Totally agree on CoH 2. I bought the base game quite a while ago, on sale. And then the Ardennes Assault expansion. Even with those two purchases, it didn't include all US forces in the campaign or skirmish/multi. If I ever have a hankering to play just a skirmish as the US, I boot up CoH 1. I thought the sweet spot was DLC that was treated like expansions. In CoH1, the expansion gave you two campaigns and access to those forces in skirmish. And if I recall, the CoH1 expansion was around $20 at the time of release.

I received a SC account as a free game bundled with a GPU I bought two builds ago. Best money I never spent.

Having given up on the Wing Commander movie fairly early on, take this with a grain of salt...

Producing and directing are not the same thing. And, even if they were, I wouldn't put the The Punisher or Lord of War on a pedestal. Lord of War was mediocre and The Punisher...not good.

IMDB says he produced "Lucky Number Slevin" which was surprisingly good. All of these comments from me, opinions.

Typical Hollywood crap also allows filmmakers who don't make blockbusters on their first attempt to continue working. A blessing and a curse. I've seen a couple of interviews with Damon Lindelof, who is credited with writing Prometheus, and he seems a likeable guy. But, even though he is very pragmatic about the reception of that film, I still think his writing was the primary problem.

My point, you probably shouldn't be pithy about someone not examining the facts when the discussion is more about opinions. Also, that you met the guy and liked him might mean you are a bit biased.

The amazing thing about PS1, for me, was the social/team play aspect. The devs really tried to not only support squad-based team play, but larger outfits and whole armies, working together. So, this lone soldier Rambo-ing through explosions seems dishonest.

In PS1, I had some awesome fights where I was part of a a multi-outfit fighting force. Coordinating such a thing always proved difficult, so I'm hoping they have some creative solutions.

...and, they've already shown gameplay videos highlighting the graphics. Seems pretty dumb to make a cinematic like this when they have a perfectly good looking game you can actually play.

...and yes, those drop pods are one of the few things that are actually in the game from this video.

We're not supposed to say we've started the beta?...whoops...

Yeah, good game. Yes, cool trailer. But gameplay is nothing like this.

Master of Business Arts? What the hell is MOBA?

Oh, I realize it isn't rocket science, but the experience I had after I got it working the first time wasn't worth the trouble.

Hmm...that's a bit of an overstatement. I wonder what else you've been playing and how long is "a long time" for you.

I struggled to get DayZ working on steam (I'd bought ARMA 2 w/ the expansions on sale a while ago).

But, I managed to play for a while. The atmosphere was cool, but the clunky interface is really annoying. I can appreciate wanting something more involved and realistic than Modern Warfare and even BF2, but the Arma series has always seemed a weak alternative.

After dying a few times, I managed a round where I lived for maybe a half hour, got bored with no weapons and seeing no other players so I ran into a horde on purpose.

Now, seems like there's been another update and it's a chore to get everything working again. I realize its a tiny mod team in beta, but I'd give Day Z a thumbs down.

Assuming that Arma2 sales are due to Summer Sale and Dayz...I have both already and I have to say Dayz is still so Beta I'm not sure what all the hubbub is about. A cool concept, sure, but it suffers from the same issues the series suffers from.

Too focused on being a "sim" and counter-intuitive controls make it a chore to play. Yes, I'm sure you can remap keys and spend time finding a community so you know the folks you're playing with, hopefully resulting in a less sparsely populated multiplayer session. But, that's a lot of effort when I have a dozen other games I could play.

Nice, Rome was the first Total War I played and it started my obsession with this series. Yes, they've all had issues, but I love playing them. Empire included.

I pretty much agree with you, but it is a website devoted to religious issues. Of, by and for Christians. So you can't be too surprised of his perspective. I clicked around on the site, this article really is quite moderate compared to what else is up there.

Sambek_Z wrote on Jun 15, 2012, 18:15:
Moral relativism is a logical contradiction. If one is truly a moral relativist, then he should have nothing to say to someone whose morality is based on science, reading tea leaves, or believing in a god. Nor should he boast that he is moral to others or attempt to persuade others of his point of view, because that would be nonsensical. His morality is for his actions alone, how others think or behave should be irrelevant. Therefore, I find hypocrisy and logical self-contradiction in those who say they espouse moral relativism and yet advocate for it.

