Zeusthecat

So I just discovered that whenever I run my vacuum in the same room that our cable modem is plugged into, my internet goes out and I have to reboot my modem. I have been wondering for awhile now why our internet intermittently goes out and all of the lights on our modem go solid and just recently made the connection that it always happens right after we vacuum. Has anyone ever experienced this or know what might be the cause? I'm thinking either the modem is dying, there is shitty wiring in my house, or the large current draw from the vacuum somehow adversely affects the operation of the modem.

You bite your tongue kind sir!!! VIII is a goddamn gem! Such a weird and tragic story that still sticks with me to this day.

Fair enough. I don't mean to dictate what I think other people should enjoy about the game, just poorly trying to explain what it is I enjoy about it.

It's strange but I'm experiencing the exact opposite. I just turned 29 and I find with each year my interest in games and the enjoyment I get out of them continues to go up. When I was a teenager I spent more of my time watching tv but as time has gone on I've pretty much stopped consuming any other forms of media and instead spend all of my spare time playing and reading about games. And oddly enough, I can't even think of a game that I've played in the last 15 years that I didn't enjoy. This probably all sounds super obsessive and unhealthy but I guess games still hold that magical allure that they did when I was a little kid. There is always either a mechanic to be learned, a story to experience, a challenge to be had, music to enjoy, or a competition to be had with other people.

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX are some of my favorite games and I always thought they were generally well regarded by most people. However, I've become aware in recent years how much people apparently dislike those games. It makes me just a little bit sad for some reason.

I have never been bothered by the hunger mechanic. I just keep a stack of carrots or something with me at all times and it takes all of 3 seconds to quickly eat one whenever my hunger meter dips. I guess I don't understand how that can be perceived as an inconvenience. In fact, if it went away I would be super bummed because it would take away a big part of what motivates me to get a decent farm running and to try to come up with cool devices to automatically harvest the food I need. Also, one of my favorite parts of the early game (especially on hard difficulty) is trying to juggle getting a shelter set up and establishing a consistent food source so I don't starve.

Damn you Mington!!! Every time I read the title to this thread I start humming that stupid song and then it's stuck in my head for the rest of the day. So congratulations on making me insane. I hope Urkel's sweet red sweater counts as Christmas apparel. Maybe I could make him barf a reindeer.

I must have lucked out because I never noticed any bumps in the road. I just saw that whenever I knocked him off with my chainsaw he would hit a button to blow up his bike so I gave it another shot with the 2x4 and got the goggles right away.

I totally respect where you're coming from but I'm going to be a Minecraft apologist for a minute. Having played the game pretty consistently since shortly after it was officially released, my experience has been that every patch has introduced new things that enhance the existing game and add more delicious layers to the loop of exploring->mining->building->crafting->enchanting->brewing. As more items and functionality have been added, the usefulness of each type of block you mine increases and that increases the potency of the crack that is Minecraft. There are so many systems now that feed wonderfully into each other that pretty much guarantee I am getting the maximum effect of my crack every time I play. Every block I mine is exciting because it can be used as a construction material or ingredient for several different items. Breeding animals is exciting because I need sheep's wool for carpet/pictures/beds, I need cow's leather for item frames/books/armor, I need chicken feathers for arrows and books/quills, and I need pigs so I can fucking ride them. Setting up farms is exciting because there are a bunch of different ways to automate the collection of food and most types of food have multiple uses beyond just restoring hunger points. You mentioned you didn't like the magic and xp stuff but again I think those things have reached a point where they are just as exciting as anything else. You now receive xp for mining, smelting, and fighting off enemies and there are dozens of enchants available across armor, weapons, and tools that all have a noticeable impact on the gameplay. Whether it's underwater breathing, faster mining, more durability, stronger weapons, or a bunch of other effects I find myself regularly utilizing this system. Then you have the brewing component which encourages you to explore the most dangerous areas of the nether since you have to get a lot of your ingredients from there to make a brew stand and more effective potions. I could go on for a long time listing all of the cool little additions from the way villagers now work to the addition of horses but I think you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. I don't expect to change your mind but I would encourage you to dive in a little deeper if you have only experienced the latest stuff at the surface level. This is my F-GOAT after all so I feel compelled to champion it every chance I get.

