Duckman

Pax, I'd suggest pulling down a lot of that review and putting it in a spoiler thread. I would not have wanted to know that and I specifically avoided that commentary in my review for that reason. I'd love to discuss it more though.

Avengers: Endgame I enjoyed this one, probably more than anything since the first Avengers movie. I thought it was a well-done ensemble pic where I think everyone got their moments. It's not perfect but it is a solid entry in the MCU. Of note, no end-credits bonus scene in this one. I didn't expect one but had not confirmed prior. Once the end crawl starts no reason to stick around...

Warm sake, booo.... It's a gross oversimplification but the reason to warm sake is to mask cheap sake and make it palatable. (Ok, maybe not entirely true, but close enough... It masks some elements which is generally used to mask undesirables in cheaper sake... High quality, unfiltered served cold for the win!)

Nominally, recycling is taking something that is not useful in its current form and altering it to make it useful in a new form. That's the difference between reuse and recycle. Regarding bits of pig, pigs are entirely useful... No such thing as recycling (unless you are a USer who turns your nose up at things like pigs knuckles, blood sausage and pork rinds.

Nominally speaking there's just about nothing in an animal that is actually waste if it is used correctly... That's especially true for pigs who are easily rendered and don't have true hooves. American culture is not good about using an entire animal the way others (even EU cultures) are. I am a product of that culture so I tend not to like thinking about what a sausage (or hotdog) casing is. Similarly, Pork Rinds is an acquired taste in the US but chicharrones are widely used in recipes across Mexico and elsewhere in the world. Same for pigs knuckles and all the other "trash" portions...

The acid indigestion I'd get after ingesting an alien...

There's only one crappy country artist?

I understand and I don't have a problem with a movie maker deviating from the book. The problem with this one in particular is that not only did it deviate from the book but Lawrence has confirmed that it had a different ending more reminiscent of the book and then they changed it and tacked on what you got (reference I saw did not explain why it was changed, whether Will wanted something less critical of the character or test audiences didn't like it). The book itself is not terribly apropos for a modern film. It was made into films twice before the 2007 version. In '64 Vincent Price was "The Last Man on Earth" and in '71 Charlton Heston was "The Omega Man". The most faithful of these was the Vincent Price version. The Omega Man had a different message in mind and so it, also, had a modified ending. In short, the main reason the ending didn't jive is because Lawrence changed it late in production.

The reason the ending is not consistent is because it is not the ending. _I Am Legend_ is a really old book and it has nothing to do with what was on screen. Essentially this is as bad a rendition as his "I, Robot" film. Read the book for a much better treatment of the idea with a totally different spin on what is going on.

I'm just curious. Which pop culture reference did you find anachronistic? I was not playing careful attention so I am curious.

Life is a pretty strictly defined thing. Doesn't include spiritual existence... Doesn't include rotting in the ground or the myriad other organisms who live on as you decay... In that send life is pretty well defined and finite. The question of existence after death is a separate question and goes in lots of directions to lots of different lengths.

All you need to do is get to Xanth. You can have some of that while I partake of Injure Jail.

Meh, numbers... Done correctly, all roleplaying should become harder as you level up. That's on the game designer. At a simple level there is no difference between players doubling their numbers and monsters gaining a factor of four and the situation you describe where monsters stay 100% untouched and players' numbers are cut in half. As I said, that is very simplified so the mathematical comparison is easy but the same logic applies regardless of the system and the bells and whistles applied. (I think D&D is really about a 10-20% increase in power per level.) What you are describing is easy enough to convey with flavor-text. If you actually want to roll back numbers that might be easiest to see and demonstrate to players in a Fate system where the numbers are most visible.

One possible antonym is ascetic. Basically the church frowns on hedonism so you can look at all the "restrained" or even "moderate" lifestyles as an antithetical approach. One of the main reasons society frowns on hedonism is that it generally (not always) is antisocial.

I'd say that depends a lot on you and your play-style. I played most of the demo solo but I also played with friends when they logged in later. I was able to solo all the content. The challenge with friends is more entertaining for me because it changes how the game flows and feels (more bad guys, different tactics, etc.). This was true in the original as well. The demo also offered some Dark Zone play but I didn't do much there. In the original you didn't really want to play Dark Zone solo and there was stuff in the DZ that was not available in other places so you would be missing out on some content/specific items that way. Finally, the demo offered an example of level 30 content. They have "invaded" missions which we saw and raids which we did not. Apparently there are 5 world tiers at 30 (the original had 4 I believe and they should function the same way). Invaded missions should also be reminiscent of missions at level 30 in the original. I was able to solo the invaded mission they gave us at the tier that they gave it to us but I don't know how that was really scaled. (Again, I preferred playing it with others.) The solo campaign is supposed to be ~40 hours. Additional end-game available solo. Some portions of end-game not available solo (specifically raids).

Moving internationally can be worse... I will never, ever be able to get chorizo de oaxaca again...

No, but it is clearly enough for him to yank your chain. 😉

I'd say the person suggesting it might be a compliment is really a troll looking to see how stupid men are. (Not Pax but the one in the source he mentioned.)

The Division 2 is in open beta this weekend. I played in the closed beta. Limited access to the world but you get a glimpse of normal zones, the dark zone, the quest cycle for both areas, missions, and infiltrated missions. This is very much derivative of the first game and does well taking the successful parts of that game to build on. It changes some mechanics (the way you unlock tech and skills is different but the popular powers are still there) and it introduces "specialization" at level 30 which gives some new options as well. Worth a look if you were a fan of the first. 4.5/5 for the looter-shooter genre.

I dunno... He was in Leverage as well and if you look at that series, the whole dang thing is rife with STtNG nepotism. I kinda thought that Chaos was right in line with the rest of the (over) acting in that series. He played very well with Eliot, Parker and Hardison.

Pax, I didn't see any point in quoting the same passage twice so I didn't. I told you how it reads. Your extended passage is much better. What you are highlighting is that the problem lies in how the game interacts with the lore, not that the game itself is bad but that in being true to the lore it is not really comparable to a modern shooter. Unfortunately, your summary sentence in the original post really doesn't summarize *that* well. Makes much more sense now.

You said, "as a game in the genre it is supposed to be in 2/5, because you like the lore 4/5." I get liking the lore. I'm just sorry it's a 2/5 shooter... I don't like putting up with cruddy mechanics and gameplay just to get the lore. The same can be said for Total War: Warhammer 2. I love the lore but if you look at the implementation they largely fail to account for the difference between elite armies and horde armies. They cap all armies at 20 units and they don't make it much easier for Skaven and Greenskins to get more armies than their elite counterparts. At least fro Total War it is more a nitpick than a seriously bad game.

I just want to point out that the fact that so many people excuse them this way is the reason that GW continues to turn out [big bad swear word]e games. If anyone held them to any kind of standard they could turn out *good* games with the same lore... On the tabletop, on the computer, in pen-and-paper...