Roderick

It doesn't seem an outrageous thing. No surprises either. They aim for 4-6 times the (graphic/processing) power as the 360. Yeah, I'd buy it.

Of course it is. Irony aside, there are a lot of men who are being pushed into boxes and feel a huge need to conform and reject their own personalities. Any system that pushes a hardline norm and punishes outliers creates a lot of pain and inequality. It's not on the same level as the inequality geared against women, nor is it an argument against feminism, but that it exists stands beyond question. (I wouldn't know whether this fits with any idea concerning 'misandry' though, I'm not touching that topic with a ten-foot pole. It's really a spoiled and culturally diseased term, too often used as a weapon.)

He sings 'cry out'? Lyrics sites, and my ears, are deceiving me then. Should that be the case, the situation is a little less clear and I resign myself to my earlier statement that I just want this song to disappear because it's annoying and UB40 are also annoying.

Moving to San Francisco soon? It's an adventure in many ways!

Oh man, I would have freaked out if that came from my speakers suddenly. No audio should ever just play without user instruction. Aside from that, hilarious.

Nice to hear you had a good time! I can also vouch for the awesomeness of the Exploratorium, good tip from tobacco.

Concerning the reggae song. It's possible she is, in fact, 'crying out' in something other than distress. But he doesn't sing 'cry out', he sings 'cry'. Overwhelmingly, that means tears. In the hypothetical situation where I am performing the sex act and the lady starts to cry, my immediate response would not be to push it, push it some more, but ask if something is the matter. However, I may be a little negative here on account of how much I want this song to be ripped out of our collective culture.

I wish I were a woman so I also had the right to complain!

I had a great time in San Francisco visiting Alcatraz, Japantown and the little comic museum there.

I think partly because there is much less diversity and choice in amulets (weapons are everywhere), partly because amulets have a classic allure as expensive and desirable things, partly because what the hell. Good for you making a wad of cash, Hero Protagonist!

I cannot interpret the Bob Marley/UB40/whoever song 'Girl, I want to make you sweat' as anything else than a song about a psychopath that seduces and then rapes a girl he is singlesidedly in love with. Choice lyrics: Girl, I want to make you sweat, Sweat 'til you can't sweat no more, And if you cry, I'm gonna push it some more Every time it's on the radio, singing these lyrics in incredibly happy ways, it weirds me out. Fortunately, I hate the horrible bullshit reggae that is UB40, and don't care for Bob Marley, so I don't mind nailing them to the wall.

Having a surprisingly hard time parsing that picture.

I'm not dismissive of the project, I made a snap analysis based on what I saw in the Kickstarter about whether this will be interesting for me personally I am certain this will prove an entertaining video series that will also enlighten people 'new' to feminism in gaming. But I'm also making a reasonable guess that twelve videos about female stereotypes in games won't be able to tell me a lot of interesting new things. The direction it seems to go in is more 'entertainment' than 'super deep dissertation about female characterisation'. I could be wrong. I am, for the record, always, and way more, interested in the latter.

That's a teeny tiny bit knee-jerk, Sal.

I find rape scenes in general very tough to watch. One of the most scarring movies, one that I never have to see again, was Kids. I just... hate that lead character so much. It is vile. I wish I never saw that movie.

That gaming forums are up in arms is depressing, obviously. I support the video series, but I must say that objectively looking at it I'm not particularly interested in them. I doubt they'll have anything meaningful to say that I haven't heard or read before.

Make a funny. Point out that no one would ever talk about a game or design choices like that if it was about a dude.

Changes mine.

A few years ago I returned to Oblivion and got a huge kick out of it. The atmosphere in that game, even if it is generic fantasy, is amazing. The problematic thing at first was that, coming from Morrowind, the whole package was so much less interesting. But once you get past that, it is an extraordinary landscape and I smile whenever I think back to it. Stupidly, after I had spent a good 100-odd hours in the game and was finally ready to tackle Shivering Isles, which I had saved as the best for last, I got fatigued with the game and didn't play on. I really must return to do that, probably with a new character to at least give me a challenge. Because Oblivion, oi, once you get past a certain point in leveling up it gets preposterously easy.

Luckily, you don't actually have to spend a lot of money to switch over to an inferior OS. You can just keep using Windows 7.

Items are selling for hundreds of money?! You've got to be kidding me, I was thinking this would be all about micro transactions. Who in their right mind would pay these amounts for an in-game item? OK, I'm sorry, I'm of the generation that still thinks you only have to pay once for a game and get the full package

I laughed.

So, anyone else feel like Diablo 2 felt a lot more hefty, epic, dangerous, adventurous, unknown? Stepping out of Lut Gholein was, even in normal mode, something you did with dread anticipation and the knowledge you would probably get killed by the soonest sand leaper. The whole of Diablo 3 feels like, yeah, that was pleasant and fun and comfortable, but then it's over and you feel like it might as well not have been there.

My real question is: what is game?