Bartimaeus

I...uh...actually liked the Phantom Menace the most out of three. Now, I'm not saying it was a GOOD movie...gosh, no...but uh...Liam Neeson + Ewan McGregor kinda just carried the movie for me - Liam Neeson especially. Which is funny, because Neeson's character seems to literally lack any sort of functioning brain matter of any quantity at some parts...but nevertheless, he plays the part well. Yeah, kid Anakin sucks, Jar Jar sucks, Padme sucks...but the thing is, Padme and adult Anakin continue to suck it up for the entire rest of the next two movies, too, and there's no Liam Neeson in either of those to numb the sting any! In fact, they suck it up more in the latter two movies than the two of them and Jar Jar did in the first movie. But hey, that's just me.

An enormous improvement on the first game? Yes. Actually suited to my tastes? No. I always thought characters looked really weird...and the perpetually stiff-looking animations never helped much, either. To be fair, though, that seems like a problem with pretty much every game I've played where characters spend significant time just standing around talking, so I don't particularly fault it. I would probably be much more positive about Neverwinter Nights (2) if it had been isometric first instead of 3D first... Yes, I really like the painting-esque quality of the 2D isometric games...such a shame that I disliked Pillars of Eternity in virtually every way except the graphics, particularly with Shadows of Amn likely being my favorite game of all time. In regards to the Fallouts, I don't like either Fallout 3 or New Vegas...albeit for reasons completely unrelated to (admittedly poor) graphics, but rather because of its horrifically bad (IMO) combination of first person shooter and RPG. I'm more of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. variety, personally.

Characters, whether they're from games or movies or books or whatever else, are very much near the top of my list for biggest determiners whether I really like a work. So, visuals as they relate to them are pretty important to me. I can get used to a visual style if necessary: I do, after like, like Neverwinter Nights 2 (particularly Mask of the Betrayer) significantly more than I like Pillars of Eternity, even though I think Neverwinter Nights 2's visual style is vastly inferior to Pillars' (...still really dislike the Dragon Age series, though ). Nevertheless, it still plays a significant part of the experience.

Mm, personally, I would disagree with the premise that "graphics are secondary to (other stuff)". If I find a game visually unappealing (particularly if it's very much so), I'm unlikely to want to much play it or really even give it a chance to begin with. Personally, I find Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Project: Eternity to all be very visually appealing, but I find Neverwinter Nights (1 or 2) and the Dragon Age series to both be nearly *unbearably* the exact opposite. Graphics are particularly important, for me, as they relate to characters: for me to really fall in love with characters in the context of whatever role they're playing, and whether they're villains, party members, random NPCs, my own character...I need to be able to at least be able to sort of appreciate the way they're visually relayed to me. If a character is visually relayed to me poorly (if I think they look completely ridiculous, if they have certain visual elements I despise about them, if the entire graphical style is one I dislike to begin with like in the case of anime/manga-inspired styles, etc.), I will likely have a much more negative impression of them (and the game as a whole), which will make it that much harder to appreciate them. I'd be better off with no actual image impression of them at all, like I would for a book: after all, if I like a character for the traits I know about them, I'm likely to paint a positive picture of them in my head, anyways, right? There are other things that are important about graphics, of course, but that's one of the most important to me in regards to RPGs. For games that are supposed to be immersive experiences, I think animation quality is extremely important, for example...terrible animations can instantly take you right out of a game. So I really think it just depends...but that's just me.

I see! Doesn't really sound like my type of movie, unfortunately, but that's not saying much, as I don't watch hardly any films to begin with. Still, it's mildly interesting sounding, at the very least, which is better than I'd say for most movies I hear about. Also, NOW Nonek should really complain...both of our avatars are now sepia-colored, too.

I have a pretty extreme, anxiety attack-inducing paranoia of doing stuff like this. You're not alone. Yeah, I'm glad they went back to the manual key redemption system instead of the terrible "we need you to link your account to us so we can directly redeem the key to your Steam account" system they had going on for a while...but Valve got rid of that way of redeeming stuff, so they couldn't keep using it.

Ah, it's such a grand feeling being able to work out the right answer to something and/or get something to work while being oh so conscious of the fact that you have very little to perhaps no real idea at all what you're actually doing...and yet you're still able to get the job done anyways with just your intuition. Until you have to work with it again in the future and you're still just as clueless now as you were then.

Huh, never even heard of it until now. How were the production values, out of curiosity? I can't imagine they could've been that great, given the small-sounding scale and media coverage, but you're talking vampires, zombies, aliens, and spaceships, so I'm wondering how well they handled it.

Do they? Some teachers (maybe even the majority, but I can't say for certain, but the majority would be my experience) seem to focus on helping whoever will accept and benefit from the help the most, not necessarily those who actually need it the most. The two aren't always necessarily mutually exclusive, but they all too often don't overlap at all...and upon reflection, that's not really all too surprising, as already good students will draw praise and special (positive) attention from their teachers, while chronically struggling students very often have behavioral problems that make some/most teachers (understandably) want as little to do with them as possible. Does that make those teachers bad? Personally, I don't really think so...but then again, I don't feel as though it's primarily the teacher's responsibility to fix/deal with behavioral issues to begin with. Of course, if neither teachers nor parents will/can do anything to help those with those kinds of issues work through/around their issues, then they are pretty much screwed...but what is a teacher supposed to do about that when they've already got so much on their plate? Life, unfortunately, is often (pretty much always, actually) terribly unfair...

