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Information wants to be Free, just like these games

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Also, is does the first have more stupid randian nonsense? I have some really weird fascination with the work of this horrible woman, so more of that would be interesting. I mean, it's not from her, of course, but you guys know what I mean, I'm sure.
I still haven't read any of her books but want to just to be able to have a more informed conversation about it. But it's hard to pick up Atlas Shrugged or whatever when I have a billion other books I want to read.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
The first two are the ones that are a road trip through the ongoing collapse of a Randian utopia (the second one has some murky criticisms of forced collectivism as an opposite position, but the political stuff doesn't really hold water at all; it's much more effective in the way it has you influencing an impressionable person by your actions in the game).

The action in the second one is better, because you can have a weapon in one hand and a plasmid in the other instead of having to switch between them. There are a lot of enemies though.
Sounds interesting, thanks for the perspective. I guess I can deal with the battles, I assume you are basically unkillable again? Elsewise, if this is difficult at all, I might not be able to finish it.

I still haven't read any of her books but want to just to be able to have a more informed conversation about it. But it's hard to pick up Atlas Shrugged or whatever when I have a billion other books I want to read.
Oh, I have read way too much of her, due to my weird obsession. I really need to make a thread about her work. From the three novels I have read, here my short opinions (in a spoiler, this is totally off-topic, but I just can't not write about this now - feel free to ignore it). The short is, if you want to learn about her opinions, read Anthem, which should be done in an hour, it's really short. Anyway:

Anthem: If you want to know what her philosophy is about, read this. It's super short, I think you are done in an hour, and it contains the main ideas of hers. It's really all you need to know, to get a picture of her philosophy. I also think, while there is bad romance, it's probably just badly written, and not horribly disgusting. But it's probably ten years, since I read this one. Due to learning about her on Talking Time, I might add - before I read about her here, I had never heard Rands name.

Atlas Shrugged: Too long, bad characters, but I enjoyed it as a bad dystopia, because I just like the genre, especially when it is about totalitarian governments. The whole "Who is John Galt?" thing is a neat mystery, though, but all the ideas are undercooked. In my damaged head, I can't help but think of it as a very poor version of how something like 1984 could come into being. Again, very poor. If you don't REALLY like totalitarian dystopias, don't read it, it's absolutely not worth it. Just know that the Rands idea of romance is awfully horrible (yes, that horrible), which alone should be enough to make you stop reading. Please don't read this. Aside from everything else, the characters are two-dimensional at best, if that. Every good person is pretty, every bad person is an ugly goblin. The names for the evil laws are laughable (I still remember the "Dog eat Dog" rule). And even aside from The Talk (which was the only part I skipped, because dear god), characters here LOVE to hold long monologues. The ideas are ridiculous, like how Captains of the Industry are the poor victims of the unfairness of Big Government, because Captains of the Industry are, of course, totally fair, and give people who are capable a chance, all the time. Again, please don't read this, it's probably her worst book. If you want a novel that is way too long, just reread Les Miserables, which is at least actually worth it.

The Fountainhead: The only one I didn't read, but a friend tried it. He stopped, because Rands idea of romance is awfully horrible, as bad as in Atlas Shrugged, and is, again, probably reason enough to never touch this thing.

We the Living: Caveat: My knowledge about the time the book plays at is pretty shallow, so maybe a lot of what happens is completely made up. But under the impression that it is mainly based on what Rand has experienced - perfectly honest, I think this is a decent book. No one is called a leech, and while it still contains elements of a soap opera (characters tend to be overdramatic, Rand should have just created a dystopian soap opera, that would have been great, if made tongue-in-cheek), there are true emotions there, that are from an understandable place. It probably has quite a lot autobiographical details in there (but also probably dramatisized, I have no idea how much of what happens, really was a thing, and what is blown up). But in general, it is mainly a critisicm against the way Russia developed into the Soviet Union. It's a bit, since I read the book, but if I remember correctly, it is less about how captains of industry are the real heroes, and more about how the political system developed in a horrible way, and how people suffered under it. It still draws its characters in black and white, and it already has too much of the "if you just work, you will make it", but it seemed to me that the hatred against any kind of help hasn't developed yet. It simply didn't feel that extreme, and in many places, I could really see the place from which a character came from. But, again, it's been some time, and maybe my knowledge of that time period is too restricted, and it is a really bad lie she tells here. I definitely know, that she DID embelish at least one part, to make it more exciting, and the heroine more badass. Also, while the romance is still bad, it's not at the level of horrendous as in the others (I think, at least - again, some time since I read it, so maybe my memory is faulty). Still might be enough, to throw the book into the fire. But if I had to recommend a book from her, than this one. It's certainly the best, or maybe more accurately, her least bad.

