Bad/Good Video Games *******Spoilers!!!!!!!!*******

[g99]

So we have a bunch of bad movies, and books. But how about good/bad games with Sci Fi? I already did a list of games on another thread:

here they are (small list of games):
Bad:
007: Nightfire
All Star Wars base Building games.
Hostile Waters: Anateus rising. (Amazing storyline and very inolved story, but really, really crappy game and interface.)
Red Faction 1 (cool Geo-mod abiolity, but that is it)
The Sim's Online (yah it is not exactly sci-fi but i just want to warn you. PM me if you want details. I beta tested it...uhhg..).
Earth and Beyond
Aliens vs. Predator 2: Primal Hunt expansion pack. (good game, but the expansion pack only includes a few, very poorly sesigned levels, and the new internet modes suck and lag bigtime)
Batman: Vengence
Voyager Elite force: Expansion pack. (no real new levels. )
Most Star Trek games except Elite Force (non-expansio), Academy, Brige commander, Both Armada, and the command games)


Good:
Starcraft
Freelancer
Freespace 1 + 2
Outpsot 2
Space Quest games (how can you now include these?)
Serious Sam 1 + 2
AVP 2
I-War 1 + 2
Tribes 1 + 2
Planetside (i'm beta testing this now, great game mostly. :-) If anyone else is testing this PM me.)
Star Trek Elite Force
Star Trek Armada 1 + 2
star Trek Bridge Commander, and Academy
star Wars Jedi Knight and Dark Forces games
Startopia (a highly underated great game. Shunned by the critics, but it has many rewarding atributes in my opinion)
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Himeworld 1 + expansion.
Mechwarrior 4

I will talk aboutsome of these these and a few more:

Spoilers for several games.......













Did i warn ya enougth this time? :P

Now i want to explain some good and bad games and their BA:




Freelancer:
Great game. Not what what expoected when it was being hyped during its creation process, but still overall great storyline and emersive atmosphere.

Bad:
- Star Wars type Asteroids, ice fields, Carbon fields, and other fields of these types. These fields show the rocks careening throught the areas at high speeds. One good thing they do is show the large amiount of them as small rocks, but many, many large rocks are still there.

-FTL travel through "jump gates" and "jump holes"

-Energy weapons and laser based wepaons that are dodgeable. They do have many plasma based weapons that are relatively slow, but even the laser based weapons are visible pulses and slower then your ship sometimes.

-Sounds in space (everywhere!) They even have orchestral music in space!

-instand shield and hull regeneration

Good:
-They use travel lanes to go high speeds throught the systems to avoid collisons with other ships and the masses of asteroids and ice in the systems.

-At cruising speeds they cannot fire weapons since most energy is devoted to engines

-Different weapons, kinetic or molecular effect different types of shilds.

-large nebulae effect systems like sensors by scattering their long range effects.

-EMp weapons disable your ability to travel very fast and can disable your shilds untill yuo renew them.


Big Spoiler!!!!!!








-the end mission in the game features a fight with Aliens and a large Disonsphere. They said that the Alsien built the Disonsphere because it captures 100% of the radiation from the Sun inside of it. Thuis ism ture, in theory. But in reality the amount of metal and materials to construct it would be enormous. Especially the size they make it our to me. This Diosonsphere's energy is then fed nito a warp gate that leads to a system that traverses the enture glaxy and beyond. (Cool!)






End Big spoiler!!!!




Overall a 90 out of 99

---------------------------------------------



007: Nightfire:

Arrrgggg.....One of the worst games for Bond Ever! Bad clipping, enemy AI (let me stand here and shoot you with perfect acuracy! Sure you can shoot my friend and i wond notice i dont care! You mean you cant shoot around corners? )
It is a almost direct ripoff of Moonraker.

Bad:

Everything....Well almost

-Guns suck, bad sound files for them and wvery very weak. Oh wait this is supposed to be BA. Well in the end missions you get a moonraker laser gun that has unlimited ammo. It just needs to recharge. The effect of the weapon is very slight on a human (good for its small size) but its beam travels sooooooooo slowly. Why? It is supposed to be a laser! go the Speed of light you moronic laser!

-The final missions you reach space. First of all sounds in space and a (surprise! surprise!) unknown space station.

-I don't remeber (nor do i want to remember) why they built the sattion, but it did have selective gravity in many parts.

-Since the station has low or selective gravity you get a Jetpack! (Good: it needs fule), Bad: it is space! why do you need a jetpack inside a space stattion?

-The station blows up in a cool explosion. Fire in space?

-Somehow Bond also knows how to use a space suit and a escape module from a station he has never seen or heard of.

-The AI sucked. REally, raeally sucked. They had almost perfect aim if you were near them. Thewy usually just stood there while you blasted their friend to pieces and once you killed them they would majically clip throught walls and fly away.....



Overall a 25 out of 99



----------------------------------

Aliens vs. Predator 2: Primal Hunt expansion pack:

Uhhhggg...horrible sequil to a gtreat game. Only 9 levels total (three for each race) and all are basically the same level over and over again. Only one new badguy (the predalien was in the multiplayer version of AVP2) and a few new weapons. Now stroyline and the multiplayer was buggier than a wamp here in Florida.

Bad:

-sound in space

-How is the Zenomorph able to live inside any living thing? It can live inside and burst from a huma, pet, or even a predator. All of their organs are different, yet somehow it still can live and grow.

-The Predator has mostly energy based weapons. These weapons draw an enormous amount of power and to renew that power it gets it from the environment. Where does this energy come from?

-The zenomorphs are rules by pheramones. They sense their prey and their buddies by this. they are even controlled by this. But what i do not understand is how the Queen can controll a Aline half a world away throught pheramones.


Overall a 30 out of 99 for the expansion pack. 75 out of 99 for the original AVP2.

-----------------------------------------------------

Voyager Elite force and its expansioon pack:

O.K., the expansion pack sucks bwecause it does not add much at all to the game except the tricorder and a few nboew useless weapons. The original game was a very good FPS (First Person Shooter) and one of the best trek games made.

Bad:
- i do not have to go throught the whole laser based weapons being dogeable do i?

-sounds in space

-ftl travel

-"dampening field" that inhbits warp on big ships, but not on shuttlcraft. Why? this is stupid. they give a semi reason fir this later on in the game with the big enemy, but ewhy not turn this effect off and on, not the entuire time.

-a super alien who wants to take over the unierse by combining the DNA of every living warroir. So somehow our DNA syas we are a good warrior? Huh?

-Somehow every ship and energy source can be converted to useable enrgy by the Hazard theam. even if they have never ,et these aliens before.

-The bad guy wastes time telling the good guys his intricate plans for universe domination thus allowing the allies of the good guys to find the weakness in the bad guys plans and destroy them.

-Supposedly super advanced aliens who can create massive starships, but cant figure out how ti fire a gin. So they resort to just rushing the good guy.

Good:

-Different, non human alien races (for once).

-The borg.

-umm...anything else?


Overal: Original: 70 out of 99 and Expansion is 40 out of 99l
---------------------------

I will add more in a few days, but i am tried and don't feel like typing anymore. Sorry. please add your own opinions. :-)

[Dark Helmet]

Good and all, but you forgot about Halo for Xbox (and soon PC/Mac)

although I found very little BA myself, Larry Niven OTOH. well.. you... have to see the interview youself.

Here is a heavily edited version of the chat log that appears on Larry Niven's site. This chat occurred on the #Knownspace channel on April 7, 2002. Mr. Niven's handle is 'fithp' and appears in red.

<fithp> New things have been happening. For some time now I've been getting email about "Halo".
<Redflame> From people concerned about whether it is Ringworld?
<fithp> Halo is a game on Xbox, with dynamite visuals. The structure that is the game's site looks like a poor man's Ringworld.
<fithp> So I get emails suggesting I sue, and I keep saying I can't patent nor copyright a ring.
<fithp> Now I've gotten a suggestion from Del Rey Books: shall I write a novelization of Halo?
<Redflame> LOL!
<Nesssus> lol
<fithp> I waffled. I can't jump into a fully programmed universe, I said, and write anything good. It works better if I've been living in that universe.
<Redflame> fithp, you've played Halo?
<fithp> I'm about to play Halo. They sent me an Xbox and Halo, and some other games too.
<fithp> Steve Saffel's suggestion. [Steve Saffel is an editor at Del Ray. -pd]
<fithp> This might work for them. I did sequels to the 1001 Nights and the Berserkers, and rewrote the Green Lantern universe, because I was already living there in my head.
<fithp> They who sent me the stuff are Microsoft.
Props to peona.dare from Bungie Sighting for digging this up

It looks like MS wanted Niven to write on of the Halo books, although a Niven ring encircles a star, Halo (installation 04) orbits a gas giant. although from what I have played. it has alot of good Astronomy

like:
There is no sound in space during the cut-scenes!
the ship you are in is a big non-aerodynamic clunker
the crash location has a huge trench from where it touched down, (Keep in mind this ship is big!).
and halo has lower gravity, and because of that, you can see stars somewhat in the daytime (a thinner atmosphere because of the reduced gravity) and it is a FIRST PERSON shooter so you should be able to see the contrast of the human eye.

[g99]

Doh! forgot about HALO! shame on me!.

O.K. add to great game list. :-)

But i am ****ed at the transition from origonally PC first to X-Box fisrst.

[Pinemarten]

X-Com - UFO Defense. The first was the best in my opinion.
It reminds me of Starship Troopers in the fact that if/when we may do battle with an alien race, we will start as the underdog. No SF weapons, and ships. The only advancements we get are spoils of war.
The game is played like real warfare, logistics, funding, and green troops included.
The excitement of dropping into a hostile zone and deploying troops in a defensive position, recon, protect civilians etc., in an SF scenario that is so similar to historical campaigns, was quite different than most twitchware.
The game speed can be adjusted down to near zero to allow a single player to manage all forces as though they had a fully staffed admin.
I have yet to come across another game that has the same realism of 'house clearing'. Building to building, floor to floor, room to room; with up to 26 troops to assign. This is after they have cleared the fields, streets, jungles, deserts, and other such.
I feel it is quite educational about how real things can be, when one race is confronted by something more alien than books, movies, or games.

