Wacky

As is now a self-imposed directive: Whereas I, as a denizen of the nation of the Commonwealth of Australia, and am now in 2015, while most of you guys are still in that old and pleasant era of 2014, Whereas Overclocked Remix, which has brought a great deal of joy and social interaction to me since 2004, Whereas OCR still makes ****hin' remixes I download and enjoy, I hereby wish all of you a HAPPY NEW YEAR, and desire that all of you achieve your personal goals, find love (or deepen that which you already have), and live your lives as fully as you wish, with kindness and goodwill to all. Be it known, Wacky PS: It has come to my attention that I have misspelled courtesan, upon which I blame the alcohol and the Significant Other. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Note: I've always thought Jenna Coleman was good looking, but for some reason in this episode she's got some special mojo that radiates sexy in a way Karen Gillan and Billie Piper don't. Thinking man's muffin? Who knows? Now I have Clara on the brain and she can't get out! She must be an angel. Also had a minor crush on Osgood. May have been the scarf.

So my slow and methodical approach of getting up to Heavy Metal and defending like a turtle until I get there now has to deal with the insanity that this expansion now has. I guess a lot more fun games with friends before I try my hand at a ladder match again. And I thought I was pretty good with 100 APM! Edit: My play has been entirely with Terran to the point that I still use SC I strategies with Zerg and Protoss. Which don't work.

Spoiler alert: I am going to assume you've played up to WoL. I'm unimpressed by our main character. The redemptive side of the arc is good. Obviously Ms Kerrigan regained her soul even through the events of the entire campaign, which I actually think was handled very well. Her soul is not a shining example of honour, as in say Mr Horner, General Warfield, or even Valerian Mengsk, and you have to remember even Sarah Kerrigan the flirty ghost of SC I was a stone cold killer who'd waste you without a moment of hesitation if you were between her and her goal. (Nova is basically her before the infestation.) Playing through the missions, you reach the end and go, "Yes, that's a Sarah Kerrigan who is on the way to atone for her actions as the Queen of Blades - but there's still an excellent reason for anyone to put a hole through her forehead." That's appropriate. I actually don't mind that she flipped out over Fox News. You'd flip out if someone did what they did to a good friend and someone who's just saved your lift. What's inappropriate is the most powerful being in the universe (and a rational, tactically minded person) deciding she wants to start an altercation in the middle of a war zone because they can't go back to rescue her boyfriend. And she does owe Jim a lot, but their interactions and love story in this game are totally insane. It seems forced and shoe-horned into the narrative - even if they used to be together, there's nothing showing why and how they'd have such strong feelings for each other again. And it characterises men in love as lovesick puppies willing to put up with whatever insanity comes their way from their girlfriends (true to a point. Which Ms Kerrigan has long passed.) Looking at you, Mr Raynor. Dear God. PS: It's been an honour, General Warfield. A true honour!

It's not as silly as it sounds: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/newsflash-as-clark-kent-quits-daily-planet-20121023-282gn.html I think he might falter when he meets the internet hate machine though...

Have fun Zircon... every time you see your TM being violated you HAVE to defend it! Sometimes I think it's more trouble than it's worth.

Dude, you have my advice. Buying certainty is good and means they can't do more crazy stuff to you in the future.

Actually, now that I think about it, ESO will be filled entirely with men prancing about with female elf avatars with overly large eyes, babyish features, ludicrous bodily proportions, and obscene clothing Like just about every Korean MMO ever

The Radiant Quest system was, I think, a test platform. It's actually pretty good, because it feels a bit like an MMO but it's actually pretty tailored for you. And imagine how sweet it would be to be the duke of Bruma or Jarl of Whiterun, or head of the Morag Tong? If Bethesda really gives players choice and power it'd be the best sandbox game ever made.

Tricia Helfer actually does a great acting bit when Joker first comments about his new bot... "Jeff... I'm... right here." If stunned disbelief can be monotonised, that was it.

