miffy495

I just found myself with a 50% off King Arthur 2 Steam coupon. Don't really have much use for it myself, as I'm godawful at all things strategy. PM me if interested!

That sucks. I got a text message from my mum a couple of weeks ago telling me that the dog I got for my thirteenth birthday (who is now 14 and living in British Columbia with her) had a really bad stroke. Similar decision coming up on that front, so I feel your pain man. I am a very big cat and dog person, and even hearing about that stuff is brutal for me. Many sympathies, man.

They already got Shammack!

While I can confirm I am alive, I refuse to speak to any maiming that may or may not have occurred.

I sent Subbes a letter about two weeks ago, so I assume shit is still going on. Otherwise, I would look quite the fool.

My current PC was built around when Crysis came out and could run it respectably but not super well. Since, I have upgraded the video card once and it seems to be holding up pretty damn well otherwise. Tech is changing slower than I remember it changing when I was younger...

I did it for nine months last year. I actually only missed it when something came out on Steam and I had to hang around using the University's wifi to download it. Then I started up uni again after a year off in September and decided I should have a home connection for school. Fell right back into old net-obsessed habits, but didn't really feel the lack of it when it was actually lacking.

Here's mine. Note my bed right next to it and the speakers behind the monitor, signifying that I have a super tiny desk in a super tiny basement apartment bedroom. The photo that's blu tacked to the wall above the monitor is of myself and the girlfriend a year and a bit ago when she still had her bright pink hair, the sticky note on the monitor is my work schedule for the next two weeks, and the desk is actually an antique from my dad's school days that still has an inkwell in it and everything. There's also a remote control just above my mousepad, which is for a space heater on the other side of the room from my bed. It can get to -40 degrees Celsius here in the winter, and living in a basement for that sucks if you can't turn on the heat before getting out of bed.

I tried going to the Calgary Comiccon a couple of weekends ago. Due to the reunion of the ST:TNG cast for the event (even saw a picture from it on Subbes' MLKSHK, which was funny) it was so packed that the fire marshall wouldn't let my girlfriend and I in. We went to the craft fair in the convention hall across the street and hung out with the middle aged ladies. The girl bought a couple of awesome sweaters and I got some kitchen-y stuff, so we considered it a victory. The queues, combined with the shared sentiment of a thing she said while we were waiting to get in to the comiccon ("I wish I could still go to the expo but turn off my sense of smell for a day") made us feel like we could still call the day a victory. She wanted to go way more than me anyway. I have to say, I've never really understood the appeal of conventions myself. Near as I can tell, the objective is to stand in line for an hour or two in the hopes of being regarded with slightly less disdain by a celebrity than the dude in front of you. Much as I love the geek culture, the expo thing mystifies me. People on this forum seem to be pretty good at explaining the appeal of things that confuse others, anyone want to take a crack at it?

