Gwardinen

It looks more like Uncharted to me. Almost ridiculously so. It's like Uncharted and Fallout 3 had a baby... not necessarily a bad idea.

I don't know, but I have noticed certain apps not being available in the UK that I've heard about from US sites/people before. I'm not sure whether it's a legal thing or what, but it is irritating.

Consumer response actually resulted in a changed policy? Awesome. I love it when that happens.

Agreed, it is a slightly dodgy port, and it is weird how the game will allow you to move with the mouse or the keyboard, but not both at the same time. Essentially, rather than the keyboard moving the camera and the mouse moving the breath, both of them move the breath. This makes things harder than they need to be, but you still end up with better control than on the 360 (particularly since you can zoom to any level smoothly) so I still recommend the PC version if you want to play it.

Ugh, that's awful. It drives me nuts when games have region locked multiplayer, but region locking the game itself? What the fuck? This is a profoundly gross move for a game that is the successor to the original Deus Ex, something that was so accepting to the international modders and knew how to please the essentially borderless PC community.

Boy, that trailer was awful. But yeah, the tagline is funny.

I can't remember all the specifics, but I think this is what I did: I bought the game on my account but from the US Steam store (on the website you can just change the region, if I remember rightly). I then used a VPN to spoof my IP as being from the US, and I changed the content server in Steam to be one in the US as well. After that I downloaded the game, unlocked it and then I believe it worked for as long as I was either still in the VPN or if I switched to offline mode. Even though it's been unlocked once, you still can't play it from your normal IP until the release date for that region comes around. Some of this may be remembered incorrectly, or have been unnecessary in the first place. You may be able to find better details out in the interwebs.

The combat is totally different. I still wouldn't necessary call it a good combat system, but it has nothing to do with the QTE-esque clickery that embodied the first game. Fair warning: the combat in TW2 is significantly improved by using a gamepad, and it is unfairly hard at the beginning of the game (unless that has been patched out). Overall it's more polished, has a less ridiculously stupid inventory system, and better voice acting, visuals and sound. It's still kind of eastern European janky at times, and the first few hours of the game are definitely its weakest parts as it barely explains its systems while still expecting them to be fully utilised. If you like the world of the Witcher, it's pretty similar, if you didn't... it's pretty similar.

It's also a great piece of recruitment advertising for Valve. I don't know if anyone who wants to work in the games industry in some capacity didn't desperately want to get a job at Valve after reading it. I know I did.

I don't know if this is the reason, but generally games are released on Tuesday in the US and Friday in Europe. Personally I see releasing an entertainment product on a Friday as being more sensible, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like games three days earlier. For Civilization V I actually used dodgy IP trickery to convince Steam I was in the US so that it would unlock the game on the Tuesday as I couldn't stand waiting.

Real-time, though those slow-mo execution moves are new (as far as I remember) but they don't look like anything VATS-esque. Yes, you do have to be somewhat accurate, as you can miss with magical projectiles just like physical ones. Luckily they tend to be larger (at least in cross-section) than arrows. My reaction on the presentation is the same as it's been for everything shown of Skyrim so far; I'm disappointed that the combat still looks floaty and dull (though I may or may not like the fact that bodies still ragdoll ridiculously at the instant of death), I'm pleased and intrigued by the new interface stuff - the 3D models in the inventory and the constellation skill/perks system as well as the "zoomed out" map and I'm suspicious of the Radiant Story and dynamic economy claims. The last primarily because they sound awfully similar to many claims made for Oblivion that never really panned out, or were heavily cut down for the release version.

Part of the reason games have been discussed less around here recently may be because there have been less games recently. Apart from the Xbox Summer of Arcade, there hasn't been much to speak of. Only a couple weeks off Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though, and I suspect some Thumbs will be into that.

Yeah I'm relatively sure that by the end of the game I had all the upgrades. I certainly had all the upgrades I cared about. As Nappi said, get inverted takedown for sure, and anything else that looks like it actually creates new gameplay mechanics, and after that get whatever seems most useful.

Not sure if you're being serious or not but I love that stuff. I have it with a kind of spinach that (as far as I can tell) doesn't exist in the UK, and is the only type of spinach I've found that I like. It is awesome.

So OnLive is officially coming to the UK on 22nd September: http://www.onlive.com/corporate/press_releases/801 Those of us who already have accounts will apparently just be folded into the UK version as we've logged on from the UK (this is based upon an OnLive Support email to someone other than myself). We'll have to see if this makes any difference to the technical performance of the service, or whether it just means the shop is in pounds now.

