Groening was always overrated. If you listen to the Simpsons commentary tracks, you figure out pretty quickly that he had little to do with the success of the show, or its quality. All he talks about is the quality of the animation. It's quite clear he has little appreciation for the writing (which is what truly made The Simpsons so great). Someone will be talking on a track about how clever a bit of satire there was in this scene, and Groening will interrupt with "Hey look at how cool that flower looks!" Going back and looking at "Life in Hell" and his other early works, it's clear he was never a fraction as creative as the Simpsons writers (probably why he only wrote one episode--one of the more mediocre ones at that). Either he or one of the other co-creators was smart enough to hire Harvard Lampoon grads and other smart writers in the early days of the show, but after that he basically contributed nothing. It was always a paycheck for him (and maybe an ego boost, since many people assume he's the actual show-runner and creative force--which he never was). So you can't really fault him for milking it. He doesn't realize how mundane the show has become because he never really appreciated what made it great in the first place.
Yeah, it would be pretty stupid in the real world to design a weapon with unlimited ammo that just stops working completely if it runs out of heat sinks. I would rather they had just kept the old unlimited-ammo system from the original (I never knew anyone who complained about *that* particular aspect of the original).
I always hate games where I have to put up with AI teammates. They're almost always cannon fodder, especially on the higher difficulties. It's especially annoying when you have to deal with them on an escort missions (or in a game where you have to keep them alive). The AI marines in the Halo series were especially annoying. On the insane difficulty they were just there for comic relief (except for the occasional invulnerable one, like the Sarge).
We had to give up the flyi9ng cars, hoverboards, and Mr. Fusion in exchange for the internet. Still using fax machines in 2015 would have just been embarrassing.
The Mako was a pain to control, but the cannon was a lot of fun. Driving up on a enemy camp and blasting the hell out of them before I even got out of the vehicle was a lot of fun (picking them off with a sniper rifle from a nearby hill was nice too). Now, with the lack of Mako and the lack of unlimited ammo, this is no longer possible. I hate having to play the game the way the developers WANT me to, rather than taking a more innovative approach.
Re:I actually kind of miss the old combat system
on
Review: Mass Effect 2
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm always suspicious of reviews these days. When is the last time you saw a major release that didn't get glowing reviews from pretty much every site out there (sites who are also heavily supported with advertising $ from the very companies whose games they're reviewing)? Many of us remember the Gamespot fiasco a while back. I suspect that's the tip of the iceburg. Too many games today get way too many glowing reviews, with too few reviewers bothering to point out any flaws.
You won't be lost. The Codex will tell you everything you need to know on the background stuff. The rest is pretty self-explanatory (when someone shoots at you, shoot back).
I actually kind of miss the old combat system
on
Review: Mass Effect 2
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
A lot of people dissed the original combat system in ME1. But I liked it. ME2 has a more "Gears of War" feel to it, and they've stripped away or simplified a lot of the RPG elements that made the original so much fun. Granted inventory management and the Mako were kind of a pain in the ass in the original, but they needed to be fixed, not completely eliminated. On the upside, the incredibly detailed story and background material is still there (the Codex still goes into remarkable depth on alien races, tech, etc.). And a lot of the freedom and sense of exploration is still there (as in the original, once you get the Normandy). And the graphics have gotten a very nice upgrade (with no pop-in or weird glitches). All-in-all, it's enjoyable so far. Again, I do miss the old combat system. But then again, I'm not a huge shooter fan (I actually prefer the old turn-based RPG's like Knights of the Old Republic).
More American students are going to college than ever before. We have a much higher rate of literacy than we've ever had. You talk about 50 years ago, but 50 years ago the vast majority of Americans had never seen the inside of a college. Their grammar was probably much worse than modern students, but the local factory or textile mill never tested them. As recently as the 1950's even basic literacy (especially in poor and rural areas) was still a real problem. Fifty years ago the illiteracy rate was 2.2%. By 1979, that number had dropped to 0.2%. Here is a good summary of the data up to 1979). In more recent years, the U.S. literacy rate, which is very high already compared to most of the world, has improved even more (from 1992-2003, there were slight gains).
Every generation thinks the next are a bunch of slackers. But the data makes it clear. The U.S. has never been more educated and literate than it is today.
My tax dollars were not given just so your state can waste them on a glorified make-work program. NASA's human spaceflight program has been dead since the Apollo program ended. Everything since has just been throwing money away on PR and bullshit spin.
