chummer

I'm totally for using real world brands in the game world. I think it only becomes a problem when there's only one brand in there or its presented badly. I think you can find cases of each in Alan Wake. Was it neat that the batteries were Energizer? Yeah, but why was every battery an Energizer one? That was immersion breaking. The second offense was found with the placement of the Ford Sync. There's a specific shot early on between Alan and his wife sitting in the car where camera grossly makes the Ford Sync panel the center. Being sparse also makes it stick out more. Imagine a McDonalds next to a goofy, developer made pizza shop. The contrast is too sharp for me in those cases. In any case, the way Fullbright is incorporating this music seems to be both tasteful and effective. I'm really excited for this game.

Amazon is offering X-Com: Enemy Unknown, along with $30 of 2K game credit, the kindle version of the book and the Industrial Revolution pack for pre-ordering from them. Steam Key as well. Check it.

Ha!

Is this going to devolve into a Cage bashing thread? Because I would be down for that. Though John Walker at RPS has done that pretty well already.

I remember playing this game on the Dreamcast, though I don't remember if I ever finished it. While I think David Cage has the absolutely right idea about how video games should explore more topics and in different ways, I think the way he is trying to execute them is counterproductive. To be fair, I've only played Omikron and Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, though everything I heard about Heavy Rain seems to be continuing the same ideas with just better faces and more branches to the narrative. What is it that you think is interesting about it, clyde?

Bought in the second I saw it was available, even though I haven't read much on it beyond understanding the basic thematic premise. I trust Jason Rohrer enough now that I'm willing to lay down less than $10 for a thing he does without doubt. Mechanically, it seems like the goal is to create mazes with a few critical paths that allow players to get to the proverbial treasure and escape without tools. I've only played about 15 minutes though, so I'm willing to be totally wrong about my understanding of what's going on.

Guys, lets not get into semandible arguments.

Watching Youtube videos while driving on the job and paying attention to a podcast? Got it.

All I could think of while watching that Micro Man video was the on the NES.

It was a late afternoon with concrete searing from the day's heat when I heard... a smokey sax?

Maybe high-resource production and low-resource production instead of AAA and Indie? I think Chris' complaint was specifically about enthusiasts readily using the business nomenclature, which he thought was gross.

Autre Ne Veut got to me by way of Twitters. I haven't listened to an actual album yet, but these remixes by him are amazing: https://soundcloud.com/autrenv

This makes me want to think that Far Cry 3 takes place in some sort of animus not only because of the invasive AI, but the tone early on that made it seem like there was something like 'The Game' going on. In any case, the only thing I found really compelling about AC3 was running around as a Native American kid in the forest. During that all too brief period, the aesthetics enhanced the experience of retreaded AC mechanics. Hopefully I'll be able to just sail around in AC: BF and just be a sailor.

Seemed worth pointing out at the time I was writing it as I was connecting it to previous statements, but now just reads off-point. Fair enough. While I might not agree with Gormongous that a short hand will lead to deeper discussion, I would agree with "Anyone who knows the word will understand the significance and anyone who doesn't will benefit from an explanation." While 'privilege' may not capture all the nuances, it's a useful abbreviation. To bring it back to games, starting off a description of a game by identifying its genre (Metroidvania, Rouge-like) is a crude shorthand by itself, but gives me a framework to start with. That's not an unfair assessment, but I don't think people were responding to your beef, but rather the fact that you said "The concept of "Privilege" is also a thing that doesn't really exist here. I'm lucky that I wasn't born into squalor and that's about it." Edited for clarity, but I probably failed.

You're right. Using one term without explaining what it means would be a terrible way to get someone to understand something. I don't believe anyone is endorsing that though. To use your own argument, it seems reductive to classify humans as either 'good' or 'evil' when they're much more varied than that. Someone might have good intentions towards others and still unknowingly participate in systems that hurt others. Oh, shit. We're in the weeds people. WE'RE LOST IN THE WEEDS!

Hmm. I think this might be a case where we're talking across each other. You seem to be taking issue with the word 'privilege' while some of us seem to be talking about why it's necessary to point out privilege and how it keeps us from empathizing with others. I guess I should have added 'create allies' as a fourth step, which would enlist people to help solve the problems. Also, I was bothered by the 'everybody knows that' statement, as I don't think everybody does. The reason that raising awareness (whether it be about gender issues or economic inequality) is an important activity is specifically because not everybody knows.

I don't believe the point of making people aware of injustices is to make those unaffected feel bad, but rather to highlight the problems, create empathy and figure out ways to correct them.

I'll second Cave Johnson. I feel the chances of getting killed would be equal to that of gaining some form of immortality while working for him. Also, this thread's question led me to ask 'Which lord management lord would you like to be lorded over?' because I'm a doof.

Hmm. According to Wikipedia, ides was specifically used for the 15th day of March, May, July, and October. while the 13th was considered the Ides of all the other months. That being said, February is a weird month all around- what with extra days every 4 years and the shortest length. Thus, I think we can fudge it and say February 14th also coincides with Max Valent-Ides, which I find hilarious. Or we can stick with the 13th and have a three day love fest with Valent-Ides, Valentine's, and Dishonored Valentine's Day. I've been looking for an excuse to work less.

Vanaman's impression of an off the cuff, racist Carter was great. That is all.

For those looking for health related improvements, My Fitness Pal app. Been using it for about a week and I'm already paying a lot more attention to my caloric intake. Didn't realize how little an ounce of cheese was one nor how many calories it had! Thanks for this! Checking it out now.

Lord Executor- Three Friends' Advice Pre-WWII Calypso music that I stumbled upon recently. If anyone has other recommendations of calypso music for this era, I'd love to have a listen.

Just used this week's sponsor- Hover.com- to register a site and I'm going to go ahead and second all the positive things that were said about it on the episode. If anyone has suggestions for a good hosting site, I'd like to hear those.

I'm a few hours into the game- at the part where young Conner gets into the open world section. I don't want to progress the story at all because I'm enamored with the idea of playing "Native American Being A Kid On The Frontier." I had the same thing with Red Dead Redemption where the only reason I pushed forward was to open up all the areas and have access to all the guns so I could play the game i wanted to, 'A Cowboy Goes Hunting and Gambling.' I'm already kind of disappointed knowing that the game is going to turn into National Treasure or whatever. Blegh.

Actually, it was The Game Conference Game, but hoy shit! I never knew that existed. That's fantastic.