algroth

*inserts random W40k heresy picture* Hey, I call things as I see 'em. A spade a spade, and Temple of Doom a mediocre film.

Religious pigeon - Religeon Religeon is evolving into... Religeotto! Is Religeon the middle-form between Religey and Religeotto? Is there a Religeot? Are their gusts the power of God? Are they Holy Ghost type?

Iselmyr is rude, aggressive and impudent as stereotypical butch. So making her interested in women that would be problematic stereotype, not feminine Aloth being gay. I can see that, but all the same I was commenting on what I recall seeing in the original Pillars, in which I recall Iselmyr flirting or catcalling women, Pallegina specifically if I remember correctly. So I can see a basis with which to argue that just because Aloth has an awakened female past in him, it isn't indicative of his sexuality at all. But to echo what Josh said in his tumblr, if you approach the presence of a homosexual character as one dictated or prompted by representation, then you'll always run into trouble because that character will always be misrepresenting of one section of the community or other. It's best to simply think of them as individual people who simply are the way they are and speak only about their own character, and not as a stand-in for a minority or other.

This should be Aloth. He is ALREADY half-woman Which is exactly why he shouldn't. Basically all of the male companions from PoE except Aloth are masculine. Edér boast about his sexual experiences with women. Hiravias flirts aggressively with women. Durance likes to call women whores. Kana tries to flirt with Maneha as well. Their personalities suffice to avoid any questions about their masculinity or sexuality. They are unquestionably men. Aloth is the only male companion who is shown to be weak, a coward even. As can be seen right here this creates questions about his sexuality. Aloth being bisexual or gay really would confirm some problematic stereotypes. Nevermind the whole issue of Iselmyr. Being sometimes female has a whole other set of complications. Isemyr would contribute to an association of homosexuality or bisexuality with being transgender. Presumably Deadfire will mostly played by people who identify as straight who tend not to differentiate between sexual identity, behavior and attraction. Nontheless Carrie Patel wrote Aloth and Maneha. Of all writers she appears most eager to write characters who don't confirm to gender roles. Therefore I'd say the likelihood of Aloth being interested in men is unfortunately still quite high if Patel wrote him in Deadfire. If I'm not mistaken, Iselmyr herself flirts once or twice with women as well. I'm not sure if that is her just being sassy, or an indication to her sexual orientation; but all the same it *also* raises the point that, even if Aloth were "part-woman", his female half would *still* not necessarily be interested in men, or be uninterested in women. Personally I'm expecting all three original companions to remain either heterosexual or non-romanceable, just because it will keep the whole can of worms about an unexpected sexuality reveal closed - but in the event that one of them *does* turn out to be homosexual... I'm actually half-suspecting it'll be Pallegina. Which would mean bad news for my protagonist, if so. I am betting my coins on the same sex relationships to be had with the new companions instead though - at least so long as a heterosexual relationship with them is made impossible. Otherwise, I also think that we are perhaps not reading enough between the lines about what Josh is saying in his tumblr response. What Josh says is that they want to make companions attracted to a character who only relates to a certain range of qualities - this could be sex, yes, but it could also be race/subrace, or even background, stats and class too. Maybe all these variables will play a stronger role than sex itself when determining whether a character will or won't have a romance with you. In that sense, maybe Edér may be romanceable as a male or female alike... So long as you aren't an orlan. Or, for that matter, Pallegina may be up for having a relationship with your character, provided you are not a priest.

The real question is, is it better than Temple of Doom?

[Your allignment has shifted to Chaotic (-5)]

