Zeusthecat

I used that some and it was pretty cool but once I got chained electricity it seemed most efficient to shock half a dozen guys and just take pot shots at them. Plus I could get a few more uses out of that then crow thingy. I think I'll eventually play through again on hard or 1999 mode to see if the combat gets more interesting.

I recently completed Bioshock Infinite. Overall I really liked it. I enjoyed the story and felt that it was really well done for the most part. I also think they did a really good job with Elizabeth and I like how they depicted her changing throughout the game as shit went down. What impressed me the most though were the visuals and the sound design. With the graphics cranked up this game is gorgeous and I often found myself staring at all of the scenery for minutes at a time. And I never got tired of Elizabeth throwing coins at me. That little segment just tickled my senses every time. For the first 2/3rds of the game I enjoyed the combat and was having fun with it but by the end it lost it's luster for me. I found that I was pretty much just using shock jockey on everything and taking dudes out with my carbine. I did experiment some with the other vigors but none seemed as effective as shock jockey so by the end of the game I was pretty much just spamming that and shooting dudes. Also, the looting aspect really wore me out. I have a compulsive need to not miss anything and having to search every goddamn trash can, purse, desk, body, and container got really old really fast. It was bad enough for me that it dragged the whole experience down a notch. I dreaded new areas because of all the looting I knew I would need to do. Even though I really enjoyed the story in this game there was one part that kind of bothered me: The most emotionally impactful experience of the game for me was when I happened upon a few dead bodies lying on top of a pile of burning rubble. They were just innocent civilians that had been massacred and hastily tossed into the pile. As I examined the pile I noticed a young woman in a blue dress amongst the bodies. I leaned down to shut her eyelids and that's when I noticed the hot dog sticking out of her pocket. I ate the hot dog.

Yeah, I'm not too fond of puzzles where they hide something behind a door. Making you look in a stupid place doesn't leave you very satisfied when you do solve it.

What the fuck happened to this thread?

This is the only way to live.

Made some more good progress last night. I was stuck for a bit when I started playing and eventually decided I should start going into rooms and closing doors to see if there was anything on the other side (thanks MI2). Sure enough, I found some keys in the door with the sleeping conventioneer. I looked around for a lock and after I couldn't find one I remembered the thief trying to break into the car outside. So I went out there and gave him the keys since Bernard was already gullible enough to think that was the thief's car and ended up getting his crowbar in exchange. With the crowbar, I was able to pry the dime/gum off the floor and was able to get the sweater from under the sleeping conventioneer by shaking the guy off the bed. Unfortunately I wasn't able to send the sweater back through the toilet but after toiling some more I discovered that I could put it in the dryer. Since I didn't have any quarters to start the dryer I went around to each device that took change and eventually discovered that I could use the crowbar to get a mountain of quarters from the snack machine. I then put every single quarter into the dryer and switched over to Laverne. As Laverne I made several discoveries. First, I grabbed the tiny sweater from the dryer. Then I found that I could use the fork to make the mummy's hair look better. Unfortunately, Harold still seemed to be the favorite and based on my interactions the game seemed to hint to me that I should try to get Harold out of the running. So I started trying to screw with him and before long I discovered that I could put the fake barf on the floor in front of him and trick the tentacle doctor into thinking Harold was sick. With him gone and with the mummy having some sweet hair and an awesome laugh, I just need to figure out how to get the teeth to stop chattering (the gum didn't work). I explored some more and also found that I could use the can opener on the time capsule. I saw that the wine had turned to vinegar and sent that back to Hoagie so he could give it to Red. I didn't really figure anything else out with Hoagie besides giving the vinegar to Red. All I need for the battery now is gold. I tried a few more things and then stopped around this point. So now I'm not sure how to get the teeth to stop chattering. Hopefully I'll get an item I need for it eventually. I'm also not sure where the tiny sweater comes into play. I'm still pretty sure I'll be able to send the shrink ray back to Bernard at some point so I'll either need to use the tiny sweater on him or maybe I need to put it on my freezing hamster (again, where the fuck is that hamster in the future?). I still need to figure out how to distract Edna, either by giving her coffee since she only drinks decaf or by doing something to the statue. I also need to figure out what is up with the talking horse and how I am supposed to interact with the Edison twins in the past. I can't move when I pick up the hammer so there is something I am missing there. Another thing that stands out is the gun cigar lighter that I can't pick up yet. Maybe I need to get the flag gun from the depressed guy, use that to distract the cigar salesman, take the lighter gun, and use that with Hoagie to burn something so Hancock isn't freezing. Also, there's still the cat with the mouse toy and the item Ben Franklin needs.

All right, I give up. I had hope you would come around but I just don't see it happening at this point. Just please know that there are some very intelligent people in here giving you incredibly good reasons for supporting feminism and you are responding with very unintelligent answers and ignorant stances. No hard feelings man but I'm out.

