Ihmishylje

On topic, I'm annoyed by people who say they don't lift weights because they don't want to be too muscular. As if picking up a barbell will immediately transform you into the Incredible Hulk.

People who think Scotland is part of England.

A friend of a friend is a medical doctor who only found out in med school that men only have one scrotum, not two. Granted, she is a lesbian. There's also a radiologist in my extended family who told me that a faith healer cured his back with a prayer.

And to be fair, I only learned less than a year ago that you can't catch HIV from kissing.

ME2 does have a decent story. Not the main plot, of course, but that is only part of the story. It's the character stuff and side quests. It's also how it's told, not just the main beats of it. At any rate, it has a better plot than, say, the Divine Comedy, and that's considered a literary masterpiece.

I'm not saying video game stories are approaching the best of what the history of all narrative art has to offer, but complexity does not necessarily mean better.

Oh yeah, and definitely play Jade Empire. Perhaps the fighting got a bit boring after a while and some of the mechanics were a bit rough or weird, but like Alpha Protocol, it had a lot of heart and character and definitely showed promise which could have been realized in a sequel or two but unfortunately never was. Maybe they'll reboot it or make a sequel some day....

That game is amazing. It's low budget and at times a bit clunky and janky, but it's not a bad game, even mechanically. It's definitely driven by rpg mechanics more than finger dexterity, even if it isn't turn-based or paused or anything. At least I had a pretty enjoyable experience, save for one shitty boss fight. But yeah, the atmosphere, dialogue, story, characters, moments... that game had fucking heart, something in short supply in the industry these days.

Yeah, I know, it's weird. Also considering how Microsoft doesn't really give a shit about the rest of the world in terms of other services on the Xbox etc. Even if we have great internet over here, we get the vanilla versions of products.

It's also weird to me that Americans keep complaining (on the internet) that there's no internet or that their internet is shitty. Yes, I know, it's a huge mass of land that's far more expensive to cover with decent internet compared to more densely populated wealthy nations in areas like Europe and Asia.

Sometimes I feel like people who complain about shitty internet connection in rural areas or military bases or the bottom of the ocean or whatever should maybe reconsider the idea that all the newest technology should be available to them. After all, a cell phone is pointless in remote areas without coverage. I'm not saying people who don't have access to decent internet should remain entirely without games, there's plenty of solutions for that and they aren't all going away in the near future, until broadband truly is a legal right everywhere. But I do think it's the future, and it has to start somewhere. I guess Microsoft just jumped the gun.

I don't know. I live in Finland, and broadband is a legal right over here.

So, me and my brother are planning to visit the U.S. in late August. We're planning on flying to San Francisco and renting a car and driving through Yosemite and Death Valley to Las Vegas and from there to Los Angeles, from where we'd fly back to Finland. Yeah, I know, a lot of driving, but we have ten days, so we should manage. Any suggestions on cheap accommodation along our planned route would be more than welcome.

Also, feel free to suggest things we should see while we're in California/Nevada that we might not think of.

Thanks!

@aldo_q said:

I am probably one of the few whom honestly did not hate the ending. Not the best ending to a game ever, but I didn't hate it either. I found it okay to be honest...

Hear, hear.

@Draxyle said:

"Heart" and "Soul" are funny descriptions for things. A lot of people will say they're meaningless in this context, but as an artist I can understand the sentiment behind those phrases.

My own take on it is that a game with "heart" or "soul" is a game "made for all the right reasons". Basically, they weren't produced because of clinical or mathematical reasons. There was a clear drive, a creative force, and a desire to reach other people on meaningful levels through their works. It's quite easy to tell which games have it and which games don't.

This.

@iAmJohn said:

@Animasta said:

@iAmJohn said:

@Ihmishylje said:

To be fair, all the people who voted for Obama weren't necessarily voting for Obama or his proposed policies, or whatever, but his promise of "change" (whatever that meant... he didn't make good on that promise as far as I can tell) after two terms of what amounted to, arguably, the worst presidency in the history of the country.

To some, I seemed cynical back in 2008 when I was certain that Obama wouldn't really change anything of signifigance but I wasn't really going out on a limb, since the precidency isn't dictatorship and Washington is corrupt as fuck.

Ahahahahahahahaha, you don't know a damn thing about American history if you're really going to try and argue that.

Also, he's only had one term.

(he was talking about bush)

Oh wow, you're right, I'm a total idiot. Sorry, Ihmishylje.

:D No probs. Probably my fault for using such long sentence structures.