I played in Spanish, possible that in a City that night city describes this would be the native language. I learned a lot of swear words playing through the game in Spanish. I loved roaming around the city and "learning" the city. I prefer to do this myself in real life though. I started thinking about how streets connect while driving around the next day the same way I would while playing this game. I don't like the repetitive use of the ads. You end up seeing the same stores over and over again, so it can make remembering where you are at any given point in the city more difficult since there is a "Tom's Diner" everywhere. I thought of them as chains, and that everything is a chain or a franchise store to some extent in this world, but that only protected my immersion to an extent. The ads for the in game busiesses were repetitive and annoying. The sexual stuff is just disgusting. At a certain point, it is like "why am i escaping into THIS world? This is so dumb". Sometimes when it takes itself seriously, I feel that it misses the beat. Its sarcasm is actually the best, even though sometimes the sexual things can be disgusting. Johnny Silverhand was kind of... dumb I guess? I can't take the message of self destruction seriously, when it is to fight some sort of power that doesn't give a shit about you in the first place. I guess Johnny Silverhand had some cool one liners, but Arasaka was pretty cool too. Takemura was awesome. At first I thought papa Arasaka was admirable although he did have a lot of flaws, but the corpos working for him were complete degenerates only interested in money. Papa Arasaka had at least a hint of righteousness to him while young Arasaka just wanted to change things to leave his mark. Not the best kind of person to lead an institution that is supposed to last. So I guess young man Arasaka was never going to be able to continue the power and righteousness of his father's empire, and continued to progress towards a capitalist brutality filled with multi polar traps. Considering this, it is really very sad what happens to him in the end. I actually loved the game. I put my skill points into intelligence and cool (I probably would not have chosen this stat if I played in English). I just now looked up the stat name in English and it is "cool". The Spanish name for the stat was "Temple" which i thought translated to "mettle" or "grit". Since I put no extra points in constitution, I thought that would be a good balance, grit and intelligence. Cool and intelligent while having no actual physical strength sounds really really lame. Oh well. The game plays the same. The hacking was a lot of fun. It was great to walk by people and just explode their brains before they even detected you. The gunplay was a lot of fun too, and I liked the crafting and the number crunchy stuff. I loved how the main missions had many points where your contact would say something like "I'll call you in a couple days after I have another lead", and then it gives you the opportunity to run around and explore the city, and get into the gamier parts of it. It helps the pacing of the story tremendously. I really liked the game, but I don't like how it leans so hard into transhumanism. It takes it as a given, as if you upload someone's conciousness into a microchip they are technically still "alive". I tend to think that it can be pretty easy to make everyone who is still alive think that a real person is still alive, while in reality the person is just dead. I got the Arasaka Ending, which I guess is the "bad" ending in terms of how everything pans out for everyone but it did stick with me. Loved the game overall, loved the story, loved the city. Would like to revisit it again sometime, probably in German or Japanese down the line.

Over the past 8 months or so, I have noticed a word creeping into conversations, professional and retail interactions. It conveys good will, establishes a sense of control and understanding. All is well here, I am your friend and I validate your sentiments. Absolutely! Or rather Ab-sol-UTE-ly. With the stress on the third syllable. It is an interesting word. From etymology.com, the following is the root of the word absolute "(mid-15c.), from Latin absolutus, past participle of absolvere "to set free, acquit; complete, bring to an end; make separate, Sense evolution probably was from "detached, disengaged" to "perfect, pure." Meaning "despotic" (1610s) is from notion of "absolute in position;" absolute monarchy is recorded from 1735 (absolute king is recorded from 1610s). Grammatical sense is from late 14c." Something that is absolute is all-encompasing, perfect, pure, at an extreme. Absolute zero, the coldest temperature something can possibly be. Absolute monarchy, a monarchy with a sovereign that has complete and total say so in matters of state. I think that this is where my minor annoyance with the word lies. It sweeps away all discussion, it makes, or at least conveys complete understanding with what the other person in the conversation is saying. Things are never absolute and there are no right angles in nature. It is meant to be a freeing of thought, in a commercial sense. Let us sweep away these silly thoughts you may have and get back to business. Free yourself these petty human concerns, and keep this wheel of scientific progress rolling, or finish this financial transaction as quickly as possible, for the benefit of both parties involved. Therein lies the key to happiness and camaraderie. The word is friendly. "ego te absolvo" Latin for "I absolve you", I free you from your sins, in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Your wrong doings, you can forget about them now. It is just that I feel a bit strange about having deeply held convictions, misgivings and *gasp* occasional negative emotions, and I would like to discuss them and see how our value systems compare. Absolutely.