algroth

Did he win? He turned a nuclear warhead into a satellite and blew them to bits as they approached Soviet space.

Just a quick easy maths heads up for anyone who might be feeling a little lazy about distributing points. An easy way of assigning points to your lists is by thinking of 25 points instead, and dividing the list of 25 games into five tiers of five games each. You can then assign an equal number of points to the games in each of these tiers so long as the number adds up to 25. Kind of like this... 1-5. 8 6-10. 6 11-15. 5 16-20. 4 21-25. 2 That means each of the films in those tiers get that many votes. Other examples... 1-5. 10 6-10. 6 11-15. 5 16-20. 3 21-25. 1 1-5. 10 6-10. 7 11-15. 4 16-20. 3 21-25. 1 1-5. 12 6-10. 6 11-15. 4 16-20. 2 21-25. 1 1-5. 7 6-10. 5 11-15. 5 16-20. 5 21-25. 3 Offering some options is all!

No Big Rigs?

That's fine by me. Again, the 101 will only count for a tie-breaker, whilst the number of votes will always have a greater priority. You could have a game with 202 points from two votes which would still be beneath a game with only three points out of three votes. You also do at the risk of downvoting the rest of your choices, at least as far as the tie-breakers are concerned. If you guys feel it's still abusable I can put a cap though, but in the past I haven't encountered a problem with this.

Just try it out. I can reduce the number if needed, to maybe 20 or 10. But usually I find that people really underestimate the size of their list of favorites - my experience with other lists where I asked for people to give up to fifty items was that many considered it hard to get as many in at first, and then begrudge having had to leave out so many choices.

Well, all joking aside is it something that would interest the board?

Well, someone has to do it eventually, right?

The village is missing the paint-over pass, which adds the blending between the sand and grass (and adds other fine details). This pass will be included in a future release. IMO the lighting looks amazing in game - however when the scene's weather is overcast it does flatten out the look of the area. Curious to hear what others think! Thanks for the feedback. I suspected as much, but thought I should point it out just in case. It could well be that I saw Tikawara in overcast weather, which gave off that impression. Great work in what I've so far seen!

Hey there, fellas! I'm not sure if this has ever been done here before, or if you guys would be interested in a project like this. I've done in other forums polls of the sort before, that compiled several lists of films, albums, books and the likes. I've never done one for games, and figured it'd be interesting to make one here, in a commmunity that is by and large comprised by gamers. The rules would be fairly simple: you would need to send me a list via PM of up to TWENTY-FIVE games, each labelled with developer and year to best tell them apart (some games may share the same name so labelling them by these would help me not to confuse one for the other); you have 125 points to assign between all 25 games, making it an average of 5 points per game - that way you can distribute priority between your favorites as you wish. If you don't assign points to the games, I will assume you have given five to each. Games are counted individually regardless of franchise or series connections, meaning that, for example, Half-Life and Half-Life 2 would count as two votes, not as one "Half-Life series" vote; however, you can if you so choose vote for a game expansion separate from the original campaign (e.g. you can vote for Mask of the Betrayer whilst ignoring Neverwinter Nights 2 if you so wish). Definitive Editions and the likes will count towards that game's primary release as well. The the ideal number of games to present is 25, you can choose to present fewer as well. If so, I will ask you to divide between all games a number of points equal to five times the number of games you've mentiones, meaning, for example, that a top 10 would have 50 points to share across the games, a top 15 75, a top 20 100, a top 22 110, a top 17 85, and so on. The list will be compiled giving priority to the number of votes accrued (that being the number of lists a game appeared in), and points will act as a tie-breaker between games with equal amount of votes. I will set a deadline for sending the lists at a later date, if this idea interests the rest. Edit: the deadline will be December 22nd. Please send in your lists via PM with the points distribution by then! To those wanting to take part... I have no problems with you guys sharing the lists in the thread before the compiled list is revealed, but I would suggest to avoid that simply so as to keep the results more a surprise when they are finally revealed. The list should reflect your personal taste first and foremost, instead of what your idea of the consensus or historical canon is - judge them according to how good you find the games to be personally, and not their historical significance, how "state-of-the-art" or graphically they are or any such thing. Give the list some thought, but don't overly obsess about it, this is just for fun after all. I hope the idea is interesting to you guys! --- The results have been moved over to the following thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95421-the-obsidian-community-all-time-top-106-games-results-106-81-up/

I'm watching a Backer Beta stream, and the impression I'm given is that some of the locations, for example Tikawara, look a little rough in the lighting and textures. The sand on the Tikawara shore for example looks pretty rough when it transitions into dirt or grass for example, while the lighting does feel like it flattens the area a bit. Looking very good so far otherwise, I'd love to be able to play it myself.

