>they love feeling lost
Absolutely. Skyrim gives that wonderful feeling you get when hiking in woods you've never been in before or exploring a brand new city while traveling. Most games don't cut it -- I'm just moving through a level. Skyrim has enough of whatever-it-is to cross the threshhold, making it feel like a real place.
Absolutely. Skyrim gives that wonderful feeling you get when hiking in woods you've never been in before or exploring a brand new city while traveling. Most games don't cut it -- I'm just moving through a level. Skyrim has enough of whatever-it-is to cross the threshhold, making it feel like a real place.
>I wouldn't say I'm having fun yet, but I'm ready to try to. So here's the bit I'm most interested in: I've already made several choices, in both dialog and play, that the game might judge me on later. I'm an augmented government tool, and yet the game gives me the option to show compassion for enemies clearly labeled "terrorists"?
The choices in Deus Ex can creep up on you. At some point, someone might tell you to do something and you can just, NOT do it. Or even actively prevent someone else from doing it.
The choices in Deus Ex can creep up on you. At some point, someone might tell you to do something and you can just, NOT do it. Or even actively prevent someone else from doing it.
Quick tip for anyone playing for the first time:
Talk to everyone multiple times! For whatever reason, most conversations in Deus Ex are broken up into pieces. Usually the first part is the essential bit, and after that, you have to talk with the NPC again to get the later (often more interesting!) conversions. This is true even with minor characters.
Talk to everyone multiple times! For whatever reason, most conversations in Deus Ex are broken up into pieces. Usually the first part is the essential bit, and after that, you have to talk with the NPC again to get the later (often more interesting!) conversions. This is true even with minor characters.
>as tempted as I am to try out the cool-looking new High-Def Mod, I think that our archival purposes decree that we should play the game as it was originally released
That's a no go unless you want to play it with lots of crashing and speed glitches, unfortunately. Without the Kentie launcher or a similar hack, the original Deus Ex will crash, animations will stop and start, and the sound will occasionally glitch on any modern PC. You simply can't play it exactly as released without a few fixes.
Get it here: [kentie.net] Just download and throw it in deusex/system and then run it.
The launcher does NOT install any new textures or anything, the game looks and plays exactly as before, just fixes the crashes and timing glitches that happen because computers are so fast now. It doesn't even change the renderer so the graphics will remain as the grainy wonderland of the original tech.
However, I'd recommend the DX9 renderer even for those who want the original experience. Doesn't look very different, just runs better on contemporary computers. Do avoid the DX10 one if you want to play the game exactly as intended.
For everyone NOT playing for 'archival purposes' -- that is, for anyone who isn't writing this series for Kotaku -- for the love of God, install the New Vision mod and use the DX10 renderer. The graininess is NOT part of the charm of the original, it's just hard to see. The textures in New Vision are very faithful to the original style, just high resolution.
That's a no go unless you want to play it with lots of crashing and speed glitches, unfortunately. Without the Kentie launcher or a similar hack, the original Deus Ex will crash, animations will stop and start, and the sound will occasionally glitch on any modern PC. You simply can't play it exactly as released without a few fixes.
Get it here: [kentie.net] Just download and throw it in deusex/system and then run it.
The launcher does NOT install any new textures or anything, the game looks and plays exactly as before, just fixes the crashes and timing glitches that happen because computers are so fast now. It doesn't even change the renderer so the graphics will remain as the grainy wonderland of the original tech.
However, I'd recommend the DX9 renderer even for those who want the original experience. Doesn't look very different, just runs better on contemporary computers. Do avoid the DX10 one if you want to play the game exactly as intended.
For everyone NOT playing for 'archival purposes' -- that is, for anyone who isn't writing this series for Kotaku -- for the love of God, install the New Vision mod and use the DX10 renderer. The graininess is NOT part of the charm of the original, it's just hard to see. The textures in New Vision are very faithful to the original style, just high resolution.
Here's some video of some dogs in the area, taken by some crazy japanese reporters driving around the exclusion zone:
[www.youtube.com]
This bulldog seems SO happy to see people, it breaks your heart:
[www.youtube.com]
[www.youtube.com]
This bulldog seems SO happy to see people, it breaks your heart:
[www.youtube.com]
Haven't seen this story on any news sites. Didn't 'Artifical Life' used to be a big buzzword? I guess it's lost its cool, like Virtual Reality?
Anyway: lone, eccentric scientist working on artificial life project:
[www.kickstarter.com]
Not just a random internet dude, Steve Grand has some solid geek cred:
Richard Freakin Dawkins: "Steve Grand is the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far."
Douglas Freakin Adams: "This is a giant leap forward into a new and unknown world. The same processes which gave rise to life in the real world have been modelled in software and the results are awe-inspiring. I first saw this program in the same week that evidence was discovered of life on Mars. This is more exciting."
