Bjorn

Yeah, I'm buying this purely for Bioshock 2 so that I can pick up Minerva's Den at some point. I also almost bought The Bureau for $4 during the Summer Sale, so this overall looks like a great deal.

So it ended up being a pretty awesome day. A crew came by shortly after I posted, and confirmed that the line was completely dead and we were able to move my wife's car safely. But they weren't going to be able to have our power back on until late afternoon. So we took off, had a lovely breakfast at our favorite dive diner, went to an art museum, had a nice walk in a park, drove around the ritzy neighborhoods and then met some German friends at a bar and watched the German v Brazil shellacking while trying to keep up with all the German chants. It's the best day off we've had in a long time, probably because it was completely unintentional. Now we're home and the power is back on. Yah!

We are without power and can't leave because an electrical line is down on top of our cars. Power company says they might have it fixed by tonight.

It's clearly a sign that you should start smoking. Please don't. It's terrible and I've been trying to quit for years.

It's okay, Gormongous usually manages to do the same thing to me, saying what I intended to say but much more eloquently. It's actually kind of fun to look back at these dire cultural warnings from many generations ago, and see how easily they could show up on Fox News right now, just with "crooner" swapped out for "video game" or something similar. It makes the conservative old people even harder to take seriously. It's also fun to break out the Bing Crosby story if you have old people in your life that complain like this. It's almost impossible for them to reply in any rational or intelligent manner when you point out how much they sound like the people who went nuts because crooners were corrupting the morals of America's youth.

I think it's just the cyclical nature of each generation. Compare what is being said about millenials to what was being said about each youth generation for the last 100 years (probably forever) and you see the exact same complaints again and again. And it's always the same topics. The work ethic, their values, their music, the loose morals. The absolute best example of this for me is how old people complained and warned about the danger of Bing Crosby.

Probably one of the most interesting changes I've seen in an NG+ mode was in a little indie game called Defender's Quest. If I remember right, there are a few more missions, but the biggest thing is that the protagonist keeps a journal in NG+ and she provides running commentary on all the things going on, which is both hilarious and insightful. It adds a lot to the experience and it feels appropriate to NG+. It might have been info overload if available in the first playthrough.

I'd be interested in seeing the experiment carried forward and looking at homosexual couples to see if the gender lines fall the same way, or if a reaction like this is more related to historical heterosexual norms. And, as Argobot said, to look at a much wider age range. Or extend it to look at relationships beyond romantic. There are interesting questions here, but their data and results are super limited. Usually I think that studies that focus on college kids are kinda bullshit, as it's way to restricted to draw larger conclusions about the populace (and restricted in a lot of subtle ways due to the limited societal access to college). But relationship studies might be one exception to that (and I stress the might in that sentence). It seems that there are a lot of relationship habits people form around that age that stick around for a long time. I do agree with Twig though that I've felt that sting of jealously/envy when a good friend is successful (regardless of gender). Reflecting back, it does seem to be more likely for that reaction to happen the closer I am to someone. If a casual acquaintance has a big life success, I'm more likely to be just immediately happy for them than if it is a very close friend. It's not something I like. I recognize that I feel that way, that it is bullshit to feel that way and that what I want to feel is that I'm happy and proud of my friend. Then I try to internalize and project that happiness for them. I wish that was just my automatic reaction though. I never considered whether or not that reaction may be a learned, gendered reaction.

That was really good. Gawd, these are all so good.

Thanks! On your spoiler: More on the Voice and my theory about him: More on Sybil as well:

I fully agree, I loved the assassinations in 1. The change in core assassinations is one of the reasons I gradually soured on the series, it just took away something I really dug.

Okay, so I'm probably outing my poor impulse control when it comes to sales and bundles here, but I have more than 120 games eligible for Booster Packs. I check every couple of weeks to see if cards have been added to any games I already own, and then make sure to download and fire those games up for a bit to get the cards and be eligible. My wife's account on the other hand has 22 pack eligible games. Her account definitely gets fewer packs than my account, but they do still pop up on a regular basis. I've had a tendency when I get duplicate games from bundles that have cards I throw them on her account just to get a few more cards. I'm Steam level...18 or so? So I only have the first pack drop bonus. Her account is still less than level 10, so she doesn't have any bonuses.

