Zoraptor

That's Arkan dude, and red/ blue/white horizontal stripes is definitively the Serb flag. He's close to the most famous paramilitary leader of the Yugoslav Wars, almost as famous as Accordian Man. Isn't all prop usage, so? Not really, I've seen a fair amount of good prop usage in presentations. Politicians in general tend to use props dreadfully though, but a cartoon depiction of a bomb that only lacks Roadrunner finishing the drawing and it blowing up in your face is near top of the cringe factor with waving random bits of metal only a little behind. Though to be fair, I've seen some Israelis and others who thought that that use was absolute genius so I guess that mileage varies considerably.

Zarif should have brought along a model of an F-16 as a prop. Or not, Bibi's prop usage is always cringe inducing.

Odd questions are often put in surveys to weed out bots (for internet surveys) and people who are doing a click through without actually reading. Classic example is something like 'do you like sushi?' (or whatever) then later asking 'do you hate sushi?'; if the respondent says 'yes' to both then their answers are obviously not consistent. I also wouldn't discount the site having a deliberate implicit bias either- a decade or so ago there was a bias test where they would serve different introduction texts designed to prime people to answer the test in particular ways so as to test that facet of implicit bias as well. To use the example Vals quoted on the previous page, one version would say that people tended to be biased towards lighter skin tones while an alternative introduction would make no comment on expected results etc.

Fairly sure that in most places it's actively illegal to download passwords and the like. That would certainly make it inadmissible in court as well. Funny that the MS Flight X people aren't doing the same to Internet Explorer MS Edge users. Both of them must be quite relieved.

Planetscape Tournament being a jRPG is a straight 'Codex trope. It's been around so long that nobody is quite sure if its adherents have started believing it themselves.

Considering interest of the KS campaign, I'd say 'yes'. More importantly tho, the original SS was a much more focused and tightly designed game than the second one - however, it was released like 4 years ahead of the time I'd wage it'd be more successful, and it had a really weird control scheme combined with some old-school design sensibilities that didn't really fit what it tried to achieve. Pretty much- though I wouldn't call SS1 'tightly designed', personally, as it's a sprawling game with as many if not more 'extraneous' systems as SS2 (the implant system: wraparound camera, flying boots etc; cyberspace etc). SS1 was an outright fps with little of SS2's RPG guff, just an early fps with some elements like the logs that became staples of fps/ rpg hybrids and some which were never or seldom used again like all the lean/ squatting modes. It has its own fan base which overlaps with SS2's but not as much so as most sequels. SS2 would have been worse without its RPG system, apart from sound and aesthetics SS2's individual parts are all mediocre but add up to a whole far better than its parts. That system could have been (and would have, with more time) significantly improved and rebalanced. The ultimate problem with adapting/ refreshing SS1 is that it was a game made for an immature genre right at the start of the 3d era. Those original and interesting 1994 gravity puzzles are just annoying and pointless and make no in game sense even so much as a few years later let alone 24 years later. There's a lack of immersive sim features: nowhere for the crew to sleep, no toilets and the level design makes sense as a game level but even less than the average fps level in terms of practical realism. You're always going to battle the contradictory urges to preserve the hokey old tropes wholesale and the desire to 'improve' things when you have the chance. How much time do you spend implementing Sensaround 360 degree vision that was seldom used by most people? If it goes, what if anything do you replace it with? It's very easy to end up doing a full scale redesign with RPG elements to replace or, heh, augment the implant system especially when SS2 is so highly regarded. I didn't back the SS1 remake despite being a big fan and don't really trust Steven Kick, but I think there will be a result from the kickstarter. Probably a limited more or less direct remake. The first thing he should do is hire a good, hard headed producer or project director to scope it properly.

It's a once per decade 'inspection' here. It's in soft quotes because every inspection I've had has taken about 10s for the actual inspection, they literally check you have a trigger lock of some sort and keep ammo/ bolt and gun locked separately. The entire process involving the 'police'- usually a cushy job for retired police- takes five minutes including the interview*. Ten, if you offer them tea and biscuits. It's more exacting (though not necessarily impossible) if you have red flags like prior drug use, but that's kind of the point. Different culture though, our police don't even carry firearms routinely. *The questions are pretty much literally "You [or the person you're refereeing] aren't a homicidal maniac, are you?" level.

It's meant to be a realistic game, and everyone knows that the only way to save in medieval Bohemia was by paying a monk to write the binary on a sheet of vellum- that, famously, was why Jan Hus died rather than reloading as he hit f8 too late and the fire had already singed the vellum corrupting the save. It's abstracted somewhat in game, of course, but you have to make some compromises sometimes.

May work better for them if they recognize gamers as the easily led sheep they are. https://www.vg247.com/2018/02/09/activision-blizzard-made-4-billion-microtransactions-2017-half-revenue/ That is a big chunk of change And in semi related news, Paradox has finally gone the whole hog and their new CEO is CCO of an online gambling company. Maybe they can synergise their industry leading dlc strategy with the visceral thrill of affordable randomised reward containers? Only good things can come of this. The Nordic/ Deep Silver thing is pretty good news, though to be fair to them Deep Silver themselves were one of the better publishers so far as consumers were concerned.

