Zoraptor

Peaasterisks are actually the most rigorously heterosexual animals I've ever seen, or at least the only one I've directly interacted with. At one stage we had chickens and ducks, and a peahen of the male persuasion moved in to take advantage of their food and, well, ended up trying to take advantage of the chickens and ducks several times a day. I think it even tried it on with the dog. I suspect it was not only extraordinarily heterosexual, but also extraordinarily frustrated, at least until one of the neighbours got some actual peahens.

Next time you can tell them that there's actually many examples of gayness in the animal kingdom.

You guys do realise that article is ~18 months old, and got extensively discussed at that time? (Discuss away if you want, I'm not the Commissioner for Currency of Events, but it is rather old news)

You'd have to go some way to be killed by Shank or Carbo as a Fighter though, as a Mage you're one bad throw away from the ignominity and embarrassment of it. Low level BG either sucks, or is some grade A 24 carat trolling. Unfortunate that achievements weren't popular back then, "Killed by Shank" would be a badge of dishonour to be cherished by all.

Allegorical representation of drug addiction. Not an original viewpoint though.

If Oby is a troll he'll say precisely what he thinks will generate the most butthurt in his target audience. Which means we'll now have an inundation of pseudo racist stuff, as that appears to be a winner. Frankly, he's been pretty successful at it, since people are still responding. I, of course, view his posts as an ironic critique of the self importance and lack of self reflection intrinsic in the psychological make up of the west. Then again, I view pong as an allegory for the struggle of order and against entropy and that struggle's ultimate futility...

It's all good. I wouldn't see being described as an elitist as being anything but a compliment anyway, since it's basically saying that I like quality, which I do. I won't like something just because it's highbrow and dislike something just because it's popular, ultimately I'll like something because I like it- but having quality is certainly one of the major factors in whether I'll like it. But popularity is by no means a measure of quality, it's only a measure of popularity- Breaking Bad's last episode isn't fantastic and its first terrible just because 10 million instead of 1.6 million watched it, and Jersey Shore wasn't better than the first ep either just because more people watched that.

Yeah, have to agree. The original point wrt to Thiaf was that it was not a 'good' reboot not because it was likely to fail financially, but because it doesn't use the heritage inherent in the name to full effect, and in fact (well, it's my opinion so is FACT! and anyone disagreeing is wrong) the name and its baggage is a net negative given the approach taken. Shifting the goalposts to financial success is an entirely separate criterion from that. Fallout 3 did well financially, but it had bugs that were present in Oblivion and are still present in Skyrim, the dialogue varies from just about competent to cringingly abysmal and the plotting featured the most utterly stupid and nonsensical finish of all time! Of all time! Calling it a failure in those respects may be subjective- though the ending is about as close to objectively bad as it's possible to get- but it's certainly fair. And if you wanted isometric/ TB then it will be a failure automatically. (I also don't really see how something with "I don't see" in the first sentence can be taken as any sort of statement of objective fact, it's clearly an opinion)

I have to agree in general with kgambit, though I'd go a little further. Not only is the recovery rather tepid, but it is largely predicated on the cheap availability of money which is being generated unsustainably and almost exclusively for the benefit of a small section of the economy. It's very easy to make profits and get a large scale share market recovery if the government is printing money/ using QE and you're getting, in effect, zero interest loans. While the US is buffered against some of the problems inherent in that due to being the reserve currency everyone ends up paying in terms of price inflation (and thus in a static job market, wage deflation). And it isn't even clear that it's at all sustainable in the medium term as the market throws a wobbly any time someone even hints at removing the teat, hardly a sign that the 'confidence' is real rather than illusory. That the people and sector getting the help are also the people and sectors primarily responsible for putting us in this mess in the first place is just another dollop of irony on the cake. Overall it's like someone who has had a badly broken leg and is now on painkillers. At some point the painkillers have to be withdrawn, at which point we'll find out if the leg is actually mended and can be used properly or cannot bear weight without pain, and if the patient has got addicted to the meds.

I wouldn't count Fallout 3, personally. Nor DXHR, though marginally. F3 is in continuity and while the end result is rather like restored_jesus.jpg rather than the Mona Lisa I don't think it was from lack of effort. They clearly did try to cater to the franchise's history, even if it was mainly peripheral things like getting hellboy to narrate an intro and have Harold appear in an utterly pointless encounter. Much as with XP in Thief, I don't really care about things like the perspective change though, which a lot of people do. The classic 'bad' reboot to me would be the recentish Syndicate, where the name was nothing but baggage. The really stupid thing is that Thief could quite easily have avoided a lot of the fan negativity. The story is clearly based on- or at least compatible with- being post Thief 3 and there'd be very little negative in paying lip service to the established setting, and that little bit of respect would have got many of the fans on board. As it was though they basically told the fans that the games they loved were rubbish and needed changing, never a good place to start from.

Russia, the US and England in the same group, surely?

