The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy gets my (other) vote for being some of the most atmospheric games I've ever played and to date my favourite first person shooters.
I'm going to reserve judgement until the DLC that elaborates on the ending is released. A prequel based on the first contact war and humanities entry into the galactic community might be fun.
As it stands, they've set up Mass Effect beautifully to be another Call of Duty-esque shooter franchise. Wiping out the mass relays effectively marooned the fleets and armies from seven to ten species on a war ravaged Earth with no way to get back to their respective homes. Perfect setting for some multi player shooter cash in titles for EA.
Aside from the ending, I thought the writing of ME3 was very strong. As long as they don't make that mistake again, I think there's a real chance of the next ME game being good.
Honestly, bits of Mass Effect 3's story felt really rushed. I think the Krogan story arch was handled well but the Quarian/Geth conflict... I almost laughed out loud how paragon Shepard handled that situation. That should have gotten its own spin off title and been fleshed out a LOT more.
Basically, the Word of Wisdom is a set of dietary guidelines for the saints. While the guidelines as whole aren't strictly enforced (you won't get excommunicated for eating meat every day for example), the bits about forbidding strong drink (Beer and other forms of alcohol), hot drinks (which was interpreted to mean coffee and tea specifically), tobacco, and other substances that can harm the body are taken very seriously.
First off, the Word of Wisdom doesn't specify Caffeine, it specifies Hot drinks, which church leadership has interpreted as Coffee and Tea. There is a lot more to tea and coffee than caffeine.
I did a quick search on the topic, and it basically boils down to a judgement call. There were several citations that decaf coffee is terrible for you (it also doesn't remove 100% of the caffeine) so Mormons would have to take that under consideration when making that call. When I was a Mormon, I would have considered Decaf versions of coffee and tea to be off limits so take that for what its worth.
As for Mitt Romney, I don't know the guy, e-mail and ask him.
\Should a Jewish Deli not have to pay taxes because it's owned by a Rabbi?
Not an equitable situation. A better one would be, "Should a student be forced to recite the pledge of allegiance and salute the flag even if his or her religion expressly forbids the worship of idols?"
Quote from Jay13x »
Catholic Churches receive federal funding, they perform sterilizations and they provide viagra in their current health plans. That knocks out any legal and moral argument here - they can't win legally or morally and are thus engaging the religious community in outrage to try and change public opinion.
I honestly haven't been following this closely so maybe you can answer this, does this law only apply to institutions offering healthcare services with federal funding or is it a blanket requirement for all healthcare providers irregardless of federal funding?
If it is the former, then I'm OK with this initiative. The federal government theoretically is supposed to represent the people and how its funds are spent should directly benefit them. If its the later, there is a serious problem.
Quote from Jay13x »
Preventing pregnancy is a legitimate public health issue, and should be treated as such.
Ok. Then the federal government is fully subsidizing this? If it truly should be treated as a public health issue, shouldn't the government be fully paying for birth control for everyone?
High school Sophomore: I joined a robotics program that offered some nice perks that at the time appealed to me. One of them was being kept with the same teachers throughout high school to foster a friendly atmosphere to facilitate learning. Lets run down what we got.
- Math - Monotone, humorless hardass. He had this routine he liked to do where we all had to write a full page at the start of every class on some topic he'd post, usually having nothing to do with anything we were learning at the time. On 9/11/01, after being specifically directed by administration to let the students discuss what was going at any time, he posted his topic again. I don't remember what it was, I think it was about trampolines or something, but he forbade anyone form discussing what was going on at the time and yelled at a few students for defying him. Class act.
- Science - An... eccentric woman who had a bad habit of invading your personal space whenever she was excited about something. Which was always.
- English - The best of the lot. Good thing I was stuck in Honor's English this semester! :/
- Robotics - Squaring off the quad was this guy. Dis guy... was probably coming down with some serious memory disorder the year I had him. He assigned things then forgot about them. Collected assignments then immediately lost them. Talked more about how Pavlov used to beat his dogs than teach robotics. And even asked someone in front of the class whether or not he was gay. Our final project for the class was an oral presentation on holidays from our cultural heritage... I think he forgot he was in a robotics class.
I dropped out of that program.
High school Senior:
English: I'm trying to decide if she's the worst or best professor I've ever had. She was an elderly Asian American who specialized in British literature. She started 15 minutes of every class complaining about something. Her favourite topics were her worthless family, her sisters sex life, and how we were all terrible people and she was just looking for an excuse put as many of us as possible on the senior F list. She did manage to goad me into reading Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace so I will forever hate and love her for that.
