optimusjamie

Around my 13th birthday (September '09) my uncle gave me an Amazon gift voucher. I had this friend at school who talked about pretty much nothing but TF2 all the time, so the first thing I got with the gift voucher was The Orange Box. Now, TF2 and Portal couldn't run on the computer I had back then- an old Dell Optiplex running Windows XP- so I had to content myself with Half-Life 2. Then, in October, I got a new PC as an early Christmas present, and finally got to play TF2, which I still am after 5 years. What you have to remeber is that this wasn't just my introduction to Valve games. It was my introduction to PC gaming in general. Yes, I had played games on my PC before, like Roller Coaster Tycoon, Transport Tycoon and Freelancer, all of which I have fond memories of, but until I got the Orange Box, I was mostly a console gamer. After that, it was just an upward spiral- Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Gmod, The Elder Scrolls, X-COM... So, yeah, thanks, Valve. Thanks for everything.

Guys, can we not turn it into a political debate? I only used it as a test case for my definition of evil- intentionally causing unnecessary harm. Now whilst I happen to think that pollution comes very close to that definition, it was only a test case.

Good point- I should probably have mentioned nuclear power in my post.

I think that there are certain things we can objectively think of as 'evil'. In general, I think the best definition is intentionally causing unnecessary harm, whether that's to people, the environment or even an animal. Let's break it down a bit: Intentionally: This should be an obvious one. Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity/coincidence/whatever (delete where appropriate). You also have to take into account informed consent, which makes the difference between, for example, BDSM and abuse. It's also why you can't consider an animal to be evil. Unnecessary: Can the action be justified on practical grounds? This brings us to the Baby Hitler problem- could I justify killing a baby on the grounds it grows up to be Hitler? If I did remove Hitler from the timeline, how do I know some other dictator won't come to power in Germany and start World War II, or any number of other scenarios that still result in World War II? There were thousands of bitter people who wanted revenge for Germany's defeat in World War I, and the Soviet Union was a thing, so it's highly probable that all killing baby Hitler will change is the name of the most reviled person in history. Now that we've got our parameters established, let's work through an example- environmental damage caused by energy companies. Is it intentional? It's hard to tell. There are reasonable arguments for any possible answer. Whilst there is evidence that energy companies actively fund global warming denialism, you could also argue that they simply don't care. Is it unnecessary? Almost certainly- why stick to outdated methods of energy production when we have perfectly viable solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and probably other methods? Hell, nuclear power may not be renewable, but it's still a hell of a lot better than coal or natural gas, and we've had it for over 60 years now. The energy companies definitely know about those methods, but deliberately ignore them because all they see is a threat to their bottom line. now, we can quibble over why they see them that way, but that's not the point. So, environmental damage caused by energy companies. Is it evil? Well, it's hard to say whether or not it's intentional: after all, we're dealing with real people, not the villains from Captain Planet. It's definitely unnecessary, because there are perfectly viable methods of producing energy that don't damage the environment. Therefore, I'm going to have to say that it's leaning towards evil, but may have some amount of stupidity involved as well.

What's this about waking up in Eastern Europe?

The original, I take it? Saw X-Men: Days of Future Past on Monday. I'd give it about an 8.

If you can record, I can probly edit... Or at least find you some editing software... Recording won't be a problem- I have a pretty decent microphone and I think Geforce Experience comes with a specialised recording suite. I'm not sure if I can do it in 720p, considering my monitor is an old 4:3 LCD and I'm using the original Doom 3 (with Sikkmod, HD textures and an improved shotgun) rather than BFG Edition.

I live in the south of England. I do get decent Internet speeds (for reference, my usual ping when I'm playing TF2 is ~50), but because I'm not in a town, I can't get fibre optic.

xHSD0tR2IOU

Doomguy's Mind was funny the first time. I think after a while, it'd just get old. That said, I've been wanting to do my own Mind series using Doom 3, but I don't have any decent editing software.

Has anyone else heard of this old space sim? It came out in about 2003 or so. I think it was the last game by Chris Roberts before he started Star Citizen. Not quite sure if it counts as 'obscure' since it was somewhat popular in its time and still has some communities out there (albiet based around mods like Discovery and Crossfire). As far as I'm aware, it's not abandonware, but it definitely isn't in print anymore. Anyway, it's actually pretty good. The singleplayer campaign is pretty solid, but it does go kind of off-the-rails when they introduce the alien invasion plot and the man-on-the-run stuff kind of fades out, but it's definitely worth a look. As mentioned previously, there's still some communities. I'd recommend Discovery- it's based around a mod, and has an active roleplaying community around it that puts out pretty awesome stuff from time to time.

I think I'll check this out. As for your comments on 90s level design- I will admit I'm a fan of it in principle, but when I played through Wolfenstein 3D a while back, it did get frustrating. Still better than the glorified corridors of most modern shooters.

I think that nuclear fission is the best we've got right now. Nuclear fusion is on the way, but how on the way it is isn't certain. If we could harness antimatter, that would be awesome, but one reactor going wrong could blow up a continent.

There's this free game on Steam called 'Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok', which also has some pretty cool RPG elements.

I would totally play an Assassin's Creed game set in space, but only if they did an open-world space thing like the sailing in Black Flag.

There's only really 2 games this year I really want: Wolfenstein: The New Order and Alien: Isolation.

Hello! I'm Jamie, from the United Kingdom. I've been following Freeman's Mind since around mid-late 2009 (I don't remember specifically), and the Game Dungeon pulled me into the wacky world of Tyrian. Favourite games: Most things by Valve, Doom I and II, Resident Evil 4, Kerbal Space Program Favourite films: Alien series, the Star Trek TOS films (Wrath of Khan et al), Monty Python films Favourite other stuff I guess: Game of Thrones, Star Trek TOS and TNG, Earl Grey, power metal, Dune (the book), Homestuck (don't judge me).