the rest of my party. Now, early on in the fight, my main fighter had gotten the shit pounded out of him after being immediately surrounded by golems. I clicked an empty corner of the room for him to retreat to, figuring it an effort in vain anyway. But, he made it with - and I kid you not - one HP left. I noticed this, and immediately sent my priest over to drop a Full Heal on him. But, she couldn't take one more hit. So, I had my bard stand there like a doof and get murdered in 3 or 4 shots so the priest could have enough time to cast the Heal. She did, and literally was killed immediately thereafter. However, I had managed to whittle Belhifet down over the course of the battle. I scored a crit with my fighter and waxed that chump. So Yay, I win the game with one dude left alive, full HP.

Well, of course the expansions came out. I had already finished the game proper, so I booted up HoW and got the option to start it continuing with my characters from the end of IWD1. Well, har har, it imports your characters as they were at the end of the IWD1. No, I didn't get 5 dead guys and 1 living one, although that would have been funny. I did get one fighter, fully equipped, and 5 naked dudes, though (since you drop all your shit into a pile when you die). None of their equipment carried over. The game also took a bunch of my gold. The equipment store in Lonelywood is pathetic. I couldn't hope to beat the first Barbarian encounter. So, I had to start IWD1 over at some point well before heading onto the endgame, so I could go into that hut and on to Lonelywood.

I also installed Trials of the Luremaster, which you have to do before going to the last area of HoW. So, you end up playing three end boss fights more or less in a row that way. Fortunately, all those fights are a breeze if you know the right expl^H^H^H tactic. But, my grandiose epic finish was sort of nullified.

[Kalle]

A game based on that prison show "Oz" would probably be cool.

No. It wouldn't. I love that show and I can't fathom what about it could be made into a game.

[Daly]

Chipp Zanuff and Faust are so awesome! I was playing Guilty Gear the other day in the arcade and there's was some guy who was using Faust and spouting out random crazy lines with his attacks like "Justice Plover Indignation Smileweight!" I kid you not. I have no idea what was wrong with him. Seemed like a crazy otaku. You get those sometimes in Osaka arcades you know...


He should have been playing Chipp then. "Sushi! Sukiyaki! Sashimi!"

GAH! I love this game, but play as Jam Kuradoberi as my main char. So there I am, kicking the head off the CPU chars all around me, happy out. Off i go to look up some more advanced combos on the intarweb only to discover that Jam is a fairly poor second tier character and can be shut down by any decent first or second tier char.

I hate the missions where there are some ridiculous contraints on the damage you can do to your opponent, expecially with the damage scaling system. ie Your first or second hit doesnt count, subsequent hits do very little damage and your opponent regenerates. WTF?

I also hate the end of story mode where Ino (or whoever, it's Ino for Jam) is pretty much invincible due to ridiculous regeneration and moves that do double damage. That's just fucking painful.

The entire game has pretty much relegated itself to me just playing survival or VS CPU one fight at a time - although a good Jam VS Jam or Jam VS Chipp is still an amazing sight to behold.

[mouselock]

I also hate the end of story mode where Ino (or whoever, it's Ino for Jam) is pretty much invincible due to ridiculous regeneration and moves that do double damage. That's just fucking painful.

While we're on hating about Guilty Gear, I'd like to throw in on the topic of the end (I assume) of Guilty Gear X2 (PS2) where you fight Ino (at least Dizzy does) and her screen-encompassing, unblockable, un-interruptible moves of death. What the hell am I supposed to be doing against heat seeking guitar bubbles that fill up the entire screen, still do significant damage when blocked, can't be interrupted (that I've found), and can't really be dodged (due to the afore-mentioned heat seeking-ness).

I suppose I'm supposed to kill her in the 14 seconds I have before she lets off these moves or somesuch? Or if I was actually a skilled player, I could jump, dodge, throw, or otherwise pull off super combo moves that let me live? I played the game for about a month when I first got it and then shelved it; now I remember why. It ultimately just pissed me off because it felt so incredibly cheap after a while.

