Heatman

Care to post a link to your youtube channel Justin? maybe i can help you get to 566 subscribers 😅

Finally reached the pinnacle of the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3. Got me thinking about how 'safe' art is nowadays. The appealing thing about art is that it's provocative and encourages conversations on hard topics. Everyone wants an easy answer nowadays to social issues that our 'art' and entertainment in movies and TV shows become bland and uninspiring, just pandering to the most popular and ideals on Twitter and TikTok instead of bothering to improve and expand our perspective on life and society with controversial questions.
Mass Effect 2 had a few great examples of what I'm talking about, specifically Mordin's loyalty mission. It has aged like fine wine, and it goes to show why everyone considered Mordin's character arc the best-written storyline in the entire trilogy. His dilemma and denial over the genophage, along with his subsequently remorseful realization in Mass Effect 3, brought tears to my eyes. I remember choking up when I was questioning Mordin during his loyalty mission about the ethics of the genophage, and I wasn't just tearing up because of how heavy the topic was, but more so because I could feel Mordin's guilt and sorrow over the dead female Krogans that met their fate as an indirect result of his actions. It was so beautifully tragic, Mordin's dilemma and perspective.
But more relevant to my point is that, Mass Effect gamers also had many heated debates regarding the ethics of the genophage. You would rarely get that kind of interesting exchange over a controversial subject in media today because the big companies want to keep the narrative safe. And it's not just the genophage either, but also the Quarians' enslavement of Geths, which are essentially a machine race in the simplest definition. However, the ethics of the Quarians' actions were anything but simple, so the heated exchange about whom were in the right - the Quarians or the Geths - was just as intriguing as well. I love how a video game of all things would get people discussing about such interesting moral dilemmas, even if they aren't important issues in the context of real life. That's what art should be, provocative.
There were times while I was playing the Mass Effect games that it felt like I was watching an episode of Star Trek, specifically The Next Generation. The older Star Trek shows had always tackled intriguing moral and ethical issues with such subtlety and intelligence that the Mass Effect games' handling of their issues bore great resemblance. And it's not just the big issues like genocide and slavery either, but also the smaller inter-relationship conversations, how the crew members talk to each other like adults instead of using simple, dumbed down dialogue a teenager would use.
The Critical Drinker pointed out a great scene that exemplified such a conversation when calling out how modern movies and TV shows use dumbed down dialogue only children and immature man-children would use:
I just love this exchange so much, and I remember a similar level of depth among my conversations with the Normandy crew as well, albeit not as subtle as the conversation above. For example, it's easy to just dismiss Ashley as only a racist without understanding the nuance of her motivation. I might not have supported Ashley's views on aliens, but even I could see there's nuance between her humanist biasness and Terra Firma's "We hate all aliens" point of view. Complex issues like racism never have an easy answer, especially in our modern times when everything's grey. People tend to miss that.

I nominate @Empire Of Sight, been a plus for VGR since signing up, always bringing quality posts whenever online. 

Seconding this!
I'm also rather fond of Sonic Mania and Sonic 3. And I played through Sonic '06 and had a blast because I played it with a good pal, but it's not a good game at all even though I had fun, haha.

Yes and no
I think it really depends, like for example on one end we have great shows like Castlevania, Arcane, stranger things but on the other hand we have shitty productions like the recent Resideng evil show or the death note adaptation
Basically Netflix has a lot of content, more than hbo, disney or prime, but more doesnt always equal to quality

I don't really see anything wrong with the current points system to be honest, it's not that it overly matters to me as i never came here to get free stuff as i came here because i wanted to talk about videogames and it's culture . I think i've got 2 switch games so far trough the bid for rewards program, while these are neat rewards and a nice gesture from dc, it should not be the main motivation to keep posting here and to me it never will.
One thing you could do is make a overhaul of the Member of the month and reward second and third place also with some points, it would be more motivating especially for newer members that their posts are appreciated here and we want them to continue to post here. Maybe something worth considering @DC what do you think?
If you are going to do a shop i'd probably say some vgr merch would be cool but i don't know i'd just rather buy it myself instead because you know some vgr merch would be cool tough. Yeah i wouldn't mind wearing a shirt that says Proud Moderator at vgr.com bitches or something along those lines lol. But i'll take anything i can get really even if it's cosmetics for the forum.
I think the reputation is fine as it is and i'm probably the only one who sees it more as how reputable somebody their posts are as in quality posts, my goal is to reach 500 reputation by the time i hit 1000 posts, so far i'm on course. If i could reach it that means half my posts were liked and that is enough to put a smile on my face and to keep me motivated to continue putting time and effort into my posts, even if some take me over half an hour to write.

