Lurker > Lightning Strikes

red sox 777 posted...

Someone has already pulled it off. Donald Trump.

I know that this is a troll, but also, no. Trumps economic platform was hard right. Furthermore one of the reasons he split with Steve Bannon was that Bannon wanted him to implement some social democrstic policies.

However, there are parties that do this in other countries. PiS in Poland is the most famous and successful example. UKIP tried it for a while post-Farage. There is a party here in Ireland called Antu that split from the main left wing party to oppose abortion. It happens, though only the first one I mentioned has been successful.

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Inviso, Ill be honest. This is actually something that Democrats should learn from Republicans. The US political culture is inherently and intentionally split down the middle and all nationwide contests will hover around 50/50. There is no reason then to fear moving left as the vast majority of voters will always vote the same way. So go wild. The Republicans became a straight up far right party and they got nearly the exact same share of the vote as they did before. The Democrats can therefore go as progressive as they want and frankly, I expect no significant difference in electoral results. It might even push the Republicans towards the centre in response.

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Ill say this for Obama - even he, who I would describe as a neoliberal conservative, recognised that austerity was not going to solve the issue and invested to get out of the recession, at least at the federal level. And the US at least recovered. Europe meanwhile mired itself in austerity and recovered much more slowly. In particular the UK still hasnt recovered from the recession, and thats led to a cycle of persistently screwing itself over and making the economy even worse through things like brexit, as a result of austerity.

This is actually an instance of the US being more left than its contemporaries, and relatively speaking it actually worked pretty damn well.

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Thanks Corrik. Its important to have these beliefs talked about in this topic because its a pretty big proportion of the US and people whose votes actually matter in particular.

On the other hand:

masterplum posted...

You hate me because of my beliefs.

You are no better than the anti maskers.

WHOA

This is a TAKE!

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Allow me to resolve this situation before it begins:

Hey Corrik, why did you vote for the Democrats?

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The Republicans have won the popular vote once in the past 30 years, and that was during a then-new and not yet unpopular war. Furthermore, since 2008 their share of the vote has remained almost entirely unmoved (a range of only 1.5% compared to 4.7% for the Democrats). All this is to say that the people who vote Republican now are more or less the exact same ones who were voting Republican then.

This is why the fascists were able to get their guy as President, because the Republican voterbase is by and large extremely loyal. They would vote for anyone with an R next to their name. The so-called disgruntled conservatives barely exist at all.

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Smart move. Needs to be wider spread though.

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I will say, as much as I abhor left-on-left attacks in non-proportional systems, its a bit weird with the Democrats because they are not remotely left wing, the left just has no choice but to vote for them. You would hope that maybe defeat as a result of taking the left for granted would spur on the Democrats implementing some real reforms that are good for the left, their own electoral prospects, and most importantly the people, like statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. However 2016-2021 has shown that that, put simply, isnt the case, and the only actual solution is for the left of the party to become the dominant branch.

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Our discussion of price freezes my friend. Though you were being quite general!

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Over 20 million people bought Sword and Shield in just a year. Pokmon Go has hit nearly 150 million active users at a time. Its an enormous franchise. Even a Reddit poll with only 0.25% of the current generations total sales replying had only four Pokmon with no answers.

So, yes.

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Reminder that masterplum has stated in this very topic series that any involvement of the state in business is communism.

Seriously man, look up anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndaclism. Those seem like a much better ideologies for you than one that mainly exists to hand power to corporations.

masterplum posted...

Communism is honestly interesting in theory, but the amount of political power required to enforce it Im convinced is just entirely corrosive.

I dont think its happenstance every communist government turned into a dictatorship. The frame work for a dictatorship is already set up. All you need is one leader who wants it to be one

Also this is entirely not true. Look up the Spanish Civil War and Catalonia in particular. That wasnt a dictatorship. The people who put an end to it while western democracies did nothing (to appease Hitler), however, were for dictatorships and indeed established one.

Then if you read that and go oh but that wasnt a central government of a country! then I would point you to France in 1946 when the Parti Communiste (co-founded by Ho Chi Minh!) governed as the largest party. Did they turn France into a dictatorship? Of course not, it was probably more democratic then than it is now! At the end of the day, you are only thinking about one type of communism: Marxism-Leninism (aka Stalinism), which is far from the only form of it. You also need to keep in mind that the communist parties that you are thinking of were controlled by Communist International and ultimately answered to Stalin. They are not exactly representative of true communists.


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Of course I have. The thing is the actual title is Donkey Kong which was featured in the original poll. It never specified a version.

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe has an entire new Mario games worth of new levels in it!

