jase12881

I wouldn't really call the answer a spoiler...but just in case... Spoiler: Click here to viewI myself have insane lockpicking skill (95), so that's how i got in...but while discussing the game with a friend earlier, he told me that he swam in. Apparently there's a hole in the bottom of the boat somewhere. I haven't tried this myself, so hopefully it works.

To avoid giving away any kind of spoilers I'm going to put this entire post in spoiler tags, as it WILL contain quest information and the like. Also it's a bit long and a bit rambly...detailing pretty much my entire experience thus far (I'm not super far into the game...just reached the second part of the main quest). Spoiler: Click here to viewOk, so I decided to play a complete psycho character...at first I was gonna be just generally evil (which I'm very evil, early in the game) but somewhere along the way I realized that I like occasionally doing quests the good way. So basically I'm the guy who might help you or totally slaughter you. I went to Megaton, was nice to the sheriff, but decided for some reason to kill the town doctor and one of the sleeping wounded. Then I tried to get information from Moriarity...he wanted 100 caps...then 300 caps. I got pissed. After hacking his computer terminal (you can either hack it, or lockpick the locker and get his password or steal his password from him.), I decided that even though I got the information I was still mad. So I waited until night time, picked the door to his room, and bashed his head in with a sledgehammer. It was quite awesome actually. I've stolen everything that's not nailed down, and killed pretty much anyone I find alone and vulnerable who isn't useful. I was able to recruit Jericho very early on in the game (though it took me a while to save up the 1000 bottlecaps he requires. For anyone who is evil, I highly recommend recruiting him. He's not -that- helpful in combat, but you can give him stuff to carry, making it easy to take a shitload of loot back to sell without being overencumbered. I disarmed the bomb too...mostly because I preferred to get my reward right away and didn't want to blow up Megaton before all the quests were done. I had a hell of a time finding the "Family" for Blood Ties...I'm 1/3 of the way through the last chapter of the survival guide for the chick at craterside supply (with the annoying voice) and I just made it to the radio station in the main quest and spoke with the guy who you need to talk to. Oh, and I just got Dogmeat. It's awesome having Dogmeat and Jericho...it's like having a party of three in the type of game where you're normally alone. I dunno why Jericho is able to wear the Brotherhood of Steel armor though and I'm not While I want to be evil, I often end up doing good just because I can't bring myself to be evil 100% of the time. I'm more down for the rewards than the karma changes. Luckily I steal and murder a lot so I stay evil pretty much no matter how much good I do. Oh, also...awesome moment..if you're evil (I think just if you're evil, but who knows)...eventually bounty hunters will come after you...apparently hired by the good people of the Waste...I got them when I was level 6 or 7...when I had the title of Pirate of the Waste. Interestingly though, I started a female character just to see if any dialog changes (and it does..slightly) but ended up taking the Black Widow perk. It opens up what may be an entirely new result with the Mr. Burke/Blowing up Megaton quest. Also when playing my female character I found out that I missed that you can kill the Overseer whilst escaping, the first time. It would have made a nice little moment for my psychopath. I rented this. While I almost dismissed it at first as Oblivion (which I was disappointed in) in a different setting...I'm glad I didn't. The game has grown on me so much since then. It's not perfect, there's some graphical anomalies (like wavy looking spider thingies in the air randomly at times) but there's a whole bunch of little touches in the game that just make you go "Wow...that's awesome". I imagine there's so many different choices you can make that this would be the kind of game with enough replay value for me to buy.

