DeathKnight

[color=crimson]I utilized the search function and, surprisingly, there is no thread for this game. Bioshock was released to great critical acclaim. It is the spiritual successor to the System Shock series that was released on the PC a good few years back. The style of System Shock is evident at many moments through the game - attention to atmospheric sounds, a driving story with a strong villain, and a fine meshing of first person shooter and roleplaying elements. I had acquired Bioshock a month or more ago, and recently due to the freedom and free time of Winter Break. I beat it within the last couple of days. I thought it was a fantastic ride with a fulfilling story and game mechanics. There were scary moments throughout the game that left me a bit unnerved. It immersed you in a dying dream. A man's dream. The story of Bioshock is actually extremely well written. The main plot twist of the game is hinted at intermittently through the scattered audio diaries of various notables of the city of Rapture, but this foreshadowing could be easy to misinterpret or miss completely. The fall of Rapture and its effects upon all the citizens of Rapture are presented eloquently through the misshapen, mentally disturbed individuals you lay to rest the entire course of the game. The maddening effects of rampant genetic manipulation turn citizens into your enemies, and as you use plasmids you observe the unnatural alteration of your flesh into forms not meant to be. The graphics are also very well done. The detail in the city is immense with fading political posters ripped and stained with time dotting the city. Walls of photographs of missing people with an occasional flower rest in an empty, ruined square. The splicers are all ugly, worn, and emaciated. The Big Daddies, protectors of the Little Sisters who are running around harvesting the gene-altering ADAM, tromp around in their hulking diving suits. The Little Sisters run around in ragged dresses holding a medical needle as big as their head and gleefully stab it into dead bodies while singing to themselves. That is another good quality about the game. You are not tromping around a country, or the world, but the dying cries of Rapture are presented very well. You may explore off the beaten path from your objectives and are usually rewarded with some items and diaries regarding the situations a year or two prior. The shooting mechanics worked for me. I cannot describe them eloquently. If you have played a shooter, you know what to do. Crouch behind objects, pop out, shoot, dodge, all those maneuvers are needed at various times in Bioshock. Ammunition gets a bit tight depending on much you are willing to spend, the difficulty, and how you fight. Rather than simply running and gunning, you can choose to use some light tactics. Look, a splicer! There is an oil barrel nearby. Switch to your telekinesis plasmid, pick that barrel up, and toss it right into him. The explosion that follows is very satisfying. You can hack security cameras that will set off alarms that summon comical, steampunk-style helicopter security bots. You can hack turrets who will open fire on hostiles. You can set traps with your crossbow, deploy proximity mines, snipe people in the head with your crossbow and there are still other options available. There is still something satisfying with firing a shotgun into someone a foot away, but the various methods of dispatching with foes keeps it interesting. On the bad side, there were some graphical glitches. The extremities on some dead bodies had a way of twitching, so it would appear sometimes that their hands were waving to you or perhaps they were fidgeting with their foot, lol. The difficulty of the game scales very far back on medium. By the end game, I had enough tonics to hack everything breezily. I was dispatching Big Daddies merely by deploying a row of trap bolts and letting them calmly jog to their death. The amount of hacking you do in this game is immense. I love the PipeDreams minigame, but by the end of Bioshock I was really tired of roaming around a tiled board trying to get water from one end of it to the other. The hacking is optional, but the benefits of saving money at hacked vending machines or hacking security systems makes it very attractive. One more sour event in my play through was a Little Sister disappearance. It was in the Hephaestus level. A little sister hopped up onto the back of a Big Daddy as I opened fire on it. After dispatching the Big Daddy, it seemed the Little Sister fell into a nearby wall and disappeared. I can only figure hidden behind the wall was some kind of infinite chasm. Later, after clearing the level, I came back and struggled for 20 minutes to get her to respawn to no avail. This was the one Little Sister I missed, and I did not get the achievement for it, lol. Oh well. Overall, I really enjoyed this game. My girlfriend is playing it as well, and is having a good time. She thinks the Big Daddies are cute but, whatever. I guess that does not say much about my physical appearance. Now, would you kindly reply to this thread?[/color]

[color=crimson]I've met three people from online before across the years. It was pretty fun and interesting. People, if not lying about their identity, are pretty much people. It is more personal in real life, but the interactions between you are usually pretty similar to your conversations online, lol. I have intermittently planned to attend Anime Expo in California for years now only to blow it off. Eventually perhaps I will take my much needed vacation to California and see the Otakus who attend the convention.[/color]

[color=crimson]Not my hairz! :O [spoiler]Eloquent writing as always, Rai. I am reading with enjoyment thusfar.[/spoiler][/color]

