re: seaman

i also finished it and it is one of my most unique video game memories ever. i'm still disappointed that the announced sequel never materialized.

i spent about 6 years in columbus after college and worked for compuserve (then aol once they bought us). not knowing where you're from, i can say columbus is much cheaper than redmond/seattle (where i've been for the last 3+ years since leaving).

i never had a house or mortgage, but was paying about $750 rent for a 3 bedroom townhouse in the grandview/arlington area. those are some of the nicer and older neighbors. they have a nice mix of familys and post-college kids that are living on their own. grandview in particular has a nice mix of restaurants, coffeehouses, bars and an art cinema and is one of the small social scenes in the city.

bills averaged $30 for electric, about $30 for gas (heating and a gas stove) and typical rates for phone/cable/internet, though truth be told i somewhat froze myslf a little thru the winters since i balked at having $100 heating bills even if i could afford to pay them (old habit from when i was poor and couldn't).

i would say to scale all those numbers up some if you're gonna have a house, though they might be comparable since i lived in a lot of old, drafty brick and wooden buildings.

crime is gonna be the same from any other fair sized city. even though i was in a nice neighborhood, at one point i lived right on the edge of low rent campus apartments and i did have my apartment broken into. i quickly moved away from there and away from campus (ohio state university) and felt a bit safer. just do some research, pick a nice neighborhood and you'll be fine.

ohio drivers tend to speed a bit (and that's where i grew up and learned to drive) but honestly, i think they're average compared to other places i've been (new orleans drivers are down right dangerous and seattle drivers are some of the most rude and self-centered drivers i've ever seen).

all in all i wouldn't mind going back to columbus. the cost of living was nice for as large as the city was.

oh, and being a fan of the ohio state buckeyes football team will go a long way towards ingratiating you with the locals... large parts of the city eat, sleep, live and die by the buckeyes. consider yourself warned.

-jester

that's exactly what i was thinking... bioforge was supposed to have a sequel but it never materialized... maybe this game will be a "spiritual successor" to more than just system shock.

This comment was edited on Oct 8, 23:59.

having just watched the streaming interview with ken levine on gamespot, you're going to be disappointed. those aren't screenshots, they're concept art. and when it says it's been in "development for three years now", what ken really meant was they've been tinkering with the design document for 3 years. there's no working code for this game and i seriously doubt it will see the light of day in under a year.

this is not to be down on the game, however. i'm as big a fan of the SS series as the next geek. it's just that blues comment above misinterprets the truth of the interview, which was revealed in the streaming video of ken levine, and not the written gamespot piece.

just don't go holding your breath on this one yet cause it's still a long way off.