Actually Insurance Fraud is insanely easy. Incredibly easy in fact, if you go to the freeways (Think seperated lanes...green signs etc.). Then simply jump at anything that moves and hit RT or LT and always try to land either on or directly in front of another vehicle. You have an incredible amount of control of yourself in the air. Ideally you want to run towards semis and jump so that they hit you at the top of your jump. Using this method I've gotten over 570k in a single dive. I tried to keep bouncing around and see if I could reach a million, but I mistimed judged a landing and ended up on the center line. Completely ignore the adrenaline areas...unless you have a bad go at it altogether you don't need adrenaline at all. Also don't worry too much about time..,you can probably get the level 6 (500,000 in 6 minutes) in 2 and a half minutes with even a decent amount of luck. I had heard people on one of the ign or gamespot forums (don't remember which) suggest jumping out of a helicopter. And while this is good...it's completely unnecessary. Just find the express way and jump into shit...it's by far the easiest of the mission types.

I guess it would be a kind of useful features for the reasons you guys already mentioned, but it probably won't be a huge selling point for most people, myself included. That said though, if they were to allow you to use these videos for titantrons for CAWs...that could be kinda cool I guess. That probably will be something we'll get in the future rather than this year though.

If Patriots fans start whining that their team doesn't win every game now, I'm gonna puke. I'm generally not -too- much of a Patriot hater....but hey you can't expect to lose your star QB and win 16 regular season games. And as healthy as Brady has been the last few years, it was bound to happen eventually. As for Cassel not being as good as Orlovski...I don't know. I haven't watched Cassel play, but I don't think the Lions would put up any points on the Chargers. But I bet if the Patriots are willing to give up some draft picks or something, the Lions would be willing to part with Kitna. I've heard they may trade him during the season anyways.

I found that playing goalie is tough. Sometimes you'll face less than 10 shots...and sometimes you'll face around 30 on 5 minute periods (Only playing All-Star difficulty though). One thing that makes sitting there watching a little more tolerable is that if you press select your view will follow the puck instead of being from behind your goalie. Press select again to change it back. It's tough to make saves from this view, but it's good for seeing the action when the puck is in the other end.

Ok that Lions game pissed me off. I was ok when I was going into it expecting a blowout (and big numbers for AP who is on my fantasy team), but after the Lions scored the touchdown, I was thinking they could actually win. And to have them lose the way they did (basically on a phantom pass interference call) is just frustrating. The Lions have enough trouble winning without the refs handing the game to the other team. The Vikings found a way to get it done I guess, but if that pass interference hadn't been called, it would have been 4th and long from their own 30ish. I guess I should actually be happy that the D showed up to play for once, and I can stop calling them the Etroit Lions (No D in Detroit), but man...that should have been a win. Even with Orlovski's colossal gaffe (running out of the back of the endzone for a safety). I should just quit watching football. It's really not good for me. EDIT - Ok....3rd and 20 from the 30. And looking back at it...I guess I could theoretically see what they were calling, but I still disagree with the call. The Calvin Johnson fumble call from earlier in the game was just ridiculous though.

So late last night I played my BAP mode Power Forward (right wing, Pittsburgh) and I had been in a bit of a slump lately (mostly due to me not being able to pull off slapshots due to the controls....I just have a hard time going straight back and straight forward everytime), so I was happy when I scored the first goal of the game. Then, being that I hadn't even had a goal in a few games, imagine my delight when I took a beautiful pass from a teammate and backhanded it off the post for another goal. Now imagine my horror when i saw the replay and realized that my beautiful goal had come against my own goalie. >_< Ouch. I wish I had saved the replay. I did manage to score the gamewinner after that though, late in the third period to win the game 2-1, but I honestly didn't know you could even legitimately shoot on your own goalie. I also made this hit...which I -think- is a fairly good one...but might just be run of the mill http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/video/1530865

So...finally figured out how to upload videos Sometimes the only way I'm able to score is by pure luck as evidenced in the video linked below. http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/video/1114503 Please note that this at 25% speed. It really happened much much (about 75%) faster. Poor goalie didn't have a chance to read it.

