I must say this game looks very good compared to what I had expected. The terrain is convincing, and the environment is big. It gives you the ability to use the different weapons to their advantage. SMG's arent really much good in the open. I think the character models, as well, are better than expected. The eyes blink, they have normal human proportions, and the leaning is very realistic. Weapon-wise, you get a nice balance, and the M16/AK47 is not necessarily the best. The SKS is surely more accurate at medium/long range, and the Garand simply rules. They SMG's are good in tight too.

All in all, its a fun game, comperable to Global Operations, which was a fun good game, although it had a small following. It would be cool to see some maps with buildings and jungle (maybe rice paddies where u could semi submerge), and maybe an M 60 or M79 :P.

I always hated Vivendi. As an honest college student hoping to get a normal paying job out of college it loathes me that a corporation as big and greedy as Vivendi holds 40 percent of it's books in debt. France actually has a deeper hatred of Vivendi, stemming from its burgeoning red ink and high profile labels like Eminem. Trust me, we would all be happier to see Vivendi out of the gaming business.

I always loved that expansion. For an expansion, it was almost as long as the original, with better level design. It also had an awesome Multiplay aspect. The game shipped with 14 multiplayer maps. Several were made just for multiplayer, where several were redone from the game. It really was a great multiplayer expansion. I always wished Rogue would have done Q4, but I guess they arent a big enough house.

It looks like UT2003 is dead. I hadn't played for a month and fired it up to see about a game, and found like 25 DM games and 10 CTF games. Is UT2k3 really that low for servers running? I doubt they anywhere near approached their projected sales.

Oh well, I always said they copied Quake, way back when the original Unreal shipped. All the way down to the flies on the corpses, they copied Quake/Quake2. They even ripped a lot of Q3 architecture in this new one, which is really unprofessional for a major design house. Oh well, what goes around comes around.

Well I wish you all the best of luck on not smoking. I know its hard and I give you my good wishes.

I am going to pick AC2 up on Friday, seeing as I have time with my school too for some gaming. I wish I did not, however, but the job market is so horrible now that I can't even find a decent job for the life of me. I think there are a lot of lazy Americans out there nowadays too, spoiled by their union rep, and now that the market is tough its hard to get your foot in the door.

Alas, one day I searched frantically for my corpse on Eastham beach. It was after they changed minimum corpse time to 1 hour and I had rerolled after the sticky patch. I had a lvl8ish UA with xbow and was hunting Eastham but was lag killed way out in the ocean. Alas, some kind soul told me about using the next item key ([ or ]) until my corpse was highlighted. Saved me, cause all my fine equipment was on that 'toon.

I heard this one has a platoon leader decision mode where you either let your troopers rape the 12yr old girl (and maybe join in if you feel like other bonuses) and get a nice "aggro" bonus as well as "demoralize enemy" or you can do the right thing.

Ya its too bad about these guys. They put out Panzer Elite and kind of ruined their credibility in the Military SIM genre, but maybe it was unfounded. Too bad, really, they did a lot of good tank research for that series, just couldnt put it together.

Ya I played this game last Fall for about 2 months. After spending about a week at lvl 20ish outside the Frontier gate systematically leveling so I could even think about venturing out just to spectate some RVR, I had to quit. It figures, though, Vivindi publishes this game so expect to do a good bit of whoring for a few minutes of fun.

That's kind of funny. Although not focused on by history, the main reason the Italian Mafia got so much bad press (and led to so much violence, mostly internal) was because they were shunned by the Irish communities and Irish mob in Chicago. This was because the Irish, even the Irish mob, would never partake in prostitution, and thought it immoral, due to their duty to protect and serve the needing woman. The led to the type of friction so common in the late 20's, the bloodfueds, and general anarchy that led all Americans to believe the Italians to be socially corupt at their bones, all from the vice of prostitution and the Irish/German communities shunning it.

For one thing, many of my Forefathers served in the Union (in Iowa and Ohio) with distinction in the Civil War. That, IMO, is all the service I owe the African American citizens of this nation, for which my forefathers paid in blood. As far as owing women, well genetically I am half my mother, half my father. So, in that regard, I owe women nothing as well.

Let me tell you guys a little story (a true story, saw a documentary on it on TLC)...

There was a black man somewhere in the south that committed a murder, but the circumstances were not totally known. Nonetheless he was convicted and sentanced to like 20 years. Needless to say, he was a likable man and the guards at his maximum security prison came to believe his version of the story and ended up getting behind him during his numerous appeals/parole hearings until he was released after doing like 7 years. Well, as it turns out, he really did commit the first crime and after bieng parolled he commited 2 more horrible home-invasion murders and was later apprehended after a multi-state manhunt. Well, now he was convicted a second time (to death) and since the state isnt to large population wise he was sent back to the same prison, in the deathrow wing. Believe it or not, several of the same guards watched over him again. Well, you wouldn't be suprised to find out they were quite mad to be fooled and used the "N" word when conversing pertaining to him within earshot.

The story isn't quite over though, this man filed several lawsuits against the prison system for racism, bringing big news, the NAACP, and even a champion for civil rights, a catholic nun. She was so caught up in the whole affair (and, maybe a fetish or two of her own :P) that in the documentary interview she likened this monster to jesus in that both of them had been ridiculed by their jailers.

The morale of the story? If it was a white man who did this and someone called him a pervert, rapist, bastard, or any other derogatory term under the sun, it would be commonplace. Anyone else, its racism.

