Orv

I've done a few tabletop and RPG things over the interwebs. There are many tools out there to facilitate such things. I'd be happy to join whatever you have in mind.

NO! I HAD JUST PURGED THIS FOREVER! GODSDAMNIT. . . .Oh well. If it's here. . .

Watching Hyetal's video, I really have to wonder why any hate was ever leveraged against the combat system of AA. I absolutely loved flowing from henchman to henchman and just hitting one, moving on, hitting the next. It's very much how I played Assassin's Creed 2 (what I played of it.) Move from one guy to the next, keeping them off balance and occasionally getting in an actual damage strike. Yeah, it's a bit of a button-masher, but you don't have to play it that way, and in fact, playing it that way will lead to failure more often than success. Oh well, I guess more options never hurts. We'll have to see what AC brings.

People with this much enthusiasm make me feel like I've failed somehow. sfCiOzL7cYs Oh, by the way, definitely NSFW. Or children. Or people with an excess amount of class.

I am a horrible, horrible person, but necro it is. If you like Tom Francis (a bloke what journalizes [wait, that's not a typo, but "butyric acid" is? fuck you, Chrome] for PCG), who has recently been doing A Great Stonking MineCraft Diary/Experiment, you may enjoy; Triumph of the Intergalactic Space Rabbits. . .OF DEATH and The Second Triumph Of The Intergalactic Space Rabbits which finishes here, in TOTISR: Star Fucker Prime Good reads. The site is a bit wonky currently, but still worth your time and effort. (I remain a horrible person for necro'ing an '06 thread.)

I hate us. (Us being The United States of Assholes)

I was hesitant to post some of his other stuff because it can be mildly offensive depending on your humor tolerances, but hey, if people like it. As for the reporter, what the hell happened there?

Pirate has finally earned his avatar title. Though there might need to be a "pointless" in there. Welcome, thingdudeman.

I was going to, but I'm having to skip and go to the next PAX Prime. Bollocks.

I. . .really don't know how to feel about that. "Billy Murray doesn't play golf!" . . . "Bill Murray plays golf?" . . . "I. . .you know. . .Bill Murray is in the PGA?" I'm so confused.

I'm sure it's been said in here before, but; MOON I loved every minute of it, and I loved the realization moments. Good damn movie.

Well, despite her rather advanced age compared to the aforementioned nephew (he's 9, she's 15) she's now just starting to realize "hmmm, maybe my super-religious parents are crazy. I wonder what X thing I've been locked away from is like" So I don't forward to getting pitted against her frighteningly acute observational skills. She'll probably make a good FPS and RTS player. And I already get beat by people I don't know.

Probably highly offensive if you're highly religious: 6hCQLEIWadk

Antidisestablishmentarianism. The most pretentious way to say "The church isn't a prick, please don't deport us!"

I would certainly be. I actually threw the idea of getting the 'gang' back together this week at Hermie, but his sister had hijacked his account, so that didn't go anywhere. So yes, sometime Saturdays would be fine.

Yeah, it's an interesting enough game, and well enough done to be worth playing, but it's not Torchlight, or Titan Quest. Still, I do want to finish it some day.

D_DoH-YzHfw *Cough*

I posted one of the tracks in my 'review' of ME2, but I've been devouring the OST from the Battlestar Galactic series at every opportunity. wtsddWrG4Ac I'm not sure if those are proper scottish pipes, or something else, but the sound of that instrument is always a good way to tug at my heartstrings. tpSCNXi1vd0 To steal a phrase from an RPS commenter: Bear McCreary, come to the area in front of my stomach to receive your hugs.

I don't think you're over-analyzing it at all. That first conversation on the Normady, in which she gets up from her desk, entirely to bend over so the camera can suddenly go "tight space latex ass!" annoyed me to no end. The fact that I already didn't like the character (because, I've finally figured out, she is a good character) didn't help that she's just gratuitous supermodel. Interestingly, I never had a problem with Jack's initial outfit. Maybe it was the tattoos essentially functioning as clothing, or what have you, it didn't bother me. It wasn't particularly sexy either. (If a shaved-bald Natalie Portman can't get me to like that style on women, some video game character certainly won't.) That said, I did learn to live with Jack in the end, but I never really took her along if I could help it. Though the interactions between Grunt and Jack were interesting, when I did her loyalty missions. They seem like they'd get along well.

This was sarcasm, right?