[nexus]

You forgot Independence War 1 and 2!


And if you're looking for a great game that actually has something to do with astronomy, check out Race Into Space (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=160) it's a fun game, worth checking out.

[Colt]

Homeworld.. Great game with lots of BA but who cares when the game is soo good? I am sure that G99 can do a better write up of it than I could.

Well, some good things about the weapons:
The ships use railguns as weapons because their powerplants are too small to support any type of energy weapon.
The only ship, IIRC, that does have energy weapons is the Ion Frigate (haven't played in a long time, please forgive for mangling things). It is just one huge cannon with a ship and propulsion systems built around it and when it fires the weapon gets to its target instantly, no dodging.
Missiles are said to be ineffective because of the distances and speeds required, this is until you develop better technologies. -Colt

[Jocke]

The only ship, IIRC, that does have energy weapons is the Ion Frigate
Mmmm Homeworld...
There are in fact three regular ships featuring ion cannons

Ion cannon frigate
Destroyer
This features two ion cannon in a forward mount as well as two heavy mass driver turrets.
Heavy cruiser
Features four ion cannons in a forward turreted mount and six heavy turrets.

There are other ships with ion cannons that are not avalably for construction. The Kadeshi multibeam frigate comes to mind. It has four ion cannons in a forward mount, but lack any additional weapons.

Hey, first post! Hiya fellas'. :)

[djsmeg]

What about Deuteros? It was a classic Amiga game from 89-91 (can't remember exactly when). A really excellent game. I had an amiga emulator on my pc simply to play that game (sadly lost the installer on an upgrade :( ). It seemed to predate most of the space based resource/micro-management games by several years, though IIRC it may have been a sequel to something else. The game was basically a race into space against an (at the start) unseen enemy, which hots up as you expand through the solar system. It's not really BA until you meet the aliens. Eventually (IIRC) you can steal a warp drive or something from them and get to colonize new stars. It's pretty intense and the scope is amazing for a game that fitted on 2 DD floppies.

Any old mig fans remember anything?

Another space classic: The original Elite. That game was abosolutely beyond compare. It was about 50-100k and had eight galaxies worth of fun. An awsome game. As for BA, the only thing I can think of was that it had hyperspace travel (it was an interstellar trading game- hyperspace was I guess the only way to progress games along at faster than glacial speeds). Good Astronomy was the fact that solar systems had size, and quite a lot of it. I seem to remember that most of the time spent playing the game you had the J key down which engaged some kind of semi-doze state.

--Christian
PS. If you're under 25 you probably think I'm mad :D

[Wingnut Ninja]

Freespace 2? Good Astronomy? Not really. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the star maps, but it does have plenty of BA floating around.

- Asteroid fields: too close, etc etc. They also seem to have very peculiar shapes (like, here's a patch of asteroids 2 km wide and 15 km long).

- The ending: There's no way a supernova would only take 1 minute to get out to you, even if you could detect it ahead of time. Capella would have had to have blown up hours earlier, and the light would predate the shockwave by several weeks. Plenty of time to leisurely head to the node.

- Visible lasers: standard sci-fi fare. Those beam cannons look mighty cool, though.

- Audible lasers: I actually came up with a somewhat plausible explanation for this. Laser and other beam weapons create interference with your comm system when fired, and this translates into "laser noise" coming in through your speakers. This doesn't explain hearing explosions, though... oh well.

- The nebula: I hate Nebula missions. It's ridiculously thick, and all those nebula effects wreak havoc on a less-than-stellar (ha ha) computer. I also like seeing my targets. It's a great sense of suspense (especially when you first glimpse the Sathanas), but it really detracts from the gameplay and the visual grandeur of capital ships duking it out. Also BA.

- Coasting to a stop, constant velocity at constant acceleration: At times this ticks me off. Namely, times when I have the throttle on full and I can't go any faster. It also doesn't make sense inertially, but I guess it's to give the ships a more "fighter-aircraft" feel.

I think there are a few other points I've thought up, but I can't remember them at the moment. I just remember that every single instance of BA is there because it makes the game more fun. I don't want invisible, silent lasers, and a realistic asteroid field would be pretty boring. BA in games can be mighty tedious.

[Iain Lambert]

I got an XBox on Monday, so I'm just getting into Halo (along with Gotham, Buffy and Orta, but they are all fairly astro-free right now).

Niven says its a "poor man's Ringworld", huh? Lets see what Banks says about that one. Its quite clearly an Orbital. Coupled with the fact that the Elites are shockingly close to how I imagined the Idirans would look, and its obvious (even to someone who didn't know that Bungie are fans) that the Consider Phlebas influences are there.

[Mark Skarr]

I don't know, but when I think "Astronomy" the last type of game I expect to get it right is "First Person Shooter." Don't get me wrong, I love Halo and am equally perturbed that it went XBox before PC.

Freelancer is a lot of fun, but the BA kinda gets to me. Especially the background images. Look around and you'll see three galaxies merging in the background . . .. As for the orchestral music . . . I have a CD player in my car, so I CERTAINLY would have one in my starship. But the fighter-level and -style maneuverability moves it from sci-fi game to sci-fant game. With Taychonic weapons that travel 750 mps . . . oh, yeah.

Those of you who haven't yet: Don't get Master of Orion 3!
It hurts. With no defensive spies you get eaten alive by other spies. Mixed with the complete and utter lack of realistic Astronomy, the learning curve of quantum physics (actually QP was easier) and a five-year old 3D combat interface . . . I'll play MOO2.

I still remember the good old days of Space Rogue . . . why can't someone just get it right? It had more BA than PXers but it was fun! It was light-hearted. You could fly through an asteroid field BACKWARDS and never hit anything! How about Star Control or Star Control 2? Anyone remember them? Starflight and Starflight 2? Man, I'm jonesing for an 8086. Where's my XT?

[Timm]

How about Star Control or Star Control 2? Anyone remember them?

You don't need an old PC for Star Control 2, though. Do you know The Ur-Quan Masters (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.html)? A perfect timekiller... play starcon2 on any Windows Plattform (and it's free)... :D

[Colt]

Welcome Jocke, I had forgotten about those other ships. I guess because the Ion cannons on those are just part of a group of larger weapons. :) -Colt

[g99]

Homeworld 2 is even cooler than homeworld 1 and its expansion. :-) A sneak peak is aready out in a video on their site.

While we are on the topic of games:

Starcraft:

The queen has the ability to produce parasites into other races such as humans and Protoss. She can even produce another creature who's name escapes me) out of their bodies (well except tanks and such). Would their genetic makup be similar enougth to do that to humans?

In the game it is found out the Protoss and Zerg were created by the same race. But humans were not. So Zerg and protoss sould be able to intermingle DNA. But how can a zarg (or Alien in the AVP series) comingle DNA or even live inside them?





P.S. Sorry for the confusion I-War above is the sort for, for Independence war

[Mark Skarr]

Homeworld 2 is even cooler than homeworld 1 and its expansion. :-) A sneak peak is aready out in a video on their site.

And there will be much rejoycing. And drooling to boot!


The queen has the ability to produce parasites into other races such as humans and Protoss. She can even produce another creature who's name escapes me) out of their bodies (well except tanks and such). Would their genetic makup be similar enougth to do that to humans?


The Zerg were a race of tiny parasites that could adjust their genetic code to their hosts (if I remember correctly). All of the Zerg we see are actually many different, ahem assimilated creatures. Kinda like the Tyranids from Warhammer 40k. They Tyranids would go forth and consume entire planets and assimilate their genetic information. If they found something interesting (phenomonal psychic powers from the Eldar) they would create a new life form to harness that aspect (the Zoanthrope).

If you can't tell, I'm an avid gamer :P !

[g99]

The Zerg were a race of tiny parasites that could adjust their genetic code to their hosts (if I remember correctly). All of the Zerg we see are actually many different, ahem assimilated creatures. Kinda like the Tyranids from Warhammer 40k. They Tyranids would go forth and consume entire planets and assimilate their genetic information. If they found something interesting (phenomonal psychic powers from the Eldar) they would create a new life form to harness that aspect (the Zoanthrope).

If you can't tell, I'm an avid gamer :P !

The Beast in Cataclysm does this too.

P.S. ditto :-)

[Colt]

In the AvP books (which I think most of them are canon though I haven't read any of them..) it turns out that the xenomorphs were either created by the Space Jockey race or by anothe race as a biological weapon to drop on a planet. The Space Jockey in the film was simply transporting some of these when his ship crashed.

Starcraft... One of th best games of all time for PC. I haven't played the PC version of it in a long time but I do have the Nintendo 64 version of it from before I had a PC. My interest in acquiring a copy of it has been renewed by my reading of Starship Troopers. -Colt

[g99]

In the AvP books (which I think most of them are canon though I haven't read any of them..) it turns out that the xenomorphs were either created by the Space Jockey race or by anothe race as a biological weapon to drop on a planet. The Space Jockey in the film was simply transporting some of these when his ship crashed.

Starcraft... One of th best games of all time for PC. I haven't played the PC version of it in a long time but I do have the Nintendo 64 version of it from before I had a PC. My interest in acquiring a copy of it has been renewed by my reading of Starship Troopers. -Colt

Colt: what books do they talk about the Alien origins? i would love to read them.

Does "Space Jockey"="Pilot"?

[Mark Skarr]

Colt: If you're a Gundam Fan, you should see if you can find a copy of the Gundam Century Mod for Starcraft. It was a lot of fun.

G99: My computer died right around the time of Cataclysm and I never had a chance to play that. I'll have to go see if I can find a used copy somewhere.

Does "Space Jockey"="Pilot"?

