Hermie

That series is an excellent introduction, as is it's audio counterpart, with the Penny Arcade crew. Perfect for understanding how the a typical game is run, and/or how to be inventive with your storytelling.

I'm definitely in. It could be really interesting to try and play it in the forum. If we got to set up a subforum, so that we could have free range to discuss the game, like having one thread for the ongoing narrative, one for each combat encounter, etc. Or play using the online tools, but chronicling it here. I COULD also DM, recently started my first campaign as one.

I thought so too, but I realized eventually that he seems to only be attacking the statement that "violent video games causes rapes". Seems like a lot of research for only disproving that single claim, when he could have spent more time saying what the sources actually do say. Still, a very well written piece, and all games writers should try to be more like RPS.

I do, on both my desktop and laptop, without fault so far. I don't know a lot about this, but I'm fairly certain that every program that doesn't have a 64-bit version just runs in 32.

Yeah, I've been away all week, but I'm on my way back to my puter soon! Toblix: Nobody is hardcore pro bros at Magicka, it's all about chaos and accidentally blowing each other up, so everyone should feel free to join.

UK and European people! They did make a survey to gauge interest in a London PAX, so I think you will be well served clicking on this link.

I know IMDB accepts most submissions, but I'm still proud of this: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4308282/

I'll keep those in mind. What I've been enjoying is Simon Tathams puzzles. It's not perfectly optimized for touchscreen controls, but it contains some fun puzzle variants. I'm also completely hooked on Alchemy. You start with being able to summon fire, water earth and air. Then you combine them to get new elements, and then keep combining, to a total of 360. At first I was like "This is fine, just trying and failing, I guess". Then I stumbled upon the element Life, and it was like "Oooh, wonder what I can do with this...". Cue several hours of branching paths of discovered combinations. I've put many many hours into this, and I still have under half of the elements. (Both are free.)

Like I said before, I don't care about the actual points, but I am pleased that I now have an even 10 000. Should I stop playing forever? (Side note: I don't like describing myself as "OCD" since it's obvious I don't actually have it, but what IS a good word to describe it when you care an unnatural amount about symmetry, ordering and organization, for example? <.<)

THQ is selling their PC games for cheap. Thumb favourite Dawn of War II, Toblix favourite Metro 2033, Diablo clone favourite Titan Quest, Mars favourite Space Asshole, and nobody's favourite 18 Wheels of Steel : American Long Haul.

Which is exactly why I've been arguing, if you're going to say something that appears hateful and hurtful to someone, even if you mean it as a joke, then why say it at all?

Absolutely agree with this, and I said as much in my first post. I'm not siding with either one, just discussing his rhetoric and use of the terms.

It's all about context, innit? Like I alluded to before, I've said despicable things to my friends, when I was sure I was in the boundaries of not offending anyone present. The same goes for stand-up comedians, your expectation is that he will say something people wouldn't normally say (after all, comedy is based on subverting the expected). In both cases, you are well enough informed to know that the source is not being geniune. Ideally, with Jim Sterling, he is an adult with a semi-public profession, and part of his job is, in fact, his opinion. Granted, in his particular case, he subverts these qualities on every possible level, but the point still stands. Since he's not standing in a comedy club, it's unclear on whether his statements are genuine or not, and thus they can appear hurtful to people. I guess my point is, it doesn't matter if he's joking or not, OR if he's even a misogynist or not, because he still said words and phrases that others perceive as hateful. This is also why I'm OK with the PA strip; in addition to not even being close to saying that "rape is okay" or anything like that, it was clearly put in a context of comedy, and is clearly separate from the actual feelings of the creators.

I absolutely agree that Anna's girlfriend (@daphaknee, if I'm not mistaken) was the one to provoke this, and don't feed the trolls etc. However, "he does it all the time" is not a valid excuse for saying something offensive. (Neither is "someone else did it first".) I tend to tune out the Jim Sterling Noise Machine for the most part, but I still find myself getting annoyed when he makes remarks like that, and I'm a hard person to offend. Heck, me and my friends will sometime make extremely offensive jokes, but only in the company of ourselves, where everyone knows that it's purely in jest, and no one will be hurt by it. It's something else, in my opinion, to shout out terms like that in a public forum, even if it is the internet. Either way, the best to have come out of this is the discovery of www.fatuglyorslutty.com Speaking of internet personalities and offensive terms, what are peoples take on the whole Dickwolves debackle?

