Karimi

I hit the pool yesterday, then player soccer and ate dinner with a friend. We talked stuff. Our waitress was attractive. I'm currently playing Jamestown and contemplating buying a sim game.

Good news : There's a LOT of talent in the games industry. A LOT. Everyone and their dog wants to be in the game industry, they're all talented, dedicated, and willing to work ridiculous hours for almost no pay. Hell, they'll even wash your dog for you. And your car. And your ass. Bad news : They're all making shitty games. In other news : I'm bored of League of Legends. Until next time, this was Karimi. See you in a year or so.

All in all im rather tired of the video games as "art" debate. Its 2011... video games are better than what we consider art now anyway. All other "arts" are dead. Painting is irrelevant, sculpture has been irrelevant for a long time. Movies, which have only recently entered the art pantheon (100 years ?), and books - are the only things I'd even consider within the realm of art. Movies are at best preludes to the far more powerful medium of gaming. Books are perhaps the only medium remaining that I'd consider sufficiently different from video games to warrant comparison. Photography is interesting, but it lies just above encyclopedia on artistic merit - its a tool for documentation - interesting, evocative, but limited. Music I'll put aside, its just its own beast really.This isn't to say all those mediums aren't valid, expression takes its own forms. sometimes you don't feel like playing a game, or reading a book. Lets move on, the gaming industry needs : 1. The industry really needs an Ebert figure who can communicate to the 'general public'. 2. To really start asking itself the tough questions - "are we art ?" fuck that, thats so tired a debate. I'm talking about : can we make the world a better place, can we change human nature. As far as i'm concerned "art" as a term is useless. We have a saying in Arabic "The dogs bark and the caravan moves on".

So, buy it or not ?

Finished Metal Gear Solid 4. Absolutely hated it at the start, though it was a nice finish to the saga by the end. Great movie, terrible game though, game play portions are too short cinematics/cutscenes are too frequent and there's far too much dialogue considering how little is actually said. I cannot stress how much pointless chit chat there was that was completely superfluous. I really enjoyed how they dealt with Old Snake and the notion of your favorite hero becoming outdated, now only in terms of story telling but gameplay as well. Makes me wish something similar was done in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Rather than spending half the movie telling you that Indy wasn't too old, "No really, Harrison Ford's still got it !" I think it would have been better if it kept trying to convince you he WAS too old, sort of breaking him down as a hero and having him validate himself by the end. "Maybe I am too old" says Indy at start, then by the end he overcomes and qualifies himself as a hero once more.

There's video guides for the mission on youtube but essentially what you need to do for the nydus final mission is bunker up and block your entry points, build 2x factories with constant siege tank production and have them defend. Have 2x starports just building banshees, you'll want around 10 at any given time.When the nydus works pop up just cloak and ctrl right click each one (basically queing them up) so you can do other stuff. If you've done it right you've got a control group (hotkeyed) banshees, factories and starports with a couple of banshees at all times and around 30 tanks in your base. Around halfway a bunch of overlords come from the back and drop a bunch of units in your base, so be ready for that and have your banshees either clean up or send some units. Focus down kerrigan with banshees when shes near your base and be ready to replace the ones you've lost.

Haven't seen anyone online from Idle Thumbs yet. Saturday works for me though.

Right, while I think Brood War was much weaker than SC1, it definitely had some great moments. Just to help you out, heres Jim's quote : "It may not be tomorow, darlin', it may not even happen with an army at my back. But rest assured; I'm the man who's gonna kill you one day. I'll be seeing you." While a lot can happen in four years, I think it would have served Blizzard well to show how Jim Raynor had changed in those four years and what could have turned him from "You're dead to me , bitch" to "God, I want her so bad dude." I'm not saying its not possible, it would just be better writing to have a character evolve, and their motives develop rather than create a sort of archetypal character and have the reader fill the gaps in between. For example, if the transition occured after

Yea, I actually deleted my comment , reread yours a couple of times and decided I was being silly (my excuse is that its 5am!). But yea, the story is awful. The missions before the final one are actually a lot of fun, the nydus version of the one before the final is a lot of fun (but makes the final fight tougher - just kill off the air and replay it later I guess)

Heres the story summed up for you :

Well, my motherboard just fried. Had it for 3 years, and to make things worse the company I bought it from , Vigor Gaming, is out of business. My motherboard was : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131073 On the plus side, it wasn't very good, burned up some RAM and had to format a couple of times as well. Good riddance. Thinking I'll get a new mobo , and might as well take this opportunity to upgrade to windows 7 64bit. Thinking I don't want another Asus , any suggestions ? I've got a nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB and 2x1GB DDR2 ram and Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6850 -3.00GHz.