Physics: Who knew physics involved so much President Bush and Castrated Catholic choir boys??? We spent more time on those two topics than anything else. Realizing he wasn't actually teaching any physics, his entire grade scale was based on projects. Like dropping an egg from the theatre roof and firing a catapult. Didn't learn much physics.
College: Another fun list
Calculus 1A: A metro-sexual douche bag who on day one put everyone into groups so he could threaten us with group tests. Only his group tests were as follows: Everyone in the group takes their own test, no collaboration. Lowest score in the group is everyone in the groups score. He treated homework the same way. Still managed to pull a C somehow.
History of the USA: This professor vanished after the first midterm. Literally vanished. Everyday, there was a "This class is not meeting today" sign. The week before finals, the dean finally held class but basically only to apologize. Apparently they had no idea she was gone. As compensation, everyone got an offer for a free retake if they so desired. I took my B and left.
Political Science: Not sure if this is really all that bad but it annoys me to no end. Our professor had 4 graded items, each worth 25% of our grade. Two were tests based on outside reading, no big deal. One was a 10 page paper on the same topic he gave every quarter. So you'd think it'd be an open ended question, open to interpretation? No, he had an exact list of what he wanted, in what order, and in what format. Only trouble is at least 500 other students had already done it, and he'd flunk you for doing what they did. And yes he kept those papers around to compare. Have fun! The last bit was a week long oral presentation that basically amounted to the students lecturing while he sat in the back and did nothing. I dislike this class format...
Quantitative Business Analysis: Spent half of every class arguing with the same four people about how he didn't have enough time to answer questions about the material. And this is not hyperbole...
Accounting Information Systems: Had a professor who sat behind a computer in the front of the class and read off powerpoint slides. She did go on maternity leave 2/3 into the semester though. Her replacement was a dead ringer for Mr. Plinkett from RedLetterMedia and cared even less about the material. Instead of giving quizzes, he just read off the answers so he wouldn't have to grade them. Thanks.
Morality in Business: Our professor was an elderly gentlemen which a slack jaw. Try to talk without using your lower jaw. His lectures were pretty much that, only read straight out of the text book. Not much else other than it was dullllll. Moral theory just isn't fun without discussion.
Legacy of Asia: This guy is the only person in my life that has made me wish I kept a journal so I could've documented the amount of zany crap that went down in this class. This was a 14 day class, mind you. We changed rooms at least 6 times. Twice, to find a classroom with lucky Chinese numbers, twice because we were in rooms we weren't supposed to be in, and twice because... finding nirvana? Our class meetings: First class, we discuss nirvana. Second class, monsoons. Third, nirvana. Fourth, monsoons. Fifth, nirvana. You get the idea. It was pretty chaotic. He'd decide things out of the blue but not really explain what he wanted so we just kind of had to guess. He dragged a student outside once to give him a 20 minute lecture on sleeping in class while the rest of us just sat there wondering what was going on. He even made a girl cry when he decided out of nowhere that the final was going to be oral so he could really be sure we knew the class. She was trying to answer but he kept cutting her off constantly with disparaging remarks. He was amusing in a quirky sort of way but I wouldn't wish him on anyone. Just remember, coke on a hot day is nirvana.
Let's put it in a different light. Let's imagine it's some people you care about, like your family. Your brother and sister both have some potentially dangerous heart condition, and you have some minor instance of your heart skipping. Now, you can only book two visits with this doctor for the week, he is a cardiologist. Who should get to see the doctor? Are you more important than your brother and sister?
Fair enough. Now what if you have 2 brothers and one sister with potentially dangerous heart conditions and you only have 2 doctors visits for the week? Tough luck?
(Why is it called third-party? Wouldn't it be second-party? Who's the second party that developers other than Nintendo are called third-party companies?)
It's an English thing relating to point of view.
First person: I
Third Person: They
Second Person: You
So I guess the second party developer would be the fan making the game for Nintendo to sell back to them? Seems legit.
I don't know if obscure counts as "underrated" or not so I'll just throw this one out there.
Origa - Era of Queens
Probably best known for her work with Yoko Kanno on the Ghost in the Shell soundtracks, this woman has an amazing voice and is an excellent musician to boot. Era of Queens is my favorite album of hers. And she sings in at least 4 languages. I love Origa...
Wait wait wait wait wait. You actually have access to the class of Assassin?
Which game is this again? They actually allow you to cast Shadow Stitch?