If I'm thinking the same book: yes.

[g99]

So what book was it? :-)

[Mark Skarr]

So what book was it? :-)

Great, put me on the spot! :P

I don't remember the names. I'd have to check and see if I still have them at home. If/when I can find them, I'll let you know.

[g99]

thanks. :-)

[pmcolt]

Not exactly a sci-fi game, but I believe that in "Black & White," the phase of the moon in the game was supposed to be the actual current phase of the moon. I can't confirm that, because I have never gotten the game to run on my current machine.

[Mark Skarr]

Actually, I've got a bit of GREAT astronomy from a video game.
Years ago the game LHX (anyone remember that?) had great astronomy. It was a helicopter sim and you were out blowing stuff up. This game is somewhat old since I was playing it when I was in high school.

I was well away from base and got my avionics shot out. I lost my compass, GPS and INS (Inertial Navigation System). I had a load of about 8 TOWs, but was a bit too concerned about getting back to base to get fixed.

My sister noticed that the designers had put constelations in the sky, and since I knew roughly where I was on the map (needed to go north) my sister was able to use the ACCURATLEY depicted constelations to get me home.

That was an impressive bit of GOOD astronomy that made the game better.

[Defender]

Halo's been mentioned already, and it is a tremendous game, but it's also got some really bad astronomy in there. Most of it's in the space sections- the most egregious example I can think of is on the bridge of the Pillar of Autumn.

For one thing, the bridge is unrealistically designed- it's right at the front of the ship, with huge bay windows on three sides. Not the most sensible of ways to design the nerve centre of your space cruiser. But another thing is the way that, when you look out of the window and see the Halo itself, it's way too small. For those who don't know, Halo is a small Niven ring, 10,000 km in diameter. Quite a large structure. But when you move from one side of the bridge to the other, you can see the ring parallax against the stars behind it; it looks far too small. Such a large object should be fixed relative to the background.

And secondly...




*SPOILERS*




When Halo is destroyed at the end of the game, the POA's engines rip a hole in the ring's structure. But from our viewpoint as we escape, a large fragment of the ring passes from one side to the other, and knocks a hole on the far side of the ring. If you broke a Niven ring, centripetal forces would cause all the pieces to fly outwards, moving away on a tangent.

Having said that, these points only niggle because the game goes to some effort to get other things right. But pedants like me will still poke holes in what we see...

[Mark Skarr]

Quite a large structure. But when you move from one side of the bridge to the other, you can see the ring parallax against the stars behind it; it looks far too small. Such a large object should be fixed relative to the background.

That is simply a short-comming of video cards and 3d technology. At the end of Unreal I could get out of the ship and run across the "surface" of the planet.

Halo is supposed to be something like 7,000 km in diameter. The real-time rendered cutscenes have to work within the framework of the 3d engine.

[Defender]

Surely they could just have made Halo part of the background, along with the gas giant and the stars? I mean, when you're on the ring itself, the structure of the Halo in the sky is just a quicktime-style background. Couldn't they have done this when you see it from space, you think? It really, really jarred for me the first time I saw it...

[g99]

(in ref. to a earlier post: ) I played Black and white and it is a great game. But Don't get Creature Isle. While the ability to have a mini creature is cool, there is no good replayabliity and it is easy to beat. Wait till the bargin bin for this one.

For the AVP series: This goes along with the trek thread that they do not have as good of technology as we do now.

I would agree wityh colt that the powered armour is very advanced and really fun to play with (sad that you only get it for one level) but the hand held guns all suck (except for the chaingun).

The standard assault rifle seems similar to a assault rife today. Sure it has a attched grenade launcer, but we also have one of thise.

The flamethrower has minimal range and does not leave trailes of burning fire (but i can credit that to the game engine and frame rate issue)

the rocket launcher cant even take down a queeen in one shot

same with the grenade launcher

The predator weaponms are even worse than the human weapons. For a creature with such advanced technology, it really sucks. They all use massive amounts of energy, making you waiste several seconds having to set up your reloading energy gear, if you have it.

The staff can kill a alien and human in one shot, but you have to be almost touching them.

the disk does the same thing as a staff but at long range and must use lots of energy to return to you and you only get one.

The net gun is useless since all of the attacers attack in hordes. It is only fun for using to push enemies off cliffs (put on god mode, back them up to a cliff and throw them off, very fun. :-) )

The energy weapons are powerful, but like the humans can't even kill a queen and take a massive amount of energy.

I am not even going to bother with the preds hand blades.

[Wingnut Ninja]

Surely they could just have made Halo part of the background, along with the gas giant and the stars? I mean, when you're on the ring itself, the structure of the Halo in the sky is just a quicktime-style background. Couldn't they have done this when you see it from space, you think? It really, really jarred for me the first time I saw it...

That was one of the things I liked about the last level of Freespace 2. You can look over at Capella (the system you're in) and see a bunch of Juggernauts eclipsing it. It was just part of the background.

[g99]

That was one of the things I liked about the last level of Freespace 2. You can look over at Capella (the system you're in) and see a bunch of Juggernauts eclipsing it. It was just part of the background.

I agree. And it required many, many of the ships to create the supernova. Not just one torpedo or something as in other games and movies.

I would also agree with the whole one minute to destruction thing, but otherwise it was good.

(side note: i love how they have two different endings depending on if you survive or not. Persoanlly i like the one in where you die. :-) )

One other thing i liked about the Freespace series is that the big capital ships were tougth, (i.e. it took a ton of hits to kill them) and they were studded with weapons and missle bays. Sure there were soft spots that you can go to to avoid them, but otherwise ithey could fire on you from many directions. I like that. They put this to more use in Freespace 2 with the anti-fighter lasers. Those pack a punch.

And that massive battle between the two giant capital ships was really cool.

[Wingnut Ninja]

"Belisarius, this is the GTV Psamtik. You are ordered to power down and surrender."
"Your posturing insults us both, Vasudan. The NTF never surrenders."
"As you wish. Gunnery control, you may fire at will."
*enormous beam cannon obliterates Belisarius*
*Wingnut cheers*

Yeah, those are some pretty rad encounters. I like the sense of scale, both in the physical size of the cruisers and the fact that if you happen to get so much as tapped by one of the big guns, you end up floating home.

Timeless wisdom: "Avoid the beams and you won't get hit, pilot."

:D

[Mrak]

I would have to say the orginal Elite (Comadore 64) and Elite 2 (Atari 520) (I like freelancer but it's still could have taken several pointers from these two) Elite three was summed up by an image in a PC game review mag, a Dog s#$% wrapped in a pink bow.

Paradroid (C64) is also a classic.

Asteriods great.
Space Invaders was great.
Defender not too bad.

Doom 1 & 2
AvP I love playing the Aliens

[g99]

I love all of the old C64 games. :-)

AvP (the origonal fps version) was good but had no real story in it and only a few scary parts.

The entire first level of the human campaign in iAvP2 scared the heck out of me and half of The Thing scared the heck out of me!.


Wing commander:Privateer was good, but got old fast.

[Colt]

IMHO the Multiplayer in AVP2 is much better than the Single Player. The SP has story and all but some of the bigger aliens are a little too tough. In the MP the weapons are much more balanced and act like those from the movie.

I am very proficient with the shotgun with slugs, and the Pulse Rifle. :D Everyone just hates the marine who goes around sniping off heads with the shotgun. :P After playing through the game as a USCM a few times I started cheating for the fun of it and put it on the hardest setting. The Alien was pretty easy once you figured out what exactly you were supposed to do in the level. The Predator? I gave up and went through killing everything with the lance. Never played the add-on though I hear it is crap.

Unfortunately, I do not have the funds to buy some of the better space sim games and even if I did my computer was a POJ (not anymore, got a major upgrade, now it is demi-godly!). Oh well, I want C&C Generals. -Colt

[g99]

IMHO the Multiplayer in AVP2 is much better than the Single Player. The SP has story and all but some of the bigger aliens are a little too tough. In the MP the weapons are much more balanced and act like those from the movie.

I am very proficient with the shotgun with slugs, and the Pulse Rifle. :D Everyone just hates the marine who goes around sniping off heads with the shotgun. :P


Yah i played the multiplayer for a while and i am thinking about getiing back into it. :-) Do you still play? I loved the flamethrower. I would decimate evryone with that. What was your name in the game? Mine was the same as this or TEMG99. O.K. now you've done it. I am goning to install it now and play. arrgg...There goes my summer. :-)


After playing through the game as a USCM a few times I started cheating for the fun of it and put it on the hardest setting. The Alien was pretty easy once you figured out what exactly you were supposed to do in the level. The Predator? I gave up and went through killing everything with the lance. Never played the add-on though I hear it is crap.

Unfortunately, I do not have the funds to buy some of the better space sim games and even if I did my computer was a POJ (not anymore, got a major upgrade, now it is demi-godly!). Oh well, I want C&C Generals. -Colt

Don't buy AvP2: Primal hunt. It is a P.O.S. to the highest degree. I made that major mistake and i wish that i can retun it. Dang to return once opened policy.

Do the code to play the in the mech suit in the other levels. It is very fun. Or the predalien in the Alien levels. :-)

Easter egg: (Sortof). If you are in the human campaign and turn into the facehugger, facehug the humans. You wil kill them but it wont count against you in the game. Also the other aliens ignore you and don't think of you as bad.

[SollyLama]

I thought Star Trek: Bridge Commander was pretty cool. However it is completely linear with zero replay value. There are some cool downloads available- my fave is the rapid torpedo reloader. Turns 'em into photon (or quantum and phased!) machine guns. The Kessok ships look cool.
I do like the quick battle as it supports whole task forces worth of vessels at once. Cosmic furball!
BA to the hilt though. Neat atmospheric effects when you get close to a planet, but for one, all the planets are about 4x the size of a ship. Very small.
Secondly, you can park a ship a couple km above the surface at dead stop. Hover there.
Only Klingon ships are supposed to be atmospheric capable and they can't even land!
Anyone remember M.U.L.E. on the C64? I spent many an hour with that game when I was a kid.

