Zeusthecat

Wow, I just finished eating jalapeno hummus right now. I don't think I'm dreaming though.

But there are important life lessons to be learned. Like what to do if you find a dumpster baby. (Don't worry, that show only comes on after she goes to bed)

I've watched that video dozens of times and my daughter cracks up every time.

No worries, that's what this thread is for right? I just thought it was going to a funny place at first and then... poor kitty. Sorry man.

Damn dude, that was fucking depressing to read.

Congrats syntheticgerbil. Also, subbes and shammack, glad to hear your cat pulled through. Just don't try to put baby socks on him.

Okay, bear with me here. I used that example because of how clear it is that that would be incredibly racist. Of course that game should not be made because it is racist and reinforces racist stereotypes. Now apply that same logic to your example of a game for women that caters to the "woman" stereotype and replace the word "racist" with "sexist". If you still can't see it I don't know what else to say to convince you. I could try to clarify further but I think it should be pretty clear to you, especially based on the negative reaction you got, that your example of a woman game is sexist in a very similar way to my racist game. Edited for grammar.

thestalkinghead, since you're talking about making games that cater to all of the different stereotypes, do you think it would be appropriate for a game to be made for black people where the point of the game was to eat watermelon and fried chicken, rap, and commit crimes?

I really didn't see it that way. I think he was just trying to point out why people are taking issue with some of the things you are saying because you seem to have a hard time understanding what the problem is with your point of view. I think a lot of people here, myself included, are trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but it's kind of gone into weird, unintelligible territory now. I'm sure you mean well but it might be good for you to take a break from the conversation. Edit: what Gormongous said.

So the 360 isn't dead in these forums after all. If you have any interest in trying to get a multiplayer session going on any of those games just let me know what times you are available in your time zone. Weekends are all I really have time for in the short term and I have LucasArts commitments but I would love the opportunity to play some good multiplayer if the stars align.

Every spare second I can afford is going to this game, I promise!!! However, with the little one I need to be close by to help my wife retain her sanity during these sleepless nights. So the DS is great for short segments of gaming during this phase. God, just listen to me. I sound like an addict. I need to keep doing at least a little bit of heroin. A little bit is okay right? I'm so tired, sorry if I'm not making any sense.

I've become super jealous of everyone who owns a 3DS and Animal Crossing New Leaf so I recently decided to start playing Wild World again on the original DS. I'd forgotten how fun and relaxing this game is and it's been perfect for limited play sessions in the evening. I'll get a 3DS + New Leaf eventually but Wild World is a good fix in the meantime.

I have some crazy beard dandruff today. I need some COAL TAR!!!

I would add that these stereotypes cause games to be much more dissonant than they otherwise should be. When I turn on the news and hear about the crazy goings on in the world and people being rescued from certain death it pretty much never has anything to do with gender. There are powerful women and men shaping the events of the world, men rescuing men and women, and women rescuing men and women. I honestly have a very hard time thinking of any real life examples of some burly man coming and rescuing a helpless, innocent woman. Maybe that happens but I doubt it ever happens in the highly romanticized way it does in video games. It makes games much more un-relatable when that is the dynamic they choose to focus on.

I'm sure there's a lot they're not telling us for our own good.

You lost me completely. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to argue but it sounds like a straw man to me.

Hmmm, I thought gravity and peristalsis worked together to move food through the digestive tract. Not that you can't digest food in the absence of gravity, just that it is more difficult.

I wanted to share some thoughts and personal observations somewhat related to the conversation going on here. Specifically in regards to this statement: I am a very optimistic person and I like to think society has made a lot of progress in how women are viewed but I have seen and heard a few things recently that have really bothered me and make me question how much of this "progress" is only at the surface level. The first one came from one of my wife's friends. They were having a play date with the kids one day and she started talking about her religion and how she goes to Bible study all the time. As the conversation continued she proceeded to tell my wife that she started going to a Bible study group where the theme was "how to be a better wife". In this group they "taught" women how it is important to have dinner ready on the table every night, to never be impatient with your husband, and to make sure the house is always kept clean. Because this is a woman's job in life. The sad thing about this is how enthusiastic she was about this class and how great she thought it was while being completely oblivious to how harmful this kind of message is to a woman. The second one came from a (very religious) co-worker in our DISC personality assessment workshop last Friday. We were going over an example of how different personality types would prepare a meal at home and halfway through the exercise he proclaimed "Well this doesn't necessarily apply to all of us because it is obviously geared towards women". He wasn't trying to be mean or anything, he just honestly believed that that is how the world works. Thankfully, two team members immediately remarked that what he said was very sexist (which he was shocked to hear) and the conversation moved on. I like to think things like this are isolated and rare occurrences but I'm not so sure that is the case. The reason I pointed out that both of these people are religious is to illustrate why I think this is still a very real problem in society. If this is the prevalent mentality in religious circles and over 80% of people still identify as religious, then shit is still pretty fucked up. And it is especially troubling to see how many people are still completely oblivious to how wrong this type of mentality is. I'm not sure if what I'm saying is very coherent so I'll just finish by saying I 100% think that it is imperative for video games and media as a whole to do a much better job of eschewing the "damsel in distress" (for lack of a better all-encompassing term) mentality. Without any substantial level of effort being made to produce works that abandon these tropes I fear that these ignorant viewpoints that lie just under the surface for so many people will remain prevalent and unrecognized.

I just want to give a shout-out to Inside Out Boy. Repressed memories of this show from my childhood have recently emerged and I realize it was the cause of my fear of going too high on the swing set.

