deanb

I did say "tad like". Not "this is worse than" or what not. It's jsut annoying in the carrot n stick approach, especially giving you nothing else to go on. Like if you could get DLC monsters in addition to regular monsters(maybe boss fight repeats) for the coliseum I wouldn't mind. But yeah it lets you in, tells you what it's for, then turns out that's not what it does unless you open up your wallet some more. Hardly like they've not set down the foundations on what to expect from "coliseum/arena" type areas in the game. edit: Also you've never played Mass Effect 2?(or 1, but it's 2 we tend to lock horns over). This changes everything!

I'm quiet enjoying it. Hate having to go back to Academia 400AF though. I wish the monster sorting was a bit better. Mainly to let me filter by the material level, so I can easily level them up, and maybe to group them by type too. About to get my fifth ..thingy that you need five of. I'm annoyed cos I'm running out of Wild Artefacts for my gate hopping, so I almost locked myself out of advancing the story (As best I can tell. I guess I could have grind for gil n just buy one from Serendipity). Also cos I want it out the way ASAP I'm currently walkthrough-ing it to some degree. Mainly in finding the artefacts n 5 things up to now.

First console game in some time to come out bug free with no patches needed?

Can I ask on what Obamas statements were that got him called a snob? Also "indoctrinate"? Really? That's the language of the McCarthy era. I assume those professors at Pittsburgh just taught their classes as normal huh? (I do agree college isn't for everyone, but it's not like college is the only HE route, nor are colleges purely academic either)

The Syndicate thing hasn't been mentioned, I did see it the other day though. Kinda neat.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/22/racknine-inc-fraudulent-election-calls-traced/ Ouch

How long do Beat Hazard sessions last? I'm not sure twin-stick shooters need that kind of feature adding for on the fly difficulty. Talking more shooters, RPG, action titles etc. As reminded by Elevens status, XIII-2 spawns chocobos around the area once you've "cleared" it. Thus you can come back, hop on a chocobo (does require a Ghysal Green, as per tradition) and wander around the area monster free to pick up items and other secrets. It's also the first FF game I've known of to come with a difficulty option too. (Can't be changed mid-game afaik though. I'll have a look next time I'm on)

30% aren't sexually active. Also age of consent is 16 here, so I guess I wouldn't bat an eyelid at a 17 year old having nookie. But I guess it's all just bad parenting over here in..well most of the rest of the world. (Improved sex-ed might help with those STI figures. Just accept teenagers will fuck, and thus it's better to teach safe sex than no sex)

Does anyone actually have any figures on this? A few of you have suggested that the market for story instead of not killing things is large, but I'd say that at first blush with titles such as farmville, angry birds n COD topping the charts I don't think that's really the case. Gameplay heavy games are king. The Metroid movie mode sounds very much like an LP viewing. In fact: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHllGUpXwk0 (I only got this top results cos I was wanting to check the inter-webs on what you're describing and it very much is basically a pre-cut LP of the game) As far as FFXIII goes most a large chunk of the criticism on it was the story was crap, but it's combat system was the saving grace. (Personally I liked it all, I just felt the pacing was off. But that would actually be made even worse with skipping the combat, it needed fleshing out with towns n breaks). Talking of FF, FFX does have a sort of "skip battles" feature in that at the end game you can pick up an accessory that disables random battles. Story battles, such as forced battles and boss fights, still happen. And if you've spent end-game avoiding levelling up, will end up harder than they should have been. Changing difficulty mid-game is a must. It's silly that this is still now an uncommon feature of games.

I could post them as part of a daily round-up. Would still be linking on to those sites and stories. Just on a technical level can't do the whole grid thing, or stuff like "The Cut" on PAR.

Well then Mr Batman Arkham City, would maybe you lot come to a consensus on which games specifically you're wanting to talk about then? Reason I'm going with the big brush is cos you guys are wanting a wide spectrum of games in which you'd love to be able to skip over the gameplay elements. Batman - action/stealth title Dragon Age - Party base WRPG Mass Effect - shooter based WRPG Bioshock - shooter MGS - stealth Grim Fandango - adventure game BF3 - shooter Witcher 2 - CRPG LA Noire - Detective/action game Heavy Rain - I don't know Skyrim - WRPG Agarest Zero - JRPG (etcetra. Sorry phone call mid way through this)

In combat games, then yes if you remove the combat, there's no gameplay. You kinda just took it out. I present to you the joke of turning off the gameplay in games: "We call it 'The Aristocrats'!"

I'm fine with Nuclear. But I live in a county with practically 0% chance of major natural disasters. I do like what Simspons has done for the perception of nuclear power though. Mainly that folks expect: So no one bats an eye at this Looks like most other factories around the area.

I've never once said that combat is the only form of gameplay. In fact in my OP I mentioned puzzles and strategy too. "Playing Portal, without having to do the puzzles. It's like bubble wrap without the air filling." So it should really be I downvoting you for not reading my initial post

In which world does combat =/= gameplay?

