I'd be happy with a Wiki-Style, where the actual article can be as complex (in the know) as desired, but with a glossary of sorts.
Don't count on that being at all helpful.
Take the math articles on Wikipedia: I can read one about a topic I already understand and have no idea what the hell their talking about in entire sections. It's 100% useless for learning new material in that field, even if it's not far beyond your current level of understanding. Good luck if you start on an article far down a branch of mathematics--assuming they bother to tell you the source of the notation in that article, it'll take you a half-dozen more articles to find anything that sort-of translates some of it for you.
Some sort of mouseover tool-tip hint thing or a simple glossary is all I ask, but I think the people writing that stuff don't even realize how opaque it is to people who majored in something other than math.
A lot of Libertarian ideas ignore realities like the Tragedy of the Commons, and their assumption that private organizations will step in to take over some of the necessary roles that government currently plays doesn't take in to account the very real possibility that these organizations might be far, far worse than those created by the government (if they're for-profit), nor do they consider the enormousFree Rider Problem that would plague any attempt at replacing these functions with non-profit or charitable organizations.
They also generally have a mind-bogglingly poor understanding of capitalism and its weaknesses, for people who claim to be its biggest proponents. They're like those Christians you sometimes see who know jack-shit about the Bible but still insist that it's the Word of God and the Most Important Book Ever, even basing their voting decisions on it (or on what they think it says or doesn't say, at least).
I say this as someone who wouldn't want to live under a system based on anything other than capitalism, mind you.
One of the mods--I forget which one--makes the game far more punishing, adding random radiation storm things (I forget what they were called) that spawn enemies, new weapons, and a much richer faction system. It adds a lot to the game, IMO, and makes reaching Chernobyl NPP a real accomplishment.
I agree with most of your rant, but what's your problem with the controls in RE4? If its the fact that you can't shoot and move at the same time, that's a feature of the game since the beginning and adds to the concept. Its not a first person shooter, its a survival horror.
1. My main complaint? Slow, slow, slow, slow. Turning 45 degrees should not take 5 full seconds. Remember how slow aiming was on old FPS games like Goldeneye? Yeah, it's like that, except without the autoaim and without slowing all the rest of the action down to compensate for the weaknesses of the control system.
2. I don't care about the lack of running+shooting--I love the Metal Gear Solid series, and it's got a similar mechanic.
Its not a first person shooter, its a survival horror.
Well, whatever you call it it has a shit-load of shooting, and it's clumsy, slow, and amazingly inaccurate. Most games make you a better shot than you are (or, in some cases, anyone could be) in real life, but this one makes you shoot like a five-year-old wielding a.45 Magnum. Someone firing a gun for the first time usually handles themselves far, far better than the main character--who is definitely not firing a gun for his first time.
I have no problem with realistic levels of randomized inaccuracy, or with some kind of fright-level affecting your ability to aim and fire accurately as is done in some games. REIV, on the other hand, just makes the whole process of aiming and firing EXTREMELY difficult and awkward 100% of the time, especially if it involves a close(!?) or moving target, and then requires you to do it a whole bunch. I was way, way too busy being pissed (and surprised--again, I haven't seen anything this bad in a long time) at the controls to get in to the game, and consequently it wasn't scary or tense at all. Totally ruined it for me.
I wasn't having a hard time because the enemies were particularly difficult or numerous, or because ammo was scarce, nor was I afraid of my next surprise encounter with a baddie; rather, I was having a hard time because I couldn't hit shit with my gun, and I was dreading my next encounter with a baddie because it would mean more of that stupid "aim, damnit he moved, SLOWLY turn, still turning, still turning, ok now he's hitting me but I'm aimed at him, fire once, scored a hit, damnit he moved around to my side, turning, turning, turning, FUCK now I'm dead, load save..."
Again, I've played and enjoyed the MGS games which have a very similar combat style, and I had no trouble with them. IIRC, Eternal Darkness made you stop and deliberately aim to fire projectile weapons, too, and that was no problem (great game, too). It isn't that I'm inept--it's that the controls blow goat balls.
