GAAAH. "qualified, but never disagreed with, your…"

You have to own what you say, RB. Your explanation qualified, but never disagreed, with your statement, "anyone who disagrees with me is a psycho."

also, boys and girls, don't drink too much. that should be "anyone who disagrees with [him or her] is a psycho."

It is difficult to disagree with someone who thinks "anyone who disagrees with anyone who disagrees with [him or her] is a psycho". Congratulations, RagingBear, you are now a demagogue, or, as fastandsloppy says, Glennbeckian.

Having grown up in a pro-hunting area, I can say that 100% of the hunters I've met love having fresh venison/turkey/whatever. Most serious hunters have a big-ass deep-freeze for storing the meat. As for "the pleasure of taking a life", that sounds pretty melodramatic. I wonder how much contact with hunters or hunting…

@TJB - you really went into a lot of detail with that synopsis.

You usually hear two things when people talk about P:T. One is praise for its writing. The other is impatience about its wordiness. P:T approached the limit as to what's feasible in games as far as in-depth story goes. You simply aren't going to have Ulysses 3D because no one would play it.

Can I get an 4m3n?

Planescape: Torment has a better story than a lot of well-received novels out there.

everything else aside
The original Halo was not a small or humble game. It was produced by Microsoft. It was really big and expansive. Strong, indelible characters? It had 4 with names. One of them became a big juicy tumor.

KOTOR2 gets shit on a lot. I was disappointed in a lot of issues, ridiculously easy difficulty being chief among them, but still had a lot of fun playing through. Preference, as you say.

@ Bird - small point of contention. Jedi Knight 1 (Dark Forces 2) was better than 2 for a few reasons. 2 was flashier and had the lightsaber duels, but 1 had such incredible (for its time) level design, visuals and control. And the weapons/force powers/lightsaber combo were basically the Geek Dream Team. And, for the…

I would like to submit…
The War Zone.

I still remember playing Life of the Party for the first time before I bought Thief 2. easily the greatest demo ever.

I've never used an editor without a serious learning curve. Dromed wasn't exactly user-friendly, but it was fun putting stuff together. I liked the way they did lighting. Besides, Thief was so much fun. I tried building the Tower of London once… and failed utterly. still fun.

permitting self-expression?
to begin: haven't played WW: DIY yet. plan on it. my comment is more about SJ's assertions about games than this game in particular.

dramatic value isn't interest. true enough. Could be I was trying too hard, or being too critical about what the reviewer wrote.

my point was more that his line, "Such are the limitations of videogames" implies there are no exceptions. Limitations by definition cannot be surpassed. It's a niggling point, I know, but I'd say "Such are the difficulties of videogames", not limitations.

damnit, I meant, "'Such are the limitations of videogames' is unfair". gaah.

unsatisfying
Seems to me that Jones' statement, "Such are the limitations of videogames" is fair. In fact, for a person reviewing videogames, I think it's kind of heresy.