Solbe M'ko

It may seem like it would be a politically appropriate thing to do, but I would be genuinely surprised if Austrailia joined with the US in my lifetime. Australia would have to give up their way of government, among other things. I doubt that the people would be in favour of that, despite the appeal. Peopple have been saying that Canada will someday be the 51st state for 200 years, it wont happen, though.

Make sure you follow the instructions. Did you modify your Lucasarts folder at all? If it keeps up, try reinstalling; I dunno.

Erm.... Now Hunter said that if you don't play with force you don't know how to counter it. True. However, if you do play with force, you don't know how to play without it, more often than not. This one time, I stumbled into an FF server. This one guy started running his mouth about me being a "n00b", etc. after I lost a few to some grip spamming. I challenged him to an NF match, and whupped him royally. Then he booted me. My view of an "expert" is someone who is consistantly victorious using certain parameters. Even just turning kicking on/off can make a huge difference. The reason that I don't share your view of an expert having to be able to play in an FF/guns/all-out environment is that I find that certain skills get neglected when everything is available. I played a few FF FFAs recently and at first, I did poorly, but then I just decided to stick with what I know, sabers, and I did okay. It's te same as saying that a sniper isn't an "expert" because he doesn't use the flechette gun. He is a specialist, as most good players are. Jacks-of-all-trades need to practice a lot more rigourously, and don't perform as well in certain situations as players who practice specifically for those situations. A triathlete probably couldn't run as fast as a sprinter, because the sprinter is a specialist. Now that doesn't mean the sprinter could out swim a triathlete, mind you.

My favorite is in the NS level where you meet Lando. There's a big group of Rodians and Gran below you. You force pull one of them straight up into the air; he falls to his death, landing right on top of an explosive; his friends get hurt or killed by the blast. I love it!

The way I look at it, good EU doesn't go against anything put forth in the movies. Great EU doesn't go against the movies or other (good) EU. The rest is all not good. Bloodriot sez: I find quite the opposite. It would be easy to write a SW story that didn't conflict with the movies: use all new characters, etc. The preoblem with that is some of the familiarity would be lost, as most people already understand Luke Skywalker, for example. The trick is using those characters wisely and staying true to the films. The reason that, for example, JO didn't have a great storyline is that they tried to make it accesible to casual SW enthusiasts, by adding Cameos by guys like Lando and Luke, and using familiar environments. Anyway, the next DF should not take place in the prequel era. Maybe another franchise could, but not DF, it wouldn't make sense. To that end, JA barely counts as a DF game at all, as the DF series is synonomous with Kyle Katarn, in my opinion.

I stopped listening to PC Gamer when they got their new management. Those mags used to be a good 3cm thick, but now they're like 0.5cm and they're all ads. Plus the reviewers aren't as good as the old crew. Besides, E3 had so much to show this year, it's not surprising that this game didn't get a big mention. HL2.... this game just doesn't compete, I'm afraid.

I have a dumb question: Is Force Lightning actually electricity or is it just force "magic"? It seems to me that Yoda channelling an actual lightning bolt is pretty far out; if it was just "the force" it would make more sense, I think.

Kyle changed a lot from the earlier games to JO. His whole "former imp" storyline was sort of forgotten. Jan has always been looking out for Kyle throughout the series. She was who convinced Mon Mothma to let Kyle work for the Rebels (at least that's how I remember it). Mothma was skeptical of Kyle's history, so Jan had to cut the deal. Plus Jan has always been there to get Kyle out of dangerous situations. Speaking of which, if Jan does make a cameo, I think it should be after a mission with Kyle, where you are introduced inside the Raven's Claw (or the Mouldy Crow, or whatever it is now). Speaking of which, what's the deal with the Z-95 wings duct-taped onto the Crow? The original Mouldy Crow had a cooler shape, IMO, better looking engines, too.

It may turn out that Drain would actually become weaker as a result of the change (although unlikely ). The force cost could be huge, for example, and it might not take away more than, say, 15 hp. Maybe. I think we need to wait for the game to come out before we can begin debating the balancing issues. THIS, however, is going to be a problem for me: No Twi' Lek males? No Zabrak males? Geez, that kind of belittles the idea of making your own character in this game. There were Rodian females in the movies, Twi' Lek males, and Zabrak males. Kel Dor is the only one where they have an excuse, as far as I'm concerned. I hate to say it, but this game, as I learn more about it, is losing some of its appeal for me. Back to the force, though. Hopefully the force powers will turn out to be pretty much equally useful, at least for multiplayer.

Prime sez: In a few countries, possibly including Germany, those are, in fact, the legal standards. Media watchdog groups in these countries make sure that no human-beings are killed in computer games. This often leads to the human characters being turned green and labelled "zombies". Dehumanization of the enemy is very important in video games. It also applies to real life. During the second world war, plenty of posters were put up that depicted Germans as anti-sematic, baby killing monsters. By convincing people that this was true, it supposedly made it easier for allied soldiers to kill them, as the moral issues would be better defined. Anyway, back to the topic, the damage model should apply to the gameplay type. If there is lots of sneaking around, 1-hit-kills make sense. If it's a Duke Nukem style shoot-em-up, 1-hit-kills would make the game pretty simple, so should be avoided.

That would be a neat idea for an RPG, but for JA I think it would be too limited and would get to a point where if you havn't finished the game, you don't have a chance.

Assuming these guys are actually pros, you are just going to have to get to be a better player. Here's a tip: Get good at duels, then go play saber only team games and FFAs. I started playing Team FFAs and I can rock the house, simply because I know how to duel.

That's some good news! Whew! I think that the lightsabers should have an increased effectiveness against guns in MP. It seems to me that if I put my defense up to level 3, I can still deflect only a small minority of the shots coming at me. Plus, the guns do a good deal more damage in a shorter amount of time than the sabers. This should be remedied, in my opinion, so that the sabers are more intimidating in team based games. Anyway, the most important thing is that all 3 saber types have some distinction, and that the distinction makes sense and is balanced.

The only problem with that is you will undoubtedly be accused of being an "anti-american" or a "hippy" by the unwashed hordes of voters who don't care to get the facts, they would rather listen to George Dubya tell them what is really happening. Lobbying the government works on things like bylaws (BTW, it is now legal in my city to trap stray cats with traps provided by the city:rolleyes: ) but for the important issues, I find, unless you have money/political clout/a hell of a lot of people behind you, it's very unlikely that you can do anything about it. Your best bet would be to vote the guy out, and make sure people know why you did.

I agree that tends to be a problem. Capcom isn't a good example though, they were still riding the street fighter series when RE1 came out, so it's not like they were the little fish in a big pond. Games like that don't balance SW style with good gameplay mechanics (like Force Commander, IMO). They are just games for games' sake, and don't portray the Star Wars universe with as much appeal to SW fans, and as such, should be avoided by LEC and left to companies that have less of a fan base depending on continuing quality. That's what I think, anyway.