I really like this game. Love it, in fact. It's like Morrowind far more than Oblivion, and although I miss acrobatics and athletics and unarmed, and some of the spells are a bit silly (I don't see why they need to leave out levitating or the classic "save me" spells from Morrowind- Mark, Recall, and the Divine Intervention- totally understand why you can't get an Almsivi Intervention) the things they added really make it like you're living in Skyrim (I have a lovely house in Whiterun, and I feel like I'm at home there. Just like Balmora.) Just one thing. I'm standing on top of a gigantic burning grate in the middle of Jovaaskr and I'm not taking any fire damage. Also, I'm diving and I've been submerged in water for about 5 minutes now with no hint of drowning. Think of that as a tiny, trivial thing that means nothing, but in every other Elder Scrolls Game Bethesda would have made that grate deal damage to you. Fire Damage. I would also have drowned. In fact it was a big deal in Oblivion in a Mages Guild quest. Suspension of disbelief gone. Oh well, I'll go to Winterhold and read books in the library. That'll make my character feel better... PS: Can Bethesda and Bioware get together and make a game with Bethesda's world making skills and Bioware's writing and game design skills?

Incidentally I felt Ms. Samantha Traynor was the biggest Up Yours to Fox News. This is good, because I have soft core in the middle of my RPG This is also bad because I have soft core in the middle of my RPG Soft core which the Sig. Other insists on playing because I've had my go and now she can play out all her depraved fantasies involving every kind of Commander Shepard and other sentient being. Did anyone else notice the equivalent of the Bayonetta "One hand controls" with ME3??? THIS IS NOT NORMAL GAME PLAYING BEHAVIOUR

Not from what I'm reading. WE WANTS HAPPY ENDING WITH LOTS OF TINY BLUE CHILDREN is the general go. Incidentally, I really hope they make a Blasto RPG. It would be the most awesome RPG ever made, and to boot, the funniest. You know Bioware could do it.

It's stupid for different reasons than everyone thinks its stupid. ie the stupidity lies not in the fact that Cmmdr Shepard lives happily ever after (or not) but that there's no logical reason why the ending is the way it is.

My impressions of ME3: 1. When did my favourite Gunny Chief start to dress like a cheap whore (and also get a collagen injection. Yuck.) If I want to feel dirty talking to a guidette I can go to my nearest bar. 2. FAWWWWWWLCOOOOOOOOOOOON HEAAAAAADDDBUUUUUUUUUTTT 3. EDI is creepy and Joker should be reprimanded. 4. Everyone complaining about the ending is stupid. 5. Commander Shepard is the biggest slut in the galaxy. 6. Garrus is my new favouritest guy ever. You hit that ass, bro. Bro-fist. 7. Military discipline apparently doesn't exist even on an Alliance Cruiser (Fraternization cough cough) As I've previously stated, Bioware makes us care about their characters. In many ways that makes the emotional, heartwrenching stuff more real, more punchy. The entire point of a good RPG is to tell a story, and unfortunately the ME series is pretty much meant to be popcorn stuff. Not serious. Not asking any "big questions." Here's Commander Fucking Shepard, badass of the Universe, and he's here to destroy some ancient elder evil here to destroy the galaxy. In some ways I feel that the injection of the main Villain was silly and stupid. Everyone knows the Reapers are stupid villains. They have no purpose, no meaning- in fact, ME2 gave them a perfect purpose- They cull and destroy to reproduce- and that's the perfect motivation as it is. Cue Commander Shepard having to kill them all for our sakes. This ending is unfulfilling, in the sense not that Commander Shepard's fate is the way it is- I think that's a perfect way to end a gigantic epic trilogy- but that it is not him or her saving the galaxy. Stupid MacGuffins are always a shortcut to a terrible story. I don't think it's made any better if the good Commander spends the rest of his days begetting tiny little blue children on Earth, or teaching the Gunny Chief new combat takedowns. In that respect, the ending, in my view, is perfect. However, it's silly because what's there has no lead up to it. It's just developed in the last game and you're meant to extrapolate from tiny little hints in the last two games that this is the end result. Umm... No. It comes out of left field and you're left wanting. In fact, an even better message with the same overall theme could involve the alliance of machine and man- there are any number of things that could have made for a truly satisfying ending where we don't feel cheated when that kid asks Who The Shepard is. What I also hate is that Bioware made all my previous decisions pointless. OH COME ON GUYS The only difference between a movie and a video game is that there's an element of interactivity in the video game. If I want a genocidal horde of Rachni at my command AS WELL as a genocidal horde of Krogan- I should be allowed to do that- including blocking those paths off if I didn't choose them in ME1 or ME2. What about using a collector base to make ME3 significantly easier- but to what cost? Bioware knows how to pull at my heartstrings. It should learn to trust me enough to choose how I end this game. And not with the stupid choices at the end that make no sense and come out of nowhere.

