sclpls

I think we're in agreement here. The U.S. used atomic weapons, and took American citizens of Japanese descent from their homes and kept them in internment camps... and those are just the most well known episodes. That doesn't compare to a campaign of genocide in my mind, but I would never deny it was a dark episode in American history. Unfortunately your insight that "actions committed by people more like me are more acceptable than ones by people that are not" as a sort of typical guiding moral compass seems to be absolutely correct.

To be clear, I agree with Gormongous that Stalin the individual was just as evil as Hitler. Notably in TS you aren't Stalin, you are the Soviet Union which I believe is a somewhat meaningful distinction although I can understand why others would disagree.

I'd rather not get into it as I feel like that involves getting into a pretty in depth discussion of history and foreign policy that could easily go off the rails, but I basically disagree with your claim that power has become an end in itself for all three nations, and I don't believe the historical evidence can back up such a claim. Suffice to say, the three reasons for these nations pursuing hegemony were for different sets of circumstances, and I think those circumstances are important enough that drawing moral equivalencies between the three is unwarranted, even granting all the different shades of gray and nuance.

I've been listening lately to the Crate & Crowbar. It is a games podcast with Tom Francis of Gunpoint & Spelunky Explorers Club fame, as well as a bunch of other UK games journalists having smart conversations about games that I think most Idle Thumbs listeners would appreciate.

http://www.dorkly.com/article/54448/a-message-from-gabe-newell This is pretty funny, and I think I agree with it for the most part?

Totally! http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/timothy-leary-video-games-unearthed-in-archive/?_r=0

Regarding unwinnable states in old adventure games, that was definitely a thing. I don't think that was the case for any Lucas Arts games though, as it was definitely a hobbyhorse of Ron Gilbert's to make sure that never happened, a clear indication that he was and remains a sharp game designer.

I've been mulling over this topic for a few days now. I think there is distinction to be made between what Twilight Struggle is asking the player to do as a player controlling the Soviet Union, and a hypothetical game that asks a player to control the Nazi party in between the World Wars. That distinction comes down to the goal of the game. In Twilight Struggle your goal is to win the cold war (whatever that means exactly), and both sides historically engaged in some morally odious behavior in the process of that ideological struggle. The goal itself however, become the world's dominant superpower, isn't what a lot of people would call intrinsically evil. By contrast, the German's player goal in this hypothetical game is to fulfill what we recognize as a great historical evil. That goes a step further than something like Axis & Allies or various other WWII strategy games where the Axis player(s) are attempting to reach a goal that was not accomplished in history, but would have been a great evil had it been achieved (also it is of course worth mentioning that even this is too much for some people, Troy has mentioned that he does not ever want to play Germany in WWII games, and he is most certainly not alone in that feeling. I would not be surprised if there are Twilight Struggle players that only want to play as the United States...) All of this is to say that there is a reasonable argument to be made that a designer might be comfortable designing a game that allows you to engage in morally reprehensible behavior, as so many games do allow, as long as the goal is for some greater good (arguably XCOM and Twilight Struggle both fall into this category), but would be uncomfortable with a game where that higher minded goal is found to be lacking. I try to be pragmatic about all of this. Ultimately people have different levels of sensitivity and comfort with regard to these issues and what they are able to tolerate in game spaces (and other media as well of course), and I would never criticize someone for feeling uneasy because of one subject instead of another.

There is a Puerto Rico port for iOS but I believe it is iPad only. I think there isn't enough screen space to really do the game any justice on a phone.

That video is just the best thing. There is this universe of ours with all sorts of particles, and then there is that video; it is transcendent.

Make sure you get some mods to make old games like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex look a little nicer. People have done some good work there...

That being said your list is really good, the only thing I disliked on it was Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery so it looks like you have some pretty excellent gaming in your future.

I'll just say the obvious thing that if you're posting on these forums you owe it to yourself to play Far Cry 2. I've been replaying it lately, and it totally holds up as a fantastic experience.

I think her point should be well taken about Star Wars. However you actually feel about those original movies (for most people, that is extremely positive), I think it's much harder to make the argument that it inspired better science fiction.

The rope is from the barnacle... it is strangling the G-Man.

Which was only usable for like Wii Sports Plus, and the Zelda game. What a waste.

Hahaha I think there is some confusion. I wasn't referring to the Steam controller as "candy", I was referring to the actual nerds rope candy mentioned in the episode!

Man, depressing but also not at all surprising how that comic is still completely relevant.

Wow, I think this is the first time I've ever been excited about a controller!

As GFW demonstrated, being on a video games podcast is the ticket to candy. Sean mentioning the jumping thing in video games reminded me of an article I was reading about some study that found that people who play video games have improved specific types of motion perception compared to non-gamers. It turns out this is because in first person games you spend a lot of time walking backwards, which is something that you almost never do in your actual life. Thanks, s key.

!!! Dat gif...

It's great, it's a perfect game to fire up if you have a few spare minutes. The theme song is incredibly catchy, lately if I wake up with a hangover that music is echoing around in my skull, which is totally demented.

I haven't had the logo image for months now. No idea why...

I feel like kickstarter helps the Linux platform as well. At least anecdotally I see lots of kickstarters where the target platform is PC/Mac/Linux

I feel like the learning curve distribution for a game like Spelunky is way better than DOTA2. Just sayin'