[color=crimson]Kevin, you are not so dense, are you? You must realize this thread existing actually gives credit to the tip-of-the-iceberg description of your surreal behavior online within the article. The tongue-in-cheek nature also, though sarcastic, is not distant in the least from the reality of your personality during the times described. You veil yourself with clothing of false humility and maturity when this is merely a diplomatically worded tantrum combined with a not-so-slick advertisement for your website that will, within a year, go through another major change and turn into the 12th iteration of the same tired "we're getting really popular, seriously" website. This is a fine example of your personality and attitude, how defensive you are, and how egotistical you are.[/color]

[quote name='Revelation'][size=1][color=#8B008B]Random selectioning chosen from a book of the Bible.[/size][/color][/QUOTE] [color=crimson]Same here. DeathKnight is the most badass book of the Bible.[/color]

[color=crimson]Opening weekend was kind to Sweeney Todd at the showing I attended. A throng of people were in the theater. The movie itself was very good. I had to grow used to the medium and the nature of the film. A musical with gore is stranger than it sounds on paper. Tim Burton's touch added additional surreality to what I was watching as he brought the dark humor of the play to vivid life at times. Sacha Cohen was a fun surprise. I recommend it.[/color]

[color=crimson][b]Star Ocean 3[/b] - Was incredibly terrible to me. I got through about twenty to thirty hours of it when I reached some kind of inner limit, turned it off, and went to GameStop and traded it in. I know some people around here really enjoyed it, so I will leave it at that. [b]Xenosaga[/b] - I was thirty to forty hours into this when it became too pretentious, too convoluted, too lost in its own head to really be likable. I was amazed at myself for not finishing it because it was enjoyable for intermittent periods of time, but I think, in the face of better games to play, it became something unnecessarily punishing. [b]Baiten Kaitos[/b] - Was not endearing to me with the voice acting. I feel bad ditching a game based on the voice acting, but it is sincerely and honestly horrible.[/color]

[quote name='ssj chic']It's my pleasure to meet you again, Ken. ... Please tell me you are Ken. If not, I am terribly sorry. I do have a pretty crap memory sometimes.[/QUOTE] [color=crimson]Lol, you are correct so no worries.[/color]

[color=crimson]Welcome back. It was unusual to see your username cropping up in threads; I have not seen that in a long while, lol. Also, I suppose, nice to meet you.[/color]

[color=crimson]Where the hell were half of you when I was changing a tire in a rainstorm half a year ago? I help when I can if my particular skills are useful. Actually helped find a kid once in a store. I encourage Rai's free will, but, using my own, I have given money to the homeless who seemed genuinely needy. Panhandlers are a funny diversion, but a show not worth paying for. Donated money a couple of times to Christians in parking lots even though I am an agnostic, lol. Helped a few people move due to my anti-Indifference levels of height (6'4"). Do what you can, when you can. Rai is not mean spirited. She specifically tells anyone who wants to read it earlier in this thread examples of the help she gives to who she wants to. Combative, but not mean spirited. [/color]

[color=crimson]Millions perhaps in Japan, lol. Anime is not entirely taking over the larger portion of American society. It is still a niche. Taste is innately subjective. You stumble on people talking about things you cannot force yourself to find interesting, and, even if you do not know it, the same happens to you. Intellectually? History is boring as **** to some people. Politics, geography, and literature as well. Boring to me? Mathematics. I cannot fathom anything remotely interesting about any aspect of higher mathematics. Culturally? I love video games and music. I am not really at all into most popular television shows. Never seen an episode of American Idol, Lost, or Desperate Housewives. Music alone touches on a wide range of people lost entirely in naive devotion to singular genres and people who hate entire swaths of music for unintelligible reasons. Even now there are only a few devotees reading with rapt attention my words of indescribable wisdom. Surprising, but true.[/color]

[color=crimson]The one song that really stuck with me from Sweeney Todd was [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc_jDTXjDUY]The Worst Pies in London[/url], and I have been listening to it habitually since seeing the movie. I am not sure if it is the tongue-in-cheek lyrics, or enthusiasm for being so terrible on the part of Mrs. Lovett, but it is a very addictive song.[/color]

