TheMightyEthan

Whaaaaat?! Motherf- ...didn't they know I had a star? A STAR! I haven't gone to Kotaku for ages, but I still liked knowing my little star was there... I'm gonna miss that guy...

I also left out an important facet of the difference: Requirements that you carry car insurance are state laws, whereas this health insurance law is federal. The states have much broader powers to regulate individuals than the federal government does, so lots of things the states have the power to do the federal government doesn't.

Normally I hate online authentication, but Steam is so unobtrusive that I don't mind it at all. You hear that devs? This is how you do DRM.

Holy crap, assuming this list is fairly comprehensive I've only played 5 of the games that have come out this year. I was on a bit of a slump for a while, but beyond that I think I've mostly been playing games from last year. Anyway, here are the 5 I've played: Mass Effect 3 Journey Civilization V: Gods & Kings Quantum Conundrum Endless Space Beta Mass Effect 3 - Despite the controversy I thought this game was overall fantastic, even before the Extended Cut, and I think Bioware nailed that so this is definitely a contender for my GOTY for the whole year. Journey - Great experience, played through the whole thing in one sitting with the same guy from almost the very beginning. I'm not sure good it is as a "game", but I liked it a lot anyway. Civ V: Gods & Kings - I was kind of disappointed with how little this expansion changed the game, but I do like the religion and espionage mechanics. Probably not really a GOTY contender though. Quantum Conundrum - Good game, I'd even say comparably good to Portal in terms of gameplay only, but it's overall vision wasn't as strong. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the DLC (I got the season pass), but it's not the best thing ever. Endless Space Beta - I'm not sure if this should even count since the final code doesn't release until next Wednesday, but I've been playing the beta for about the last month and I really like it. 4X in space has always appealed to me but I could never really get in to Sins because it was real time, and GalCiv was just so damned overwhelming. This game is great and it's the only thing to really challenge ME3 for my first-half GOTY. Ultimately though I'd have to say my 2012.5 GOTY would have to be ME3. Gravity Rush - Holy crap this game is amazing. Played it at my wife's grandparents' house this past week and freaking loved it. Now I can't decide whether this or ME3 is my GOTY...

The forum's certainly been more active today, which is a very good thing.

I agree. It definitely took away from my enjoyment of Quantum Conundrum that so many of the puzzle-solving methods had already been shown in videos (not that specific puzzle solutions were spoiled, but that the kinds of things you're capable of were).

Yeah, I agree, great one. I think the only game we have in common is Ocarina of Time, but it's still a great collection.

Yeah, though Steam makes that slightly inconvenient in that every time you launch a game it pauses all downloads, so you then have to alt-tab out to restart them. Not a big deal though, just slightly odd.

They've made a big deal about how the Frontier area is supposed to be about the equivalent of a major city, in terms of the time you'll spend in it and the things to do there.

Tengential: Are those words Gaelic?

Japanese people certainly are racist.

If you want to think being gay is wrong go for it, whatever, that's your prerogative, but it's no different than believing that black people bear the mark of Cain: sure you're free to believe it, but if you go around saying so expect people to call you out on your hateful bullshit. As far as the war on Christians goes: get the fuck over yourself. There's no war on Christians. What there is is people who disagree with you trying to assert their rights, and Christians bitching that it's infringing on their right to discriminate. That shit doesn't fly with race, it doesn't fly with gender, it doesn't fly with religion, and soon it won't fly with sexual orientation either. Fucking deal with it.

You're required to have car insurance here too, but the difference is you're always free to not have a car. While theoretically you're free to not live if you want, that seems like a much more significant burden to place on someone wanting to avoid the requirement.

Even though i haven't played it in ages, that still makes me sad.

Haven't played Game of Life, so I can't comment, but Monopoly is the worst kind of luck of the die-based bullshit. Doesn't matter how solid your strategy is, the dice can still fuck you over on a whim. That's because it's Capitalism: The Game. And I'd say it's pretty realistic.

OMG NO! I'm going to pretend that

Local/state elections. If it were just President I wouldn't bother.

People are assholes, and will continue to be assholes forever, and will always use ideologies to justify it. Regardless of the ideology. I'm no fan of the religious right, but they're far from the only ones who do it.

This. I just won't be voting for a Presidential candidate this year, unless I decide to vote for a third party candidate. I have the luxury of knowing my vote for President actually makes 0 difference though, because Kansas is a winner-take-all state and Obama has no chance in hell here.

Golf? Holy shit I'm def getting SC2 now. 1:1 golf was a major factor in getting a Move, before I found out the Tiger Woods games blew.

That seems like a really weird definition of "fair" to me... A thing is bad because one group doesn't benefit from it as much as another group does?

I don't understand what you mean.

I think that in that ending I really don't get why people are upset about the new ending. I thought it was a great addition.