P4: Gritty Reboot

Trout is such a great ball player. Unbelievable that he's only 20.

Replaying ME2 during SGM? You are anathema to us.

It should be arriving today, so if I have time to run through a quick match and post some impressions, I will. My main concern is complexity as it appears to have lots of global effects to keep track of, and they're constantly changing each round. This could be great for a gamer group, but I'm not sure how it will go over with the wife.

I feast on your tears.

Legend of Grimrock, actually... I haven't really played much new this year.

The achievement issue is a little muddy. They have said there are achievements but they are "developer-driven" for each game, though there is a Nintendo-made console achievement feature. I wonder if something isn't being lost in translation, because from all I've read it can be taken as either a "yes" on them, but not mandatory for games, or a "no" on them other than isolated in-game achievements as in Metroid Prime 3. We will see as release approaches (for the record, I don't care about achievements at all, even on Steam).

I ordered the A Game of Thrones card game (includes some board game elements) so I'll report back on how it is once we get it in.

Got this sucker for $30 on Amazon. I cancelled my Ghost Stories order as it was over a week and they hadn't shipped it yet. Oh wait bought this for a dollar on Amazon...

Or, you know, his leading the AL in hitting and stolen bases. Whichever reasoning you'd like to use

Portal 2 is one of the best games I've ever played. It's different in that it's more of a full game, more narrative-driven, whereas Portal 1 was a glorified tech demo, quite literally. Both are fantastic games, but Portal 2 is much more satisfying overall.

CSTW and BODVII are great netbook games.

Finished a three-hour match of Killer Bunnies & the Journey to Jupiter last night. It's... fun, but hardly balanced, and the rules can be a mess. Kinda wish the relative who had brought it over had started us with the core card game with no expansions before dropping the board game on us.

I'm a Bethany Joy Lenz man myself.

Muse is great, don't care if they were on Twilight. Guilty pleasures on television: Supernatural, seasons 1-4 of One Tree Hill, Roswell, Last Man Standing. For music, that Gotye song, Hanson, Lady Gaga, the occasional pop radio hit. For movies... can't think of any I'm really "ashamed" of even on a superficial level. Sucker Punch got panned, and I love it, but the critics were wrong... so they should be ashamed.

Mike Trout.

Lol. No.

I believe he wanted to use X-Talk for discussion posts on the main PXOD site, but we shot him down. Then he tried to use it for an adult video blog but it was already taken, so he somehow convinced Dean to use it for the forum.

I'm going to make a realistic goal: Bastion on the PC, and Skyward Sword on the Wii. If I can pull those off in July I will be a happy camper.

How is Pokemon Conquest?

Amazon seems to be the best in the US as far as low prices go, unless a game is out of print. Your big box stores stock hardly any designer board games. I have only found Ticket to Ride, Catan, and a small assortment of Fantasy Flight games at Target: Deadwood, Rune Age, and Lord of the Rings. Wal-Mart doesn't stock any designer games.

Seinfeld has held up so well, other than the early '90s pop culture references. It still surpasses most everything on TV. Arrested Development came awfully close, though. Forgot to mention that I really enjoy Better off Ted, even though it died so early.

That "hmmm" better translate to "awesome".

When I read Kotaku, it was unbelievable how many times I'd read a headline & article, then scroll to the comments only to find the author's entire premise was factually incorrect.

I've avoided this thread (as well as the Politics thread) for as long as possible, mainly because I like all you guys, and arguing on the internet often disintegrates into an exercise in futility before too long. I don't want to start flame wars, I don't want to argue in circles, and I don't want to stay up into the wee morning hours pounding on my keyboard at people that I always love discussing games with. Still, it's hard to avoid a thread that's constantly popping up under the "New Content" tab, especially one that's focused on a subject that has been close to me all my life--indeed, one I studied in college for several years. As some of you may know, I'm a Christian, a Protestant to be exact, a Southern Baptist to be as precise as I care to be. My parents were Christians, which is where I learned the faith from. This is not to say that their faith defines me, but while some "convert" or find faith later in life as my wife and her family did, I grew up in a Christian household. I did wrestle with my faith throughout high school but emerged firmer in my convictions. I'm not here to "defend religion" because frankly, many religions are awful, as are many incarnations of institutionalized Christianity. I'm not here to flame homosexuals (heh) because that's not what Jesus did or cared about primarily. I'm not here to push a "Christian right" agenda, because a faith for me is not political. I'm not here to argue anyone into the faith, because it can't be done. I would, however, like to share a little bit about what I believe and why, in an attempt to bring some understanding of the other side of the discussion. Correct me if I'm wrong but I do see that Yant, Battra, and Atom appear to share my theistic views, so just to be clear, I'm not trying to step on their toes or speak for them. I believe in the existence of God. While I'm not here to write a thesis statement for my M. Div or anything, to me the cosmological argument, the moral argument, and the telelogical argument provide ample proof of His existence. As a disclaimer, I do not expect this to convert anybody, nor do I expect a college dropout's 15-minute summary of arguments used for God's existence for the past 700 years to be complete or unassailable. First, the cosmological: our universe is built on causes and effects, a line of dominoes toppling if you will. The first domino to topple must have been toppled by an untoppled being who is by definition uncaused and resides outside the chain, outside the cause-and-effect system. The main atheistic rebuttal that I hear is that this simply pushes back the domino line by one, and leaves us asking, "Who caused God?" Yet this misunderstands the line of reasoning, and fallaciously implies that infinite causes are possible. Second, the moral argument: the unquestionable fact of a universal set of morals--variations, yes, exceptions, yes, but the undeniable ubiquity of abstract concepts like "right" and "wrong" points to a giver of conscience. New Atheism claims morality evolved blindly for the sole purpose of human survival, yet this leaves us stranded in the uncomfortable position of admitting that no one morality is "righter" or "wronger" than another, only "more evolved" or "less evolved". Finally, the telelogical: those familiar with the intelligent design movement have heard the term "irreducible complexity", a concept that is at its heart a branch of this line of reasoning. We see design in the universe, ergo a designer. Atheists would have us believe the evolutionary debate is settled; however, this is far from the case. Though I am no expert in biology, micro- or otherwise, if I may point the open-minded to Uncommon Descent and Evolution News, they do a fine job of dismantling modern evolutionary research on a daily basis. It does you no good as an atheist to confront straw men instead of the forefront of ID research. As for my more specific Christian beliefs, I do believe the Bible to be the Word of God. It is often misunderstood in modernity, ripped from context, and contorted to fit people's agendas. But I believe the facts it teaches: God created the world and mankind, mankind has fallen away from God, and God provided His Son as a sacrifice to cover the sins of His people once and for all, for those who would believe. Its hairier details are of course always up for debate as has been the case for the past couple of millennia. Anyway, I don't particularly care whether you believe in God or not. I like all you guys and any difference of belief does nothing to change that. Hug it out?