[g99]

Brige commander is a fun game and it was very inventive that you had to go to different stations to do some things.

The multiplayer is alot of fun in that game. But you are right. It did get old somewhat fast. But was really not that bad.

[Mark Skarr]

I still haven't played a Star Trek game I actually like. The closest has been Birth of the Federation, but it has a horrible memory leak that they never fixed. BotF was great fun in multiplayer, but with only five races it generally wasn't as good as MOO2. And we had to draw straws to determine who got the Klingons . . . the short straw.

I agree with the Freelancer/Elite argument. Elite and Elite 2 were awesome. I prefered Elite 2 over the 1, but they were great games. I wish more modern games would have learned from their examples.

[g99]

ditto mark. But space games hgave fallen out of favour. right now First person shooters ans WW2 games are verey big. eventually it might get back to space sims and flying sims. but don't hold your breath anytime soon. :-)

[Mark Skarr]

I would just dearly love to see someone spend as much time and effort on a game like Morrowwind that's Sci-Fi and NOT a FPS.
:evil: Why can't someone make a Sci-Fi RPG that is as detailed as a Fantasy game? :evil:
Now, I know about Fallout (heck, I remember when it was going to be a GURPS game) and it is great, but . . . Morrowwind is awesome. Why is every Sci-Fi game either a space shooter sim or a FPS? Sure there's more to Freelancer than shooting . . . I think. Sure you had a lot of exploring you could do in Elite. Starflight had a great story and some character development, but only in skills. Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight let you choose to be evil . . .. But I want more. I want Morrowwind for Sci-Fi. And no, I'm not a programmer. Therefore I would make: DiKatana.

[g99]

MarK: Star Wars: Galaxies (http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/) is right up your alley then. It is a character building game, massively multiplayer role playing game (MMRPG), officially licenced by lucas, and is Sci-Fi. But the only downside is that it requres a monthly fee.

PlanetSide (http://planetside.station.sony.com/index.jsp) is also a similar MMRPG. But it has origins closer to FPS. You can "level up", but is similar to Tribes in skills and tactics. I beta tested this game and it is alot of fun. but i do nor have the money to pay a monthly fee for it right now, not the time to make the fee worth it.

Dan (self proclaimed resident PC gaming infoman)

[g99]

You guys will love this. :-) Games are good for youre Visual skills.

here (http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6029100.html)

[TheGalaxyTrio]

Bad astronomy in Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The phase of the moon plays a part in a couple side quests, but the phase angle (orientation of the lit part of the moon relative to the sun's position) is incorrect much of the time.

Am I a fanatic to have even noticed that?

Oh, and the moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise regardless of the phase! That one was a little more obvious.

[Reacher]

G-Police 2 - Weapons of Justice.

I loved this game.
The controls in space are realistic enough, exept that when you turn, you don't continue in the direction you were travelling, you instantly change direction.

The scale is way off too. Most of the civilian vehicles could fit inside the cockpit of any of your combat vehicles, except the Rhino, a car. also, all other units in the game (except most fighters) are way smaller than your fighter. The cockpit of the heavy apc of all three factions is about the size of the pilot of your fighters head (if you could see the pilot.) Even the capital-class ships are way off. They are supposed to house heaps of fighters, etc, but if their hulls were hollowed out, and you could fly around in there, you would have very little room to move.

[Alex W.]

Frontier (the sequel to Elite) used Newtonian physics. While this made combat a bit of a mess, it made for some very satisfying eye-judged thruster-burning flights to space stations and the like. The manual actually described planetary and solar slingshots as advanced flight techniques, apparently an old-fashioned, but visually impressive way of getting around. Although the game used "hyperdrive" engines to fly between systems (they acted like islands, almost impossible to get between in the Amiga's operational lifetime with normal engines), it Braben threw in some time dialation effects when you jumped, which was neat.

Not Bad Astronomy, but MGS' genetics were deplorable. The themes were fantastic- the idea that genes determine "our potential destiny", and that you "mustn't allow yourself to be chained to fate, to be ruled by your genes"- but the terminology was used scrappily when Liquid spills the beans about the Les Enfants Terribles project. But then, this game had a road being blocked by a glacier's advance, so it's not exactly unusual...

[David Hall]

Frontier is one of my all-time favorites. I still play it from time to time on WinUAE (an Amiga Emulator). If it wasn't so glitchy and had a bit more of a plot, it would have been the perfect game.

[Alex W.]

You can DL the PC version from http://www.frontier.co.uk

[ChesleyFan]

All-time favorite sci-fi game is Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. Managed to get my way through it even though it was being run on a 75MHz Macintosh...!

Also liked PSX's Colony Wars series.

[David Hall]

You can DL the PC version from http://www.frontier.co.uk

Actually, I've tried the PC version as well, but I prefer the Amiga one because it has the "wormhole" glitch that allows you to hyperjump almost anywhere. The DOS version doesn't have that. It is a bit more stable and reacts better than the emulated version though.

Oh yeah, using an emulator also lets me play the game inside of Windows. There's no need to reboot into DOS to get it working, so it's a bit more convenient. :-)

[Alex W.]

Indeed.

Back on topic (ish), and I'd say that games owe a huge debt to astronomy for one simple graphical motif- parallax (sp?) scrolling. A retro shooter's not a retro shooter without it.

[g99]

Actually i think more games owe credit to the Hubble Space telescope than most of us think. Think of the backgrounds in almost every space game you have played. I bet half of them have used at least one hubble image as a background.

[darkhunter]

Cel Damage, the last level....the rings around the planet are solid and have way to high a gravitational pull (you're driving on them), and the "planets" are too small....

edit: bolding to clarify the title of ther game
:D whoo hoo got promoted!!

[Jocke]

About FreeSpace 2, anyone know where I can find a working demo? I must have tried thirty different sites by now and one of them had a working download... which didn't install corectly! :x :x

[g99]

About FreeSpace 2, anyone know where I can find a working demo? I must have tried thirty different sites by now and one of them had a working download... which didn't install corectly! :x :x

http://www.interplay.com/freespace2/downloads.html

:-)

[Jocke]

About FreeSpace 2, anyone know where I can find a working demo? I must have tried thirty different sites by now and one of them had a working download... which didn't install corectly! :x :x

http://www.interplay.com/freespace2/downloads.html

:-)
Hey, what took you so long? :wink:
Oh, and thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!

[g99]

Your welcome. I highly suggest getting the game. It is dirt cheap right now and will run on all modern systems. A very good game. I am thinking of replaying sometime soon actually.

If you want to talk strategy, you can (just pm me). I suggest accepting all side missions. one of them is very hard and time consuming (the one where you take controll of the bad guys ship) but they do advance the sotryline.

[Jocke]

It was pretty fun once I found the setting for mouse control. :roll: I'm considering getting it, if I can find it. Haven't seen it anywhere around here...

[g99]

It was pretty fun once I found the setting for mouse control. :roll: I'm considering getting it, if I can find it. Haven't seen it anywhere around here...

Get a joystick, much easier to play the game. (plus more fun).

Try a computer store like EB games or a local one in your mall.

[g99]

I am currently replaying Freespace 2.

In one mission you have to protect the Colossus's (A 6 km long super warship) supply lines. It needs fuel from gas giants and other minerals to keep its reactors going. I liked this from the game. It shows that even warships of the future need supply lines and do not have the replicators of Trek.

Even the carriers show their limit. They have a limited number of Missles, ships, and guns. Once they run out, you cannot get more untill the next mission.

Jump nodes are used to travel between systems and each system ois not a carbon copy iof the other.

Bad science: Nebulas are too dense. Asteroid fields are also too dense with giant rocks, but are nowhere near the density of Star Wars type fields.

Comminications soan interstellar distances with little delay (inferred since no actualy "life" boradcasts arte given, but up to date repotrts of the front is given)

Your squad mates can get killed in every mission and still be back for the next one.


That is one good thing i liked from the Wing commander games (WC: Prophecy) was that is a squadmate dies, they were actually gone for good. They would be replaced with someone else, but they specifically were gone.

[Karthesios]

I've been playing Metroid Prime, in one room, you can scan features in a holographic planetarium. The info that comes up shows the planet's info (class and mass), but the mass measurement seems off (Planet Zebes [the setting for the NES Metroid and Super Metroid] weighs in at 4.8 trillion teratons...meaning 4,800,000,000,000 teratons. Converting that to tons gives 4,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons (4.8x10^24 tons). Assuming 1 ton equals 1000 kg, we have 4.8 x 10^27 kilograms or 4.8 x 10^30 grams. Doesn't that seem kinda massive for a planet?). Assuming my calculations are right, that's about 1000 times the mass of a large terrestrial planet (that we know of...).

As for Freelancer, my dad has it, but I've noticed the sense of scale's pretty off (planets appear to be only a few kilometers across at best, for instance).

[Musashi]

I'm with Pinemartin, X-Com is one of my favorite games for the PC. Another good one with some small bit of sci-fi is Syndicate.

I thought Metroid Prime looked great but was laboriuos to play.

[lpetrich]

Bungie Studios has done some previous work with astronomical themes involved; for more on Bungie's older work, check out this fan site (http://www.bungie.org).


Pathways into Darkness: the K/T asteroid has contained an alien superbeing that was barely alive, having been a casualty of a long-ago war. But this entity was gradually awakening, and your mission is to stop it by detonating a nuclear bomb just above it, causing the rock overhead to fall on it. You have to start the bomb's timer soon enough, and you have to get out fast enough -- or else.

