Selfsurprise

Nuclear fallout, and massive war devastation for almost all areas outside the USA... If you could manage to get enough food to survive, you would still have a nearly impossible time trying to form a civilization of any importance. (especially considering that an 'important' city in the Fallout universe is any location with more than 20 permanent residents, and the biggest 'country' being the NCR with around 700,000 people of various levels of mutation/irradiation spread across most of the southwestern USA over 100 years after its formation) But cultural distinction doesn't necessarily entail "civilization", by which I assume you mean political and economic stability. And even if it were vital, it's not as if civilization itself is free from the all too human drive towards violence and disaster. The relative affluence of America in the Fallout-verse compared to the relative apparent decline of elsewhere globally isn't much of artistic excuse on the part of the games series writers and fans.

This might be a bit of a grim topic, but hopefully not disrespectful or distasteful in any way. If you know of any famous figures, personal heros or otherwise important individuals who have died recently, make a tribute to their memory here. I just learned that the actor Burt Kwouk died today. The name might not mean much to you non-Brits, but he's probably most famous for the role of Inspector Clouseau's Chinese manservant Cato in the Pink Panther films. For me personally, I remember him more fondly as Major Yamauchi in the WW2 P.O.W. drama Tenko, as well as Entwistle from the long running comedy Last of the Summer Wine - "The Electrician and fortune-teller from the land of eastern wisdom, Hull". I'll certainly miss him, his slightly un-PC comedy persona that ever-so-slightly appealed to mild English racism regarding Chinese people. He died at the age of eighty-five, according to The Independent's website "In a statement, his agent said: “Beloved actor Burt Kwouk has sadly passed peacefully away on 24 May. The family will be having a private funeral but there will be a memorial at a later date.”" 1930-2026 ryuW22MWnOU

See: North Korea. I see what you're getting at, but NK is one weeny exception among hundreds of other examples where the geopolitics of the world continue to be dynamic and varied. Also, despite its self-imposed isolation and wilful harkening to the previous centuries problems, the dictatorship of NK can never entirely shield itself from an ever altering reality, from outside it's borders or even within it's own machinations. And as utterly batshit insane as NK's political situation is, there is a tendency for the western media to elaborate on what little information the country is willing to divulge or can be ascertained independently, which surely "exaggerates" some of our western prejudices and assumptions about the countries excesses. Even other conservative and friendless nations, regardless of their governance (Uganda, Nagorno-Karabakh, even Hungary currently, as a few examples) don't stop being culturally vibrant and singular places - and I don't necessarily mean that in the rose-tinted liberal sense - but simply as being places of human phenomena, with all the difficulty in subjective interpretation, context and paradox the entire notion of nationhood brings. I can understand there being exception like North Korea, but my beef with the Fallout's timeline is that it implies the whole world, with the one major exception being America, simply stopped being relevant or culturally distinct. That just smacks of literary and imaginative laziness to me.

I'm not entirely sure how many British users are pottering around on this forum aside from myself and Binky The Rabbit, but feel free to wade in on the debate regardless of your nationality/home planet/plane of existence/vibrational transition state/spiritual plateau/etc... When in doubt, go along with dubious internet consensus! As you may or may not be aware, there is going to be a referendum on the 23rd of June regarding Britain's membership with the EU - a vote on staying or leaving the union. As you can imagine the politicians are divvied up into laughably one-dimensional "in" and "out" campaigns, presenting disingenuous and painfully self-motivated slogans rather than having a serious discussion about the pros and cons of either potential result. On a more sobering note the political pantomime is stocking the rhetorical ammunition of extremist agencies on both the left and right wing spectrums, ranging from bleary-eyed leftist fantasists calling for the demolition of nations and borders, right through the scariest kind of rightist isolationists peddling their innumerable vile ideals. If you were to ask me what option I'd choose right now, it would be an almighty resounding unequivocal... "I 'dunno". For somebody with a passing interest in politics like me, I can somewhat sympathize with the sentiment held by some (predominantly those who don't vote) who feel that the results of party elections aren't going to affect their personal day-to-day existence in a major way. The results of this referendum will surely have much more profound consequences for all British people, and if you look past all of the aforementioned one-sidedness and personality politics you'll find excellent points and cognisant predictions for either outcome. And when you dig a little deeper beyond the mainstream coverage one finds equally valid counter-points and counter-predictions. I must confess I'm nervous about the whole thing regardless of the decision the UK arrives at, what it will mean for us in both the short term and long term. Despite my concerted efforts into measuring both campaigns and its various proponents arguments, my final choice may actually boil down to pure instinctiveness. I've never been this uncertain about the right course before, not in elections or local votes or anything like that, and I can be rather self-reflexive and critical of both sides of a debate. I was just curious to know what some of you guys think. I'm sure it will only serve to deepen my uncertainty, but you never know!

