I've found that I play better the drunker I get. After ten beers the zero-G heart transplant was a breeze.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

I encode my wallet file using touch tones and pressed a recording of it onto vinyl. The smoothness on the waveform of the 3/6/9 keys adds a certain warmth to my financial transactions.

I'm always on the lookout for people who think that is a good argument; I've got to sell this rock that keeps tigers away.

You should have picked a different quote to reply to, then, because that's exactly what your comment is saying we should be "standing up and acting like free men" in the face of.

*someone who can change the policy Words are hard.

It's ridiculous that it's gotten to the point where you should act non-threatening and nice to people? While there is a degree of absurdity in the fact that a dude with a paper badge has authority over you, if all you have to do to avoid the wrath of that authority is not be a dick I'd say it's not a big deal. Why not save your protest for someone who can the policy you disagree with, rather than manifesting your civil disobedience as sarcastic remarks to the guy who is power tripping on his menial job?

I've yet to have a problem connecting and I'm enjoying the game. I don't know if I'd rate it five stars, but I don't think it's unreasonable that some people would.

USWest 1. I did have a bug where I was forced to enter the tutorial on my second time logging in, after having already completed it the first time I logged in, but once it starts you can back out of it to effectively skip it. I'm going to be annoyed if I have to do that again.

Nope. I assumed the reader would be smart enough to figure that out.

No. I've been too busy enjoying the game, region stuff and all.

Forgive me, I'm not seeing in the article where people are having "saved games can't be loaded" problems. If people are unable to load saves, that's a legitimate qualm with the game. It should go without saying. But all I'm seeing from the article is that some people had problems downloading the game at the moment it launched, which has been a problem with most games distributed online, yet I don't recall L4D2's shoddy launch being frontpage material.

Not in the way SC5 has it. The cities interact with each other in a way greater than dumb road and pipe connections with neighbors that may or may not exist.

I've logged 10 hours in the game already without issue. I guess with all the hate people had for the game before anyone had even played it, it's not surprising people are trying to drum up controversy that's more than the obvious "I don't like that the game is always online."

And while I'm on the subject, the "regions" aspect of the game is damn fun. You have to build your city with surrounding cities in mind -- taking a city that is successful in one region and plopping it down in another wouldn't necessarily work very well. It's not like they just tossed always-online DRM onto a reskinned SC4; the always-online requirement is fundamental to gameplay.

Clearly you've never had a grilled banana.