Just think that 70 years time or maybe 10 years time when you die to think what games yhat you want to play still 😜 I say I have my full PC into the grave with me 😛
So many but I go with
MSFS2020 BF2 Halo Age Of Empire's 

Back in the days when the internet was still not as common as it is today, we used to sell and buy porn dvds at school hidden in ps1 or ps2 cases xD
But Ive never messed with an actual cartridge though, I never attempted opening one but I guess thats the reason why its a good place to hide things

Never actually had thay problem except with Skyrim when choosing a very bad race at the start of the game, sadly the only solution for that is to reset the game

I've always watched a lot of tv shows and movies, and I often connect with people over it. Not just dates but friends too. It probably won't work if a potential partner doesn't watch anything at all, I imagine we would quickly run out of things to talk about. Also I would like a partner to watch tv shows/movies with me. It's annoying when you want to watch something but the other person wants to do something else instead...
It's not a deal breaker, but we would have to have something else in common. But I guess my ideal partner would also be into tv shows and movies

Whenever it comes to my character customization in most RPG games that I played, I'm always very careful with my character building because if I mess it up, it's always going to affect my gameplay. I had a little struggle with my character building in Divinity: Original Sin II but I later got it right the way I wanted. 

@Akunwould be getting my nomination this time around. I love reading his comments on every topic he decides to have his say. 

Most of these video games companies have given up on being creative and unique when it comes to their games development. It's mostly copies and improved graphics that they are very good at now. Only in game's aesthetics is where they have worked on extensively with finding several ways to cash in on the games whether it's worth it or not. 

I would have been biased if my team Manchester United was playing Champions League this season because I would have loved my team and CR7 to win it but with us being out of the competition, Messi would be my next best pick for winning it. Manchester City is capable of doing it too with Halaand leading their attack. 

Honestly would be down to see this game getting some online options. Would really help the games replayability I think. Sadly I don't think they will ever do that, or if they did, it may be in a sequel instead. 
 
I would welcome DLC coming out, but I have a feeling they won't do that. But, I could be wrong. 

@Akunwould be getting my nomination this time around. I love reading his comments on every topic he decides to have his say. 

The ads on the platform are definitely getting more intrusive, they are clearly trying to push people onto YouTube Premium.  I refuse to use add blockers because it harms creators but it getting annoying.

I'm kind of bummed that it's taken this long, when I know that I'm not going to be wowed in the same way as with BotW because it'll still be "just a sequel" in its core, so the hype has kinda fizzled out for me. It'll probably still be fun, but I'm kind of hoping that the next Zelda game after this won't just be more of the same since it sold so well, mainly because it'll fall into the same rut Aonuma complained about up until the release of BotW.

@Yaramaki Do you think you might try Sneak while working to see if it helps you have energy and focus for work?
@Withywarlock Are you sure it’s the recipe that makes it seem powdery, not the way you mixed it?
@Heatman Not my cat. She sounds like a boulder crashing down whenever she jumps off of anything lol

He wasn't good at protecting his money, as he would often leave it sitting around his room. His sisters knowing this, often stole a few bucks here and there, so he came up with the idea to hide the money in his games, as his sisters hated video games anyway. I mean, he could have simply hid the money somewhere else, or idk put it in a wallet and hid that, but he liked the idea of hiding money in there, as they never would have guessed anyway. 
I actually hid a letter I got from a girl I had a crush on, by hiding it in my PS2 expansion slot. I also hid it in a NES console, to which my brother found and made fun of me lol. Good times. 

That's a problem of mine. I am someone who is not a fan of reading countless mentues and having to read into what stats and all that does. I remember when I started Dark Souls the first time. I made a guy who was fat and of course this made him slow, or I think it did, I don't remember. Anyway I quit pretty quickly because I figured my character wouldn't do me good. 
But jokes on me, as I gave up on Dark Souls pretty fast. 

My channel isn't monetized with ads, already YouTube have filtered ads all over my videos, milking from my contents already and leaving me with nothing, 😂. That's bizarre, but their is nothing I can do, but continue to push for my channel growth. I have 565 subscribers at the moment via my soccer niche channel, my aim is to hit 20k before 2022 ends, then monetize the channel. 

Back in the day I knew a kid who would hide money in his video game carts. He had a torx screwdriver or whatever was needed to open up NES, SNES, N64 carts, and I guess what he'd do, is when he got some birthday money or anything else, he'd put it inside the games. I guess his brothers often stole from him, and even though they'd play his games, they never stole them. So he was always assured it'd be a safe option. I never did that, but I did once hide a note I got from a girl in the back of my PS2 expansion slot (for internet, or a HDD). I wasn't using the console then, but I put that note there to hide it. Honestly it's not a bad hiding spot for other things too. 😄 

Agreed - I just got Breath Of The Wild the other day and I absolutely love it! That being said - this game looks absolutely incredible and I can't wait to see more of it as the release date approaches.

Lol  i gained quite some weight during the covid period since all you could do was eating way too much for your own good, drinking beer/wine and playing videogames. Thank god i could still go to work or it would have gotten way out of hand. I lost about 60 pounds, little over 25 kg since covid restrictions ended and i could go out hiking again. These days i hike about 25-30 kilometers on a weekly basis to keep my weight under control. Maybe if i give up booze and unhealty eating habits as in eating fries atleast 4 times a week combined with a bunch of other unhealthy crap i'd see even more result but so far i'm satisfied with losing the weight i put on during covid and then some by just being able to go out hiking again.