Anyone else excited by this stuff? Spore got a ton of attention, but didn't actually DO any of it.
#tips
Anyway: lone, eccentric scientist working on artificial life project:
[www.kickstarter.com]
Not just a random internet dude, Steve Grand has some solid geek cred:
Richard Freakin Dawkins: "Steve Grand is the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far."
Douglas Freakin Adams: "This is a giant leap forward into a new and unknown world. The same processes which gave rise to life in the real world have been modelled in software and the results are awe-inspiring. I first saw this program in the same week that evidence was discovered of life on Mars. This is more exciting."
Anyone else excited by this stuff? Spore got a ton of attention, but didn't actually DO any of it.
#tips
Is this the first episode of Supernatural where they discovered a supernatural creature, found out that it wasn't actually evil, and so decided not to kill it at the end?
I can't think of any other times this happened. If has always been if it is supernatural, it is evil, we gotta kill it. That is kind of a big freakin tonal shift for the show!
The only other sortof exceptions don't play the same role as the dog in this episode. (some angels, some lesser god characters).
I can't think of any other times this happened. If has always been if it is supernatural, it is evil, we gotta kill it. That is kind of a big freakin tonal shift for the show!
The only other sortof exceptions don't play the same role as the dog in this episode. (some angels, some lesser god characters).
On V motivation:
What kills me is that all the humans working with Ryan the Turncoat V never bothered to ask him what the V want with the humans. Isn't the the very FIRST thing you'd ask? He was working for the V as an infiltrator on Earth for years, he seems to be completely familiar with them, and yet nobody asks him the most basic question? Total facepalm moment.
I'm additional confused on the motivations of the fifth column. We are told it is 'human emotion' that converting Vs to the light side. How can human emotion be the catalyst if the Fifth Column was around before the Vs came to Earth in mass. Even apart from the general cheesiness of human-emotion turning everyone, it doesn't make sense. I hope they manage to recast it as simply empathy, so they are simply aware of humans and their emotions, and that Anna's Bliss suppresses empathy to retain her control. If the idea is really that are Vs are naturally evil and human emotion can make them good, I will throw up.
What kills me is that all the humans working with Ryan the Turncoat V never bothered to ask him what the V want with the humans. Isn't the the very FIRST thing you'd ask? He was working for the V as an infiltrator on Earth for years, he seems to be completely familiar with them, and yet nobody asks him the most basic question? Total facepalm moment.
I'm additional confused on the motivations of the fifth column. We are told it is 'human emotion' that converting Vs to the light side. How can human emotion be the catalyst if the Fifth Column was around before the Vs came to Earth in mass. Even apart from the general cheesiness of human-emotion turning everyone, it doesn't make sense. I hope they manage to recast it as simply empathy, so they are simply aware of humans and their emotions, and that Anna's Bliss suppresses empathy to retain her control. If the idea is really that are Vs are naturally evil and human emotion can make them good, I will throw up.
On V motivation:
What kills me is that all the humans working with Ryan the Turncoat V never bothered to ask him what the V actually want. WHY do they want us. He was working for the V as an infiltrator before, he must know, right? But nobody ever thought to ask him in all that time?
And it gets even worse when you consider that the Fifth column is supposed to have existed when the V were off trashing other planets. But we are also told the V are only good because they feel 'human emotion' -- what the heck?
What kills me is that all the humans working with Ryan the Turncoat V never bothered to ask him what the V actually want. WHY do they want us. He was working for the V as an infiltrator before, he must know, right? But nobody ever thought to ask him in all that time?
And it gets even worse when you consider that the Fifth column is supposed to have existed when the V were off trashing other planets. But we are also told the V are only good because they feel 'human emotion' -- what the heck?
The reason why games are slower is the drivers. Why are the drivers slower?
It's pretty obvious. There is no consumer mac video card market. What incentive does nVida have to optimize their drivers? You can't swap your iMac GPU out for a competitor; you can't even buy one with a different high end GPU. The deal that Apple struck with the suppliers is all you get.
So nVidia gains nothing making their drivers better, as long as they get the deal with Apple.
The solution? Apple is the only one who can pressure nVidia to optimize their drivers. They are the only 'customer' here.
It's pretty obvious. There is no consumer mac video card market. What incentive does nVida have to optimize their drivers? You can't swap your iMac GPU out for a competitor; you can't even buy one with a different high end GPU. The deal that Apple struck with the suppliers is all you get.
So nVidia gains nothing making their drivers better, as long as they get the deal with Apple.
The solution? Apple is the only one who can pressure nVidia to optimize their drivers. They are the only 'customer' here.