Some gems here, an mmo in which you rarely run into another player, a horror game which flips the genre on its head, an rpg that's actually original for once, a metroidvania in which nearly anyone who's played it claims/admits it's better than Super Metroud and Castlevania Symphony Of The Night and a beautiful platforner that proves platformers have just as much grace, emotion and depth as a 200 hour rpg. All of them have one thing in common, they are all aesthetically beautiful and all redefine their given genres. These are great torch runners and someday will be iconic to future generations when they no longer know the names Mario or Pac-Man and you know what? I don't mind at all. You have great taste. I know a bit about all five of those games, and will be checking a couple of them out soonish too (namely Pyre and Hollow Knight, since I cannot as of yet get Journey due to console exclusivity). Of the five above I did play through Ori and the Blind Forest and it nearly made my list, though ultimately I opted against it - yet I don't think it's necessarily better than the two games you've mentioned, nor do I think it has any real depth to it either. Much like so many other indie games, it's very proud of its aesthetic and wears its mood on its sleeve, but whilst the gameplay and the visuals can be quite diverse, tonally it remains rather one-note throughout, whilst the story seems to run almost parallel to the gameplay, told through the occasional cut-scenes and exposition that only barely inform the protagonist of their goal and what their motivations ought to be. I don't see how you could finish it and then so quickly and dismissively claim it has "as much depth and emotion as a 200-hour RPG", though then again I am not a stranger to your hyperboles. Of the rest... Oxenfree I watched a friend of mine play on his stream, and the general tone as well as the characters proved rather obnoxious. I might be interested in playing it but I don't make it a priority. Pyre is one of the two I want to check out soon along with Hollow Knight, and I have some hopes for both, as I've heard good things from people I trust about the latter, and am familiar with the previous games by Supergiant and overall find them an interesting developer even if their success ratio with me has so far been 1:1 (loved Bastion, was not fussed with Transistor). Having said all of this, I don't expect any of these games to outlive the Mario legacy at all (but frankly, what game franchise will?).

Whilst I don't doubt that the average age in this site skews older, there are other sites that skew younger and do nonetheless display pretty damn good taste in music, films, videogames and what have you. Case in point, look at RateYourMusic and its offshoots. This aside, I don't think any generation has a majority that is ever invested in any one topic, and much as certain media or topics might be of wider appeal, the ratio between people invested in it deeply and casually still remains about the same, and so do 'taste' or perspective in that topic remain a quality exclusive to a minority, some of them older and some of them younger. My experience with audiences of different ages has been quite different too, I admit... I have come across the typical accusations thrown at teenagers and 'young adults' quite often, even from people from these demographics, but my personal experience dealing with people of older generations has hardly been different - so much so that the only other people I've ever met in person who enjoy, say, the music of Cecil Taylor or the films of Theo Angelopoulos are usually in their 20s, or were at first fans in their 20s. In fact, in my experience older generations can be often just as close-minded as they assume people in their 20s to be, and almost *prouder* of the fact to boot ("back in my days we used to snore our way through Bergman films, they were all pretty scenery and little else"). I have to go back to something ShadySands I think mentioned in this thread, where he said that the older he's become the more focused his taste has become as well, and I think as much applies to many others as well: I know that back in my late teens and early 20s I would listen, watch, read and play a heck of a lot more than I do today, and with a greater variety and hunger for new things; I went through a few burnout phases, and slowly found what appealed to me most and in later years stuck with it. I have not been the only person I've heard this happen to either - I just think that, naturally, *that* is the time where someone invested in a certain topic or medium will strain themselves to explore as much of it as is possible, in as much depth as in breadth. Which is also why, despite the typical assumption that it's "people in their 20s" who listen to Justin Beiber and go watch superhero flicks at the cinema and whatnot, it is *also* people in their 20s who usually attend Residents concerts and independent film festivals, over the likes of older generations. Likewise I usually find older generations as guilty of attending/liking the usual action vehicles or trashy comedies as the "average youngster". What I mean to say with all of this long-winded rant is, "taste" is not the exclusive province of the older generations, nor is it necessarily more densely found in that demographic either. As far as I'm concerned, in this respect Beiber's hardly any different to your usual Davy Jones or New Kids on the Block - there will always be a rubbish pop star or two around for every generation. We just happen to remember the latest because time has not yet consigned them to oblivion. That said, do I think as much will happen to Mario and Zelda? **** no, they deserve their spot in history and then some.

I can do that, sure. Edit: Done!

And speaking of Dragonfall, here's a new update, with more of everyone's favorite franchise! In all honesty... It's a pretty solid selection, I feel. I really like the games I've played here, and have high hopes for the ones I haven't.

Quest 64 runs through our bloodstream like midichlorians.

I've yet to play any of them, but am intrigued.

I would agree, though I'd probably be up to seeing a John Williams concert live if I saw one.

Here's some I enjoy, from some of the latest years...

