Primal

Inherent Fitness.

I...don't know how I feel about that. Part of me says yay, part of me is now wary that there's a catch.

I'm certainly not opposed to it, mind you. I've fit it in fine, or gone without fine, depending on the character, but if it's handed to me I ain't gonna turn it down. I'm just naturally skeptical regarding free things.

Incarnate stuff leaves me pretty indifferent, but this other news is interesting.

As far as quality goes r_f, it's no question in my mind, Machete is the better movie. Expendables isn't bad or unworthy mind you, it's just not as good. However, Expendables does have a lot more hand-to-hand unarmed combat. Machete has quite a bit of knife, mop, stiletto-heel, weedwacker, and sword action, but I only recall one instance of Machete himself punching anybody, though Sartana (Alba) does fight a guy while unarmed for a few seconds too.

Machete is hack and slash, with interludes of shooting (mostly by the bad guys). The Expendables is shoot 'em up, with occasional missions where they take your weapons, or you're playing Jason Statham on a basketball court.

I have an AR/Elec in the mid-40s and it is a fine combo. It is not the MOST synergistic, for that you'd want /Energy (Boost Range) or /Ice (Ice Patch), but it works out fine anyway. I wanted a set that provided an immob and some solid melee, and I wanted that melee to have some smash to it too. Elec was a perfect fit.

My concept for her is a bit different, she's more soldier than spy, but I too enjoy a bit of the old sneaking around and employing a sniper rifle, only breaking out the flamethrower and grenade launcher when there's a group of enemies already aware of her presence. I'd highly advise against skipping the Flamethrower entirely, it pumps out nice damage, of the highly-useful non-lethal variety, and can be made to recharge quickly. Combine it with Full Auto and large groups will simply melt; my Full Auto also has a Positron's Blast Chance for Energy Damage, it helps a lot. Like I said, use it when your cover has been blown, any spy ought to prepare for such an eventuality.

If you want the most money, Veritech? Yes, actually, that is exactly what you do, pander to the mainstream.

Sometimes the art wins. But it's lightning in a bottle.

One movie can only contain so much awesome.

Michelle Rodriguez. That is all.

Sure, there was great action, blood and guts (literally!), badassness all around. But she's who I went to see, and I was not disappointed. Actually there were lots of hot women in this movie, those two nurses and that evil Asian (?) chick especially. And, you know, Jessica Alba.

Loved that scene with Jeff Fahey rampaging through that house. I like him anyway, nice to see him be a badass.

I laughed really hard at "...*ding* Extra Crispy!"

Gotta say though, the "final battle" was a little weak. You could tell (Robert) Rodriguez et al got to that point and said "Yeah, we're pretty much out of ideas to be over the top now, you've seen enough awesomeness so far to blow your mind ten times over, let's just finish this up." Or possibly I WAS just drained by then, the movie's a lot to take in.

So it's not perfect. But it's 8.5/10 for me. Paid full price for this one and it was worth it.

Now I'm off to find more pics of Michelle Rodriguez in a leather bikini, because DAMN.

Edit: Ah, I wondered where I had seen those nurses before. They were also the babysitter twins in Grindhouse.

Always, always, always: someone to cheer on. Stories (in movies, games, whatever) that have a character who's supposed to be someone like me inevitably only succeed in irritating me.

This the prime reason I have so very little use for romantic movies, I'm supposed to imagine myself in that position, but then the substitute me does something that's infinitely removed from what I'd do that the very attempt simply angers me. I understand that you need drama and conflict in order to get everything to 90 minutes, but in so doing you lose me. I have yet to come across an exception.

I guess I'm admitting here that I'm not particularly empathic outside of an academic sense. No, actually I don't care if the guy gets the girl or not. Most of the time he acted uncommunicative or actively like a jerk anyway, so it'd be okay with me if the girl moved on and found someone that hasn't been around to waste all our time.

It goes for action movies and regenge stories too though really. I want justice to prevail and the wrongs to be righted, but again, there's always a disconnect in the middle that makes it very clear that I'm just watching someone else do it. Video games are better about it, especially ones with characters I've created, but there's still a gap.

My characters here, obviously, are never me or intended to be so. I actually did create a version of me once to see how close I could get physically, and it came kinda close, but then it fell apart. I knocked a bad guy out, and rather than pick up the hammer he'd dropped and brain his buddy with it, who was also attacking me, I was stuck with brawling. There the simulation ended and I was just controlling some dude who kinda looked like me if I had a more chiseled chin. He got deleted later, didn't like the sets.

Well, apparently Mystery Men was released in 1999, and it was like 2006 that I saw him, so yeah. I'd imagine that character long retired and the player long gone.

I'm sure we've done one of these before, but I haven't seen one in a while. What's the best names you've seen on (an)other player character(s)? It can be a great name no matter what it was actually attached too, or it can be the perfect name for that particular bio or costume.

Yeah, I know these things usually degenerate into "Well, MY best name is...". Don't do that. This is about other people. It's tough, I know, I like my names too. However, you CAN do that if you saw a great player name, decided you'd check another server to see if it was free, and (ahem) appropriated it there. Also, if you came up with a great name, but it was already taken, it counts, as somebody out there has it. Names you've only seen in forum sigs count too of course.

My favorites, at least that I can remember right now, and I'm sure I'll recall more:

- Skydance. Who posts here, but only has Sunwind in his/her sig now, and I don't recall Skydance's details, I just dug the name.

- The Pencil. Saw this guy a long time ago. Amusing name by itself, sounds like a character from The Tick, but what really carried it off was the yellowish costume, red hair, and bright "2" on his chest.

- The Kinetic Kid. Honestly the name isn't uber on its own, but combined with his fun roleplaying, kid-hero style, and laugh-worthy one-liners, it worked very well.

- Eva Destruction AND Dawn Apocalypse. Same poster. I like both of those names a lot. I hope it's not considered insulting that they sound like they'd be right at home in an old-school late-night Cinemax awesome B movie that makes you wonder how it didn't get a distributor and rock theaters. I love those kinds of movies.

- Blood Orchid. This is one of those "Man I wish I'd have gotten there first!" names. Never seen him or her, I just know the name was taken when I tried to get it. (Heck, for all I know it's a known Marvel character that's been filtered, I can't keep up with them all. Or anime, since what I know about that is pretty much Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the Shell.)

- Lotus on Water. Katana/Something as I recall, another forumite's (i.e. Dollhouse) character.

- Eidolon Blade. As I recall the forumite with this one actually wanted Ghost Blade, which was taken. I like it a lot better, though Ghost Blade is pretty slick.

But I go on and on, like I am wont to do. Please, tell me your choices.

Like Furio, my ears just don't seem to be made for most earbuds. I found a pair of headphones at Wal-Mart though several years ago that combined the in-ear buds with the metal band, and it's worked out very well. Extremely lightweight too. I must have my tunes to walk or jog.

See here for several different kinds. I'm not positive the kind I have are made anymore, but they were very similar to the 6th style down, the S2. Might want to check Wal-Mart or Target, sometimes they have that stuff and cheaper.

Various sources, regardless of content:

By Demons Be Driven (Pantera song, probably another source too)

Atlas Shrugged

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

John Dies at the End

The Armageddon Rag

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Borderlands

Cold Ascending (Neurosis song)

Land of the Lost

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Ghost of Perdition (Opeth song)

The Obsidian Conspiracy (Nevermore song)

The Termination Proclamation (Nevermore has great song titles)

Sixpence None the Richer (It's their album title too so it counts)

And many many more (not a title, just a promise to post again when I think of more, assuming topic is still going)

Effectiveness (/Efficiency) of Praetor Berry's Clockwork = 94%
Effectiveness of Antimater's Clockwork = 91%
Praetor Berry's Clockwork > Antimattter's Clockwork

Also, Nissan > all.

That particular mission takes an interesting turn if you call Calvin Scott and ask his advice. You know, if you are undercover too. I actually thought he'd say something like "Well, stall Washington and we'll get Cleo out of there", but no.

I think it's a good mission, myself. I like hard choices. To me it makes sense.

It'd only happen via a bug. Baddies are like players in that respect.

I'm not positive, but I recall reading that long long ago, in the original beta or possibly alpha, you could die via falling, but it was changed either before launch or very shortly after. I started a month after and the current mechanic was in place.

Several years ago, after one particular Issue was released, there were random fights between Council and Fifth that'd break out on the street. These days you see spawns of both in a staged fight, but for that particular event two spawns would pop up and duel to the dea...defeat. Players of course would join in and target them all.

Well, one day I was in Kings Row, way over-leveled for that zone, just flying around watching the various fights. Came upon one, where the spawn of Council popped on the ground, but for some reason the spawn of Fifth happened up on a high rooftop. Of course all the Fifth leaped off the building determined to get at their sworn enemies. I have to imagine them all yelling "CHAAAAARGE!" or the equivalent. All ten of them landed with about 5 hp left, and a single Council rocket took out the lot. They all went flying.

I've laughed harder in this game, but it was close.

Actually, what the heck, I'll tell you of the time I actually did laugh the hardest, since it's on-topic too. I was flying around Mercy with my Gravity/Ice Dom, again way-overleveled, I forget why I was there. Anyway, I see a lone Longbow Lt in a tower, and decide to use Lift.

Well, instead of the usual 10 feet or so, she flies about 30 feet up, since I'm like +20 to her. And she doesn't drop straight back down, oh no, she flies up and over. And I hadn't noticed before, but this tower was at the edge of a cliff. So probably 500 feet later, she splats on the beach, with the remaining 5 hp. An Infected promptly pulls a shotgun and blasts her.

Took me about 5 minutes to get off the floor. Couldn't have planned it in a thousand years if I'd tried.

The bombs are on the map too.

What do you mean, the dull yellow things are hard to see? They're icons on the map like the tram or the stores, and can each be clicked so they'll show on your nav bar, with the distance needed to get to them. You can turn off some icons in the map options in the corner too if the map's crowded.

Do you ever open the map and click on the icon for the tram, then close it and go there? Same process.

Ooh, if what Ollin's describing has hit you too, I can see the problem OP. My sympathies, I have not run into that. Check your map options.

Heh, not recently, LONG time ago. At one point things just stood in the fire and died. Fear added in like Issue 2. A joke.

My rankings:

1) Fire. Yeah, sorry, it's hard to beat Fire. Fantastic AoE and ST damage too. Mine is a Fire/Energy.

2) Assault Rifle. Cone goodness, and the attacks just flow well. You've got your shotgun, your grenade launcher, and your sniper rifle. Those are a few of my favorite things. Mine is AR/Elec. Why the heck did they nerf Ignite (again), it was already something you had to finagle to make work.

3) Ice. Frankly I never really liked Ice until I paired it with Devices for a concept, and then it just clicked. Fine ST damage, and I dig holds. Makes some particularly annoying enemy groups a joke.

4) Archery. I'm not as enamored with this set as some, but will admit that RoA and Blazing Arrow are wonderful attacks. The rest of the set is pretty pedestrian to play, imho, although numbers wise it's fine. Archery/Energy here.

5) Pistols. Animations help a lot, especially Executioner's Shot, which I love. Otherwise the set's pretty middle of the road. Another /Energy pairing, sadly Blasters lack Martial Arts or she'd have that instead. Like JayboH says, that cone is just sad, guess every set needs something you can skip.

6) Radiation. Irradiate is great, Cosmic Burst too. Adore the nuke. Neutron Bomb makes me angry. Overall the set feels slow to me, whether it is or not. I like my Rad/Psi but don't love it.

7) Sonic. Sound just kills it for me. Yes I know it's a good set, with excellent secondary effect and a sleep, good damage, but my goodness the noise. I actually like it better on a Corruptor than a Blaster, but still have to turn the volume down.

8) Energy. Ugh. Sorry, I know it has its fans, and I too enjoy sweeping the room with the Torrent, but it's overall just not a fun set to me. Nova is great, but I think I'll just team with someone who has that instead.

9) Electric. Double ugh. A secondary effect I have to go way out of my way to leverage, meh damage overall, and yep, more nasty noise. If it was called Static Blast it'd be more apt, apologies to sound designers but I just don't like it. When I want thunder and lightning I get one of my Storms. Tesla Cage is useful, Thunderous Blast looks neat, but the rest is meh.

I've not played Psi enough to judge it. Honestly I haven't come up with a good concept for one.

Um, I guess it'd be a spoiler to actually say whose it really is, so let's just say Bubastis lived there too. What can I say, I dig Arctic bases, especially when you can have any climate you want inside.

Half-Life 2 and Bioshock are two of the best GAMES I've ever played, not just FPSs. Those two along with Shadow of the Colossus are shining examples of games as art and as mediums for good storytelling. Also, Half-Life 2 allows you to get in a crane and throw a shipping container on "people" that richly deserve it. The game was a worthwhile purchase for that alone, and that's not even counting Ravenholme or meeting Alyx Vance.

You'd love it Golden Girl, it involves fighting back against a ridiculously oppressive regime.

Ahem. One Easter Egg I've found, well at least I consider it such, is the very early "preview" of a character you'll meet (probably to your regret) much later.



From a bigger picture here. At one point you could target him, although obviously you couldn't do anything.