Parole. I've never believed in it. Even if we discount the fact that murderers have proven themselves unable to control their emotions, we still have to take into account how a man who's isolated from the rest of civilization is going to adapt to a world that's over a decade older than he remembers. This difficulty can lead to various problems, as anyone can imagine. For example, alcohol is cheap in Germany.
It is official - the British are the ugliest people in the world. With the exceptions of Keeley Hazell (below) and their queen, who looks really good for her age.
I've always assumed that when they built the Berlin Wall, it was only between the two sides of the city, and that the city was lying on the border between the East and West Germany.
The fact is the Berlin lies entirely in what was East Germany (Soviet territory). The wall encircled the West Berlin like it was fenced off from the rest of the state. Maybe that was really the point. The reason I assumed the first paragraph was because only the part of the wall within the city was ever shown in films and pictures. N0 one ever mentions the rest of it.
Germany was unified again only in 1990 after the fall of the Wall. Their Parliament moved back to Berlin only in 1999. Of course, this is still a light sentence for what they did in WWII, but most of the people who contributed to the war back then are now dead anyway.
Ice on moon finally confirmed. Water ice. I guess that means they are going to try to colonize the Moon someday. Wonder how much that would cost. Just landing (or rather, crashing) the 621kg LCROSS onto the moon costed hundreds of millions of dollars. The constructons of the LCROSS itself required $79million.
To send people there with food and materials for an enclosed shelter, the price tag would be insane. It would be inevitable that they have to send civilians as part of the group, so safety features would have to be excessive. That's more weight and more money.
Reading on the first successful English colony in the New World, one can tell colonization in a new world cannot be easy. The Moon isn't going to have Indians who would trade food with the newcomers and the soil quality is obviously going to be very bad. The first farms on the Moon is probably going to be hydroponics and such high-tech stuff. No organic nonsense because soil is heavy.
The first colony is most likely to be a small room because they will need to import air in some way and air has mass. At that point, canned air won't be funny any longer. I won't be surprised if they're going to bring origami-like furnitures, all of which are lightweight and can be folded into tiny things when not in used.
Room on the moon is like water in the ocean. There is so much of it in all directions but none of them is usable other than for putting stuff in. They can't live outside of the tiny shelter they are going to build, and each time they go out in their spacesuits they get a dose of solar radiation (during the "day"). It is going to be claustrophobic for the colonists. Either that or they increase their chances of getting cancer.
But since they already know what kind of soil they're going to encounter on the Moon, they may be able to bring the necessary chemicals to augment the Lunar sand to create soil suitable for certain crops. Who knows? It is entirely possible that they can grow lichens on the Moon to create oxygen and perhaps even nutrients for other plants, with or without the help of genetic engineering. It would be like a soil processor.
They may even bring drills and files to carve stuff out of the Moon rocks to use, kinda like a futuristic-Stone-Age colony. It would be cheaper that way, to use what is readily available at their destination. And what is readily available on the Moon is sand, rocks and water.
It would make sense if they eventually expand their colony by digging a cave into the side of a crater. That sounds economical and helps to find out if there is any surprise hiding under the Lunar surface. They can probably seal the cave and pump imported air inside. Plus if they dig deep enough, it can shelter them from radiation very well. Far better than building another tent.
Anyway it is obvious the monetary costs of the successful lunar mission is going to be a pittance compared to what a Lunar colony will require. Unless this isn't what they have in mind.
The other possibility is that they're just going to shift the Space Station to the Moon and call it a colony. It won't be about bringing civilization there, but more like a scientific outpost where scientists can do their experiments there. Rather like what they're doing in the Antarctica.
The Americans opened their first marijuana cafe. You know what this reminds me of? The Opium Wars. I know there are those who say that weed isn't addictive but there are some things that, when given, are hard to take back. They may say it's for medical purposes, but are they going to post a policeman at the door to check every customer? Or are they going to raid it occasionally in the future to get the illegal customers out?
Of course they compare it with the Netherlands, but the Dutch has also legalised child euthanasia. Not exactly a role model for everyone.
Dragon Age: Origins is like Baldur's Gate II and Mass Effect combined. In terms of gameplay, it's like BGII. The quests and NPC interaction feels more like something from ME.
Combat-wise, DA:O has accomplished what BGII failed at. BGII had a combat system in which you could control your group in real-time or pause to give orders. This allowed more room for actual tactics. However BGII was made too early, so computers then were unable to handle more than 4-5 enemies at a time. Hence all combat was between the player's 4-man team and 1-4 opponents. 4v4 doesn't really require much tactics - it's just when to hit who with what.
In DA:O players can fight with 10 or more opponents. It's no longer a brawl - it's an actual real-time battle! In some situations it can be just your 4-man team against half about 8 opponents, or you may encounter a battle between about 10-12 enemies fighting 4 elves and help balance the odds for them. Now that requires tactics.
