SecretAsianMan

She's is so good as the computer. I remember thinking at one point that it was such a shame she passed away before she her voice could be recorded for a GPS navigation system. I would love to have the Enterprise computer give me driving directions.

Is this game crashing a lot for anyone else on PC? I'm finding it to be fairly inconsistent but on average about once a level the game will just suddenly close. It's particularly annoying when I've spent time combing the level for the collectables only to lose them in an instant.

The McCoy-Spock dynamic was what the writers were trying to recreate with Pulaski and Data, but it just didn't work as well this time around. McCoy was cantankerous and grumpy about pretty much everything and Spock acted like a sounding board for him. Pulaski really only seemed to want to dump on Data, and for things that, as Gormongous said, were largely out of his control. Spock choose to follow the Vulcan path, Data was forced to. It paints her as strangely bigoted in contrast to the rest of the crew. Going back to Lwaxana, I dislike her less now than I did before. While I admire Majel Barrett's acting in that role, I still find the character irritating enough that I'd rather not watch most of the episodes with her in them.

Yeah, I remember finding that out and feeling pretty bummed because I thought it would have been a really clever and awesome use of the character. I felt the same way about Nicolas Locarno from the TNG episode The First Duty who was supposed to be on Voyager but was changed to Tom Paris to avoid paying royalties to the TNG episode writers (both Locarno and Paris were played by Robert Duncan McNeill).

My favorite Troy moments are the ones that take her outside the role of Counselor, such as the episode Disaster when she's essentially left in command of the ship and is motivated to become a full officer in a later episode, or any time she loses her cool and actually gets mad. Part of my dislike for Troy heavy stuff is that her mother is also often involved in the story and outside of a few moments I can't stand her. The female TNG character I most wanted to see more of was Ensign Ro. I felt she was far more interesting of a character than the regular women. She had a strong personality and determination but was pretty underutilized on the show in my opinion. Guinan was also pretty interesting but I understand them not being able to get Whoopi all the time.

I never really had a problem with Dr. Crusher. I agree that she's not interesting enough to carry an entire story by herself but I prefer her to Dr. Pulaski.

I caved and bought DOOM over the weekend without seeing a single bit of video for it (beyond some random multiplayer which I have no interest in). I was convinced entirely by word of mouth and I'm amazed at how true it all is. This game has finally solved a problem I've been having since playing the first Halo: melee combat in an FPS. I've always disliked melee combat in shooters because it felt so unnatural to me but DOOM encourages it in a clever way. It's extremely fun to pinball between enemies as you pop them open and gather up the goodies inside. I also really like the weapon mod system. It adds that tactical element that I love but does it without cumbersome menus or pausing that breaks the flow of combat. There's nothing like using a shotgun grenade to take out a small group then switching to the rapid fire mod to quickly put down a large enemy as he's charging toward you, all in real time.

If you're at a moderate volume level, then you're probably only going to really hear noises about the level of a phone or person yelling from across a room. Incidentally I had a friend in college who had sugar gliders and I took care of them for about a week while he was out of town. You probably won't hear most of the sounds they make while jumping around but that dog-like barking they do at night might come through, especially if it's right behind you. Some additional things. While the sound does leak due to the open back design, I wouldn't categorize it as super loud. I have both speakers and a headset connected to my computer. The sound plays through both all the time and I just mute my speakers when I'm using the headset. When I'm not using the headset it sits about a foot from me and I don't hear the sound from it unless it's something super loud, even with the speakers muted. I'd say anyone more than a few feet away probably wouldn't notice unless they can hear like a bat or you have the volume cranked up to 11. If they're in another room then it's probably not an issue at all. Also the cord is braided and not solid, which seems to be important to you.

The Google Play movies do this as well. It even has a box that comes up and identifies actors who aren't currently on screen but were just a few seconds ago. (At least the app does, not sure about any other versions of the player)

The HyperX is the current Wirecutter pick for gaming headsets. They also liked the Steelseries H for wireless. I personally prefer wired as I've had a lot of problems with wireless in the past. I used to use a Logitech headset but I don't like the build quality. They feel like cheap plastic. I also had a Razer Blackshark for a while but I found it not very comfortable to use and felt really silly wearing it. I'm currently using a Sennheiser GAME ONE headset (also a Wirecutter recommendation) and I'm very happy with it. It's lightweight and comfortable to wear for an extended amount of time (several hours), has a volume knob and a mic which mutes when in the up position, and has an open back design. This means that the ear cups are vented and the drivers aren't completely encased so your ears won't heat up nearly as much. As a consequence some of the sound can leak out so other people nearby can hear what you do if you have the volume up enough. It also means that you'll be able to hear some sounds from the room around you, but I find this to be a plus because I can hear things like my phone ringing, something I used to miss all the time with an enclosed headset.

