Malice Song

Obviously I cannot speak for all atheists, but from what I've seen I think the reason why a debate like this can erupt so easily is not necessarilly the notion that religion is something silly that has to be mocked, but rather something dangerous. At least personally I subscribe to that mindset. Ideally, if someone has the courtesy not to bother me with his religious beliefs, I try to return the favor and not bother him with my opinion about how I think they're silly. Which I figure works out well enough and leaves two people simply subscribing to different mindsets in the understanding that they simply won't agree. That said, I've read the bible and as soon as I know someone else has and gets behind it, even just in part, alarm bells go off in my head. I might be very wrong here or just blatantly misunderstand the whole concept of tolerance, but at least up until this point I think my obligation to try to practise tolerance is toward the individual, not the ideas, concepts and beliefs it subscribes to. In the end, though, basically this. Which is probably why it's an interesting topic for me personally, since I think it is very easy to struggle with that part.

What are they, though? I don't mean to pose this as a rhetorical question, but a genuine one. Personally I have to agree with this: To me it seems like a clash of belief and facts and in an open discussion I generally struggle to address this. Or to put it differently: where to even begin? I think with Atheists it's (at least in general, I hope) not so much the notion that religious people have a different belief than we do and that there might be a problem, but that their belief is different from plain facts and that there might be a problem. In theory this shouldn't be necessary and in the past I used to think what people believe in is their own damn business. Actually I still think that's the best way to go about it, the same as with pretty much every other belief, thought, perspective, opinion and orientation: what happens in other people's heads, homes and conversations is none of my or anyone else's business - unless those people make it that. And to that extent I am a bit concerned about this, too: I don't mean to derail the topic too much or fuel some fire, apologies if I did. It is just a topic I'm personally rather interested in, because I actually don't have a good grasp on how to handle it. I'm most likely one of the condescending ones myself and I wouldn't mind being able to assume a more tolerant position on the topic.

Interesting topic. While there are a lot of interesting and enjoyable aspects about games, the big one for me is immersion, more specifically the chance to have an experience that would otherwise not be accessible to me. If a game can present me with a world or a thematic and put me right into it without presenting any expectations concerning my role in it, I am pretty much hooked. Not so much in a way where I as a player am presented with a challenge that I have to solve with a predefined set of tools, but rather the game establishing a setting and then asking me: "Now, what would you do?" Since the question also was for the favorite game, Fallout 3 is a prime example. The role I am playing is only very loosely predefined (as James' kid and with all the problems that arise from that relationship) and there is a choice of possible skillsets I have to make. Some of them may be more viable than others, but if I for example decided I wanted to forgo any form of firearm in favor of punching things in the face, then that is my choice, even if it may be not as effective. It's not so much about replay value for me, since all I want to do here is figure out what suits me and stick to it, it is about the choice and the acknowledgement that, if this is indeed what I want to do, I have the choice of it being a represantation of myself inside the world I've been presented with. Furthermore there is no handholding in the form of "okay, now go here, ice level!". I don't care much for open-endedness in itself, but the notion of a world that exists and persists on its own merit without revolving around my person. That is what Fallout 3 has achieved masterfully in my opinion. There's really no outstanding story to speak of or any sort of dramatic structure or rollercoaster ride. What it is, though, and what I enjoyed a lot, is this very outlandish postapocalyptic world that doesn't actively try to appeal to me, but just exists. It is up to me to explore it, its possibilities and its background. There is this one house in the minefield for example, where you find two skeletons embracing on the bed of the bedroom, two shots of morphine on the nightstand. The player is never required to visit the house (or the entire minefield for that matter), the house has nothing to offer in terms of value, be it some outrageous loot or advancement of the plot and even if you entered it, you could just miss the entire scene, don't care about it or interpret it differently. When I went in, though, having dodged dozens of mines, scavenging for loot, I found a scene that completely took me out of "I am playing a game" mode: whether I found it or not (and i wasn't forced to), it existed, completely unrelated to my person or the "epic quest" I was involved in and without any words it conveyed a little bit of story (not my story and that's the big one) to me, filled me in on what happened here long before my character was even born presumably - and then I would just leave the scene, powerless to that situation, unable to do anything about it, it was just there and it left an impact on me. At the same time the world acknowledged me, though, not the character I played, but the character as a direct extension of myself, contrary to how situations like those would be experienced in the context of a movie or a book. I was constantly having an impact on that world around me on a smale scale. Presented with the problems of different people, most of them not clear-cut good or evil, I'd have to make a choice, if I wanted to solve their problems, in what way, to what end and then how I'd go about it in the context of the possibilities of my character. These aspects would interweave, too. The choice whether to blow up Megaton or to disarm the bomb seems so straightforward in terms of moral implications at the time, but if you dig a little bit deeper you find out that the residents of Megaton, who welcome you as accepting as you can expect in that world, actually have loads of dirt on them and in any other game they could be painted as the "evil" ones you actually have to go up against. In this game, though, it is your choice. It is a choice that does not matter to the world as a whole or your progress in it, but to you as the kind of person you are representing. I guess this comes across as a bit of a review/sales pitch, but those are the examples I can think of that demonstrate the message I always enjoy receiving from a game: this world exists, what will your role be in it? Mass Effect 2 was another one of those, although in a different fashion. Basically regardless of the choices I made (because they seemed not to matter that much and just served to make me more accepting of the role of Shepard I was playing), but it also presented a world that just existed and was up to me to explore (even though I would have a big impact on this world on every possible scale). Not so much in terms of places and situations within the main plot, but rather the background and thematics that may be viewed differently in our present day context (and to an extent indeed are by the humans in the game). To me the game felt like bringing up a lot of interesting and delicate topics and while my character only had very little choice in how to deal with them, they made me reflect personally a bit and it was simply interesting to explore this vast world that has these very complicated (for game setting standards, at least) interactions and relations within itself instead of just being human problems in space and to just exist in a literally alien world without the game expecting me to shoot things in the face non stop.

