Roderick

Stap it you guys, I'm already out of this game. Nothing I read here is making it any more appealing. When is Heart of the Swarm coming out?

Oh CHRIST, not this person with his limiting and limited opinion again.

Amazing stories. Goonswarm cartels, holy fuck.

OK thanks.

The first year of the 3DS I mainly enjoyed collecting Mii's and doing the built-in games of gathering puzzle pieces and doing the Mii Quest thing. That was super fun. As for Metal Gear, it seems that the (deliberately preposterous) story is the main draw. I... don't think that's for me. The Japanese tend to excel at weirdness, but there are cases where it's just weirdness for weirdness' sake and I take it as laziness. It is way easier to just be weird than actually sell a convincing drama or comedy.

I'm going to start a fire here, but could someone explain to me what makes Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater such a popular game? I played the 3DS demo and here are the things I found: - It played very clumsily and poorly. Maybe that was due to the 3DS port. - The world doesn't take itself seriously, but at the same time it does. It has an overwrought story, but the characters are ludicrous and the dialogue eurgh. Doesn't this bother anyone? - It was almost impossible to judge when I was hiding and when people were seeing me. There are vague patches of grass that you can hide in, but visually you're never actually hidden, so it's hard to tell what is going on. - It was incredibly boring and arduous. That may be me. What am I missing?

Not shipping it with a charger is incredibly weird and arbitrary. If they aim the device at people who already have a 3DS it's weird and almost seems like a way to prevent them from selling on their old machine. If it's for a new audience, why? Why why? It directly breaks with Nintendo tradition and you are essentially buying an incomplete package. Surely the charger isn't such a cost post that it needed to be cut? Also, I don't get this 3DS XL. It's just so strange. Indubitably, the 3DS screen is a little small, but unless they boost the resolution also, the bigger screen (almost twice as big!) will only make the games look fuzzier. Though, maybe it will actually be better, I've heard good things from the DSi XL. The fact that the ccp is not supported is also a testament to the clusterfuck happening at Nintendo. And that after Miyamoto said not two weeks ago that he was happy with the 3DS and they had no improvements in mind.

"I'm gone. And you'd better come with me. There's no telling who Arcturus'll screw over next."

I've only ever watched a lot of Day9, I got the feeling he was really big into teaching you the proper StarCraft II skills. Also, sometimes it was just pure comedy. Psst, as you seem to dislike the M.O.B.A. monniker for League of Legends et al, you should just switch to the universally accepted (or maybe not) Lords Management. /runs

Super Fucking Monkey Ball.

I just unearthed Advance Wars: Dual Strike from one of the boxes (I'm in between homes) and look forward to playing it again!

The thing that I've learned through this very discussion on this very forum, is that jokes are never just jokes. Jokes come from someplace, they exist in a context. Why would it be funny to jokingly belittle a woman or a minority, if it isn't founded on the knowledge that some people actually would say things like this earnestly? This alone makes joking about/with it practically always a bad thing, since it helps maintain the ideas and structures at the root of it. We have got to stop perpetuating the inequality of women and minorities and that starts not by weeding out the actual racists and sexists, but by taking away the 'soft' parts of that in everyday people like you and me. People who are not racist or sexist, but do buy into and partake in the culture surrounding it. It is not an obvious force, these jokes - it is an insidious one because after all, it's just a joke, right? There is a lot more to it than simply being able to 'take' it or not on a personal level. [EDIT: I removed a Youtube clip of Morgan Freeman speaking on racism because upon consideration I didn't entirely agree with it and it didn't fit the point I am making.]

Debating with someone online is a lot different than talking to someone face to face. Regardless, the way I express it is more in monologues and blog posts. When I slag off religion, I hardly ever do it to a person's face, it's all spoken in generalities.

I want to also say how much I loved the Gamecube! It was such a fun console with tons of personality!

What may drive a lot of atheists to taking up an aggressive approach is that they realize how absurdly entrenched religion is in our society. Flailing wildly and violently against it, or otherwise just openly mocking it with perhaps a feigned air of nonchalance, is the only option they have left. An honest, open discourse based on human (!!) logic, that otherwise dictates our every waking moment, is not possible about religion. Lesser things have driven men mad. As for my personal way of going about my business: online and in writing I am pretty outspoken about religion and will frequently attack and mock it. As soon as a real, religious person is before me, however, basic human decency kicks in and overrides all of that and I become super accepting of whatever someone believes.

When I used it for making notes during a few presentations, I found the standard iPad writing program pretty functional. Maybe not as good as a tactile keyboard, but certainly the next best thing. About the presentation; at least the huge video background didn't bluescreen!

Panty & Stocking is good fun, especially if seen with a crowd of enthusiastic people.

Mike, it is worthwhile to start another playthrough just to do the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. Like Sno said earlier, they are the standout questlines in the game. Also: The hero of Kvatch!

A Boy and His Blooby

I am going to try the Warlock demo, enthused by the episode but not sure if it's something for me yet. I already fear going into the portal don't make me go into the portal

Fun cast! Ironically, this was one of the casts that I felt had the most difference in audio volume from speaker to speaker. Chris was hard to hear at times. Maybe some more adjustments to the equipment are in place? I had read the Civ 2 anecdote, but my mind was blown nonetheless when you got to the proposed solutions and their ramifications, which I had not yet read.

Duel Strike is an amazing game. I loved it. You have some overpowered abilities when you team up that can completely sweep the enemy off their feet, but the sense of wild joy is superb and the CO designs are super fun. That's maybe why I was so disappointed when the next Advance Wars (Dark Conflict) was gritty and post-apocalyptic. Didn't care for that at all.

All good. It's all good here.

No, great post Yufster. I often wonder why British politics seems so shouty and weird. Dutch politics, though far from free of ad hominem attacks, is much more civil and rigidly delineated. Booing would be heavily frowned upon and you cannot speak directly to each other, it has to go through an arbiter. That might seem arbitrary and stilted, but it works to keep the conversation clean and to the point. As for women in games, I loved it when Jade Raymond became the figurehead of Assassin's Creed, and was appalled when she was basically harrassed away by the male public.