That wasn't a big deal to me. But then again, my last name is Smith, so most games that have any names pronounced pronounce mine I agree it's probably the most realistic hockey game I've ever played. That said, it does have it's flaws...the cpu scores way too easily in BAP. The opposing cpu I mean. They always seem to turn the most unlikely shot (like a slapshot from just inside the zone with nobody screening the goalie...against a 90+ rated goalie) into goals. Well...that's really my only complaint so far...other than the penalties are probably too rare by default, and some small realism nitpicks, but it's still probably the best hockey game I've ever played. I love scoring with the analog sticks (though sometimes I still pull it back crooked and do the holdaway thing instead of winding a slapshot). I was thinking of getting online and joining a team. I dunno how it's done though....is there a place where people are requesting new players for their team? I don't think I'd be good enough to play with you guys, even if you'd have me EDIT- Sorry forgot to mention...xbox360. Not sure if it matters to game play...but still. I'll send you an invite which will appear in your player hub (which is somewhere in the XBOX Live menu, possibly clicking the right stick). What's your tag? DigitalDeadmeat is my tag. Yeah I know lame...but it fits. Especially for shooters I'll be around tomorrow so hopefully I can get into a game then

That wasn't a big deal to me. But then again, my last name is Smith, so most games that have any names pronounced pronounce mine I agree it's probably the most realistic hockey game I've ever played. That said, it does have it's flaws...the cpu scores way too easily in BAP. The opposing cpu I mean. They always seem to turn the most unlikely shot (like a slapshot from just inside the zone with nobody screening the goalie...against a 90+ rated goalie) into goals. Well...that's really my only complaint so far...other than the penalties are probably too rare by default, and some small realism nitpicks, but it's still probably the best hockey game I've ever played. I love scoring with the analog sticks (though sometimes I still pull it back crooked and do the holdaway thing instead of winding a slapshot). I was thinking of getting online and joining a team. I dunno how it's done though....is there a place where people are requesting new players for their team? I don't think I'd be good enough to play with you guys, even if you'd have me EDIT- Sorry forgot to mention...xbox360. Not sure if it matters to game play...but still.

Generally I am fairly happy with my video game purchases. The reason for this is that I'm usually pretty careful. I don't buy a game unless I rented it enough to know that I enjoy it and it has replay value. And it's usually at a bargain. In fact, the only game that I bought at release in the past few years is GTA:SA. And I definitely didn't regret that one. That said, There were a couple missteps. 1.) NFL 2k3 (I think it was 2k3....it was like a year or two before they got the ESPN license)- I only bought it because it was a ps2 game for $8.00. That said, I never even got -that- much playing out of the game. I played it once. Hated it. Never opened it again. 2.) Civilization 3 - PC. This is not because it is a bad game necessarily, but because for whatever reason, I never got interested in playing it enough to open it. It's still unopened somewhere in one my computer desk drawers. It was only $10.00 when I bought it though. 3.) NHL 2k8 - PS2. Not only did this suck compared to the other NHL game I own (NHL 2k4) but I bought it shortly before i bought my 360 and stopped playing PS2 games. 4.) Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI - I enjoy this game, but I bought it probably 3 days before I bought my Xbox360, and as such I've only played it maybe twice. 5.) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I enjoyed the game, and I knew exactly what I was getting when I bought it. But after buying it I played it maybe once. I had already beaten it from renting and I just couldn't get into it again after that.

Actually, they need to hire someone with some front office experience. Either a former GM (good luck) or an assistant GM on a winning team. I'm not sure how much luck they'll have. Everyone I heard talk about it said that it would be a good situation for a GM (New GMs are almost always inheriting a mess, and at least with the Lions you know you have 7-8 years to turn them around ), but I'm still not sure anyone would want to come to Detroit. It seems to be a career killer for GMs, Head Coaches, and Quarterbacks.

