SecretAsianMan

Oh, also there's this. I saw it being discussed on the game's Steam community page, but I forgot about it until just now. Part of the EULA allows Tripwire Interactive to ban you and revoke your license for being a cheater, griefer, troll, racist, sexist, etc. They've said it would only be used in extreme cases when the community was unable to handle things on their own. Also they'll tell your mom.

Hasn't one of the many interpretation of the X-Men (and mutants in general) is that it's a metaphor for being gay? They had to hide that they were "different", get ostracized and even attacked for it, the change usually happens with puberty, they're often confused about what/who they are, etc. It seems weird that they'd not get this.

I'm always caught right at the start of a reload cycle when the slow mo kicks in. I probably need to get over my habit of constantly reloading. Although I really like the fact that they acknowledge this by having animations when you try to reload a full clip. I worry about that too. I did cheese the leveling in KF1 by using a custom map, but that's only because I got the game really late and played very infrequently. Right now there are only 4 perks (medic, commando, support, and berserker) but I think there are eventually going to be 10. They have some of the other perk weapons available to use (such as a flamethrower) even though no one directly benefits from it yet. They've revamped the leveling system as well. In addition to the perk specific bonuses the old system had, every 5 levels also allows you to pick an additional bonus skill for your class. Each tier seems to have 2 different bonuses that can be applied. I haven't reached any yet, but I'm assuming you can only have one active at a time per tier. For the most part, it's like Dinosaurs said. I don't think they're planning to add a lot of completely new features at this point. I think the goal is to add in the classes, weapons, and maps as they're completed while squashing bugs along the way. The game feels mostly done, just lacking content and some polish.

Sam Jackson knew that his character would die before even signing on, so one of his conditions for doing the role was that he not go out "like some punk". So he got into a big fight with the Emperor.

Mace had essentially won the fight by the time Anakin even walked into the room. He had knocked Palpatine's lightsaber out the window and was pretty much ready to finish him off when Anakin showed up. It wasn't until Anakin was right there that he used his Force lightening (god I hate Force lightening, that shit is so dumb) which Mace redirected back at him. He played up the weak old man angle goad Anakin into taking his side, but he had basically lost the fight already by that point. He was saved by Anakin's intervention.

I played for a couple hours today. It's mostly still the same game, which shouldn't come as a surprise. The graphics are vastly improved of course. You can tell they spent a lot of time on the weapons. There are a lot of animations for them, including ones that play if you try to reload with full ammo. The enemies are easier to distinguish and the boss is tough even on normal, although everyone's at a really low level right now. The leveling system seems to have been streamlined a bit, but I didn't get high enough to unlock anything yet. I mostly played as the medic class, which I feel has gotten significant improvement. The weapon will make a sound when you aim it at someone who needs healing and the healing darts seem to have a degree of homing because I was hitting my teammates by aiming in their general direction.

I think it's about as sure as anything can be in a comic book so... not very? But there is this page.

This will be my first early access purchase so we'll see how it goes.

It's also just going to turn into a giant mess because that's the younger version of Iceman while the adult version of him is straight. Can't wait to see how they handle that explanation.

At the end of the day, I think this is the real reason. I'll agree with what Gormongous said about Lucas being bad at writing interesting space politics, but Star Wars is supposed to be a summer popcorn flick. Not that you can't have a movie that's both interesting to watch and interesting to think about, but given the choice between the two it's not hard to imagine why Star Wars is the way it is. Also I bet if Yoda was to self-immolate, it would be with some weird Force trick.

If Yoda really were that wise, that's exactly what he should have done. The Jedi's attempt to kill him was exactly what Palpatine needed to finish his plan. It allowed him to execute Order 66, which basically said that should the Jedi act against the interests of the Republic then the clone troopers would remove them from command by lethal force. And having several Jedi masters march into his office and attack him sure as heck seems like that's the case. Order 66 wasn't some kind of Sith trick that required the Dark Side to use, it was a legislative order. The order was deliberately obfuscated by burying it within other procedures so that no one would notice it. The Jedi were defeated by politics.

I'd have been much more interested if Yoda fought without being physical. Yoda is the oldest and wisest of the Jedi, but the strongest in terms of combat ability was Sam Jackson... I mean Mace Windu*. He would have killed the Emperor if not for Anakin's intervention. Instead I saw Yoda and Palpatine throw the Senate at each other. *I'm tempted to use this as a lame segue into lightsaber combat forms but I've already put way too much dorky stuff in this thread.

KF2 unlocks on Steam Early Access later today. Am I gonna be the only one trying it?

I remember a thing from Shadows of the Empire (the only book I ever read completely) where Vader is in his eggshell chamber doing his Force exercises. He harnesses his rage and hatred to fill his body with the Force and for a while breathes with his own lungs instead of his respirator. But then he thinks of his son for a brief moment and his hate bubble gets popped. Its not the first time he's done this exercise, I think he remarks that this session was the longest one to date, which would mean its a regular activity. His ultimate goal was to ditch all the gear he's forced to wear. Of course none of that happened now. It's a complete contrivance and I fully recognize the futility in applying logic to things like Star Wars. But still, I can't shut of that part of my brain so that's what I thought of when I saw those scenes.