SG, if there isn't a rule against it, I'd be fine with doing that. Cap'n, I was fine with giving Jack a chance up until the "It turns out, you mess with someones head enough, you can make them into an all-powerful bitch" line. My only exposure to the horrible trailers was through IT35 or whichever it was, but that line did for me basically what the director did for you with Miranda. I just hated her. Admittedly, once she was 'fixed/better' I had less of a problem with her, but hooooooly hell she made me want to punch her. I just realized I forgot to talk about the astoundingly good Alignment system! I'll chunk a bit in the Gameplay department later on.

I have a nephew that was recently granted heavily restricted access to the internet. One of the provisos is that I show him around "the 'net" and make sure he has a good time. Step one? Turn off voice chat. Step two? Proceed to get my ass kicked for a good two hours by a ten year old whose entire time with the game. . .was that two hours. As SG said, it ain't the fruit of my loins, but it's impressive and makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. And then I go cry in a corner because I ten year old beat me. I don't look forward to the day my super-aggressive niece on the other side of the family realizes I can be her conduit to violent video games, since her parents are. . .religiously restrictive.

I got about five seconds into the second video before scrolling down the page in abject terror.

Wall O' Text, XL. Mass Effect 2 (And in general) Still is not the saviour/messiah. Sorry! Story: Still the most dime store paperback shit I've ever bloody heard. . .at the basic level. Though I suppose I'd have a long haul in finding an even remotely recent sci-fi RPG that isn't "save the godsdamned galaxy again". That said, things like. . .Look, spoilers are going to start here and they probably aren't going to stop. If I'm not the last one on the wagon for this, you're probably dead in a ditch a couple miles back. --------------------------------------------- Collectors = Prothean: Reaction; Wut? Fuck! Oh noes. . .Hmmm. Tricksy! I liked that. It made me sit up and pay attention to the primary story suddenly. It's just a shame it happened so far through the main plot. Every character except Jack: Loved pretty much every aspect of the personal plots for your team mates. From shooting Michael Dorn in the face (by proxy!) to Garrus not being dead, were fantasic. Even Jack, though making me want to beat her face in and leave her there when the charges went off, was an interesting moment when you realize "Oh. . .she, kinda warped her perceptions here." She's still an almighty jackass and annoying as hell (biotic bitch now) but that was a nice thought. Fuck you, BioWare. In all of your available orifi. Making me loose team because I choose incorrectly on something that has no operational indicators can get thrown into a bin and off a cliff. I redid the entire Omega 4 Relay and Collector Base because you assholes killed Mordin. Reading the wiki on the matter, yeah, the choices make sense the way they are calculated, and I choose right on almost all of them because they made sense. Regardless, the entire Collector Base was really sort of a "piss off, dickslots" moment for me. From the godsdamned "I can't see through the bugs!" to "Derp, dude got shot in the gut because you chose wrong!" it was just the wrong way to end a game for me. Suitably epic, suitably tense and FINAL BOSS, but Remo's thoughts on the last level of Trine sum it up well. Though that is straying from story a little, so! I would like to note however, on redoing the collector base, I popped the Battlestar Galactic Season 1 OST in my surround stereo system, plugged the game into it as well, and well. . .It worked, even better than the excellent game music did for the situation. This Came On At The Start Of "The Long Walk".wav ------------------------------ Gameplay: Part of the reason I've dismissed ME2 for so long is my original experience of it was on the XBox and I was surrounded by various people at various points of the five hours or so I experienced of it. Being able to sit in a dark (or not, depending on mood/tone of the game) room and contemplate things, listen to the intonations in voice and modulation in sound really helped my enjoyment of the game. The combat. . .I really can't find anything wrong with the combat other than the linearity. (That's how you spell that?) Much like the original, combat was lacking fluidity and if there was a long area with cover, there was a fight brewing. There was never a time when combat felt like a chore, which is exceedingly rare with an RPG, action or otherwise, and I even enjoyed dying, because I always knew why I had died, and that it was my fault. Coincidentally, perhaps Normal was a poor choice, as I died a total of 4 times, 2 of those on the Collector Base. If I play it again (maybe, more to come on the subject) I'll probably try Insane. Or I'll cut off my legs and learn to walk with my eyeballs. They probably amount to the same thing. Fuck YMIR Mechs. Fuck Protein Strands (I've suddenly forgotten the name of the Biotic flying ground-slam tank dudes). Fuck all the "I'M BIG AND SCARY AND WILL RAPE YOU IN A SECOND FLAT" guys. That kind of thing bugs me, but I guess, being an action game, that really shouldn't surprise me at all. Once you know how they work (or have better heavy weapons) they weren't a problem, but things like the Daranth(?) mission and the Garrus loyalty mission just bugged me. I still enjoyed the combat, don't get me wrong, but artificial barriers to entry are never a good thing to me, especially in RPGs. Oh. Rocket launchers, and every NPC combatant with them: Hilariously pointless at Normal difficulty, especially once I had Garrus equipped with a Viper rifle. Which actually brings me to the next point. -------------------------------- Sound: Across the board, excellent, with a couple notable exceptions. Krogan: Several times I could hear the codec or what have you go "Uhhhh, no, fuck you guy" when I was talking to Krogan. It did this especially hard with Michael Dorn. I'm not sure if it's the shitty inboard headset sound adapter, or whatever, but it grated at times. Grunt seemed fine though, but maybe because he had less saturation on his voice. Widow rifle: The thing sounds like a pop gun. Ugh. For the best rifle in the game, and an anti-materiel one at that, that bugged me to no end. Still hilarious to one-shot Harbinger drones with it, though. Could You Be Trying Any Harder To Creep Me Out?.wav --------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Concerns/Comments: Cast: Could they have any more recognizable people? I spent the first half of the game going "I fucking know who voiced you! And you! And you! And your friend at the bar! And the dude getting the blowjob in the back of the train!" Not a bad thing at all, mind you! Getting yelled at by Michael Dorn was the highlight of my trip to Tachaunka (or whatever the hell it's called). Replay ability: It staggers me how people have hours played of the levels of: 85.3h 103.9h 82.9h It's a good game, but is there really that much replay value? I can probably be considered having blazed through it, doing the minimal amount of planet searching (oh, that'll get an earful in a second) to fully outfit my ship and grab a nuclear handgun, along with a couple other very minor things. Justify yourselves! (Or don't.) I'll probably play it once more, but, christ, 104 hours? Gods above. PLANET SCANNING CAN GO FUCK ITSELF. Actually, no, it's fine where it is. I've heard various thoughts from "Tedium embodied" to "meh" but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say this; It's bloody relaxing, and kind of a joy to do. I didn't go out of my way to do any more than necessary, but I really quite enjoyed go through and tweaking the yield from a reading just right, watching the scanner without watching the position. Again, I didn't do an iota more than I needed to, and maybe that's the issue some people had. Mordin singing the modified version of "A Modern Major General" was. . .I couldn't really breath and my stomach still hurts a couple hours later, is probably saying enough. I might have woken someone up as well with my howling. Garrus remains my favorite character, and if he isn't in the third one, heads will roll (on the floor). His story about 'turian suicide mission preperation' and my characters idiot, hillbilly grin in response were astoundingly good. That said, Mordin came in such close contention for favorite character, that as stated, I redid the entire damn mission to save his hide. (Hopefully final edit) I did almost nothing with either Jacob or Miranda, and I find that astonishingly hilarious, considering who I was working for. Garrus/Mordin was my primary team (not exactly optimal, but I loved their banter) and I often changed one or the other out in the latter hours for Thane or Grunt. The fact that both the other human team mates were so utterly annoying/despicable/good at being characters that I hated their guts says a lot for the initial impressions I got of them in the opening hour or so. Jacob doesn't bother me as much as Miranda did, but I either found the alien team members a lot more interesting, or just couldn't stand Miranda. I'm not really sure which. (I'm a filthy liar) The base/generic/original Shepard face/look is so integral to my enjoyment of the character, that I regretted my decision moments in but was too lazy to just pop back out now that I was in the word. I shoved on a helmet whenever I could and stayed that way for the rest of the game. If you don't know what I mean, I'm talking about this guy. Anything else just feels off, after ME1, and I hated myself for changing it. Though maybe I'm being a bit harsh on myself. . . Final thought, that will never leave me, if everything else about the game does: Derp eyes. Everywhere, everyone, had a lazy eye. Sometimes two! *Head-desk* Overall, not the cesspit that I originally wrote it off as, but still not my GOTY2010 or anything like that.

I like that the commenters solid limit for socially acceptable gaming practices is five hours. Not a second more!