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| I think the thing that annoys me so much about Google+ is that it's intrinsically less social than other networks. So far all I've seen are wannabe journalists with something to the effect of: "Hey, I just found this article someplace, somewhere! See, my feed is relevant! Please don't block me!" I see very little back and forth...very little conversation. It reminds me of a more elaborate Twitter, but with less...everything. Without any sort of social interaction beyond "+1'n" people, this is just an RSS feed, and well, you could get that a decade ago. I'd be willing to chalk this up to the fact that A) Your friends aren't on Google+ yet and B) Newbie journalists are essentially Google's prime test market— and they only post, never engage. C) "Social media" is simply an advertising network for journalists and no longer used for socializing, save for a few. The reason people never engage is because social media is completely and absolutely selfish. Aside from facebooking with your mom, it's not social anymore. It's me, me, me. Other people are corollary to the experience. Everyone posting, is essentially just spewing into the ether, looking for any sycophants they can find, counting them up as a measure of success and then hunting for more. It's always: "How can I increase my brand, how can I reach more people, how can I collect more followers." There just isn't any actual acknowledgement for the community. You do realize that are these people. Some of them, perhaps, are even real, live human beings and not zombies or satanists. You do also realize that you are technically interacting with them? I think what's comical is social media as we know it is going on for 20-years-old, and has really not evolved that much. Web development tools have gotten better and the internet's populace has expanded. The basic "subscribe to people or group," "they subscribe back," "get mutual news feed, leave comments," is unchanged. Yet from about 2006 on, I've been observing this clamoring: "Social media!?!?" "This is new?" "What is this?" "Let's do something with this." "This is the future." It stems mostly from journalism instructors and print magazines seeking relevance. I blame them for the surge. The clone army of journalism students trying to eke a brand for themselves doesn't help, either. I don't know about the future, though. Social media is kind of the past, actually. Shouldn't we have figured out something better in two decades? There's nothing wrong with social media. It's effective and fun. I can while away many hours on a forum or USENET. Mostly, I wish people would stop pretending that it isn't 20-years-old and would stop pretending that it is the "Jesus" of the print industry. Fear not the BBS, the forum, the USENET, or the newsgroup. Fear the Xenos. Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean. | | |
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I don't know what the expectation is for $15.
You can waste $15 a lot of ways. Take a girl to the movies, the movie ends up sucking, then lo and behold you end up not getting any afterall. Buy a $15 plate of fajitas at La Conga and have diarrhea for the next two days. $15 on chips, jerky, and soda when you're hungry...and then you're just fat, can't afford real food, and malnourished.
I played the game for PC and really enjoyed it. I also like Steam. I do have a 1337-box; it's just been four years since I upgraded a piece of hardware. :D Ran like a champ, max settings, 24X FSAA - wide tent, 16X FSAF, FSAAA enabled. Looked pretty good, too. Proof in the pudding that you don't need to build a brand new engine for every single game. Unreal still rocks.
There being too much experience in the game: I beat it at level 8, dinged 9 during the last fight, stopped briefly to spend my skill points while some scum straight out of Zhentil Keep was beating on me. I farmed a lot trying to get to various vendors to buy the things I wanted, which always seemed to have respawn between you and them Respawn was actually my least favorite part of this game. I don't know how people are reaching 10 before the last fight, unless all they do is farm.
It being too easy: I can see that. I didn't die until the very end when I was on the Dragon's back, I thought it was a cut-scene and then I realized I was playing Resident Evil. HIT TRIANGLE NOW. SQUARE. CIRCLE. Okay, you lived.
Crashes too much: I had one random crash. And if I wore leather armor I looked like a pastel Power Ranger. Loot imbalanced: perfect amount. You aren't bombarded like in Borderlands, but there isn't a dearth like in Dark Alliance. Never overfilled my backpack, but kept a steady stream of items flowing into it. This was basically Dark Alliance 3 and that's fun. It's the most fun I've had in a hack 'n slash in years. I had infinitely more fun than I did with the crap Fable series, or the ruining of the Elder Scrolls franchise. If the content gets episodic, well, good for them, other than that it was a fun little dungeon romp with my friends.
There is a dearth of co-op RPGs these days. I end up playing things from the golden age with my friends: Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Seige, Diablo 1, Diablo II. It's nice to have something new to co-op.
It was nice how the characters were recurring, unlike most hack 'n slashes where the Great Deku tree gives you a quest to save the town and then never talks to you again, though it sucks most of them died at the end.
As for the chick in white who I had completely forgotten about until the last scene...no character development there. Reminded me of the weird girl that talks to you in Borderlands randomly, then she just stops for awhile and then at the end you're like: "Oh yeah...that Navi-replacement."