I kind of liked the game when I wasn't having to shoot. Unfortunately, it was forcing me to shoot quite a bit.
I like mindless smash-the-minions games. My friends and I played the hell out of Guantlet: Legends on the N64. Fighting Force? Great. Those old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arcade games? Wonderful. NARC? Loved it.
God of War didn't do it for me. I thought for a while that I should give it another try, but a couple of my friends who actually finished the game told me not to bother as it doesn't get any better. I'll probably try one of the sequels eventually.
Why, I have no idea how the two could have become linked in my mind as being similar:)
Though I did remember Painkiller as being a 3rd-person-perspective game, and it appears that it wasn't. Hm, Weird.
Anyway, they're both games where you slash your way through hordes of generic enemies and fight huge battles against gigantic gods (or demons). in Painkiller you hold down the left mouse button for long periods of time, in GoW you bash X (or whatever the plain "attack" button was) a bunch. GoW is more Gauntlet-ish than Painkiller, but they're not completely dissimilar.
Point taken. I actually feel more that way about Oblivion than I did about Morrowind, but only because I found much of Vvardenfall to be a bit too "alien" for my standard high fantasy tastes. Whereas Cyrodiil fits my minds eye image of, I suppose, the world I'd want to immerse myself in. However that's just a matter of taste.
If you liked stock-Oblivion in that way, you'll love it with the Unique Landscapes mods. They're kind of a pain because you have to download a separate one for each region, but it's well worth it.
(I think that This forum post may contain more up-to-date info and download links for UL than the wiki does)
To Bethesda's credit, one thing I just thought about but initially forgot to include that I consider if not somewhat revolutionary then definitely unique and innovative is the implemenation of V.A.T.S. in Fallout 3. I really enjoy how they blended the strategy and roleplay of the original Fallout games with the FPS style. I know many people think Fallout 3 is a terrible game compared to Fallout 1 and 2, but I personally disagree and am having a great time with it, and really love how V.A.T.S. is used.
I love the first two Fallout games, and that's actually one of the things I think they did right in F3. I've got loads of other complaints about it (the poor writing in the main storyline and the scarcity of interesting, important non-storyline quests relative to F1 and F2 being the main ones) but VATS isn't one of them.
Oh, I liked it too, but the "dream" levels did get a bit annoying after a while and I was sort of sick of the game play by about 3/4 of the way through (though I wanted to see the rest of the story play out). The level design was also pretty weak in many places, IMO (especially the parking garage, which was the only section of the game that I'd call 100% bad).
Also, the first one came with a really nice, thick mouse pad--like the kind you'd pay money for, not the usual thin, plastic-covered freebie kind--in the box. How often do you get a cool extra like that in games these days? Even then it was rare to get something that nice. I don't even remember seeing anything about it on the box; it was just there. They get big points for that.
I just think the second one is a much better game, overall. The developers/designers kept what was good about the first game and threw out what was bad, IMO.
I'm anxiously awaiting the day I read a review of a console system/game that raves about how cool it is that you can do so many things with a single press of one of its many buttons.
As soon as we get a console game with controls like X-Wing or Tie Fighter or Mechwarrior 2 (or hell, even Deus Ex) we'll have come full circle, and oh how I'll laugh...
I haven't played Daggerfall yet, but what I was talking about wasn't so much the size of the world (huge free-roaming world and enormous character customization possibilities in an old game? Darklands is where it's at) as how immersive it was. Before Morrowind, I don't think I'd ever seen a game that gave me that sense of being in a real place like it did. Locations felt unique and had a sense of history. I found myself taking walks in scenic areas as I might in real life. It was strange, and it was new (to me; I guess there might have been something like it before, but I've not seen it). It wasn't just the graphics (which were finally "good enough" to support that kind of experience) but the design, the art, and the stories in the world.