[Derek Meister]

A call to Japan from the states has lag in the seconds range.

Purely anecdotal, your mileage may vary, etc, but while I seem to encounter roughly the same latency problems between servers in Japan and Australia, the bandwidth throughput on the japanese always seems to be worse than the australian servers, which often aren't all that much slower than more local servers on the other side of the country.

Again, purely anecdotal, though.

[Daly]

I also hate the end of story mode where Ino (or whoever, it's Ino for Jam) is pretty much invincible due to ridiculous regeneration and moves that do double damage. That's just fucking painful.

While we're on hating about Guilty Gear, I'd like to throw in on the topic of the end (I assume) of Guilty Gear X2 (PS2) where you fight Ino (at least Dizzy does) and her screen-encompassing, unblockable, un-interruptible moves of death. What the hell am I supposed to be doing against heat seeking guitar bubbles that fill up the entire screen, still do significant damage when blocked, can't be interrupted (that I've found), and can't really be dodged (due to the afore-mentioned heat seeking-ness).

I suppose I'm supposed to kill her in the 14 seconds I have before she lets off these moves or somesuch? Or if I was actually a skilled player, I could jump, dodge, throw, or otherwise pull off super combo moves that let me live? I played the game for about a month when I first got it and then shelved it; now I remember why. It ultimately just pissed me off because it felt so incredibly cheap after a while.

Oh those STUPID bubbles. There's another one. There seems to be four patterns, for the first you can avoid the bubbles by ducking, the second you can by taking up position then walking forward. The third appears to be unavoidable, and unless you have lots of tension built up for a flawless defence you're dead. The fourth happens if you try to interrupt any of the others or jump behind her - here every single bubble just lands right on top you you. Cheap.

One thing I used to try was to let all the bubbles hit me, which would sometimes leave me just barely alive but with a full tension meter. Then i'd try an instant kill move. I'd say that works about 4% of the time.

What about her move where you're on the attack, she does a Burst (offensive?) then wails on the guitar - and that's half your health gone. In less than a second. It's also unbelievably hard to anticipate/dodge. I don't know.

I still love the game, but parts of it are the worst shit imaginable.

[Thomas Wilde]

That's the Megalomania super. When she lets it off, you can tell from the initial positioning of those little bubbles/notes where it's going to go, and she only seems to bust the straight version if you try to counter her out of it.

At this point, you can teleport/longjump behind her, or get to one of the safe spots in Megalomania and hold down-back. Some characters can hide in the sweet spot and avoid the whole super, while someone like Potemkin is about to eat 30-50% block damage no matter what he does.

In my GGXX prime, I used to be able to drop boss I-No in two rounds, no problem, by watching what she was doing and countering some of her dash moves with Jam's IK. It's largely a question of knowing her moves, knowing your own, and figuring out when best to sneak in your character's specific IK. Dizzy, of course, is turbo boned; she has to dodge Megalomania whenever it appears and make the fight into a long war of attrition. I've never found a reliable way to beat Boss I-No as Dizzy.

Finally, I will contribute a random thought of my own to this thread:

If one more developer or PR monkey tells me, in a press release or event speech, that their team, company, product, features, or what-have-you is "very unique," I may be forced to do something stupid.

There is no such thing as "very unique," you troglodytes.

[Thomas Wilde]

GAH! I love this game, but play as Jam Kuradoberi as my main char. So there I am, kicking the head off the CPU chars all around me, happy out. Off i go to look up some more advanced combos on the intarweb only to discover that Jam is a fairly poor second tier character and can be shut down by any decent first or second tier char.

