alanschu

Oh indeed, some nerds are not cool for sure.

I agree. I wasn't even really sure what had happened.

Of course you see it that way. It prevents your cognitive dissonance. To not see that the artist who drew these pictures did so lovingly and tried to bring out in each one beauty appropriate to the theme is at best ignorance, at worst a complete lack of good taste. Coming from you, the ignorance comment is laughable.

I tend to not have much faith in the legal system to begin with, though admittedly I can't think of anything better.

Of course you see it that way. It prevents your cognitive dissonance. The issue here isn't that the minorities don't keep to themselves. It's that the dominant classes pass judgment on them, and actively seek to oppress them, based on those judgments. Simply saying "They should just adapt as best they can" doesn't mean very much if the minority in question gets hunted down, ostracized, villified, and sometimes outright killed based simply on largely unthreatening statuses. I am debating going more into detail about this, as I have done in the past, but a large part of me feels it'll be relatively futile. If people really want a response, I'll consider it.

Really? I heard nothing about it, though I haven't been following the game that close.

Meh, times are changing. Most people call me a nerd (though I argue I'm a geek...which ironically makes me a nerd ) and I don't care, and enjoy who I am. I also play sports (basketball, hockey, and volleyball), am learning how to play guitar and ride a motorcycle, and am in general pretty active. I can also waste 10 hours straight playing video games!

I'm guessing that finding stuff that doesn't in some way go back to China will be more difficult than you think.

I need proof of this (the guards that is).

About 5-6 hours in. I love the pacing. A good mix of beatup asskickery, with the cool predator modes. The boss fight against was good fun too!

Which internet petitions were successful? I tend to be of the belief that you'd have much more success with a real petition, or even a written letter, delivered to Lucasarts rather than an internet petition. Internet petitions lose validity simply because they are in the internet, and hence are easily exaggerated and anonymous.

Say it's back up to #7!

One of the spookiest moments in video gaming for me recently has to be the haunted house in Bloodlines.

I always measure things in celsius becuase it makes me look professional. Shouldn't you go Kelvin, then? Nothing like 'Wow, it's over 300 degrees today!' I don't like measuring in Kelvin because it makes me feel like a nerd. That's okay, if you were a nerd you would have pointed out that you don't refer to Kelvin as "degrees." I think you're safe.

That whole scene is very bizarre indeed. When hearing about the "sex simulator" scandal, I was like "Is that it!?" Though the scene at the end was done significantly better, and was probably the "ZOMG" scene FOX was concerned with.

It's also it's disadvantage in my opinion. It's annoying if shepard does/says something completely different than I expected. I don't understand the whole cinematic thing. If you don't have complete control of your own avatar in game, what is the whole point then? Why not to make the whole game play itself from start to finish? That would be really cinematic. Just my 50 cents. You never have complete control over your avatar in any computer game. You only have the control that the designers allow you to have. I can understand that some people might want to know precisely every word that Shepard wants. Though in playthroughs of KOTOR and so forth, I already found myself choosing options based on the intent of the dialogue, as it hardly ever corresponds to how I would actually prefer my character to say it. As a result, the dialogue circle was pretty much a wash for me compared to the standard format, with the small added bonus of incentive to actually watch my character talk too.

It's not about reversing calls, but asking for clarification and bringing issues to the referee. Though at the pro level it's much less of an issue. Refs don't hand out unsportsmanlike penalties any time a player talks to them.

I have no issue with it because functionally it's the same (I would usually pick the full verbose dialogue based on its intent, just like the circle). The advantage the circle had though, combined with full voice over, is that it made the game more cinematic. I didn't know exactly what was going to be said, so I actually watched the PC's dialogue responses, since I didn't already know specifically what was said. As you say it's not really any different than previous dialogue progression. Yet people seem to have no issues chiding the **** out of it for somehow being inferior.

Explicit expectation exists as well. While norms and mores tend to be of the implicit variety, those considered more strict/important by a society tend to be turned into laws, which is a proper codification of the expectations of society (i.e. explicit). While not committing murder may be a pretty implicit expectation without a law, it still is an explicit expectation, as well as a variety of other laws. Some laws are neglected and compromised (something minor like speeding), which depending on your point of view could be a breakdown in the social contract through unclear expectations (Structural Functionalist), or a disagreement of the expectation placed upon citizens (Also functionalist, through Merton's extension of Anomie in his Strain Theory). Alternatively, resistance to a law could be explained through Social Conflict's perspective of class conflict where citizens refuse to adhere to speed limits as an demonstration of limiting the influence the power elite has on them. EDIT: To those that say anarchy is the best form of government, I just wish to remind them that anarchy's definition is the absence of government, and hence cannot actually be considered a form of government. This is a goal of Marx's communism, but unfortunately there is no "withering of the state" as he had naively hoped/expected.

Personally I think that Deus Ex is a much better game. Though maybe that's why you want to play SS2 first... haha

BioWare's claims about sequel isn't necessarily about content, but that those seeking a gameplay experience similar to KOTOR, in the timeline and setting of KOTOR, can expect to get it from SWTOR (whether or not they deliver is another issue entirely).

There is expectation. People don't blindly follow their social contract. It's called the social contract for a reason.

Given that Anarchism is the lack of government, you'll have to forgive me if I'm somewhat skeptical. I have a feeling that Anarchism would get you something that is more similar to modern capitalism than communism. I agree, Communism is better though...except for that whole "unable to sustain itself effectively" thing. That kinda sucks.

I like to perform cons in Seattle too. They are so gullible!

I agree that KOTOR had better/more varied quests/side-quests. Though I expect that, given KOTOR is more "Action RPG" while KOTOR is more "RPG." Most of the sidequests in Mass Effect were, indeed, utter **** however. A few things I disagree on however: I actually disagree that Kaiden is a clone of Carth. Kaiden was much more level headed about a lot of issues. I think people got hung up on the fact that he was voiced by the same person, but Kaiden is much more interesting than Carth IMO. Wrex differs from Canderous in that Canderous is purely about the tactics. He had no issues with Revan annihilating Mandalorians, because it was the Mandalorian way. Wrex, however, is hardly giving Saren a free pass for subjecting his race to be slaves and test subjects. He was mercenary, but if that's the similiarity, Canderous is hardly unique in that regard. On a final note, I do find a lot of BioWare's characters to be rather similar. You accuse ME of cloning/copying KOTOR, though IMO KOTOR copied an awful lot of stuff from NWN. Re: C&C Both games seem about even IMO. Perhaps there could have been more consequences for your choices in Mass Effect, but this is something I would have really preferred gone differently in KOTOR as well. Given your comment though, you seem to indicate that Mass Effect was devoid of any C&C, which is frankly an absurd statement. If you were to make me pick which game had better C&C though, I'd pick Mass Effect. Dialogues I felt were very comparable. I greatly disagree with voice acting, even if you didn't like male Sheppard (whom I had no issue with). Party members I could probably give you. I'm a big fan of Jolee and HK. However, everyone seems to hate Ashley and Kaiden, both of whom I had no real issues with, and liked both characters. In fact, they were the NPCs I played with the most in my first playthrough, which made the big decision on Vimirie that much more awesome since I had to choose between the two NPCs I used the most. Having said that, the game experience I enjoyed the most was definitely KOTOR. A lot of that has to do with the setting though. As a final note DarthInsidious, you may not give a **** about Star Wars, but you most certainly do give a **** about KOTOR. We all have our biases.