Comparing When Flanders Failed and Homer's Enemy is interesting to me. In the beginning of When Flanders Failed, Homer can almost be seen as a pseudo-Frank Grimes. He's jealous of the success and happiness of one of his peers. He feels its not deserved and wishes misfortune upon him. Unlike Frank Grimes, Homer enjoys a period of triumph over his foe before coming to his senses. Also unlike Frank, Home isn't at all justified in his feelings. Although in Homer's defense, it is unreasonable to expect that one person would be able to send enough business to the store to save it. That of course gets subverted in the episode's conclusion. And in both episodes, Homer is ultimately triumphant. He gets to be the one that saves Flanders' store (and Flanders has no knowledge that Homer was the "cause" of his failure) and he continues his blessed life while Grimes perishes doing a very Homer-like thing and is ultimately remembered by no one (not counting the minor follow up with Frank Grimes Jr.). As an aside to that, my favorite part of When Flanders Failed is the end of Bart's side story when he fails to recover Lisa's sax and Lisa remarks that sometimes two wrongs do make a right.

Even within the original trilogy I thought Yoda was kind of full of it. When he's trying to get Luke to lift his X-wing out of the swamp and Luke says its too big, Yoda tells him that size isn't relevant. Yet when Yoda does it, he clearly has to stop and concentrate, the same way he does when saving Anakin and Obi-wan during the Dooku fight. I suppose you could argue his age, but then that shouldn't really matter either. Like I keep saying, as imaginative as the Star Wars universe is in general, I find their use of the Force to be extremely limiting compared to all the stuff they say it can do.

You're probably right. When I think about TNG, I don't really consider the weaker episodes and most of the strong ones are serious so that's what the show as a whole is to me.

Maybe Han will shoot second.

I thought that fight was terrible, especially the way Dooku makes his escape. All it showed me is just how bad everyone in Star Wars really is at using the Force. Yes, Yoda had to keep the ceiling from falling on Anakin and Obi-wan, but rather than try and stop it dead like he did, he should have just pushed it slightly and changed the trajectory. Or pulled Anakin and Obi-wan out of the way. He basically did the least efficient thing possible and let Dooku escape. Regarding killing off a returning character like Han: if they do it, hopefully they won't ruin it beforehand like they did with Qui-gon. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, before The Phantom Menace was in theatres, the soundtrack was released. One of the tracks is titled "Qui-gon Jinn's Noble End" and the following track is "The High Council Meeting and Qui-Gon's Funeral".

Still watching Daredevil and I'm liking it for the most part. I've gotten used to the pace, the characters are pretty good and the fights are done well. The thing that's bothering to me is the level of violence. I get that this is a dark, gritty portrayal of a comic book and I appreciate that, but I think you can accomplish what they're going for without needing to resort to this amount of limb severing. It's like the writers go out of their way to put as much blood in each scene as they can. I will say though it sort of solves one problem for me, which is the ability of a good guy who won't kill to get answers. The thing I never found believable about Batman (besides, you know, everything) is that he's able to scare answers out of these supposed hardened and dangerous criminals with such ease. While I don't necessarily agree with torture as an interrogation method, it is a somewhat more reasonable explanation than "guy in costume threatens dude but everyone knows he won't kill him".

There are some light hearted episodes but for the most part TNG's pretty serious and contemplative. Voyager has a bit more feel good sci-fi in it, while DS9 is even more serious than TNG because it's main storyline deals with invasion and war.

I didn't even realize that it was one continuous take until I read this.

Couple thoughts that occurred to me while listening to Guitar Hero FMV talk I'm ok with it being cheesy FMVs because I found the character animations in Guitar Hero to be really creepy. The drummer especially moves like an animatronic figure you'd see at Chuck E. Cheese or in Five Nights at Freddys. I wonder if they'll reintroduce other instruments down the line again. If that's the case, then having a POV of the guitarist alone kind of ruins things. I would imagine they'd have to redo it so that you're the drummer or singer or whatever else. Also the I found the best part of Guitar Hero to be getting together with friends to play as a "band", which also kind of breaks the first person perspective. I suppose in the end it won't matter too much since you're ostensibly going to be looking mainly at the note highway. Hearing that there are different audiences that will dress appropriately for different genres makes me want to start a band that blends as many genres together as possible in each song. We would have the specific goal of getting a song in Guitar Hero Live just to see the FMV sequence.

Not only that, Chewbacca himself was in the film. Yoda even calls him by name. So by the time of Force Awakens, he's got to be at least a century older.

I saw someone on Twitter remark that Han aged 7 years for each of Chewie's years, thus making Han Chewie's dog.