Thursday Next

They won't have recognised the revenue from those pre-orders. So while it was sitting in the account, they won't have marked it as money in the bank so to speak (at least not if they were sensible).

Took me a long time to remember (or is it new?) that holding up on the d-pad does the Riddle solving snapshot thingamajig. Also, yeah, whoever mapped transform to L2 is a prat. EDIT: Now I think about it, pressing d-pad Up to toggle would be a much better idea. I'm used to tapping up to toggle Detective mode on/off. Using it to toggle tank mode would have been second nature.

Not keen on the races, it's ok for city traversal, but I prefer Batmanning about the place.

Thought I'd just get that one Riddler item last night around 9pm. Finally stopped playing when my controller died at 3am. :/

The PC version definitely had blue lightning things sticking out of it. Pressing Triangle was a good idea.

Batmaaaaaaaan! Why do I have a stupid job?! I need to fight the crimes.

no parents.

Not familiar with it. Dr. Seuss isn't much of a thing over here. Edit: Stars, bellies, sneaky dude... Got it.

I guess if everyone gets to pick a race, race does become pretty meaningless which isn't a bad thing. *shrug*

Sounds badass. "Nothing's gonna happen to you. You're indestructible! Bullets slide off you, you play with 'em."

In response to Ethan's point, yeah I'm speculating on motives, but that's exactly what happens when someone goes for a gender reassignment. They are carefully assessed to determine if (in someone else's opinion) they want the operation/drugs for the right reasons. As for the difference being arbitrary / meaningless. Yeah, it probably is. I'd argue that whether you identify as black or white is similarly arbitrary and meaningless as it won't change anything. If you are white you will continue to benefit from the privilege that goes with it and if you identify as black you will be given short shrift by that community. The whole thing comes across as a bit... Ali G.

Yeah, that's a pretty close analogy. You run negative splits until you miss the pace and are out of the "game". It really is a horrible thing psychologically as the weakest person is made to sit there while the rest continue to compete. Each new level compounds your defeat and you are forced to watch as your fitter peers go on to greater success. It's something that would probably be referred to as "character building".

Just realised that life is parodying South Park.

A bit more gameplay and such.

Gotcha, I agree as it goes, that gameplay snippet was very linear. The open/explory bits of the game were (for me) much better. Just wanted to check what the "bad parts" were in others' opinions.

Now I think more about this, I've got Turkish Cypriot, Italian, English and Candian grandparents (one of each). I tick the "White (British)" box rather than the "White (European)" or "White (Other)". Not sure if this makes me transracial or not.

Trainers were banned (in my experience) because they left dirty black streaks on the polished wooden floors. I believe we used to refer to them as "green flash trainers" due to their similarity to the dunlop shoe of the same name. Edit: The bleep test was sadistic. It was more about not being in the bottom 5 than winning. First person to drop out was always marked as a bit of a Sam Tarly.

I think where it breaks down for me is that your gender is determined on a coin toss. Parents will give birth to a boy or a girl. Pre-conception you can't determine whether it will be one or the other. But you know that (certain genetic issues aside) it'll be a boy or a girl. Race on the other hand is determined pre-conception. You'll definitely be black, white, asian, mixed race, etc. if your parents are. No amount of genetic dice rolling is going to chuck in some asian genes to a baby born to a couple that only have black and white ancestry. Transgender, to me is moving away from something you are not. You know you are not female, so you change to male gender. Transracialism doesn't feel the same. It seems like this person is moving towards something you prefer, rather than moving away from white culture because she knows that is not what she is, she's moving toward black culture for, reasons. In essence, if you had a transgender person in a box with only people of the same genetic gender, they would say "I am not the same gender as these people", if you put a transracial person in a box with only people of their genetic race, I don't think they would say the same.

Which bits?

Ours are still more photogenic. Though yours do explain why someone would not be averse to taking it up as a moniker.

Hellblade looks cool.

Just want to be clear that there is (I hope obviously) a degree of devil's advocacy here. The industry sees games as being more servicey, consumers (by and large and outside of multiplayer) see them as goodsy. Legal constructs at the moment put them in the more servicey end of things, but there is a steady shift towards the goodsy. As a consumer, I tend to consume games in a goodsy fashion. However, I do see the argument from the industry side as well. I think it is right that games (and films and music and books) are treated differently to say spoons. People don't get excited when a new spoon comes out, use it for every meal for a few weeks, then stick it in a draw, start using a new spoon and forget about the old spoon, maybe going back to it now and then for nostalgic reasons. Similarly, the appeal of the spoon is not to experience eating with it once (after which you have seen most of what the spoon can do) after which you will only really go back to it if it is an exceptional spoon. This doesn't mean I'm against refunds. Quite the opposite. I completely agree that publishers should stand by their products. It just means that I think that game refunds need different restrictions to other, more mundane goods. Both EA and Valve have tried to address this, EA with a 24hr from boot and Valve with a 2 hour playtime limit. Both have their merits and weaknesses. The major issue with them both is that they do not scale with the game, which is why makers of shorter games feel aggrieved, and I think, justifiably so. I would much rather see a % completion system adopted rather than "playtime" (who's to say that you didn't boot the game, then have to run down the shops or whatever.) and see refunds scale as well if for example you reach 50% you get an 80% refund etc.

Makes sense, I mean they get all the money. It's only sensible that they share that by giving some to the state. It'll then trickle down to the state and everyone wins.

It'll be even more delayed. And even more ladylike.