So you enter a Central American pyramid, and you have to fight your way past lots of horrible monsters conjured up by this alien's dreams. And as you do so, you come across the corpses of previous visitors to this structure -- and you can talk to them and learn lots of clues. For more, see http://pid.bungie.org


Marathon, Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity: your character is a cyborg super soldier left over from some Solar System strife and smuggled aboard Mars's moon Deimos, which was turned into the colony ship Marathon. It travels to Tau Ceti, and some of its passengers disembark and set up a colony on one of its planets. But one day you are called back to the Marathon -- it is under attack! Some aliens called Pfhor have invaded it, and one of its Artificial Intelligences, Durandal, has gone on the fritz.

After a lot of fighting of Pfhor and their slaves like S'pht, Durandal takes over the Pfhor ship and runs off with some liberated S'pht. The second game starts on the S'pht homeworld Lh'owon; Durandal has shanghaied you and gone there in hope of getting allies against the Pfhor. And he sends you to lots of places, where you learn of some history -- the S'pht had received computer implants from some long-ago alien, they had built some cities, they had had civil wars, the Pfhor had conquered and enslaved them, etc.

The game ends with the Pfhor using a superweapon that can destroy a whole star; the next game starts with the aftermath. You go back in time, reliving the recent Lh'owon events in some different timelines, with the hope of avoiding the planet's destruction. For more, see Marathon's Story Page (http://marathon.bungie.org/story).

Pluses:

At least they try to rationalize the first-person-shooter concept a bit.

The Marathon has some onboard Artificial Intelligences, which can move to whatever hardware can host them -- just like "real" software and unlike a lot of SF conceptions of computers and robots.

The series does storytelling with in-game terminal displays, which are an excellent, but seldom-imitated feature.

Minuses:

Aside from the usual discrepancies and plot holes, there are booboos like a message taking 92 years to travel from Tau Ceti to the Earth (Tau Ceti is only 11.9 light-years away).


Myth: the Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter (Myth III: The Wolf Age was done by a separate company): in this game of army commanding in a Tolkienesque world, a comet periodically comes by, heralding the changing of dominance between Light and Dark.


Oni: can't think of much that's astronomical about this anime-inspired third-person game.

[Colt]

Uhh.. Is Freespace 2 some sort of flight sim (what I normally play alot) set in space? I've never really heard of the game, honestly, except in passing. -Colt

[Mr. X]

Colt:

It's a sort of spacesim, yeah. Descent: Freespace.

It happened when the original Parallax team that made Descent and Descent 2 split up a few years back.

A part was renamed Outrage Games and made Descent 3.

The other part became Volition inc. and started off with the Descent: Freespace series.

Freespace 2 is supposed to be pretty good. Frankly I didn't like it, even if it has some nice graphics and physics. It just seems so... ordinary.

Then again this coming from a guy who plays Postal 2 like a nut, so you may take it with a grain of salt. :D

Can you believe some guy actually once told me that "Running with Scissors" needed more quality individuals like myself?

lpetrich:

Bungie: Halo.

In certain parts of town Halo bashing can result in severe injuries, so you have to know what console dominates the market in the district where you are.

I remember marathon from a while back... didn't seem all that great as I recall.

Musashi:

X-Com = best turn based combat game ever. Period.

Mr. Skarr:

Speaking of Unreal and 3d accelerators brought back a lot of terrible memories. I had a Voodoo Graphics card with 4mb ram (which was top of the line at the time) and I remember the horrendous frame rates. You were well off with 15 and 20 fps. The pain.

[Musashi]

Mr. X

I totally agree about XCOM. I still play that game. In fact, when I get the chance, I spend hours at a time playing. At first I didn't really like the sequels and I still don't like 2 very much, but I wish i could get 3 to run on my system. I used to invade the alien cult every chance I could get just to earn extra cash. I wish someone would make an updated version of the first XCOM, but they would probably just screw it up.

[Mr. X]

We probably aren't going to see any other X-Com games, and I mean ever.

Last "real" one was X-Com Interceptor, which was at best a very average game.

And since MicroProse is no more, and just a part of Infogrames now it's doubtful we'll see more of it, which is a shame really.

The next "big gun" in the series was supposed to be X-Com Alliance, which has been put on indefinite hold back at the end of 2000 (read: scrapped. AFAIK no game has ever emerged from the abyss of the "indefinite hold").

It was supposed to be a team based first person shooter powered by the original Unreal Engine... the very same that powers the still elusive "Duke Nukem Forever" **cough** vaporware **cough**, and that dates back to 1998... and probably has been in development since 1994-1995 (Yi!). I'd like to see THAT compete with the DooM 3 engine.

[Musashi]

Yeah, I have some screenshots of Alliance, and everytime I stumble over them I wish it had been finished. I almost bought interceptor but heard that it was at best, as you say, average. Funny you mention DNF, I was just reading up on it earlier today. That is a game that will probably never come out, but even if it did, I am sure it would be obsolete before the first person installed it. If only I was a game designer/programmer with a nice wad of cash...

Anybody ever play Vga Planets, Tradewars2000, or Land of Devestation? Fun BBS games (along with Legend of the Red Dragon), or maybe my tastes were simpler then.

[edited for spelling and capitalization (because I suck!)]

[Mr. X]

I say all that about DNF, but if it ever comes out (yeah right) I'll be all over it regardless of how outdated it looks or feels. :D

[Alex W.]

They guy who actually made XCom is currently making titles, including the superb Laser Squad sequel. It's like XCom, without the horrible franchise milking.

[vovfisk]

We probably aren't going to see any other X-Com games, and I mean ever.

Last "real" one was X-Com Interceptor, which was at best a very average game.
Nope, that's Enforcer.
And since MicroProse is no more, and just a part of Infogrames now it's doubtful we'll see more of it, which is a shame really.

The next "big gun" in the series was supposed to be X-Com Alliance, which has been put on indefinite hold back at the end of 2000 (read: scrapped. AFAIK no game has ever emerged from the abyss of the "indefinite hold").
Nope, that would have been X-COM Genesis (the last interview. Just start your drooling 8) )
It was supposed to be a team based first person shooter powered by the original Unreal Engine... the very same that powers the still elusive "Duke Nukem Forever" **cough** vaporware **cough**, and that dates back to 1998... and probably has been in development since 1994-1995 (Yi!). I'd like to see THAT compete with the DooM 3 engine.
You people might want too read these interviews 1 (http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/%7Ethelastoutpost/article.php?art=57) 2 (http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/%7Ethelastoutpost/article.php?art=58) 3 (http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/%7Ethelastoutpost/article.php?art=59)
See X-COM - Tactical command (www.x-com.co.uk) for more

[Mr. X]

Nope, that's Enforcer.

By gar you're right! It was so utterly forgettable, that I... um... forgot all about it. Sorry! :P

Nope, that would have been X-COM Genesis (the last interview. Just start your drooling 8) )

I'm not sure about this. To me Alliance had gotten a lot more publicity (interviews, etc. ) from the publisher than Genesis did.

[Humphrey]

I just beat Voyager: Elite force 2.


IT is almost as good of a game as the first one.

I did think that you fought the exomorphs a little too much and not enougth bad guys.

The A.I. were not too bright (especially your comrads) but they are amazing shots when they do shoot.

The boss battles were great.

The graphics were incredable for the dated Quake 3 engine.

There were also a ingenious rail shooter conceptwhere you take ofver a phaser battery of the Enterprise.


Some bad BA?:

The exomorph creatures have impulse engines attached to them with no apperent energy source.

In one level aliens are attaching sabotage devices to the hull of the enterprise. To counter this they reverse the polarity of parts of the hull prventing them from encroaching anymore. When you enter the outside of the ship to kill the remaining bad guys, if you step on one of these reverse polarized sections you immediately fling off into space.

OH and on the outside of the ship there is gravity facing inwards. Because when you jump up, you eventually fall back towards the ship.

Dense nebulae behind the windows are seen often and some plantes have whisps of nebulae and nebulae forming rings around them.

Somehow electrical stroms on these other planets disrupd communicatoons only at certain points because half a level latrer you easily talk and are beamed out.

The federation looses many shuttle due to poor technology or incompetant "expert" pilots.

They do joke a good amount on how your character is always going off alone to do things and how the leader should not do that so often.



------------------------

Overall i don't feel as "Involved" as in the origonal Elite force. The stroy is good and did have some surprises, but it was not as all encompasing as the first and i felt closer to my companions in the first too. In this one your companions are people who in 2 min will leave you anyways to do something else so you could care less about them. In the first a good amount more was spent weith your teasmates and aslot alot less just "run 'n 'gun shooting and more ingenious puzzles in the last one too. This one did have ppuzzles but they were more quirks than anything. Most were restore power here or reconfugure with tricorder there.

No real new aliens worthy of knowing about. The only time i actually felt something for the characters was on the Dallas where you have to see what heppened to the ship and its crew. You see some erily deads poeple in contorted positions and think "Man that would suck to happen to me".

But overall if you lovedd the first or just like a good FPS, i reccomend it. But i would play the firts Elite force first. You get more of a backstory that way.



There is no Data, so i assumed that it takes palce after Nemesis. Actually the only person from the TNG cast is Picard. But he does every Star Trek thing, bad, really bad, or good.

[The Supreme Canuck]

In one level aliens are attaching sabotage devices to the hull of the enterprise. To counter this they reverse the polarity of parts of the hull prventing them from encroaching anymore. When you enter the outside of the ship to kill the remaining bad guys, if you step on one of these reverse polarized sections you immediately fling off into space.

OH and on the outside of the ship there is gravity facing inwards. Because when you jump up, you eventually fall back towards the ship.

I suppose this could be explained by a magnetized hull and magnetic boots... maybe.

[Humphrey]

Well your EVO suit (thats what they call it) has jump jets on it. So maybe they also make you descend toward the floor ?

One good thing is that if you hold the jump button you keep on going up and up. Also any weapon you fire or get hit with causes you to move bacwards or fly up a little.

Also the lasers from the guns move flower than light speed, except the sniper laser.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Also the lasers from the guns move flower than light speed, except the sniper laser.

