Bjorn

That's an unwinnable fight, the only one in the game. Even the tutorial boss is technically able to be defeated in the very first encounter, though it takes a great deal of skill and experience (or taking the black bombs as a gift).

Yeah, I really haven't seen how Papers, Please has any role in the conversation. The Star Wars games where you play as someone in the Empire would be a good example. The Empire clearly draws on Nazi iconography, and commits terrible, genocidal atrocities. If I remember it right, Tie Fighter practically revels in presenting the Empire as a force of good (or at least stability). And The Horde in WoW (for awhile at least, I'm not super familiar with all the evolutions in WoW) developed very Nazi vibes to it.

Given the general weirdness of a lot of the conversations around here, I think we're all on watch lists of one kind or another. On knives, get a good sharpener, learn how to sharpen well, and do it regularly. It only takes a tiny bit of time and we tend to do it as we wash. One of my friends worked for awhile at a professional knife sharpening place. Chefs and restaurants use really cheap knives, but sharpen them religiously.

As Gormongous just pointed out, there are plenty of games that lift the aesthetic without lifting the context. And even CoD did stuff like "Nazi Zombies", which is just capitalizing on "Nazis" without any relationship to history and without any kind of other redeeming feature other than being a fun arcade mode. Or a movie like Dead Snow. Or Star Wars. Or the Nazis in Indiana Jones (which isn't at all about historical context, its about using a convenient antagonist and drawing on the mythology of the Nazi party and false historical context). TV Tropes has a huge list of Nazi-standins that use Nazi iconography that are divorced from historical context, including a couple of dozen video game examples. Using the aesthetic of Nazis as a stand in for Nazis is just about as old as making movies about Nazis, and older than making games about Nazis. So that doesn't seem like a terribly strong line of reasoning for why Luftrausers went wrong.

I've mostly stayed out of this discussion. I can see what is problematic with Luftrausers, and why it might bother some people, but I don't have any kind of personal reaction against it. My earlier link was just pointing out that continued concern about Nazi imagery is really valid for some communities. But, something about the whole conversation feels...weird to me. Video games have this insane, convoluted history with Nazis and WW2. There is probably no other historical event that has appeared or been referenced in more games. You can go back to the dawn of mainstream home consoles to find what is probably the first game where you can play as the Germans in WW2. Of course our entire media and culture is obsessed with Nazis and WW2. There have been so many WW2 movies made, that they have to split the list up by decade, and filter out television, documentaries and Holocaust movies into their own lists. And that isn't taking into account the random use of Nazis and Hitler across all sorts of properties. Shit, most of us may have never gone an entire week in our lives without encountering some reference to WW2, Nazis, Hitler or the Holocaust. Lord knows how many books there are. That's not a defense, per se, but it is pointing out that millions of people have been capitalizing on Nazi and WW2 imagery for what is probably trillions dollars in revenue for the last 70+ years. Think about that, capitalizing on WW2 and Nazi imagery is a trillion dollar industry. And most of the time not a lot is said about that. And even if they are cast as the villain, its not like most of these properties are trying to say something profound about fascism, or educate the public. They are trying to turn a profit and using a convenient aesthetic that they know people already buy shit for. I guess I don't see much of a difference between protagonist and antagonist when the end result is profit for companies and a maintenance of this aesthetic as a core cultural keystone. So yeah, it feels weird to me for Luftrausers to raise a stir when there is probably something made, written, filmed or programmed every single week about WW2 that could be criticized for profiting from a Nazi aesthetic and maintaining that aesthetic in our culture.

I haven't read BoC in years, but I remember quite liking it. I guess the entire book to me was about people's fear of expressing who they are, while building increasingly inaccurate facades to deal with the world. And so Vonnegut's non-sequiters and childish glee in things like naughty drawings are his interjection of that theme as author, expressing the same dichotomy of nature that most of his characters are incapable of doing because of possible societal repercussions. But that element would be completely invisible to you until a ways into the book. Also I doubt any of us will ever be able to understand in context how the naughty drawings and whatnot would have felt to a 1970s reader. I mean, we've all grown up in a world with things like South Park. Little asshole drawings just don't seem that transgressive four decades later.

Don't forget about the snacking paraphernalia (a fork) and clothing paraphernalia (a belt and some socks).

Fuck you NBC, and probably other outlets who will lead the story in the same way. Because the absolute most important detail to use in a story about the school stabbing suspect is that he owned video games.

It's in the item description of her soul: There are two leading theories about who she is: The loading times on console are terrible. Loading times on a PC (even without an SSD) look phenomenal.

And this is one of the reasons that people are still super sensitive about Nazi related imagery. Three murders in what is normally one of the more boring cities in the nation.