Afaik avoiding direct combat by "abusing" doors and dancing around enemies has been somewhat integral to the genre, so I am almost sure you're getting the intended experience here. Also this.

Considering Jake edited out all links in the original screenplay post except for Hakeem's jersey, probably video game dream.

Done. I also fully support your choice of topic (if it was yours, that is), actually important one to be discussed openly afaik. The results so far are pretty interesting, too.

I only got into it myself in the maze of shadows, where I thought that was necessary and then kind of forgot to switch back. Admittedly I'd still whip out a torch now and then, if I got stuck in a poorly lit area, figuring I must have missed something (which, if I remember correctly, was never really necessary, because I didn't miss anything, I was just too stupid for a puzzle). You're not the first to mention more visibility in darkness, while I can't confirm personally, apparently sliding walls can let some light slip through and while that won't tell you the location of the corresponding switch, apparently it can give you a hint to search that area a bit more thoroughly. On a purely aesthetic note, if you just want to check it out and still have a save file available, Outer Sanctum with just the lighting from its teleporters looks breathtaking imo. Pretty sure you're correct on the number of keys. Saving them for a later treasure room definitely works.

So since this thread kind of tided me over from "hmmmm" to "fine, I'll buy it", let me return the favor in case there's still some undecided ones out there: Just finished it on normal and it was a great experience, highly recommended. And I actually never could get into Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder, despite actually being pretty pumped about them. Some impressions from my point of view: For the most part puzzles felt great and rewarding, though some of that stuff was ridiculous. I'm looking at you, Level 10. More precisely Not sure if race/class balance was a goal, but some approaches at least seemed a lot more viable than others and those usually were not that intuitive. After playing around a bit I decided to go with a party of four unarmed human rogues and they completely demolished that entire mountain. That said, endgame was a bit of a letdown. I can't put in words how much I utterly and unconditionally loved the aesthetics of the last floors, the bossfight on the other hand was garbage and I couldn't have cared less about the direction the plot was taking. Probably sounds weird, but I encourage everyone still playing to throw away their torches (well, maybe keep a handful for puzzles). The dungeons look absolutely gorgeous in the dark, much more so than while carrying a lightsource around all the time imo. You get used to it fairly quickly and the freed up active hand slot doesn't exactly hurt, either.

