Agiel

25. I first started gaming at about '95 when my mother had to take me to her office after picking me up from school. As you might imagine, I was bored out of my mind at that place and had too much pent up energy. So she went to one of her younger co-workers, who happened to have Marathon and Wolfenstein 3D clandestinely installed on his work computers that helped keep me occupied. Another big formative gaming influence was my uncle who was (and remains) as big a gaming enthusiast as me. After he had played through some games he'd give them to me as gifts for Christmas or my birthday. Quite a few of them were combat simulators like Jane's F-15, Longbow, and TIE Fighter, but there were also some cRPGs among them like Betrayal at Krondor and the original Fallout.

I believe there were similar pre-release reviews for Mass Effect 3, and from what I remember even from them the impending controversy over the ending was palpable (that said, the part of me that thinks of myself as a fairly level-headed person didn't find it offensive).

In honour of Veteran's Day, a photo of Richard Overton, the oldest surviving American veteran at 108, with his M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun and reminding kids to stay off his lawn. "Close and spray, the SMG way!"

I see no reason why not all (well... *most*) of us can agree that the peaceful re-unification of a country after nearly a half-century is unequivocally a good thing? I watch footage of the celebrations that fateful night and images of the "Lichtgrenze" commemorating it and it just speaks to me. Yes there is "Ostalgie" and some economic hardship in the aftermath but I would bet my life every single German who was there at the Wall that night would say at the end of their lives they would do it all over again and that they'd never miss that opportunity. It makes me hope that in spite of all the pain that would follow that I live to see the same thing happen to the Korean DMZ: http://english.kookmin.ac.kr/site/about_kmu/newNhot/press.htm?mode=view&num=8

Today I was at the store and I was in line behind a gentlemen idly chatting to the manager and I couldn't help but feel that he looked and, more importantly, sounded familiar. Finally when he finished checking out the cashier said to him: "Thank you for shopping with us, Mr. Scully." It was then that I almost shouted "HOLY S***! You're Vin Scully!" Fortunately I restrained myself when pointing that out, but I did get a big handshake from the encounter.

Camp Pendleton you're a stone's throw away from Seaworld and TJ when you're on liberty. Hawaii... well... freaking *Hawaii*. 29 Palms? Just out in the middle of the Mojave... *ahem* makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

Re: "What the United States thinks of Europe" Made me think about this commercial from Cadillac: http://youtu.be/qGJSI48gkFc

So had a hankering to replay NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer. Installed it, BSODed when Steam was doing its Microsoft NET Framework and DX9 malarkey. Finally got to character creation and couldn't hear myself think because the game still makes computers run stupidly hot. Just let out a big sigh from that.

Not a sim in a stealth aircraft in the slightest, but in Digital Combat Simulator: Flaming Cliffs 3 there's a mission in the F-15C where you do river valley flying through the Caucasus barely 50 feet above the deck to sneak up on an A-50 "Mainstay" AWACS to shoot it down. The premise of the mission is simple enough, but it was probably one of the most fun times I had flying a combat flight simularor.

...or if you want to bypass the pathfinding issues endemic of Infinity Engine games, you could play the Icewind Dale module for Neverwinter Nights 2.

How's pathfinding now? I'm going to be real disappointed if it isn't fixed come Icewind Dale II: Enhanced Endition.

The Strugatsky brothers' "Roadside Picnic" and Vladimir Sorokin's "Ice Trilogy" ticks off at least two of those checkboxes; I'm unaware if they come in audiobook form. If she wants to broaden her search to other Eastern European countries she can't go wrong with Stanislaw Lem's work. Pirx the Pilot, The Cyberiad, and The Star Diaries being all time favourites of mine.

If you like horror games that take place on a derelict ship and can deal with a nauseatingly un-optimised engine, I'd recommend Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason: It has probably one of the best video game stories I've experienced in spite of its flaws. Helloween4545 did an LP of it (granted he doesn't have a terribly flattering opinion of it): http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/113273/lets-play-cryostasis-set-15-wait-what

An interesting test for the new RIM-174 Standard Missile 6 wherein it intercepted two over-the-horizon seaskimming targets via cueing over datalink. This was after the missile was tested against a target flying terrain masking several miles inland. http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2073 And because there's something exhilarating about a ship unleashing a veritable Itano Circus:

In my mind, the "Experience the Story" difficulty mode can be beaten with all your PCs being Deep Gnome fighters wielding quarterstaves and wearing the shirts on their backs.

Any ludicrous puzzles in DF so far? I had to play the TLC with my brother on his computer across from mine with a FAQ open and him confusedly reading out the solutions to the puzzles: "Put the candy in the radioactive goop, give it to the cop who then spits it out at the cinema owner who then chases away the cop with his broom so you can duck into the alley?"

I kind of blame Doctor Who for creating the expectation for *ALL* in-game NPCs existing either as paragons of or projections of postmodern progressive values, which is where I think the hate for Ashley Williams in Mass Effect is couched in. She's a good character. Are the space racist aspects of her likeable? Of course not, but her backstory is nuanced enough that how she is is kind of expected given her background.

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition to come out next month: http://www.pcgamer.com/icewind-dale-enhanced-edition-will-be-out-this-month/ The presence of the "Experience the Story" difficulty mode seems to be the sad product of the direction Bioware was going; there was a comment I felt was pretty bang-on:

Streaming again... twitch.tv/Lamashtu

But DA2 didn't let you use it, IIRC. Then again why do you need a whorehouse when you have Isabella, same number of VDs. You can hire bunch of male and female prostitutes to entertain you in the brothel (The Blooming Rose), so I am not sure what you mean with "DA2 didn't let you use it"? "IIRC" Anyways I never used it. Prostitution in games is stupid, paying for something that doesn't improve your stats. I suppose it's one of those "Choice & Consequences" things, though I don't think there's that many people out there who want to roleplay as someone that has to pay for companionship.

The Russian Navy has in general got cornholed over budget issues; The Admiral Ushakov formerly Kirov nuclear guided missile battlecruiser has been languishing in the Zvezdochka yards since 1990, and its reactor has been a radiological hazard for surrounding environs for years.