TheMightyEthan

I'd say you could arguably call From Dust and that Ghost Recon game strategy games.

@Yant: Books aren't evidence in the scientific sense. Unless you mean those books contain records of evidence.

Maybe it works better in the US, for some reason?

Yeah, IIRC near the end of Revelations you hear them going through customs in New York.

It was just a Shadow of the Colossus valentine. I think I saw that elsewhere. Is that it now? No, it was a different one, but it did have the same "punch line" of "you found my weak spot". It was just a normal card, single-image.

That's the $64,000 question. And the 1st amendment, with it's whole "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" thing makes it even more complicated.

The specific understanding of the mechanics of evolution that we have is almost certainly flawed in some way, but that evolution occurs is an indisputable fact. Sort of like how relativity is almost certainly not 100% right in every way (and Newtonian physics definitely isn't), but no one's arguing that gravity doesn't exist. *Edit* - To deny evolution is to deny the existence of drug resistant bacteria, or the various breeds of dogs.

When you suggested it be a lady my first thought was how awesome it would be to actually play the part of something like the Cortesans to sneak into areas, rather than just surrounding yourself with them. One problem I see, from a lore perspective: the Assassins are a Western organization, fighting the Templars, another Western organization... although now that I check "feudal Japan" extended into the late 1800's, so you could easily set it there but still be well after contact with the West.

I think the first one, which launched in 2007, was supposed to be set in late 2011 (don't have a source to back that up). I do remember though one of the guys at Ubisoft saying they have to get AC3 out this year though because the story is leading up to the December 2012 end of the world thing and it wouldn't make any sense for the game to come out after that. Basically it started out near-future but now we've caught up with that future. *Edit* - Ah, here: http://en.wikipedia....series)#Premise *Edit 2* - And here's an article with that quote I was remembering, it was from the creative lead: http://www.ausgamers.com/news/read/3119688

I liked it. Combat felt a bit better than ME2, which was miles better than ME1. I would have liked to see it open up more like ME1 and not be such a corridor shooter, but oh well. I neither liked nor disliked the parts with the kid. Basically, I didn't have anything against any part of the demo, though I wish they had showed us the weapons and armor systems. Oh well, we should be able to get a peek at that once the multiplayer unlocks, assuming the system's the same between the two.

I'm not sure what the difference between "Future" and "Present Day" is. The series is apparently revolving around the end of the world in 2012, so the present has caught up with the game time.

I always pronounced it "Loo-min-ess" because I had a friend who knew how to pronounce it, otherwise I probably would have pronounced it "Loo-mins". As for Nier, I've always read it like "near".

Yeah, the issue isn't employers refusing to allow their employees to get certain procedures, it's employers refusing to provide health care plans that cover those procedures. Since most Americans get their health coverage through their employer and cannot afford to get an individual plan it means that those people can't get insurance coverage of those services. They can still get the services, but they have to pay for them out of pocket. @Thursday: the argument is that if the Catholic hospital has to provide a health care plan that covers birth control then they're being forced to pay for something that's against their religion, thus they're not being allowed to freely exercise their religion. I don't agree, but I don't think the argument can just be casually dismissed either.

Do you mean Netflix on XBL? Or does Netflix on PC use GFWL somehow?

I guess I'm one of the lucky few who's never had an issue with it.

Yeah I don't think it's discriminatory either, but I do think the idea of people getting exceptions to the law because of moral disagreement is pretty ridiculous. As I said, it's a little different with religion because there's the first amendment specifically addressing religious freedom, but to expand it to any moral disagreement is a recipe for chaos. I just picked some admittedly extreme examples of things I think are justifiable with the same reasoning. @Thursday: That law hasn't passed yet, it's just proposed. So Jehovah's witnesses cannot yet refuse to cover blood transfusions for their employees.

Yeah, Federal law only requires unpaid leave, though some states require paid (usually not for the whole 12 weeks though). *Edit* - When we're talking about religion it's one thing, because we do have the first amendment specifically protecting religion, but there's now a bill in the senate that would make it so any employer can deny coverage for any medical treatment they are opposed to on moral grounds. I think that's pretty ridiculous, you don't get to be exempt from the laws just because you're morally opposed to them. What if there are employers who are morally opposed to employing black people? Or Jews? Or women? I know this law wouldn't allow that, and there are differences between not providing health coverage and not employing certain groups, but I don't see how the reasoning is meaningfully different.

It was just a Shadow of the Colossus valentine.

Specifically, the question is about religious organizations that employ a large percentage of employees of a different religion (like Catholic hospitals, for example).

Dean, that site reached its bandwidth limit.

@RockyRyan: This demo is from pre-PAX, so I'm running under the assumption that it's an old build and a lot of the animations and voice acting is just placeholder. The game only went gold on Monday, and PAX was way back in August.

Why dammit?