Spent some time thinking about the story this weekend and think I got some things straightened out. I think everything in the story revolves around two characters, Sybil and the Voice. Some of this is conjecture, but I think all of it has some support in what's present. Overall I'm really impressed with the story and world building Supergiant achieved. I think it delves into very similar themes as Bastion, but overall the story is far more interesting and detailed. First, a shoutout to sexuality and gender The world and characters Sybil The Voice What happened right before the game started So what's up with the end?

That game looked so cool when I was a kid, but I never got a chance to play it very much. I rented it once and a single day with it wasn't enough time to figure crap out and I never saw it for sale.

The higher drop rate of booster packs ends up really not being that useful once you have enough games eligible for packs. You're capped at one pack per week, and on my account I get one almost every single week. My wife's account only has a few games that are eligible, and she might get a pack once or twice a month.

Here's clearly in camouflage, for the Neon Jungle that is modern life.

Some days I love the Internet.

Study: Boyfriends Insecure, Wish to Hoard Success for Themselves

I'm still futzing around with it, usually just waiting until I've got full action points, so once in the morning and once in the evening. I find trying to do anything with less than 10 points is just frustrating. I'm not sure how much longer I'll go with it though. As good as the world is, the dual gating through action points and ability thresholds just brings some of the joy to a dead stop. It's hard to keep track and remember all the different active story threads you can have at once when there's constantly something stopping you from continuing.

I actually like the spoilered stuff, if only because it's feels borderline out of place and stands in such stark contrast to everything else. It kind of makes it a kaiju movie, in a way. I should really buy Pacific Rim. I like having an action movie on hand that I can throw in when I just want to doze off watching something familiar when my brain is feeling too wound up. For awhile it was The Dark Knight, but I've burned out on using it.

Is there such a thing as a bad jetpack in a game?

That's...fuck, what an interview. Like, no one even approaching being a public figure ever talks about their personal life and sex life like that. I mean, some of the shit he admits to is pure asshole dirt bag territory. But there's so much going on there that just pulling out random quotes is problematic.

So I finished it this afternoon, shortly before heading off for Fourth of July festivities, which gave my brain some time to ruminate in the background as I celebrated 'merica by blowing shit up and stuffing my face. I hadn't read much of this thread to avoid spoilers, but just read the last 5 pages or so, at least all the posts after it was actually released. A lot of great powers/combos were talked about here, but I don't think I saw anyone mention how baller Help() is. The dog is amazing. He's a second target, so that takes some of the heat off you during Turn cooldown. He can circle a map multiple times with his crazy movement in Turn, which lets you sometimes completely stay out of combat yourself on the opposite side of the map while having him murder things for you. Load() gives him a HUGE AoE bark. He benefits from debuffs like Void and Crash, which help compensate for his damage later on. And there are some other interesting combos you can stack on him (like Spark for 2 dogs). I'd have to check my stats, but he was probably up there with Crash as my most used Function. The only real downside was the long summon period, but most fights I could get him out right away without problem and he'd either make it through the fight or there would only be minor cleanup work after he was gone. I'm a bit conflicted in how I feel about the story overall, but I think there are some points that haven't been brought up in this thread yet (unless I missed a spoiler going back through). But I'm going to sleep on it tonight, too tired to try and work through my thoughts on it.

Yeah, it's a bit different. The 40 point thing still applies to straight Str and Dex weapons, but scaling is in many ways not as valuable in DS2 unless you are pure melee character. It is worth looking up the progression eventually though. Since you can respec, it's not as vital early on though, since you can easily correct early decisions you regret. If you ever start again and go back through there, the easy path is actually going backwards. You can make a long jump from the tree root/branch growing out of the top of the castle wall to the lone archer on the scaffolding, talk to Cale, then work your way back around to the middle and it is much faster and easier.

I've kind of done the opposite. I have a traditionally non-gendered name that has been skewing increasingly female over the last 20 years (Courtney). I tend to bounce back and forth between using screen names related to Bjorn with a masculine avatar, or using Courtney, and going with something less gendered as an Avatar. I don't change how I write or interact at all, but just have the different names and avatars. It's always interesting to see the difference in the replies I get between the two.