I much prefer reviewing channels like LGR and Accursed Farms, and for me in order to gain any kind of enjoyment from a playthrough-style channel it's absolutely vital that I like the personality and/or humour of the individual running it. I never watch live streaming "live" so to speak, only after it's been uploaded afterwards.

Temple Of Perversion by Abysmal Lord

1. Last of the Summer Wine 2. Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em 3. Open All Hours 4. 'Allo 'Allo! 5. Only Fools and Horses

9/10, if only for the superfluous amount of context. "To live is to war with trolls in the holds of the heart and mind. To write is to sit in judgement on oneself." - Henrik Ibsen I can't believe I hadn't noticed that until now. Sorry man.

^ I appreciate you including me in your role call of names, Jeb :3 That's some fine looking script. Makes me want to rename myself as Felffvrpryse. My own handwriting looks like an epileptic tarantulas attempt at gaining sentience.

I'm afraid most of my Youtube subscriptions are for badly produced black metal and horrible noise music I'm into, but there is some gaming content therein. A Jolly Wanker Accursed Farms AlChestBreach Λnion Cinemassacre DasBoSchitt Lazy Game Reviews MrRhexx PushingUpRoses ShoddyCast Weird Video Games His stuff shouldn't be that funny, I mean anyone can post some gameplay footage of purposefully silly mods and superimpose some badly formatted text onto the screen. But somehow AJW's comedic timing, economy on "memespeak" and considerate editing makes it hilarious.

Impure by Arphaxat

"Hahaha!... Who the hell is Dr. Cross?" I've just watched the first episode and I actually rather enjoyed it! Stark strikes me as a rather amiable person, and despite it being a "Mind" series I'm fairly convinced Freeman is actually talking out loud throughout his entire adventure - qualities/psychological problems I'm certain he has passed onto his body double. He didn't seem nearly as neurotic as Gordon though, which I must confess I kind of miss. Stark strikes me as slightly more well-adjusted cousin of Freeman's from a different part of the country, rather than a cloned or duplicated Freeman. But then that isn't necessarily a bad thing and may very well end up being a strength in this characters scripting. I certainly remember feeling slightly reserved about the first few episodes of Freeman's Mind until I irrecoverably and rather accidently fell in love with the series. Your first episode is much much better than many of the other Mind format series I've personally stumbled across, and actually has me intrigued as to how Stark's time at Black Mesa will turn out. I hope you keep this up and I'll happily subscribe to your channel My username on Youtube is Bizarre Politics, so look out for my comments if it pleases you to do so.

Taking a sheer wild stab at a guess, one of the more recent GTA games? That doesn't explain the "rain" part though. Is it possibly LA Noire? "The King was more of a brother to me than you ever were, Jeremiah!"

Band.

From what I can recall, Altered Beast. Don't me wrong, it's an undeniably awesome game and looking back it's old school fantasy stylisation appeals to me immensely. But I could never get past the first level. I imagine I'd be even worse now... ;p Which two computer game characters do you think should join forces and battle evil in a "[***] Meets [***]" style title?

Keeps game threads from dying an ignominious death.

Crossbows & Catapults?

We should all give up on computer games entirely and play Wiggly Worms instead.