From your post, I'm inclined to think we'd like the same sorts of games. Here are a couple that have impressed the hell out of me since Deus Ex (heh, funny, I'm replaying that one for the dozenth or so time):
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
Within 30 minutes of firing this one up it had convinced me that an FPS-style Fallout game could work--before actually playing Fallout 3 un-convinced me. It's got problems, but it's a damn good game, and unlike anything I've seen. Some of the mods out there make it even better. Morrowind meets Fallout meets the old Delta Force FPS games. Haven't played the sequel yet, so I can't comment on it.
Max Payne 2
A film-noir novella in shooter form. Infinitely better than the not-terrible first game. Best played on the highest difficulty setting--trust me, you'll find yourself playing it so differently on that setting that it's like a whole new game. Some complained about its short play time, but in this case I'd call it "quitting while you're ahead" or perhaps "not wearing out your welcome". Damn-near flawless in its execution, IMO. If you don't mind slogging through the (again, not terrible) first game, doing so will improve your understanding of the story (or, more precisely, some of the characters) in the second.
I think HL2 is pretty great, too. That series, IMO, continues to be the perfect specimen of the pure, single-player FPS.
Metroid Prime was a retread? What other game seamlessly blended story, action, and precision control?
Hm. Either we have vastly different backgrounds in gaming, or each of us played a different Metroid Prime. Or perhaps you're using different definitions from the ones I'm familiar with for some of those words.
What's your next nonsensical utterance? Mario Galaxy was Commander Keen? Little Big Planet was Starcraft without the Protoss? Look, I can fallaciously equate completely different games as well!
Haven't played either yet--I'm only up to last-generation in consoles so far. I've dug every Mario game I've played. Commander Keen is an interesting game to bring up, because it's one of the only platformers on the PC that's even remotely in the same ballpark as console platformers (I'd put Hunter Hunted and Duke Nukem 2 in that category, as well). Platformers remain the domain of the console, as do JRPGS and 3rd person adventure games, and there are some spectacular console games in those genres.
I never said there aren't good (even great) console games--I've just found that a lot of the ones that get big press and are very highly reviewed don't even come close to living up to their reputations when I actually get around to playing them. Hell, a lot of them I've even played primarily on the PC (Halo and Oblivion, for instance) and still find them to be simply average, so it's not a matter of what system I'm playing them on.
I like plenty of console games, and I don't even hate the other games I've mentioned--I just fail to see what the fuss is about. Some of the blockbuster "10 out of 10" games are, IMO, more like a 7-out-of-10, and especially don't deserve to be anywhere near the best-games-ever lists that they frequently end up on. That last bit especially is what gets me--they frequently stick an OK console game on those lists at the expense of a much, much better PC game in the same genre. I don't get all upset over it or anything--hell, not like it makes my favorite games any less good when I play them--I just find it perplexing.
Oh, another not-very-good game that got rave reviews: Resident Evil IV. I was really looking forward to it--sounded right up my alley--but damn, that thing's a mess. There's no excuse for such clumsy-ass controls in a game these days, especially not in a survival horror game where such things will ruin the immersion that's the whole damn point. Jesus christ, I haven't seen a console shooter-type game with such bad controls since some of the worst ones on the N64. Guess I'll just go replay goddamned Silent Hill instead.
I'm very excited to try that one. Actually bought it used a few months ago, but my wife played it, hated it, and sold it back, thinking that I'd told her I'd already played it and hadn't liked it either (I'd been talking about a different game--Metroid Prime or REIV, I can't remember). Grrrr...
She didn't like Sands of Time, either. Some times I wonder what's wrong with her. Oh well, at least she likes Left 4 Dead:)
I've noticed that console games in general seem to be held to very different standards from PC games. I only rarely play a supposedly-great console game that would qualify as anything other than mediocre in the PC world.
Halo's a biggie. Talk about average--hell, maybe even a bit below average. Metroid Prime? Playable. An average-at-best retreading of already-covered ground. Reminded me more of The Gunman Chronicles than anything else, which would be AWESOME if it had come out in 1999. Oblivion? Flawed beyond belief. Morrowind got a pass on its flaws (which were numerous, though less critical IMO than those in Oblivion) because it was giving us something new. Oblivion was a step back in nearly every way except graphics, yet it was hailed as the second coming because it was a console release (so was Morrowind--it was ported to the X-box--but I don't think anyone actually bought the console version, and it was awful)
God of War? Good? It's a boring version of Painkiller with a slightly better theme.