I played some more last night and didn't make much more progress. I found that I was unable to go back to the junkyard so I pretty much spent all my time on Mine Road knocking assholes off their bikes. I picked up a 2x4, a chain, a spiked ball on a chain, and some high tech goggles and that's about it so far. I tried putting the goggles on and expected them to show me some hidden area but as far as I could tell every exit I took brought me back to the main highway just like they do when I'm not wearing the goggles. Also, there is one last guy that I haven't been able to knock down because he blasts off before I can get him. I haven't tried every item yet but I can say that the chainsaw definitely isn't working. So right now my options are very limited. I'm fairly certain that I will somehow need to get my last two items from Mine Road. I'm hoping that one of my current items can be used to knock the last dude off his bike so I can get his booster. Then I think I vaguely remember something being mentioned earlier about needing to wear those goggles to get to the rival gang's base or something like that but so far I haven't found it. So I'll probably need to go through that a few more times and just make sure I'm hitting every exit I come across. Also, I'm thinking there might be some way for me to get into the locked garage at the Mink ranch but if it is possible I don't have what I need yet.

Lately I've just been playing on the Idle Thumbs server Squid Division set up. I've only ever played vanilla and always meant to try out some mods but I've been waiting for the plugin API so I don't risk corrupting my world.

This game continues to destroy my life. I don't understand why even after playing it for 2 years I still find myself daydreaming about it every day. I imagine the way I feel about Minecraft is about the same as how a crackhead feels about crack. I always tell myself I'm only going to play for a little bit. Then I inevitably start dreaming up some stupid grandiose plans and get sucked in for months at a time. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever hit (bed)rock bottom with this game.

I don't know, I kind of sort of think that was just a little bit of a false analogy. Maybe if there was some kind of a fallacy list that you could have referenced your argument would have been a little better.

I didn't know there was a knife mini-game. I talked to him several times and asked him to let me show him how to do it but he basically told me to fuck off each time. And I saw Mark Hamill's name in the opening credits but didn't know which characters he voiced. Honestly the voice acting in this game seems rock solid all the way around so this is one case where Mark Hamill's excellent voice acting doesn't stand out as much as it usually does.