^ I'm personally looking forward to the time somebody comes up with Paganism-inflected BronzePunk. An impossible metallurgic revolution in Europe that resulted in Janus-faced bearded god robots and computerized henges... :3 OT: I hope I'm not coming across as an overtly critical arsehole, but I find something peculiar about the notion of feeling like one belongs in another era. If my interest in history has taught me anything it's that bygone eras can often be hideously traumatic. It's very easy to impose a rose-tinted veneer on any period, and that we in the present can never hope to capture the scope and breadth of complexity of our contemporary world, let alone begin to grasp the magnitude of chance and circumstance of a global moment we are physically and chronologically displaced from. In less obtuse terms, I can't imagine wanting to live at any time other than right now. I'm sure some future pretentious arsehole like me in the 22nd century will be extolling the same sentiments about our terrifying terrorism-filled, politically dodgy, economically unsound, genocidal, holocaust denying, artistically and aesthetically disparate, cat memes laden century - but he or she with have his or her own problems to contend with, both familiar and unimaginable to us. One of the weaknesses that historians often level against alternative history fiction is that it oversimplifies things, and singles out certain events and people as being overwhelmingly pivotal in defining the development of nations and societies. It's always never quite as complicated as a "real" alternative history would invariably be. This idea that we would all be Nazi's if the Nazi's won WW2, or if the Roman Empire never "fell" (which was more of a steady decline, if anything) we would be subjects of a modern Roman Empire, or if Boudica had driven out said Romans from Britain we British would have developed into modern day Celts, etc. They could all make extremely intriguing and entertaining stories, so I don't think it's to diminish the sub-genre as a narrative mode. But it strikes me that an actual alternative history would make the cultural and geographical makeup of the world would make it unrecognizable to us. Let's suspend our disbelief and go with the massive presumption that the human race even evolved at all, which if you ask any evolutionary biologist worth their salt they will tell you was no certainty, and you take the diversity of regional, national, racial, religious, environmental, political, etc denominations of people that really exist today. The variation and co-mingling of said denominations would result in new nations, ideologies, empires, conflicts, alliances and revolutions that would certainly seem wildly alien and unlikely to us. If you asked me to attempt to make up something on the spot with this approach to alternative history in tow (and bear in mind i'm using a language and terminology that may not even apply to it's own unique situation) then I guess it might have to go something along the lines of... An Earth dominated by post-colonial cynic-philosophy inflected neo-libertarian-syndicalist politics from the region we call southeast Asia; In which some uniquely articulated section of the country we call East Timor was is ascendency as the economic power in the previous century; In which most of the world's major religions are geo-animist in nature and there is a tendency to incorporate features of a culture's landscape into their iconography; In which white races are characterized by a post-slavery diaspora and the majority exist in a kind of ghost-venerating occult-anarchist borderless nomadic lifestyle; In which the greater part of the continent we know as Africa underwent a kind of regional and industrial renaissance and for the last five-hundred years has predominantly existed as a united kingdom of semi-autonomous states - in which many of the aforementioned displaced white diaspora live; In which mechanic design went hand-in-hand with animal motifs and mythology, resulting in strangely ornate and beastly looking equivalents of vehicles, machines or war, weaponry, factory equipment, computers, household utensils, etc.; In which non-literalness and abstraction in art is regarded as deeply offensive in many cultures, so that expressionistic, painterly and even minimalist imagery is utilized by underground and counter-cultural movements, particularly in this world's equivalent of extreme music; In which ad infinitum (I'll never be able to surmise this theoretical world, and everything I've given so far would invariably throw up paradoxes and paradigms that I could never have accounted for) Before I creative therapy myself to death, I think I'll summarize and leave you with the recommendation to never hanker for eras you don't belong in. Your impressions of it isn't ever going to match the reality of that time, and that's no insult to you or anyone else! We all share the same inability to imagine the past without distorting it.

You've atually brought up some excellent points, especially in regards to my incredulousness of the seeming extended period of 50's retro tropes and the influence of counter-culture on media, the artistic upheavals of the 20th century from it's beginnings right through to the 60's, 70's, 80's etc were never guaranteed to have occurred, even if it seems unimaginable to conceive our cultural landscape without them. I guess it's the inveterate history student bias in me that finds it difficult to accept the idea that any era, especially anything post industrial revolution, remained seemingly stagnant and unevolving for decades.

I AM A GIGANTIC FACE BOW BEFORE MY MAJESTY TINY MAN CREATURES (it's hard to tell, but I think there is a face in the middle of that mappa mundi or whatever it is)

Sorry, I had to single this bit out. Sounds like a particularly obscure "Ooze-type" creature from Dungeons & Dragons. I don't think it can be denied that Skyrim has all the hallmarks of stereotypical euro-centric fantasy nation, but I loved this game and I think the franchise writers did an excellent job of adding many interesting characteristics to the culture, flora and fauna of Skyrim. I also appreciated the fact that unlike many fantasy settings, the overwhelmingly nordic quality of the Nords (duh!) didn't instantly relegate them as evil northern barbarians in the services of demonic warlords, like they tend to be in most fictional worlds.

I've never played FF3 so I'm not sure what you mean, is this "JOBS" section a feature in game that Square has sloppily done away with?