Well compare most music with this: Now I understand there are times you want to hear "Booty bounce" and rejoice in the electronica (mostly sex related) but listen to that in comparison and say that one is not worthy of respect and the other is. They're both great pieces of music and should be accepted on their merits. But since one is in a video game it's shit.

Ignore the vocals (although I do think DEV has a nice sense of rhythm.) How much does it sound like it comes from a late 80s 8 bit platformer? The next! Again, ignore the vocals (dear God, IGNORE THE VOCALS) but again... the vibe is "80s 8 bit." Seriously. This shit sounds like Pong. Or Space Invaders. How is it that video game music is "shit and for kids" when mainstream music gets critical acclaim for USING THE EXACT SAME MONOTONY?

I want The Real Barenziah uncensored to buy at a bookshop. Yes, I am a pervert. Plus there's dragons 'n' shit

I put in KotOR II because, unlike KotOR I, it's a piece of literature. The themes of this unfinished, buggy, unpolished gem keep me wanting to go back, so I can look at the characters through the prism of Kreia's Lesson- which is also a Star Wars theme- What is the nature of choice? I mean let's go to the most emotionally charged moment of the entire trilogy- It's Lord Vader finally letting go of all the hate, rage, anger- and for once, making a choice. It certainly doesn't mean he's redeemed- not in my eyes, at least- but it does mean he is free. This is Kreia's Lesson. What is a choice? It's also a brilliant meta example for an RPG- which, unless you're playing a Bethesda game, has only so many variables. It is why I keep playing KotOR II long after Bastila Shan has faded from my memory. PS: KotOR I has its "one question," which is- "How much is a man a master of his fate?" It's why it's still a great game. But it's the same question BGII asked you, and BGII is better at it than KotOR is.

Well, here's what I can distil the "great questions" of good RPGs down to: 1. BG- "Is a man a master of his fate?" 2. PT- "What can change the nature of a man?" 3. DA1- "What are you when no one is looking?" (The one brilliant thing about DA1 is the fact that the karma meter doesn't exist- You either do good, or do "bad," and only your own conscience stops you.) 4. KotOR II- "What is a choice?" (Kreia's lesson is a good philosophical piece in and of itself.) 5. Morrowind- "What is a lie?" (This is why I think it's a better RPG than Oblivion. Oblivion doesn't have this basic question asked of you again and again.) The above 5 are superlative RPGs... I can't think of many others that inspire that much thought.

Meteo don't get me wrong, I *LOVE* ME, Fallout 3 and NV, and Dragon Age. They are better games than BGII and PT. I should know because I still have the above on my computer with BGII and PT. And you raise good points about the nostalgia filter. But there is an indefinable quality that means that Morrowind, PT and BGII have a replay value that for some reason most modern RPGs don't. Let's face it- I've played ME2 once through, and I don't really want to play it again (Toolin' round the galaxy doing DLC stuff doesn't count- I mean play the whole thing through again). DA got really close to me wanting to play it repeatedly- and my theory is because it's close to a work of literature, in the same way BGII and PT are.