Progress has continued to come pretty smoothly since getting through those initial puzzles. Upon resuming, I saw once again that the road forward was blocked and this time there was no way I could lure the authorities using the gas tower alarm. So with no way forward I decided to head back in the other direction which brought me back to the bar from the beginning. There was a trucker there who seemed to know the location of the Mink ranch I was looking for but he refused to give me a ride because he was scared of the cops and didn't like me. So I poked around a little bit more before finding the reporter, Miranda, hiding in the same dumpster I was thrown in earlier. I talked to her and managed to get a fake ID of some kind which I was then able to give to the trucker in exchange for a ride through the blockade. After making it through the blockade, the trucker dropped me off at the Mink ranch and took off before I had a chance to notice that he had taken the fuel hose off of my bike to repair his leaky line. With nowhere else to go, I went inside a nearby open door to find what appeared to be Mo's bedroom. After a little bit of searching I was able to find a crowbar under her pillow and was able to use the crowbar to open a locked chest at the foot of her bed. There was a fuel hose inside the chest and as soon as I picked it up I saw the locked garage door open and saw Mo take off down the highway. So I quickly put the fuel hose on my bike and chased after her. Unfortunately she had removed my boosters and I was unable to keep up with her when she activated her boosters and rocketed away. As I continued pursuing Mo I found myself entering rival gang territory and got to see a sequence where the rival gang exploded the asshole trucker that fucked me over which also destroyed the bridge I needed to cross. When I resumed control after this sequence, I was in a little area on the highway where the truck trailer was left on the side of the road. I started messing around a little with the trailer and found that I could pick up some of the fertilizer that was inside. After some more investigating I found that I could also use the crowbar I had on the trailer tires. Once I loosened the nuts on all the tires, I was able to use my biker strength to knock the trailer over, spilling fertilizer all over the road. At this point there was nothing else I could do in this area so I continued on. Continuing down the road, I ended up turning onto Mine Road and ran into Father Torque who provided some useful information about the gangs. After we bullshitted for a little while, I continued on and eventually made my way to the destroyed bridge. There was a big information sign nearby that showed a series of attempts that various people had made to jump the gorge. After reading about the dude who jumped the gorge with his modified bike (I'm pretty sure he used a hover device + booster + ramp to cross the gorge), it became clear that I would need to make similar modifications so I could attempt the same feat. Before leaving the area, I poked around some more and when I attempted to use the fertilizer I had on the bridge, Ben made a comment about needing to use that on Mine Road. So with that hint in mind, I hit the road again and turned back onto Mine Road. As I was driving down Mine Road, I eventually came across a biker with a chainsaw that I was unable to punch and knock over. Luckily, thanks to the hint Ben gave just beforehand, I found that I could equip the fertilizer and use it as a weapon. Once I did so I was able to knock the chainsaw biker down and take her chainsaw. From here I just drove around some more and eventually made my way back to the Mink ranch where I was able to trick the two waiting henchmen into chasing me and got them to drive through the fertilizer mess which caused them to crash. After Ripburger caught up with them and picked them up, I found that I was able to explore the small area of highway around their crashed car. Before long, I discovered that I could use the crowbar on the fender to open a hatch and take the car's hover device. Then I put the hover device on my bike and stopped playing for the evening. So it looks like I now have the first of the three items I need to jump the gorge. I've been thinking about what I need to do next and my guess is that I'll need to go back to the junkyard and use the chainsaw on one of the cars to fashion some sort of ramp. As far as the booster goes I'm not so sure. I did notice that the rival gang I ran into had boosters on their bikes so perhaps I will need to make one of them crash like I did with the chainsaw lady and take the booster off of the crashed bike. If that doesn't work then I'll have to toil some more and comb back through the areas to see if I missed anything.

I finally got past all of the stuff I was stuck on last night. I resumed my play in the junkyard and probably spent a good 20 minutes messing around with that stupid junkyard magnet trying to move cars around. I eventually decided to take a break from my magnet duties and wandered around the junkyard some more to see if there was anything I had missed. As I re-examined each junk pile I came across one that I must have skipped before that had the forks I needed. So I picked them up and brought them to Mo and it was all very anti-climactic. I'm guessing I will either need to use the junkyard magnet stuff for some future puzzle or maybe the dog needed to be suspended in the car (which I happened to do before re-examining all the piles) for me to be able to pick up the forks or something. All I had to do now was obtain the gas for my bike but unfortunately I had not found anything else that could help me retrieve it without setting off the alarm on the gas tower. Throughout multiple attempts I eventually came to the conclusion that there was no fucking way I would make it up that ladder. So I continued setting off the alarm over and over and eventually realized that if I set it off and just stood there, the game gave me much more time before the helicopter showed up than if I tried to climb the ladder or leave the area. I took this as a pretty obvious hint that there must be some spot in that area where I was supposed to go since the game actually gave me enough time to move around the area before raining bullets on me. So I tried a few more times and walked to various areas that seemed a little more "shadowy" but continued to have the same results. Finally, as I was combing through the area I found that there was some sort of a cabinet thing at the left of the screen that I could walk behind. As soon as I found that I hit the alarm one more time, went and hid behind the cabinet, and was able to trick the helicopter guys to land and start looking for me on foot. Once they ascended the ladder to look for me, I walked over to their helicopter and saw that I could interact with the gas tank. So I put the hose in the tank and the gas canister on the ground and then stood there stumped for a couple more minutes trying to figure out how to get the gas in the can. Luckily, I remembered before long that every time I tried to "talk to" an inanimate object, Ben said something like "I'm not putting my mouth on that". So with that in mind, I tried using my mouth on the hose and was able to get the gas I needed. This should have been obvious considering I've had to perform this very action in real life but up until I remembered that little detail it was so ingrained in my head that the mouth icon only meant "talk to". With the final item in hand, I was finally able to have Mo repair my bike and I was on my way... until I saw half a dozen helicopters waiting for me down the road and had to turn back. I figured the most obvious way to get past them would be to set off the alarm again to lure them back over to the gas tower and then take off down the highway before they had a chance to return to their spot. Luckily, I figured correctly and was once again on my way. Once I finally caught up with the Polecats, I was treated to a sequence where I got to see Corley get his head bashed in by Ripburger while the reporter from earlier photographed the whole thing before being caught and having her camera taken by one of the henchmen. They then took off and Ben found Corley bleeding out. In his dying breath, Corley revealed that Maureen was his daughter and that Ben would need to find her. That led me back to the junkyard where I was treated to another scene where Mo fucked up the henchman and found the camera he had confiscated. I came in shortly after that to find a pile of rubble with a smashed camera and the picture that had been hanging on the wall in Mo's garage. The camera appeared to have had it's film taken out (which I assume was Mo's doing) and upon inspecting the picture, Ben remembered Mo telling him about her uncle's ranch and how it was a place of safety or something like that. Then I stopped playing for the evening. I assume the next step will be to hit the road again and find this ranch so I can hopefully locate Mo.