Thaos' motives can certainly be construed as altruistic. He wants to end religious warfare, for one. He wants to remove dangerous technology like animancy from people. How many animancers do we meet in the game who aren't crazy nut jobs? Our own world might be a lot safer if we were prevented from discovering nuclear fission. Iovara's a likeable person, but she's determined to undermine the authority of the gods, regardless of whether they have a positive impact on people's lives. She values being right over the welfare of others. I'm not sure she's altruistic at all. This is definitely the thing that was wrong with Iovara with me. Even if I do have an option to agree with her, I don't feel like like I'm really saying that if I don't have an option to say "you're full of baloney, you fool!" for contrast. Thaos' 'altruism' in this case is similar to a dictator claiming he is oppressing the people so that they won't argue about who ought to be leader instead. The result to his 'plan' still has him imbued with some kind of eternal life and *lots* of power, as well as making his goddess the very object of people's worship. Yes, you could argue that Iovara would gain reknown and probably be a figure of power if she managed to succeed in her campaign, but to claim as much, as well as claiming Thaos is actually altruistic, is to start applying some really twisted mental gymnastics into the equation. As for whether Iovara values truth over the wellfare of others... I don't recall any evidence that points to that in the game itself. To just say it is because she's rebelling against the gods and thus putting people's lives at risk is really not enough, when the gods themselves are shown to be deluding people about their real origins and their actual original function. We may as well assume any liberator figure throughout the history of fiction has never acted selflessly or for the good of the people he was liberating. And I also agree with the latter. The option to agree should always be there, but we ought to be able to disagree too, and not just in a "this lie is necessary" way (which is sort of what happens if you *do* decide to ally with Woedica or whatever). You ought to be given the chance to genuinely argue back and disbelieve, if that is what your character would do. In my case, for example, I did play a paladin through my first playthrough. He would have been pretty zealous and would not have accepted Iovara's words so easily and without a genuine argument back at her. Instead, he does, because that's apparently the only option.

Perhaps, but it still makes its appearance intrusive and jarring with the character and setting in the game. *Forcing* people to ask the question is precisely what will lead to less people genuinely considering it.

Not diverse enough. Unless we get Tony Leung as Elrond, Ken Watanabe as Theoden, Shahab Hosseini as Grima Wormtongue, and Javier Bardem as Tom Bombadil.

And on the subject of superhero films, and since I like to trigger Volo, the reviews for Justice League are in and unsurprisingly they play out largely as expected. This quote from Eric Kohn seems pretty on-point with regards to the general response thus far: "Taking more than one page from Marvel’s first “Avengers” installment, “Justice League” rounds up the current spate of active D.C. franchise superheroes, and the resulting 119-minute pileup of showdowns and one-liners is an undeniably tighter, more engaging experience. It’s also a tired, conventional attempt to play by the rules, with “hold for laughs” moments shoehorned between rapid-fire action — a begrudging concession that the Marvel formula works, and a shameless attempt to replicate it." http://www.indiewire.com/2017/11/justice-league-review-zack-snyder-joss-whedon-avengers-1201897286/ Pretty good review overall too, though I'll have to see the film before seeing if I agree with it or not. Still, speaks to my expectations. One for home viewing, for certain.

That looks pretty interesting, I'll check it out. I would also recommend from the same era of Czech cinema and dealing with a similar period if not necessarily the same theme, The Valley of the Bees and The Devil's Trap by Frantisek Vlacil. And, if you're in a more adventurous mood, also Marketa Lazarova. Superb stuff right there. If you are into this you defo need to watch this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063633/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Already have! It's in my all-time top 20. Superb film, very weird and disturbing, and Rudolf Hrusínský's performance is amazing. Glad to know another here has seen it! Juraj Herz's Morgiana and The Beauty and the Beast are also great.

That looks pretty interesting, I'll check it out. I would also recommend from the same era of Czech cinema and dealing with a similar period if not necessarily the same theme, The Valley of the Bees and The Devil's Trap by Frantisek Vlacil. And, if you're in a more adventurous mood, also Marketa Lazarova. Superb stuff right there.

I agree there as well, though I guess I can understand the nostalgia factor involved in seeing it at a very young age and having it be part of your childhood. In Bowie's case, it was around the time he made Tonight and Never Let Me Down, so no surprises there.

Exactly. It's absolutely insufferable, one of those films whose following genuinely baffles me.

Jackie was phenomenal, even more so when I saw it's scenes compared to real film archives are real conversations. Other than camera angle and color, it's almost a cinematic recreation of documented history. What's interesting is that the film is precisely about that too: it's about the act of writing or forging the historical narrative, an 'official story' of sorts. The whole film revolves around the effort of creating an event with the deliberate purpose of immortalizing the figure of JFK and the shooting and so on, all as seen through the frame of a magazine column that is shown time and time again to be directed, rewritten and manipulated by its figure. No, also by Pablo Larraín, is also very much in this style, even if capturing a very different event, setting and era, but still doing so using the tools of the time (video in that case). Also have to give a shoutout to Mica Levi's score which is absolutely magnificent.

He also directed Lucy.

Besson's tendency to histrionics, silliness and tackiness all whilst lacking the feel of the surreal or strange (even though he's tried it a few times) really kill his films for me quite often. I wasn't a fan of León at all myself, whilst other films like The Messenger or The Fifth Element I found outright insufferable. Portman, though, I feel she can be fantastic given the right role. She's surprised me a few times with the amount of gravitas and physicality she could lend some of her performances even when looking like someone you could pin to a wall with your little finger (no sexual allegories intended). Most recently I thought she was stupendous in Jackie, which is probably the best film I saw from 2016.

Only that unlike Thaos, her motivations are proven to be altruistic and her beliefs to be true. Likewise, she is always portrayed as some benevolent liberator whose beliefs also never drive her to committing atrocities of any sort the way Thaos did, that we learn of anyhow. Also to house2fly, to the best of my awareness I was never given an option to tell her I didn't think she was right, or to argue against her exposition. This is even more worrying when, at least during my first playthrough, my character literally asked out loud "could this be true, that the gods are a lie?" right after the interaction.

This album really slipped under the radar, but seriously, it's the best Arthur's done in decades.

nvm