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Having been through the game once, I found it quite interesting looking back and seeing how different the old promotional demos were, and how little of what was shown in them found its way into the release version. You can pick up on loads of narrative differences, and generally get a glimpse at much bigger, broader designs that were probably fairly unfeasible. Holy fuck, that second demo, i want to play that game. Relative to what ended up on the disc, that is a preposterously enormous location to be fighting through. You also never see city blocks situated above and beneath eachother like that in the release version, that seems like a missed opportunity, that kind of verticality might have been really interesting.

I love it, but I think it starts feeling a bit unnecessarily padded, mainly because of how the level breaks are a constant reset button on the environments. It's definitely worth playing though. It is wonderful, one of the 3DS's best for sure. It's irresistibly charming for one, but it's also mechanically quite a solid, fun game. I'm retroactively angry at the people who told me not to play Luigi's Mansion when i bought a Gamecube, they said it sucked. Did anybody play the original? Did it suck? http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/7301-3ds-friend-codes/ ^ Right there, it is.

I burned through on the hard difficulty and shared those somewhat sleep-deprived impressions, and i'm now gradually playing through the game on the 1999 mode and i'm still really enjoying it. I wasn't sold on the idea that this game, with its relatively more straight-forward game systems, was the kind of game that could support the kind of hardcore resource-limited gameplay they were promising. I'm kind of going back and forth on it. At the surface level, i still have every ability and every weapon at my disposal, but deeper down, i definitely seem to be having to allocate my money for upgrades more carefully. I have still ended up playing a more specialized, focused character than i was on hard. The intent and mechanism behind Elizabeth's coin tosses has also somewhat revealed itself on 1999 mode. It's clearly meant to normalize the game economy opposite to the penalties for player death and other expenses. I'm apparently doing well enough on 1999 mode that the amounts offered have gradually whittled down to a single silver eagle. It's also become evident that the loot boxes are completely randomized, which i think is wonderful and it makes me like the gear system a whole lot more. That gives the game some interesting replay variety. I also still really don't like the random "DON'T STEAL THIS!" tags applied to some miscellaneous objects during a few of the non-combat events. They're such a rare occurrence applied with such inconsistency that it just ends up feeling very incongruous with the design of the game. I'm not sure you can even tell when you're not supposed to steal from a vending machine, can you?

Speaking of which, Luigi's Mansion 2 is pretty awesome, you guys.

I just finished it, i absolutely loved it. I'm tired, so i'm just going to ramble incoherently about general game things a bit: - I thought the skyrails were a ton of fun and brought a lot of really exciting possibilities to some of the bigger battles in the game. I feel like the game could have used more of the skyrails, actually. You go for some really long stretches without ever seeing any. I hope it's a gameplay concept Irrational revisits in some form or another for future games. (Or maybe 2k Marin can do it when they're assigned to make BioShock Infinite 2. That's plausible, right? I'm starting that rumor right now.) - I played through on hard and felt like the experience was right about where it should be, difficulty-wise. It was challenging without being frustrating. Everything seemed to find a role, but i was never drowning in resources. I think it's a very well balanced game, i had a great time with it. - This is the first time i've found the trap powers to actually be important for surviving encounters in a BioShock game, so that's good. - The addition of a shield perhaps inadvertently makes their funky food scavenging thing actually make sense from a gameplay standpoint, the top layer of regenerating health making the second layer more permanent to a point where the gradual increments of health restoration make sense. - What exactly does 1999 mode do? I want to give it a shot, i've been under the impression that i am probably the kind of person it is specifically for. - I don't like their "gear" system. The nonsensical contextualization for the odd assortment of abilities conferred seems particularly arbitrary and careless. (In fact, a lot of these elements in the game are feeling quite vestigial, barely any of BioShock's RPG roots are visible at this point.) - I don't like that a single currency is shared between buying miscellaneous expendable supplies and buying into the primary mechanisms for character progression. (It also seems dangerous to penalize you by taking away from this particular currency when you die.) - The levels are uncharacteristically... linear is the wrong word for it, but in System Shock 2 and the first BioShock, you had these big open spaces that were, if not plausible, at least believable. You could look at them and imagine people existing in those spaces day-to-day. The spaces in Infinite, on the other hand, are more transparently designed to facilitate gameplay. It's a distinction that probably makes for a better action game, but i think they've lost some of the unique atmosphere these sorts of games have. - The non-combat bits i kind of wish were either a bit shorter, or had more going on. They're very like the non-combat interludes in Half-life games, but they tend to drag on for even longer. When i first started the game up, i was a little bewildered by how long you go without shooting anything, and that was awesome! A slow build with a lot of restraint, it was splendid. Sequences like that keep happening though, and they frequently don't have much going on. - Elizabeth is kind of fascinating to watch, just such expressive body language and so many facial expressions, and so many incidental little environmental interactions. In general, i think Elizabeth is one of the big triumphs of the game. (Though her footsteps seem crazy loud, i found it actually quite annoying in quiet moments.) - Holy shit though, it's so crazy when they have her stand next to and interact with other NPC's, forcing you to realize she's the only character in this game that is rendered in a stylized manner. - Are Vigors literally never explained? I definitely didn't find any justification for them. - It seemed quite long, maybe in part because i was so carefully combing the environments for narrative and ammo. There was some stuff in the middle section of the game that i felt dragged a bit. - The subtle bit of tech that orients you to the surface of whatever object you're standing on, as all the buildings rock back and forth independent of eachother, never stopped being cool to me. Just the way your perspective on the city around you can immediately change as you move from building to build.

