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The Xyco

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Posts posted by The Xyco

  1. Just got through Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese. Shockingly poignant with really in-your-face caricatures of stereotypes concerning the Chinese-American and other Asian communities. The setup of three concurrent stories that all fall together makes it all the more enjoyable.

    Going through Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World. More accurately a manifesto of global optimism than a substantive analysis. Still makes some good points though.

    Also continuing read Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi. God damn this book is huge.

  2. The distinction I am making is in relation to Burning Crusade. When I made it to TBC zones, I couldn't figure out why I was going there (on a level beyond just getting to 70 and moar phat loot). Hell, I think I spent about two weeks just fighting different-colored orcs.

    Conversely, from the moment I set foot in Northrend, it was ample and clear that I was there to fight Arthas -- first and foremost. Blizz did a good job of not making him the abstraction that Illidian was either, I've encountered him three times now since I've started playing again. I know who his lieutenants and generals are as well when I encounter them.

    This is at least the impression I am getting coming into the story arc midway through old-world WoW, given the Death Knight intro, the Thassarian arc, the quests in Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, Dragonblight, etc.

  3. After browsing WoWiki for a good three hours at work, I can safely conclude that the Warcraft story line is the most grotesquely convoluted piece of work I have ever encountered in a video game. I feel like I have seen all these names and characters, but can't even begin to map it all out. Maybe that's the folly of starting with WoW and trying to backtrack.

    This is also why WotLK is such a great expansion. ALL of the new content in the game can be more or less traced to one figure -- and he's on the cover of the box.

  4. The cutscene with Raiden talking to the Colonel and Rosemary AIs right before the final battle with Solidus.

    That part spoke to me a lot.

    As was intended. It's what makes MGS2 so bloody fantastic. It actually broke down the barrier between the player and the game.

    I didn't sleep all too well the night I beat that game.

    On a lesser scale, Age of Empires made me understand the law of diminishing returns better than my high school ELPSA teacher ever did.

  5. In the past, before games had voice-overs and substantial ambient effects, music was key to setting the proper mood in a game. Music gave depth to characters, story, action, etc. that could not otherwise be gleaned by the primitive graphics, etc.

    In modern games, where gameplay is somewhat modeled on cinema, it adds thematic / dramatic effect.

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