I am merely making the point that the civil rights movement only improved things for a subset of people and not all people. You said you do not identify with any movement that doesn't improve things for all people. Edit: And saying that I am comparing modern feminism to the civil rights movement is a straw man. You are completely misrepresenting my argument. Edit 2: And you are also really cherry picking your arguments. You have been given a lot of examples clearly showing how women are at a disadvantage in so many ways and you come back with a handful of half baked examples to justify why you don't agree with feminism.

This is my perception also. When I was in college the ratio of men to women in my field was literally about 9:1. And this was undergrad. I feel like this creates an environment that is inherently biased towards men since they are most represented. So yeah, I find that hard to swallow also. I'm going to say it again but this has to mean you would be against the civil rights movement. It was biased towards one group of people and didn't help everyone equally. And so what if the results are biased? If one group has more privileges than another, shouldn't we strive to achieve results that help those that are less privileged?

thestalkinghead, glad you finally provided examples but I think most of those are red herrings.

Can you link that thread? After I finish these games I'd love to read up on the discussion there. If your general point is that being familiar with cartoon logic makes these games easier then I would definitely agree with you. I can think of quite a few puzzles through all of the games I've played so far that ended up being easier to solve because they followed this kind of logic.

I have an absolute shit ton of patience but I think I'm about done trying now. I just had to get that last post in to vent a little on how fucking ridiculous that logic is.

thestalkinghead, your logic is deeply flawed and you repeatedly contradict yourself as others have pointed out. If you are an all or nothing type of guy then that must mean you don't believe in anything and have a nihilistic perspective. There cannot possibly be any movement or belief that is pure enough in its messaging for you so I have to assume you believe in nothing and disagree with every possible movement or belief out there. And even if a movement or belief was pure enough you can only get behind it if it benefits every single person on earth? So fuck the civil rights movement, fuck feminism, fuck feeding the hungry, fuck curing cancer, fuck things that benefit the rich, and fuck things that benefit the poor. Or do you only believe in things that benefit you? Long story short, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SMOKING AND CAN I HAVE SOME?

Thanks for the encouraging words guys. I think part of what makes this game's logic fairly straightforward to follow for me is the masterful work they did implementing cartoon logic. I watched ridiculous amounts of Looney Toons, Tom and Jerry, Animaniacs, and other similar shows growing up and all the way through high school and a lot of the solutions in this game fit within that framework very well. It is amazing the sense of nostalgia this game evokes even though I've never played it before.

I've continued to make some more progress in DOTT and am having a blast with this game. Last night was especially productive and I solved a few puzzles that were barring my progress. As Hoagie I figured out that I needed to mess up George Washington's bed and call the maid in so that I could go into the hallway and steal her bar of soap from the maid cart. From there I was able to attempt washing the carriage which caused a thunderstorm and forced Ben Franklin inside. However, I have yet to locate the waterproof item that he asked for. After that, I sent my tentacle diagram to Hoagie and had Betsy Ross turn the American flag into a tentacle outfit which gave Laverne a disguise so she could go through the rest of the future mansion unhindered. As Bernard I discovered that I could push green tentacle's speaker onto the floor and blast his music to make the fake barf fall off the ceiling. Then, as I was going around squirting disappearing ink on everything, I got to Ed's room and really pissed him off when I squirted his stamp collection. Luckily that resulted in me getting an old stamp which I presume I can send back to Hoagie so he can mail something (and I gave Ed his stamp collection back after the ink disappeared; I felt like such a dick). I also sent Laverne's scalpel to Bernard and used that to pop the clown and get the laughing machine. Finally, I got the crank from the roof and sent that to Laverne so she could get the flag which ended up becoming her tentacle disguise. As Laverne I was able to use the crank to get the flag/disguise which opened up the rest of the mansion. Once that was done I got the name tag from the blue tentacle guy and was able to enroll the mummy guy in the beauty competition by throwing the name tag on him, slapping some roller skates onto his feet, and rolling him down the hallway. Once I spoke to the tentacle judges and saw their judging criteria, I figured out that I needed the spaghetti from Hoagie for the hair portion, the laugh box from Bernard for the laughing portion, and the chattering teeth from Bernard for the smile portion. Unfortunately, the teeth won't stop chattering so I still have to figure out how to get them to stop before I can continue. And I looked for my frozen hamster in the future but the ice box was empty. Where the hell did that frozen hamster go? There now seems to be several concurrent puzzles and I feel like I know what I need to do for most of them. With Bernard I still need to figure out how to get that gum/dime off the floor. I figure the dime will get me the sweater I need from under the fat guy and the gum can be used to keep the teeth from chattering. Not sure about the sweater but Hancock is pretty cold so maybe I will get something by giving him a sweater. Also, I think I need to use the VHS tape to record the footage of Dr. Fred opening the safe so I can learn the combo, then give him some coffee to wake him back up somehow. But to do that I need to distract Edna. Maybe I need to affect that statue in the past to distract her somehow. With Hoagie I still need to get Ben Franklin the waterproof (and cast iron if I remember correctly) item he talked about. Also need to figure out what the fuck is up with that talking horse. With Laverne, I think I need to use the gum on the chattering teeth, win the competition, and send the trophy back to Hoagie so that he can give it to Red as the 'gold' item. I also need to get that cat toy with Hoagie to interact with the future cat for whatever reason. Finally, I think there might be some way to get that shrinking machine in the future and maybe send it back to Bernard so he can shrink himself and use the mousehole to access the suicidal guy's room. There are other things too like the crook breaking into the car, the bird bath outside, and the old stamp I obtained. One or two more discoveries and I think I will see a cascade of solutions.