So, I guess you couldn't stick the keylogger somewhere in ~/bin and make it autoexec via the user session script or some obscure Gnome or KDE session startup file, right?
I'm the only user. Doing that is EXACTLY as bad as sticking the malware off in/usr/bin, and I doubt any Linux virus is going to rely exclusively on the ability to write system directories; I'm sure any that would be aimed at keylogging or password stealing would just do something like what I outlined above if it couldn't write outside of ~/, though probably far stealthier.
It does make a big difference in clean-up, though. With the malware not being able to get administrative privileges, it can't get into root's environment. That means that you can log in as root and the malware won't get a chance to take over, and then you can safely use all your scanning and clean-up tools without having the malware disable or circumvent them. Contrast this with how thoroughly rootkits can hide on Windows systems.
Really though, especially if we're talking about my personal desktop or laptop, if I notice any kind of infection I'm just going to format->reinstall. It is not remotely worth my time to verify that the virus did not achieve root privileges when reinstalling will take care of the problem much more quickly and thoroughly.
I've used Linux for years, but I still don't get the "OMG don't run as root!" obsession. I don't run as root exactly (I like being under/home rather than/root) but I give myself nearly-root permissions and remove password prompts from everything that I can. Why? Because I'm the only one who uses my laptop, all the stuff I care about is in my ~/ folder, and the discovery of any virus of any kind whatsoever is going to mean an instant format->reinstall anyway.
On servers? Sure. Multiuser workstations? Sure. At home? Running as a regular user is just way more hassle than it's worth. Oh no! The virus got in to the/boot directory! So what? Who gives a shit about/boot? I care about ~/Music or ~/Downloads far, far more.
Nowadays, people do this experiment with pop bottles, it's lame.
Says the person who's never put ~3 inches worth of crushed-up dry ice in a 20-oz pop bottle, tied it to a brick, filled it ~1/4 of the way up with tepid-to-warm water, put the cap on, and dropped it at an ~6ft deep part of a body of water near the shore.
The ground SHAKES, very noticably. If it's at just the right depth it makes the surface of the water look the way the ground does in those videos you see of underground nuke tests (followed by a giant bubble breaking the surface, of course). Hardly lame.
A bit different from what you're talking about, I think, but all putting a bottle of water in a bath of water+dry ice would do is make it stretch out a bit. This is a much better use of the same components:)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't count on that being at all helpful.
Take the math articles on Wikipedia: I can read one about a topic I already understand and have no idea what the hell their talking about in entire sections. It's 100% useless for learning new material in that field, even if it's not far beyond your current level of understanding. Good luck if you start on an article far down a branch of mathematics--assuming they bother to tell you the source of the notation in that article, it'll take you a half-dozen more articles to find anything that sort-of translates some of it for you.
Some sort of mouseover tool-tip hint thing or a simple glossary is all I ask, but I think the people writing that stuff don't even realize how opaque it is to people who majored in something other than math.
I'm quite familiar with it, and I'm not seeing the connection.
Help?
A lot of Libertarian ideas ignore realities like the Tragedy of the Commons, and their assumption that private organizations will step in to take over some of the necessary roles that government currently plays doesn't take in to account the very real possibility that these organizations might be far, far worse than those created by the government (if they're for-profit), nor do they consider the enormous Free Rider Problem that would plague any attempt at replacing these functions with non-profit or charitable organizations.
They also generally have a mind-bogglingly poor understanding of capitalism and its weaknesses, for people who claim to be its biggest proponents. They're like those Christians you sometimes see who know jack-shit about the Bible but still insist that it's the Word of God and the Most Important Book Ever, even basing their voting decisions on it (or on what they think it says or doesn't say, at least).
I say this as someone who wouldn't want to live under a system based on anything other than capitalism, mind you.
There are ads on web pages?
The Internet--you're doing it wrong.
