SecretAsianMan

Another way to look at permadeath is showing that actions have consequences. News outlets are quick to point out that video games are violent but they don't like to talk about when that violence might have a meaning. Take Mass Effect for example. It has permanent character death, depending on your actions (or inaction). Yet people were quick to blame it for events like Sandy Hook, which I thought was very ironic since Mass Effect does a better job than most games of showing the aftermath of your actions and emphasizing that what you do matters. When you can simply reload a save, those consequences are lessened considerably because you can "undo" your death.

I sense you're after something more subtle, but I feel Democracy 2 is worth a mention. It's a straight up government simulator where your policy decisions directly affect public opinion. Granted it's an older game (Wikipedia says it was released in 2007) but it's the most straight forward one I can think of relating to this topic.

(Once again I'm going to go into my specialty and talk about a game I've never played but heard a lot about) I understand the Fire Emblem games do something like this too. If one of your characters falls in combat, they're dead for the rest of the game. With very rare exceptions, there's no coming back for them. This can undone by restarting the chapter, but obviously you're also undoing all your other actions. Character relationships are an important part of the game too. The characters can support each other in combat and possibly even get married. If one of them dies, it could impact the game in a significant way.

Bikes and I have a bad history. I bought 2 during college and both of them were stolen. I discovered the first was missing the morning I, ironically enough, was going to register it with campus police in case it got stolen. The second was stolen from inside a locked closet in a locked building, along with the dozen or so other bikes stored there belonging to the other tenants. Also I am living proof that the old adage "once you learn how to ride a bike you never forget" is false. The first thing I did on my first bike that was stolen was fall down. The second thing I did was steer it into the wall directly to my right and fall down again. I was lucky not to turn left and into traffic.

At first I thought this meant that there were actual, physical trading cards for sale at 7-Eleven

I would love to have the problems you guys are describing. Because at the very least it means what you're doing matters to you somewhat. My problem is that I kind of don't care either way. I'm not saying I do a bad job or I don't put effort into my work, it's just that I'm not at all excited by what I do. I'm an engineer, and I sit in a cubicle all day, mostly doing paperwork and very little actual engineering. I want to care enough to say "This is shit" or "This is great" or anything in the middle. But for me, my job is just a job. It's a paycheck, one I can't leave at the moment and probably won't be able to for a long time. I'd much rather be working on a game, even a shitty one. None of that is meant to be sarcastic or insulting and if it is I apologize.

These days I have a lot more downs that ups, but changing jobs isn't really an option for me at the moment. Apart from the very first job I ever had, I've never been excited to go to work, and I've never had a job doing something I enjoy. Pretty much all my jobs have just been about getting paid, something that is slowly draining the life out of me. Thank goodness for video games (and Idle Thumbs) or I'd have lost it already.

It's not, but just a few weeks ago I found some office supplies in a desk drawer and I got way more excited about finding them than I should have. I've come to the realization that I'm an office drone and it bums me out.

The sad thing is that really would be a good reason for one. Ugh, when did my life become so boring?

I got an email from IT today telling me the browsers at work are going to be upgraded from IE7 to IE8 in a couple weeks. This made me really excited, then really depressed that when I realized I was being excited about.

I will confess to being a Stargate fan. I know it's not the best series (as Comic Book Guy put it, "of the four Star franchises: Wars, Trek, Gate, and Search, Gate is easily my third favorite") but I enjoyed it.

I always thought her name was Peach Toadstool. The letter from the beginning of Mario 64 is from Princess Toadstool and then she signs it Peach as well.

I just got the thread's title reference after reading all the posts, going to the current episode thread, then coming back and saying "What a minute..." Also I have nothing useful to contribute to this conversation. That is all.

I haven't even finished it and this may be my favorite episode yet. Comparing the consoles to a presidential race is brilliant. I also agree with the notion that Sony's being celebrated for doing the same thing as a reaction to Microsoft doing bad things. I also forgot about the irony of Sony's 'McDonalds!' patent. I laughed so hard when Chris said that games need to have ingame volume control that I almost dropped my phone onto my face because I was playing a game that lacks that exact feature while listening to the cast.

