681

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: March 01, 2014, 06:42:31 PM »

Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)

A wonderful exploration of the state of being alone and being lonely, wanting people around oneself but wanting them to leave once they are there. The minimalist plot and languid pacing offer up a meditative 90 minutes of bizarre, absurdly funny and often poignant interactions. I really like it.

682

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Congratulations America

« on: February 26, 2014, 08:23:50 AM »

I think he's condescending and arrogant. He gives us Brits a bad name. I also think he had a part to play with the phone scandal that keeps rearing it's ugly head.

I imagine what gives us a bad name in most countries is our imperialist history and our piggybacking the US in their military endeavours. Piers Morgan is gum on our shoe compared to the tumours protruding from our face.

683

Arts & Entertainment / Re: What song is stuck in your head right now?

« on: February 26, 2014, 07:31:11 AM »

The Pokémon theme song. I blame Parsifal.

684

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Supes' Must-Listen-To List (Recommend me albums!)

« on: February 26, 2014, 07:28:47 AM »

I know, I know. :[ I am a working girl now, I have so little time to do things. I worked 12 hours today and my everything is sore. ;o; But I promise the next album I listen to will be Tommy Urgynes.

I approve. And I sympathise, work ruins everything.

685

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 25, 2014, 08:22:04 AM »

I was simply illustrating the most efficient way to do it in combat, there are many other tactical options, the power armour route is by far the least difficult in my experience. Unless you've specialised in speech there isn't an easy way to take on the Master, his SPECIAL is mostly 10s, he has heavy energy weapons, a high sequence and iirc cannot suffer critical failures. There's an alternate route you can take and bypass him altogether, but that option has its own challenges is cheap as fuck.

686

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: February 24, 2014, 04:57:51 PM »

Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)

It was good.

687

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 24, 2014, 04:32:25 PM »

If you're roleplaying someone who is smart enough to get to the end of Fallout, you're roleplaying someone smart enough to gear up properly for the finale.

688

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 24, 2014, 11:04:58 AM »

Which NPCs would you recommend recruiting as followers, Crudblud?  In both games.

In F1 I generally just pick up everyone I can, iirc they're pretty useless in combat by the end, so make sure you're well equipped with power armour and energy weapons. In terms of companion variety F1 is pretty limited, F2 is much more complex and you have quite a lot of options both for party build and how the NPCs operate in combat.

To get the maximum party size in F2 (5 NPCs in vanilla) set Charisma to 8 and get the Magnetic Personality perk. Sulik usually dies because he's a melee fighter, but he's helpful enough in the early game. In combat, Cassidy, Goris and Marcus are my preferred crew. Dogmeat is the best dog ally, K-9 is also good, but avoid Robodog (K-9 with lower stats) and definitely avoid Pariah, if you fail the luck check and he joins you, you should just kill him (he can join over the party cap). Skynet is good in combat but bugs out some NPCs, I don't use him very often so I don't know if the restoration patch fixed that. Lenny can be useful if you're not levelling up your healing skills, but he's mediocre in combat unless you give him power armour, similarly Vic is good if you aren't levelling your repair skills, but if you're specialising for combat I suggest taking Myron as a support because he can make drugs and stimpaks (including super stimpaks), he also has some of the funniest dialogue in the entire game. Davin and Miria are both more like flavour characters than anything, and pretty useless in combat. I think that covers just about everyone.

tl;dr: F1: Get everyone you can but make sure you're not relying on them too much. F2: Max out the party cap and get Cass, Goris, Marcus, Myron and Dogmeat. Kill Pariah if he joins.

689

Arts & Entertainment / Re: 2014 Olimpics

« on: February 23, 2014, 09:31:14 PM »

I saw someone fall over while ice skating. That was amusing.

690

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 22, 2014, 07:28:16 PM »

Indeed:

After finally getting back to playing the game, I have delivered a water chip to the Vault!  Huzzah!

I forgot and I was too lazy to check.

691

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: FES Video

« on: February 22, 2014, 11:04:15 AM »

I kind of wanna hire this guy to tell everyone that the Earth is flat:
http://fiverr.com/greatgigsguy3/do-a-testimonial-video-at-my-desk-with-monitor

I think we should get the "will a earth round or will he flat" guy instead, personally.

