DanJW

That's a dangerous thing to forget. You might choke or something.

Fair enough. I can easily see how a lot of people might not like it. My own viewing and subsequent reaction to it felt strangely personal, almost intimate, despite seeing it with friends. Maybe it is because the act of reading a book or comic creates the story inside your head, and I've subsequently had the story living inside my brain for several years. Witnessing the same story appear on the big screen still felt just as subjective. As a result I'm more interested in working out exactly what I think of it than defending it against those that dislike it. A strange experience, as Thunderpeel said.

This thread goes up to 11 - IGN.com

Not a video of any kind, but I needed somewhere to post this, for the simple reason that looking at it makes me incredibly happy. yaaaay!

Perhaps what I am trying to get at is a general world-view of the authors rather than that of Gordon Freeman. In the half-life world, science is a better weapon than guns. Freeman has a deductible backstory (he is obviously a physicist, working in Black Mesa), that can be pieced together by paying attention to details of the world (like so much backstory in Half Life. People that complain about there being no background to the Combine invasion are just walking right past it) edit: Anyway I liked your run-down of impressions; I thought they were pretty astute.

Ahhg semantic rape! YES, the player replaces Gordon Freeman when they load the game. But the guy still has a backstory and the Half-Life series still has an authorial voice. That authorial voice includes an overlay of scientoist thrust into a war. The leaders of the resistance are not military leaders, they are physicists. YOU ARE ONE OF THEM. Dick around with the wording a bit and rework my point into something you can agree with. I enjoy using the guns too. But it never goes near the gun porn of the more visceral shooter games.

I'm guessing the first one. It's likely the roll-out of the latest expansion/update.

Looks like some kind of event occurring in EVE Online.

Yeah, that's the most obvious plan. 4 or less = co-op. > 4 = versus, plus any other friends or randoms if we need to make up the numbers. The lobby leader can adjust the game details before a server is found.

"This game will make you regret your passtime, whilst also causing you to revel in it like a pig in filth." - IGN.com

I think they are saying: the gunplay. But from a physicists point of view, guns are not interesting. Freemen uses them as a necessary tool, but he doesn't like them. So guns are not cool in the Half Life series. It is always much much cooler to catch an enemy in a physics based trap than it is to shoot it with a submachine gun.

Watchmen It was good. Not great, or brilliant, but perfectly good. I appreciate how closely they stuck to the book, and one could argue that any failings are because the book was written for the comic book medium specifically and not for cinema. The Rorschach segments were spot-on, absolutely brilliant. Jackie Earle Haley gave the best performance of the movie. The Comedian was also portrayed especially well by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Even Night Owl II was impressively close to his comic book counterpart. The female characters struggled the most, I felt. Doctor Manhattan, a difficult character to portray, was maybe a little too devoid of emotion (probably because his back story was cut so short). The new ending was acceptable, and probably the best choice in the face of the the cheesiness that would have been inevitable with the original one. My only real complaint was that some moments fell very flat (the audience in the theatre laughed a lot at the romantic scenes, a bit too much then was necessary perhaps, the fucks) and some of the symbolism was hammered over the head in case you didn't get it. Also, after 300, I was expecting bolder visual direction. The camera work is overall incredibly conventional. The choice of soundtrack, although not always fitting exactly, does a very good job of placing the setting in the mid-80s So in the end I liked it, which is kind of relieving considering the immense expectations; but there was still something mssing, even if I'm not sure exactly what. Perhaps the special DVD, with The Black Freighter integrated into the narrative, will plug some gaps. One out of an unspecified amount.

Burgled <-> Burglarized

But he did discover Summer Glau, and for that all is forgiven. I thought the first episode's icy 'negotiator' was the furthest Duschu has stretched her range so far. Other than that, yeah, she does seem to only have two personality types to portray. Perhaps they will challenge her more as the series progresses.

I thought it was a great little blast! I laughed a lot and it was a good primer for the whole "games will make you cry" debate/lolfest. My vision definitely got a bit blurred (and it wasn't a graphic filter!) towards the end of Okami. But as you pointed out Japanese games apparently don't count. I can also see Ossk's point of view in the doubt that actual ludic systems can affect you emotionally in the same way as non-interactive story. Personally I'm more optimistic that the two can eventually be fused, but that we have not yet been sufficiently imaginative in finding a way (perhaps if Sims could die, then the eventual death or heartbreak of a much loved sim could make someone cry, in the same way as losing a close friend. Just an example).

The title/date on the RSS feed is wrong (copy and pasted from the previous newsblast eh?) Will listen in shortly.

Oh man I can sense a serious undercurrent of excitement in my gut. Or that might just be the chilli I had for lunch. In any case the latest episode was acceptable, if not especially cool in any way (Ander's transformation into a hybrid and integration with the Galactica was a bit predictable, otherwise it would have been higher up the coolometer). Not sure how the Starbuck mystery wil be solved. I'm starting to suspect that she may be the sole surviving cylon of the cycle-before-last (ie parents of the final-five generation). Or even older maybe.

Yeah I think it was by one of the stashes that show up on your car's radar system. I liked that in Episode 2, that you could stop and investigate things or just keep driving as fast as you could (similar to the buggy section in the original HL2).

I would feel a mixture of excitement and apprehension of getting my brains bitten off by a tank, 5 yards from the escape vehicle. It is a complex emotion. Let's do it.

Stop talking to the bots Rodi. Although I'm almost flattered about it stealing my words.

Glad you had fun Wrestle. Feel free to join me if you ever see me in a game with a free slot. Well, we might have a quorate in the making here, in which case we can do a co-op campaign. If we happen to get more we can play versus. I'm really into the versus game now - it's a lot of fun (although I still think melee is spammable). But I still think the co-op game beats it for intensity and scariness. Oh, my steam ID is 5 Shilling, for anyone that wants in.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/are_violent_video_games I should visit The Onion more than I do. I like this one too: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/fda_approves_depressant_drug_for

Edinburgh women's voices make me warm and squishy inside

Interesting. R as in 'lark'? Yeah I can hear how we do actually say 'lahhk' instead.

That's OK, I imagine the real-life historical generals were quite surprised by it as well. To say nothing of the cavalrymen