Damn Londoners and your ability to have everything close to hand. There are no people in the north! I must rely on this information-starved text-only format for all my communication! Also I still fear another Scottish invasion.

I'm not going to participate much more in this discussion for now, since I feel like I've been talking a lot and managing to communicate fairly little that I actually wanted to. My last attempt to clarify what I meant (and apparently what bbX and JamesM are also considering) is this; we all deal with the world using imperfect information. We try to make predictions based on what little we know and how those factors have influenced situations in the past. Sometimes this is probably harmless (car insurance) and sometimes it might not be (racial profiling), but it's up to us to try to figure out which is which. Considering the very manner in which we make decisions like this is worth doing, I think, particularly when we're in the midst of trying to overturn things like unthinking sexism and blind adherence to tradition.

Yeah, pretty much what I was trying to say. Except you said it in one paragraph, while I spent about 8 over two posts trying to get there. Did I mention one of my chosen career paths is writer/journalist? DOING WELL AREN'T I?

Agreed, I'm not sure the arc of American Gods is long enough for a TV series. This prompts me to wonder whether it will actually be an adaptation of the book or more of a look at the universe of American Gods, a series chronicling the lives of the gods and the mortals who interact with them? Or perhaps the first season will be the book and then they intend to push it on from there, but even one season seems long for that story. Also, I'm not too impressed by the special effects budget quote. Sure, there are some crazy things that happen in that book, but when I think of American Gods the first thoughts that come to my mind has nothing to do with action scenes or flashy supernatural powers.

I said quite clearly (I thought) in my post that demographics, in this case, are quite good predictors. I'm not arguing that the insurance company are making things up, or that they're basing ideas on stereotypes. I even said in the post that the actual situation doesn't bother me (though from what I've heard recently with changing laws it apparently bothers some people) - it's just interesting and potentially troubling when related to other cases in which some groups may be treated differently based on statistics. If the racial profiling example doesn't do it for you, how about this - different socio-economic groups have been statistically correlated to different IQs at times (sidenote: I hate the popular concept of IQ and I think some of the tests are bordering on bullshit). This means that an argument could be made for spending less of an education budget on those people that are less likely to be able to grasp the subjects fully anyway. Why waste money on those who probably won't be going on to jobs or further education that requires thorough knowledge of things like geography and science, right? I would imagine most of you, like me, are fairly immediately repulsed by that train of thought. Yet, it's based on (if you accept the experimental methodology used and the validity of IQ tests) accurate statistics, and is a simple redistribution of cost and investment, just like the car insurance premiums. I'm not really trying to make a point here other than that life is complicated, sometimes treating people differently for one reason is seemingly all right and in a different situation that reason is seemingly horrifying. As I can't see a better way to do it, I presume it's up to us as people to try to figure out in which contexts certain facts regarding someone are useful and/or admissible.

Fixed.

I've been pondering for a couple of minutes what I think about this (the insurance rates, that is, not the giant COJONES). I'm a little torn between thinking that differing car insurance rates based on gender is no problem at all and that it may be a problem, at least in terms of precedent. On the one hand, demographics (specifically, gender and age) have been shown to be decent predictors of driving safety. They're by no means perfect, and there are terrible middle-aged female drivers just as there are brilliant young male drivers (quality here being lower probability of being in an accident), but they have exposed trends that correlate with statistics. For this reason, I am inclined to say: "Why not? Why shouldn't the insurance company be able to use what information it has to make an informed decision about something which is, after all, all based on probability?" However, the precedent this sets is somewhat troubling. For example, there is no particular difference between this and the concept that, since black males are involved in more violent crime per capita than many other ethnic and gender groups, they should get more attention from police investigators when suspects are being sought for a violent crime. When it's being done by law enforcement it's usually known as "racial profiling" and has been a hot button issue for civil rights activists for a while now - and yet the same logic and rationale are applied to car insurance premiums without raising nearly as much fuss. Even for me. To relate it to the SPEHHS MARINES example subbes gave, in the armed forces the obvious solution would appear to be to train and test candidates for whatever role they are applying for, and determine whether or not you think they're good enough at the required skills to be given that position. If being a woman makes the actual physical abilities required to be a combat soldier more difficult to obtain, there will probably be less women who are combat soldiers, but it won't be because they were banned, they just weren't able to do the job. In my mind, that's not sexist, it's just utilising people as befits their capabilities. So perhaps the best solution here would be to allow new drivers to prove themselves in some way to determine their insurance rates. There actually are ways to do this via advanced driving courses, though not all insurance companies care. Technically "driving for several years without an accident" also counts, but the truth of the matter is that your increasing age as you wait tends to do as much to convince insurance companies to lower your premiums as your record of safe driving does. I suppose it comes down to the idea of whether it's all right to rely on assumptions until proof is obtained, or in cases in which proof is difficult to come by. It's also a worthwhile question to ask who holds the burden of proof in such situations - is it the new driver's job to find a way to prove themselves safe or is it the insurance company's job to accurately and equally test the safety of drivers in order to make an informed decision? Have more thoughts but I ramble too much in this thread and I think it's part of the reason I'm sometimes being misunderstood.

