Hurlshort

It's my daughter's first Christmas. I'm extremely excited, and I'm enjoying every moment with my little family unit of me, my wife, and my daughter. On a less exciting note, my sister wants to have Christmas Eve at her place, and she lives a couple hours away from the rest of the family. The problem is my Grandma's health is failing, and it's unlikely she can travel that distance without being really uncomfortable. I'm pushing for us to do something at our Grandma's house, but my sister has 5 kids and she's not happy about it. We had the same conflict last year, but it was my Grandpa who's health was failing. He died recently, so that was his last Christmas and he didn't get to be a part of the big family event. Sure, we all visited him on our own, but it's not the same.

This is also a problem with taking a pen and paper ruleset and putting them into a hardwired game. In a PnP game, the DM can adjust rules as they see fit. But it requires some hefty programming to do that in a video game. I see the D&D ruleset as a bit of an impediment to a good video game. Considering the pace of leveling and speed of a video game, a simpler format like SPECIAL is easier to jump in and understand.

Mass Effect, lots of Mass Effect. Every spare minute I have, I load this game up. Driving around on the planets is awesome, although the physics are pretty bizarre.

Christianity is a major religion in the US. The whole holocaust-denier argument is ridiculous and insulting to a large portion of people on this planet.

I'm not in the know, but I'm guessing proof of concept is a very early stag in development, meaning this game is at least two years out. Good to hear it's in the pipeline, though. Also interesting that he referenced the original and not the sequel. Sounds like they are aware of the contempt people have for it. Oooh, we have spell check!

The ESRB is about a thousand times better than the MPAA. If you are a gamer in the US, you should be extremely thankful we have the ESRB, because they are one of the few things that allow the game industry to consistently shut down attempts at government regulation. If we want our industry to grow and not get stonewalled by major retailers, we need the ESRB or an equivalent source of information on content in games.

Huh, I'm not really feeling threatened out here in the US. Sure, there is the threat of a terrorist attack, but I don't foresee an invasion a la Red Dawn anytime soon. Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't live in fear because of 9/11. It was a terrible tragedy, but it happened in 2001 and there hasn't been any follow up. In regards to domestic policy, I'm not quite sure where you are going there.

*cheerfully* ...Because clearly an aggressively expanding communist bloc could have been expected to stop at Vietnam, and not go on to take over Laos and Cambodia, followed by Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia... Australia... India... that would have been just fine. Isn't that right, my unfeasibly 1920s friend? If a country is not strong enough to stand on its own against those that transgress it then it doesn't have the right to exist. Geez, does that mean nobody should help other countries against aggressors? That would change history a bit.

I'm extremely into the game. I find pretty much everything fascinating. I'm also terrible in a firefight, I chose and engineer and I just hide and let my minions do the dirty work. Exploring and surveying is awesome.

While I agree that there is some good progress being made, there still is a long way to go before I'd say Muslims aren't face discrimination in the US. In the summer I often teach adults, and they know a lot less about Muslims than my middle school students. Maybe in ten years we will have a more educated public in the US, I sure hope so, but I'm not sold on it being there now.

Actually during Desert Shield/Storm we did have "cultural sensitivity" training. It usually was just about what not to do so no one got offended. Dont drink in public, don't swear, dont leave porno mags out where they could be seen. We were in the middle of nowhere with nary a drop of alcohol to be found so there was small chance of getting into trouble there. But I heard the Saudi miltary guys would pay as much as $100 US for a recent issue of Hustler. That's good to hear, I know a few veterans I've talked to from Vietnam felt that was a huge flaw in their time there. They were often expected to fill a police type role but they had little knowledge of the citizens and their culture.

Because they're being lied to. Though "lied" may be too harsh. Dissemination of faulty or biased information isn't always intentional. What? You don't think the xenophobia that the average American has towards Islam might have a little to do with it? Geez, the guy is accused of attending an Islamic school like he spent a year in a terrorist training camp. We send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan without even training them on the culture of the people they are supposed to be helping. We have politicians who probably don't even know what the Qu'ran is. Islam is the second largest religion in the world, and it's growing faster than Christianity, so maybe the US should stop treating it like something evil.

Gee, I wonder why so many Muslims have an issue with the US?

This is remarkably well-said.

I hear the multiplayer is awesome, particularly the hardcore servers. It's on my Christmas list.

Paycheck? Bleh, that's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I actually like Ben Affleck, and I still barely made it through that trash.

It's got Thomas Jane, he just might make it watchable.

Agreed, parents are the ones that need to be regulated. I do think the gaming industry needs to be more responsible for what it puts on the shelves though. There are just too many violent games out there. It would be nice to see the industry try and branch out from that. It's boring. Just because horror movies sell well doesn't mean all of Hollywood is focused entirely on them.

Nah, Toskala is just starting to hit his stride. It seems like the Leafs are going to get better as the season goes along. Plus, it sounds like (from the opponents you've mentioned) their early schedule was pretty tough.

It's pretty sad that folks give negative reviews just for being bad at a game. I better stay away from Halo 3, if that's the case.

I also hear it's fairly mediocre. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it on my Christmas list anymore. Kor, the next game we play is huge! Series is knotted up 1-1. I was looking at the stats, and man, you basically blew me out in the 3rd. I think you had 20 shots.

Wait a sec, every place except Neverwinter you mentioned is more of a town or village than a city. Plus, have you even played Mass Effect? Why are you talking about it like an expert?

They have pretty much put there eggs in the console basket, so I'd definitely avoid them unless you own a console. Still, Rainbow Six Vegas is a better multiplayer game for my money than Halo 3. More tactics and use of cover make it a tad more believable than the run and gun titles.

Hippy

Eh, I can see that back in the days when console games were fairly simplistic, but today console titles are extremely complex. There shouldn't be any game stopping bugs, but these bugs still leave the game very playable.