TheMightyEthan

No, I just bolded it to make clear that that was the part that amused me so much. I know what he was saying.

Okay, thanks. I'll stay away from it then, as I'm sure it would just end up being another entry in the backlog.

lmao @ "There's nobody left who isn't American who goes 'No, no, Genesis is historical FACT!'"

I'm debating Mafia 2, it's on Steam for $7.50 (75% off), but I would like to hear if it's worth it.

They threw her DS away? Like in the trash? WTF?

Mafia 2 is $7.50 on Steam... worth it?

Nitpicky, I know, but even if you let the Council die you can still be reinstated as a Spectre as long as you picked Anderson to be the human Councilor.

This. Violence in games has never bothered me at all. This past summer I was driving home from a meeting in a nearby town with my grandfather (I was interning at his law office) and this couple on a motorcycle passed us, neither wearing helmets (which I actually commented on as they passed us). About 5 miles up the road we come across a wreck where apparently somebody in a car had pulled out across the road in front of the motorcycle. We were the first people on the scene. The people in the car were fine but both of the people on the motorcycle were semi-conscious and laying on their backs on the ground, moaning and trying feebly to get up, broken glass and blood everywhere. Nothing in a game has ever bothered me, but that was really disturbing; I felt weird (can't think of a better way to articulate it) for a couple of days after that.

lol, is that Matt from Heroes? He would most def be overpowered.

lol, I'm at the university right now on the free wireless, and clicking on that informs me that this IP was banned from 4chan last year for posting child porn. Way to go, college students!

But "dawdle" means to be unnecessarily slow/lingering, which is different from how Hottie used "doddle".

That is so cool.

We have "piece of cake" and "easy peasy" (or the longer "easy peasy lemon squeezy"), but I've never heard "doddle" before. We also say "easy as pie", which just the other day I was commenting to my fiancee about how it doesn't make any goddamned sense.

Another contender: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-11-dead-island/710652 You can watch it in chronological order here: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/cinematic-trailer-dead-island/710674

I've played through ME2 like 4 times, and I still can't decide what the morally "right" option is in Legion's loyalty mission.

The ultimate outcome is irrelevant, and I never thought that anyone thought it was outcome based. Bioware obviously considers freeing her the morally good thing to do, and is simply allowing the morally good decision have negative consequences. I would love it if some paragon decisions from the first two games have as yet unseen negative consequences in ME3, but that still doesn't change the fact that Bioware is applying an "ordained by God" type label to which actions are good and bad. *Edit* - Honest question: did people think that what was "paragon" and "renegade" was based on the outcome of the decision? Honestly that had never even occurred to me until just now, I always thought it was simply what appears to be the morally good decision based on the current situation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome may be.

Well that's a sweet deal.

See, and that's an interesting thing to do. My issue with it is that if they're going to experiment with trying to change things up so much, do it with a new franchise. I can't speak for everyone, but I liked DA:O for what it was, and I wanted more of that. I'm not saying that franchises need to stagnate, but I think that if you're going to make such fundamental changes then you need to either pick a new franchise, or at the very least do a reboot rather than a sequel. I dunno. DA:O's storytelling wasn't the strongest. It wasn't what I liekd most about DA:O by a loooooooooooooooooong shot. I'm much more miffed at Bioware for borking companion outfits than by the change in narrative style. I think it's wonderful and appropriate to experiment within the same series. I mean, it still feels like a Dragon Age game, just with a different approach to storytelling. In fact, I feel that this style has a lot of promise. If it lives up to even half of its promise, it'll be a far better narrative than DA:O's sort of generic "Save the Realm!" narrative. Actually, the companion outfits and stuff is what I was talking about. I would be fine with the way they changed the narrative structure if they had just left everything else alone (or tweaked it, not canned it).

I agree with Johnny that Obsidian was on the right track with Fallout: New Vegas. Rather than having defined morality, you simply make the choices have consequences, and focus on how the people in the world react to the choices. This has the advantage of being more realistic (Faction A may think Action X was good, while Faction B thinks it was bad, jut like real life) and avoiding player disconnect when the player disagrees with the developer's conclusion as to whether a particular action is good or bad. Mass Effect spoilers in my example of player disconnect: By avoiding a universal meter of what is "good" or "bad", and basing it instead on people's reactions, you allow a much more interesting and realistic approach to morality.

See, and that's an interesting thing to do. My issue with it is that if they're going to experiment with trying to change things up so much, do it with a new franchise. I can't speak for everyone, but I liked DA:O for what it was, and I wanted more of that. I'm not saying that franchises need to stagnate, but I think that if you're going to make such fundamental changes then you need to either pick a new franchise, or at the very least do a reboot rather than a sequel.

Oh, you'll get no argument from me there, I was just debating the moral theory behind the actions, not necessarily the actual actions of any specific real person.

To be clear, that specific outlook only applies to digital goods. Taking a physical good without permission is always harming someone because you are depriving them of that physical thing. In the context of digital media piracy, however, the only thing you can be said to be depriving the rightful owner of is the money you would have paid for it, and so if you would not have given them the money anyway then you haven't deprived them of anything and so they aren't harmed. I believe you and I would agree that it is wrong to take physical items without permission.

Oh, my boots aren't falling apart, they're still in great shape. I do wear my tennis shoes until they're absolutely destroyed though.

What are you basing this off exactly? It wouldn't be the first time your companions in a BioWare game have been wrong on something. I think that makes it pretty clear how Bioware stands on the issue. I agree with you that the actual choices are much greyer than that, but that just goes to show the limitations of the wheel: even with choices that aren't so obviously "good" or "bad" Bioware shoehorned them into those labels and decided which was which. Although I do think "good" and "bad" don't quite capture the paragon/renegade distinction, I think it's closer to lawful/chaotic than good/evil.