Thank God! Now maybe if we can get a decent GM, we'll have a decent team in about 10 years when we recover from the Salary Cap Hell that Millen put us in. This year however, I'm just dreading seeing our final record. This Lions team looks to be the worst Lions team that I've ever seen play. And I've been watching since 1991 (when I was 10), so that's saying something. I wonder what they'll do with www.firemillen.com. Actually, I wonder what the Lions fans rallying cry will be now that Millen is gone? Fire Marinelli? Sell the team Ford? Who knows. Either way this is a day to celebrate if you're a Lions fan. Let's just hope they don't screw the pooch and actually get someone who knows what he's doing in there.

It's new for this year's version. I've also noticed that they added a few new lines of commentary. They're just as badly done as previous years (or nearly so) but at least they're not -exactly- the same as they've been in the past few years. Granted it was nothing earth shattering, and the majority of the commentary IS the same. But at least they added -something- which is a slight step-up from last year when they added absolutely nothing. Create a finisher seems cool....tag team dynamic looks like it could be interesting. Only thing about CAF is that according to that interview with the developer...you won't be able to use struggle submissions in it. That would be fine, if they would allow tapouts to non-SS moves...but I don't know if that's the case. I hated last year that maybe only 10 submission moves could result in submissions and the others were just there for damage. Ankle lock as a finisher was useless because it wasn't a struggle submission. And I like the character specific storylines IF they still include a general storyline with text that has depth.

I kinda wonder when I hear the stats some of you put up in Be a Pro....mostly I wonder how. I'm terrible at goal scoring...everytime I do score it's mostly luck (although I did have one awesome goal when I first started). Part of this may be attributed to the fact that I played the longest as a defenseman and second longest as a goalie. Speaking of goalie...it's damn tough. I feel that I might finally be getting the hang of it after all the practice I've been putting in though. The last game I played as a goalie was on All-Star difficulty, and I faced 19 shots and allowed 1 goal (5 minute periods). I actually earned the first star in that game. And I've gotten better on defense than I was...when I first started I was letting in goals left and right, but now I usually do a good job of being where I'm supposed to be and stopping people. I still can't score though. I have a "dangler" right wing but not only do I usually fail to outdeke (using the 1 on 1 deke) defensive players, but my shots rarely go where I want them, and the goalie is rarely faked out.

Woah woah woah......hold the phone. Did you just actually imply that someone could sign with the Lions and revive their career? Are you insane sir? The Lions are where careers go to die. This is especially true at QB. Sure Kitna has proven that he's solid enough to be a backup on most teams, but for the most part being a Lions QB is taking a paycheck to get beat up and booed. And I fully expected the Lions defense to be (somehow) worse than last year...but if they play as badly the entire year as they did in that first game, the Lions might just as well forfeit the rest of the season. See, Lions fans agree, if our defense is worthy of forfeiture of the season. Jase, do you also find it peculiar that our first and second round draft picks are not starters when we needed them to be starters? Do you also find it a bit strange that they are probably better players than the incumbents they were drafted to replace, and yet are still on the bench? I'm having serious questions about Marinelli's ability to evaluate talent. I just assumed that they were way behind on where they were supposed to be as far as learning the playbook and whathaveyou. They could also be lazy and not working hard enough to earn a starting spot. I can't blame them....as soon as you become a Lion you learn that busting your ass will still get you nowhere . Or maybe Marinelli came to the realization that they completely screwed up the draft and doesn't trust the talent of any of the rookies. I would like to believe that we only had a hard time with Michael Turner because he's tough to tackle and our defense is on the small side...but then Jerious Norwood (sp?) almost broke 100 yards as well, on far less carries. I really really fear what the Lions will look like against the Packers, who by all accounts should be a better team than Atlanta. Also....I was getting a bit irritated with Jon Kitna in that last game. Atlanta's cornerbacks are 5'10" and 5'11" respectively. Calvin Johnson and Roy Williams are 6'5" and 6'3" respectively. Maybe it was the playcalling, but i didn't understand why on those third downs with nothing happening, he didn't just throw up a jumpball on occasion. I know it's hardly sound quarterback strategy, but when your receivers are supposed to be as tall and athletic as Detroits supposedly are, you should be able to trust them to come down with a couple balls when they aren't wide open. This is especially true when nothing else seems to be working, or on fourth down (or maybe it was third and long) when he tried to run with the ball and got sacked because nothing was open.

