Raithe

Grg. Got that last 8 days before I fly out and trying to sort out all the odds and ends. Which is when budgetary issues crop up, since I need to get a new phone (with quad-band), pick up a jacket suitable for the weather that as opposed to the heavier jackets I have in my wardrobe at present, a few bits and pieces of other clothes.. .. and to top it off my pc's psu is starting to make funny noises... Trying to make a list of all the small bits and pieces so I can work through it in some sensible manner, while also figuring out who can deal with things while I'm away. Make sure someones cleaning the kitty litter, someone's dealing with mom's drug supplies and sorting the pills out for those two weeks, the assorted odds, ends and general tasks that are likely to get forgotten about. On the one hand, this might make a good practice run for the family for dealing with things when I'm not around. Highlights any difficulties people have in stepping up to the bat for when I get a full time job or such. On the other.. the last time I was gone for 3 or so days no-one remembered to deal with the kitty litter, and I've been out for a day and come back to find mom didn't have a single thing to drink because no-one thought to see if she wanted one and she was having a bad day so she didn't make one herself...

I have to admit LOTSB certainly had that something that clicked. The mixture of mission and character, fun banter (case in point, the crack about omni-gel and door locks), dialogue (with some choices), the use of companions, and the actual story all worked well together. Arrival on the other hand had a couple of interesting ideas, but then actually felt like one long run-n-shoot corridor* with no actual choices to make in any of the brief dialogue and the actions you chose had no real effect because it was always going to end the same way. Since you were solo there was no fun companion banter over what was occuring and it made it feel even more like a straight shooter rather then any element of rp. * And yes, I know, pretty much all of the ME missions across the series are really a straight corridor run, but they don't always feel like a straight point a to point b process. Arrival just didn't have the atmosphere/trick that avoided it showing.

I think in the case of some sequels it comes down to the fact that if you enjoy so much about a specific game, you'd love to see another game done like that. Sure, with a new story, and some slight evolution but still something that lets you have fun in that same way again. Throw in the potential of the way you can be fascinated by a game's world / universe / characters, and the possibility of various plot hooks being left unanswered or hanging around and all you can think is "When are they going to tell THAT story?". It adds to the possibility of a developer taking a much loved game, and trying to fix what might have been considered flaws, or at least not the successful aspects of it. From a developer's point of view, I imagine a chunk of it is the "now we have a fanbase for this type of game and those characters in it, let's do it again, but try some new twists!" Edit: With the dlc question, I think that's a lot more problematic. On one level if the dlc adds major plot elements to the game, you want there to be shoutouts to that later. The game has to reference it in some way. If the dlc doesn't really get mentioned afterwards, it turns into a "what was the point of that?" But to actually have a game set up to reference it later, you must have it built for that. Which then brings out the questions of whether the dlc was cut content and should have been in the game from the start.... If you set it up so the dlc comes purely at the end of one game and then gets referenced in any sequels...

Been poking along on the new Tomb Raider. I was curious as to what it's like. In that general, it's Lara before she becomes a dedicated "archaeologist / Tomb raider extradinaire" it's not too bad. In general gameplay they've put a lot more focus on the fighting elements rather then the exploration. The "optional" tombs are pretty much throwaway, one-room half-puzzle/acrobatics problem and then there's what, 3 or 4 of them in the entire game? It does set up the shift from somewhat naive, recently graduated book-reading archaeologist to hardened survivor. Although some of it is a bit.. You get a couple of nice comments about "yes, well I hope surviving doesn't turn me into a murderer!" right near the start, and some comments towards the end over just how many people she ends up killing in the name of survival.. It bounces between moments of humanity and her shock at everything.. and then slides into complete no-problem with headshotting or setting on fire the various cultists trying to kill her. The background group of friends/allies that were shipwrecked with her are pretty much the "cast of the world" and hit a few tropes. The plucky old scotsman sailor, the innocent japanese girl best friend, the laid back maori cook, the slightly slimey pseudo-celebrity american professor, the angry black woman. And man, she gets a wee bit annoying, since they pretty much deal with being shipwrecked, captured, roughed up (a lil) and put in a cage. Lara gets impaled, shot, stabbed, rolls off cliffs, staggers around, thrown onto rivers, gets the group rescued, and then has that woman bitch at her for not being better.