692

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 22, 2014, 09:22:28 AM »

Playing through the original again isn't so bad now that I know what I'm doing.  The main quest is really short, now that I think about it.  The bulk of the game lies in exploring the locations, completing the sidequests, that kind of thing.  It's not a game to be rushed through, and that's the main reason why they ought to have scrapped the time limit.  It just doesn't fit.

Did you actually return the chip on your first playthrough?

693

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 20, 2014, 07:43:42 AM »

If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.

First, we can stop assuming I made a judgment off 5 minutes. I played for about 20. I made it to a vault in the east and experienced several crappy battle sequences. If the story gets better great, however I'm sure the combat remains terrible. The only person I talked to was a caravan trader. Yay. They could have at least started you off inside the vault rather than outside which makes it seem like they're discouraging any opening story.

Second, yes it is the sign of a good RPG to spend time on character creation. Usually, I know what I want and it doesn't take too long for me on modern RPGs simply because they're not as thorough as the older ones. If you're spending too much time creating your face then you should remind yourself that you'll never look at it and it doesn't matter. Remind me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the original Fallout ask you to pick a character with a backstory? I thought that was weird. I would rather they feed me a backstory through dialogue with NPCs, but whatever.

It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point. I was just wondering when. Then again people really love FFVII and I never could get into that.

Well, 20 minutes and 5 isn't all that different in terms of how much of the game you experienced. Shady Sands, which is en route to Vault 15 from your starting location, is generally where people stop first, in it you meet Aradesh and Tandi, get Ian in your party, fight some radscorpions and Khans and generally get a feel for how pretty much everything in the game works. I can understand people not liking Fallout, really, I can, but I think a lot of people either do what you did or they get killed in their first random encounter and just quit. It's the kind of game that requires a patient and methodical approach, and I'd really advise giving it a few hours at least before dismissing it, it just isn't the kind of game you can assess in 20 minutes.

As for character creation, in a traditional RPG like D&D, as I understand it, each player designs a character and comes up with a backstory for them, they then play that character according to the information they've decided upon. In Fallout, there are three premades with their own backstories that you can play, but by far the most popular — and recommended — option is to create a new one from scratch with whatever backstory you like. I guess it depends how much imagination you want to put into it, personally I didn't like how F3 handled backstory, it was far too prescriptive for my taste, but I can appreciate why some would prefer to have an opening sequence like that rather than having to come up with their own motivations for whatever they're doing.

Oh, then I didn't make it to a vault. It wasn't Shady Sands either as there were no people.

At this point I'm comparing the game more to something like Baldur's Gate than the newer Fallout games. In Baldur's Gate it takes awhile to create the race, class, weapon variety that you want.

Then, you spend some time in the Candlekeep, getting to know people and a little basic foundation for your own background. It reveals just enough so that you know a little about the what you're getting yourself into. But the motivation when moving forward is still something that you can come up with. But your simple back story is revealed through casual encounters with the people which I feel is more authentic.

In addition to what Saddam says, which I definitely agree with, I think it heightens the sense of the Overseer's desperation that he's basically sending random guys out to find another water chip, feeding them this bullshit story about how they're the only one who can do it, this is immediately followed up by finding one of the people who went before you long dead and picked clean by rats outside the vault door. Even if you don't have a concrete backstory, which again I think is unnecessary in this particular game, your vault is certainly in dire straits.

I think this whole "forming an opinion of the game based on the first five minutes" system of criticism is a pretty good idea.

Hopefully you're not addressing me as well with this, I played the game for quite a while.

It was a joke. I assumed everyone would take it that way.

694

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Sleep Cycles

« on: February 19, 2014, 09:54:14 PM »

I try to stick to a normal one, every once in a while I slip and have to work my way back around in increments over a period of about a week or so. Sometimes I can go backwards instead of forwards, which is harder but quicker.