Also, yeah, that Saints/Giants game was absolutely ridiculous. 13 passing TDs...set the league record (previously 12 was the highest). And yet, that dumb 7 passing TDs record in one game from one player STILL has not been broken (although Brees tied it, again, as like 6 other players have, including Rodgers, Brady, and Manning, I think). Also, is it just me, or does NBC's picture quality completely suck during camera changes? Seriously, every time they change the camera, it's like the video is in the middle of buffering and it looks all blurry and artifacty and horrible... It's every time I watch their games, too, not just yesterday. Don't understand how it can look so bad...but then again, it's not that big of a surprise, given how horrible their production values for football are in general.

Ah, I didn't realize they couldn't call two timeouts in a row: that's why that was so wacky (and unfortunate for the Cowboys). Yeah, that would've been a 1st down at near goal line, too. Stinks. Boy, there sure were a lot of injuries across the league yesterday...yikes.

Technically, you would need to install the game first before you could even apply a patch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0skAEQb07jw Man calls into a local news station during some major flooding to relate his 'experience' of the flooding thus far.

A non-binding resolution. Neat.

"I just happened to be with a bunch of girls this evening after attending this party, and I showed them what you said and they all laughed at you! Ha ha ha! :)" Yes, thank you, Bruce: your continued condescension will surely increase the effectiveness of your argument as well as lift our views of your character. No, actually, I don't: much of Volourn's antics are ridiculous, his obsession with Nazis included. However, at least he's unapologetic in the lunacy of the things he says, unlike a certain somebody I know. Ah, I'll accept being drunk as an acceptable excuse for showing such a silly thing to people you don't much know...something that would almost always just get weird stares in response, normally (because yes, it is a pretty weird thing to show who are not in any way invested into these forums, and who have no idea who Volourn is, or what the context, by your own admission, even is). Bragging about it here, on the other hand?

The thing I found even worse than all that...is that he TALKED about it to us - as if we would all somehow be impressed with his utterly ridiculous story. It'd be bad and cringe-worthy enough if he had just done it and then not mentioned it...if the story is even true, which I have serious doubts about: if it is true, then he's a narcissist for thinking that anyone else in the whole wide world besides him could ever possibly care about his silly little internet arguments (most of which, if I were him, I would not want to show anyone), or that it would somehow be cool with the ladies... If it was true, he must've somehow been enchanting enough of a personality at that "after party" that it wouldn't have mattered what he was talking about - he could have been talking about Hitler and how he was right and they still would've found him "funny", which seems ridiculous in itself, but stranger things have happened, particularly when it's around narcissists... And if it isn't true, then, well...that's even sadder. And then to actually talk about it like it's a legitimate point against Volourn...haha, good lord. Oh Bruce, I'm laughing alright, but it isn't at Volourn.

Hah. That makes me realize: Jaguars' only two wins this season have been at "home" in London. That's weird.

Hey, they almost mounted a comeback.

Congratulations, BruceVC, that's the first time you've made me physically cringe. Upping the ante, as always.

I think they're meant for the kinda player who liked doing speed runs in old school platformers.. All about overcoming the challenge through concentration and repitition. I found Dark Souls pretty darn easy after a certain point (and that was my first Souls game). But after beating the game once, I did send my character straight to NG7 via some memory editing with Cheat Engine, where that certainly applies. Dark Souls 2 was torturous and repetitive (and awful) from start to finish, though. Never got used to or liked the control changes, never got used to or liked the much slower-paced combat. Why you would slow down the second game compared to the first, I don't know...seems like the opposite would be the more logical choice (...or just keeping it the same)...but then again, I'm not a brilliant game designer.

Sounds like an understanding impairment, not a hearing. Brain randomly isn't able to decipher sounds as well as it should: same problem I sometimes have. I also have pretty good hearing.

That was a pretty miserable game.

Honestly, I feel like the first Souls game you play is the best. I played Dark Souls 1 and thought it was quite good: I beat it on NG7 at level 99, beat it at soul level 1 on NG1, and nearly beat it at soul level 1 on NG7 ([MINOR SPOILERS, I say the name of a boss] I can beat every boss besides the Four Kings...the Four Kings are just too hard to fight 4 at a time at level 1 [/END MINOR SPOILERS]), so I must've liked it, right? Tried playing Dark Souls 2, and I pretty much instantly hated it. Played through the entire game, and it makes me never want to play another Souls game ever again I hated it so much. I know others who have had similar feelings...though I know others that played Dark Souls 1 and then thought Dark Souls 2 was O.K., too.

That's a shame. It was a decent show. I just hated the format of filling up what felt like somewhere between 25-33% of each show with them repeating themselves, reexplaining what's going on, or just filling it up with pure filler. A shame.

Uh, not true at all, actually. There's no sales tax for online retailers that don't have a physical presence in your state...nowadays, that's most major retailers, so you'll likely get charged sales tax. Newegg doesn't have sales tax in my state, though, and combine that with it generally having the best prices across the board, and that's where I usually shop for PC stuff.