Fair enough. I can understand why people like to redo things to perfection, I'm just not one of those people. My personality tends to favor the initial experience over subsequent ones (which sadly means first impressions are very hard for me to get past) so I liked just going into a situation I'd never been in before, doing a bunch of cool stuff, and saying "Man, that was awesome". I can imagine an open area giving me more opportunity for that to happen than a series of somewhat confined corridors. Not that doing the time trials or the DLC wasn't fun, I just didn't get as much out of it the second or third time.

I am compelled to point out that he was from Laos, not Korea. Carry on.

I do like the almost puzzle-like aspect of finding the fastest route through an area, but the parts of Mirror's Edge I really loved were just running and figuring out the path on the fly. After some time, I eventually started to see shorter routes without having to replay a section. Sliding under a pipe then going into a wall run into a wall jump into a 180 jump into another wall run etc. is so much more fun the first time. It got progressively less exciting each time I replayed an area and found a slightly shorter method. If an open world let me experience that more often, I might be into it.

It'll be the top tier backer reward for his next Kickstarter.

Just saw Iron Man 3. That movie was all over the place. The plot has some giant holes in it. A few good action sequences and some funny bits. Tons of stuff that frankly didn't need to be in the movie at all. The after credits scene is pretty good. I'm not sure if I liked it or not because I'm not entirely sure what it was I just saw.

Peter Molyneux. When you open it, he jumps out and punches you in the face.

I was trying to think of a joke about there being multiplayer, but then I started actually thinking about what that might be like. If done correctly, I think Mirror's Edge multiplayer could be interesting. Screw deathmatch or any kind of combat type shit. Imagine a crazy game of tag over rooftops or the abstract space from the first game's DLC. Maybe races against people (and not top ghosts) in randomly generated maps. Or some kind of hide and seek or capture the flag. Basically, I want a first person kids game with lots of running and parkour.

Are you telling me my dreams have unskippable cutscenes?! And my brain is making scripted sequences?!

Not yet. (I'm not sure if I mean that seriously or not) I'm honestly not very impressed or pleased with any of the new consoles. Most of it seems like stuff I already have/can do, or are things I don't care about. I feel like it's less a step forward and more like it's NOT a step back. Maybe I'm being overly negative but if I had to pick either the Xbone or PS4, right now I'd pick neither.

That's happened to me exactly once. I'm not sure how or why I realized it. I then proceeded to give myself super powers and basically re-enacted every cool thing I had seen in movies or games. The one thing that bugs me about it happening only once is that there are several things that happen to me frequently in dreams that are clear signs of that I'm dreaming but I never seem to realize it until either just before I wake or right after I wake up. For instance, I can't run in dreams. Every time I try, my body moves like it's in water. I can feel myself wanting to run and my limbs move like they should be, but I can't seem to move forward at the speed my motion would suggest, even if there are no obstructions. It happens a lot but for some reason I never figure it out until it's too late.

I'm going to ressurect this thread because I had a dream last night that kind of disturbs me. I don't know if it's because of E3 and I have video games on the brain or the simply HUGE number of zombie themed games, but I had a zombie-esque dream. I was a little kid, maybe 7-10, and playing in a large stream with a girl of about the same age. Suddenly, it becomes night and the moon is red. This causes some people to turn into zombie-like creatures with red eyes. They become psychopathic killers who are hostile to anyone who's not affcted, like myself and the girl, but they're also somewhat rational in that they can speak and act like a normal person (who wants to kill you). My older brother shows up and he's got red eyes, so the girl and I try to run away. Eventually he corners her and I have attack to my brother to save her. After some physical and verbal sparring, I shoot him in the leg with a shotgun I somehow obtained. Rather than finish him off, I force him to walk into a forest full of things I know will kill him. As a horde of red eyed people comes toward the girl and I, I wake up. As dreams usually go, it felt very real at the time and for a little while after I woke up. But the part that disturbs me and I can't stop thinking about is that I'm an only child, I have no brothers.