STiFU

I've recently played said game and I must admit that I really like it. Because of the (really) sucky camera it takes a little bit to get used to the controlls and such, but aside from that I've got nothing to criticize about this product. The overall setting, atmosphere and graphics are damn nice and there's a lot for the explorer's mind too: The levels (there are basically six) are huge and stuffed with secrets. I don't know how to say this now without spoiling anything, but the levelarchitecture is somewhat dynamic and took my breath away a couple of times. I guess most of you people aren't too fond of third-person action-adventures, but maybe some will give this one a shot and let me know what they think... (Also note that Lara gets dusty/muddy/rainwet over time and her pupils transform according to lightlevel )

Since Doom 3 costs like just 10 bucks these days it shouldn't be a problem for anyone to get their hands on a copy of that game and I think you guys are doing already enough for the community. No need to ask for more, just to make the installing-process more comfortable... Also ID software is a company with a generous policy and worth supporting because of that in my oppinion.

Believe me, by the end you are starting to miss having little ammo. At the beginning it's a real fight of survival, which creates a lot of immersion, but later it becomes too easy, when you have the nice weapons and ammo en masse (and skills of course). I was very recently talking to a friend about the game and we've discovered that you can reach the end of this game in many different ways (at least two^^). He experienced big story elements that I didn't and vice versa. We were both very suprised about that...

I think we had the general realism topic around here once already and I guess the point was that realism in games is only good as long as it serves the gameplay and the immersion. Knowing that a guard will eventually wake up doesn't create very much immersion in my oppinion... And like the others said before, it destroys an essential part of this gametype. Like in Oblivion, it was kinda nice that the people were actually living a real life in the city, going to the pubs, "wizarding their dogs asleep" and all that, but in the end you just wind up searching for quest-persons or traders, while you could be long gone on a dangerous adventure instead... (Of course there is always the option to use the wait-function, but that is just uncool)

I am going to check it out this christmas break with a couple of friends along with Call of Duty 5. I hope we can get decent 20 hours of gaming out of those games. Especially the latter is supposed to be really short, like 5 hours or something... And If we're done too early, we'll just start Neverwinter Nights 2!

Also, why would that even be necessary? Either you knock the guards out or you kill them, but you don't attack a guard and run away afterwards, so that he could heal up... Ok, maybe if you fought a guard and you atract a couple of others to the fight, so you decide to run for it. But this is not very common, is it?

I didn't play Clear Sky, because Stalker sucked too hard. I had never before experienced a shooter, in which the enemies manage to sneak their heads directly into your crosshair... Hilarious!! Also the preview trailers suggested a totally different gameplay and so I was very disapointed by the actual product.

Interesting, I didn't know about that plasmonic antenna aproach so far. Aparently google didn't return anything usefull. The best hit was the plasmonic laser antenna with a wavelength of approximately 0,8µm, which would be pretty sucky for ICs. Do you have a paper of some sort about it? I've done some investigations and it apears like the current theoretical lower bound for the componentresolution is 5nm using the nano-imprint-lithography, which would be just one order of magnitude smaller than the current technology. But we'll see what time will bring...

From what I've heard Tomshardware is not impartial. So I wouldn't give too much about what they write. And about the lithography again, I am not an expert myself, but our professor told us, that the limit will be breached sooner than we think. There isn't much way left to go... But of course we haven't hit the limit 'till now, so you're right about Moore's Law.

I guess you are talking about the newly found basic electronic component called "Memristor". So far processors mostly consist of Transistors, which basically are just bi-directional voltage controlled switches. The Memristor also functions like that with the addition, that it can remember passed voltage-potentials somehow. (I don't know how it works exactly) This is said to be a great advance in technology because using this component a very big amount of storage capacity can be introduced directly to the processor, reducing RAM-access latencies and so on... This is the amateur explanation for what they are planning to do and I don't have any further information either. The practical limit you are talking about is also as good as reached with the current technology. The frequency of the processor is directly linked to the distance, which the electric signals have to travel. So we have to make our Chips smaller and smaller. This is were we'll hit the the limit, because in some creationprocesses light is used to build the structures and as soon as the size of the structures is in about the same scale as the wavelength of the light, diffraction prohibits accurate working. So if that Memristor thing doesn't work out, I guess it's up to the programmers to make better use of the potential of multicore systems, to make our computers faster...