Rather, these people should realize that they are really moral absolutists who happen to conflict with the views of other moral absolutists.

I think you are misapplying these terms. Someone who sees morality as relative isn't saying that every concept of morality is equally valid, only that, in a given situation people have different views on what is best for themselves. If your idea of what is good is also good for many people, it would behoove you to try to convince those people to agree with you. And, it wouldn't be deceitful to make that argument because you could demonstrate it was better for the most people.

For example, let's say (given the religious topic) you believe that the belief in the supernatural is bad for most of society. You could try to convince a churchgoer this is true, but it might actually conflict with what is better for that churchgoer. The churchgoer has friends and family, all invested in the belief of the supernatural. Maybe he's employed by a religious institution. Therefore, it wouldn't be best for the churchgoer's immediate interests to forsake all things supernatural.

This doesn't mean that our society wouldn't be better off, in the long run, if people didn't believe in the supernatural.(This is just an example, I'm not saying this can be proven). Also, it doesn't mean that the churchgoer and the example-man couldn't join forces to stop someone who believed Satan was controlling him to kill babies. Even though the example-man disagrees with the churchgoer on the point of the supernatural, they agree that killing babies is bad for everyone.

Traditionally, Absolute Morality pertains to what god says. It is the belief that whatever god (or the president, or your dad, whatever) says is always right because they are an authority figure who knows best.

Dmitri_M wrote on Jun 15, 2012, 16:36:

religiophobia

The anti-religious bias is understandable but also annoyingly ineffective. Christians love all the snarky hate they get. They're taught that they'd be "persecuted for their beliefs" and that this is a test of their faith, something they must endure to be true Christians.

Really good point. We can talk about how terrible video games are for society, but the moment someone is critical of Jesus its all, "help, help, I'm being repressed!"

NicklePop wrote on Jun 15, 2012, 16:32:

Atomic wrote on Jun 15, 2012, 16:00:
Seems some folks missed the point of the article. All he was saying is, don't let video games take over your life "learn to responsibly engage". Seems a pretty harmless, and even somewhat helpful, message, so I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I guess some people just like to exercise their religiophobia at any opportunity.

That is exactly my point.

Those who think everything is equal (even though they almost always come off as evil towards people, rather than neutral) are under the delusion that discussing positive things is somehow a trap, or betrayal of their preciously flawed relativistic perspectives.

Casual thinking leads to the denial of relativism; the reality is you hate life, and other people. So the perspective of righteousness doesn't appeal to you.

Sad state of being my friend, and a poor philosophy that can only lead to unhappiness.

Objectively, that is a terrible decision

Wait, what's exactly your point? You kind of seem all over the place to me. Care to try again?

I think it's totally fair to comment on religion and be critical of it, in regards to this article. Just look at the comments. Yeah, the writer's point is vanilla enough to be generally palatable, but its ironic to me that the the religious writer and commenters don't see the paraelell between someone selling a product they want to consume your whole life and their idea of god. They take that exact same idea, but under their dogma, because they think its god's word, its a good thing.

Anyway, the data he cites is a joke, anecdotal and ignoring (what one of the commenters of in the CNN article pointed out) that society itself is different from the biased perspective of the the psychologist who conducted the "study." And, a lot has happened since Biblical times , too.

I think that would be an idea with potential. Not "Rambo" in a war, but how he was in the first movie "First Blood." In the woods setting traps for Brian Dennehy and local cops.

Agreed. I'll give it a chance, but certainly not the day it's released. Maybe after a demo and some reviews.

I think the most telling bit was the use of "micro-managing" as a dirty word. COD style FPS games have their place, but the industry really needs to get past this idea that FPS is always the best way to let players experience the world they've created.

Also, every game can't be a blockbuster that appeals to the entire age-range of a demographic. This game had the potential to update all aspects of the original XCOM, but it seems like a vague nod to the theme and some arbitrary team management is all we're gonna get.

I'll give it a whirl. Thanks!