Switch to #Reload if you haven't already, or laugh off whoever told you that. Jam isn't a member of the Holy Quartet (Slayer/Eddie/Millia/Venom, IIRC; Eddie counters Millia, Millia counters Venom, Venom counters Eddie, and Slayer beats them all clean), but she's got serious game. Jam's got some serious combos off the flying kick, and you can actually OTG her rush super in the corner (i.e. you can land a normal combo for a knockdown, then hit the super on your prone opponent).

EX Jam in #Reload is just sick, too. She loses most of her trademark moves for some weird dashing stuff and what may be the best fireball in any game, ever; if you're on the ground and you're not in a blocking animation when she starts the move, it just hit you. On the other hand, it's also got a ludicrously small hitzone and medium startup time, so it's easy to dodge as long as you're paying attention to what Jam's doing.

[bago]

To quote Infected Mushroom, Sampling some movie:


The diffeence between insanity and genius is measured only by success.

A nice way to sum up the scientific method.

[mouselock]

Dizzy, of course, is turbo boned; she has to dodge Megalomania whenever it appears and make the fight into a long war of attrition. I've never found a reliable way to beat Boss I-No as Dizzy.


Well, it's reassuring to know that I'm not completely sucky then.

On the other hand, it pisses me off that the game is so fucked that when you get to the boss the determination of if you can win or not is who you chose, rather than how well you play that character. (At least at moderate skill, I'm sure there exists a super Dizzy player out there who has no problems with her.)

[Marcin]

just Guilty Gear XX #Reload Slash. Where'd the Sharp come from?

Er, a # is a "sharp", in musical notation (perhaps the gameplay is raised a half a step ... :P). You may have also seen it in MS's C# (C Sharp) language...

[Daly]

Switch to #Reload if you haven't already, or laugh off whoever told you that.

EX Jam in #Reload is just sick, too. She loses most of her trademark moves for some weird dashing stuff and what may be the best fireball in any game, ever;

That's the one i'm playing. Yeah I read that on the web. This is the first GG game i've played and am unfamiliar with who's good and who ain't. I just heard that it was supposed to be well balanced. This one isn't really a huge negative for me because I don't have Live and I don't know anyone else who plays this regularly. But it was annoying to think the game was so broken. I haven't unlocked EX Jam yet but that sounds fairly savage.


and she only seems to bust the straight version if you try to counter her out of it.

At this point, you can teleport/longjump behind her, or get to one of the safe spots in Megalomania and hold down-back. Some characters can hide in the sweet spot and avoid the whole super, while someone like Potemkin is about to eat 30-50% block damage no matter what he does.

You're saying there's a place to take covers against the one that appears to fill the whole screen? When I try to jump behind her while she's prepping the move, the bubbles go mental and start homing in on me. This isn't too much of a problem when i've got lots of tension, but it drains it all so I can't go for an instant kill. Without the instant kill i can't put the hurt on her fast enough to win the round.


In my GGXX prime, I used to be able to drop boss I-No in two rounds, no problem, by watching what she was doing and countering some of her dash moves with Jam's IK. It's largely a question of knowing her moves, knowing your own, and figuring out when best to sneak in your character's specific IK.

Yeah, by the time i get to try an instant kill i'm usually almost dead, so I have to try and bust it out straight away. If she blocks, it's all over. Fog it anyway. This is really annoying, cos i can handle most of the other characters with relative ease even on higher difficulty levels, but Boss I-No is like a brick wall to me.

[mouselock]

and she only seems to bust the straight version if you try to counter her out of it.

At this point, you can teleport/longjump behind her, or get to one of the safe spots in Megalomania and hold down-back. Some characters can hide in the sweet spot and avoid the whole super, while someone like Potemkin is about to eat 30-50% block damage no matter what he does.

You're saying there's a place to take covers against the one that appears to fill the whole screen? When I try to jump behind her while she's prepping the move, the bubbles go mental and start homing in on me. This isn't too much of a problem when i've got lots of tension, but it drains it all so I can't go for an instant kill. Without the instant kill i can't put the hurt on her fast enough to win the round.