I ignore MMORPGs, because they're mostly crap in terms of overall experience (OMG let us grind to level 80 and then grind some more). I posit this question as someone who has obsessed and played more western RPGs than he cares to admit. (This is why I am also ignoring the "eastern" RPG, which means that FF God Knows What Number, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon, etc. and games of its ilk don't "fit" so much with what I am talking about.) You will find somewhere about my room copies of the Ultimas; games from when dungeon crawling was a very basic affair up to now, when Commander Shepard kicks arse and takes names. I have wanted a good story to go with my game since forever, and RPGs do it for me. Whether it be the Fallout series, Icewind Dale, STALKER, Fable, my eternal crush on the Elder Scrolls (One day if Bethesda's "world creation" team and Bioware's "plot" team get together and make a game I will die happy). Barring that one hope, I bring your attention to two particular games. These are Black Isle games- Baldur's Gate, and the other being Planescape Torment. They were mostly released around 1999, when Starcraft first came out. BG, especially BGII, was a big hit, and PT is a cult classic, but I look at these games and no matter how wonderful the games are that come after it... They're missing something. RPGs are not just games; RPGs tell stories. They hark back to ancient times when we sat around a campfire listening to someone tell stories about things that resonate with us. And everyone nowadays *knows* what makes a good story- the Hero's Quest being the obvious abstracted concept- but again, I bring you back to these two games. The infinity engine was a clunky thing; BGII aggravates me to no end with its complexities in a way Dragon Age just doesn't. And yet, I believe BGII is the better RPG, even if DA is the better *game.* There is something that stirs the soul when a story is told of a person with the soul of a God, and how they dealt with it. Or rather; "if you were given great power... how would you deal with it? Do you do the right thing, or the easy thing?" With PT, there is the same thing, which is incredibly, incredibly simple- "What can change the nature of a man?" These things are relatable to real life. It elevates these games from the status of plaything to genuine literature. PT, I believe, is actually one of the best pieces of literature ever made. This is something that modern RPGs DO NOT HAVE. What is the closest thing to it that the modern era has? DA comes tantalisingly close. But what questions does it ask of you, the player? "Do ends ever justify the means?" This is a worthy question to ask. But what does the game do to let you explore this question? Somehow, in between the cleverness of the plot and game mechanics, there was something lost. Something undefinable. Something that makes PT and BGII endlessly replayable, just as Morrowind is still on my computer, while Oblivion is not. It's not about the "bigness" of the thing. Oblivion had a surely more epic plot than Morrowind. Yet something about this backward province of Tamriel feels absolutely *perfect* and in the story it wanted to tell me. In my mind, they are almost like good books- books you can play again and again, because in playing through them you are harkening back to the story that the game wants to tell you. I raise a lot of questions and I don't answer very many of them. I would like some opinions on what you guys think is that missing "something." Something that elevates a game to an artwork. Something that explains why I think BGII, Morrowind and PT are the best RPGs ever made, and I will never see their like again.

Yay! Loved the beginning with the big band version of "Satellite" from the winner of last year. Anyways, here's a very interesting thing I've noticed... All the songs seem to be in English. Out of 25 songs in the final, 21 are in English. Curious, isn't it?

I'm going to say that Liz Sroka has a voice that can melt tungsten and that's probably why a lot of people think Tali is really cute but the amount of attention she otherwise receives is scarily disproportionate to the amount of actual awesome she has as a character (compared to Wrex, Dr Solus, Garrus, Jack, Liara's Dad, Liara...) This is because Tali is, in ME2, almost your perfect "girlfriend." She doesn't have hangups (other than Geth), listens to everything you say, adores you like some classical age hero, and conveniently has no family to annoy you. Seriously. Incidentally the fact that you want to "replay a game so you don't cheat on Ash" is another indication of the Dating Sim-esque nature of these so called RPGs.

It's all so people can start shipping their "favourite characters" together and going gaga over them. Seriously. I liked DA:O's version of sexuality. It was a nice mix between ME and DA2. It was sorta close to what real life is like. That is, you might find some gay people, you might find some people who aren't. Some might be bisexual. With some of the romance options in DA2 it's absolutely mind-boggling how they're interested in a Hawke of a certain gender: I can absolutely see Ms Captain Kirk (My nickname for Dread Pirate Isabela) being a total nymphomaniac. I can even see Merrill being her creepy Japanese Dating Sim character (Not that I don't find her adorable beyond all comprehension.) What I can't see is Anders the Awakening Womanizer with a hard on for Velanna and hitting on every single female he sees suddenly becoming rabidly bisexual. It breaks suspension of disbelief. The DA:O ones make sense. Leli and Zevran clearly like their kinks. Alistair and Morrigan are surprisingly vanilla. But that's part of their character, their personality. DA2 characters with the possible exceptions of Varric, Sebastian and Aveline are cookie cutter Insert Perversion Here digital dolls. Edit: I know more girls who play BG2 and DA than guys by about a margin of 1.5:1 and I suspect it may be because they're in it for the stories. Quite a few like Torment as well, and quite a few are rabid Mass Effect fans. Something to do with Garrus and a Female Shepard. Also the amount of frankly creepy attention toward Tali is yet another indicator that Bioware writes DATING SIMS This is worse than when Valve deliberately wrote Alyx to be the Girlfriend Half Life players will never have If you think about it it's really quite creepy. Since when did we move from Minsc and Boo and Guybrush being awesome to people trying to make you fall in love with a fake character? I mean at least I admit my infatuation with Yuna is an abomination and probably wasn't a deliberate attempt by Square to make me wuv her