I'm hoping for a turn-based rpg with card game mechanics. Think Heroes of Might and Magic mixed with Yu-gi-oh. "Strong Bad, show me your moves !" *Strong Bad draws a card* *Strong Bad taps three Power cards* *Strong Bad uses Fist of Angry Fury !* *Tycho takes 10 points of damage and is stunned for 2 rounds* *Strong Bad discards Fist of Angry Fury to the graveyard* *End of Turn* "You are strong but your form is weak, Tycho !" "Powerful yes, but your rhetoric is of the cowardly sort !!!!" "WHAT YOU ?!" *Strong Bad draws a card* *Strong Bad plays a power card* *Strong Bad ends turn*

Just realized I got a number wrong in my character code, its fixed now. As a zerg player I'm liking these balance changes. Keep em comin Blizz ! (Now all you have to do is remove region locking, add chat channels, fix custom games, buff zerg,and get some new writers for your singleplayer and you're done !)

I love the single unit / small group missions, I just enjoy the micro aspect of the game far more than the macro. I think what you can do is SHIFT+Click that unit and it deselects it, either that or CTRL+Click, its something like that.

Why does Diablo 3 have rainbows ?!?!

Just finished the game on Brutal, and was it ever. Done with all single player achievements except for the Lost Viking ones, I'm terrible at those games. Next up in Karimi's OCD list - challenges and VS Ai !

I'm a sad human, for entirely different reasons though. Go play an adventure game, fool !

Sorry Chris. Meant it more like 'Hey borrow it from a friend or check it out at a bookstore', if it helps my case I ended up buying it , it can have my money.

I think the hallmark of any great RPG has always been the side quests rather than the primary narrative. So while a great setting provides for tons of quirky sidequests (Planescape,Baldurs Gate), I think with some good writers you can get some great side quests in spite of a very mediocre and 'vanilla' primary story.

Just try it, grab a torrent. Worst case scenario its 20 mins of your day wasted.

That logo treatment was fantastic. The rest was ok. It seems like its going away from what I liked about DA:O , which was essentially the similarities to BG2. I'm not loving the look of the main character, the armor, or the bad guys. The spell was badass, but I'm not sure how much badass I want - i'm not looking for a God of War rpg. How much badass is too much ?!

So, at the recommendation of some of the people in this thread I got my hands on all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim 4-5 hours ago. Just finished the last volume a few minutes ago. I must say ,I thought it was fantastic. It had its slow parts\ but the story was heartwarming and the characters interesting and humorous. I've never been a fan of anime/manga art but it was done nicely, and not too frustrating to someone who isn't the biggest fan of that style. Thanks again for recommending it guys, 5 hours well spent

Well what is fiction trying to impart then if not knowledge in some form or another ? Be it an analogue to a society,or a warning, to a sort of empathetic journey ? Maybe my perception of the 'take-away' is different from yours ? I guess I'll have to read more Umberto Eco or Pynchon to speak about post-modern literature. While I see the appeal of a more 'advanced' level of art for those that are aware of lets say a certain discourse, or conceptual mapping - it can become an inside joke when it ceases to become accessible. It becomes irrelevant and obscure, I can speak to this more in terms of architectural theory (and post-modern architectural theory). Again , for me it goes back to take away, art must lend itself to a purpose beyond simply entertainment and that's where accessibility I think is important, because that responsibility towards a society, a readership or whatever is what elevates a work from being a set of inside jokes and erudite mental high-fiving. I must say the Umberto Eco bit to me seemed a bit jarring - to intentionally scare away a reader seems perverse although I'm sure that wasn't the intent. Again,I guess I'll have to read The Name of the Rose to decide on how obscure is too obscure. Yes, very few people set out saying "Lets be obscure" but the work gets lost. Or maybe it would be better stated as the 'heart of the work' gets lost in the language. Which is why its important to start with a principle. If you set out with a principle,believing in something, I think the accessibility comes from that belief, its what empowers a work and lends to the desire to spread an idea. Its a matter of good design, rather than what an artist 'feels like doing'. Sure you can design on a whim , but to what end ? Its not a matter of addressing the "average person" its about recognizing one's role in a community which is not limited to insiders, and one's role in that community that isn't simply to the exploration of one individual conceptual thread. Anyway, this is a bit off-gaming, I can't really speak on either authenticity or obscurity in literature. All work speaks to an audience of some sorts ,and some more simply than others. I'll concede there's a big difference between the importance of accessibility between fiction and non-fiction, but there's also a matter of wasted talent and the difference between art-entertainment, and community and niche. PS. Side note, but what did you think of Braid ?

Brood War was terrible but I thought SC1 by and large was pretty well put together. Just as an example - Mengsk's speeches and outbursts from the first game seem much more menacing than his rage-quit during his press conference in SC2.

Same is true for Dragon Age, and maybe even Planescape. Sometimes what makes an RPG or a story in general is not the major plot, but the side-quests and characters. I know a few people who thought HK-47 made KoToR for them.