Dead Space is free on Origin. I'd give it a pretty hearty recommendation to anyone who likes shooters with a story, and you certainly can't beat free.

The first Ryzen based APUs are out to the public, 2200G (4core/4thread Ryzen CPU, 8 Vega cores) and 2400G (4/8, 11 Vega cores). Very competitive performance and the 2400G's iGPU cores are competitive with a low end dedicated GPU (sometimes better, sometimes worse) despite the limited bandwidth. The laptop and desktop chips are supposedly the same, with the laptop ones being undervolted to save power. Despite their names they are 'Ryzen 1' rather than 'Ryzen 2'. As with all Ryzens they really need fast RAM and dual rank/ channel to get the most out of them; and a decent overclock helps a lot too. Due to their APU nature both also improve the iGPU performance significantly as well. Still, should be a very nice chip for true budget gaming and in laptops.

Youtube is meant to be kind of dialing back the political stuff but they really aren't doing so at all. There's also a pro Turkey's invasion of Syria/ Afrin video being played as an ad (which is at least mostly factual, just slanted). If you want real fake news, try the NYT report on the US airstrikes on government forces from a few days ago, which gets about one fact correct. The source for 'hundreds' of russian casualties resolves to a fake social media account- that of one of the ex leaders of the Donbass rebels, Strelkov, who has repeatedly said he doesn't have any social media accounts- it's just multiple sources repeating the second hand information*. Plus even pro YPG sources now admit that the local ex ISIS SDF attacked first then called in airstrikes on the warning response (dozens of artillery, rocket and mortar rounds yet only 1 wounded?) they got- difficult not to when the locals were dumb enough to make videos celebrating the fact and saying they were going to attack government forces again. *Though it's pretty much certain a few were killed; too much of a coincidence that 1960s era S-200s are suddenly able to shoot down modern Israeli jets.

Yeah that would be my guess for all digital distributions True, was a dumb question, forgot most of the world doesn't act like my company. Given what happened with Outcast only a month ago, ie none of the accumulated patches being applied at release on GOG until days later, it certainly isn't a dumb question.

Wing Commander 2. Thought the torpedoes I used were nuclear! Forgot I had the expansions actually, will be good to kill Jazz..eventually. Well that's what you get for asking Maniac what he'd like to see in a new fighter model. Of course it ends up carrying a dumbfire nuke. Torpedoes were just phase shield piercing missiles, according to the manual. I think Wing Commander 2 was the first game I've played where the storytelling affected me emotionally. I was sad when Spirit died and I really hated Jazz. With a passion. Wasn't the first game to get an emotional response from my (that would be a party wipe in the first Wizardry in the level 5 (?) repeating maze, 6 year old me was devastated) but yeah, I loathed Jazz. Indeed, despite there being better written villains he may still be the villain I've actively disliked the most in videogames. WC 2-4 were very well written, and even Prophecy had decent writing despite its problems.

It isn't just the number of buttons though, it also requires context. 'Console' fps typically lack leaning not because of an absolute lack of buttons, but because of a lack of contextual buttons- you have to use a left/ right button combo for left/ right leaning. Use those (shoulder, usually) buttons for something else and it's bye bye to leaning for no reason other than controller limitation. OK, you don't need leaning in fps, but it is nice to have. Personally all my favourite fps have leaning, albeit I'm far from a fps fan ion general.

That article is factually wrong in places- the Thrawn Trilogy/ HTTE was the first book in ages, but the Dark Empire comics predated it and was directly contradicted by it in places despite both being canon, and Zahn did not have carte blanche on the project either. His blueprint would also have failed because Harrison Ford would have refused to do 3 more movies, especially at the height of his fame and bankability in the early 90s. Pretty sure that Fisher was also... not at her most reliable then either. Peripherally I'd also very strongly argue that you don't have to have hard set binary morality in Star Wars and that was not why TLJ got a lot of dislike. People didn't hate Luke being 'morally grey' (for want of a better term) in TLJ just because it wasn't jedi like, they hated it because it was a direct contradiction of Luke's established characterisation. 'Grey' morality in SW is certainly polarising though, both 'Traitor' and KOTOR2 have a lot of people who love them and some who hate them for not conforming to the usual good/ evil dichotomy.

From the before mentioned invasion of Vilnius and Czech lands to the polonization policies in the east.And that's before we even get to the topic of internment camps, pacifications and eventual reprisals during the war. Or of the pervasive antisemitism that's still going strong and is used as an excuse to justify that 'Polish death camps' nonsense. I could go on but the point is that Poland needs an honest look at it's history not western-style denial and shouting-down of anyone who disagrees. Yeah they did most of that, but to iterate, there really wasn't pervasive anti semitism in Poland, since people are likely to reflexively disagree with Sharpie. Nationalism, sure, and at times that was as unpleasant in Poland as in most places hence inter war Poland's behaviour was not always the model of restraint, shall we say. But, most of the stories about Polish anti semitism are Israeli Creation Myth propaganda- there literally being no safe place for the Jews except Israel. There may well be some anti Israel resentment now, but that's neither anti semitism nor unjustified given that Israel is effectively slandering them for their own political purposes. If you compare Polish anti semitism to those in similar positions the vast majority of persecution and murder of Polish Jews was direct by German Nazis with no help from Poles in general and very little help from them at all. In the Balts and Ukraine there was an immediate, organised native program to murder and betray Jews (and others, of course). There was even direct collaboration in 'enlightened' occupied western countries; indeed, they all did things like contribute SS units etc many of whom were the most fanatical fighters in the entire war, and given that that includes Japan it's really saying something.