Well, strategy first does make a lot of games, and many good ones. I don't know what Cornered Rat is doing right now but Strategy First, their parent house, has been turning out quite a few decent titles this summer, so they obviously arent in some kind of consipiracy over this.

"I spent over $300 one month in warbirds when it was hourly. Big deal. Lemme rephrase though."...wasrad

"Anyone who would spend $100(or even $10 for that matter) month to play a bug ridden, POS game is a tool."...wasrad

I couldnt agree more. But for the right game, I would. I played battletech as a kid and loved it, the lore was very deep. I can imagine a fully immersive MMOFPS/RPS/Simulator online in the battletech universe, with all the mechs, vehicles, ships, and dropships in the tabletop as well as all the planets, factions, RPG aspects and open space. Its possible and I would play 100 a month to play it, it would be great.

Oh I totally agree with that statement Wasrad

A round of golf is 50 bucks easy, 3 drinks afterwards is 15 (although I don't drink), and a pizza is another 20, plus 2 movies at 5 bucks apiece, throw in 6 bucks for gas, thats 101 bucks buddy. People spend that easy on a Friday/Saturday, so 100bucks a month WOULD be a deal to lots of Americans.

Heck, when I was bodybuilding, I would spend 40-50 for the gym, at least 50 a month extra in gas, 100 a month for supplements, and probably 100 in supplemented food (chicken breasts, 1 gallon milk a day, etc)on top of my normal food. That right there is 240 a month and I did it for years w/out even thinking.

My WWIIOL experience was disheartening because I had a bad joystick bug back in July 2001, otherwise I would still be playing it. For those who enjoy the game, it is great. It's not for everyone, but that isnt the point. Me, I would pay 100bucks a month for a super game, and 200 to buy it at first. Why? because I would rather play with 2000 players that loved the game like me than 20,000 that wanted another cheeseburger. Imagine WWIIOL with the full vehicle set of the real war, BF1942's graphics, and satellite terrain modelling as well as dynamic vehicle pools. I would pay 100bucks a month for that and STILL have a great deal. I hope PC games go to "elite" membership, so they can make the money they need to on 1/10 the subscribers. Then everyone could play the game they want.

Today Indian representatives within the U.S.A. and abroad can mount opposition to a relatively obscure game that will not effect a single soul simply for political reasons. However, in India today, class racism is rampant and horrible. Entire sects of the population are degraded and oppressed, by the very classes of Indian Nationals we see in the United States today. Its the same with parts of the Muslim world; You can bring forth a federal lawsuit and bring out the NAACP if you are asked to leave an airline during major attacks upon U.S. soil on the grounds you are the victim of racial profiling, yet as we speak a Muslim man rapes an 11 year old girl in the Deserts of Afgahnistan, and Indian merchant spits on a poor lower caste whom his clan has held down for 800 years, a Motel owner in Southern California looks at his Indian wife and slides 1400 cash in daily reciepts into his safe, circumventing American taxes from business profits the American government granted him a special loan to buy (And if you refute this, there is a special task force created recently in California to deal with the huge problem of not paying taxes on businesses purchased by Far-East immigrants on Govt. Loans, its a huge scam).

I will say a few things here in defense of Turbine. First of all, they couldnt foresee the incredible twinking imbalances created by AC character development. This led to many of the design flaws you spoke of that permeated the game for many years (needing life magic, not worth training expensive melee skills, high end weakness of archers, etc). These I think wont show up in AC2. Also, the engine they originally used (before bieng picked up by MS) was not very adjustable so things like mounts, dual wield, and new animations werent really doable. The new engine in much more pliable.

One thing you are right about, certainly, is high end content and the missdirection AC took due to High level players driving high end development 8mos after release (bonelord/umbris/etc patches) that essentially exasperated the problem with twinking and life magic bieng needed. This should have been foreseen and ruined the game for countless players.

That said, I must say that AC was totally playable from launch. I never experienced a game shattering bug and, although at times compared to other players my characters seemed to be "cheated", I couldnt say I wasnt allowed to play the game and achieve normal advancement and rewards. Bieng able to untrain will greatly change many of the frustrations of AC. If the players accept that and play it for themselves and thier friends together we can circumvent some of the problems of AC.

Well I for one know that Turbine will put in new content every month. In Feb or March of 2000 they implemented 3 new armor types, essentially doubling the amount of armor in the game and making the top end stuff available 20% better than previously. That's only 2months after release! By March/April we had Shadows, by April/May we had the upper elite shadows (Umbris). By June/July they had implemented a new set of higher level monsters (High LVL Banderlings/Bone Lords/etc) that gave the game an entirely new structure and focus. That coupled with the monster Atlan quest that by this time most people were fullfilling, and AC was really starting to get packed with content. The Isle came in late 2000, and was a boon for higher lvl hunting. By Mid/Late 2001, they added a second area and then the expansion. So in 2 years they had, I would say, have 4x the monsters, 2-3x the equipment, and expanded the upper level hunting areas by 2-3x. Thats a lot, really.

I think I am looking forward to this game. One aspect I really liked about AC was the vast array of loot you could get. A player's wealth was truly measured by the loot he had accumulated and it ran the world economy. Servers like Harvestgain, by this time, are very rich in what players have amassed. The starter set, from the screens, look almost as deep as the current set, and considering what content has been added since AC launch (I would say maybe 5x), then its a good thing. I was a melee anyways, so the magic bieng dumbed down wont hurt me so much, and burden also wasnt a restriction to most melees over lvl10. Lets give it a chance guys. Email me if any of you want to hook up in Dereth... bigalski@vlnk.net