I'm blessed to have not yet reached the point where I need medication.

I just take certain vitamins (D, E), fish oil, ubiquinol, some others. I'm not looking forward to old age, but we'll do what we need to do when we come to it. Hang in there, everyone.

I love both because they're equally ridicuous. Younger man, murdering people by the dozens for the sport of it...or old man, murdering people by the handful at a slightly slower pace for the sport of it.

Pre 2013 you say?

Sounds like capitalism happened. They got sold to Ziff Davis, a publicly traded company with a track record of having little interest in what made their acquistions beloved so much as how much they can squeeze out of them for their shareholders. That means quality goes down as they try to squeeze as much out of as few staff as possible while ads go up to further increase revenue.

Immediately after the sale ***in 2013***, IGN laid off a bunch of people.

IGN hit with layoffs; 1UP, Gamespy and UGO shutting down (engadget.com)

In other words, their built up trust and reputation...and you stopped mattering once that sale happened.

Horray capitalism and trash companies.

The "biggest" was probably some Creed perfume for mom. Wind Flowers. Do recommend for any women in your life if you can swing the asking price.

You're really stretching the definition of "shooting". We had a threatening perp who discharged a weapon into the air under very suspect circumstances, taken into custody without incident and noone harmed. Meanwhile, we have actual shootings and actual deaths of palestenians and muslims (as noted in this quote chain).

Now, what behavior is Hasan encouraging that we should define as "dangerous"? Be specific.

Not every game is going to be for everyone. That's fine too. I refunded Oblivion. Not for me. But I don't feel compelled to go around and bash Elder Scrolls games. They have their audience and that's cool.

Once you get old enough to realize the world doesn't revolve around you, you'll find it okay that there are things that you don't like but others do and it still be okay. That's hard for communities like System Wars, which are largely predicated on hating on things that you don't like, even when they're good.

I understand your perspective and probably would have been of the same accord when I was younger and my funds were tight. Times have changed.

For me today, I'm not going to put a price on an great experience. As you get older, you begin to realize that making great memories is what life is about and that it's the great experiences that leave an impression -- however long or short -- that are worth paying for, regardless of medium. Great experiences breed great memories. I'll pay $200 for a good seat at a Cirque Du Soleil show in Vegas or jazz concert in Seattle, neither of which will last more than 1.5-2 hours. $4K for second row Miami Heat NBA tickets a few times a year, 2.5 hours each, give or take. I'm paying $1,100 for a Rose Bowl football game ticket to see my alma mater ball out and that's going to be 3 hours, maybe 3.5 tops + flight and hotel. Hell, I just got back from spending $95 on a 1-day ticket to go look at art at Art Basel (Miami art show) for a few hours. Why pay out for any of those? I could have been replaying something very long like God of War or playing whateverthehell long F2P game or binging a Netflix series. Entertainment for hundreds of hours for very little. So why? Because the experiences and memories from those short events can last for years too. Dozens of hours are not always required for the amazing. I've played and forgotten games that were long for the sake of being long (Final Fantasy 15 comes to mind immediately), but there are some games that were very short but very impactful (Portal comes to mind, along with Hellblade).

If $70 is too much for a short, amazing experience for your finances then it certainly makes sense for you to avoid outside of GamePass or some such. Too much risk. Plus subjective opinions and value and all that. But I will agree that if it's short, it does need to be special in that first play through.

That being said, I personally played through Hellblade 3x times and would say it was one of the most memorable games I ever played. But I also have really good headphones and an amp to match, so the whispers and atmosphere were perhaps more brilliant an than most had. I will absolutely be paying the admission price for the sequel and hope it's more of all the best parts of the first game's experience and then some.

If it's 3 hours that you remember for years to come, why is that not enough?

If you need a 90+ hour slow burn, you have plenty of options. Why can't a 3 hour ride be good enough if it actually has something worth experiencing and is best told in that span of time?

Hellblade will be an unforgettable experience just like the first.

That's enough for me.

With Ukraine as a proxy, the West reduced Russia's ability to conduct war by 50% and counting, reduced their ability to be a threat in other regions, trained soldiers by tens of thousands, and quite a few generals and high-level military members...all without losing a single NATO life. While also adding new members.

No, Vlad lost real hard. He may yet save some face with a treaty that gives him something he wanted, but it won't be much of what he wanted.