The second one suffered from being extremely rushed. Much asset reuse. It also made the game more "action-y" because I assume some souless suit said that kids don't want tactics they want biff bam ACTION.
It also made every encounter consist of multiple waves, with enemy reinforcements popping into existence inside your party and rendering positioning nearly useless. It's like they were going down a checklist of ways to make combat less tactical.
I hope they bring back spells like Virulent Walking Bomb from the first games. That one would poison an enemy and make them explode when they died, and if any enemy nearby died to the explosion or within the next few seconds they'd explode too, and so on.
It wasn't the best spell, but it fit the "mages are one misstep away from becoming eldritch abominations" narrative and damn did it make you feel powerful when the secondaries went off and it turned an entire room full of enemies into mist.
The thing is, Viconia and ::: spoiler Throne of Bhaal spoilers
Sarevok
had similar arcs in the previous games but I never got annoyed enough to not want them in my party. A character can be disagreeable without being insufferable.
Spec Ops actually did have choices where you could be good (or at least less bad), but ironically people missed them because they didn't think being good would work.
For example, at one point you're being harassed by an angry mob of locals. A lot of players simply shot them because a lifetime of experience with shooters told them that no other input would be recognized. But in actuality, if you fired warning shots at the ground or over their heads the civilians would flee without incident.
Honestly, as glad as this article makes me, I'd still like to see a perfect birth control for women. Periods seem like they must be the worst part of being a woman (biologically, not socially). Having a temporary, reversible way to stop ovulation without fucking up a dozen related systems and causing physical and mental anguish would be nice.
You occasionally hear of houses being hit by fragments of deorbited space stations or things like that. I'm wondering how much of our trash would survive a shallow reentry.
And also how bad spreading its aerosolized forms across hundreds of miles would be in the long run.
I'm Christian, I feel that the ten commandments are some of the best secular life advice the bible has to offer, and this mess is complete and utter unmitigated bullshit.
Not to start an argument, but I just can't understand how you think it's a fit guide for secular life. Half of the commandments are explicitly religious, and the other half are basic common sense laws that are already encompassed by the Golden Rule that many cultures and religions came up with independently (including the Abrahamic ones elsewhere in their religious texts).
But, to go into more detail (and using the full text, not the abbreviated versions that make it look kinder):
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
Standard monotheism, nothing to say here. It'd be weird if it weren't here, and it's better than most declarations in that it only applies to that religion's adherents and doesn't explicitly deny the existence of other gods (a note: IIRC the golden calf was created through a miracle and nobody acted as though that was weird, but I'd like if someone more scholarly could chime in).
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Funny how the first set of tablets was destroyed when Moses discovered his people losing faith and worshipping an idol, and the replacements he made contained a law specifically against that very uncommon occurrence. Surely that law was in the original tablets as well and not just added as a reaction to those events...
As for the second half, I don't know how anyone could read this, considered the most literal word of god in their religion, and say it's a good basis for morality. Punishing innocent children for their ancestors' actions or beliefs is straight up evil.
It also explicitly states that his love is conditional, something that strongly conflicts with the main modern offshoots of the religion.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Weird how the only commandments specifying something is unforgivable are for things that bruise their deity's ego, but then again the OT god was an incredibly petty tyrant.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
I've never really looked into the Sabbath so I'm not going to touch this one. I am mildly annoyed that the justification for their rest day is yet another ego-stroking thing instead of something for the benefit of the people. Imagine how much better things might be if several large religions stressed the importance of breaks for reasons of physical and mental health.
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Anyone who had abusive, neglectful, or narcissistic parents could tell you the problem with this one, but I can't fault an insular, patriarchal religion from several millennia ago for trying to keep families together during an especially trying period when thoughts of desertion must have been common.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
These are the only ones I have zero problem with. They are also exactly what you'd expect someone to set as law when leading a bunch of people, especially if problems are starting to crop up due to low morale.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Note that all examples here were considered property (morality rules get a pass for things like slavery and owning your wife if they're old enough) so this is technically a repeat of the law against stealing. Or, since it states that coveting is forbidden, it would cover stealing and be an example of thoughtcrime.
I liked how SimCopter actually used the same systems as SimCity 2000, with cop cars coming from police stations and fire trucks from the firefighters. Well thought out SimCity maps actually made your life easier, rather than being window dressing.
I wish someone would bring back the concept. There was a SimCopter mod for Cities: Skylines back when it first released, though I think it was abandoned. That would be the perfect game for it, since half of SimCopter was dealing with traffic and Skylines had an amazing traffic simulation.
Mostly, I just liked the Apache helicopter you could use to blow everything up
Until you hit a nuclear power plant and it wiped out half the city (and probably fried your copter too) once it burned down.
UFOs would also start spawning when an Apache was present on the map and start abducting civilians and blowing up buildings until you shot them down. I think that was the only other disaster the game simulated?
I believe the last pre-Paradox build is still available under Steam Betas.
It's a damn shame what Paradox did to the game. It turned from a near-perfect sim with excellent optimization and stability into a laggy, buggy mess with loads of DLCs that both fixed and introduced more bugs. So the usual Paradox product, where stability is completely random based on which DLCs you own.