Austin is one of our biggest clients right now and we installed our traffic management system at their TMC last year. They only have around 100 intersections on it right now but they will eventually have 800. Plus we are in the process of testing a transit priority system that should help the buses get through traffic a little quicker. It seems like they are at least making an effort to improve their public transportation.

Is that an umbilical cord attached to an ear drum?

Dude, no apologies necessary. I think you still made a decent point. I just disagree about the linear aspect of not dying.

How is the goal of not dying linear? Isn't that a totally separate thing? I think if a game has a story it is inherently going to have some level of linearity unless the story is somehow entirely systems based and unstructured. If a story is going to have a set beginning and end there is pretty much always going to be linearity to a degree. I think Minecraft is a perfect example of a completely non-linear game (or as close to completely non-linear as you can get).

This is an interesting perspective but I don't know that I agree with it entirely. What about shitty movies? I think a film completely loses it's "overwhelming power" when it sucks. If I end up going to a crappy movie I start thinking about how terrible the acting is, how stupid the story is, and I start whispering sarcastic things to the person who came to see the movie with me (usually my wife) which completely breaks the power of the movie in my opinion. I don't think film has any power in this case, especially when a movie is so bad that you get up and leave. Then again, maybe the general effectiveness of film as a domineering form just depends on the person. And is this perspective necessarily unique to film and not to all storytelling mediums? I kind of feel like the same could be said for books or maybe even music. Again, I don't know that I agree entirely. I think there is an element of truth to what you're saying. I mean, I sometimes have the same gut reaction where I think it is ridiculous to have in depth criticism of certain types of games. But, again I feel like I see the same kind of reactions to criticism of movies. I've read the comments for more than a few movie reviews where people seem to be just as volatile as the video game community. Maybe there is just an overall higher percentage of immature kids that pay attention to game reviews than movies have.

Pffft. Everyone knows that the mars rovers have really just been travelling around on a secret movie set in Hollywood. These are all lies perpetuated by the liberal media. Space doesn't exist!

Awwww, that's the best. Thanks tegan! Edit: You should totally post that in the latest episode thread too.

Someone should draw Goat Luigi. Hint hint tegan.

I've gone through this process a few times in the past and I always landed on plasma tvs as the best solution (for my needs). The reasons plasma won over LED/LCD for me are: Faster refresh rate than LED/LCD by a lot. I think a plasma tv typically has a 600Hz refresh rate compared to the 120 Hz or 240 Hz from the others. It has spoiled me though so now I can't stand to watch LED/LCDs because the image looks super weird to me at the lower refresh rate. Although I haven't spent much time watching any at 240Hz so that could be much less noticeable there. Darker blacks. Plasma tvs will typically give you much darker blacks. I prefer this over the brighter whites you get from LED/LCD. However, if you have a really bright room you can't really appreciate this as much. Cost. Probably not the case as much any more but when I bought my last tv, plasma was considerably cheaper than the other technologies. Plasmas have been around longer than many of the other technologies. Something about this just makes me feel more comfortable knowing that they have been around long enough for so many kinks to be worked out. Burn-in is no longer an issue, they don't produce as much heat as they used to, and they are more power efficient than they used to be, among other improvements. I like technology that has been around for awhile and is still considered viable. The reasons I ruled out projection: Light control. I don't have anywhere to put it where I can keep the room dark enough Bulb replacement. I don't like the idea of having to spend $300+ on a new bulb every 3000-5000 hours. If they start using LED bulbs this could become a moot point though. All that being said, I totally want to set up a home theater room in my next house with a projector and a big ass screen. For me, the bigger the screen the better so I would be willing to suck it up and deal with having to replace bulbs to get that nice big screen. Also, I think one difference to consider with a 50" vs 100" screen is that the pixel density would be much greater on a 50" screen. I've heard some people argue that you don't get the full benefit of 1080p unless you are viewing on a very large screen because our eyes can't distinguish them as much on a smaller screen. Personally though, I feel like I appreciate 1080p on a smaller screen more than on a larger screen. It could be voodoo but I feel like having all those pixels crammed into a smaller screen makes my eyes happier. And yes, I know this contradicts my love for big screens.

Camera right. I'm going to be in big trouble if that stud finder tells me that I'm not a stud.