Drowsy Emperor

I was going to try Odin Sphere next, I don't have any of the other platforms. Their 2D work is really head and shoulders above the competition.

They already are, the situation has them rounding up control of the middle east through the recent revolutions, trying to crack Iran, surround Russia with the "rocket shield" missiles, check the growth of the Chinese navy and cut off their resources in Africa and the Middle East. Its effectively a full scale global (cold)war and its intensifying with each passing year. It will intensify even more as the US is trying to advance very far, very quickly - I suspect because the hawks in Washington are realising that time is slowly but surely running out and in favour of other states. I think you just hate democracy and freedom. I hope you're not serious.

I may hate anime in general, but I'll take my hat off to a job well done any day of the week. GrimGrimoire looks like 50 artists were ritually sacrificed in its creation. And I'll always love good 2D art over anything 3D. One of the great tragedies of gaming is that 2D graphics were dropped just as they were starting to look phenomenal in higher resolutions, in favour of the hideous, blocky early 3D games. It really is obscene, how good even the late stuff was when PS3 and X360 were already in full swing. PS3 was sucking dirt with its early releases while the PS2 games were still dripping quality. I was recently surprised by how much good stuff I had missed, having dropped the console back in 2008-2009. Even some of the bad games were very innovative by today's standards.

GrimGrimoire, a 2D strategy for the PS2. Excellent game. Some of the prettiest 2D graphics ever made with beautifully animated sprites and environments. You play this schoolgirl in a magical academy in the course of 5 days during which the big bad is released and kills everyone including her. Then she's transported back to the first day to replay those 5 days in ever increasing levels of difficulty. There are 4 schools of magic whose units follow the standard rock paper scissors format. You summon them, upgrade them and spam them at the AI, utilising the specific abilities of each unit. The controls are well adapted to the purpose, the audio is great and even the story is interesting. Dragon vs Chimera Fairies vs Imp

They already are, the situation has them rounding up control of the middle east through the recent revolutions, trying to crack Iran, surround Russia with the "rocket shield" missiles, check the growth of the Chinese navy and cut off their resources in Africa and the Middle East. Its effectively a full scale global (cold)war and its intensifying with each passing year. It will intensify even more as the US is trying to advance very far, very quickly - I suspect because the hawks in Washington are realising that time is slowly but surely running out and in favour of other states.

That's right, but how many other RPG's bother with LGBT rights? In fact, explicit support for such things and other political ideologies is an exception, not a rule in games. The standard explanation from BW is "that the fans want it". That's rubbish - the majority of fans customers are heterosexual males and they either don't want that sort of content or are indifferent to it. The other explanation you're going to hear is that its "progressive, giving people the opportunity to express themselves". That's even more unbelievable, coming from a company that's really only interested in making money. So it can either be a lame attempt to get even more sales by pandering to minorities (which doesn't make much statistical sense - to go to such lengths to please the odd LGBT gamer) or something else, like a personal crusade by some individuals in Bioware. And when you hear the way they defend it, it really sounds like the latter. I find the idea of somebody using a game to push their personal ideology around intensely annoying. I wouldn't have paid any attention to it as I've stopped buying BW games a while ago, but the silly article above got me all riled up.

God, do they dumb down the matter. Besides, those gender and sexuality issues are really starting to erode Bioware's credibility. When Helper was harassed on her twitter account, it was cringing to see her write that people were jealous of her because she got a vagina [and a job in the industry] and not them. Seriously, was that her best answer? She should has come out of this mess as a victim, not as a jackass. If I'm talking about this, it's because I think this is the same problem here. (I hope) People don't care about homosexuality, they just don't like the whole marketing that has been built around this and how it shoved it down our throats... ahem. It's like the whole thing is engulfing every negativity around Bioware. People are not that insecure. For Forbes to play this angle like Helper did mean they don't even try to understand why is the Internet reacting like that. And this article will certainly fuel the hate more than anything. What a trainwreck. You just have to read video games webcomics to see how fine this marketing worked by the way. So far, I checked Penny Arcade, Virtual Shackles, VG Cats, Nerfnow and another one whose name I forgot. The random ME drawing is always about Shepard's sexuality or a random character's sex-appeal. Shepard is half the time, insane. Edit: Hey, Forbes did a second update, doubting what they said earlier. Well, all for the best. Its hilarious how seriously people are taking Mass Effect. Its like discussing the philosophy of Independence Day and the nuances of Will Smith's character. Besides there's something wrong with championing gender rights in a game which has you kill people/creatures half of its playing time. Its like "gay rights are the spice of our mass murder simulator". So homophobic boys are bad, bad, but shooting everything "for great justice" is fine and dandy. Just goes to show that the game creators can be as juvenile and as irrational as their audience. If they wanted a sophisticated response they should make a sophisticated game. Instead they made a room temp IQ shooter wrapped in a blockbuster plot, throw in a few political issues "of the day" and consider themselves champions of liberty and free thinking.