A lot of games come with adjustable difficulty, it's a viable compromise between who would like to play a game that's not cut up into tiny pieces of defined "game" and "not-game" parts, and those that suck and like DVDs. What exactly are people looking for? No combat cos it's too hard (in which case that's solved with lower difficulty), or no combat because they just want the story (in which case there's plenty of LPs). If you want to play a game, expect to end up...playing games. Do people just accidently wander into GAME and think they're getting something like LotR when they pick up a copy of Skyrim with "Games for Window" splashed across the front? I guess the BBFC sticker might cause some confusion on what it is they're buying, but not really enough to throw all the other elements out the window.

The operating costs for solar are higher due to needing to give it a wipe down once in a while? As opposed to the operating costs of needing to oil shit up, clean the mounds of coal dust, clean the smog scrubbers, etc etc? I think a bit of Pledge is pretty cheap in comparison. You get something exponentially prettier with wind-farms too. And as Ethan has stated the land can have a dual use like farming. Which maximises the energy output even more if it's for bio-ethanol crops. And it's hardly like land is something the US is running out of either. We manage plenty of wind farms around here and we're a teensy island. I understand initial setup of renewable sources can be expensive. But that's 99% of the cost, from there on all it's doing is getting cheaper and cheaper. Unlike things like a coal factory which require the initial building cost, then the continued maintenance, workers, cleaning, fuel input, and then the eventual expensive decommissioning. It's cost, cost, cost throughout the life span.

Like the already mentioned Uncharted, Batman, Skyrim and Bioshock? btw can I just point out that the person that actually brought up Batman as a game where folks would want to skip the combat is the same guy that wrote an 1,000 word essay on how "Rocksteady put the ‘bat’ in ‘combat’."

Yante Hydroelectric (if I'm reading that right) is on par with, if not cheaper, conventional production. And Hydroelectric supplies most of the US renewable energy supply. Wind, as you've noted, does rather well for itself too. Also note the $0 operating cost across the board with most of them. They really pay for themselves long-term, especially as they'll keep the pretty flat line operating costs, while as fossil fuels become more scarce, is going to crank up the cost. Once you've got a solar panel in place, it doesn't need anything else added. No lumps of uranium, or tanks of gas and shovels of coal. As for land cost: Not like coal mining is much better. At least nobody is really aiming to make any major use of the sea. As for the estimates, where you looking? BP reckon 40 (now 35) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2888054/Theres-enough-oil-left-to-last-for-40-years-says-BP.html And that's without the whole bother that Saudi Arabia might be lying about their oil reserves.

Pretty much this is about as close you'll get to a working implementation. "Very Easy" mode. And many games already do it. Could you imagine instead a Bioshock devoid of splicers? It'd be stupid. Or splicers that just stood there. Half the point to Bioshock and its happenings are around the combat. "You're going to have to take out a Big Daddy, those tough things you've seen around n about. This is a tense part of the game". And in the game all you have to do is walk up to one and...I don't know. Maybe it just drops dead on its own? God could you imagine that opening section, hearing the splicers going about and losing all tenseness cos you know it doesn't actually matter. "Now get something heavy like a wrench even though you don't need to do anything with it" "Now you're going to need some ADAM...for some reason". Bleurgh. You're playing for a story that now largely doesn't matter any more. "ooh do I save the little sisters or harvest her?". Not really a choice now given that you have zero need to harvest her. In a film I can't my dialog choices, affect the ending, etc. Yes there are visual novels but those tend to all be very similar in terms of themes, settings, etc. Most games you can't do that either. If the choice of themes aren't to your liking in Visual Novels that's not really an issue of Visual Novels themselves, just the developers. Hardly like it's limited to mainly being anime style stuff.

Yante how is sustainable energy an unsustainable business? It's not really the problem with renewable energy companies themselves if corrupt politicians abuse the system. I don't know how utilities are set up in the US, but in the UK most (if not all) renewable energy projects are done by the power companies themselves. Since they sell power, they kind of need more ways to make power as demand rises. And we've a fair amount of coast and tides to make use of. Solar not so much, 'tis a bit cloudy. There's also incentives for home owners to use small scale stuff like mini windmills and solar panels buy allowing them to sell excess to the national grid. "may be right"? "may"? Also I thought you weren't for social programs? And we are looking for solutions, and many solutions work(you guys in the US do well with hydro-electricity. Try telling the folks of Nevada that renewable energy is garbage). The problem seems to be that the incentives aren't always applied effectively. Yes pouring billions into companies to buy shares and bankrupt it does seem to be a scam, but the way you've described it makes it sound like one put in action by and for politicians, nothing at all to do with the particular industry of the company. edit: Then WTF posts an essay. I wouldn't bring up fusion. If Yante things the other renewable are expensive I'd hate to hear this thought on the research costs into that

New question: Dinosaurs?

Well I'm part way through FFXIII-2, and for non-console periods I'm also working on Bioshock 2. I'm not as good at it was I was in Bioshock 1. I burn through health quite a bit. I kinda miss my human weapons like the wrench. My current weapons are tied down by ammo needs and also feel somewhat clunky. The adam gathering is a tad tedious too, though somewhat cool too as well I guess.