I got my N64 the birthday after my father died. I was turning 11 and, though I'd had an SNES before then, that was when I got into gaming heavy. It's been a safe space ever since then. Specifically, I got Ocarina of Time with my system and whenever my life starts feeling like it's spiraling away from me, I find that dipping into whatever the latest Zelda game may be gives me a feeling of control back in my life. It may specifically be the combination of familiar elements in new settings that draws me to that series as my comfort place in particular, seeing that no matter how many things change in the medium there always seems to be a place for Link, Zelda, and Ganon. There is definitely an escapist bent to my gaming, especially with regard to that series. Other times, it's curiosity with regards to what the medium is able to achieve. I think that one of the coolest things this generation has been the stability of your main character across the Mass Effect games. Regardless of what the third brings (I'm still wrapping up my replay of 2 before I start it), that is worth sitting up and paying attention to. Experimentation with narrative or lack there of is fascinating to me. It isn't something that I would have cared about when I was younger, but as an adult it gives me hope that gaming may actually be maturing bit by agonizing bit. It's happening slowly enough to cause me to conceal the fact that I'm a gamer from new acquaintances, but I take my solace where I can get it. As a pre-service (read: one year of university left) teacher, I've been reading a lot about the difficulties in finding the balance between stagnation and frustration for students, and the same easily applies to "fun". The fact that I've spent so much time experiencing it for myself with games is probably part of why this felt like old news while my professors talked about how revolutionary this thinking is. Much the same way that a student who has mastered the material gets absolutely nothing from continuing to drill in it, when you're great at a game it stops being fun. I used to blow through every game I played on easy and not think about them at all. Because of this, I nearly stopped gaming altogether a couple of years back. I decided to crank the difficulty and suddenly gaming became "fun" again. Basically, fun for me is just enough of a challenge to feel like the game is taunting me but not enough difficulty to get me to turn off the game. Games that ride the edge of that don't need to be narratively interesting or do anything else to be great (see: Vanquish). Games that come close just need a little extra push from something else to be loved (see: Mass Effect getting the "crazy detailed world" bump). Again, when you've been playing games for a long time this doesn't sound like much new, but apparently it's mind-blowing for the education community so worth a mention. The last reason I game is actually nearly unrelated to the games themselves. It's the same reason I've been meeting the same group of people once a week for the last 7 years since graduating high school to play board games. The games are there as a gathering point, not as the objective. Sometimes something awesome comes out of them, but most of the time I'm just using them as an excuse to chill with people I like. The Grand Thumb Auto and Formula Thumb games from the last few years are definitely that, as was playing co-op Portal with Patters when the game and later DLC came out. Sure, one of my favourite gaming stories from 2011 came out of that as well, but most of the time it was just cool to be chilling with Patters and brainstorming Portal solutions. Of course, sometimes I just need to have a day where I shut my brain off and gratify the "loud noises and explosions" part of myself, but I'd say that the above are the four main reasons I game. Note that the "just challenging enough" one could apply to anything from character action complexity to puzzles in an adventure game. Dexterity to intelligence and anywhere in between, all are a valid challenge.

Does Ice T do voice work in Future Soldier?

They're even better raw!

Ok, confession time. I am ridiculously addicted to Picross. At any given time, there's a GBASP sitting on my coffee table, fully charged, with my imported copy of Mario's Picross sitting in it. I played the shit out of the original Picross DS when it came out as well (also imported, I didn't want to wait for it to be localized). Now Picross 3D is coming out, and I'm crazy excited. I don't know what it is about this game, but I love it. I'm hoping I'm not the only one around here who does. Trouble is, I ordered it from Amazon as part of an order which also included the blu-ray of the BBC's "Life" series, which isn't out until early next month. Since I chose free shipping, they won't sent the game until they can send the whole order together. This means I'm waiting a month from now to play this game, and damn am I excited for it. It's a bit infuriating, but I guess the game will be that much sweeter when I do get to play it. In the meantime, any thumbs have it? What are the mechanics like in 3D? How do they pull it off? Is it harder, or will I blast through it given how many of these damn puzzles I've done? Please thumbs, help me get my Picross fix by proxy! Ah, screw it. I'm gonna go grab my SP and do another puzzle.

From the name "Miralbus the Hat" am I to assume that the character in that portrait is actually the hat and not the guy underneath it? If that is the case, I'm completely in.

Playing to co-op levels with Patters was one of my favourite gaming things last year. Definitely go through them. Possibly better than the main game.

Fixed. Damnit, Tabacco.

Man, that sucks. It sounds so much like something that I would do as well, so I hope that it goes well. I just got a letter telling me that I passed my practicum, though that was never really a worry of mine. Apparently I'm totally suited to teaching the fifth grade. Rad. Plus, they want me back for helping around the class, so on Wednesday I'm heading back to the classroom for a field trip!

Good marks! Awesome!

I'm also not a bullet hell type of person, but Jamestown rocks the fucking house. Play it.