Yeah, this was the problem I had. That seemed like the appropriate response until the bastards turned around and homed in on me killing me horribly.

[Udarnik]

The end boss in Icewind Dale 1, Belhifet, is your typical RPG end boss...

That was an awesome story, Bill.

Icewind Dale has a special place in my heart (although I never finished it!) because it contains my favorite villian, Yxunomei, who was beautifully voiced by Tara Strong.

Sidereal translations spell out chaotic events in your future. Beware.

She was a talkative one, over the course of FIVE meetings she tells you to turn back because your cause is hopeless.

The forces at work here are factories of truth so foreign to your understanding that if you attempted to observe the machine in its entirety, it would burn your fragile mind into vapor.

And by the time you actually get to fight her... well, I was psyched out and fully expecting the fight of my life.

You are one of many fireflies dancing for a moment in the night, feeling at your brightest that you can illuminate the universe at will. *I* am a star. I came into existence when your world took form. I am as persistent as time. Where I move, infernal tides crush foreign shores and nations of thought are drowned in blood.

Sadly, she went down pretty easily.

[DeepT]

4) Geographical distance really shouldn't have much impact on download speeds... I mean, it travels at the speed of light, right?


Common misconception, but alas untrue. Make an international phone call sometime. The delay factor is bad enough to be human perceptable for short international hops. A call to Japan from the states has lag in the seconds range.

I work in a company that has a major east coast datacenter. I asked some of the engineers about this, and they told me that geographical distance is infact, irrelevent. So picking and East coast server for a game over a westcoast server is meaningless.

What *does* matter is how many hops are between you and the server you are talking to. However this has very little to no bearing on geography. Hops are not really related to geopgraphy once you get past your local network.

For example, this data center in Lakeland florida. We have a voice chat network for the engineers to use. If were one one side of our office (differant network) and call someone on the other side, the call goes to our data center, to sanfransico, to new york, and back down to our office. This is very fast since there are just a few hops, opposed to say going from a local brighthouse road-runner network to a local verizion network which can be 20+ hops even if the hops never even leave the region.

[zabuni]

Well last night I went to my local software/video games/movie rentals/movie purchase/book store, and found that they had marked down copies of the Rise of Nations expansion to $2.50. Awesome.

With that, I settled in to a hour long gaming session. Since I suck at these games, I set it to medium easy. I set up the research heavy Greeks, and proceded to wipe the floor with some Indian tribe.

It was really sad, I made it past the gunpowder, industrial, and modern ages while the computer opponent had barely gotten to the gunpowder age by the end of the game. Greeks compounded with democracy made it so that, given resources, I could research my way through an age within 5-7 minutes. It also didn't help I found a couple of rare resources to move it along. Plus a couple of wonders.

It was sad in a way, because the computer was using the Indian horse units, and I had a metric ton of basic soilders. It really did highlight how important gunpowder was in a historical sense. They virtually melted in front of my troops. Then I parked a dreadnought by their main town.

[Matthew Gallant]

What if expansion packs had been invented earlier?


http://www.truemeaningoflife.com/images/karateka.gif
Danceateka would have been the first, but was cancelled due to Gymkata's box office flop.

http://www.truemeaningoflife.com/images/baddudesopposingforce.gif
Opposing Force for Half-Life was not as fresh an idea as some may have thought.

[Kitsune]

Ooooh! Great Icewind Dale story, Bill! Sure, there are a lot of games where you can win the day against a tough boss with only a fraction of energy/life/cookies/your cum meter left, but RPGs have a very special feel when you manage to do it. Many of my favorite RPG memories are like that.