I really need to read more about the time period of the creation of the Soviet Union, to actually know how accurate We the Living is. Also, please don't read Atlas Shrugged. When I talked about it, and made fun of it, I seemed to have made it seem interesting, because people mentioned that they were now actually curious (I'm sure no one went through with it).
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Oh, I have read way too much of her, due to my weird obsession. I really need to make a thread about her work. From the three novels I have read, here my short opinions (in a spoiler, this is totally off-topic, but I just can't not write about this now - feel free to ignore it). The short is, if you want to learn about her opinions, read Anthem, which should be done in an hour, it's really short. Anyway:
Night of January 16th: Ayn Rand does not actually understand how courtrooms and laws work. She does desperately love the "great man" myth, however, and is a very impressive misogynist.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Night of January 16th: Ayn Rand does not actually understand how courtrooms and laws work. She does desperately love the "great man" myth, however, and is a very impressive misogynist.
Thanks for adding that. Please note that everything I wrote about her work is colored by my really weird obsession with her bad ideas, so I tend to forget things like the stuff Beowulf mentions. He is absolutely right.
 
I still haven't read any of her books but want to just to be able to have a more informed conversation about it. But it's hard to pick up Atlas Shrugged or whatever when I have a billion other books I want to read.
Having been gifted Atlas Shrugged by a particularly insidious conservative grammar teacher who moonlit as a real-estate agent in highschool because she deemed me worthy of being personally influenced, I am of the opinion that this book in particular shouldn't be read. The other billion books you want to read definitely deserve the time more. Remembering that book feels to me now the way I feel any given time I listen to a republican politician speak. Felix is being generous. Her idea of romance (and really, relationships in general) is fully conflated with abuse.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I tried watching the Atlas Shrugged movie for a laugh, and my main takeaway aside from Objectivism is stupid was that they had no damn sense of what to modernize and what to leave as is.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Haha, well I definitely will not read Atlas Shrugged, thank you all for sparing me! Anthem sounds like a better choice if I can be done so quick so I'll look into that.

Edit: Huh, apparently my library has the ebook version and a 1961 edition book? Definitely going to check out the 1961 edition, hoping for some wacky cover art or something here...
 

John

(he/him)
GoG's got Sanitarium and Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate for free for the next two days. Can't comment on Warhammer, but I really enjoyed Sanitarium on release, though it's a bit try-hard going back to it. The worst flaw is the controls, because it's not point and click to move, it's hold the mouse button and the main character will s l o w l y plod across the screen. Still, it's worth a try, with a ton of voice acting that has charm in its good/bad nature.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
This week's free Epic game is Man Eater where you play as a man eating shark that is the villain of one of those awful sports fishing reality shows. Chris Parnell is the narrator. This is not a deep game but I played it a ton on the PS4 and had a blast with it.
 

John

(he/him)
GoG's current free game is Beautiful Desolation, a point and click adventure game from the group that did Stasis, a good horror themed one of these. I really liked Stasis, but only put a few minutes into Beautiful Desolation, it just didn't grab me at the time, but I'm going to give it another shot.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Epic has Supraland for free, which I would love to play, but my PC is, by now, seemingly too old, even for games of middling demand.

Considering that, I can't say much about it, except that it looks great. I mean, I disliked that it is First Person, but elsewise, you play as a toy figure in a place set up by a kid. The whole world is 2 m^2 big, but seems huge, due to you being so small - you have stuff like pencils and rubbers in there, and a siming conflict between your red clan and a blue clan. Two of your people talk, at the very beginning, about a rubber, and complain that it has a blue part (but at least, the blue part is much smaller).

It seems adorable, and very much worth playing.
 

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I had to fiddle with the settings on my Steamdeck to get it playing at 30 fps even, so if it's any consolation it's not that middling graphically.
 
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is free on Epic until the morning of July 21st, if you are somehow a person on Talking Time who likes gorgeous 2D remakes of old exploration based platformers with light RPG elements and have not played it yet.
 

John

(he/him)
GoG's current free game is Beautiful Desolation, a point and click adventure game from the group that did Stasis, a good horror themed one of these. I really liked Stasis, but only put a few minutes into Beautiful Desolation, it just didn't grab me at the time, but I'm going to give it another shot.
Thanks to Ixo's heads up, The Brotherhood's first game, Stasis is now free on GoG for the next 3 days. Grab it, it reminded me of the late 90's adventure game Sanitarium.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
GoG has Master of Magic Classic for free for the next couple of days. Apparently I also got a gift link for it because I already own it. So you can get it for free or I can give it to you for free!
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Huh, I'm not seeing that anywhere on their site. No worries, though I already have it in my library there.
 

John

(he/him)
Fallout 3: GOTY is one of Epic's free games this week. Finally I can play the DLC I bought 15 years ago, but was delisted after Games for Windows Live was shuttered.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Alba, a wildlife adventure is free on Epic. Haven't played it yet, but it seems to be a game where you are on a tropical island, which is basically an open world, but all you can do is help people, who in turn will help you save the island (I think you save animals or natur in general?). Also, I think you can catalogue the animals there?

The description says the creators wanted to recreate the sense of their childhood summers, and that it's a "chillectathon". Sounds very relaxing.
 

Exposition Owl

more posts about buildings and food
(he/him/his)
I played Alba a while back, and it’s everything you say. Just a lovely experience. The photography is a little like filling out your Hyrule Compendium in Breath of the Wild.
 
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