Yeah, that's a fair point. As much as we are all wrapped up in this system from birth, we do still possess free will and if we're not using it to try to improve things, what's the point? It's just worth noting that even if men benefit from sexism, it doesn't necessarily mean they're the ones trying to maintain it - though of course some are, but so are some women, bizarrely enough. As men I suppose we have a responsibility to both lead by example in trying not to follow along the traditional male paths of treating women as inferior (though I admit even I find that harder to do when it's "positive" sexism - such as being overprotective of female friends) and to act as the previously mentioned "allies" in terms of spreading ideals of equality to other men. Yeah, I think my tendency to not want to overcommit to language without fully considering it is to blame there. While on reflection I agree most of these issues are caused by the flipside of the patriarchal system that causes inequality for women, I just didn't want to go with outright hyperbole right off the bat and say "all inequality is created by patriarchy!" even if I was saying it for the right reasons. I'm perhaps unnecessarily sensitive to overstating a point or pushing an argument beyond its facts when it comes to talking on the internet, as it seems like it's kind of a plague in these sorts of discussions, even when not deliberate.

I agreed that the tone Patters used was inappropriate, but that doesn't make the tone Kingz used in return much more appropriate. "He started it" isn't quite as stupid a defence as we teach children it is, but that doesn't make it a good one. As I said, I'm mystified by the sudden hostility in this thread, it seems totally out of left field given our unified view that gender inequality is a bad thing. Regarding your response to my post, Sal, I'm not sure if there's some miscommunication here or what because I feel like we're kind of crossing meanings while intending to say the same thing. As I said in my post, I agree that (some of) these problems are due to a patriarchal society, and I agree with you, ThunderPeel, that it's not (for the most part) women who are causing the inequalities that affect men - it's other men. However, as Sal herself echoed from my post, "the patriarchy" does not equal "men". I'll repeat what I said, we're all equally conditioned - I never got to pick to live in a society that is largely traditionally under male control, taking the benefits from that in a measured judgement that they are worth the downsides (such as the aforementioned spousal abuse issue). There was no judgement whatsoever, I was just taught, formally and informally, that men are strong and women are weak and that therefore men should protect women and if a man is harmed by a woman it is his own fault for not being masculine enough. I'm not saying men have it as bad, and I'm not saying that we don't need to push a woman's agenda, all I am taking issue with is what is exemplified by one line of your post, ThunderPeel: "In fact, none of his examples are, which is why they're laughable -- even the ones that are serious -- because they have nothing to do with feminism or sexism." I am arguing that they have everything to do with sexism, because as you yourself went on to state, they are caused by the patriarchal system that conditioned us all. Furthermore, as you and others have stated, feminism (despite its dodgy linguistics) is the fight against sexism. Hence, male inequality issues are absolutely related to sexism and therefore within the realm of feminism to counter. My true purpose is simply to remind that inequality (and indeed most problems) will not be solved simply by pushing in one place hard enough. Ironically, that is a profoundly masculine view of a solution.

That's going too far, just as Patters' earlier comment that the thread was bullshit and needed to die was too far. I don't know why, in a pretty relaxed discussion so far, this hyperbolic standoffishness has manifested. Whatever the reason, everyone should feel free to chill out for a second and remember that (as far as I've noticed) no one participating in this thread desires to promote inequality - some of us just have different ideas for how to get to equality. Acting as if there aren't negative aspects to gender inequality for men is naive, and saying that all of the problems are the fault of patriarchy is not helpful - even if it might be true (and I genuinely mean might, I'm not sure at a glance). "Patriarchal societal structure" does not equal "men" - men and women are equally conditioned for their social roles, most of us did not at some point choose to view men and women in particular, traditional ways. Patters brought up spousal abuse directed against men - that is something that happens, even if some people find it funny or even ridiculous, and those attitudes to it (and the lack of seriousness with which it therefore is treated) are created by the conditioned views of gender roles that we've all grown up with. It's not the fault of the men involved, nor really of men in general. In reality, equality is not a slider, we can't achieve it by just jumping on one side and pushing. It's complicated and multifaceted and ignoring the male issues involved is just as ignorant and unfair as ignoring the female ones.