I prefer to be in denial about this. It helps me feel like I'm multi-tasking more than I really am when I have two computers, three screens, and a KVM switch. Luckily I'm the only one that knows that I suck at multi-tasking. *Scroll Lock, Scroll Lock*

So then they poop through "reverse osmosis"? ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!!!

When I post I really like to use parentheses (because they help me add random thoughts that I otherwise can't figure out how to put into my sentence in a logical way (or maybe just because I'm a little OCD (I'm not really OCD, I just like to use that term like everyone else (but my wife really does have OCD (which means the vacuum is always running and I can't hear (so I try to read lips)))))).

So how does digestion work in space when peristalsis has to do all of the work without any assistance from gravity (that's a hopefully intelligent way of asking how space poops work).

Whoa, didn't expect that! I ended up covering each of those areas anyways and just happened to get to the cat last so I guess it's cool that I had all of my bases covered.

I managed to make a few hours of progress in Fate of Atlantis over the weekend and things are going smoothly so far. Starting with the intro, this game pulled me in pretty quickly. I wasn't sure if I was going to like having voicework in an Indiana Jones game but as soon as I started clicking on things those doubts disappeared. I'm not too much of a discerning person when it comes to these types of things but I find the voice acting to be pretty good and I think Indiana Jones' voice sounds just right. I was also pleased at how quickly the story got started in this game. By the end of the intro I had fallen through a bunch of floors, found an old statue, and got in a fight with a Nazi. I would say this is probably the best intro to a LucasArts adventure game I've seen. After the intro, I found myself outside of a theater where Sophia was giving a presentation. I went around back and was greeted by a big security guard after trying to go through the door. I attempted to talk my way in but he wasn't having any of it so I decided to politely bid him farewell and look around a little bit more. I saw a ladder in that same area and some crates I could interact with so I tried pushing and pulling the crates until I made my way through and was able to climb up the ladder. Once inside and after watching a couple segments of Sophia's presentation, I was able to convince the stagehand to leave by giving him the newspaper I had obtained outside. With him gone, I was able to put the levers into the proper positions and press the button to ruin Sophia's presentation and trigger the next sequence of events. After talking to Sophia and seeing how Klaus Kerner had ransacked her room, we headed off to Iceland. This was a very brief segment where we simply talked to Heimdall and were instructed to go to The Azores and Tikal to seek out Costa and Sternhart. I decided to make The Azores my first destination and found that Costa wouldn't give me the information I needed until I gave him some kind of artifact. Once I hit that dead end I was off to Tikal. Once I arrived in Tikal, I was greeted with my first real puzzle solving segment. Getting through the jungle was pretty easy. I ended up using my whip on that jungle creature to get him to run through the exit where the snake dropped down and caused both of them to fall off the cliff, leaving the area open for me to pass through. I then "used" the tree to cross the gap at which point Sophia rejoined me on the other side. I saw a souvenir stand with a kerosene lamp nearby and when I tried to interact with it, Sternhart finally showed up. He wouldn't let me in the temple unless I knew the name of Plato's Lost Dialog and he wouldn't take the archaeology magazine as evidence that I was kind of a big deal so I made an incorrect guess and saw the parrot retort something as we finished talking. I immediately assumed this was some kind of a throwback to one of the Monkey Island 2 puzzles and talked to the parrot until I was able to get him to reveal the name of The Lost Dialog. From there I talked to Sternhart again and was granted access to the temple. After making my way into the temple and checking out the different items I could interact with, I became stuck for a brief period of time. Getting the kerosene lamp was no problem (just had to have Sophia distract Sternhart so I could run out and grab it) but after using the kerosene on the spiral design I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. My initial thought was that I would need to refill the kerosene lamp, use it in Iceland to thaw the ice around the eel figurine, and place the eel figurine into the spiral design. Of course, that ended up not being the solution and after fooling around for a little bit I realized I could "pick up" the design. From there, I quickly put the design into the animal head and pulled it to open the tomb. At this point, Sternhart took an artifact out of the tomb and took off through a secret passage. Luckily he had left behind the orichalcum bead which was just what I needed. With the bead in hand, I flew back to The Azores and attempted to give it to Costa. He rejected it so I figured I would head back to Iceland to see if I could give it to Heimdall or use it on the figurine frozen in ice. Once I arrived I found that Heimdall was frozen solid and the figurine was slightly exposed. I used the bead on the figurine which freed it from the ice and finally gave me the item I needed to get Costa to reveal the information on the location of the Lost Dialog. This brought me to the next puzzle solving segment in the college area where I started. As I explored the different rooms I had access to, I found an old jar of mayonnaise, a dirty rag, an arrowhead, a piece of gum, and a dusty key. I would have found the book much more quickly than I did but the game misdirected me a few times. First, it tricked me into using the old mayonnaise on the totem pole so I could move it and climb up into the next room. Then, it tricked me into using the arrowhead + dirty rag as a screwdriver on the fallen bookshelf. And finally, it tricked me into focusing on the dusty key I had obtained which opened an empty dusty chest. After some more dicking around I finally went back down to the room with the furnace and found that I could stick the gum to my shoes and climb up the chute. I clicked around a little bit in the next room before finding that I could pick up one of the cat figurines. I saw that it was made of wax and decided to try to melt it using the furnace. To my surprise, melting the cat figurine produced the Lost Dialog and the puzzle was solved! The next sequence of events brought me to Monte Carlo where I stopped playing. Hopefully I can get some more time in over the next few days but chances are I won't be able to do much until this weekend. Great game so far!