The prevailing theory is that From has the data on where people are dying the absolute most, and the couple of bosses that got nerfed represent bad bottlenecks. The Sinner fight also changes on NG+, and the nerf might have been related to that. In NG+ she And yeah, you're super close to being able to finish up. It's interesting that so many of you are burning out as you're finishing off NG. I'm still totally hooked on trying different things on it. Though I may go back to taking a break after the end of that no death run. I feel like I got in some good practice for doing it on the PC version, which is the main reason I was doing it on the PS3.

That was the previous two days for us. Sunday it was lovely, sunny and mid 70s. Monday morning it was snowing.

Well the no death half of my run ended in a most unexpected way. I bit it as a phantom in Sinner's Rise (which dying as a phantom counts as a death for that). This is after I had already cleared it human and co-oped it multiple times. I had cleared out through the Iron Keep, and backtracked to the Rise, as I had skipped it earlier. I decided that it would be safer to grind up to 1 million Soul Memory to open a door rather than collect all four Lord Souls (whoops!), since I was already at 650K. And then... The nerf to the Lost Sinner makes her a cakewalk, which is a shame. Before she was one of the most challenging and satisfying bosses there was. Now she's nothing. I could easily take 4 hits from her wearing some of the weakest armor in the game (but it boosts souls from kills, so that's why I was wearing it).

C'mon, that scream is incredible!

Nooooooooo! I won't even begin gushing about how much I love BG&E, I'd just embarrass myself. I'm not one to replay many story based games, but I've been through it at least 3 times. And games with cameras as a mechanic? Yes please, more of that. A strong female lead who rescues not one, but 2 men? And never needs rescued herself? With no forced love interest? Air Hockey! Rastafarian Rhinos! Propaganda (wait, you already said that one)! Okay, I just need to stop before I keep going. At this point I just kind of wish they had never even released that ridiculously beautiful teaser a few years ago.

I love ciders, I did even before dropping beer. It's what I keep in the fridge at home. Bars are getting better about having ciders, but there are still plenty that don't have any, or a really poor selection. My preference is Strongbow on tap or in a bottle (not in a can, it's just not right in a can). I've only ever seen the original Strongbow in the states, but I understand there are a bunch of varieties in Europe and Australia. This makes me sad.

There is at least one other guaranteed drop from an NPC storyline.

Oh, you never explored the second half of Darkroot? Is that what you're talking about? That's a super important area. Definitely go there before further into New Londo. There are also at least 3 areas which can be very, very difficult to ever find. Like straight up hidden levels. Two are related to each other, one is its own area. If you want any hints towards finding those, we can set you on the path towards them. For those who have played, I'm talking about

Nice picture! That looks like a professional promo shot for Idle Thumbs.

With AE, I've actually been moving away from using Cloak, except on the Stealth Cruiser of course. With it's high initial purchase (highest in game?), and a 230 total scrap upgrade cost, I can take 2 different systems up to level 2 for the same cost. I've found the utility of having some combination of Hacking/Teleport/Mind Control to be more valuable than Cloaking. Or an early investment in shields/engines. Sure if I hit sector 6 or 7 and I have the spare slot for it, I'll pick it up. But I don't view it as being necessary the way I used to. I'm much more likely to skip picking it up early on even if I can afford it.

The drone system is probably the tool that I use the least. I always end up thinking that the investment cost for ships that don't start with drones just ends up being too high. That probably isn't true, but it's the way I've ended up thinking about drones. It does feel like I'm hitting a lot more missiles in AE though, so a defense drone could be worth its weight in gold.

Jameson is my go to whiskey, though if I'm in the mood to splurge I quite like Bushmills Black.

Yeah, on your spoiler, that's what I meant when I said it hit a real turning point. Tons of options suddenly open up. On upgrading, there are 10 total embers and several different break points on when weapons can be upgraded towards different enchantment paths. As it sounds like you've gone down a pretty dedicated melee path, you probably won't be interested in many of the enchanted paths, except maybe to play around with them or to have as a specific backup to deal with a particular weakness. In general for melee characters, the regular upgrade path is the strongest. You should have already found the Large Ember, which takes regular weapons from +5 to +6. If you haven't found it, it's in an area you already cleared out. Backtrack to Once you've ascended a weapon, you don't have to use the same blacksmith to keep upgrading it. You can upgrade it anywhere from 6-10, it's just ascending it to +6 that takes the specific smith. Did you examine the giant painting in the Cathedral in Anor Londo?

Missed opportunity not to invite you to that panel!

Went to see this last night and it was a ton of fun! My original reaction to the Zola scene matched Sno's reaction, but Rodi comparing it to Aperture Science makes me soften on that a bit. And this movie confirmed my long held fan theory that Nick Fury is in fact Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction! After abandoning a life of crime, Jules wanders the Earth for awhile before reinventing himself as Nick Fury to act as a force of good rather than evil. Best Easter Egg ever that confirms this is: