JonCole

I'm playing on PS4, unfortunately. I just downgraded to a Pentium so I could give my wife the i5, so I'm really not going to be playing AAA games on PC for a little while. Also, even though I did well with M&K in MW2, I think I'm still better with a controller.

You just described me and I love AW. AW takes the Pick 10 system from Black Ops 2 and makes it into the Pick 13 system, letting you choose/forgo scorestreaks and the special Exo abilities. The future motif lends some novelty to the multiplayer maps, which seem exceedingly more diverse and memorable than the grey-on-grey-on-urban-on-grey of Ghosts.

Is this meant to be a spin-off of the Other Podcasts thread (starting here) for more continued discussion of Serial instead of continuing there? If so, I'm for that. If not, you might want to take a look at the last couple pages where we've been talking about the issues you're talking about (namely ethics and responsible reporting) precisely.

Or trolls who have jumped on the misogyny bandwagon because of the lulz. I was thinking about this person of the year thing in Time, where Kim Jong-Un won because of 4Chan and they managed to make the results spell "KJU GAS CHAMBERS" with the first letters of each person's name.

4Chan has a history for manipulating Time "whatevers of 20XX" polls to say stupid things with the first letters of poll choices, so I have no doubt that their MRA-friendly members are totally trashing this one.

"game-boy"

Fuck the entitled twats who are 1-star reviewing Monument Valley for DARING to put out paid DLC - http://toucharcade.com/2014/11/12/one-star-reviews-flood-monument-valley-following-paid-expansion-release/

Well there's Christmas in July, so there are at least two occurrences of Christmas per year. Who's to say there aren't more secret Christmases we've yet to discover?

In addition to Milo/Nero, Jordan Owen was also suspended. I'm very happy about these things.

Being an adult with expendable income is super weird. My recent promotion means that I'm not just making an entry level pittance, so I can actually afford to treat myself and not feel bad about it. I just saw that the Wii U Deluxe with Nintendoland is $200 refurbished on the Nintendo Store and I thought to myself, "I can probably just buy that with my first paycheck in December." Yeah, the PS3 Netflix app is the one that should theoretically roll out to all top-tier devices like the Roku 3 and all the consoles. I really don't know why it's not a greater priority for Nintendo to have the latest and greatest as far as video content is concerned, as it's uniquely positioned as the lowest priced out of the current consoles plus the one most normal people without tech fetishes are likely to own (at least in my perception). I'm pretty sure the platform holder has to commit some amount of resources to make that app come to the platform, but I do think that Netflix bears some/most of that load so they can insure a consistent experience.

I actually died a ton of times during the first mission on Hardened difficulty, half because they were so handholdy and half because I was just unfamiliar with the weapons and whatnot. By about the third mission (maybe 30-45 minutes in), they pretty much get through all of the newer stuff and actually let you do your own thing. I think that with this COD more than others, you actually have some opportunities later in the game to traverse the environment/corridor in a few different ways that keeps things relatively fresh and not so obviously linear. I beat this over the weekend and really liked it! I was particularly pleased, story-wise, by the fact that in the ending - Now I'm onto multiplayer, which I've actually been enjoying quite a bit. I don't quite have the mobility stuff nailed and I'm not really sure about the utility of the EXO temporary powerups, but otherwise it seems like the most technically proficient COD in recent memory. Only gripe I can think of is how the weapon unlocks work, more in the traditional style where certain types of kills unlock certain mods and leveling up unlocks weapons. It mostly just leads to a handful of matches slumming it with the most basic gun before you can actually be competent.

I actually really liked Prometheus.

Alienware Alpha is due November 21, though it's not really a Steam Machine as it has Windows 8 installed. It's probably the most mainstream with cheap prices, but boy are they coy as hell about what the GPU is in that sucker. It does have a pretty slick box that seems to compare favorably with build quality and appearance to the consoles. I don't think they say it once on the main product page - http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-alpha/pd The Digital Storm Bolt II was another notable box from CES 2014, it's available now but like the Alpha it has Windows 8 installed. The Bolt 2 is bigger than the Alpha, but that's because it can pack full sized video cards. The specs are much more transparent because they're much higher, and appropriately so are the prices - http://www.digitalstormonline.com/bolt-ii.asp Cyberpower probably has the best average of the two, with low priced builds that compete with the Alpha to a high priced build that undercuts the Bolt II prices. It's also hideous - http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/LandingPages/VenomX/SYBER/] Gigabyte is selling a barebones small-form factor box called the Brix, their top of the line build has a laptop quad-core Core i7 chip with what they're saying is a GTX 760 (it's not clear to me if this is the mobile chip, or if they have some sort of custom desktop module crammed in there somehow) - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5156#ov There are tons more that were announced at CES, but from what I can tell the reality is that nobody really wants to put out a legit "Steam Machine" and are instead hedging their bets with Windows 8 HTPC-style boxes.

Stop the Cat Call - a Tumblr with testimonials from cat calling and how those women were made to feel, sometimes with accompanying pictures that bring some context to potential "well maybe you dressed like a slut" rebuttals.

I don't think you missed anything, except maybe something that was covered by one or more of your points but not explicitly stated - the slate of thank yous that he got doesn't really indicate anything, because if a woman feels threatened saying something like that is a great way to avoid conflict rather than "fuck you" or something that might garner retaliation or simply more unwanted interaction.

"The Gamer Bill of Rights" - http://news.genius.com/Kelly-maxwell-the-gamer-bill-of-rights-annotated Dumb. I particularly like the bit where only people predisposed to like a game should review it. Basically, Gone Home SJWs shouldn't review Bayonetta and Bayonetta manchildren shouldn't review Gone Home. Or something like that. Disclaimer: I don't actually feel like Bayonetta fans are polar opposite to Gone Home fans or even that Bayonetta is regressive, I'm just using it for the sake of rhetoric.

Star Wars is my favorite, but Stargate is still dear to me. Stargate is #notyourshield #stargategate

God, I thought I was going to be able to resist this but the wind is out of my Destiny sails until the next expansion so I'm itching for it really bad. Doesn't help that from what I heard, it borrows from BLOPS2's Pick system which I loved so much that I got like 7 prestiges in that game.

http://www.theverge.com/a/star-wars-meme

"Luke used the Force so the Force is awake" is a pretty weak criticism. In the EU, it took Luke a damn long time before he felt like a Jedi Master. Even then, he dealt with new elements of the Force on a regular basis, challenging his "mastery" at every opportunity. One step further, it took him lots of failure before he felt like he was a good enough teacher to actually take on apprentices. Tldr, I don't really think the Force was awake after RotJ. Out of all the potential stories in the EU, I can see Kyp Durron's story as something they could co-opt. Namely, have Luke be a "Jedi Master" but not really a great teacher, have him with several apprentices, one is corrupted by the Dark Side and runs off to train to be a Sith on his/her own. Luke is challenged to find new ways of the Force to oppose a more "real" Sith than Vader ever was.

I love pistols in competitive shooters because they're a great way to develop your skills by staying away from really high ROF + accurate weapons that are so enjoyed by many in Call of Duty and the like. Very little is more satisfying in COD than taking out a SMG-wielding parkour wannabe with a crappy pistol. Is Shadow Raid easily soloable? I did it once as part of a team that pretty much pulled 95% of the weight, so I have no idea if I could do it for shit and giggles by myself.

Hey now, that's taking it a step too far. I'm sure he had cancer, but he's stupid if he believed that it was really going to kill him. Worried about nothing. Edit: I'm frankly just fucking frustrated as hell that TB is implicitly/accidentally endorsing a culture of skepticism of women (in general, because the people he's most skeptical of all happen to be women). Both a skepticism of their veracity but also of their character, when he's basically minimizing feelings of fear that any human has a right to feel regardless of the genre of threat they receive. That being said, my frustration is no excuse for insensitivity and bad taste. I admittedly have no personal history with cancer, so it's an emotional blind spot for me. My sincere apologies to anyone offended by this poor joke.

He already wrote something about the credible threat thing - http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sejtrh He stands by his belief that he somehow deserves to be the fear police and that "statistical falsehood" supports his charge that women really shouldn't claim to get credible threats.

Source?