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Also I didnt get the chance to reply in a previous topic but the 1994 Donkey Kong is absolutely a version of Donkey Kong. Its not like Super Mario World to Super Mario Bros. at all, because thats an all new game thats a sequel while Donkey Kong 94 remakes the original and adds new levels. Its more like Super Mario Bros. Deluxe to Super Mario Bros.

Is Super Mario Bros. Deluxe not a version of Super Mario Bros.?

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Peoples bump

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StartTheMachine posted...

This went from oof to an abomination of a ranking real quick

The stuffer has gone too far this time.

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Lakshmi beated, possibly the most tense fight in the entire game for me.

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I feel if 94, an updated version of Donkey Kong, gets added so should Jungle Beat.

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The post-credits scene is setting up Doctor Strange 2 apparently. She is doing the same thing that Doctor Strange was when he astral projected to study while his body slept, and the Doctor Strange leitmotif plays in that scene. Presumably this is where Wanda will be in Doctor Strange 2.

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It is though. The two characters are nothing alike.

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TotallyNotMI posted...

Tobey and Andrew Garfield are both cast in the next Spider-Man movie. If they end up as new characters that are mostly irrelevant are we saying that also is acceptable and not a bad decision?

Depends on the context! This has been a practice for as long as reboots have existed. Personally Im nervous about that kind of multiverse direction, the MCU is big enough without bolting a mixed bag of extra films onto it.

HOWEVER

Maguire and Garfields appearance has not been confirmed as far as we know. All we know is Jamie Foxx as Electro and Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. It is entirely possible that they arent going to be the same versions at all, just like with JK Simmons at the end of Far From Home. You wouldnt call that a bad decision would you?

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Its definitely not a bad decision, as he filled the narrative purpose he was intended to (which was not a boner joke, he stops Vision in episode 5 and drives the conflict in episode 6). I would argue that (formally) tying him in to the X-Men universe would have been a bad decision as it is placing far too much expectation on the viewer of seeing those films, it would have been adding far too many plot elements to resolve effectively, and it raises questions about the importance of those films to the MCU. Would it mean that one needs to watch, for instance, X-Men Origins Wolverine to stay current? Its better to keep them separate, though well see what they do with the next Spider-Man on this topic.

Also, once again, it was clear from his first two appearances that it wasnt the same guy, theyre not alike even in name. Which is not to say that you cannot be disappointed with the reveal of who he actually was, but there was never any chance of it being the same one, it was just a wink to fans in the know, a fun bonus for knowing that stuff.

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FL81 posted...

you forgot Stalinism

That actually is Marxism-Leninism, the Communism of the Soviet Union which I confused, as it was pointed out, with Soviet Communism.

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NFUN posted...

votes soviet communism

That would be Marxism-Leninism then, which as the name implies is neither Marxist or Leninist.

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Communism

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Evan Peters was just a meta gag. They even did a Kick Ass joke about it, which was an indicator that they were absolutely fine with having those kinds of winks to the audience. The line hes introduced with was she recast Pietro! (not another Pietro! or something like that) which is exactly what happens (just with a different she behind it), in his next appearance he had no similarities with either Quicksilver, which the show notes, in episode 7 they show him being controlled by Agatha, and in the episode after that she mentions making him Pietro by some form of possession. So it has basically been known since at least last week. Certainly no reason to think he actually was the X-Men one, for starters he didnt even use the same name!

On Ralph Boehner - he is likely Jimmy Woos person in witness protection, which is why he laughs at his own name.

...Also are people forgetting the entirety of episode 6? That was his reason to exist, to provoke Wanda like he does there.

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I thought it was a really good finale that served as a satisfying conclusion to the show, but it also wasnt the peak of it.

It went much more typical Marvel than I expected, and the smashy crashy stuff rarely works for me. The Captain Marvel 2 set up was a bit obvious, and they never explained who the two in the ads were I think. However, they made smart decisions to tone down the action, like having the Visions settle it through philosophy. I also really liked the scenes that showed the consequences of her actions like when the townspeople are begging her for help or all staring at her at the end. They also really managed an emotional final scene. Elizabeth Olsen was terrific as always too.

Also shoutout to Paul Bettany for trolling everyone with the actor Ive always wanted to work with turning out to be... Paul Bettany.

Edit:

Regarding Pietro, they clearly signalled that it wasnt X-Men Pietro as soon as he appeared, and we essentially new he was a transformed resident as of at least the last episode based on Agathas dialogue about him. Its totally fine and expected. Its best to not get too attached to all the theories.

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Donkey Kong 94 is a version of Donkey Kong.

The real tragedy is Donkey Konga over Jungle Beat.

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I also did Doma Caatle last night and would like to declare the people bashing Stormblood to be wrong. Great dungeon. Looking forward to LtM just blitzing past me since we are now at the same point.