According to the guy who owns GSC one of the main reasons for them shuttering was that the devs kept on trying to turn Stalker into a MP game behind his back. Given the obsession with faction wars it might not have been BR, but certainly was as at least as much PvP as PvE focused. Funny really, the teams spawned by GSC and Stalker haven't actually done 'proper' Stalker since. Metro is linear as anything and more reminiscent of FEAR, and the Vostok people seem to be obsessed with MP despite Clear Sky being the worst Stalker by a mile.

Maybe, but as he has France on the brain, just doubting he'll be looking at Russian parades with ICBM launchers. I guess all Mattis et al. have to do is maybe wait a month or two before the plan's forgotten about. Grand Military Parades seems like exactly the sort of meaningless pantomimery Trump wouldn't forget about to me. It's a great way to shout your own importance from the rooftops and would appeal to the typical Trump voter who wants the US to shout its importance from rooftops. And of course you can accuse detractors of being against the troops and anyone who doesn't clap of being traitors as well, another added bonus.

I'm not pro Polish at all- for all their whining about being stabbed in the back they stabbed Lithuania and the Czechs in the back beforehand, unapologetically- but Poland simply did not build death camps. Death Camps means Birkenau or Treblinka type camps which were constructed to specifically kill people, not a concentration or POW camp where people died from neglect, and as bad as that is in itself. You'd have a hard time finding major countries that haven't used concentration/ pow camps with high death rates. And to be fair to Poland you'd go a very long way to find a country that cooperated less with the Nazis than them- maybe Russia proper and Byelorus and that's it. Even the Serbs had incidents with their Cetnik resistances helping Germans. Using the term 'Polish Death Camps' just because the Germans happened to build them at Oswiecim etc would be pretty irksome. I suspect if Germany decided that Guernsey/ Aldenay/ Sark/ Jersey should have death camps instead we would not talk about English Death Camps, for example. Stupid way to tackle the issue though, no doubt about it.

Bunch of Close Combat games released- 2,3,4 of the original series plus the modern Caen and Mortain games. While the AI in the old games was frequently not very intelligent and the engine was creakier than century old wooden floorboards by the end they were great fun, especially 2 & 3. Nothing quite like creeping around Arnhem with your last PIAT squad trying to one shot Tigers (that the AI would helpfully move up without infantry support and then park facing the wrong way rather too frequently, but still...).

CDPR did a reverse takeover of CDP a few years ago- IIRC it was part of a shortcut scheme to get onto the Polish sharemarket by taking over a 3rd company which was already listed there, then changing its name. So CDPR now owns CDP, and GOG. Previously CDP owned CDPR and GOG.

Not really, I'm saying that 'kowtowing' is irrelevant, ie Obama or anyone else (since GWB did it as well with the Saudis) bowing is simply irrelevant and means nothing. Unless you're obsessed with not showing weakness, and- to paraphrase the great philosopher Tywin Lannister- the people obsessed with such things are themselves deeply insecure. Practically and politically Akihito is irrelevant but bowing to him is regarded very positively in Japan. MbS/ Salman is different since they're definitive tyrants in the old meaning, but still Trump could literally have dropped to his knees in front of MbS on live TV and nobody should care- if it has a purpose and if the rest of his policy had been sensible.

Meh, according to the mainstream media "Assad fights ISIS" was a lie when Trump said it. They've lied about Trump's lies extensively and repeatedly. And it's not like Trump doesn't lie enough anyway without them making more up, they just cannot help themselves. Trump has definitely kowtowed to the Saudi far more in practical terms than Obama. Bowing is irrelevant except as a nicety, it only means something to people who aren't secure in their power. I'm pretty sure that Obama would have mentioned the large US base in Qatar before giving the Saudis the green light to invade instead of Sexy Rexy having to make a frantic phone call to remind MbS of that fact. If anything Obama was the least Saudi subservient US leader in recent memory.

Trailer or not I wouldn't be putting much faith in the Solo movie to be good. It has clearly been very troubled and has had director replacements, extensive rewrites and reshoots and a lead actor who supposedly had to have acting lessons (!) while shooting. None of those things exactly fill me with confidence as to its end quality. On a more fundamental level I have little interest in Han's backstory and wish they'd do something a bit different with the side stories instead of Han and How The Rebels Stole The Death Star Plans v16 (albeit R1 was a different approach to previous SW movies in many ways). Even the supposed Kenobi movie is still a very conservative and safe option.