Hey Stormbringer, DX 1 was fabulous indeed. But here is a quick hint for you: Don't destroy your good oppinion of the game by playing DX 2. It's actually a totally different game and a pure disappointment, if you wanted to play a real Deus Ex 2. Someone without any expectations might even consider the game to be good, but I can't see that. My gaming-spirit has been broken by that game and since then - like all the other realists here - I prefer to skip the ride on the disappointment train...

Agreed!

Well I didn't say the game was too hard. It was just too hard in the beginning 'cause I skilled wrong at first, but didn't wanna restart the whole thing. Later I even switched the difficulty to high and managed to rape the whole Citadel. In the end I really missed the challenge a little.

Austrian version of course: German + Violence! Especially in the high-budget-department of games you always got a really good localization. I also liked it in Bioshock or Oblivion for instance, but I don't make many friends with that oppinion I guess...

It actually uses Securom, which fucks around if you have daemon tools or similar installed. But you can hide those tools with YASU and you're ready to go. (I'd like to emphasize that this is no talk about cracking or anything. You just have to use that tool if you don't wanna uninstall your prefered dvd-emulation software)

A giant super-mutant? Where? I only saw those normal sized ones stronger than the regular super-mutants. I actually never realized a random spawn and my guess so far was, that the spawning is triggered after a couple of ingame days. The corpses are really lying around quite some time. There is a mission, where you're supposed to sneak in somewhere and plant a device without killing anybody(I'll keep it as general as possible). That was no problem at all because a few ingame days earlier, I already cleared that place out... Kinda sad, that the game didn't realize that, but well, nothing's perfect. Basically my only critique on that game is that you cannot do a quickjump to the actual game from the beginning. You always have to do the tutorial combined with answering a couple of questions like in oblivion and morrowind to define your character.

"Slow door-opening while creep", I like the sound of that. But combine it with the mousewheel technique like eigenface suggested and I'd perform a naked raindance for you! Free movement while slowly opening the door via mousewheel, triggered by simply holding creep during frob? -> Awesome!! This was also done very well in Splinter Cell, but in first person without bodyawareness you can't implement it that way, I guess.

I hardly watch any TV because of commercials and mostly crapy program, so I missed that spot. The link is down aparently but I just found a new one. Nice spot, considering it's Saturn we're talking about here. The commercials of that company are usually rather simple and seem to be adressed to rather simple people too... It's actually one of the companies I'd name first, if I were to give examples for bad marketing! But then again, I am not expert in this field, so I'll just shut up.

You could also just rely on us. After all, we're all thief fans, so we got a decent gaming-taste I guess...

Well as I already said, it's a lot better than oblivion, but not too well comparable to it. Basically the only thing both games have in common is the engine. The Roleplaying-system is different and the quests as well. In oblivion you mostly had smaller quests, but very many of them. Here you got really long questlines which can become very immersive, but on the other side, there apear to be too few. Altough it's possible I missed out on a bunch of them. Also there is some awesome action going on in this game. Totally worth buying. (I am trough too by now by the way) And for the hardcore players among us: A mod for disabling the questcopass (similar to oblivion) has already been released.

I had a blast when the first mini-nuke blew up in my face! The Scene when you go to GNR was simply awesome... =) I didn't finish the game so far though. I spent about two hours trying to get surround sound to run. With no success aparently...

Wow, I spent the last two days playing fallout 3 non-stop, but with little sleep and eat breaks of course. It's absolutely fabulous... I think bethesda learned a lot from the mistakes they did in oblivion. The fights are very intense and it's a nice level of difficulty. I must say though that I skilled a little wrong at first for my playstyle, but as I realized that I didn't want to start all over again. The only critic I have is that the controlls are clearly layouted for consoles and I hope there will soon be some interfacemods to get rid of that pipboy or at least create direct shortcuts to its submenus.

Yeah, you're right, the oldschool highlight is more powerfull, but if I were to choose, I'd still pick the (greyish-tweaked) TDS-method just for the visual effect... It looks awesome on unconscious/dead bodies and doors etc.

I also started with Thief 3, but I hated the default loot glint, whereas it was acceptable with John P.'s Texture pack. It was a little more subtle then... But I agree that it is not an option for The Dark Mod. After all, it's a PC game and let's just leave all that highlighting crap to the consoles. But I must say, that the frob highlight was very nice in T3. Sure, the color needed adjustment and toning down, what John P. also accomplished, but the idea was nice and it looks a little less boring than just lighting the whole object up. Why not put the normals to some use here?

Well the files are actually in the pk4, so you didn't need to create them manually again. But that still shouldn't cause the problem...