Also, I love that you can tell the exact point in the localisation process when the team saw Hamilton.

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This was really an episode about character building, and it was really incredible at that. The scene with the two of them on the bed watching Malcolm in the Middle is one of the MCUs absolute best. For what is grief, but love persevering is an incredible line.

The funny thing is, I dont think that this episode had a mixed response at all. Its the top rated of the series on IMDB, and literally every comment Ive seen outside this thread has been positive. B8 can be funny on the MCU sometimes - it did rank GOTG2 as a top 5 film after all!

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Splatoon, which sounds silly because its a first party Nintendo game that went on to be one of the highest selling games of its respective console twice. However, if you go back to when it was announced up to its release, loads of people were so certain it would fail. It was a new IP on the Wii U (after the last Nintendo attempt at this, The Wonderful 101, failed spectacularly even though I love it), and was an online competitive shooter from a company with little experience with either. So that was a fun one yo come in on and watch it explode in popularity.

Also, I imported Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney from the states because I was confident it would never get released in Europe. It came out 3 months later lol, and I believe the initial release actually did better in Europe than in the US!

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I think that this is the first month in which you can really see the impact of COVID on development. March is usually bustling as its the end of the fiscal year for a lot of companies, and this time theres basically one major new release. Looks like the games that were nearly done werent too badly affected, but the more mid-development games got hit pretty hard.

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Finally, Insomnia is gone.

Put Insomnia last and whichever way these top six go gives a damn good list imo.

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Man I wish I had saved the results of that how many E3s left poll I did I believe around E3 2019. A lot of people were in the E3 will never die! camp then, but it looks like thatll wind up as the last traditional one. Its probably for the best.

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Best episode yet. Elizabeth Olsen was amazing in it.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

I'll let the data speak for itself on this one.

https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Spider-Man#tab=summary

...You do realise that this is comparing an animated film with roughly a third of the budget and little marketing to live action, much higher marketing priority films, right? It makes Spider-verse look better, not worse.

Lets put it a different way:

Spider-Man Homecomings final gross was 2.84x its opening weekend.

Spider-Man Into the Spider-verses final gross was 5.42x its opening weekend.

What does that tell you about the word of mouth for Spider-verse.

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TDKR is great, though I can really only viably see it over Insomnia. Personally, I would put it over The Prestige but I will not win that argument if I made it here.

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VVVVVV apparently.

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That game is unlikely to come out, and from the sounds of things Dragon Age 4 is either a good way off or in trouble.

Honestly Ive made my peace, there were some great Bioware games in the past and we can move on now. If their new one are great, thats awesome, but Im not putting any expectation or hope on them.

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Avengers was a bad cash grab, however its chances of recovery are much higher than Anthems.

With that said, not all trends are natural, some are mandated on high. EAs attitude towards single player games is chief among them. You may remember the infamous people dont want single player games anymore quote from a few years ago - this was of course the same year you had gigantic single player sales hits like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Horizon and Nier Automata, and two years before EA would release one of their most successful non-sports titles of recent years, Jedi: Fallen Order, a single player game. Obviously that quote was not accurate. It was just EA trying to push what they wanted to do to make more money.

This also wasnt the first time that EA had done this either. In 2010, the same year that EA published Mass Effect 2, they referred to the single player model as finished, and would go on to force multiplayer into their single player games like Dead Space 2. Needless to say, single player games were not finished. They werent responding to the market, they were trying to shape the market.

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There are plenty of fun, complete live games and multiplayer games. They just arent the ones that you tack on to a game developed by a studio with no experience developing live games.

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GameStonk posted...

Votes Dunkirk because it's criminally underrated. But really it's:

Memento > Dark Knight > Dunkirk > Dark Knight Rises > Batman Begins > Inception > The Prestige > Insomnia > Interstellar > Tenet

...It is not only Nolans best reviewed film, it was the best reviewed film of that entire year, and it won 3 Oscars and a Best Picture nomination among others. Criminally underrated might be a bit much.

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It's a complicated issue. The key thing is how much they are visible in and the sole author of the work. Here are a few examples of varying reactions:

I will never, ever financially contribute to Orson Scott Card. I might read his work in shady ways at some point, but not only do I not want him to benefit financially from me because of his beliefs and even worse, I know what he spends (or spent, at least) the money on. Similarly, I'm not going to buy any JK Rowling books for the foreseeable future, that is until there is a meaningful change of behaviour on her part. However, I might enjoy the Harry Potter books I already own still, because the message of the books is completely counter to her personal beliefs. In this case we can engage full death of the author - but I still don't want to give her money.

