BurningStickMan

I don't think they mean, "yes, please make it a shallow reskin of the current x-com," I think they're asking for a well-made x-com in an underwater setting. More of what TFTD *should* have been than what it was. And I can get behind that.

Any game that embargoes its reviews has something to hide.

Description's wrong. You play the cop in Keystone Kapers, chasing the robber. At least on the 2600.

I guess my question is, what if the connection is spotty or not available? Does the game default to local, low-res lighting, and what does that look like.

THANK YOU! I'm glad someone else noticed.

Next step, he and Marcus Beer appear on Letterman.

Gamepad support? Uh oh. I think this is not the game you think it is.

No gamepad. All mouse/UI driven since you don't fly your ship directly.

@cornbredx: Nice story! For some reason, reminds me of my first pathetic attempt as a Bounty Hunter.

When the CU hit, they removed the Doctor profession as it was and turned it into a field medic. I hated the change, but I understand - buffing was out of control, requiring players to rely on other players to heal them was a great system when it worked and pure hell when it didn't - but it still left me with nothing to do. So I respeced around and dabbled in different professions for a while.

Bounty Hunter seemed interesting, so I speced into a max lvl BH, but of course, with no leveling period to learn what I was doing. Bought some gear, bought some droids, and took a medium-level mission from the BH terminal.

For those who don't know, at this time the BH system was all about forced PvP between BHs and Jedi. Jedi automatically collected bounties for using their powers in public, even in front of their friends. Jedi also had a ridiculous conversion rate of regular XP to Force XP, and lost a notable amount of Force XP when killed by a Hunter. It was meant to limit the number of Jedi, but basically ended up making the grind even more of a pain in the ass. Jedi hated Bounty Hunters.

Anyway, the BH droids flew off to find my target. The first one reported him on Endor, so I headed there, sent up the second droid to refine the position, and zipped off on my speeder. Found him out in the middle of nowhere with another Jedi, grinding on local beasts. This was a common setup, because it allowed them to easily spot on the minimap when someone was approaching, while limiting their exposure and increasing their bounty.

I decided this would be a good time to try my new stealth abilities. I went prone and crawled (so not to break stealth) for something like 10 minutes, inching closer and closer to my prey, convinced I'd totally get the drop on him.

I'd never used stealth before, so I didn't know what the detection radius was. Suddenly *ZAP* the cloak drops and there I am, laying on the ground in front of a Wookie Jedi and his padawan.

The jig is up already, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. "Um... I'm looking for my contact lens."

After getting handily killed, I decided BH might not be for me. If I remember correctly, I respeced to Commando, got a full suit of trooper armor, and tried playing as a patrolling Stormtrooper in Theed for a while.

Galaxies was launched 10 years ago today! And I know what you're thinking.

Let it go...

And you're right. But this isn't a post about how SWG should be brought back, or debate if it was the "greatest MMO ever made ever you guys." I just thought it would be fun to see if any duders out there had any favorite SWG memories to share.

As for me, I remember I couldn't care less when it was released. It was Jump to Lightspeed that hooked me in, because I thought it would be a modern update to the X-Wing series. Well, JtL turned out to be a massive pain-in-the-ass grindfest (though I finally did earn my own Millennium Falcon, with a bugged zero-weight engine from a friend that made it haul ass), and the planetary gameplay ended up stealing most of my interest.

I played as a doctor on Bria, and to this day can't explain what was so curiously fun about that. I loved heading out to the market to buy and then craft my repertoire of powerful medicines. Stims for health, stamina, diseases, bleeding, and more - and the grand quest to get them up to server-capped potency. I loved hanging around the Coronet med center and talking mess with whoever wandered in for healing (also learned quite a bit about the game this way!) I remember a few fights with the docs just there to heal tumblers and get a piece of that sweet Buff Bot pie, but those were short lived.

In short, there was something about working to actively help and enhance others' gameplay that I found tons of fun. Maybe why I've chosen healing roles in every MMO since. I suppose EVE offers the closest example to what I'm talking about - building up an industry and cranking out the best guns in a solo game (like the X series) feels kind of dumb, but doing it knowing that it actively supports other players is different. "Your weapons could be the ones that win the war" and such.

Oh, and there was walking in on my guild leaders cybering. That was fun.

I think a "doomsday" scenario is advertisers getting metrics on the "engaged" portion of Kinect's tracking.

Say you've got one of those 30 second video ads that plays before you can watch your content. And say Kinect will automatically pause that ad if you get up or even look away. You don't get to proceed until you've watched the whole thing. There's not an ad company I can think of that wouldn't pay to have users guaranteed to watch their ad - especially if a third party (Microsoft) takes the blame for hosting the capability.

End of the world? Hell, no. But given how much MS loves selling ad space with the current gen, I can certainly see the potential for ads getting yet more annoying with a forced Kinect that can monitor emotions and interest.