That error has always ticked me off. ARRGH! IT MAKES ME MAD!!! Sorry, pet peeve.

BTW I assume you mean "slower" not "flower" :wink:

[Humphrey]

Yup, Slower. Chalk that up to my Florida education since 7th grade. :-)


Game developer: But how would to mercifully sidestep away from the laser blast if it did go light speed? I mean you have to have some chance! Plus I think the fact that a giant bug with a exoskeleton is capable of taking a direct rocket hit without any effects except a little less health! And i am sticking with that!


:-)

[The Supreme Canuck]

GGGRRRRRR... don't mess with the speed of light. Bad things will happen. I'll make sure of that...

[Alex W.]

I'd say you have almost as good a chance of dodging a laser as you do dodging a bullet- just keep moving and change velocity sharply as you see his trigger finger tense. FWAM!

[Humphrey]

Not entirely. You have a better chance of getting out of the path of a speeding bullet. They usually only go a little over the speed of sound and most under it. The speed of light is much faster.

[Defender]

Minuses:

Aside from the usual discrepancies and plot holes, there are booboos like a message taking 92 years to travel from Tau Ceti to the Earth (Tau Ceti is only 11.9 light-years away).



Amazingly, that's actually deliberate. The idea is that, when Leela tells you that her message will take 92 years to reach Earth, it's a subtle hint that her astronomical database is wrong. Bungie knew that the 92 years figure was wrong, and there's a few theories as to why.

1: The Spht altered the data in their atack on the Marathon.
2: Leela deliberately altered the data (among other things) to confuse Durandal, in order to slow down his takeover of the ship.
3: The location of Earth was deliberately falsely encoded into Leela and the other ships' AIs, so that a hostile alien race attacking the Marathon would not be able to ascertain the location of Earth.

My money's on option three, for the sole reason that it ties in with the Cole Protocol from Halo, and further adds to the reasoning that the two games are somehow linked. Someday, the tru7h will be known...

[Defender]

Another SF game with some Bad Astronomy in it is System Shock 2. It's a really tremendous game, and I feel quite bad criticising this aspect of it, but it's awful science, so I feel justified. Anyway, this is a spoiler, so if you haven't played it yet, go off and do so. Those who have, or just don't care. read on.



SPOILER



The game takes place on mankind's first ever FTL spacecraft, the Von Braun, which is taking the first ever extra-solar journey. The game begins with you waking from stasis in Tau Ceti, with the ship in ruins, weird monsters running around, and a distinct lack of crew. What has happened is this- the crew of the ship found strange alien eggs on the surface of Tau Ceti V, which when brought on board, starting mutating humans into servants of The Many, a sinister hive-mind. A bit cliched, yes, but brilliantly executed, so I'll let it slide.

The problem comes with the twist. Halfway through the story, it's revealed that the eggs aren't alien at all- they come from Earth, and were the product of illegal genetic tampering on a space station in earth orbit. When the station was destroyed, the eggs drifted through space, eventually turning up on Tau Ceti V- thirty years later.

Erm, run that one past me again, would you? Thirty years? They wouldn't even have left Sol in thirty years, let alone moved about twelve light years. That's one hell of a fast drift. But not only is it bad science, it's bad storytelling- the only reason the spores come from Earth is to tie it into the first System Shock game. So they made the spores drift through space, where they just happen to turn up on the first planet humans visit, after somehow moving through interstellar space at a third of the speed of light, before slowing down and landing safely. Yes, that makes sense.

That really spoiled the game for me- it just seemed like such an amateurish twist to put on the story, making it into some kind of System Shock fan fiction, when it would have worked just as well as a thematic, rather than literal sequel. Still, it is still a brilliant game. Just leaves a slight, niggling taste in the mouth to have such a flagrant piece of bad astronomy so central to the plot.

[ToSeek]

Not entirely. You have a better chance of getting out of the path of a speeding bullet. They usually only go a little over the speed of sound and most under it. The speed of light is much faster.

If you're 20 meters away from someone shooting at you, you've got about .06 seconds from the time the bullet fires till it gets to you. So far as human reflexes are concerned, I don't think there's any significant difference between that and the .00000006 seconds a laser would take. So I'd agree with Alex: make yourself an irregularly moving target.

[Humphrey]

If you're 20 meters away from someone shooting at you, you've got about .06 seconds from the time the bullet fires till it gets to you. So far as human reflexes are concerned, I don't think there's any significant difference between that and the .00000006 seconds a laser would take. So I'd agree with Alex: make yourself an irregularly moving target.

That or put on God mode. :P


---------------
Defender: Surprisingly i have never played system shock 2. I know alot about it, but i never got around to playing it. I have no clue why.

[Defender]

---------------
Defender: Surprisingly i have never played system shock 2. I know alot about it, but i never got around to playing it. I have no clue why.

Well, it is quite hard to find these days, I suppose. Do have a look- it's a superb game.

[Alex W.]

It's a great deal of fun.

And the thing with Shodan's groves reaching Tau Ceti in the short time bothered me too... which is a shame, because it was an amazing game otherwise. In co-operative mode, it's truly breathtaking.

[Dark Helmet]

I think I found BA, but not sure in the halo 2 announcement trailer (http://halo.bungie.org/misc/halo2trailermirrors.html) (still looking for some in the e3 trailer (http://halo.bungie.org/misc/e32003trailermirrors.html))

anyway when the master cheif open the fighter bay the air seems to be being sucked out of the BIG doors at a slow rate, however, the arpeture of the opening is always increasing so it could last that long. but alot of good astronomy in that as well. he braces behind a big column, presumably because when it first opens there is a violent expulsion if air but slows down as the aperture opens.

before you ask would it depressurise before it opened, he pulled an emergecy open switch meant to bypass it.

overall, promising game. looks good but i'm not putting an overly high standard on it, because I do not wan't to be let down.

DOH! I found very obvious and cliche' BA.
**********SPOILERS***********
highlight text to read:
The Setinels laserbeams are visble, BUT they move at c instead of the usual uber slow speed to the point of dodging them. another plus. but meh to the visibility
**********end spoiler***********

[freddo]

overall, promising game. looks good but i'm not putting an overly high standard on it, because I do not wan't to be let down.

I can guarantee you will not be let down mate... Have you seen the e3 in-game demo?!?!?

It is quite the most unbelievable piece of first-person shootery I've ever seen. Due to the fact that Bungie are taking their time getting this game right, they are squeezing quite a bit of optimisation out of the X-Box. Thus they have been able to massively increase the on-screen interaction - the scope of battles and the number of enemies is through the roof! As a result there are far more weapons and more powerful, and there is a big focus on vehicles (on part of the demo is a street battle on the back of a warthog!) with many of those on screen at once.


highlight text to read:

The Setinels laserbeams are visble, BUT they move at c instead of the usual uber slow speed to the point of dodging them. another plus. but meh to the visibility


Don't be precious about this spoiler - it's from the original Halo, which has been out long enough (besides, people shouldn't read this thread if they are concerned with spoilers).

But to your point, The Supreme Canuck has dredged up this explanation (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6612) to why you can see laser beams in battles. The fact that you can't dodge the Sentinel's lasers is one of the enjoyable parts about Halo - you have to be smart to defeat those things if you are playing on the hardest setting!

C.

[The Supreme Canuck]

In all fairness, you wouldn't see the entire beam, just the bits of it that pass through clouds of gas or debris. But try convincing the game publishers of that!

[wedgebert]

Could you imagine the whining from players if you COUDLN'T see the sentinel's lasers though?

Almost be as bad as having to play The Library again.

"Please stay close, this portal is the first of ten"

[freddo]

In all fairness, you wouldn't see the entire beam, just the bits of it that pass through clouds of gas or debris. But try convincing the game publishers of that!

More to the point - try modelling that!?!?!? I don't know of many programmers who would look at you seriously if you asked them.

[wedgebert]

In all fairness, you wouldn't see the entire beam, just the bits of it that pass through clouds of gas or debris. But try convincing the game publishers of that!

More to the point - try modelling that!?!?!? I don't know of many programmers who would look at you seriously if you asked them.

Why? It's not that complicated from a graphical standpoint. And you can do it pretty easily with Maya3D when doing 3D rendering

[The Supreme Canuck]

Good point freddo. I can see it now:

Me: "I need a realistic laser that moves at light speed and that acts in every other way that a laser would"

Programmer: "Great! I can do that! What colour?"

Me: "Lasers are invisible normally. Make it invisible"

Programmer: "You want me to go to all that work for something nobody will ever see?!?"

Me: "Yes"

Programmer: "Get out"

[wedgebert]

Ahh, how little y'all know of game development :) More than likely, it would be the publisher saying "add some color there" since they equate pretty graphics with sales.

Secondly, many game developers (myself included) like challenges. If you tell him you want it to only show up when there smoke, fog, debris or something else to reflect the light, odds are they'll accept the challenge (unless they're burned out, which is common too).

[The Supreme Canuck]

All right, go for it. Let's see what you can turn out! Make the game of your dreams! :P

[freddo]

I added a little bit...

Good point freddo. I can see it now:

Me: "I need a realistic laser that moves at light speed and that acts in every other way that a laser would"

Programmer: "Great! I can do that! What colour?"

Me: "Lasers are invisible normally. Make it invisible"

Programmer: "You want me to go to all that work for something nobody will ever see?!?"

Me: "Erm... Well they will see it - if there is dust or somesuch in the air... You're modelling that in too right?"

Programmer: "Get out"

:lol:

Why? It's not that complicated from a graphical standpoint. And you can do it pretty easily with Maya3D when doing 3D rendering

3D rendering and game modelling are similar but vastly different. Instead of the artist deciding where the dust will be suspended and hence visible lasers, you've got to model the decision making process into the game itself.
Sure it's possible, but it would be a time consuming process, for relatively little benefit (these people have deadlines too).

Let me put it this way. How many games have you played that have dynamic dust clouds?

