Recent content by Jon Solmundson

Having envied my friends rich enough to afford PS2's, and only briefly playing the Jak games while I was visiting them, I recently went back and got them on PS3. Jak and Daxter is a beautiful, cleverly designed platformer. It has a decent level of challenge without being ridiculously...

Woah, hey people slow down here. You can't discount free-will, scientific backing or no, lest you want to destroy the fundamentals of society. Human society posits on a tenuous agreement for us not to destroy or harm one another. For the most part anyway. If you say there is no such...

Being from Australia, and also somewhat studied in economics, I'd like to suggest a few reasons. 1) Shipping goods to Australia used to be, and still is, expensive. Australian's are used to paying this inflated price so it stands that they can continue to pay that price - just as Americans...

I feel like pointing out that the most recent iteration of the series at least, poses some of these questions to the player, as various denizens of cafes point out that keeping pokemon in virtual cages might not be the best idea. It's my belief that this is intentionally immediately juxtaposed...

I would suggest two points, which I'm sure have already been covered. 1) The abuse that takes place in cases of 'cyber-bullying' is not restricted to the 'cyber' end. That's just the angle that the media takes because it motivates more clicks/ sells more at the news stand. It's far more...

I help out a lot at church, which I'd guess goes against the standard of educated liberal ideology that I'm used to with most gaming communities... well, the ones that I enjoy anyway. I should probably point out that I'm not exactly a conservative either, but I'm still way into my monotheistic...

Depends on the game, and on what books I've been reading. Games I want to be emotionally invested in I'll usually leave default or - depending on thematic appropriateness - replace it with my own name. Otherwise it's all jokes all the time. More recently I've been using "Valued Client" so...

How has no-one mentioned Dynasty Warriors yet? I know it doesn't exactly have a good name in most educated circles, but it's a very simple kind of fun, and it sounds like EXACTLY what you're looking for. Especially if you've got a (possibly inebriated) friend to play with, then it's a real treat.

Look, you can use whatever scapegoat you want, be it healthcare (which just points out further problems with the American economy), homelessness (see before), or entertainment (as has been identified by the senator in question) but the more real guns you have in a country the more likely it is...

While I disagree with the OP's negativity on storytelling (I felt the slower moments of Portal 2 were incredible, and a new type of adventure game should spawn from its lessons. Also that Half Life 2 still sets a high watermark for 'ambient storytelling' that most have yet to surpass in subtlety...