David Hingtgen

I totally agree with Knight26, have thought that from the beginning.

GI Joe way over-used CGI. How/why? Because they used it for things that could easily have been done in real-life, possibly even cheaper. Most egregious example was "Apache helicopters flying over a desert". They spent time and money rendering that? Aren't there like a billion free-domain clips of that from Desert Storm/OEF/OIF? That's like rendering footage of a sunset or a baby bird emerging from its egg---there's SO many out there that people aren't going to recognize that scene it wasn't filmed specifically for the movie. And it'd have looked better. Bad CGI tends to look worse than bad models IMHO. A LOT more models are used in scenes than people realize----especially when there's already CG in said movie, they still use a lot of models, and "the really good FX scenes" often weren't super-impressive CGI, that's where they actually built a model.

Like the YF-23 had, one in front of the other... (or rather, what a production F-23A would have had--they would have stretched the forward fuselage slightly to make room for a Sidewinder bay right ahead of the AMRAAM bay)

I just had a really cool choice. I was like "I can't believe they're actually letting me choose, and that my choice will actually affect the game this way". Let's just say I chose a very renegade option. Very minor spoiler: it was during

No. I've (accidently) seen that term mentioned on a forum, but have tried hard NOT to find out what it is. And until you posted it, I had no idea that "whatever it is" can be acquired by your party, so when it shows up, now it's spoiled that I'll eventually get it.

No one's posted these yet?

I'm not clicking on anybody's spoilers, in case I haven't gotten there yet, so if I don't reply, that's why.

Disc 2 of Xenogears was more "ran out of time", than budget, IIRC. Which is part of my point--for only being 2/3 done, it's still better than anything else. Imagine if they'd completed it! As for Xenosaga---Episode 2 sucks, but 3 is the best of the series. If you must play 2, do it as quickly as possible---cheat, skip sidequests etc. Episode 2 is pretty much entirely about Jr/Albedo, with a cameo appearance by Kos-Mos.

I don't recall turian/asari, but there's a long/funny turian/quarian one. There's an awesome volus hitting on (I think) an asari, but I can't find him any more.

Yeah, I found THAT out the hard way. Now I resolve to feed them first thing every time I go to Shep's cabin. I'm just glad I didn't buy the hamster. My model ship collection's pretty nice now though. Can't really think of anything that's MISSING, but it looks like there's space for one more, maybe two small ones. PS---has no one else heard the entire "bachelor party" conversation? OMG if it's true, and it'd explain a lot. And ruin a lot. (it's in the bar on Illium if you're looking for it) AFAIK the current guess on the 'net is that it's just a funny easter egg from Bioware, and not supposed to be canon. (they are really drunk) (but again--it'd explain something very well)

Zoe's mom is an idiot.

It's still faster than the Mako, where you might need to spend 5 mins going around/across a mountain, just to find one tiny deposit. I can scan multiple planets in 5 mins. Also--mid 20's completion? I'm sure it can be done, just like ME 1 can be done in 7 hours, if you skip EVERYTHING that you don't HAVE to do. But skipping all the major sidequests and characters and upgrades kinds of defeats the whole "RPG/story" aspect.

There is, but it's not THAT much faster. Just to make sure--you don't scan WHILE moving the cursor? That is very slow. The best method is to move cursor, scan real quick, move cursor, scan real quick. Kind of "dot" around the planet. If there's anything worth actually probing you'll get a spike, THEN move the cursor while scanning to maximize the spike. Anything that method will miss, will only be a small deposit anyways. Or in short---I constantly move the thumbstick, but only briefly "blip" the L-trigger for a split-second scan. Scanning is instantaneous---if there's anything in the area worth getting, it'll show up in .0001 secs and the "trace" takes several seconds to fade. I would say a planet is 4 or 5 "blips" tall. I just constantly rake the cursor up and down, blipping the L-trigger along the way. And with a small amount of R-thumbstick often to rotate the planet, so that my vertical tracks cover different swaths. Also, a small factor that adds up---the planets naturally rotate. So rotate WITH them, not against them with the R-thumbstick. And of course, if the planet doesn't start out as rich or good, don't even bother. (unless Element Zero is mentioned in the description---eezo is like 1 in 15 planets or so, so if you find any, scour the planet and strip it bare even if there's not much to start with)

I'll keep it short. 1. Xenogears. Best story, best music. 2. Valkyrie Profile. 2nd best story, tied for best music. Maybe 3 could be Mass Effect (as a whole) for story/gameplay.

I think it's second only to Macross Plus. As for 13-year-old? Maybe. You'll know by the 1st ep if you think it's ok.

I haven't heard much yet, but I've only done 3 loyalty missions. Having played ME 1 sveral times, there really never was THAT much dialogue between characters outside of cutscenes. DA:O had much more. I figure ME 2 will be like ME 1 in that regard. Also, there's a lot more characters to choose from, so it'd be harder to write for EVERY possible combination. A decent exchange between Tali and Grunt starting his (though I think that was more simply arriving on the planet the first time than actually his mission) 32 hours? Hmmmn. I've got a ways to go to get to that "ultra-cool revelation" then. (the big one today just couldn't be the BIG reveal of the entire game, it simply wasn't enough--and it was too quick IMHO)

New ep tonight, Mandalorians.

Stupid question I thought of. British pronunciation of "pad". Will iPad and iPod sound near-identical when spoken with a British accent?

No Legends Dev, but found Animated Arcee.

I think CoryHolmes may be talking about the big reveal I just got today. 'cuz I had never even suspected such a thing, and no one had even whispered a guess AFAIK. It's the first really big reveal of the game. BeyondTheGrave---the game is apparently very picky about profiles/consoles/HDD. If anything was changed at any point during the run or since that save was made, ME 2 probably won't accept it. (thus, I'm not sure my Paragon Shep will be accepted--I'll see later) PS---a full install takes 12.4 gigs. Which is quite a lot for us 20GB HDD users! (since only 13.7 or so are usable). I was clearing out Oblivion saves to make room (they're 17MB each)

It's got little fins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp0yd6no7B4...player_embedded

I might have to do an ultra-quick "female paragon" play of ME 1 to set up what I want to do. (casual+level 60=enemies die quick) PS---if someone comes across a pic of a FULLY Renegade Femshep, I'd like to see it. (I bet someone's got one already, but I dare not search for it, for I'm certain it'd be in a thread/forum just full of spoilers)

Armor options are still very limited, and I have every party member now. Anyways--I don't think I'm going to be able to see how max Renegade looks. Paragon seems to "counter" it. And it's almost impossible to avoid ALL Paragon points. Mainly, I got a big boost just from importing an ME 1 character, where it's quite easy to have a LOT of points in both categories. Anyways, I must have JUST gone over the threshold for one full "bar" of paragon points, as my FemShep now looks like she did a few hours ago. Thus, I think it's clear that's there's only a few distinct "stages", and that it's the sum of Renegade and Paragon. (thus, even if you maxed Renegade but had a lot of Paragon points, you wouldn't look very Renegade). Maybe I should have used my level 51 character--she was PURE renegade I think and thus wouldn't have had any Paragon points to start and I could probably have gotten so few it'd never "count". PS--I'd heard that starting from scratch is actually a fairly renegade story, with the council dying in ME 1. True?

It's faster, I'll say that. Anyways---I want Eclipse armor too. All the enemies have the cool-looking armor that I want.