Woah woah woah......hold the phone. Did you just actually imply that someone could sign with the Lions and revive their career? Are you insane sir? The Lions are where careers go to die. This is especially true at QB. Sure Kitna has proven that he's solid enough to be a backup on most teams, but for the most part being a Lions QB is taking a paycheck to get beat up and booed. And I fully expected the Lions defense to be (somehow) worse than last year...but if they play as badly the entire year as they did in that first game, the Lions might just as well forfeit the rest of the season.

I want a game that doesn't make me feel like I've got every ounce of fun out of it in only one play-through(which for the record was roughly 6 hours). They do what they do very well, but at the end of the day, for me at least, I have no desire to play through another species' life cycle because it just isn't fun again. Why not compare Spores Civ elements to Civ 4? That is the games competition at the end of the day and if you take all of the different stages and compare them to the genre in which they aim to portray you will find dozens of games that do it better and so, are worth the money more. I'm being very critical of the game when really I don't care, I didn't pay a penny. My only point is, if I had paid money for this game I'd feel let-down by the lack of gameplay(in terms of both quantity and quality) it offers. If you can borrow it from somebody, do it, it is a fun experience for the 6 hours that you'll play it...just don't expect a deep gameplay experience. Actually I think both comparing it to civ 4 and other RTS games, and excusing it because it's not those games is unfair. Let's be honest....with 5 different levels it's not going to reach the depth that you'd find in a game where they put all their time into one phase. With that being said, this doesn't excuse how shallow the game play is. They could have noticably padded any phase (except maybe space or cell) with more to do, and the gameplay would have been enriched. As it stands, the best part is the creation, and in my opinion, the most fun phase (oddly enough) is the cell phase. In that phase, things work they way they should throughout the game (IE the parts stack, and where they are placed is often important to how they work). Hopefully they'll release an expansion pack or something that adds serious depth to the game. That said, with the amount of people who apparently pirated the game, combined with poor reviews/word-of-mouth, I think the sales might not justify it. I never understand this statement. As a consumer, I shouldn't nor do I need to know anything about the development side of things or any issues they have. When comparing cereals I don't say well Kellogg's Corn Flakes have a better texture and taste to them than Brand X's but...Brand X isn't as large a company so I'm going to pretend that it doesn't taste like cardboard and give them a thumbs-up. I'm a student who has zero income, if I'm buying a game it being "fun" just doesn't cut it, it also has to have a value to it. To estimate a games value you have to compare it to what else is on the market. That's true. However, it's not a real time strategy game. It's more than that. If you only compare real time strategy elements, then you're not being totally fair to Spore, because there's more to it than the real time strategy component, which is my point. I'm not forgiving development troubles or whatever...and as far as company's go, it's put out by EA and Maxis....you won't find much larger in the gaming industry. But you have to know going in that a game that contains 5 different types of gameplay isn't going to be as deep in any of them as a game that only contains 1. There's just no way it can be. Keeping with your Corn Flakes analogy. Let's say Brand X offers 5 types of cereal in one 19 oz box. Kelloggs offers a 19 oz. box with just the Corn Flakes. You can't honestly expect as much corn flakes in the Brand X box, because there's 4 other types of cereal taking up space. And there's a good chance you may prefer pure corn flakes instead of the mix. This doesn't excuse how shallow the game play actually is though. While no stage is going to be as good as a standalone counterpart, they could have added more depth, especially to the tribal stage. By the way, comparing the Civilization stage to Civ 4 is in no way apt anyways. The civ stage is still just an RTS, but with vehicles. There's no technology development, or turnbased gameplay. There is some light diplomacy, but as far as I can tell, that's the only thing that you could even argue it was in the same genre as the Civilization Games.