This often comes down to expectations, doesn't it? For example, I don't particularly care for adventure games, yet I still buy one once in a blue moon, if there seems something interesting to it and/or it's dirtcheap. In that case, however, I tend to have my judgment ready half an hour in at the latest. If it didn't something to wow me by that point, chances are it's not really going to hook me in, since I don't really relate to that genre to begin with. At that point the game and I just part amicably, it just didn't work out and we'll just be friends. It's a bit more complex when expectations are reversed and for some reason I think I am playing a great game (or in fact do), but just have no fun, whatsoever. Those are usually the big ones everyone loves and where I am thinking "I should really enjoy this. Everybody else does and here are quite a few things I usually like.", but for some reason it just doesn't click with me. Usually because I am bothered by some details everybody else just doesn't give a shit about and if these things pile up enough, then it's probably just not my cup of tea. Most notable offenders in this category are probably Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (basically anything of Time, apparently). From what I can judge I near-completed both of them, just to have a moment where I asked myself: "self, what the hell are you doing? You're not having fun with this game and in fact never had. This game isn't for you, just move on. It's okay, you can always go on a message board later and pretend everybody else is wrong, you don't have to object yourself to this out of a weird sense of 'Games Everyone Should Have Played'". And that's pretty much the mindset I stuck with since then, because let's face it: there's a lot of good games, if one starts out sucking, is it really worth marching on, when the start will always be that: just not fun? Of course there are examples of games being designed to challenge you a bit more and ditch the handholding. Afaik I am obliged to mention Far Cry 2 here? Also I still have to play Stalker and am semi-prepared for a similar experience, fully knowing that I will probably love pretty much everything about that game, if I give it a chance. But if it comes to perceived design flaws or the realization, that the game and I have different ideas how it should/could be played, I don't feel the need to hang around anymore these days. Terrible controls on the PC port? It was nice knowing you, Dead Space. Following a narrow narrative path instead of exploring the world and developing my character on my own? Make yourself at home in the toaster, GTA IV. Red Faction Guerilla? Space Asshole. So yeah, every game can have a shitty part, but if it starts out that way, in my experience more often than not it is because the game just isn't my cup of tea or there's a fundamental design decision or premise I don't agree with, and no matter how much patience I am willing to show, it won't go away. And if it does, there'll always be the foul taste of the opening hours. How to put that into a number ... an hour maybe, I guess, tutorials not counting. On a sidenote, whenever a game addresses me as "the chosen one" and expects me to take it seriously, it immediately flies out the window. No regrets so far.

Running the danger of getting redundant, but: I was the same as you in the first Trine, almost exclusively thieving it up, combat included. I may be pulling shit out of my ass, but I think Trine 2 is visually more up close, which makes your ranged combat slightly less effective, so when some enemies charge at you while some use projectiles against you, the knight seems like the more natural choice in most cases. As far as kineticism and getting orbs goes, maybe mastering walljumps could have helped, but I was under the impression that the amount of grappleable (is that even a word?) surfaces has been massively reduced, while a lot of objects for the Wizard to interact with have been added to puzzle solving. So basically to me the difference was: whereas in Trine your objective was to get from start to finish, mostly in whatever way you prefered, Trine 2 feels more divided into several small objectives and a prefered choice for each: knight for combat, wizard for puzzles/obstacles, thief for, well, not much, really, and while I guess you could try to switch it up, I always felt like I'd needlessly just make things more difficult for myself, instead of just changing up my modus operandi. Keep in mind, though, it is entirely possible that I just got terrible at games in the last two years.

See, I didn't even find out that the thief has an awkward walljump now, until I read your post, maybe that could have helped a little bit. Even the stacking part, I'd usually just finish up with the Wizard using a falling plank as a stepping stone, always seemed to be the easiest approach. I may just be slightly bummed, because the thief - as you said - has the least prominent role now and I loved her to bits in the first Trine, whereas now she barely seems to be a valid option for anything but some minor shortcutting.

I don't think it's just that. Having just finished it, it seemed more like Wizard - The Game. Maybe I should have checked my expectations beforehand, but it felt like the fluidity and kineticism of its predecessor was gone and replaced with "stack boxes to get past x". On the plus side, it was very very pretty.

Guess this is the best opportunity to mention that I'm looping through all the old episodes for months now pretty much 24/7 (apparently I don't really like silence) and say Thanks for reviving the cast. Please take my monies.