XP was symptomatic of the problem thiaf- and most modern 'reimaginings', to be fair- have. They want to use the brand name to make a game that isn't like the previous games in the series but is like Assassin's Creed or some other successful game. But they'll use the brand name even though it isn't well known and having a 'Garrett' who acts/ sounds little like the original doesn't bring much recognition because the Thief games were not huge sellers and the last one was ~ a decade ago so the only people who recognise him are likely to view revoicing and restyling negatively. Same with the apparent emphasis on the 'cinematic experience' and set pieces, only contextual actions, swooping etc, they'd be close to the last thing people still playing thief after all this time want, and the more casual fans are likely to have forgotten anyway. I'm not exactly sure that removing XP at this stage is a good thing though, it must be pretty close to feature lock given it has around three months (supposedly hard dated) before release. I actually don't have any inherent problems with xp in Thief on principle, though it certainly ought to be goal based (Bloodlines style) rather than standard RPG style. But it, and a lot of the other changes, makes sense only with a new character/ lead, not with a Garrett who may or may not be detached in the timeline but is certainly a master thief already.

That's generally due to the art of compromise. For example, say that a husband and wife win $100k on the lottery. One wants to put half towards the mortgage and buy a new car with the rest. The other wants to put half towards the mortgage and buy a new boat. Compromise position might be buying a smaller boat and car, and paying less off the mortgage- so leaving more debt than either separate plan would have.

Unfortunately there's far too many ingrate immigrant prostitutes taking our, uh, jobs so there isn't much call for a grandfatherly gigolo with a cool aristocratic accent and impeccable tailoring any more.

Yes, it's untrue and unfair and a horrendous slur on our fine bobbies. After all, if they didn't carry guns on occasion how could the protect the British Bulldog Old Blighty Spirit of Dunkirk people of this blessed plot from the scourge and depredations of reprobates such as that Brazilian electrician who deliberately and callously impersonated a known person of interest and then shot himself repeatedly in the back of the head all just to embarrass us. And you know what, he was an illegal immigrant, just showing just how perfidious a threat they are! (Sorry, the Daily Mail wanted an example of my writing for their job interview, and I wanted something for the Sun too. I think I may have overdone it with the rampant nationalistic hyperbole though, after all there's no way the two best selling papers in Britain would publish a load of pseudo- well, maybe not pseudo for the Daily Heil- fascist rhetoric, there's no demand for such things in the UK and the fantastic press system ensures if it ever happened it'd never reoccur).

Yeah, pretty much entirely set up.

I'm surprised Rockstar did not try to secure a license not limited in time. My knowledge of U.S. licensing law is spotty, but surely that's an option? It'd be an option, yes. But the only version that would be selling in ten years would be the PC one, there'd be very little prospect of the PSBox versions selling that long, and we're talking about a 2002/3 (?) release where there was no PCDD option and unknown compatibility with new OS versions too. Under those circumstances a time limited licence would seem to be sensible because you probably wouldn't be selling the game that long.

That was supposedly why Vice City disappeared for a while a year or so back, the licensing on the music (10 years, presumably) lapsed and had to be extended.

And they'd already given it to Kissinger, amongst others. IIRC Arafat's was not joint with Peres though, but with Rabin. And if there's an inverse Peace Prize it should probably should have gone to either Yigal Amir or Ariel Sharon.

I don't understand why Obama didn't get it again. He still isn't Bush, which seems to be the qualification for him getting it first time. Yousafzai is a feel good choice which would give westerners nice tingly sensations and heart warming as it would be, giving it to her would be about as good as giving it to Obama was, neither had actually achieved anything. It's not like people thought the Taliban were nice beforehand. I'd have given it to Snowden, since he's annoyed people who oh so desperately need an extremely liberal application of sand to the nethers, plus it would make me laugh. Not that the Taliban don't deserve much the same but they're off in Pakistan and, well, things like electricity and reading and contrary opinions annoy them, so I reckon they don't need anything else.

Thiaf has stolen the Dark Mod's thunder. That's how good a thiaf Garrett is.

"Hey Guys! Totally shutting the site down! Better get downloading the games as we shut down GOG beta! It's been a great run but we have to move on!" OK, so anyone with a bit of reading comprehension and sense knew what was actually happening, but some people got really upset. I like GOG, but they're pretty :trollface: with some of their promotions and PR and always have been.

Is being butthurt over TWitcher 2 hate qualitatively better or worse than being butthurt over NWN hate? Surely a deep philosophical question for our time.

Titan seems ludicrous for a small form factor and the cooling/ PSU requirements for the top end of those specs would be... difficult. If they aren't very careful anything near the top line specs listed there will be a replacement for a thermite block and will end up burning its way through the bottom of your house, or sound like a 747 preparing for take off. And if you don't want those alternatives it'll cost. Oh gods, that's who he reminds me of. No wonder I dislike the new style Garrett so intensely. The only remaining question is whether I'll be able to replay the old games without imagining it being Kai Leng, or whether Thiaf has managed to retroactively ruin the experience for me (with an assist from ME3).

Sounds interesting- very interesting- despite it being online only. I'd need more information before committing any cash though, hopefully there will be some interviews and the like to clarify one or two issues I have.