I believe this is either achieved with a gameshark with which any class can be achieved!
Quote from Highroller »
Also, I continue to be completely perplexed by what anyone sees in Reis. Her base class seems ridiculously overrated. Dragon might be useful if Holy Breath actually worked like one of her other breath weapons, but no, it works like Truth/Untruth, as in it's terribad. Granted, Holy Breath does a LOT more damage, but nowhere close to enough to justify taking something that will hit the enemy maybe a third of the time over Agrias' automatically damaging Holy Sword. Granted, she has high HP, but this isn't Pokemon, I have no use for a wall to damage sponge people. I want someone that can hit hard!
Everyone seems to think she's baller though. What, exactly, am I doing wrong here?
I don't know, I was never impressed with Reis either.
However, if you ever get the opportunity, be sure to charm one of the Hydra/Tiamat monsters. With it, you will have a godlike beast the likes of Beowulf or Orlandu. Freight train for awesome.
6. I feel like I have no understanding of how this all works, because my spellcasters seem to always do crappy damage with their spells and heal for very little. On the other hand, this one character I've been leveling in the weapon classes has been dominating.
I'm going to guess it has to do with your guys faith stats. Magic damage is calculated kinda weird in FFT, the faith stat of your character AND the enemy both tie into how much damage you do, heal, and how long buffs/debuffs last. Magic has always felt like a double edged sword since if you can do great magic damage to them, so can they to you. Also, if you go about raising your characters faith stat permanently (Oracles can do this and I think one or two other classes can as well) be aware that if they get above 97 Faith they leave the party to go endeavor in more spiritual things. Personally, the only casters I ever use late game are Summoners. Calculators are their own brand of awesome.
Knights, coincidently, make excellent use of Black or White magic secondaries since their MAttk growth isn't nerfed and get can wear some nice spellsword related gear late game. Kind of a have your cake and eat it too way of going about it.
9. There is no reason the text should move this slow. Square, for serious? You made 7 Final Fantasy games before this thing, you should know by now that faster text speed is better. PLEASE tell me they fix this in the rereleases.
L I T T L E M O N E Y obviously. The text scroll budget went to FF8. I haven't played the re-release yet but I understand that it has fixed that problem.
10. Wait, so why was Ramza working as a mercenary and not a knight in the opening sequence? He went from being a knight to not being a knight anymore. What happened in the interim time period? I guess maybe he was upset at what happened with Delita, but then why not show us what happened in the interim time period? Seems pretty important.
The opening sequence occurs between Chapter 1 and 2. A flash forward if you will. If you recall the ending,
Ramza went with Delita to save Delita's sister. They fail and the fort explodes, presumably taking Delita with it. Since it was Ramza's own brother that ordered Argus to kill Delita's sister, Ramza's long held view of his family as the noble and righteous ones in the war with the Death Corps is shattered. That along with the death of his best friend, Ramza is unable to cope I guess, so he runs away to become a mercenary.
This all occurs in the admittedly slightly hard to read text scroll at the end of Chapter 1 before fade cutting to Ramza who was apparently telling his life story the whole time.
EDIT: Oh I forgot about this, if you go back to either the opening sequence or the beginning of chapter 2 and look at Ramzas character bio, his last name is changed. Trying to get away from his family I guess.
This game is interesting. I think Ogre Battle 64 is a superior game, to be honest, but this is definitely a good game, and I do like the fact that they made an in-depth political storyline that I continue to be interested in seeing where it goes.
As others have said, he chose to attend BYU, he knew what he was in for. Approve.
Quote from Jay13x »
That said, I can't really get behind a people who would leave the family of someone getting married waiting on the temple steps because they weren't Mormon.
Coincidently, the LDS church recently stopped offering services for civil marriages in the Temples. Now, if a couple want to get married and sealed, they have to get a civil marriage elsewhere before being able to go to the Temple and get sealed. So this is sort of a non-issue now, unless whichever family happens to Be non-Mormon really wants to attend a Mormon ritual in a Mormon temple.
The Half Life games get my runner up vote.
As it stands, they've set up Mass Effect beautifully to be another Call of Duty-esque shooter franchise. Wiping out the mass relays effectively marooned the fleets and armies from seven to ten species on a war ravaged Earth with no way to get back to their respective homes. Perfect setting for some multi player shooter cash in titles for EA.
Honestly, bits of Mass Effect 3's story felt really rushed. I think the Krogan story arch was handled well but the Quarian/Geth conflict... I almost laughed out loud how paragon Shepard handled that situation. That should have gotten its own spin off title and been fleshed out a LOT more.