[freddo]

Ahh. I see you are a game developer... Forget my high an mighty in the previous post... I stand by the point though....

[Humphrey]

It depends are you hard coding it into a staticc scenario or will it be dynamically generated. If it is static like a pre rendered movvie, than it is very easy. But to dynamically do it would be harder. The new Doom 3 engine will have incredable lighting effects. (my brother got the e3 demo from the net, and i have to say...WOW!!! I can't wait for the real thing.)

Wih a few minor changes to that you can probobly do something like that.

For a simple, (but graphics intansive effect) have a cloud of a few thousand particles. Give each particle a certain precentage of any light shone into it that will be reflected back to the user . If no light is being shone into it it does not reflect anything. If a light is shone into it it reflects back the pre-determined amount.

The cone of effect will be easy to show. Then inbetween clouds you just have open space, so no light is seen being reflected back.


What do you think?

[The Supreme Canuck]

Tee hee! Doom 3! Yahahaha!!! :oops: Sorry. Been looking forward to it...

[freddo]

It depends are you hard coding it into a staticc scenario or will it be dynamically generated. If it is static like a pre rendered movvie, than it is very easy. But to dynamically do it would be harder. The new Doom 3 engine will have incredable lighting effects. (my brother got the e3 demo from the net, and i have to say...WOW!!! I can't wait for the real thing.)

Wih a few minor changes to that you can probobly do something like that.

For a simple, (but graphics intansive effect) have a cloud of a few thousand particles. Give each particle a certain precentage of any light shone into it that will be reflected back to the user . If no light is being shone into it it does not reflect anything. If a light is shone into it it reflects back the pre-determined amount.

The cone of effect will be easy to show. Then inbetween clouds you just have open space, so no light is seen being reflected back.


What do you think?

Particles with individual behaviour? Sounds like a good way to bog down a processor. This is a good idea g99 if we do set aside hardware constraints, however, you still need to give behaviour to the cloud itself. Yes you could hard-code a preset sequence of formations, but the current wave of effects programminng deals with dynamic environments.
These include such things as destroyable terrain/scenery, dynamic lighting and diffuse effects, etc. If it were put to me to model dynamic fog (for want of a better term) I would make sure it only would pervade the scene from a suitable source; ie: smoke from a burning car. It would also disperse over time and distance.

But then if you got me to model the graphics in a game you'd end up with real life (or dang close), but 30 years behind deadline. :lol:

Just thinking, a good example is the game Nascar Racing 2003 season. The tyre smoke that you make (not me I don't crash - 290 laps per incident :wink: ), begins so thick you can't see through it as you approach, and dissapates over time. You also gather debris on you winshield proportionate to the thickness of said smoke! And the information required to model this behaviour can be squeezed through a 56k connection in a live game.

But then Papyrus have spent sooooo much time on that game, features like that are inevitable.

[The Supreme Canuck]

So get to it! :wink:

[freddo]

So get to it! :wink:

[typing noises, and the sound of sugar rich carbonated drinks being consumed]

[The Supreme Canuck]

Mwahaha! Excellent! :lol:

[Humphrey]

[noises of watermelon being eaten]
.
.
.
.
Oh you wanted us to work on the programming? Bah!

[Humphrey goes back to eating his watermelon]

[The Supreme Canuck]

Hey, you ever tried one of those square watermelons?

[Humphrey]

Hey, you ever tried one of those square watermelons?

Nope, never seen one. But i have just heard of mini watermelons (the size of a cantelope (sp?). They are supposed to be very good.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Hmm... never heard of those...

But these square (well, almost a cube) watermelons are great! They were grown by the Japanese so that they are easier to stack. Here's a pic:



http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh/images/u-z/ytf34.jpg

[Humphrey]

Cool! so how do they do it? Do they grow them inside of boxes?

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yup! That's all there is to it. But they are quite expensive...

[freddo]

modular watermelon?!?! I though the one I saw was a photoshopped pic!?!?!?!

Well colour me astounded.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Photoshopped? Nope, those melons are real. :D

[freddo]

Photoshopped? Nope, those melons are real.

I believe it - your pic was the one that convinced me...

The previous pic I had seen was just a plain white countertop - white background - and a single square watermelon on it.

Such a simple image would be easy to photoshop - the level of interaction in the pic you posted would take a lot more work - more than worthwhile - so I would believe your's as genuine!

8) Nonetheless.

[The Supreme Canuck]

What happens when they start doing this to other fruit? Or meat? :o

[freddo]

Meat? You mean like growing a cow in a box?

Meat stacks fairly well though - I think the area for expansion is in general circular foods...

[The Supreme Canuck]

Circular beef?

[freddo]

Circular beef?

I suppose if you took a cross-section of a cow from the chest/stomach area, you would get something flat and round...

I'm talking about spherical food - things that don't have a (relatively) flat axis to stack them on.

[The Supreme Canuck]

:o What good it that? Hard to cut, hard to store.







You'd make millions.

[freddo]

I'd much rather invest with my Bio-Chemist friend and get her to genetically engineer cows that are, at time of 'birth' (loose term there), totally devoid of bone, and have the taste of an 18month grain-fed bovine.

I'd make millions.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Devoid of bone. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA *Gasp* HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

BRILLIANT!!!

[Musashi]

Since we were talking about fruit, anyone else hear that Bananas aren't going to be around much longer?

[The Supreme Canuck]

Huh? :o Not the banana!

[Musashi]

just do a GIS for the words banana and extinct:

The banana's biggest foe is Black Sigatoka, a fungal disease that affects the fruit's all-important leaf area, causing premature ripening and reducing the productive life of the banana.

The bananas that we see in the supermarket are generated from a single cultivar that is generated from two different species that are joined together, called a hybrid. This is where the problem lies.

There is no variety since there is no sexual reproduction. Bananas have the same genotype or genes, and are essentially identical clones.

looks like we got another ten years and then we either go without or eat... genetically modified bananas (oh no!!!). :D

[The Supreme Canuck]

What are the chances that we already are? Pretty high. I don't have a problem with it.

[Musashi]

I swear, you must've been reading that as I was posting it! :D

[The Supreme Canuck]

I'm omniscient! (sp?) HAHA! Irony.

[Musashi]

Apparently :D Also, just so no one gets the wrong idea, I also have no problem with genetically modified food.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yes! Another sane person! Woohoo!!! HAHA Irony.

[Musashi]

Wait, who said anything about sane?! HAHA, (is that ironic?)!

[The Supreme Canuck]

If you're sane it's not. (We don't have that problem, so yes)

[Musashi]

Well, I'm sane, but none of my other personalities are!

[The Supreme Canuck]

Oh, then it's semi-ironic!

[Musashi]

I can't think of a witty response to that. That would be ironic if... well, no, I guess not.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yeah, I'm lost too. Nuts.

[freddo]

Last year, scientists led by Mr Frison announced plans to sequence the genetic blueprint of the banana within five years, focusing on inedible wild bananas, many of which are resistant to black sigatoka.

But large producers have refused to back the research because of costs and fears that consumers will not accept a GM banana.


Stupid 'large producers'.... Don't you realise we're in a forest?? What do you think these trees are part of?!?!?

Seriously though - it is a stupid rationalisation to say that the cost of GM is not worth it if people won't trust GM banana's. What is the alternative? No bananas. Doesn't sound very profitable to me.

Edible bananas are modified anyway - it's why they're sterile in the first place.

I like bananas and I don't want to go without them in 10 years time. :cry: :cry: :cry:

[The Supreme Canuck]

For some reason the public only considers meddling with DNA directly to be GM. Cross-pollinating is okay somehow.

[Musashi]

Well, remember the protests (read riots) in france over GM foods? (Funny what they will fight about.) There is also a large contingent of Americans that protest anything scientific (genetic foods, bio-tech, world trade...). Silly people.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Canada has you beat in the wacko department. We have INSANE groups. They don't like GM. They don't even like DNA. (Yes, I know, I know...)

[Musashi]

Heh. I like the environment... a lot. If I wasn't such a shut-in hermit, I would be out in the woods.. hey wait, maybe I should move to the woods...anyhow, I don't like Greenpeace at all. They are nuts.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Sorry. From all of Canada. Just, sorry.

Greenpeace = Based in BC

Nobody likes BC

[Musashi]

Well, apology accepted (I almost wrote excepted, that would've been a little ironic!). Hockey makes up for most of the things that Canada has unleashed upon mankind.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Don't forget the beer. And the maple syrup. :)

[Musashi]

Well, I hope this doesn't make anyone hate me, but I am not a beer person. Like the maple syrup though, and I really really like hockey, so maybe that makes up for it some. :-? :D

[freddo]

anti- new-kyu-lar, and anti genetic engineering...

People spoiling it for the rest of us... If you don't understand what is happening then shut the hell up!
It's so frustrating when the ignorant guide the policy makers into sabotaging the progression of the human race!!

Do they even stop to consider how we produced the anti-biotics their taking for their chest (or brain) infection?

[Musashi]

Speaking of anti nucular [sic], I bet most of those peopl are the same one pushing those (supposed) emission free, electric vehicles. Where do they think the electricity comes from? God?

[The Supreme Canuck]

Freddo: Or that it is radiation that allows us to see their broken bones?

Musashi: Of course they're the same people. They want emission free, radiation free, carbon free, heat free, enviro-tricity. Not gonna happen.

[freddo]

Or that it is radiation that allows us to see their broken bones?

But it's been around for so long it must be totally safe!!!!

I'm sure there's some other reason why the doctor and nurse stand behind that lead shield... :roll:

[The Supreme Canuck]

But it's been around for so long it must be totally safe!!!!

Just like asbestos!!! :o

Oyg! 2:10 am! Going to bed now, night all.

[Musashi]

Oh boy, we got someone else to play with us! I think that most ... anti-rational protestors have some kind of educational deficencies (sp?) :D

[freddo]

But it's been around for so long it must be totally safe!!!!