I want a game that doesn't make me feel like I've got every ounce of fun out of it in only one play-through(which for the record was roughly 6 hours). They do what they do very well, but at the end of the day, for me at least, I have no desire to play through another species' life cycle because it just isn't fun again. Why not compare Spores Civ elements to Civ 4? That is the games competition at the end of the day and if you take all of the different stages and compare them to the genre in which they aim to portray you will find dozens of games that do it better and so, are worth the money more. I'm being very critical of the game when really I don't care, I didn't pay a penny. My only point is, if I had paid money for this game I'd feel let-down by the lack of gameplay(in terms of both quantity and quality) it offers. If you can borrow it from somebody, do it, it is a fun experience for the 6 hours that you'll play it...just don't expect a deep gameplay experience. Actually I think both comparing it to civ 4 and other RTS games, and excusing it because it's not those games is unfair. Let's be honest....with 5 different levels it's not going to reach the depth that you'd find in a game where they put all their time into one phase. With that being said, this doesn't excuse how shallow the game play is. They could have noticably padded any phase (except maybe space or cell) with more to do, and the gameplay would have been enriched. As it stands, the best part is the creation, and in my opinion, the most fun phase (oddly enough) is the cell phase. In that phase, things work they way they should throughout the game (IE the parts stack, and where they are placed is often important to how they work). Hopefully they'll release an expansion pack or something that adds serious depth to the game. That said, with the amount of people who apparently pirated the game, combined with poor reviews/word-of-mouth, I think the sales might not justify it.

I'd buy it. But not for $50 or $60 or whatever computer games are going for nowadays. It's fun, but every stage except space is too simplistic. Creating things is a lot of fun (although vehicles can be frustrating because not everything works like you want, and you have to think outside the box to get some things to work right.), but the gameplay is generally not nearly as fun. Tribal stage is the worst stage of all...it's super easy, and not fun at all. The other stages are ok...but not great. The main thing to me is replayability. For me to buy a game at full price, it has to be fun enough for me to want to spend just hours and hours playing it. This game, while fun...is not -that- fun. Combine that with their stupid DRM, and I would probably feel cheated paying $50 for it.

I've been waiting at the store overnight, and I'm still only halfway through the line.

Yeah, but there's a few moments when you can tell that they didn't give the commentators any kind of context for some of the recorded responses to each other. You can tell when they make comments with entirely the wrong voice inflection. They could at least fix something like that.

Recruiting is actually very easy as a big name school. The main thing seems to be how long you keep them on the phone (rather than whether they're happy or not by the end of the conversation). In my Michigan Dynasty, I've had recruits signed by week 3 a couple times. Also, when you get to visits you probably want them to have a "most" and two "Very highs" in areas that your school is good. I've actually prolonged visits because I missed the first sway attempt and I wanted to try again the next week. Generally it seems like, if that's the case, they will be stubborn quite a bit on that one pitch, but you can get them to eventually come around. Also, one thing I remember annoying me about the game: I assumed player type was important. For example: I wanted a fast receiver...so I recruited someone who was a "speed" receiver and stayed away from "possession" receivers. Apparently the only thing this actually designates with receivers is how well they catch. "Possession" receivers have decent hands...and "speed" receivers can't catch worth a damn. Forty yard dash time is the only thing that seems to indicate how fast they really are. I recruited some terrible receivers before I realized that. And missed at least one extremely good receiver who had like 97 speed.

I noticed the problem being two-fold. Firstly the QB makes their read extremely fast and it's usually the right read, no matter how much pressure you bring. Secondly, the defense seems (in zone) to cover too deeply so that instead of being in passing lanes, they're 7-10 yards downfield...pretty much no matter what play you call. I've found that man coverage (with maybe a middle line backer in zone to protect against slants) is a little more effective...although the qb will still carve you up (at least on completion percentage) no matter how bad they are or how good your defense is.