For example, you cannot just protect your own team. A small squad like this can easily get encircled and slaughtered. When AI-controlled allies are available, it is always advisable to heal them even if their survival isn't a condition for victory. It simply doesn't make any tactical sense to be overwhelmingly outnumbered and encircled, especially since flank attacks do extra damage in the game.
Right now I'm using the Rogue-class for the protagonist in the game. With Stealth at max level, the Rogue can enter Stealth mode even in combat - and Rogues always get a critical hit (extra damage) when he stabs an opponent while invisible. Combine it with a stun skill and a armour-penetrating attack, the Rogue can remove 50% of the victim's HP before he recovers. Now throw in a Mage with a mass-Stun spell or a Warrior with Shield Bash (2s stun) and you can easily take out an opponent without him doing any damage. (There's an award for killing 250 enemies without them doing a single point of damage)
In addition, I can use the invisible Rogue to scout ahead, find and disable traps and quickly take out Mages in battles. One way is to get him behind the Mage (or one of them, if there are more), then tell everyone to hold position. Next command the rest of the team to enter the line of sight of the enemies. When the Mage sees the team but before he can cast a spell, the Rogue goes out of hiding and stuns him. The rest of the squad attracts all the attention but runs pass everyone and focus fire on the Mage. The Rogue can take the Mage out by himself but he would be surrounded and gang-raped after that. That wouldn't be tactical but suicidal.
The game is much better than BGII, though it feels smaller. Quests seem to be fewer but random encounters while travelling are more frequent. This isn't bad since I always seem to be short of cash. This cashflow problem is rather refreshing since in most games, you always have way too much money after playing half the game.
The graphics are of the same standards as Mass Effect, which is very good. If not for the way the people's eyes don't look at the right direction at times and their heads tremble when moving in some cut-scenes, I'd say it's the best I've seen in a RPG so far. Right now Mass Effect is still the champ to me.
Another commendable thing about the game is the lack of bugs so soon after release. So far I've only encountered a few bugs that aren't important. In one of them, I picked an option in a conversation that led to the related quest being thrown to the Completed section saying I refused the NPC's request. Later I did what she asked and I could talk to her as if I had the quest. The quest log didn't change but everything else happened as if I had completed the quest as it should be done.
I have only 2 crashes so far and it's already close to the end of the game. That's pretty good for an open-ended RPG.
Speaking of open-ended, this game has so many choices! Even at the beginning there are 3 different race with 3 different backgrounds each to choose from. Each background of each race has a different starting point and a different introduction to the story. For a Dwarven Noble, you start as the second son of the Dwarven King and begin the story with the political intrigues of the Dwarven court as you and your two brothers begin eyeing the throne of your elderly father.
The other backgrounds may be the same though, like the Human and Elven Mages who likely begin their stories at the Mages' Circle.
Also the chosen race causes people to react differently to you, unlike in BGII. For example, NPCs speak differently about their religions to a Dwarven protagonist because in the game's world Dwarves worship ancestors instead of deities.
Finally, sex. When the player gets a high enough Approval rating from a friend, he/she can start kissing. Even higher and they can have sex. It's really... bad... unless you've never seen sex before. Seriously, Dwarven sex is not something you want to see. Not to mention the unnatural motion of the characters due to the developers using the in-game engine to make the scene instead of something else. Plus, they wear their underwear during the act.
Homosexuality is allowed so you can have a romantic relationship with a character of the same gender. It is even possible to visit a brothel, though there isn't a sex scene for that, only moans. When choosing the gender of your partner in the brothel, one of the choices is "Surprise me!" I picked that once and spent the night with a giant warhammer named "The Magic Wand". Not cool at all.
The game, as interesting as it is, isn't relaxing at all. I keep spamming the spacebar to create time for what should be split-second decisions in battles, like choosing who gets the heals and who uses potions instead at the same time. Sometimes in tough battles the spam makes a real difference. There have been occasions when the heal landed just before the boss's swing hit one of my guys who couldn't take one more hit. Once I watched as the 1mm-long HP bar rose to a centimetre then dropped by half again. Of course there have been times when the heals landed just after the guy got hit, but not all the time thanks to the spacebar spam.
Cloning for food! Why not? The Cavendish banana is as good as cloned! Every single one that we've eaten have the same DNA. Planters simply graft them to grow more trees instead of pollinating flowers and growing them from seeds. It is because of their identical genes that makes them all vulnerable to the Panama disease.
So is there anything wrong with cloning the best-yielding cattles to spread their genes more cheaply and at a faster rate? Maybe they will eventually contract a disease that they are vulnerable to, but the overall benefit is cheaper food for the rest of the times.
If a bull cloned from Bull A mates with a cow from Cow B and give rise to a Calf C, then another A clone mates with another B clone to have Calf D, and when C and D eventually mates, wouldn't it be... strange? Holy crap! I don't think there's a word for this!
I mean, it's not incest... or is it? This is confusing!
Shit, I just blew my own mind.
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