Just like asbestos!!! :o

Oyg! 2:10 am! Going to bed now, night all.

Hey - everything kills you. Eventually. G'Night mate.

[Humphrey]

See thge whole anti-genbetic engineering/"natural" stuff makes no sense to me at all. We have been doing it for literally thousands of years. That ear of corn in your fridge? It used to be the size of your pinkey. But thanks to genetic engineering throught selesctive breeding it is the magnificence you see now. The same thing has happened with almost everything we eat now.

The tomato ios not naturally that red. It has been engineered for a long time now.

This brings up another thing, why do some people equate "natural" with healthy. You see these people say "If i can't pronounce it i won't eat it". Why? Mushrooms are natural and i can pronounce them, but there is no way you are going to make me eat a wild one. I can pronounce cyanide, you going to eat that?

There is nuthging wrong with genetic enginnering or placing of stuff into food if it does not harm our body. Just because it has 145 syllables does not mean it is bad for us, just an unimaginitve scientist.

The only good thing that has come out of the "natural health food" industry is a reduction in the amount of pesticides used. That i am all for.



Now speaking of insane.....Does anyone else hear that voice?

[The Supreme Canuck]

Would you eat a blue carrot? Well it's natural. The orange ones were modified (over centuries) to be orange and to not taste like cheese (bleuch!). I'll take the engineered ones.

You're right. Why eat natural food if you can eat better food?

[Musashi]

Yeah, the whole, "it's natural, so it's good for you!" is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You actually hear it a lot from potheads who want to legalize pot. there is a long list of natural things that are far from good for you: hemlock, most mushrooms, snake venom, poison ivy. Heck, bacteria and virii are natural. Just goes to show you what some people will force themselves to believe.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Lordy. We actually have a federal Marjuhana Party up here. Needless to say, they don't have any seats. I think they only got something like 150 votes. Doesn't matter though. Stupid Liberals have decriminalized it. When I'm in charge...

[Humphrey]

Lordy. We actually have a federal Marjuhana Party up here. Needless to say, they don't have any seats. I think they only got something like 150 votes. Doesn't matter though. Stupid Liberals have decriminalized it. When I'm in charge...


....you will ask me what i want to do.:-)

[wedgebert]

Yeah, the whole, "it's natural, so it's good for you!" is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You actually hear it a lot from potheads who want to legalize pot. there is a long list of natural things that are far from good for you: hemlock, most mushrooms, snake venom, poison ivy. Heck, bacteria and virii are natural. Just goes to show you what some people will force themselves to believe.

Made with all natural ingredients! dog manure, cow hoofs, pig ears and dirt

Other things that must be good for you since they're natural:

Chlorine
Carbon Monoxide
Rocks
Dihydrogen Monoxide

[Humphrey]

That is why i like having fun with all of these health nuts.

Try this: Go into your local supermarket. Find someone picking throught your local veggie or fruit section and ask them if they would like to eat genetically engineered food or something that is not.


If they say not, take all of the food out of their cart. Everything we eat now is genetically engineered in some way. Just the practice of agriculture means that the plant has to undergo some changes.

If they genetically engineered, say "well you are doing good then" and leave them alone. :-)

[freddo]

That is why i like having fun with all of these health nuts.

Try this: Go into your local supermarket. Find someone picking throught your local veggie or fruit section and ask them if they would like to eat genetically engineered food or something that is not.


If they say not, take all of the food out of their cart. Everything we eat now is genetically engineered in some way. Just the practice of agriculture means that the plant has to undergo some changes.

If they genetically engineered, say "well you are doing good then" and leave them alone. :-)

You're right Humph, and it's so total you just wouldn't believe it... Every food group we know, almost without exception has been engineered over the ages...

It's not just the fruit in their cart, remove all the steaks & lamb cutlets (selective breeding over millenia), all dairy products (cows again), the chocolate biscuits (sugar from modified sugar cane), etc..

People just get frightened when the form of genetic engineering involves the guys in the lab coats with the pipettes.

Back to the food - you could offer them some kangaroo or crocodile meat... :lol:

[Humphrey]

Like wheat is a good example of the transition to agriculture. The plant is now currently unable to reproduce efficiently without human interatcion. The bulbs of the plant that hold the seeds cannot be borkebn and distributed without human interaction. We have selectively bred a species of wheat that will not release its seeds early and only will release on our timeframe.

I am not entirely sure the evolution of Rice, but i am very sure that it has undergone a similar position.


Some of this is accidental. The heartyer wheat described earlier will probobly be the most picked by humans since the ones that release their seeds eqarly will be already pickeon by animals or in the ground. The humans then will bring this heartyer seed back to their homes ands sometimes drop soime a.long the way. Eventually they realize that these dropped seeds from the good kind of plants gorw into those plants and start to harvest them and drop more seeds in places they want.

someone later on puts two and two together to realize that by combining this one plant and this one you can get a better wheat plant. and Blam! you have the first genetically enginered plant thousands of years before the chemistry lab.

[Musashi]

As far as rice goes, there used to be massive starvation and nutritional problems in a lot of third world countries (still is but...). Along came the scientists who modified rice into "golden" rice (I think thats what it's called). Golden rice is enhance with a lot more nutrients than regular rice and it takes the same amount of work to grow. Distributed world-wide, this rice has probably saved hunders of thousands of lives.

[Humphrey]

As far as rice goes, there used to be massive starvation and nutritional problems in a lot of third world countries (still is but...). Along came the scientists who modified rice into "golden" rice (I think thats what it's called). Golden rice is enhance with a lot more nutrients than regular rice and it takes the same amount of work to grow. Distributed world-wide, this rice has probably saved hunders of thousands of lives.


Same with corn (maize). It is probobly one of the most benificial plants ever (along with rice). Corn has almost all of the basic nutrients and vitamins to live (it is only deficient in a few, easily found in some fruits and beans). Many civilizations have lived on it for generations.

[freddo]

Naturalists can eat me....

I sure as heck have not been selectively bred - I'm far too twisted for that. 8)

[The Supreme Canuck]

What I find funny is that people actually believe that only GM foods have DNA in them. You can really creep them out by telling them that they are full of DNA.

[David Hall]

Well, I don't really want to get into a drug-legalization debate here, but I will say that I agree with the pro-marijuana side. Not because it's "natural"--that's a stupid argument--but because it really isn't harmful enough of a substance to warrant the legislation against it, and the possible medical uses and hemp products can actually help society. (And before you ask, no, I have never "inhaled". My opinion comes from a pure logical-reasoning standpoint.)

On the genetically-altered foods question, I think it's good to be cautious, but only to a reasonable level. There's no reason to think that GM is inherently more dangerous than more traditional methods of crop development. I remember hearing once about a strain of potato that was developed through natural cross-breeding and put on the market that ended up poisoning people with it's high alkali content. Yet we consider that "safe".

However, there is some point to the fear. Genetic engineering is a very powerful form of manipulation, and one that's not fully understood yet. It bypasses normal means of reproduction and allows for the mixing of genes that could never ever occur naturally. That's a lot of variables to control. So I agree when people say there should be careful controls on it. But once something has passed safety testing, I see no reason why it shouldn't be accepted wholeheartedly. Unfortunately GM has become the "boogieman" of the new millenium (just as nukyular was in the late 20th), and so people go too far overboard and feel like they can't trust any GM at all. It's just another example of something feared because it's not fully understood.

[Musashi]

I agree David. I think that marijuana should be legalized too. And, no, I don't use drugs either. It would be much more consistant with the US stand on alcohol. Speaking of alcohol, while I do not think it should be rgulated any more than it is, I do think that accidents that occur while a driver is drunk should be prosecuted as pre-meditated murder or attempted murder. There is no reason that people should get off lighter just because they were impaired. They knew when they started drinking that it would impair their driving abilities and yet they still drove and put others in danger of losing theur lives. It should at least be an additonal charge of felony neglect or something.

[Humphrey]

I agree David. I think that marijuana should be legalized too. And, no, I don't use drugs either. It would be much more consistant with the US stand on alcohol. Speaking of alcohol, while I do not think it should be rgulated any more than it is, I do think that accidents that occur while a driver is drunk should be prosecuted as pre-meditated murder or attempted murder. There is no reason that people should get off lighter just because they were impaired. They knew when they started drinking that it would impair their driving abilities and yet they still drove and put others in danger of losing theur lives. It should at least be an additonal charge of felony neglect or something.

I think this thread is dangerously getting off topic, but i agree with you on the drunk driving laws, but not the marijuana.

I suggest taking this to pm.

[Musashi]

Sorry, you're right. And rereading my post made me look a lot moer pro marijuana than I am. Mostly, I don't care one way or the other. What was the topic of this thread, I can't even remember! :D

[Humphrey]

Sorry, you're right. And rereading my post made me look a lot moer pro marijuana than I am. Mostly, I don't care one way or the other. What was the topic of this thread, I can't even remember! :D


hmmm...you sure about what you said you didn't do above? :P

[Musashi]

Only once, nothing spectacular.

On Topic: XCOM rocks!!! Anyone else play Syndicate?

[Humphrey]

O.K. i was thinking about all of those "paracitic" alines in all of the sci-fi games. From Homeworld, to Doom, to Half-life they have played a prominant role. Bascially thier main role is to takeover a human and mutate him/her into a hideous killing machine.

These paracitic aliens seem to have the ability to instantly mutate a person and controll their body even tought they have never been in contact with the human before.

A bunch on nonomachines could do this because they do not discriminate between organisms. But an alien being would of evolved to infect a specific series of beings. If it comes across sopmething new, how would it of known to infect thast being? How do these things know to infect and change a human? How does it know what part of the DNA to change?


The only one that takes this realistically in my book is in The Thing. In it the thing, rather than changing the human, actually replaces the human.

P.S. never played XCOM. Never had the urge. Why does everyone love it so much?

[Doodler]

I am currently getting Star ars Galaxies installed and updated on