Well the past few years has a lot of the international police pretty much saying that a ridiculously large percentage of all organised cyber-crime is in some way backed by the assorted Bratva and Vory groups from Eastern Europe / Russia way. It's kind of quirky how it breaks down. Cyber-Espionage tends to be China, Cyber-Crime (ala Botnet's, ID theft, credit card fraud etc) tends to the Bratva and Vory if we're talking the big, organised crime.

I never got into playing it co-op, but the single-player was damn fun. I mean, having Burt ***** Reynolds as a central "plot?" point at that one stage.. Although after the super-powers incident in the whole Trouble with Clones, it makes me wonder if that's the key element behind Saints Row IV...

Heh, and to go on a slight offshoot http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/13471/article/publishers-declined-remember-me-due-to-the-game-s-female-protagonist/ Apparently some publishers declined on "Remember Me" due to the game's female protagonist and because "We wanted to be able to tease Nilin's private life, and that means for instance, at one point, we wanted a scene where she was kissing a guy. We had people tell us, 'you can't have a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel awkward'."

Here's a thought with all those other button mashers out there.. For like, Batman or Sleeping Dogs where you have to press buttons in certain combinations to perform different moves, would you class those as QTE's because they don't actually flash up on screen for you to press them? Or are they just 'skillfull use of gaming abilities' that you perform as and when you need? I'll admit, an overabundance of QTE's with big flashing "Hit Q" "Hit F" "Hit X" with exclamation marks that then lead you into some scripted cinematic that's practically outside the game engine can be a bit annoying and does feel like it's removing you from the game rather then letting you "play" it. - Especially if it's a whole sequence of QTE's.....

Heh. Nope. I try opening task manager and all I get is a solid black screen with the whirly globe icon from Civ V still going. I try alt-tabbing to it, and I get a brief flicker of windows and the taskbar..and then it goes straight back to that black screen. The only way I can get out is to ctl-alt-del and log off. Then everything shuts down. What's bugging me is that if I verify the game files, it keeps downloading the same 1.8Mb files. Every single time. Even if it's just done it. So I'm guessing I'm going to have to waste an hour or three reinstalling the game and then letting it update...

Tried starting a new game of Civ V. <sigh> For some reason it starts up that intro piece of "you are yada yada yada, your great kingdom yada yada yada" and then when it hits the "can you stand the test of time?" it crashes. Screen goes blank, music starts playing, and then it just freezes there, with the music looping a short section over and over. I can ctr-alt-del out, and it shows a small "Terrain Texture Error" message, before flickering back to a completely black screen. To get out of that, I have to ctrl-alt-del and tell it to log me out of the computer.... Spent half an hour looking around for fixes, but nada I've found work. I think I'll just have to uninstall the whole lot.

I have to admit some of the reviews have been interesting. Generally favourable with the whole "while trying to paint a more realistic human, we go from troubled human being.. to apex predator of headshot island" or the "troubled by the first time she has to kill a deer.. to looking at all warm bodies as pinatas chock-full of xp..." I'm half-tempted to try to find room in the budget to pick up a copy and just see what it's like.

Long night of not-sleep, then when I was finally managing to get into that slumber time.. the birds outside my window pretty much seemed to decide then was a good point to be screaming at each other rather then just chirping.... I guess I could say my body seems to be running on mexico time already, so when I fly out maybe I won't have to deal with jet lag....

Of course, I'm surprised feminists haven't hit on Twilight because it showcases a girl whose only purpose in the entire series is to get married to the guy who basically stalks her. Yes, he breaks into her house to watch her sleep. And he's over a hundred years old. Tell me that's a good example of a healthy romance to teach young girls they should yearn for?