Yes, the parents are probably religious nutjobs and are, as such, less-than-ideal people to be educating or raising children. But if you took away the kids of every parent who is less-than-ideal, there wouldn't be a kid left in any trailer park in north America, and foster homes and orphanages would be overflowing.
The same criticism could be applied to public schools. The only thing that GUARANTEES that the student has gotten a good education is the student himself.
If you read Google's initial release on the attack, you'll see that after they talk about the gmail accounts being hacked, buried at the bottom is the mention that the attackers also stole some of Google's "intellectual property." Later reports specified that the attack was aimed specifically at stealing proprietary source code (not just from Google, but from several other big companies as well).
And I honestly don't mean this as a troll, but anyone who buys an Apple product *NOT* expecting it to be locked down tighter than Ann Coulter's vagina deserves to be disappointed. Buying an Apple and expecting freedom is like buying something from Sony and being shocked when it only supports some bullshit propriety storage or media format than only Sony makes. Apple is about doing what Steve tells you to do, or at least says is okay for you to do. If Apple could get away with locking down their Macbooks and other PC's so that you could only download their approved software, they probably would.
Apple keeps it simple: Here's what this does. It's elegant and does what it does very well. We don't want you screwing that up by messing around with it without our approval. If you want open and free, go somewhere else and take your chances.
If you want to create jobs and do valuable research, there are MUCH better ways to do it than the space program. If the U.S. were to start a materials research agency and give it all of NASA's funding, they would produce WAY more innovation, jobs, and scientific advances than yet-another-shuttle-mission or yet-another-component-for-the-ISS ever will (those are much more about PR than any real science).
Yep, this wasn't some moral decision. Google was perfectly happy to play ball with China until they stole some of Google's propriety code (and hence threatened their bottom line). If China had never threatened Google financially, they would happily have gone on turning over names and censoring the web indefinitely.
Or wrongfully arrested by racist cops...only to be acquitted...then go to prison years later because you break into someone's hotel room and threaten them with a gun for ripping you off on memorabilia sales. That would really kill your project if you didn't have other developers involved.
It isn't in the U.S. (not sure about Australia). You can even distribute them as long as you make it clear that it's not legal tender. There is actually at least one artist who specializes in this.
Slashdot Mirror
Groening was always overrated. If you listen to the Simpsons commentary tracks, you figure out pretty quickly that he had little to do with the success of the show, or its quality. All he talks about is the quality of the animation. It's quite clear he has little appreciation for the writing (which is what truly made The Simpsons so great). Someone will be talking on a track about how clever a bit of satire there was in this scene, and Groening will interrupt with "Hey look at how cool that flower looks!" Going back and looking at "Life in Hell" and his other early works, it's clear he was never a fraction as creative as the Simpsons writers (probably why he only wrote one episode--one of the more mediocre ones at that). Either he or one of the other co-creators was smart enough to hire Harvard Lampoon grads and other smart writers in the early days of the show, but after that he basically contributed nothing. It was always a paycheck for him (and maybe an ego boost, since many people assume he's the actual show-runner and creative force--which he never was). So you can't really fault him for milking it. He doesn't realize how mundane the show has become because he never really appreciated what made it great in the first place.
I was born a Berkeley Breathed fan and I will die a Berkeley Breathed fan.
Yeah, it would be pretty stupid in the real world to design a weapon with unlimited ammo that just stops working completely if it runs out of heat sinks. I would rather they had just kept the old unlimited-ammo system from the original (I never knew anyone who complained about *that* particular aspect of the original).
I always hate games where I have to put up with AI teammates. They're almost always cannon fodder, especially on the higher difficulties. It's especially annoying when you have to deal with them on an escort missions (or in a game where you have to keep them alive). The AI marines in the Halo series were especially annoying. On the insane difficulty they were just there for comic relief (except for the occasional invulnerable one, like the Sarge).
We had to give up the flyi9ng cars, hoverboards, and Mr. Fusion in exchange for the internet. Still using fax machines in 2015 would have just been embarrassing.
The Mako was a pain to control, but the cannon was a lot of fun. Driving up on a enemy camp and blasting the hell out of them before I even got out of the vehicle was a lot of fun (picking them off with a sniper rifle from a nearby hill was nice too). Now, with the lack of Mako and the lack of unlimited ammo, this is no longer possible. I hate having to play the game the way the developers WANT me to, rather than taking a more innovative approach.
I'm always suspicious of reviews these days. When is the last time you saw a major release that didn't get glowing reviews from pretty much every site out there (sites who are also heavily supported with advertising $ from the very companies whose games they're reviewing)? Many of us remember the Gamespot fiasco a while back. I suspect that's the tip of the iceburg. Too many games today get way too many glowing reviews, with too few reviewers bothering to point out any flaws.