I have one very dear one about how I managed to beat the false god in Dragon Quest IV. You have to travel through poisoned mines and then into an underground network of shrines with some of the hardest, most bitchy enemies in the game, and tons of twisty passages, all alike. You don't get to bring in your wagon either. I was near the false god when one my party members died (I think it was the princess) and I tried to revive her, but as people who play Dragon Quest, you can waste a lot of MP with no guarantee of revival, like the more hardcore PC RPGs. So her loyal retainer had only very little MP left and I was about to use my last resort, which is a very rare ring that has a chance of breaking but can either refill half or all of your MP (or none). It broke and refilled half. I went into the battle even more weakened and with only three members. Through a combination of ludricrously lucky tactics I got some pretty big hits on him at the beginning and then he came in for the kill on my other party members. It was the hero and him alone for like 20 rounds (Dragon Quest heroes tend to have lots of paladin-ish support spells).

Near the end, I was getting really low, this was it, I thought there was no way I could win. He hit me, I hit him. I had 8 HP left. I put in my last command, thinking I wouldn't get to even to pull it off. You can guess what happened. I got the initiative, it was just enough to kill him and he WENT DOWN, DOWN DOWN TO THE MOUNTAIN TOWN! I was sooooo utterly elated. I thought I had won the game. But in actuality, it turned out there was still a good amount left of it to go. This is all compounded by the fact that the false god has one of the most heinously EVIL sounding tracks I've ever heard in a video game, and not the obvious kind, but a symphony track so full of arrogance and bald-faced, naked wickedness, it feels like its scalding the very goodness out of your soul.

Now, the real final boss of that game was a bitch of much more epic proportions.

But back to Icewind Dale, those are some great choice quotes, though a bit too much on the icky poetic side sometime, that was a lot better than most of the "You'll never beat me, ha ha ha" writing you see in most games. I know I've asked this before, but is it just me, or am I the only one who likes the Icewind Dale games better than the Baldur's Gate ones? Its more than just the fact that I'm really partial to snowy places, having been raised most of the time in one.

-Kitsune

[Kalle]

I'd rank both Icewind Dale games a lot higher than Baldur's Gate 1. IWD1 in particular was an awesome game, and the ambience of a desolate sub-arctic wasteland had a lot to do with it.

[Bren]

Sadly, she went down pretty easily.

Sadly?

[Bill Dungsroman]

If pressed for which of the 4 games I like best, I'd have to say BG2. BG2 with the ToB expansion is still the most fun I've ever had computer gaming (before that it was probably Dungeon Master on the Amiga). It was the epic feel of the game, the depth and breadth. The game was insane.

But, BG1 was borderline awful, so comparing the two series is tough. Crash-happy, insanely dull at times. I'm anxious to replay with the mod that ports BG1 into the BG2 engine. I'd never play it again, nor miss it, otherwise.

The IWD games were a kick for different reasons. For instance, the dungeon at the beginning of BG2, as good as the whole game was, was screechingly dull (there's a skip mod for it as well). And you only get to make your one main character. Building a whole party of up to six dudes is a blast. I mean, the homo NPCs you had to choose from in both BG games left something to be desired. Unless, of course, you like fighters with 15 STR and mages with 16 INT or priests with 16 WIS. Who the hell has ever played a character without an 18 in his or her primary stat in a PC D&D game?

I prefer IWD1 over IWD2. The pre-3rd Ed rules aren't necessarily easier, but they are more familiar. I'm really not a fan of the free-wheeling multiclass options or weapon usage available in the 3rd Ed rules. Again, probably just because I've been playing D&D since Advanced was still solidly in its first edition (I still have all the books!). IWD1 is the only D&D game that really tried to cater to Bards, with appreciable results. I mean, BG2 was a close second, but you could really get some mileage out of the having a Bard in your sixth spot. I mean, you've got his songs and lore of course. But, if you have a ranger in your party as well, your thief need only put points into traps and locks - the bard gets pickpocket and the ranger gets hide in shadows. You've got a decent complement of spells and a decent fighter (who is usually situated in the back, and getting surrounded in IWD1 is often a mandatory arrangement) by midway through the game. There are some great bard-only items in IWD1, like harps and armor (although the cheesiest facet of IWD1 is that you can swap armor while paused, which is really kind of lame). And if you, y'know, min-max or whatever they call it *cough* you can make the rest of your party ugly, since your bard needs a high CHA, and put him as the leader in town. And, you know, narration by David Ogden Stiers didn't hurt, plus really good music. The expansions were fruity because of the End Boss Blitz, but the expansion stories themselves were pretty fun. I liked how Lonelywood had some dynamic to it, the way it changed as the expansion progressed.