I know what it's like to be in your shoes, though, haters. There have been a few select games that really disappointed: Spore comes to mind. SimCity Societies. That was terribad. Halo, Fallout 3, CoD, the two mentioned above - Oblivion especially, etc. I hate these games with a very serious passion, like I hate Macintosh computers, and game consoles in general.
Still and all, there's a good game in here, that'll keep getting better and there's a lot worse games out there to hate on. A lot. Anyone who knows me, knows that I seethe with hate at the tripe the gaming industry consistently produces. But this game isn't in that category. | | |
| This is taken from an AIM conversation after way too much Amaretto, but I stand by it: Voyager is my favorite Star Trek. That being sad, I am biased, but I also love all other Star Treks. My second favorite is actually DS9 (only because I haven't watched it 400 million times like TNG) and TNG is in third. ToS is actually my fourth favorite, even though I have every episode memorized and I loved the everloving piss out of it. My love for the newer Star Treks that had a lot more adventure and explored a lot more of the Universe = infinite. We went to other quadrants. Now, all that being said: I feel like Janeway was the best captain, but this is a recursive thought because she is only the best Captain because she is the only true successor to Captain Kirk. She's ballsy, bold, brash, and doesn't take any shit. Picard and Sisko have both taken shit, they usually win in the end, but shit is eaten. At the time, Voyager was the most advanced Starship in Starfleet, made specifically for deep-space science exploration. It is only a fraction of the size of the Galaxy-class Enterprise, but it is more heavily armed and armored. Do I like the lost in Space Premise? No, I actually don't. I enjoy having a home base, seeing earth, and a wide area of exploration with a hint of safety from Proximity to starfleet. However, a lot of interesting social constructs were tested in the Delta Quadrant that are very reminiscent of TOS, but didn't really crop up in DS9 or TNG that often. TNG was more about the characters themselves, their interactions, and all that rot. DS9 had a really sweet war, and awesome characters, not that many moral dilemmas, though. It was really VOY and tOS that I feel were basically the same show in a lot of important ways, yet fundamentally different, and Voyager was new enough, and I am obsessed with the Interpid Class of Starships that it wins out. | | |
| I've been trying not to write this for a very long time. I still don't know why I am. It's been four, long, excruciating, agonizing months since I lost the love of my life. I've lost a lot of things. My innocence, my zeal, people, places, careers, ability to serve in the military due to a disability. None of it really hurts like this, though. I had met this girl, who liked me and wanted me right off the bat. And then in a short amount of time fell head over heels for me, and I for her. We had everything in common and got along so well. We had the same lifestyle, the same hours, the same interests and hobbies. We really only really differed in musical tastes. She was kind of a snob about my things. Everything was good in the bedroom, in the romance department, we just kept getting closer and closer. And then, some fights started. Mostly because I didn't like how she treated me some times and she would call me a whiner and a pussy. That's not something I could have ever lived with. So, in some respects this is all for the best. I need a level of equity and compromise in any relationship. Still, though, I get wistful and live in memories all the time. She was everything I always ever wanted and she lived out so many of my fantasies, because she liked those sorts of things, too. I guess what I miss the most is just...sitting around, ordering a pizza, watching TV or playing video games, and having someone there to love and cuddle with. I really miss doing nothing with her. I miss how she loved me. And I miss all the little things. Our smiles, our kisses, our jokes, working on my Jeep together, the way we cuddled, and just being with her. I miss being wanted. She always wanted to be with me, she always wanted to hear from me, she always just wanted me. And I had never really had that before. I didn't think it existed. I played it so cool in that relationship...but then I never stopped. It was the opposite of how I am normally where I scare women off before anything even gets going, where I easilly got something going and then never stopped being "too cool." I think sometimes, maybe if I'd just been a bit more romantic, if I'd just told her how I really felt everyday instead of once or twice a month. But then, I was really, super romantic. I've come to terms with the idea that if she really did love me, she would've tried to make things work and she still would be around. So it's better that I found out now and not after I was really invested. I'm scared now. Scared I'll never find anything as good. Scared I'll always be alone. Scared I'll never find anyone I like. Why? I don't know. I'm a pretty courageous person. I've been through a lot of shit. I have really high standards on who I'll date. I'm quite picky. Which scares me sometimes, too, but I just can't settle. I'm scared no one will ever like me that much again, and I'll never be as cool as I was at being with someone. Fear is the great destroyer, however; and I really just want to forget about everything this Spring Break. I got totally drunk last night and didn't think about her once. So that's a bonus. Yeah, no worries. I'll get that jeep running, and spend a lot of time with all my friends. And next term...I start my new life and I got the G.I. Bill to start paying me again. So there's been some net gains. | | |
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