Link to the official description and explanation
Basically, the Word of Wisdom is a set of dietary guidelines for the saints. While the guidelines as whole aren't strictly enforced (you won't get excommunicated for eating meat every day for example), the bits about forbidding strong drink (Beer and other forms of alcohol), hot drinks (which was interpreted to mean coffee and tea specifically), tobacco, and other substances that can harm the body are taken very seriously.
I did a quick search on the topic, and it basically boils down to a judgement call. There were several citations that decaf coffee is terrible for you (it also doesn't remove 100% of the caffeine) so Mormons would have to take that under consideration when making that call. When I was a Mormon, I would have considered Decaf versions of coffee and tea to be off limits so take that for what its worth.
As for Mitt Romney, I don't know the guy, e-mail and ask him.
Not an equitable situation. A better one would be, "Should a student be forced to recite the pledge of allegiance and salute the flag even if his or her religion expressly forbids the worship of idols?"
I honestly haven't been following this closely so maybe you can answer this, does this law only apply to institutions offering healthcare services with federal funding or is it a blanket requirement for all healthcare providers irregardless of federal funding?
If it is the former, then I'm OK with this initiative. The federal government theoretically is supposed to represent the people and how its funds are spent should directly benefit them. If its the later, there is a serious problem.
Ok. Then the federal government is fully subsidizing this? If it truly should be treated as a public health issue, shouldn't the government be fully paying for birth control for everyone?
That man has one sexy voice, among other things.
High school Sophomore: I joined a robotics program that offered some nice perks that at the time appealed to me. One of them was being kept with the same teachers throughout high school to foster a friendly atmosphere to facilitate learning. Lets run down what we got.
- Math - Monotone, humorless hardass. He had this routine he liked to do where we all had to write a full page at the start of every class on some topic he'd post, usually having nothing to do with anything we were learning at the time. On 9/11/01, after being specifically directed by administration to let the students discuss what was going at any time, he posted his topic again. I don't remember what it was, I think it was about trampolines or something, but he forbade anyone form discussing what was going on at the time and yelled at a few students for defying him. Class act.
- Science - An... eccentric woman who had a bad habit of invading your personal space whenever she was excited about something. Which was always.
- English - The best of the lot. Good thing I was stuck in Honor's English this semester! :/
- Robotics - Squaring off the quad was this guy. Dis guy... was probably coming down with some serious memory disorder the year I had him. He assigned things then forgot about them. Collected assignments then immediately lost them. Talked more about how Pavlov used to beat his dogs than teach robotics. And even asked someone in front of the class whether or not he was gay. Our final project for the class was an oral presentation on holidays from our cultural heritage... I think he forgot he was in a robotics class.
I dropped out of that program.
High school Senior:
English: I'm trying to decide if she's the worst or best professor I've ever had. She was an elderly Asian American who specialized in British literature. She started 15 minutes of every class complaining about something. Her favourite topics were her worthless family, her sisters sex life, and how we were all terrible people and she was just looking for an excuse put as many of us as possible on the senior F list. She did manage to goad me into reading Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace so I will forever hate and love her for that.
Physics: Who knew physics involved so much President Bush and Castrated Catholic choir boys??? We spent more time on those two topics than anything else. Realizing he wasn't actually teaching any physics, his entire grade scale was based on projects. Like dropping an egg from the theatre roof and firing a catapult. Didn't learn much physics.
College: Another fun list
Calculus 1A: A metro-sexual douche bag who on day one put everyone into groups so he could threaten us with group tests. Only his group tests were as follows: Everyone in the group takes their own test, no collaboration. Lowest score in the group is everyone in the groups score. He treated homework the same way. Still managed to pull a C somehow.
History of the USA: This professor vanished after the first midterm. Literally vanished. Everyday, there was a "This class is not meeting today" sign. The week before finals, the dean finally held class but basically only to apologize. Apparently they had no idea she was gone. As compensation, everyone got an offer for a free retake if they so desired. I took my B and left.
Political Science: Not sure if this is really all that bad but it annoys me to no end. Our professor had 4 graded items, each worth 25% of our grade. Two were tests based on outside reading, no big deal. One was a 10 page paper on the same topic he gave every quarter. So you'd think it'd be an open ended question, open to interpretation? No, he had an exact list of what he wanted, in what order, and in what format. Only trouble is at least 500 other students had already done it, and he'd flunk you for doing what they did. And yes he kept those papers around to compare. Have fun! The last bit was a week long oral presentation that basically amounted to the students lecturing while he sat in the back and did nothing. I dislike this class format...
Quantitative Business Analysis: Spent half of every class arguing with the same four people about how he didn't have enough time to answer questions about the material. And this is not hyperbole...
Accounting Information Systems: Had a professor who sat behind a computer in the front of the class and read off powerpoint slides. She did go on maternity leave 2/3 into the semester though. Her replacement was a dead ringer for Mr. Plinkett from RedLetterMedia and cared even less about the material. Instead of giving quizzes, he just read off the answers so he wouldn't have to grade them. Thanks.
Morality in Business: Our professor was an elderly gentlemen which a slack jaw. Try to talk without using your lower jaw. His lectures were pretty much that, only read straight out of the text book. Not much else other than it was dullllll. Moral theory just isn't fun without discussion.
Legacy of Asia: This guy is the only person in my life that has made me wish I kept a journal so I could've documented the amount of zany crap that went down in this class. This was a 14 day class, mind you. We changed rooms at least 6 times. Twice, to find a classroom with lucky Chinese numbers, twice because we were in rooms we weren't supposed to be in, and twice because... finding nirvana? Our class meetings: First class, we discuss nirvana. Second class, monsoons. Third, nirvana. Fourth, monsoons. Fifth, nirvana. You get the idea. It was pretty chaotic. He'd decide things out of the blue but not really explain what he wanted so we just kind of had to guess. He dragged a student outside once to give him a 20 minute lecture on sleeping in class while the rest of us just sat there wondering what was going on. He even made a girl cry when he decided out of nowhere that the final was going to be oral so he could really be sure we knew the class. She was trying to answer but he kept cutting her off constantly with disparaging remarks. He was amusing in a quirky sort of way but I wouldn't wish him on anyone. Just remember, coke on a hot day is nirvana.
Who gets to decide what is best for the entire public?
Fair enough. Now what if you have 2 brothers and one sister with potentially dangerous heart conditions and you only have 2 doctors visits for the week? Tough luck?
It's an English thing relating to point of view.
First person: I
Third Person: They
Second Person: You
So I guess the second party developer would be the fan making the game for Nintendo to sell back to them? Seems legit.
Origa - Era of Queens
Probably best known for her work with Yoko Kanno on the Ghost in the Shell soundtracks, this woman has an amazing voice and is an excellent musician to boot. Era of Queens is my favorite album of hers. And she sings in at least 4 languages. I love Origa...
http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/fy2010.pdf
Page 63 has the relevant information. 80% of USPS's total operating expenses in 2010 were pay and benefits according to their annual report
I believe this is either achieved with a gameshark with which any class can be achieved!
I don't know, I was never impressed with Reis either.
However, if you ever get the opportunity, be sure to charm one of the Hydra/Tiamat monsters. With it, you will have a godlike beast the likes of Beowulf or Orlandu. Freight train for awesome.
I'm going to guess it has to do with your guys faith stats. Magic damage is calculated kinda weird in FFT, the faith stat of your character AND the enemy both tie into how much damage you do, heal, and how long buffs/debuffs last. Magic has always felt like a double edged sword since if you can do great magic damage to them, so can they to you. Also, if you go about raising your characters faith stat permanently (Oracles can do this and I think one or two other classes can as well) be aware that if they get above 97 Faith they leave the party to go endeavor in more spiritual things. Personally, the only casters I ever use late game are Summoners. Calculators are their own brand of awesome.
Knights, coincidently, make excellent use of Black or White magic secondaries since their MAttk growth isn't nerfed and get can wear some nice spellsword related gear late game. Kind of a have your cake and eat it too way of going about it.
L I T T L E M O N E Y obviously. The text scroll budget went to FF8. I haven't played the re-release yet but I understand that it has fixed that problem.
The opening sequence occurs between Chapter 1 and 2. A flash forward if you will. If you recall the ending,
EDIT: Oh I forgot about this, if you go back to either the opening sequence or the beginning of chapter 2 and look at Ramzas character bio, his last name is changed. Trying to get away from his family I guess.
Have fun!
Coincidently, the LDS church recently stopped offering services for civil marriages in the Temples. Now, if a couple want to get married and sealed, they have to get a civil marriage elsewhere before being able to go to the Temple and get sealed. So this is sort of a non-issue now, unless whichever family happens to Be non-Mormon really wants to attend a Mormon ritual in a Mormon temple.