695

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: February 19, 2014, 09:42:34 PM »

I don't think New Fist of Fury can be considered Bruceploitation since Jackie Chan's character in that movie was not supposed to be Bruce Lee or any of Bruce's characters, and they didn't try to make him look like Bruce either. It was just a sequel to Fist of Fury.
I know Lo Wei tried to marked Chan as "the new bruce lee" with this film, but it wasn't like the real Bruceploitation movies where they outright marketed their character AS Bruce Lee himself.

Oh, that's right... I'll concede that one, then. I just remembered it as Bruceploitation because of the name, I guess.

696

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 19, 2014, 09:39:54 PM »

If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.

First, we can stop assuming I made a judgment off 5 minutes. I played for about 20. I made it to a vault in the east and experienced several crappy battle sequences. If the story gets better great, however I'm sure the combat remains terrible. The only person I talked to was a caravan trader. Yay. They could have at least started you off inside the vault rather than outside which makes it seem like they're discouraging any opening story.

Second, yes it is the sign of a good RPG to spend time on character creation. Usually, I know what I want and it doesn't take too long for me on modern RPGs simply because they're not as thorough as the older ones. If you're spending too much time creating your face then you should remind yourself that you'll never look at it and it doesn't matter. Remind me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the original Fallout ask you to pick a character with a backstory? I thought that was weird. I would rather they feed me a backstory through dialogue with NPCs, but whatever.

It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point. I was just wondering when. Then again people really love FFVII and I never could get into that.

Well, 20 minutes and 5 isn't all that different in terms of how much of the game you experienced. Shady Sands, which is en route to Vault 15 from your starting location, is generally where people stop first, in it you meet Aradesh and Tandi, get Ian in your party, fight some radscorpions and Khans and generally get a feel for how pretty much everything in the game works. I can understand people not liking Fallout, really, I can, but I think a lot of people either do what you did or they get killed in their first random encounter and just quit. It's the kind of game that requires a patient and methodical approach, and I'd really advise giving it a few hours at least before dismissing it, it just isn't the kind of game you can assess in 20 minutes.

As for character creation, in a traditional RPG like D&D, as I understand it, each player designs a character and comes up with a backstory for them, they then play that character according to the information they've decided upon. In Fallout, there are three premades with their own backstories that you can play, but by far the most popular — and recommended — option is to create a new one from scratch with whatever backstory you like. I guess it depends how much imagination you want to put into it, personally I didn't like how F3 handled backstory, it was far too prescriptive for my taste, but I can appreciate why some would prefer to have an opening sequence like that rather than having to come up with their own motivations for whatever they're doing.

697

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: February 19, 2014, 03:54:36 PM »

The entire purpose of an exploitation film is to exploit (no, really?!) for the purposes of entertainment a particular thing, whether it's Nazi war crimes or rape or extreme violence or even the death of Bruce Lee

<Clones of Bruce Lee>

Off the top of my head I can think of Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave, Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger and New Fist of Fury to go with that one. Good old Bruceploitation.

698

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 19, 2014, 03:47:36 PM »

If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.

699

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: February 19, 2014, 02:15:19 PM »

Men Behind the Sun (Mou Tun Fei)

Graphic depiction of the horrors inflicted on Chinese prisoners by the Japanese military at Unit 731. From the very beginning, it is quite obvious that this is a serious drama about political history, and I think its common mislabelling as an exploitation film is most unfortunate. The entire purpose of an exploitation film is to exploit (no, really?!) for the purposes of entertainment a particular thing, whether it's Nazi war crimes or rape or extreme violence or even the death of Bruce Lee, Men Behind the Sun, on the other hand, is more in line with Schindler's List, a serious and sincere attempt to document an historic case of extreme brutality. It's not perfect, the English dub is especially grating, but it is a harrowing and worthwhile film which has a serious message.

700

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: February 19, 2014, 07:19:46 AM »

I think this whole "forming an opinion of the game based on the first five minutes" system of criticism is a pretty good idea.

Fallout 3: Character creation. 3/10

New Vegas: Chandler shot me and then character creation. 4/10

Fallout 1: Why isn't this FPS and why am I not being spoonfed backstory like crazy? What's a role playing game? -10/10

Fallout 2: Poor decision making results in game over? -10/10