Tale

*insert trend bucking here* I was ok with Mordin. He went out well, and we'd gotten to know him fairly well. However LEGION I was kind of pissed about. Not because he died, but because we basically didn't get to interact with him all that much. He shows up on one mission, then you have just enough time to get his loyalty up and do that before you end the game in ME2. And ME3 has him pop up only as a non-squaddie who WILL die (in one form or another). Legion is, overall, my favorite character, and showing my bias I am annoyed that he gets so little screen time... especially in comparison to Tali. I don't mind that he went out overall... it's just that in comparison to MANY of the other characters in 2 and 3, he wasn't allowed to visit with the players nearly as much as any other squad member in the game. I was okay with Legion at first. But it's one of those "until you sit down and start thinking about it" scenarios. Which probably would not have happened if the ending wasn't terrible. Legion's death doesn't make any sense. I don't even know how to explain it to rebuke it. It just fails me fundamentally. And his entire character is a 180 from the Mass Effect 2 presentation. We will make our own way without any shortcuts from the old machines (ME2)... unless they're really cool (ME3) All must be judged on their own merits. Treating every species like one's own is racist. Even benign anthropomorphism.(ME2) I want to be a real individual. (ME3) And I think one of the reasons I will forever refuse to play the Extended Cut is EDI's "Now I am alive" line for that version of synthesis. What was she before? He was a bit of a fan favorite and it's sad he didn't get a better part.

I've got medication for my mental state, too. Just need to fill it and subsequently be terrified of actually taking it.

I have it. Got really bored with it. I blame the narrative.

Yay. The lump on my head isn't cancer, it's a cherry angioma. Which I saw on google, but that's not proper medical diagnosis. My blood pressure is fine. My heart rate is fine. My liver and kidney function are fine. No sign of diabetes. But I'm overweight and you could use my blood to deep fry chicken. You'll have to excuse my excitement over the mundane. I had not been to a doctor in maybe 7 years.

Mark of Chaos was on consoles, yes. But it wasn't particularly story-driven.

Using DLC to shore up weaknesses in a title is a valued function for them to serve. And people who see it as that are accepting of that. DLC that sacrifices the main game to justify its existence will always be publicly rejected. The distinction is in perception. And making it a common thing would be a short track from being perceived as the former for the latter. I guess another way to put it is that if publishers thought they could get away with it, Mass Effect 3 wouldn't need to get the ball rolling. They would already be doing it. Mass Effect 3 could have been a special exception, because people trusted that Bioware didn't do it on purpose.

yay.... or something? Endless string of yet another RTS games? Some day, somebody is going to make strategy and crpg games instead of third rate action games out of those franchises. Probably be similar to the Total War titles. I like the Mark of Chaos game, but it never really hit its stride in the campaign.

Same place Nasa filmed the Moon Landing. Check and mate. There is nowhere near enough room in that basement for an X-wing.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gary_Mitchell Note his sidekick. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Dehner

It might be Gary Mitchell, not Khan.

If space isn't real, then where was Star Wars filmed? Check and mate.

Went to the doctor. Still tests to run, but everything else seems fine except my weight. And maybe an infection. My arms still hurt though. Overworked them on Monday.

Did you finish Dawnguard with both sides? On my second playthrough of Skyrim, this time as a vampire backstabbing stabby stab type (pickpocketing poisons onto people is fun!) rather than the stealthy archer type. (guess in the end they're not that different, though sneaking around sneak attacking stuff in broad daylight definitely is harder with daggers than with a bow Anyway, was wondering if the Vampire side was worth it (at the very least story wise), apparently you lose (easy) access to crossbows (which I sort of liked) with really no other toys to play with instead (and toys are good!) Personally I ended up playing EVE after a WoW raid, because aside from the raids there's really nothing worthwhile to do in the game anymore. I only finished it as Dawnguard. The lack of toys ruins any interest I have playing it vampire side. You can still get Vampire Lord without doing that, anyway. I actually gave Vampire Lord a try and it was boring. So I didn't even bother raising that tree. Kind of disappointed that it's limited to the form.

The need to justify alignment I don't understand. There's the "perception" idea here that's a reputation system, but alignment itself still doesn't seem to do anything. I mean, NPCs react to what they see you do. Alignment isn't that. Alignment is the quiet ideas that only exist in your head and no other NPC will know to react to. So why does it need formalizing as a system?

