Castle Magus

So, because it's almost summer (go figure), GOG.com is doing a bunch of crazy sales right now, including giving away a game called Magrunner: Dark Pulse (which, strangely, doesn't appear to have an actual page on GOG itself) for free for the next 19 hours or so, as of the time of this post. Just thought I'd let the one or two people on my friend list that might care about this sort of thing know about it, assuming you don't already know.

After big ones, elaborate ones, spectacular ones, and impressive ones, we've now circled back around to big ones again. At least they're being numbered now.

And, once again, EVE Online takes up two slots out of the five.

So, Forbes, what you're telling me is that Glenn Beck[1] is still a moronic asshole, huh? How is this news? Oh, right, because this time he's being a moronic asshole about video games.

...yeah, that's still not newsworthy, really.

I totally agree with the comment from that Ricardo Lima guy, though, and have said more or less the same thing myself many times in the past: "What is fascinating and scary is that too many take the hogwash he says as truth." (EDIT) Proof of this is the fact that there are people in the comments of that article who are actively defending Glenn Beck. *facepalm* (/EDIT)

[1] - Wow, never thought I'd get any more use out of that tag again, now that I've (mostly) stopped talking about political bullshit.

Stupid shit like this is what happens when a homophobe gets to be in charge of a country.

*eye rolling + head shaking + heavy sighing*

I'll be glad when, in another decade or so, this sort of thing will be looked back upon in the same sort of "What the hell were we thinking?" way in which pre-60s Civil Rights Movement era antics are viewed now. (Well, ignoring the fact that there are still people today who are egregiously racist assholes, just as there will probably still be egregiously homophobic assholes in another decade or so. It's just that those people tend not to get to be in high positions of power these days, at least not if they're blatantly open about their archaic mindsets anyway.)

(EDIT) And it looks like a bunch of the comments under the PC Gamer article I linked to are being left (not unlike a cow leaves cow pies) by people who are either egregious homophobic assholes or trolls or both. (/EDIT)

I talk about EVE Online a fair amount, even though I don't play the game, have never played the game, and have no desire to start playing the game. You want to know why I don't play the game, have never played the game, and have no desire to start playing the game? This right here is one pretty good reason.

(EDIT) And here is reason number two as to why I don't play EVE, have never played EVE, and have no desire to ever start playing EVE. (/EDIT)

(EDIT 2) And here is reason number three as to why I yadda yadda, blah blah.

Yeah, EVE Online is a game that I will merely read about, but never, ever actually play myself. (/EDIT 2)

So it looks like Moebius is out now, or will be in the next day or two if you want Steam or GOG versions. This was one of the first Kickstarter projects I backed after the floodgates were opened by the Double Fine Adventure (the first act of which has also been released, by the way).

Moebius has been billed as a spiritual successor to Gabriel Knight, which is a big part of the reason why I'm looking forward to it. With that said, Pinkerton Road Studio is also working on a remake of the original Gabriel Knight, which I have already discussed a little bit here.

With the new release of The Journeyman Project 1: Pegasus Prime (a remake of the original Journeyman Project game), GOG.com finally has the entire series on the site, which is a good thing. Oh, and the second and third games are also apparently 50% off during this first week after the release of Pegasus Prime.

(For those one or two of you who may remember my OtakuWars! secondary character of Arthur... yeah, he was blatantly stolen from this series. >_>;)

Physical disc/cartridge games, that is. I'm not even talking about digital stuff on Steam or GOG or whatever. A bunch of old shit that I'll almost assuredly never play again. Some are duplicates, even. For instance, I own three copies of Chrono Trigger (original SNES, Playstation, and DS versions). Hell, some of the games are stuff that I've since re-bought on Steam and/or GOG. I came to this realization while trying to get my final stuff packed. I know I've said in the past that I don't sell video games anymore, but... I think I'm going to be selling a shit-ton of video games... once I get them all back to North Carolina. -_-; Yeah, I probably should have sold them before moving if I was going to sell them at all, but it's too late for that now, and I'm not going to just leave them here. I suppose I could just take them to Half Price Books, same as I did all those old textbooks the other day, but, unlike all those old textbooks, I'm thinking I can potentially get a whole lot more money by selling the games on eBay or something. I'll need it if I can't get a new job in NC relatively quickly.

In any case, I will be leaving for North Carolina for good next Friday, Feb 21, so I have between now and then to finish packing and schedule a pick-up for the USPS to come get all of this crap (as I'm shipping the majority of it in Flat Rate USPS boxes). The sooner the better. Most everything is already boxed up, and I hope to have the boxes sealed and the shipping labels printed out by end of day tomorrow, for a Monday pick-up. I just hope there isn't some sort of limit on the number of boxes that can be picked up in a single day. >_>;

(EDIT)

This article describes the whole ContentID debacle pretty well: "The Injustice Of The YouTube Content ID Crackdown Reveals Google's Dark Side"

(/EDIT)

Between the recent requirement of Google+ that came into play a month or two ago and now all this ContentID craziness that's been going on the past week or so, I have a hypothesis to propose in response: Google is simply tired of Youtube, and are actively doing everything they can now to drive users away from it, so that later when they shut it down completely, citing "declining usage," they won't technically be lying at that point. *dons tin-foil hat*

( Angry Joe rants about this issue behind cut )

As far as the ContentID thing is concerned, though, this goes far beyond just Youtube. Copyright law, as a whole and in general, is just a complete charlie foxtrot now, has been for many years, and most assuredly will be for many more years to come. And it will likely continue to get worse as more and more technologies, similar to Youtube, continue to pop up, especially as long as rights holders (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) continue behaving like petulant neanderthals about this stuff.

Except in the case of the ContentID here, in many cases, it's not even the rights holders acting this way. Instead, it's Google programming their content-patrolling robots in an attempt to preemptively avoid having to deal with the petulant neanderthals. As long as Google stays proactive, it (sometimes) prevents the broken copyright laws from being dropped on them like a ton of bricks. Instead, it's Google dropping the ContentID banhammer on everyone else, which sucks, and just makes Google look like supreme assholes who have long since abandoned their motto.

Good news: GOG is giving away Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.

Bad news: The site seems to be broken now, at least as far as being able to actually log in and such. I'm sure it's a totally unrelated issue, right? ¬_¬

(EDIT)

Well, I now have Fallout 2 and Tactics added to my GOG account. I already had the original Fallout added from the last time they gave it away for free. I already have all three games via Steam anyway (as well as original CD copies, for that matter), so it's not like I needed them on GOG, but... why not, you know?

(/EDIT)