Bartimaeus

https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/925018021005070337: "We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as to not send any signal" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-30/trump-foreign-policy-adviser-pleaded-guilty-in-mueller-probe Perhaps more interesting than the Manafort and Gates arrests, one George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor for Trump, secretly plead guilty earlier this month. He appears to have been flipped by Mueller.

"[the cross] asserts the truth of one religion and, implicitly but necessarily, the falsehood of all other religions" Though I know this type of meaning has been propagated by a multitude throughout the millennia, it's a pretty crappy way to look at it (and similar icons) in a modern context, and especially in the additional context of its original creation and subsequent donation.

I just finished Stranger Things 2 as well. (e):

two episodes into things that are stranger electric boogaloo, seems pretty good so far

The euphemism is still well-known, I'm pretty sure...just in really, really bad taste, as Hurlshot said. Furthermore, he actually said "prison", not asylum. So you're having a big problem about black players protesting about police brutality, so you make a parallel between them and prisoners. It's not quite "we can't have the slaves running the plantation", but man, it's still pretty bad. But hey, at least Jerry Jones seems slightly less awful in comparison to that guy. As for the rankings, Cowboys have the biggest fanbase, so that might be propping them up a bit (very optimistic fans pushing the betting lines against the pros), plus no huge injuries unlike a lot of teams right now is surely helping as well. Meanwhile, clearly neither fans nor pros have faith in the Packers without Rodgers, and so it seems, if anything, there's a bit of cynicism there instead. And I thought I was grim about the rest of the Packers' season...seems Vegas thinks even more poorly of them than I do.

https://twitter.com/rjinvegas/status/923705489162039297 From 3rd to 30th - the Packers are only better than the Browns and Colts without Rodgers in Vegas' eyes. Brutal. I'd probably put us more at something like 24th or 25th, but that's just me. (e): 3nd -> 3rd, lol

Detention, "an atmospheric horror game set in 1960s Taiwan under martial law" that has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam. I thought it seemed like an interesting setting for a potentially more story-driven horror game, but it just alternated between boring me with not that well-written dialogue and other text, and startling me with jump scares. Not for me. Not as bad as other poor entries in the genre like Dreadout, that's for sure, but still not what I was looking for.

Yup. BioShock: Infinite has the worst gameplay in my opinion. The guns handle better compared to BioShock 1 & 2 but the level design is so awful you barely get to use the environment against the enemy. The second DLC was pretty good though. Gameplay is solely based on stealth and survival and the story is good if you are willing to go through the mind-numbing story of the main campaign and the first DLC. Overall BioShock 2 was the most entertaining game in the series for me and ironically, it is the only BioShock game that Ken Levine didn't work on(directly). Anybody remembers this? Here are all the changes explained in more detail: There is also a video interview of Ken Levine explaining BioShock for the first time and making ludicrous promises such as the main character being able to change the size of his sexual organ...couldn't find it on YouTube though. Being restricted to consoles? Not enough budget? Only Ken knows! The combat just feels so...undynamic. I'm just running and gunning through every level all the time, and it doesn't help that the guns that I used just don't have any weight to them. Wielding an automatic machine gun should feel different than a pistol...but it doesn't. The only thing that feels different is how fast the bullets are coming out. It's also not very hard, which is a little perplexing when there's an endless fountain of resources spread around throughout every level...and then you also have tonics and your quite strong melee attack on top of it. It all just feels so dissatisfying, easy, and repetitive. And that's not even talking about the story, which seemed like a bit of a load on top of it. Bah. It makes me wonder if I would enjoy playing BS1/BS2 today, or if my tastes in shooters have actually changed that much since I played those.

This kind of thinking would've flown better with me (and likely others) pre-election - now, after over half a year of the utter clown show that is Republican control of every branch of our government, not so much. Yeah, they're disturbingly similar on a lot issues as well as their general characteristics as groups (such as a despicable loyalty to party over country and fellow citizens), but I'm pretty sure some of us are starting to notice some differences at this time...

Bioshock: Infinite. First time ever playing it. I got to Elizabeth, quit and uninstalled. I wasn't too keen on the game to begin with, but it managed to kill any interest I had in a little over an hour. Really wonky and, quite frankly, boring combat, beyond hopelessly (and totally unnecessarily) cluttered level design that kills my desire to ever explore areas (...not that there seemed much of interest to explore to begin with), and the story and dialogue were really not pulling me in. About the only thing it had going for it was the aesthetic. Meh.

Secret of Mana (SNES). First time playing it. It's surprisingly...uh, not that great. I've been playing it co-op with a friend online, and the hit detection system is really annoying and just makes so playing with multiple players is ineffective. I think they were trying to avoid being able to stunlock enemies, but really, that was already mostly dealt with by the stamina system - they could've just made it so that only 100% stamina attacks stun enemies, or made stuns only occur over a threshold of damage as a percent of the enemy's life, or something. And the story is...well, it leaves a lot to be desired. As far as SNES JRPGs go, I currently massively prefer Terranigma.