After I finished Dawnguard stuff in Skyrim yesterday I decided to write. This lasted until 2 AM. As I wasn't completely ruined for the day, I feel as if I'm still young for managing that feat. Received my external HDD today, so I'm doing a backup of important files. By which I mean my GOG.com downloads and what little music collection I have.

I'd love to see a Dark Sun: Torment and a Gamma World: Torment. Then eventually a Gorkamorka: Torment.

I finished the Dawnguard and Aetherium questlines of Skyrim. I'm comfortable saying I'm done with the game until Dragonborn comes out. Undecided on what I'll play next.

Played Modern Warfare 2. Now this one I would actually say was good. Not fantastic, I'm not feeling an urge to play it again any time soon, but worth the $9.99 I paid.

Maybe you were just more aggressive at pushing forward in the latter portion? I'm pretty sure the spawning doesn't change later in the game, but as long as you keep making forward progress it's much less noticeable than it is if you sit back and try to pick people off. The forward progress combined with the lessened number of enemies (less respawning of enemies) might make it seem like you're having more of an effect as well. EDIT: and humanoid is here too! D: I was always pretty aggressive. That makes me think it's a level design shift. Because the part that sticks out the most as being terrible, there is no pushing forwards. It's a defense mission. The one at the tank. And when I first started playing the game, it would punish me for pushing forwards. That's when guys would start showing up behind me. But then that stopped. Right around the time it stopped flashing "YOU'RE HURT, TAKE COVER" on my screen every time I got shot.

I finished Modern Warfare. I no longer consider it the worst FPS I've ever played. Though I'm not sure I would even call it a particularly good one. The fact that it went from "worst ever" to, well, anything else, precisely between the two play sessions, implies that there was something wrong in how I played it before. Or maybe that was just a coincidence and the level design makes a major shift. I started feeling like I was contributing to the firefights. The enemies no longer seemed to spawn constantly. Did it become a more refined experience a few levels in? Or did how I perceive the same kind of thing change?

Sir Terry Pratchett

I really wanted to like the MMO. But the Bounty Hunter story was so bad. And I can't bring myself to try another with that bad taste in my mouth.

I expected Dragon Age: Origins to be uninteresting. It exceeded my expectations. I expected Call of Duty to be pretty darn exciting, but probably shallow, it fell well below that expectation. Popcorn flick is too much of a compliment for this. FEAR was a popcorn flick. I honestly can't think of an equivalent for this. I'd say SyFy channel B movie, but there's no monsters. This is barely interactive. Like the first mission. The boat is swaying, so you can't aim for crap. But that's a-okay, because all of the NPCs can and will kill the bad guys without you having to try. I'm not seeing any challenge in the missions, I died a couple times from enemies that showed up behind me. Apparently I moved ahead before I was supposed to. And a car blew up another time. I have no idea when it's okay to move up or not, it's just whenever the game decides to stop spawning enemies. Completing an encounter feels like the game got bored of that firefight, not a natural ending. And if the game does that breaching maneuver where two other guys stand in my way to shoot up a room while I watch on or risk a game over for friendly fire, I might just scream. I feel I understand why so many other developers are copying Call of Duty. Not because this franchise sells well, but because they know they can do better. The firefights in Spec-Ops the line had more going for them.

So, I finally decided to give Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare a try. I'm 5, maybe 6 level into the game and I am incredibly surprised. I did not think it would be this bad. I had this guy trying to convince me the game was about these stealth missions, but half the levels have been loud and obnoxious war. Where the entire gameplay is just sit down in a spot and pop at waves until they decide to stop spawning. If you want to. If you don't, the NPCs will take care of it for you. How did this get popular? The missions are boring and far too linear. There was some nice openess in that one street firefight, but that was forgotten after 10 minutes of gametime. Artistically it is bland as heck. It's mostly just visual noise that's barely comprehensible. You see something slightly darker or maybe a little red, shoot at it and hope it's a bad guy. The plot is non-existant. There was a nuclear bomb! Now there's a war! And I don't know any of these characters or who I'm fighting or why.

Something pretty cheap. $26, I don't remember the brand. The problem I was having is I've been buying shoes a size too small for a long time.