The Descendants. Okay drama, nothing special.

Katamary Damacy. Silly game but it grows on you.

A clarification. Users on metacritic are saying the game is crap for various reasons but no one (in about 30 scanned through reviews) is mentioning the gay romances. Articles citing gay romance as the reasons for the game's low score are more or less completely false. In fact, if the game is as bad as they're saying its just an excuse.

Of course Bioware gets ridiculed, its completely impervious to constructive criticism unless it consists of 75% brown nosing, 10% nodding and 15% clapping at their poor design choices and false advertising. Because you know, the dialogue wheel is so innovative. Strictly against bullying and opposing views.

Ahahahahahhahahahahah, poor Ashley. Mark my words people: You will be nostalgic for daddy issues and gay sex come the next franchise.

Then don't play it. The whole AC series is juvenile crap anyway.

Looks bad but I'd still play it. We need more giant robots.

Happy birthday!

Regardless, nothing in today's China was created in a vacuum - not even the PRC (which has changed a lot during its existence). There may not be direct continuity between the many empires that existed on Chinese soil but there definitely is a Chinese volksgeist that encompasses how they do things (including the government/military you mention) and they're entitled to it, just as much as everyone else. I don't see why they need to conform to our expectations or rules, written by European nations or US ages ago, for their own use. Besides, there is the simple truth that not all people want democracy or human rights. as seen by the West and that those are not timeless, universal values no matter how much you'd like to present them as such. Anyway, why don't you just stop trading if they're so bad?

I suppose the Chinese simply have to add a couple thousand more years to their civilization to get some respect, huh 4000 is simply not enough to catch up with US & UK's epic level morality

I want to play the Journey badly, but I don't know anyone with a PS3 I could hog for the 3 hours the game lasts.

And how hard is it to get thrown out of regular schools (and what are the most common reasons?)?

Wrong Gore. Those movies were directed by Gore Verbinski. That's right, my bad. Dunno why Vidal was on my mind.

So it is, in most things except in name a juvenile detention facility?

Rango and Hugo. Both are homages to films and both are okay movies. Rango has the same gripe I had with Vidal's Pirates of the Carribean: both have good ideas but they overstay their welcome. No matter how good the gags are they should have cut it down to a proper 90 minutes instead of including boring chase scenes and unnecessary plot twists. Hugo has a similar problem. It starts as an adventure mystery, but half an hour in it turns into a Melies homage spun into a stereotypical "kid saves the day" tale. Which is a pity because Melies really had a very interesting life to start with. On top of that it has a hugely annoying colour palette, the entire movie being coloured in orange and blue that screams "faaaaake!" in every scene, and the emphasized colours actually make it hard to see what's going on in the background sometimes. To Scorsese: Just because you can abuse just about every segment of the film in post production doesn't mean you should do it. 7/10 for both.

You know if you are getting into the Horror genre and don't mind graphics I would recommend the Parasite Eve series (specially 2) if you haven't played it already. Horror/Survival with RPG mechanics, why aren't there more games like that? It doesn't look too bad, I'll be sure to give it a spin.

Finished Silent Hill 2. Pretty good overall. I think I'll move onto Fatal Frame series now, recommendations for Silent Hill 3 and 4 are mixed at best.

Finishing Silent Hill 2. Overall, its not a very good game but its a unique, mature (for a game) experience. I like it.