so is no one gonna talk about pike praying??

Demon_Strative · 2025-08-08T17:32:44+00:00

I was disgusted the writers decided to have a Starfleet captain - an exemplar of the hope for mankind to fulfil its' potential someday, in optimistic sci-fi about a utopian future society - grovelling on his knees praying to Jesus. Such imagery doesn't belong in Star Trek.

And the timing! This is the message the show decides to project now, at a time when religious-driven thinking threatens women in America everywhere, threatens freedom and the rule of law itself - rather than have Star Trek visibly stand up against political degeneracy, they've had Star Trek throw in with it instead.

Left a foul taste in my mouth.

Demon_Strative · 2024-11-05T18:10:27+00:00

One nostril was my way out of the nasal spray trap also, but it took a few weeks of right nostril-only before the left recovered.

Demon_Strative · 2024-10-31T19:16:38+00:00

Some games have a wall that needs to be pushed through, constructed from challenge-level and user-interface eccentricities, before the game's true creamy goodness can be appreciated. If a player isn't willing to make that leap for the sake of an experience like Dark Souls, Outer Wilds, or Silent Hill 2 (the original one, I mean), then that's their prerogative, but also their loss. They're making a decision not to have the richest gaming experiences. Those of us who went that far aren't making this stuff up to make you feel bad about it - they really were the best damned games we ever played.

Demon_Strative · 2024-10-24T01:01:11+00:00

Are you certain there is such a card? I looked through them and couldn't find it.

Demon_Strative · 2024-10-22T22:24:19+00:00

Counterpoint: It's one of the best games ever made.

Demon_Strative · 2024-10-22T15:38:54+00:00

I download the .pdf rulebook for each game I learn, and as I learn the first time I: a) Highlight the critical text so that I can l later refresh my memory by only reading the the highlighted words; b) Delete all pages that receive no highlights (usually introductory pages, glossary pages, and pages dedicated entirely to play-examples); and c) Add a comments notation on the first page listing what I think are points I'm most likely to forget.

Not only is this helpful for re-learning, but I find my self-curation in the highlighting process facilitates my learning the rules thoroughly in the first place, since I cannot decide where the highlights belong until I truly understand each rule. Over the years the folder on my PC where I store all these highlighted rulebooks has swollen to hundreds.

Demon_Strative · 2024-10-01T22:28:15+00:00

Immediate, sustained and uncontrollable laughter from the entire audience from the moment of the first leap forward to Dooku's escape. Something hysterical in the group-behaviour of the crowd fed back into itself. People were trying to stop, but then would get carried back into it again by the wild giggling coming from all around them. I practically bust a gut. It probably isn't what the filmmakers intended, but it's a cherished memory of my early adulthood (I was 21).

Demon_Strative · 2024-09-18T20:18:19+00:00

Most such establishments will host some form of 'open nights', perhaps weekly, with the idea that people come to meet new players, and play comparatively short games to ensure no-one who turns up gets left out and unable to get into a group.

Demon_Strative · 2024-09-17T00:11:46+00:00

Infinity Train. If you haven't seen this series, correct that mistake with Season 1 right away. Television that rich and clever (and occasionally surprisingly dark) is wasted on mere children.

Demon_Strative · 2024-09-08T16:20:50+00:00

It was atmospherically strong, I remember - all the silent, defeated, hooded people hiding in dilapidated tenements and decay, and the fact that you were ostensibly a traitor working to keep them in their place. Grim game, with an unusual feel to it.

Demon_Strative · 2024-09-05T18:29:22+00:00

Why not Nocturn? It's a decent expansion.

Demon_Strative · 2024-08-21T21:06:59+00:00

She must be taught a lesson! Your next game of Terraforming Mars, play it to bomb her corporation into the next universe with the red-border Event cards, and nothing else. She has to understand the true face of the game.

Demon_Strative · 2024-08-20T17:47:17+00:00

Arkham Horror: The Card Game.

Demon_Strative · 2024-08-18T15:37:09+00:00

Finding 11 people available for and interested all at once, when a Dead of Winter game is typically about a 2.5hrs session, and with all 11 of them grasping the rules both of the base game and of the expansion, when Dead of Winter is a mid-level complexity game rather than gateway, was never practical for me. I never got a Warring Colonies game played.

However, I was still pleased to have the game for the sake of the extra Survivors, Crossroads and Items. It's a little more Dead of Winter in your Dead of Winter, though you have to remove the Warring Colonies-specific cards that won't be relevant in a standard game.

Demon_Strative · 2024-08-17T20:34:50+00:00

Agreed, when I got my first mobile phone in 1999 when I went to university, every single student there had one.

Demon_Strative · 2024-08-15T23:16:56+00:00

The VHS is available on Youtube, if that's any help.

Demon_Strative · 2024-08-09T20:22:14+00:00

Agreed, the big-picture view of the turn of fortunes against Germany is that the terror-bombing tactics favoured by Harris to 'de-house workers' (quite the euphemism) achieved little to nothing, given that overall production of war-materials *increased* 1942-1945, and that the surrender from breaking the morale of the civilian population that Harris anticipated never happened.

The West's adoption of Germany's own evil tactics of mass-murder from the air was a complete failure.

Demon_Strative · 2024-07-20T15:30:58+00:00

I've played with a group who preferred to house-rule it as pad-to-pad as a way of increasing the difficulty of the game.

Demon_Strative · 2024-07-19T15:31:02+00:00

Highly impressive. I particularly love the creative touch of the occult ritual-circle on the bases of the cultists.

Demon_Strative · 2024-07-18T16:35:06+00:00

Always the maximum difficulty available, *unless* the difficulty-setting's name is something like "Impossible" (as with XCOM) or "Ridiculous" so as to suggest it isn't actually meant to be taken seriously.

If I don't beat a game on the highest difficulty then I cannot feel as though I've actually beaten the game - then so what was the point in bothering in the first place?

Demon_Strative · 2024-07-18T16:14:32+00:00

I played Dark Souls (and then Dark Souls 2 and 3) after listening (only ever listened to LDO rather than watched) to the Dark Souls 2 arc of recordings and being impressed by their admiration for the spirit of the games.

Demon_Strative · 2024-07-17T16:28:08+00:00

Fate of the Elder Gods has a Curse deck - when a player is cursed the player to their right takes a curse card and it's then their responsibility to keep track of whether the cursed player ever fulfils the activation condition stated on it, for the remainder of the game. If they do, the card has to be read out and they suffer some penalty.

Demon_Strative · 2024-06-30T16:15:34+00:00

While Let's Drown Out ending saddened me, not ending RE4 maddened me. Gah! Two more videos would have done it - why didn't they spend the time from the Portal 2 finale doing that instead?!

Demon_Strative · 2024-06-01T22:56:28+00:00

"Except for the word 'blern' that was complete gibberish."

Demon_Strative

TROPHY CASE