I think you're missing an essential one.
John C. Wright's The Golden Age. Tons of wonderful Posthuman characters in this.
And while I love Permutation City, I think Diaspora is better Egan choice. The whole thing is a study in how far you can stretch being human. The book starts where most books end and then goes on from there.
They were US guards, not Canadian.
You have to go through a US border checkpoint on the way out of the country at Port Huron, before you go through the Canadian checkpoint to enter Canada.
Furthermore, the bigger outrage is that he was released after public transportation had shut down, in winter, on the onset of a storm, without his jacket, to walk across the Canadian border. I think you could make a case for attempted murder.
Frankly I think all inspections should be videotaped and available upon request. We give certain citizens the power to override other citizen's right with the expectation that they are held to a higher standard. They have to power to do violence and so need to be the most carefully watched.
That the only charge is resisting arrest is a common sign of cops screwing up, finding nothing, and making up a charge to cover their own ass.
@Pope John Peeps II:
I'd say her point is more like:
escapism is not "escapism"
or
works thought to have no value, aren't valueless
or
works thought only to distract the user from the suffering and obligations of life never do just that, or alternatively stated, this distractions is of value and use itself.
@braak:
"moral ambiguity doesn't imply grimness, and does preclude escapism"
Really? As a reader, when reading as an escape from the stresses of daily life, I love moral ambiguity.
Seems like the main problem with the arguments in the thread is that some people think that anything escapist is worthless -- if it weren't, it wouldn't be escapist.
But as so many things that used to be escapist are valued highly, any negative connotations of the terms have faded. It doesn't matter if the author was intentionally writing the trashiest crap he could think of, people pull a lot of value from it.
Long form television is kinda the novel of the current generation. I think one of the most powerful advantages if that it's stretched out. When you watch a show for FIVE YEARS, that show is a part of your life. When I blow through 1000 page novel in a week it can be sublime, but unless I re-read it ever year it fades in significance. A five year show is a bigger part of my consciousness.
@Godmars:
She asked the biologist to do the test secretly because she was afraid if they found out she bought a pregnancy test at a drugstore they'd throw her out of the program.
@Godmars:
@TerrenceJobo:
I thought the same thing. The mission design is idiotic, both for claiming it was in any way economically sensible and for trying to visit all planets in the same mission.
HOWEVER, it turns out the explanation was supposed to be bogus. The premise is that there is secret reason why they spend trillions to send a bunch of humans (and a non-human), and the public explanation is a smokescreen.
@Charax:
I think the concern is that it will now be used as a Deus Ex Machina in the future, not that the single event is one. So when Chuck is in trouble in season 3 he could pull anything out of the intersect. Chuck is surrounded by elite enemy agents... Chuck turns into superspy and defeats them all with his bare hands.
Before, Chuck would have to bluff them out or come up with some crazy scheme. Obviosly they left things vague enough they can do anything they want, but my guess is that they will need to immediately retcon this a bit. That is, first ep of season 3 Chuck tries the Kung Fu thing again and it fails. Still, it means whenever Chuck is really in trouble he could be as powerful as the story needs him to be.
I think your reading is the interpretation the writers go with if there is a season 3. The idea of John Connor and John Henry are stripped of their messianic vision of themselves is a powerful and interesting. And I think we can use our knowledge of the TV industry to predict that they'd have to end up back in the present at some point -- it just isn't practical to film an entire show post Judgment day.
But this ending has two clear and opposite readings. As it season finale it is as you describe. But as a series finale you could read it in a much more final way.
John jumping forward is how he survives Judgment day and Skynet hunting him -- this is how it happened. That is, this is the original timeline: this is how John met and befriended Derek and Reese, John Henry is how John begins winning against SkyNet and reprogramming Terminators (his secret weapon). So eventually he must send Reese and Derek back, he knows Allyson will be killed and replaced by Cameron, etc. He had to let his mother go, and she had to let him go, to move forward save everyone else. He has to be with this people knowing they he will send them to their deaths because this is what has to be done.
In this reading, the reason why future Jon trusted Cameron unconditionally is because he knows her future -- he knows she'll sacrifice herself to save John Henry.
It's a neat trick of writing that the same ending can be open enough to serve both purposes while still managing to be satisfying if it indeed the last word.
I hope they tone down the time travel a bit. Or introduce some limitations. It gets really crazy after awhile -- can SkyNet go back and stop John from going into the future if he does something important there? Etc. etc. What they need to do is establish that you can't just go from anywhere in time to anywhere else -- there are limits, perhaps windows that link two times, and nobody really understands how it works or why you can sometimes travel and sometimes can't. Otherwise it gets ridiculous and the constant tweaking of history never ends.