Wow dude, you really do have a knack for paying attention to the wrong parts of posts lately. I wasn't saying I'm more (or less) mature than I was, just that I'm a different person. People change over eight years, so do tastes. It's not that I'm unable to appreciate it, I just see the flaws more than I used to. Maybe it's having been exposed to a greater variety of things that I've seen things done better now, maybe I'm a more cynical person, maybe I just like different things. Who knows? The thing is, if you're the same person now as you were when Firefly came on the scene, you probably wouldn't be a very interesting person. I think the original fans may have changed too much, and in too many different directions among them, to be able to satisfy now.

Well, I guess I've gotta reply somewhere in here now, huh? It's actually kind of a mix of how both of you are reading it. I'm speaking for some others, and in anticipation of the internet's greater reaction to things like this, but mostly from my own point of view. In high school, I absolutely loved Firefly. I watched it over and over, totally into it. When Serenity came out, I was stoked as hell and went to see it multiple times (nearly unheard of for me). It was one of the first movies I did a private screening of when I became a projectionist. There's a poster for it hanging above my TV. That said, in the years since, I've grown up a lot. I've become a very different person. I suspect this to be true for many of the people who loved Firefly when it came on the scene. In growing up, my opinion has mellowed on Whedon a lot as well. I used to think the man could do no wrong, now I believe that he's got some good ideas, is very good at writing in such a way as to appeal to teenagers, and has had some lucky breaks. Still worthy of respect of course, but not untouchable.* Even with my mellowed expectations, I'm quite doubtful that he could bring back a Firefly that would do any kind of justice to my memories of it. Knowing that I feel that way, and considering myself to be fairly reasonable about these things, I shudder to think of the greater internet's reaction to this. If Whedon has a great idea that would be worth bringing back Firefly to include, I feel like he'd have a much greater chance of success with it (both in avoiding pointless internet rage and in creating something with mass appeal) if he were to avoid trying to shoehorn eight year old characters and their baggage into it and just create something new based off of that idea. I hope he does. I'd love to see him recapture some of what made me love him so much when I was younger. I don't think rebooting Firefly is a way to do that, and that the potential risks and disappointments (for myself, who would just be quietly sad, and the internet, who would be vocally outraged and probably start a petition or something) far outweigh the long-shot reward. *(As an aside, I wonder sometimes if his writing actually has substance or if my teenage affection for his work is all that keeps him from falling into the "What the fuck do people see in his smug, reference laden but ultimately meaningless dialogue in which speed and juvenile sarcasm is substituted for quality?" pit of my mind that people like Aaron Sorkin and Diablo Cody reside in. Then I re-watch some Buffy and remember that it's still pretty damn good. I hope that's a legitimate evaluation rather than nostalgia, because Buffy holds a special place in my heart. Still, fuck Aaron Sorkin.)

I watched it after finishing the entire series and found it pretty underwhelming overall. Still worth watching I guess, but nowhere near the quality of the series, and I think I even prefer some episodes of the show from after the murder was solved. Very much agreed.

Yes, even that. I'm with Speedy on not thinking that Joss Whedon is THAT special. He had a great run with Buffy, and Firefly was pretty fun, but I haven't been super impressed with other stuff that he's done. I think he's pretty talented and has created some great stuff, but not everything he touches turns to gold. I don't know if he's got it in him to bring Firefly back and have it live up to what people would expect.

Yeah, they had it on sale on GFWL about a month ago, so I picked it up and installed it. Beat Bioshock 2 back when it came out though, so it's been tough motivating myself to click on that "launch game" button after all this time even with the new content installed.

I like Firefly, and I'm with him. I don't want anymore Firefly. At this point it's been so long it's not worth going back to without some HUGELY wonderful idea that could probably be the basis of a new show that wouldn't have to be saddled with living up to Firefly's legacy. Just make that new show, let Firefly rest in peace.