Alternatively, parental guidelines, which already cover most "objectionable" content, could just be expanded to be a little more specific in why it has the rating it has. You can read much of why a movie gets the rating it gets on sites like IMDB, but it's crowdsourced information...which seems kind of silly when we have a literal rating agency that keeps track of this stuff to some degree already - you'd think they'd have their own site for this sort of thing already. Same with video games, really - although I'm not really too sure how TV show ratings work, to be honest. The back of a movie cover probably isn't the perfect place to put all of that information, but it could easily direct you to somewhere that does. I wouldn't think it'd be really necessary to have such content warnings in the movie itself, but I mean, if it's literally just like 5 seconds that quickly summarize up the type of objectionable content and, again, direct you somewhere else for more specific info, I guess I don't really care. You almost certainly won't get those warnings if you happen to watch it on cable or online or something: if content providers don't think there's enough time for displaying the credits at super-speed and even random bits of the show/movie you're watching that they've deemed "less important" than showing more commercials or whatever (see Seinfeld re-runs and "TV" cuts of virtually every movie), they sure as heck aren't going to want to spend time on showing the rating of the movie. Personally, I'm not very comfortable with gore for the most part, and the onus kind of falls on me to pay attention to the rating of the content I'm (potentially) choosing to watch and investigating further to make sure I'm not subject to something I don't want to be. For the most part, that's kind of how things work in life. However, having a few more tools at your disposal for figuring that information out is always good, and spending literally just a few seconds summarizing up the objectionable content is no skin off my back. I'm more offended at the idiotic anti-copyright nonsense - the whole "we will knock down your door and literally cannibalize your family in the middle of the night while making you watch if you illegally share this movie" FBI warnings - and the bloody ADVERTISEMENTS, at the beginning of each legitimate movie you own. Like, c'mon guys: if I HADN'T bought this, I wouldn't be seeing this crap. (e): The Motion Picture Association of America (US's rating agency) actually does have a website...but it's predictably useless and doesn't even provide any information on its ratings. Pah.

Are you triggered by my triggering? TRIGGERED!

Yeah, the fact that I can repeatedly and unironically call anyone I want a "nazi" for any particular reason that I like seems to call all of that into question a little. Unless I'm not allowed to do that, in which case that makes me question why Volourn has been allowed to do just exactly that over the years. Maybe it's his cuddly and lovable personality that lets everyone know it's all just a joke? I don't have that going for me, so I could see that being it. On a positive note, hopefully this total derailment of the previous total derailment will help us get off of the other total derailment and back into the charitable meeting of minds that is politics.

Well, actually, flaming and trolling is allowed against normal users, as per the rules (as the anti-trolling rule very specifically says that trolling is only disallowed against other game companies, employees, and moderators...and the anti-harassment rule is too limited to cover flaming), so actually, that literally does seem to be the prescribed response. An interesting approach for a game dev's forums - I have not seen its like anywhere else in the industry. It certainly has its pros, but uh, it also has its cons, as you can see.

The opinion in itself is actually alright - others have been expressing it in a way that isn't as laughably inflammatory (among other things)...but I guess this ain't the place to take it up.

Hey guys, I'm starting to think that maybe we shouldn't have a total troll as a moderator.

I don't feel too bad about it disappearing, given the endless amount of controversies associated with it, its utterly horrid moderation team who banned you at the drop of a hat, and now apparently its owner. May something better spring up in its place.

Not the best endorsement I've heard for a game. Of course, I'm hardly one to talk, seeing as I use Cheat Engine's speedhack keybinds in almost every singleplayer game I play to save time...

Happens when you keep fouling the receivers to make them not catch it (the first time especially - the second time was arguable, though the receiver still had a good shot at it).

ok, I said I wasn't gonna watch anymore, but then I did, and now I love football again. a game of the year for sure. the packers may go 4-12, but that's ok: they will still (probably) have at least a couple of decent games.

Yeah, my fantasy team was cow-inspired this year, and I just renamed and re-avatared it to reflect that my team is not much more than ground hamburger at this point. With Rodgers being by far my favorite player ever (and kind of the guy who got me into liking football in 2013 to begin with - when he broke his collarbone the first time, funnily enough), I think I'll see you guys next season outside of the Packers magically still making the playoffs, which I think there's maybe about 2-3% chance with Rodgers out for the season.

speaking of seasons ending, looks like the packers' might be over with rodgers possibly breaking his collarbone. (e): confirmed

Definitely cheesy and cringey at times, and it has other flaws besides that...but if you go in with the right mindset, it's a "greater than the sum of its parts"-type deal.