[color=crimson]DeathKnight launches a multipronged offensive! [b]Metal[/b]: [b]Every Time I Die[/b] - [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ub--XlDBg]We'rewolf[/url]. I was blowing time recently going through the digital cable videos on demand service. Their music video channels are usually a good time waster, so I caught some newer releases from bands I like and noticed Every Time I Die on there. I digged a single they had released a couple of years back, so I decided to see what their new effort was and that was the above We'rewolf. My girlfriend is already tired of it since I have been playing it a great deal and picked up their CD ASAP. Very good offering from them. [b]Rock[/b] [b]Kings of Leon[/b] -[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIH7co6UGjQ]Charmer[/url]. The scream took some getting used to for a fan who had been used to their last offerings CD wise, but it grows on you in a way. The bass is absolutely riveting. The lyrics that the KoL put out are fantastic to read, and the song is very delightful in that respect. [b]Rap[/b] [b]Jedi Mind Tricks[/b] - [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r0KpWMNxnM]Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story[/url]. Featuring R.A. the Rugged Man detailing the story of his father Staff Sargent John Thorburn, his fight in Vietnam, his exposure to Agent Orange, and the ramifications on his health and birth defects in his children. It affects emotions. I like that.[/color]

[quote name='Deus ex Machina'][COLOR="DarkOrange"] For instance I mastered the art of cooking grilled cheese by timing the cooking with how many times I could do a round of my house using different paces until I found the right pace that, upon my second emergence in the kitchen, would be the perfect time to flip the sandwhich, and another timer for the time it took to complete. (If you're interested, time to flip was 2 rounds having gone upstairs to touch my mom's bathroom door, and time to completion was another 2 rounds of the bottom half of the house.)[/COLOR][/QUOTE] [color=crimson]:confused: I enjoy cooking dishes. My girlfriend and I collaborate sometimes on new dishes to see what we can accomplish. Our latest success was a flawless thai red curry dish with several fine vegetables and chicken within it using a sauce we stumbled on while ****ing around in the World Market looking at all the kooky crap in that store. It was very delicious, but lacked a few of our favorite vegetables in it. I also like making desserts. I make a very good cheesecake with strawberry topping that is good around this time of the year to keep your fat bountiful.[/color]

[color=crimson]Age gives you the wisdom to realize people who rage against conformity or popular society sound just as dumb as people mired in conformity or popular society when put side by side with those persons. Those wishing to open their eyes to this fact should read the latter portion of this thread.[/color]

[color=crimson]It is not merely a letter when it is a [b]marketed item[/b] with the name "L" and not merely the letter L. That is a product, with a dumb name, for sale and marketed as such. The Death Note L, as far as I understand, isn't a product or anything like that. Both Death Note and Gwen might have ripped off the aesthetic look of a medieval L for all I know. I will say that the moment she stopped doing Ska her talent, personality, and public image turned into maggot ****.[/color]

[color=crimson][u]Slaughter-House Five[/u] is a fantastic book. It opened up a wide world to me a couple of years ago. I started researching into incendiary bombing practices during World War 2. The Bombing of Dresden is only a portion of the broader work, but it was the first mention of something oddly omitted from American public school. As for [u]Cat's Cradle[/u], my girlfriend's parents bought it for me last Christmas and I thought it was a good, if not strange, book. Granted, his writings are always a bit strange - but, that is in a good way. The entire climax at the end was very well written, but depressing considering how realistic he describes what is going on[/color]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]I'm not really certain what to say about this. Not that I mean to imply that it is bad at all (or even that it's mediocre, for that matter), just that moving heaps of partially-living organs do not particularly appeal to me. Same reason I never really got into the grotesque horror flicks, like Saw, or anything with Jason. Just doesn't strike my fancy.[/quote][/font] [color=crimson]The genre of gorey literature is kind of polarizing. Some people really enjoy reading about the guts of characters; others are more interested in the medium of literature being above that kind of visceral tone that most movies/television shows take. I think that, depending on your goals with a story, you should move as it seems applicable. Obviously, with a monster-themed story, it seemed applicable to me lol.[/color] [quote name='Allamorph][font=Arial']So material-wise, I don't really know what to do. But there is one thing I know I can do, so here goes.[/quote][/font] [color=crimson]Writers need to be criticized, and the format and form of this story is really version 1.1 if that at all, lol. I only edited typos, and have not read over it since due to the fact it was going to the bottom of the anthology. So far people have been said "Wow! That was different!"; or "That kept my interest!", or "WTF is this", but nothing that could move me to tweak it like "this tense is wrong", or "This is a bit ______" which is what I [i]need[/i]. I appreciate you giving out something that can help me grow, and I will edit this story once I finish a couple of finals at the end of this week.[/color]

[color=crimson][url=http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/677131]Mine[/url]. I am currently wrapping up the last H.P. Lovecraft story collection I have to read. I am loathe to say [u]At the Mountains of Madness[/u] is not included in either work, so I am going to acquire that novella soon. Lovecraft is terribly hit and miss. I am not criticizing him to sound cool as he is utterly fabulous in his descriptions of terrifying monstrosities from stars and dark recesses unknown, and his writing is very well paced and constructed. He has some stories that are much more fabulous than the others. My favorite out of this collection are [u]Cool Air[/u], [u]The Rats in the Walls[/u], [u]The Statement of Randolph Carter[/u], and [u]Call of Cthuhlu[/u].[/color]