Michael Sheen is also a great in Frost/Nixon, in a psychological battle with Frank Langella. Like Social Network, it's one of those "Why would I want to watch two hours of people talking in rooms?" movies, that are captivating because of the great writing and great performances.

I wont speak to the American situation due to lack of anything other than surface knowledge, but I do wonder how "socialism" came to be a swear word, something to be scared of. I am currently attending a state-funded University, completely free. Not only that, they're also providing me with a student loan. Not a bank, or another financial institution, but the state. Do I always like paying almost a third of whatever I make in taxes? No, but I prefer that over the thought that I sometime will end up needing a critical surgery, only to be booted because I don't have a health insurance, or can't foot the expensive bill. You might chalk it up to being rich of found resources, but our neighbors Sweden are doing the same, only they were built on such capitalist things like industrial design and wood export. By the way, why are unions always portrayed as shady and suspect in the American media? Is it because they are/have been corrupt, or is it just a cultural thing of how they view workers? Because here it's the single most important way for employees to make sure they get fair treatment. Just something I always wondered about. PS: Shouldn't a mod split this off by now? <.<

I like them too, but they also sometimes become the death of me due to completionitis. I could care less about the actual gamerscore, but I admit that I fall in the so called "gamification" trap of putting in extra effort, then feeling a sense of relief/accomplishment once I hear the little blip. Giant Bomb does do some cool stuff with the achievement API, like, as you said, giving you a percentage of how many has gotten that particular achievement, and based on that tells you if it is common/uncommon/rare. They also rate your progress on the amount of achievements you have compared to the average, as well as chart your playtime and genre preferences. I enjoy some good stat porn.

I got the first season of Community on DVD, and ended up watching through all of it again, with AND without commentaries. It's such a great show, especially once they hit their stride and just start picking apart genre conventions. People have compared to Arrested Development, and I definitely can agree it's that level of quality. Also, The Wire and Louie are both great.

Precisely. You CAN also cross two Arcane streams, then they combine together into a megastream that deals lots of damage.

Having now played both co-op with Orvidos and single player, I can safely say they're completely different experiences. Single player is like most have said, kinda cool, kinda weird, and a little confusing. "Oh, here comes goblins, let's try combining arcane and fire, ah, then this happens, interesting..." Multiplayer is more like "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING IS THE EXPLOSIONS!" For more perspective, look at the opposite elements. "Healing" and "Arcane" are opposites. If you try to mix them by yourself, they just cancel each other out, and you can't cast it. However, if you're trying to heal a teammate, and your heal beam accidentally hits his arcane beam, there's a big boom and he goes flying. Discovering this, we eventually started doing this on purpose, one player shooting enemies with the arcane beam, and then having the other playing crossing with his heal beam, blasting enemies off their own air ship. Hilarity.

Augh, all the achievement names are the worst, most obvious pop-culture references. I know that's usually the case, but these sound like 4chan vomited all over them.

Yeah, the mistakes article sold me too. I remember seeing a demo video of this from PAX or somewhere else, but after that it fell out of my periphery. I am down with some co-op wizardry and explosions. It's on Steam for 10£, unlocking in 3 hours as of writing. There's a demo too.

"But I have lots of favorite parts to Dead Space 2." (IGN.com) The entire review is as if written by a 12-year old.

Probably because most people put it on their 2009 list instead?

Questionable Content, Penny Arcade, Dr. McNinja, Dinosaur Comics and XKCD are the obvious ones I read. Two lesser known gems: Hark! A Vagrant is where Kate Beaton has fun with history and literature. Even if I don't always get the historic reference, her facial expressions and written timing always makes me laugh. Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. The setting is basically a temp agency for buff guys, mostly from video games: