The Mask of Norro

See though, all these arguments about size differences... there have been some damn small American Football players in positions such as WR or QB, never mind Punters and Kickers. Obviously I don't foresee women breaking into the linebacker position or anything-- the bulking up is tremendous and on a completely different level-- but I would absolutely support and believe in women entering the NFL in the same positions that men of similar size and stature are capable of and allowed to be playing in. Isn't it that there are physical requirements for particular positions in the team to begin with? If a woman can qualify physically for the position, why the hell wouldn't we let her play? Looking it up for specifics: The NFL's shorted QB is 5'10", 203lbs. There's another player at 5'5" 165lbs. Proportionally, yes, women won't be able to match these specific height-to-weight ratios, but they can achieve equivalents that allow them to 'safely' participate at the same level. Linekr put it best: anyone playing Football is in danger of being hurt, and go in knowing that. If they're physically able though, there shouldn't be a problem as to what gender they are.

So Lorina's pretty heavy into Doctor Who and while I've not really gotten into it myself, I've had somewhat of an interest in watching. In any case, she just showed me this and admittedly it got my interest peaked even more. Pretty creative by the people involved-- it's a bunch of posts on Tumblr by Who fans that sort-of went in sequence. So she's been trying to get me to watch this for, well, forever now. Little things that make me wonder if I should

... the new DLC has a Volus Engineer and Volus Adept. They are fucking going to add Elcor and Hanar eventually. If they added Volus, they will add them. I JUST KNOW IT.

Filthy Stormcloak rebel! ... granted, I still have supported neither side. I'm anti-Stormcloak ever since they attacked me in one of their encampments for not choosing a side, but I'm not pro-Legion because I don't support punishing Talos worshippers either. I've not had the friendliest encounters with the Thalmor to say the least. Also I'm still on a purge-all-of-the-Forsworn self-imposed mission. Could take awhile.

Just had an awesome experience in-game again... seriously, it's the random encounters and crazy shenanigans those encounters bring that keep me coming back, moreso than the quests and storyline. Never played a game that can hook me on the side-experiences stronger than the primary story before. Anyway, just stumbled upon Katla's Farm after a lot of on-foot exploration and cave/dungeon crawling. Decided to settle down for awhile, absolutely breathtaking scenery in the area so I was exploring and generally taking in the view, absolutely in awe at how beautiful it all was. Stayed the night in the lighthouse (against the wishes of the Khajiit owner) and did some more exploring. Was thinking it might be nice to try and set up shop in the town for awhile, help with the farm, do a little side-life thing for a bit. Just as my Dragonborn was settling in, getting comfortable, really starting to adjust to town life... a blood dragon is spotted on the mountainside near town. The townspeople turning, shouting for help, guards with bows drawn, Solitude guards preparing at the walls... and there I am, staring at this thing, thinking "Guess it's back to the grind again". I charge in after the dragon and team up with the guards, just arrows flying everywhere to bring it down. Determined not to let anyone die, I'm basically sprinting after this thing when it lands to keep its attention on me. I'm a Nord so I'm resistant to frost-based attacks, and it's spewing frost everywhere. We take the thing down, and sure enough my last arrow fired is the one that kills it, and Skyrim does that slow-motion killcam thing and I watch the arrow slam into the dragon's chest and send it toppling. As the dragon dies and the guards go passive again, one of the guards makes a comment while I'm absorbing the dragon's soul: "If those guards in Whiterun can take down a dragon, so can we." I've heard guards say that line a thousand times before but damn it, when that guard said it literally RIGHT after killing the dragon, it felt so defiant and filled with pride. There was another still marveling that I was the Dragonborn at the same time... just an awesome, awesome moment all-around. I don't know if I'll ever finish Skyrim, but I can definitely say that I'll be playing it for a very long time-- longer than I've played any other singleplayer game before at least. There's always something to keep me coming back.

Ever since the Earth DLC came out, I've been busting my ass to get an N7 character. I've redeemed countless Premium Spectre Packs as well as Standard ones. I've done a ridiculous number of Platinum runs with my Salarian Engineer on Firebase White and Firebase Glacier. I have yet to get a single N7 character. Today, when I redeemed yet another Premium Spectre Pack, one of the cards I got was for character training. On my Female Human Sentinel. This was a PREMIUM. SPECTRE. PACK... and I got a fuckin' Female Human Sentinel training card. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Geth Shotgun upgrade, but still. The only character card I got... was a Female Human Sentinel. What the fuck, Bioware?!

So against my standard ruleset, having mined and mined for a freaking eternity in-game for as much glowstone as I could find naturally, I realized that my overall plans for my underground base would require far too much glowstone to complete naturally. So, I went ahead and turned on TooManyItems and gave myself glowstone. Trying to limit my use of TMI because I want to be able to build this thing on my own with my own supplies, but it's been a huge bitch to say the least. I'll get shots up soon as I'm finished. Pretty much just have two rooms left... definitely love how it's turned out, no idea what I'm going to do next.

Bah, switching to creative is for wimps. I've mined my way to greatness since I started playing this game, and that's without mods or creative, dag nab it! Survival worlds for survival gameplay, no fancy switching to creative! ... granted, it's been a bitch in my latest world not using TooManyItems or creative to spawn shit... I have this fascination with using glowstone covered with water and glass as a fancy lighting source, and the sheer amount of glowstone I've needed for my current project has been massive. I'm amazed I've collected as much as I have, and it looks like I'll actually be able to finish it soon. When I raided that Nether stronghold there was a lot of glowstone around it, which amazed me... but half of it got blown up by Ghasts while I was mining When I finish things up I'll totally take a snapshot. It's been a tremendous effort, considering when I started it it was a small cave in a hillside that I converted into a standard starter-hovel and just decided to open up into an underground mansion. EDIT: Speaking of that stronghold... fuck blazes. Ran into an area with like two or three spawners and got caught completely off-guard. Managed to disable one of them but almost got surrounded. Killed two of them but one of the bastards died over lava and I couldn't collect a rod off it >_<

... just had the biggest bit of luck in my single player world in a long time. I've had absolutely no luck at all gathering diamond-- haven't found a single ore yet-- so when I decided to make a glowstone/water/glass light source for my stair entrance to my underground fortress, I had to go out and gather lava in buckets and do the old fashioned "craft obsidian into the portal shape" method to get into the Nether. I wanted my portal to be out of the way from my main construction zones so I mined into the wall in a pattern and then hid the portal deep in the wall at the bottom of my construction site. When I entered it, I was spawned in the Nether with my portal wedged into a wall, barriers of Netherrack surrounding me to keep me safe from Ghasts, and a giant hanging pillar of glowstone right in front of me. I went in, absolutely amazed at my luck, and looked around to check for Ghasts before I started mining. I look to my right, and there just a short trip across a lava ocean stands a Nether fortress and even more glowstone. Absolutely brilliant.

It really is though, tech aside. The average consumer is going to see it as WiiU vs. PS4 vs. "The 720" (I hate how many people think Microsoft's going to call their next console that... urgh). And I'm sorry, but just as people doubted the Wii's sustainability vs. the tech powerhouses of the PS3 and 360, ultimately Nintendo prevailed due to fantastic marketing tactics and taking advantage of demographics that have never been touched before. I'm not saying the WiiU is going to be this huge success like the Wii was, and I'm certainly not saying that Sony nor Microsoft will be able to top it, but what I am saying is that like it or not, this is Nintendo's answer to whatever Microsoft and Sony have planned. This isn't Nintendo playing 'catch up', they haven't needed to, them being 'behind' was what saw them put the Wii up as the second best-selling home console of all time. So, when it boils down to the price, it's honestly quite practical and will be a massive advantage to them. Especially considering Sony and Microsoft are allegedly not planning new consoles for at least another couple of years. Assuming they put one out, say, by the next year or two, I can once again say that it won't be batting at this price-range and will more than likely not be capable of pushing quite as many units as the WiiU will be able to. Also, Sousa, I was commenting on everyone's collective opinions, not specifically yours. And I wasn't saying that it was indicative that you had a console already either, but rather that if we're to complain about the WiiU's price-point, we really aught to consider what's came before it and what this next step represents

... you guys are complaining that it's $300-$350? So, you're complaining that it's roughly the same price as current gen systems? It's a next-gen console. You can say that it delivers the same as the 360 or the PS3, but it's still going to be the console that Sony and Microsoft create their next consoles to compete with. When the Wii came out, it was $250. Given that Nintendo makes the console at roughly $300, and they're not only pricing the console at that value but they're bundling it with the Gamepad, a device that was rumored to potentially not be bundled with the system... I don't know, I'm not seeing what you guys are, because it seems like Nintendo's actually going out of their way to set the price-point for the average consumer. I'd also like to point out that both Sony and Microsoft released systems on launch that totalled over $500 for the same experience when they first launched. Nintendo is launching something that is introducing new concepts, and they're doing so at a relatively low price. You can talk about mark-up from accessories but hell, you have to admit, since Nintendo first released the NES they've been selling high-priced accessories that seem almost necessary for certain games on their consoles, and it's worked as a business strategy for them for over two decades. I can't fault them for continuing it. Also, I'd like to point out that whatever Microsoft or Sony come out with within the next several years to compete with the WiiU is definitely not going to be competing at a price-point this low. I can't even imagine it dipping under $500 for either console to be honest.

So, anyone else catching the NOA WiiU Livestream event in 15 minutes?

WARNING: Massive pictures in the spoiler tag below but holy shit they're amazing. I'd imagine the whole thing would look rather bland in a default texture pack without a lighting mod but still.

Was JUST about to bring that one up too. "Hellfire" is such a close second to "Be Prepared" for me. Can't believe I forgot to bring it up before... that song is so powerful and one of Disney's darkest songs they've done.

This. It was a small moment in the first film but man, you really could hear the venom in his voice. "Return of Jafar" was by far one of the best Disney sequels to a main title they've ever made (albeit the animation quality WAS godawful) and Jafar's song "Second Rate" was such an awesome sequence in that movie. Looking back on it, I think it was because I wasn't ever the biggest fan of Genie and watching Jafar basically school him was a lot of fun. I also liked Lion King 2-- actually a fair bit more than Aladdin 2, though not nearly as much as The Lion King itself (though "My Lullaby" was a suitably haunting, albeit less creative, villain song)-- but beyond those two... I mean, no Disney sequels really come to mind after that that I can say were worth watching. Not immediately anyway. I think in a big way the cinematics of an animated song help make the song itself what it is, too, and with that line of thought "Be Prepared" was the essentially total package. I can't hear "Be Prepared" without immediately being taken back to Scar confidently striding through what was basically a green volcanic eruption, surrounded by a hyena army channeling the Third Reich. EDIT: Realized you were referring to the song he did in the first movie so I figured I'd comment on that first instead . Honestly though, I kind-of preferred the second movie's song for Jafar to the first's... the arrogance of the sequence was what made me love it.

The only version of the game getting the comic book synopsis is the Wii U version; though, to be fair, after the comic synopsis came out for PS3, I think 360 users got it not long after. So it's likely we'll see the ME2 comic at some point after the Wii U version drops. Also? Leviathan spoilers/general observation:

Just recently caught the NC review of Baby Geniuses 2. Oh my God, that ending had me in tears. I really should play catch-up on some of the old TGWTG people other than NG that I used to watch sometime. Hell, I still need to catch up on NG, I haven't watched much in a loooong time

... ? I didn't really catch any of that in my play-through (I've played Bring Down the Sky... sincerely didn't notice anything referencing it). Either I missed something or the bits I've played aren't everything that's in-store... but that'd be confusing since I just finished the prelude to the final mission of the game, and I was under the impression all I had left to see is the endgame 'changes' Leviathan apparently makes.

They push their digital version over their print and are slowly straying from the print format, but keep it for the people still dedicated to it. Because they bundle a GameInformer subscription with every GameStop Rewards Pro card (which every customer gets offered to sign up for) it keeps the magazine very well funded. GameStop's rewards program has a ridiculous number of customers signed onto it and with each one of those customers subscribed to the magazine, nevermind the people who subscribe outside the store... that would be how they stay viable. It's a smart business strategy. Hell, at GameStop we generally push the digital subscription too because they make it the better deal for the customer. They're playing it smart and trying not to stick to the past, most magazines aren't doing that these days. I'm pretty certain if Nintendo had let Nintendo Power switch to a digital format we'd at the very least still see the magazine going around for a little while longer than December, to say the least.

"I Got Friends on the Other Side" was one of the best parts of The Princess Frog. "No One Fights Like Gaston" was one of the best parts of Beauty and the Beast. In most Disney movies it seems that the villains steal the show for me with their song, but no-one really did it quite like Scar for me. Ursula's was pretty great though. Hell, it's not Disney, but "In the Dark of the Night" from Anastasia was, also, one of the best parts of the movie. Villain songs are the best.

So awhile back I reset my Skyrim save because after Mass Effect 3 came out I never touched it and wound up forgetting most of the story I'd played through anyway. It's amazing how different my new playthrough has felt-- I wound up going with a female Nord archer/sneak attacker, and started off at Riverwood, then made it to Whiterun, went with the party to kill the dragon, and made my way from there off on an adventure of finding and murdering every single bandit and Forsworn within range of the city. Leveled up archery and sneak like crazy with those bandit raids. Right now I'm around level 20 or so but my archery and sneak are nearly level 60. Almost everything else is fairly normal but I've just solely focused on keeping those two up for now. Not really touched magic, didn't find a need to yet. I've done a few missions that caught me off-guard too, like getting drunk and waking up across the world, or being forced by that Deadric prince to kill the priest. It's... been a wild ride to say the least. But yeah, I am Forsworn public enemy number one right now. The first time I bumped into them I thought they were a regular town and they damn near slaughtered me, and ever since I've been downright racist in my hatred of them Stumbled on some kind of a Forsworn city on a bunch of docks and just systematically picked them off from the mountains near it one by one, watching them whip into a frenzy trying to find me. Sneak Bonus+Crit+Poison damage on a Hagraven and just watching her launch off the ground from the hit is easily one of the most satisfying things I've done so far. That and also aggroing a dragon into a Forsworn encampment and getting the "Area Cleared" message on the map afterwards without killing a single one of them except for the dragon itself, that was a brillant moment. Yeah though, seriously, fuck the Forsworn.

It really would have worked out so much better for them to have switched to a digital publication. I mean, hell, that's probably what's going to keep GameInformer going strong (besides getting linked with GameStop anyway) and probably could have kept them afloat for a whole hell of a lot longer. Still incredibly sad news as while I've not touched one in ages, it's like GoGo said-- was nice to still see it on magazine racks. That was a massive part of my childhood, I still have a semi-crumpled up issue from the Banjo & Kazooie launch on the N64 and another that had a poster insert for Mario Tennis 64. Pretty much reminds me of the sadness of hearing that Toonami was cancelled a long while back, despite the whole thing going to shit long before it was anyway. It was the end of something nostalgic and it's always sad to see that sort of thing go. So long old friend

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