Well, now I know what I'll be playing next :)
Thanks, I hadn't heard of that one.
One of the mods--I forget which one--makes the game far more punishing, adding random radiation storm things (I forget what they were called) that spawn enemies, new weapons, and a much richer faction system. It adds a lot to the game, IMO, and makes reaching Chernobyl NPP a real accomplishment.
1. My main complaint? Slow, slow, slow, slow. Turning 45 degrees should not take 5 full seconds. Remember how slow aiming was on old FPS games like Goldeneye? Yeah, it's like that, except without the autoaim and without slowing all the rest of the action down to compensate for the weaknesses of the control system.
2. I don't care about the lack of running+shooting--I love the Metal Gear Solid series, and it's got a similar mechanic.
Well, whatever you call it it has a shit-load of shooting, and it's clumsy, slow, and amazingly inaccurate. Most games make you a better shot than you are (or, in some cases, anyone could be) in real life, but this one makes you shoot like a five-year-old wielding a .45 Magnum. Someone firing a gun for the first time usually handles themselves far, far better than the main character--who is definitely not firing a gun for his first time.
I have no problem with realistic levels of randomized inaccuracy, or with some kind of fright-level affecting your ability to aim and fire accurately as is done in some games. REIV, on the other hand, just makes the whole process of aiming and firing EXTREMELY difficult and awkward 100% of the time, especially if it involves a close(!?) or moving target, and then requires you to do it a whole bunch. I was way, way too busy being pissed (and surprised--again, I haven't seen anything this bad in a long time) at the controls to get in to the game, and consequently it wasn't scary or tense at all. Totally ruined it for me.
I wasn't having a hard time because the enemies were particularly difficult or numerous, or because ammo was scarce, nor was I afraid of my next surprise encounter with a baddie; rather, I was having a hard time because I couldn't hit shit with my gun, and I was dreading my next encounter with a baddie because it would mean more of that stupid "aim, damnit he moved, SLOWLY turn, still turning, still turning, ok now he's hitting me but I'm aimed at him, fire once, scored a hit, damnit he moved around to my side, turning, turning, turning, FUCK now I'm dead, load save..."
Again, I've played and enjoyed the MGS games which have a very similar combat style, and I had no trouble with them. IIRC, Eternal Darkness made you stop and deliberately aim to fire projectile weapons, too, and that was no problem (great game, too). It isn't that I'm inept--it's that the controls blow goat balls.
I kind of liked the game when I wasn't having to shoot. Unfortunately, it was forcing me to shoot quite a bit.
I like mindless smash-the-minions games. My friends and I played the hell out of Guantlet: Legends on the N64. Fighting Force? Great. Those old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arcade games? Wonderful. NARC? Loved it.
God of War didn't do it for me. I thought for a while that I should give it another try, but a couple of my friends who actually finished the game told me not to bother as it doesn't get any better. I'll probably try one of the sequels eventually.
God of War
Painkiller
Why, I have no idea how the two could have become linked in my mind as being similar :)
Though I did remember Painkiller as being a 3rd-person-perspective game, and it appears that it wasn't. Hm, Weird.
Anyway, they're both games where you slash your way through hordes of generic enemies and fight huge battles against gigantic gods (or demons). in Painkiller you hold down the left mouse button for long periods of time, in GoW you bash X (or whatever the plain "attack" button was) a bunch. GoW is more Gauntlet-ish than Painkiller, but they're not completely dissimilar.
Oops, correction: the latest release thread for Unique Landscapes is here
If you liked stock-Oblivion in that way, you'll love it with the Unique Landscapes mods. They're kind of a pain because you have to download a separate one for each region, but it's well worth it.
(I think that This forum post may contain more up-to-date info and download links for UL than the wiki does)
I love the first two Fallout games, and that's actually one of the things I think they did right in F3. I've got loads of other complaints about it (the poor writing in the main storyline and the scarcity of interesting, important non-storyline quests relative to F1 and F2 being the main ones) but VATS isn't one of them.