However, those are cases where they are the sole auteurs of their work, more or less, and also cases of using their finances and platform to spread hate. That is different from the cases of personal abuse but still a case of someone's status enabling them to do bad things. So let's look at Joss Whedon, who has serious bullying and workplace abuse accusations against him. In this case I think I can continue to enjoy "his work" - because it's not really his. He is just one small part of teams of hundreds in all of his projects. In some cases he is frankly given far too much credit, Cabin in the Woods is a good example. He only co-wrote it, Drew Goddard did much more including direct the film, but it gets thought of as a Joss Whedon film instead of the Drew Goddard film it actually should be. The idea of the auteur in film and television is frankly, completely incorrect and arguably helps to lead to abuses of power in the first place. We should be appreciating the work of all involved, and that's why I can see myself enjoying Whedon's work even though he has behaved horribly - because he's not the only one.

However, it gets weird when that person is front and centre. Take Kevin Spacey (who has far worse allegations than anyone else discussed here) for example, I can't see myself enjoying something he's in because I can't bear to look at him. Baby Driver is one of my favourite films of recent years, and I will likely never watch it again because of Kevin Spacey's presence, even though it is a great work of art full of (presumably) wonderful people who should be supported. Ridley Scott earned a ton of respect from me when he pulled him out of All the Money in the World at the last minute, and the end result is a better film that I would be happy to rewatch that also made the right decision.

So yeah it's tough, but I think a case by case approach is the best one, and what I write above merely scratches the surface.

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Christopher Nolan movies minus Following as it never got a wide release?

I also like OOT dungeons

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Arthur Morgan is a better character than Cloud so I cant really complain.

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Top ten anime plot twists.

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You can take out the Mega Mans and Capcom still wins.

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Yeah I wouldn't have included DX if it was released after Odyssey, it's just funny that it gets in there twice. Though it can work as a proxy for the DLC which is regarded as some of the best.

I certainly disagree on Tactics, it codified the "X game tactics" spinoff trend/meme. It literally has "Tactics" in the title! It's great, but that doesn't make it not a spinoff - Gears Tactics is arguably the best Gears of War content in nearly a decade but nobody calls that a main game! But of course, being a spinoff is not a bad thing. It is in some ways the definitive spinoff.

Anyway, I thought of an amazing one.

Capcom October 2003-2007. Check this out:

Viewtiful Joe
Onimusha 3
Mega Man Zero 3
Monster Hunter
Viewtiful Joe 2
Mega Man Zero 4
Resident Evil 4
Devil May Cry 3
Killer7
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Okami
Mega Man ZX
Dead Rising
God Hand
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice For All
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trials & Tribulations
Mega Man ZX Advent
Lost Planet
Zack & Wiki

Also there were the Street Fighter, Mega Man and Mega Man X collections came out, and this was when Capcom were publishing Rockstar and Sony games in Japan. Incredible. I'm changing my answer, it's this Capcom run. They used to be soooooo good. They had a good run from the release of Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice to Devil May Cry 5, but unfortunately Dead Rising 4 and Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite also came out then and spoil it a bit.

Yes, I was going to go from 2004 but wanted to get Viewtiful Joe in there because Viewtiful Joe is amazing.

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If youre including spinoffs like Tactics, then Mario 1991-1996 (World, Land 2, Super Mario Kart, Yoshis Island, 64) and 2013-2017 (3D World, Mario Kart 8, Super Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey) are pretty good. Excluding Tactics it was a great run of main games, but the run from 4-7 was better.

GranzonEx posted...

Konami from 1997 to 2004

Symphony of the Night
Metal Gear Solid
Silent Hill
Metal Gear Solid 2
Silent Hill 2
GBA Castlevania trio
Silent Hill 3
Metal Gear Solid 3

This is a great one, and also when they were on top of the football (soccer) game too ahead of FIFA. If you extend it by a year you get Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow as well. 2006 was the point Konami started to wobble but they used to be one of the best.

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Lets not forget that The Ancient Ones conversation with Bruce isnt just about avoiding alternate timelines, its about avoiding a timeline that descends into chaos because the stone was removed. We know there is an alternate timeline now because of Thanos, Loki, and Cap, but they still achieved their main goal by returning the stones.

But also... Bruce explicitly says that its not their world and things they change dont affect their timeline. Even if they had left things exactly the same, it would still be another timeline, just one that was exactly the same as the main one other than the arrival of the Avengers and the temporary removal of the stones. This is all explained in the movie.

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OG Links Awakening should not be nearly that high

Heres a ranking that is better and actually new:

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/feb/19/the-legend-of-zelda-games-ranked

A bit too harsh on Skyward Sword and kind on Majoras Mask, but a solid ranking.

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