Steven Universe has started back up again. I watched the two latest episodes last night.

I have nothing to contribute, I just wanted to post this

I'm sure there's some fun to be had but I found it very surreal that people were taking the marketing gimmick so seriously.

I absolutely LOVE Freespace 2 and was super excited to hear Rob bring it up. His description of the player's role in the game is very accurate. The game's writer said that the goal was to make the player feel like a nameless cog in a machine, similar to the first game. That very much comes through in the game as you play an important role in many missions but you are never the one the fate of the war hinges on. That's part of what endears that game to me so much. After playing so many games where I single handedly defeat the evil army and save the universe it was really refreshing to play something that didn't make me assume the role of the biggest badass the world has ever seen. Heck, I was so into it when I first played that on one mission that starts with you patrolling a space station, I actually flew around in a patrol pattern despite knowing where the enemy was going to appear. I had my orders and I was going to follow them damn it.

The favorite toy of J Allard's dog Xbox has to be the Xbone

I saw Captain America: Civil War over the weekend. Overall I liked it. The action scenes are well done and the character conflicts are interesting and believable. The main plot is rather thin. The plot device that drives the Avengers and friends to fight each other was fine and made sense, but the non-action plot that happened around that felt pretty weak to me. Also I'm again disappointed with the use of Black Widow. Still, in the end I'd say it was a good addition to the MCU. Specific plot details below One really weird thing while waiting in line for the movie: a considerable number of people were wearing either Iron Man or Captain America shirts. I saw people legitimately into the whole #TeamCap/#TeamStark thing. One guy walked by and said "Go Team Iron Man" and someone else actually boo'd him. It was both amusing and depressing to see.

The Prime Directive states that they can't interfere with another culture (unless asked to or said other culture interferes with them first). They're allowed to interact so long as the interaction doesn't influence the other culture's development. The Prime Directive doesn't just apply to less advanced species, it applies to all of them. For example, Picard refused to get the Federation involved in the Klingon civil war because it was an internal dispute within the Klingon Empire. Interference would have violated the Prime Directive. Of course there are times the rule is bent or even broken.

The real reason the first match is so hard is because the rest of your team is absolutely TERRIBLE. The only way I was able to win was to use the Jecht Shot just before Tidus takes himself out of the match to let Wakka play and spend the rest of the time passing the ball back and forth among my own players, hoping the other team never got a chance to shoot. It probably took me four or five tries before I finally won. I forget what you get for winning but I remember being really disappointed because it wasn't worth the effort and annoyance.

Thus began the great Thumb War of 2016.

I've been watching Kill la Kill over the past couple weeks with a friend and we finished it up over the weekend. I know it was talked about quite a bit in this thread but I'm too lazy to reread any of that. In general I liked it. The story and characters were interesting for the most part. I like how it messes with expectations, except for probably the ending which seemed like a fairly standard way to wrap up an anime. I would have enjoyed it much more if not for the excessive fanservice. I feel like I can't even accurately call it that. At times I felt that watching a straight up porn would have been more honest. I get that nudity is central to the main concept of the show but I still felt pretty skeezy.

The latest installment of the Orcs Must Die series has entered open beta. For anyone not aware of this series, it's a third person tower defense/action hybrid. You have to defend against waves of enemies using traps and obstacles. You can also attack directly with weapons and abilities. The first game was single player, the second had a co-op mode. This third game is F2P and has both cooperative and competitive modes with everything you'd expect from a F2P game such as multiple heroes, crafting, loot chests, etc. The game is available for download on Steam but you'll have to create an account with Robot Entertainment to play.

That's in there too. The "Seige" mode is the competitive 5v5 multiplayer. From the looks of it it seems like a standard Lords Management. I'm personally only interested in the cooperative PvE stuff.

I played the first two games in the series and they were fairly fun. I'm a sucker for anything co-op and this latest version can do up to 5 players. I've only messed around with the tutorial stuff thus far but I'd like to give it a try with other people if anyone is interested.

Can anyone recommend a good VPN? Specifically one with access to a lot of countries, namely China.

If you can find that I might do it.