I think the only games I've played this year that were actually released this year are Bioshock Infinite, GTA V (which I've only played around 10 hours of so far), and Animal Crossing New Leaf. So I guess I'd have to go with GTA V. It has been a really fun game.

I have probably listened to the entire 3 disc Chrono Cross soundtrack more than any other music in my life.

That seems like a pointless comparison to make. As other people have already pointed out, games are about more than just the quality of the story contained within. A world that you are experiencing and interacting with doesn't need to have the same story characteristics as a book or movie for it to be genuinely moving. I have been emotionally affected by plenty of games that don't have anything resembling a book-quality story because the experience of being in the world and experiencing what it has to offer doesn't necessitate that type of storytelling.

After another 30 minutes of toiling I finally figured out how to get into the junk yard. It turns out I needed to put the lock on the door to prevent it from opening when the chain is pulled and then use the chain to climb up the wall. I thought I had tried that already but I was obviously mistaken. After making my way through the junk yard I came to the area with the dog and was able to lure him into a car with the meat. Then I got stuck again for a little while trying to figure out what I was supposed to do before discovering that I could use the junk yard magnet thing to pick up the cars. So I stacked up some of the cars and suspended the car with the dog above the ground but wasn't able to figure out what I was supposed to do next before I had to go to bed. I'm guessing that I need to go around and pick up all of the cars in that area to uncover the forks. I think they will either be under one of the cars or I will need to drop the cars from higher up to smash them or something. From what I can tell I'm not able to really interact with any of the cars in a meaningful way and unless the dog is suspended he will try to murder my ass whenever I do anything in that area. I'm also hoping that I find something in the junkyard that will help me get to the top of the gas tower without those assholes shooting me down. I tried a few more times last night and I don't see how I can get up there with what I currently have. It seems that once I set off the alarm I can either try to climb the tower or run away and once the helicopter shows up my interactions are frozen until it leaves again, at which point the alarm is reset. So I'm definitely struggling a bit more with this game. I still really like it but I'm surprised that it has had me stumped for so long this early on in the game.

Agreed.

I guess the way I look at it is that all that time spent manually doing low level math that you learned in 3rd grade would be better spent focusing on more of the high level stuff. I think by the time we reach calculus we've all done enough addition, subtraction, multiplication and division that there is very little added value in having to continue doing that manually. All that being said I don't think I ever used any of the high level capabilities of my graphing calculator after precalc. A basic scientific calculator pretty much had all the functionality that anyone needed at that point. So yeah, video games.

I wonder if curiosity ever got the better of Jake and he touched his own poop wearing a glove.

Blue Dragon!! I am one of the few people that loved that fucking game. Along with Lost Odyssey which I mentioned elsewhere.