IWD2 was really hit and miss. More inventory space, weapon combos, 3rd edition rules, higher level cap, lots of (potential) plusses. But, it got kind of boring, there were some stupid interface changes, and the idiot Infinity Engine pathfinding was exaggerated due to plenty of screens with narrow hallways. Oh, and monster generators.

The largest strike against the entire IWD series, though, was clearly Kuldahar. HAHA WHAT BAD PATHFINDING? That town was like navigating an unfamiliar trailer park at night.

[Udarnik]

I actually liked BG1 best of all, mainly because it is the most freeform of the Infinity Engine games, though it still had a story. Plus it had distinctive music (like all of the Interplay games, actually), beautiful and vast countryside, and some really difficult encounters. And only having one guy and choosing NPCs to fill out the party allows the story to be more character oriented, which I appreciated.

those are some great choice quotes, though a bit too much on the icky poetic side sometime

Yes, they're absolutely over-the-top, and hearing them intoned by that little girl was a kick. You can even complain to her about how it sounds like she's reciting bad poetry and she'll feed you some line about bloody-tongued prophets speaking in the language of pain or somesuch. I actually went and mapped her entire dialogue tree one evening just for fun. Even though I just said how much I liked BG1, I honestly can't remember any of the villians except for Saravok, but I still remember some of the tougher encounters in IWD1 and 2. Just some cool character design in those Black Isle-developed games, and I think part of the appeal of BG1 (over it's superior successors) is nostalgia.

[Jack Black]

I'm a bit of Bill in the fact that I really enjoyed alot of the aspects of BG2 and it's my favorite Bioware game (fuck you Jade Empire). That's a perfect story of how IWD ended and what was so fun about it. Not to mention they made you *want* a big flaming halberd to chop the shit out of demons.

IWD2 was a disappointment for basically the same reasons. I wasn't very familiar with the rules of 3rd Edition and when I created my uberparty. It was criminally easy. Kind of the same reason why I played through TOEE (after coming back to it nearly 8 months later) and really didn't enjoy it as much as I remember the module being.

Decent RPG's with Single Player campaign seem to be in short supply with a little of everything right. The last one that really seemed decent was Nocturn for me. But even then you have to convert to the Anime mentality to really catch what's going on. Whereas BG2 and IWD was pure D&D goodness. NWN fills that multiplayer niche, but single player blows.

I'm eagerly awaiting D&D Online which, will ultimately disappoint, but it looks great and I'm ready to have my high hopes dashed. Since it's happened so many times with D&D products.

[Kalle]

I prefer IWD1 as well. I like the story better in IWD. It's remarkably straightforward in it's goal yet it manages to take you through a heap of different locations that managed to be interesting without it feeling forced. I still can't believe they actually made you teleport into the freaking jungle in IWD2. Also, the 3d ed rules weren't an easy adjustment after all those 2nd ed Infinity engine games. I didn't like how critical spell buffs became even on my best fighters. In the PnP game it might not be such a big deal, you just say "I cast all these spells on X", but in a computer game having to constantly rest and cast the same spells before almost every encounter got tedious.

[Kunikos]

To quote Infected Mushroom, Sampling some movie:
The diffeence between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
A nice way to sum up the scientific method.

Not to bag-on the quote but where the hell did this come from? I mean here we are talking about random gaming stuff and this is out suddenly flying out of left field. :?