Just not from the 8th dimension? There's a small portion of truth in her argument, and a lot of give. But her stance seems to be polarising folks by putting it at one extreme. Or at least, making a lot of people feel as if she's pushing the extreme feminist argument rather then being a point of discussion to debate. Heh, I guess that's like the law on hate crimes. It doesn't matter how you meant something, it matters how someone took it. She might not have meant it that way, but a lot of people seem to be seeing it that way. Of course, we could reverse that for say, men interested in reading romance novels. They're pretty much full of the tropes of "the bad boy ultra macho male who suddenly becomes ultra metrosexual and in touch with their feelings when the right woman comes along" and nobody really complains about that. Hell, I'd think more women would have complaints about that because it's saying that if they can't get their bad boys to change they are obviously not woman enough to do it.. Personally, I think this is getting a lot more vitriol and public noise then it really deserves. Gaming has changed a lot in the last twenty years. It's gone from a freshly birthed area that catered pretty much to the teenage boy, and is now dealing with the pangs of adjusting to a much wider audience as the appeal is now accepted by that mixed audience. The stories weren't used to be anti-feminist, they were used because they appealed to the audience of the time. The audience is changing, the stories are evolving. We've gone from Donkey Kong, Frogger and Double Dragon to the likes of Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, Lara Croft (in all her variations), Max Payne, and Beyond Good and Evil. The idea of the Damsel in Distress as a gaming trope is there because it's a trope of a lot of non-gaming stories. It's been around for centuries. Hell, millenia. It's pretty much as archetypal as Saving the World, or going on Rip-Roaring Revenge. To go with a quote used in this article boxofficebuzz - Strong Women in Video Games

Hm, I think what provided a nice chunk of amusement was just how willing they were to have those moments of self-referential fun. The small bits and pieces where they applied elements of background nods and some outright shout-outs to the issues they've had in all three games. The points that all fans have made and argued over, the elements that have become almost ME tropes from the series. When you get down to it, I think you end up spending more time running back and forth around the Strip, meeting companions, and having that party then you do on the entire "mission" part of the dlc. The characters were all doing the things, saying the things that you could see them saying if they were trying to unwind for that brief moment or respite before throwing themselves back into the fight. Grunt's run in with C-Sec and his "explanation" of how it all happened, Tali's "omni-tattoo" when she and Jack got drunk during the party, Zaeed and Garrus working out how to turn Shepard's apartment into a deathtrap in case someone else came gunning for him whilst the party was happening.. Wrex moaning in the bar over the genophage cure and how he's struggling to deal with all the Krogan females wanting him as a father for their firstborn.. Sure, some of the dialogue was campy and ropey, but none of it felt that out of place for the characters speaking it. The whole thing was pretty much a cheese fest in it's way. But I found it an entertaining cheese fest.

@Orogun01, I'm glad to see that in the morass of funnies I throw out, one at least tickled your fancy..

Saw the statistic that 1 in 5 divorces in North America this last year occured because of facebook or some similar social networking medium. At least, the initial grounds for divorce were based on things put on facebook or said social networking....

Hm, and revuln.com released a white paper over how EA's Origin has a few security issues.

For the general quirky literature interest : http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/hey_amazon_wheres_my_money/ On just how much money a popular book can earn it's author..

The Political Cows SOCIALISM You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour COMMUNISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk FASCISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk NAZISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you BUREAUCRATISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull. SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. AN AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead. A GREEK CORPORATION You have two cows. You borrow lots of euros to build barns, milking sheds, hay stores, feed sheds, dairies, cold stores, abattoir, cheese unit and packing sheds. You still only have two cows. A FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows. A JAPANESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide. AN ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch. A SWISS CORPORATION You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them. A CHINESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation. AN INDIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You worship them. A BRITISH CORPORATION You have two cows. Both are mad. AN IRAQI CORPORATION Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the ** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy. AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate. A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive...

heh, and EA apparently are going even one better.. Inquisitor - EA censors own support number in forums n4g News - EA Censors it's own support number Destructoid - EA Censors its own support number

"What do you mean he's dead grandpa?!" "Well, he is played by Sean Bean, what were you expecting?"

Having a bit of a play around with my Consular this weekend, and I'm being reminded just how annoying that light puzzle on Balmorra is. Now, I like the fact that the area quest isn't a combat thing, but an actual puzzle to solve. The pain is it's one that involves hitting a whole bunch of switches to get the right combination of lights on, and it's open to every manjack idiot who rushes up while you're in the middle of solving it and they start throwing random switches because they don't have a clue...

Well, that one I'd have to hit with the historical trivia that it's only been the last century that pink was an intrinsically feminine colour. Back during the Victorian era, pink was generally used more for boys then girls. You were more likely to find a boy with pink handkerchiefs, cravats, etc, then a girl using the colour, and girls were more likely to have blue shades on their fashion then men. You just can't argue that the colours are intrinsically male or female. They keep changing over time..... But enough of the random trivia for the day...

Although it's always nice to see that the US has such a clear and valid position on it all after their joys of democracy and right of self-determination.. Telegraph Blog: The State Departments Falklands press-briefing was a diplomatic disaster for the US/