[color=crimson]The short version is that, as the British Empire fell apart, the nations remained associated with one another in the form of the Commonwealth. It was and is an International Bloc of territories who have a common history of being associated with Britain, and most of that is due to her imperialism. Not all formerly-administered British territories are part of the commonwealth. Vast areas of the Mid-East are not interested in membership, and other nations had been kicked out due to various political reasons. There are still nations applying for admission into the Commonwealth. Also, not all of them have their Head of State as the Queen. Many of those countries are now Republics and, well, Republics do not have Queens. P.S. Finals week. I have no Finals until Th/Fri. lol. [/color]

[color=crimson]They are part of the Commonwealth of Nations. Canada also has a monarch, as do most former possessions of the British Empire. I am sure that a Canadian or an Aussie around here could describe it better, but essentially the Monarchy is a ceremonial and ritualistic sort of position with little effect on the inner workings of the country. The Commonwealth is kind of a loose association, and I believe it has grown looser over the years. It is amazing how much territory Britain acquired when you look at the members of the Commonwealth.[/color]

[color=crimson]I am primarily here for the cries of attention. Also, I think OtakuBoards has a very colorful range of people contributing to it. There are differing religions, nationalities, age groups, political spectrums, and interests at work here. The debates, while easily a target of jokes, do represent a very broad range of people's points of view. I have been here since V3, and I have talked with many different people. It has been an enjoyable and interesting affair.[/color]

[quote name='Semjaza']Some of the elevator loads are ridiculously long though, which is really odd considering if you take the transit system to the [I]same places[/I] in the Citadel it's far faster. Don't ask me. .[/QUOTE] [color=crimson]I noticed the transit system was faster between levels too, but I decided that to go on the elevator sometimes to see if there was a conversation between party members or something else. Strangely enough, one of the intercom announcements gives you an assignment. I don't really have much of a problem with the way the IFV handles on planets. It is funny looking to go flying up mountains and steep hills, but it doesn't really feel loose to me at all.. especially after playing through Halo 1's final level again. ---- I finished the game last night having [spoiler]saved the council and been the ultimate paragon of the galaxy[/spoiler]. I was very satisfied with the entire story line. BioWare leaves a bad taste in my mouth at times due to their endings being almost insultingly lame and short, but the ending for Mass Effect had an epic feeling to it that, [spoiler]even if it left it open for the already planned Mass Effect 2[/spoiler], I did not have any hard feelings. For reference, I did the game as a Soldier/ShockTrooper on Medium. It was amazingly easy once you got over the hump. BioWare games on the Normal difficulty always seem to have a point where you become a demigod when compared to everyone else except the occasional boss. I was almost terribly overpowered after I unlocked Spectre weaponry and had a high-end Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle. The final boss was mincemeat very easily. I finished one level short of the Normal difficulty cap of 50. I got the Completionist achievement, so I presume I stumbled across the majority of the sidequests barring a few background specific or well hidden ones. The sidequests were not vanilla "fetch me this", "kill me that" affairs and most had their own independent storylines attached to the overall story ([spoiler]Rachni infestations after Noveria[/spoiler], [spoiler]The "Cerberus" organization's research[/spoiler], and [spoiler]The Geth staging operations across a sector that you are forced to repel[/spoiler]). They were not all original, but monotony never set in for me as I played the game. The only problems I saw were technical. The graphics are a bit testy, but I did not find it bothersome. Hit a bug or two where I would pop inside of a texture, or an enemy would blow into a wall from a high yield grenade. It was a good game, and BioWare's best offering to date on modern consoles. It is deserving of another play-through or two from me, if only to get some more achievements difficulty/weapons wise. Thankfully, I also enjoyed the game so it won't be as boring as that.[/color]

[quote name='XeEmO']Censorship is always a step towards a fascist nation.[/QUOTE] [color=crimson]Censorship is everywhere in Democratic countries. Do not be so naive. Lunox is right. The law cannot be broken, but if they do not engage in pedophilia, then the law, as far as I know, is not being broken. Their spoken opinions are disagreeable, but still a component of free speech.[/color]

[color=crimson]Haha, neat. Someone else watched this movie. The movie is phenomenally crafted, and it holds a very philosophical touch both visually and in the dialog. It makes you think, and makes you grin. It is witty, very witty. I recommend viewing it once, and you can take it from there.[/color]