Anyway, my favorite moment in an RPG was the showdown with the final boss Miranda in Throne of Bhaal where I tried to summon two planars and a pit fiend at the same time and only one of those spells actually was summoned (one of those "oh shit" type moments where you realize you just wasted two of your best spells and have to fumble at straws). Apparently there is some really bullshit cap on how many of these angel/demons you can get at once. I had to furiously summon up an Elemental Prince and turn Jaheira into a raging earth elemental to substitute, and cast another haste and series of defensive magics (cursing and wishing I had set up a contingency spell). Seeing the epic level mage comet spell for the first time was also wonderfully amusing (tons of damage and none hits your party). I just wish they didn't make the game so hard to get the uber things by multiclassing or dual classing every NPC under the sun and crapping their primary stat so you can't max them out.

[Kunikos]

I didn't like how critical spell buffs became even on my best fighters. In the PnP game it might not be such a big deal, you just say "I cast all these spells on X", but in a computer game having to constantly rest and cast the same spells before almost every encounter got tedious.

Shit, doing all the pre-battle buffs by the time you reach the end of Throne of Bhaal was pretty nasty. Couple summons, haste, defensive harmony, bless, chant, protection from evil 10ft, handful of single-person buffs (the angel armor, ghost armor, item and character specific ones) and finally you're ready after like 3 minutes of buffing.

I don't remember much of IWD, I gave up playing it at some point. I may have to give it another go but I don't remember being very drawn into the storyline.

[Bill Dungsroman]

I didn't like how critical spell buffs became even on my best fighters. In the PnP game it might not be such a big deal, you just say "I cast all these spells on X", but in a computer game having to constantly rest and cast the same spells before almost every encounter got tedious.

Shit, doing all the pre-battle buffs by the time you reach the end of Throne of Bhaal was pretty nasty. Couple summons, haste, defensive harmony, bless, chant, protection from evil 10ft, handful of single-person buffs (the angel armor, ghost armor, item and character specific ones) and finally you're ready after like 3 minutes of buffing.

I don't remember much of IWD, I gave up playing it at some point. I may have to give it another go but I don't remember being very drawn into the storyline.

It's a pretty good story, but it helps to pay attention during the (admittedly overlong) intro "movie." I used a fighter, ranger, mage/thief, mage, cleric and bard, and rolled right on through. Lots of mobs in the game, and having three fireballs come out at the gate cleared things up pretty easily. There's some serious dungeon trawling. Lots of times I'd sneak my ranger way ahead (with full points in bow and boots of speed), then snipe as he retreats to the party. Lots of beasts - even bigass ones - died before even making it to the party.

[Donald L.]

A game based on that prison show "Oz" would probably be cool.

Don't give EA Games ideas.

[Kitsune]

I was playing in the ice palace of the Mario & Luigi RPG for GBA two days ago when I ran into one of the best enemy loops ever. If you've never heard of any enemy loop forever, its when in an RPG an enemy has the ability to revive or duplicate itself and if you kill them and let enough live to reproduce, so to speak, you can have the battle go on and on indefinitely and amass huge amounts of exp and money. In the ice palace, there's a koopa that can heal enemies and revive them with full HP that team up with an enemy that can split itself indefinitely into reproductions. I got into one of these battles and stayed in it for like 45 minutes and since if you're good at Mario & Luigi you can make it so that you can avoid all damage, I defeated about 200 of those puppies giggling like a madman. Does anyone do this in RPGs or am I alone in this kind of exploitation?

I got a new TV the other day (hooray!) and the screen isn't hi definition for all I know, but it is a flat screen and very high quality, much more so than my last TV. I've been amazed at how much more vibrant the sound and image is even though its no HD. Just goes to show how hard it is to approach gaming graphics from any kind of objectivity when something as random as your connection/quality of even your normal TV screen can change things so much.

I love my new TV!

-Kitsune