I know it's a little confusing because it has 64 in the title, but Quest 64 is actually in first place! @Algroth: Yeah, I hate all that crap littering cover art (video games, music, films, whatever). Then you throw in the low availability of decent quality scans on top of it... And yep, actual artistic pieces instead of just plain in-game shots tend to age the best. Decent game artwork became a bit of a last...er...art for a while there, but I think it's been coming back for a while now. Also, what the heck is that Tetris cover? I mean, really. Here's the Tetris soundtrack cover: Why didn't they use something like this? I could have. There's other covers around too, the one I posted is the one I liked the most amidst the options I saw. But I could use that too (didn't run across it in my search). Also I do think there's been a bunch of good cover artwork done recently for videogames, though almost exclusively for indie games. Amidst the ones I enjoy are the Supergiant Games covers, Oxenfree, Tyranny, Journey, Hyper Light Drifter and so on. AAA games have seemed to only become duller as of late: just "generic hero striking a pose with weapon", usually, as is the case of Bloodborne for example.

It's hard to remain true neutral without letting your inner Xaositect free every now and then. Happy New Year, guys!

I also haven't played Thief II and ought to do so at some point. With regards to game covers I agree with Bart, and I will also add another small category which is the following: a cover that may have been good were it not littered by blurbs, dev/platform/magazine/award icons and other such extraneous things, that instead make it notably busier and tackier than it would otherwise be. A case in point would be Master of Orion II's, which though not great on its own would really be no better or worse than some of the other hand-painted images here where it not that every corner of it seems to feature some gaudy stamp or other. But The Longest Journey's is definitely its own kind of awful, and it isn't even the worst I've come across for it. I was speaking about it to a friend the other day... I posited a theory to him that the late 90s probably saw a shift to the worse in videogame cover art because it was a point where the publishers became confident enough in their game's graphics to let them take protagonism in the cover, not realizing or caring how utterly primitive and crude they'd look a few years down the line. Earlier games seem to have better artwork design if only because the game graphics could hardly be used that same way.

Happy New Year, guys! To start off the year on the right foot, here's a new batch for you on New Year's Eve. On a personal note, the game I've played here I've quite liked, and even voted for one of them - there's also a couple that I'm meaning to check out soon; yet all the same, I have to say that some of these covers are butt-ugly, and not for a lack of trying to find something better for them. Jesus, were the late 90s and 00s a terrible time for game cover design.

I'm in a Yes mood.

Making a film about the tearing down of the white patriarchy is all fine and dandy, but how long can we go on doing these and still claim they're subversive? The message isn't subversive by now, it's trendy and that's precisely why Disney go with it.

Yeah, usually with Tetris I can understand its importance and also find that the core mechanics hold up really well for a casual game after all these years. It's a "perfect" game in that regard, but also in the regard that it's not a game of very great artistic ambitions and thus there isn't even much room or risk for flaws in the first place. Whilst I can understand its relevance and following, I do feel like we've arrived to a point in the medium where we've done so much *more* as well. We may as well be listing The Arrival of a Train amidst the top 100 films ever made.

Updated with a new batch! This one might probably prove fairly controversial, if nothing more because it seems the most idiosyncratic of all three updates thus far. Lemme hear your thoughts!

Not entirely sure myself, though I think VI was also released as III, whereas you voted for IV.

Groundhog Day was quite a controversial inclusion. I think back in 2011 it cracked the top 20 and made several go "wait, what the hell?". It dropped a bit this year but it's still interesting to see how much love there is for it as well as other goofy comedies like Airplane!, Blazing Saddles and This Is Spinal Tap (not that there's anything wrong with them either).

True story here... There was one such person who tried it on the last poll I held, on a different forum, for the top 100 films. In that case I'd asked for 50 films and 250 points to split between them as they wished, and one of the members took the opportunity to share all extra 200 points between two films (for 101 points each). Of those, one failed to make the list since it was only voted for by him, whilst the other made it all the way to the top spot indeed... But having also accrued a lead in *votes* over the second film. In the end, those 200 points he opted to share amidst those two films was useless, for one could not even break the top 100 for lack of votes, whilst the other had no need to even tiebreak for the top spot. All he achieved instead was to undermine the positions for all of the rest of the films he included in his list. Here's the poll in question, by the way: http://bcb-board.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=134011