Magnus

Sunglasses outdoors? What a tool.

Ebbs and flows, I guess. Stealth games have seen a downturn in recent years, too. There's also F.E.A.R. and Dead Space, which I think are supposed to be scary. And Amnesia. I don't usually find games scary. The only scary thing about early Resident Evil is the threat of having to replay large portions of the game because you haven't had a chance to save your progress. The only 'scares' in the game are of the "dogs through the window" variety, but that's a cheap way to scare people. The Scream movies do the same thing, but no one would call them scary. I like how the Silent Hill games try to build up a creepy atmosphere, but after a while you know what to expect (walk into a building, solve some puzzles, the building transforms, solve some more puzzles...). I think a big problem with scary video games is that it doesn't take long to figure out the game mechanics. Dead Space tries to scare you with background sounds and having monsters come at you from all angles, but after a while you know which sounds are backgrounds sounds and which are not, and you learn to expect from where the monsters will come and when they will attack. F.E.A.R. tries to scare you with ghosts and hallucinations, but when blood starts pouring from the ceiling, you know it's scripted and that nothing bad will happen to you. I think for a video game to actually stay scary past the opening segments, it would need to constantly reinvent itself so you never know what to expect and won't automatically know how to handle every threat. I also think having multiple paths could be a way to make the player nervous about how they play the game. If you don't choose to go back to that building, maybe that character will die, but if you do choose to go back, you're guaranteed to face more ghosts/zombies/monsters. The Silent Hill games have different endings, but I still never felt like my decisions made that much of a difference. Of course, it's probably all moot with today's forgiving game design. There's no fear if death is just a minor annoyance, but at the same time, games that are too unforgiving are no fun. So I don't know. :p

Well, a two-story drop probably won't kill you, so... I think you should just earn money and buy things you don't need.

Beats only getting half a thread, doesn't it? Happy birthday.

Silent Hill is still around, Nintendo decided we didn't deserve Fatal Frame... Does Alan Wake count? Anyway, they're still around.

Maybe he'll get lucky and some stranger will ask him to get into the back of his van.

Adding to the Lord of the Rings model ReZ posted, there seem to be a whole lot more of them. It all looks very impressive, and I'm not even a Lord of the Rings fan.

I've heard some very mixed things about Alpha Protocol. If it's that cheap, I think you should check it out.

It's been patched, at least. The only major problem I had with New Vegas when it was released was that it crashed fairly often, so the game may work fine for you even without any patches. Well, as fine as a Bethesda/Obsidian game ever will, anyway.

I used to share too much (but, like, feelings and stuff) on my blog back in the day, but I learned the hard way not to do that anymore. Most of my posts on Facebook so far this year have just been of clay figures I've made. Other than that, I mostly just comment on other people's posts. I don't need to worry about break-ins, though, since I never leave the house.

I bet Kurtle's girlfriend was a Krawk.

Dyson got so much tail back when he was playing Neopets.

Good luck, Dyson. Try not to get fired!

Well, you knew it wasn't going to end well when you met her on a Neopets forum.

For a second there, I thought you were doing one of these:

If you're on a dating website, I imagine people hope/expect other people to message them, so I think you're worrying too much about it, Kurtle. Just say hi and ask a harmless question about something in their profile ("you said you like reading, what's your favorite.../have you read.../what did you think of...?"). Questions are always good, because it shows interest and they don't need to worry about what they're going to write when they message you back. Hey, at least it wasn't a Red Dwarf forum. [/QINC reference]

Haha, no. It's a Japanese thing. (See also: this.)

They shot themselves in the foot right from the start when they made winning Nationals the ultimate goal for the characters. We knew they wouldn't win in season one and we knew again that they wouldn't win in season two. We know they're going to win next season, and then that's that. But I don't think introducing new characters will actually help with the fatigue. We'll just have a bunch of new kids joining the glee club and then their ultimate goal will be to win Nationals. Been there, done that - new characters notwithstanding. Unless they find something new for them to aim for, but then there's only so much they can do with high school kids.

Resident Evil 5 wins because it has co-op. I've never played it alone (and don't want to), but it was a lot of fun with another person.

Or alternatively again, they were a waste of space and dragged down every episode they were in. The songs were fine and so was the singing (Blaine overload aside), but if I wanted to watch people I have no emotional investment in sing songs that have nothing to do with any storylines, I could just go to YouTube. I saw someone say that Ryan Murphy is to Glee what Tim Kring was to Heroes. That made me laugh. :p The fact that they've been struggling to find storylines for their current cast has nothing to do with the characters - it's because the writers are hacks. Wasn't the first two seasons mostly written by just three people? It truly amazes me that you think that bringing in new characters will suddenly fix the inconsistency and lack of character development and storylines, like that's somehow the characters' fault. You don't think the writers could have come up with one actual storyline for Tina in two seasons? If anything's going to fix Glee, it's the fact that they're bringing in some new writers for season three.

Jay set the bar pretty low, so I'll just wish you a regular old happy birthday without anything fancy.

The Warblers were annoying because they just took time away from the main characters. They Blaine also had way too many songs for someone who wasn't even a main character. There's been some news on cast upgrades/non-upgrades. Blaine will be a series regular next season, which isn't surprising, but meh. He's been dull as dishwater so far. Mike will also be a series regular now, which... I mean, he has been in pretty much every episode, but he's never had a storyline and he can't act at all. Sam will not be upgraded to a series regular, which is a bit surprising. He could still be in most episodes, of course, but it doesn't exactly bode well.

Should have been "main weight-loser", to be fair. Happy birthday.

Yes, Resident Evil 4 and 5 are a lot easier to save in. They also play very differently.

Aww. At least he had a long life.