Oh, I liked it too, but the "dream" levels did get a bit annoying after a while and I was sort of sick of the game play by about 3/4 of the way through (though I wanted to see the rest of the story play out). The level design was also pretty weak in many places, IMO (especially the parking garage, which was the only section of the game that I'd call 100% bad).
Also, the first one came with a really nice, thick mouse pad--like the kind you'd pay money for, not the usual thin, plastic-covered freebie kind--in the box. How often do you get a cool extra like that in games these days? Even then it was rare to get something that nice. I don't even remember seeing anything about it on the box; it was just there. They get big points for that.
I just think the second one is a much better game, overall. The developers/designers kept what was good about the first game and threw out what was bad, IMO.
I'm anxiously awaiting the day I read a review of a console system/game that raves about how cool it is that you can do so many things with a single press of one of its many buttons.
As soon as we get a console game with controls like X-Wing or Tie Fighter or Mechwarrior 2 (or hell, even Deus Ex) we'll have come full circle, and oh how I'll laugh...
I can pretty much guarantee that we'll be getting a mall-based campaign for L4D from the community when the SDK comes out in a couple months.
Is that what you're looking for?
I haven't played Daggerfall yet, but what I was talking about wasn't so much the size of the world (huge free-roaming world and enormous character customization possibilities in an old game? Darklands is where it's at) as how immersive it was. Before Morrowind, I don't think I'd ever seen a game that gave me that sense of being in a real place like it did. Locations felt unique and had a sense of history. I found myself taking walks in scenic areas as I might in real life. It was strange, and it was new (to me; I guess there might have been something like it before, but I've not seen it). It wasn't just the graphics (which were finally "good enough" to support that kind of experience) but the design, the art, and the stories in the world.
From your post, I'm inclined to think we'd like the same sorts of games. Here are a couple that have impressed the hell out of me since Deus Ex (heh, funny, I'm replaying that one for the dozenth or so time):
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
Within 30 minutes of firing this one up it had convinced me that an FPS-style Fallout game could work--before actually playing Fallout 3 un-convinced me. It's got problems, but it's a damn good game, and unlike anything I've seen. Some of the mods out there make it even better. Morrowind meets Fallout meets the old Delta Force FPS games. Haven't played the sequel yet, so I can't comment on it.
Max Payne 2
A film-noir novella in shooter form. Infinitely better than the not-terrible first game. Best played on the highest difficulty setting--trust me, you'll find yourself playing it so differently on that setting that it's like a whole new game. Some complained about its short play time, but in this case I'd call it "quitting while you're ahead" or perhaps "not wearing out your welcome". Damn-near flawless in its execution, IMO. If you don't mind slogging through the (again, not terrible) first game, doing so will improve your understanding of the story (or, more precisely, some of the characters) in the second.
I think HL2 is pretty great, too. That series, IMO, continues to be the perfect specimen of the pure, single-player FPS.
Oh, and Portal. Duh.
Hm. Either we have vastly different backgrounds in gaming, or each of us played a different Metroid Prime. Or perhaps you're using different definitions from the ones I'm familiar with for some of those words.
Haven't played either yet--I'm only up to last-generation in consoles so far. I've dug every Mario game I've played. Commander Keen is an interesting game to bring up, because it's one of the only platformers on the PC that's even remotely in the same ballpark as console platformers (I'd put Hunter Hunted and Duke Nukem 2 in that category, as well). Platformers remain the domain of the console, as do JRPGS and 3rd person adventure games, and there are some spectacular console games in those genres.
I never said there aren't good (even great) console games--I've just found that a lot of the ones that get big press and are very highly reviewed don't even come close to living up to their reputations when I actually get around to playing them. Hell, a lot of them I've even played primarily on the PC (Halo and Oblivion, for instance) and still find them to be simply average, so it's not a matter of what system I'm playing them on.