You won't be lost. The Codex will tell you everything you need to know on the background stuff. The rest is pretty self-explanatory (when someone shoots at you, shoot back).
A lot of people dissed the original combat system in ME1. But I liked it. ME2 has a more "Gears of War" feel to it, and they've stripped away or simplified a lot of the RPG elements that made the original so much fun. Granted inventory management and the Mako were kind of a pain in the ass in the original, but they needed to be fixed, not completely eliminated. On the upside, the incredibly detailed story and background material is still there (the Codex still goes into remarkable depth on alien races, tech, etc.). And a lot of the freedom and sense of exploration is still there (as in the original, once you get the Normandy). And the graphics have gotten a very nice upgrade (with no pop-in or weird glitches). All-in-all, it's enjoyable so far. Again, I do miss the old combat system. But then again, I'm not a huge shooter fan (I actually prefer the old turn-based RPG's like Knights of the Old Republic).
More American students are going to college than ever before. We have a much higher rate of literacy than we've ever had. You talk about 50 years ago, but 50 years ago the vast majority of Americans had never seen the inside of a college. Their grammar was probably much worse than modern students, but the local factory or textile mill never tested them. As recently as the 1950's even basic literacy (especially in poor and rural areas) was still a real problem. Fifty years ago the illiteracy rate was 2.2%. By 1979, that number had dropped to 0.2%. Here is a good summary of the data up to 1979). In more recent years, the U.S. literacy rate, which is very high already compared to most of the world, has improved even more (from 1992-2003, there were slight gains).
Every generation thinks the next are a bunch of slackers. But the data makes it clear. The U.S. has never been more educated and literate than it is today.
Dear Representative Posey,
My tax dollars were not given just so your state can waste them on a glorified make-work program. NASA's human spaceflight program has been dead since the Apollo program ended. Everything since has just been throwing money away on PR and bullshit spin.
Democrats, of course.
A state owned news service is always one populist demagogue away from becoming a vehicle of state propaganda.
Yes, the parents are probably religious nutjobs and are, as such, less-than-ideal people to be educating or raising children. But if you took away the kids of every parent who is less-than-ideal, there wouldn't be a kid left in any trailer park in north America, and foster homes and orphanages would be overflowing.
Germany restricting freedom?!? Well, first time for everything I guess.
The same criticism could be applied to public schools. The only thing that GUARANTEES that the student has gotten a good education is the student himself.
The kid chooses to eat ice cream for every meal and not to go to school at all.
Actually, you're both right.
If you read Google's initial release on the attack, you'll see that after they talk about the gmail accounts being hacked, buried at the bottom is the mention that the attackers also stole some of Google's "intellectual property." Later reports specified that the attack was aimed specifically at stealing proprietary source code (not just from Google, but from several other big companies as well).
And I honestly don't mean this as a troll, but anyone who buys an Apple product *NOT* expecting it to be locked down tighter than Ann Coulter's vagina deserves to be disappointed. Buying an Apple and expecting freedom is like buying something from Sony and being shocked when it only supports some bullshit propriety storage or media format than only Sony makes. Apple is about doing what Steve tells you to do, or at least says is okay for you to do. If Apple could get away with locking down their Macbooks and other PC's so that you could only download their approved software, they probably would.
Apple keeps it simple: Here's what this does. It's elegant and does what it does very well. We don't want you screwing that up by messing around with it without our approval. If you want open and free, go somewhere else and take your chances.
Only until I release my Raspberry Blast Perl. It tastes way better!
If you want to create jobs and do valuable research, there are MUCH better ways to do it than the space program. If the U.S. were to start a materials research agency and give it all of NASA's funding, they would produce WAY more innovation, jobs, and scientific advances than yet-another-shuttle-mission or yet-another-component-for-the-ISS ever will (those are much more about PR than any real science).
Yep, this wasn't some moral decision. Google was perfectly happy to play ball with China until they stole some of Google's propriety code (and hence threatened their bottom line). If China had never threatened Google financially, they would happily have gone on turning over names and censoring the web indefinitely.
Or wrongfully arrested by racist cops...only to be acquitted...then go to prison years later because you break into someone's hotel room and threaten them with a gun for ripping you off on memorabilia sales. That would really kill your project if you didn't have other developers involved.
It isn't in the U.S. (not sure about Australia). You can even distribute them as long as you make it clear that it's not legal tender. There is actually at least one artist who specializes in this.