If you learned to play games using something other than WASD then yes, it really *is* hard to use. I've played every AAA FPS game (and a ton of non-AAA titles; I'm looking at you UT3) since the original Quake with keyboard & mouse, and haven't used WASD (or the arrow keys) once.

On that note, I'm still waiting for EA to release a patch for Dead Space that allows better/complete remapping of the keyboard and mouse. It's a PC, not a console...

I did absolutely as many of the side-quests as possible, but by the end of Tales of the Sword Coast and then Throne of Bhaal my parties were so ridiculously powerful I had to try to find interesting ways to defeat the opponents lest the battles be over too quickly. ;) I wished and hoped for a Baldur's Gate III to continue playing with that character (T-Rexian the Paladin!) but in truth unless I was fighting Jesus and his posse every battle, it would've been too easy of a game and I would've felt somehow obligated to start a new character from scratch...

As a visual effects professional I respectfully disagree, even though my livelihood depends on Hollywood wanting to put more and better effects in every blockbuster. The role of effects is to enhance the story. If the effect suck, well, they suck, but a great story will shine through no matter what...it doesn't need a visual orgy to endure.

This reminds me of the gameplay vs. graphics arguments in gaming. Crysis looks stunningly beautiful for a real-time engine...but I can sit down with many "ancient" games and enjoy a much better experience, visuals be damned.

Great effects with a sub-par story? You get Michael Bay...

I played through both games and both expansions on one character and timed the whole experience. 226 hours from start to finish, including (yes, I am admitting this) over five hours of initial dice-rolling for stats. YMMV.

Or compared The Dark Knight Returns to the Dark Knight Strikes Back? What a let-down...

Actually, who needs a direct hit? If the sun has enough gravity to keep the planets in orbit around it, I'm pretty sure even a "near miss" will suck in the stray coffin, sooner rather than later. You only need absolute precision if you are delivering a stellar bomb to reignite a dying star.

My favorite part of the article is where CNN felt like they had to define what the trachea was. Do people reading the news really not know what a trachea is? That's like telling people that Africa is a continent.

What? Oh. Never mind.

While these employees are waiting those 15 minutes (15? Really??) do they have to listen to/reply to anything their boss says? If I'm not on the clock, not getting paid to sit there and wait for my machine to boot up, why would I have to have any sort of professional relationship in the office...?

Wait...Microsoft had credibility with system-requirements to destroy?!?

Flux capacitors only require 1.21 jigawatts. Please turn in your nerd card on the way out the door.

Crichton didn't write The Lost World specifically for the money. He wrote it to try to maintain *some* control over his characters & initial creation (Jurassic Park). Basically Universal told him "We are making a sequel movie to Jurassic Park. Period. If you want to be involved, this is your chance (and your chance to make a ton of cash in the process)". I'm not saying that it didn't suck, I'm not saying he didn't *know* he was going to make a lot of dough off of it, but it wasn't like it was written ONLY to make a quick buck. And yes, Jurassic Park sent me down my career path as well (hence the name!). :)

Pay attention much? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold_Election_Systems#O.27Dell.27s_fundraising