I like plenty of console games, and I don't even hate the other games I've mentioned--I just fail to see what the fuss is about. Some of the blockbuster "10 out of 10" games are, IMO, more like a 7-out-of-10, and especially don't deserve to be anywhere near the best-games-ever lists that they frequently end up on. That last bit especially is what gets me--they frequently stick an OK console game on those lists at the expense of a much, much better PC game in the same genre. I don't get all upset over it or anything--hell, not like it makes my favorite games any less good when I play them--I just find it perplexing.
Oh, another not-very-good game that got rave reviews: Resident Evil IV. I was really looking forward to it--sounded right up my alley--but damn, that thing's a mess. There's no excuse for such clumsy-ass controls in a game these days, especially not in a survival horror game where such things will ruin the immersion that's the whole damn point. Jesus christ, I haven't seen a console shooter-type game with such bad controls since some of the worst ones on the N64. Guess I'll just go replay goddamned Silent Hill instead.
I'm very excited to try that one. Actually bought it used a few months ago, but my wife played it, hated it, and sold it back, thinking that I'd told her I'd already played it and hadn't liked it either (I'd been talking about a different game--Metroid Prime or REIV, I can't remember). Grrrr...
She didn't like Sands of Time, either. Some times I wonder what's wrong with her. Oh well, at least she likes Left 4 Dead :)
Er, I have no idea how that got posted anonymously. Yeah, that was me.
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
I've noticed that console games in general seem to be held to very different standards from PC games. I only rarely play a supposedly-great console game that would qualify as anything other than mediocre in the PC world.
Halo's a biggie. Talk about average--hell, maybe even a bit below average. Metroid Prime? Playable. An average-at-best retreading of already-covered ground. Reminded me more of The Gunman Chronicles than anything else, which would be AWESOME if it had come out in 1999. Oblivion? Flawed beyond belief. Morrowind got a pass on its flaws (which were numerous, though less critical IMO than those in Oblivion) because it was giving us something new. Oblivion was a step back in nearly every way except graphics, yet it was hailed as the second coming because it was a console release (so was Morrowind--it was ported to the X-box--but I don't think anyone actually bought the console version, and it was awful)
God of War? Good? It's a boring version of Painkiller with a slightly better theme.
So, I guess you couldn't stick the keylogger somewhere in ~/bin and make it autoexec via the user session script or some obscure Gnome or KDE session startup file, right?
I'm the only user. Doing that is EXACTLY as bad as sticking the malware off in /usr/bin, and I doubt any Linux virus is going to rely exclusively on the ability to write system directories; I'm sure any that would be aimed at keylogging or password stealing would just do something like what I outlined above if it couldn't write outside of ~/, though probably far stealthier.
Really though, especially if we're talking about my personal desktop or laptop, if I notice any kind of infection I'm just going to format->reinstall. It is not remotely worth my time to verify that the virus did not achieve root privileges when reinstalling will take care of the problem much more quickly and thoroughly.
I've used Linux for years, but I still don't get the "OMG don't run as root!" obsession. I don't run as root exactly (I like being under /home rather than /root) but I give myself nearly-root permissions and remove password prompts from everything that I can. Why? Because I'm the only one who uses my laptop, all the stuff I care about is in my ~/ folder, and the discovery of any virus of any kind whatsoever is going to mean an instant format->reinstall anyway.
On servers? Sure. Multiuser workstations? Sure. At home? Running as a regular user is just way more hassle than it's worth. Oh no! The virus got in to the /boot directory! So what? Who gives a shit about /boot? I care about ~/Music or ~/Downloads far, far more.
Stephenson's Snow Crash had 'em in 1992. I'm sure he was far from the first.
Says the person who's never put ~3 inches worth of crushed-up dry ice in a 20-oz pop bottle, tied it to a brick, filled it ~1/4 of the way up with tepid-to-warm water, put the cap on, and dropped it at an ~6ft deep part of a body of water near the shore.
The ground SHAKES, very noticably. If it's at just the right depth it makes the surface of the water look the way the ground does in those videos you see of underground nuke tests (followed by a giant bubble breaking the surface, of course). Hardly lame.
A bit different from what you're talking about, I think, but all putting a bottle of water in a bath of water+dry ice would do is make it stretch out a bit. This is a much better use of the same components :)