Both games do a good job of tracking the choices you've made, and in VLR, it actually just completely surfaces the story trees. Go in blind and have fun with it, it won't make getting alternate endings and eventually the true endings any more of a pain.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-reef-shot/2300-7133/ Mmm?

Son of a bitch is that ever some hyperbolic praise. I think i'll be avoiding any other hype until i get my hands on the game, lest my hopes be inflated too much. People are saying ridiculous things about Infinite.

I feel kind of horrible for finding that pitch video so funny. I have absolutely no clear idea what the game they want to make is. They've invoked Ecco, showed a few seconds of an iPad tech demo/target video that looks nothing like Ecco, and then started talking about epic stories and song magic and dolphin internet and... then you read the text of the kickstarter and it's not much better. They're pitching features like "EXPLORATION!" and "QUESTS!" and just... I guess you breed sea creatures and use them to solve puzzles, or something? They might try to make it an MMO? "If you have played the game Eve Online, think of an aquatic version of that game and you’d have a good idea how the Big Blue Online will work." What? What?

I didn't really like it, but autorunners have never really done anything for me. I did buy Tokyo Crash Mobs, i'm having fun with that. It's Mitchell doing their Puzz Loop thing, but actually putting a few new spins on it, some new mechanics. It plays well, it's a fun puzzle game. It's kind of overshadowed by how much of a self-aware weird-japanese-thing it tries to be. It's a game about throwing japanese people at other japanese people so you can... cut in line, i guess? The game has a weird misanthropic streak as it calls the targets "scenesters" and a successfully made match a "clique". There's also a branching FMV storyline that... seems to be about depression and mental illness? All in the context of it being barely coherent, loud, bubbly, and bright. It's a charmingly odd puzzle game, i think i'd recommend it.

I've been keeping my own expectations in check regarding Luigi's Mansion 2, but it looks like i didn't need to worry, because people seem genuinely quite thrilled with it.

Take extra care to avoid spoilers, especially the ones in this thread. I think 999 is probably more important to VLR than what Rodi says, but VLR can probably work as a stand-alone story, you'll just definitely be missing out on a lot of allusions and references and some of the big twists will mean nothing. Definitely play VLR, but try to find a copy of 999 to play first. Was it ever confirmed if the save bug affects the Vita version?

EO4 related question: I just got far enough into the game to unlock subclassing, and having not played one of these games before, i'm having trouble wrapping my brain around what any good combos would be. I'm probably going to subclass my Landsknecht as a Rune Master for the TP and element bonuses, but i'm stuck on choosing for what anybody else should be. (I've been playing with one character for each class, and i've just been mixing my party up as i go.)

All said and done, the call-in format barely changed the show, and it gradually shifted back to the original show format anyways. I think it was still really good in the last couple years, and Mackey was a capable host, I don't think you should have dismissed it so easily. As for Kohler, I be surprised if he didn't show up. I mean, he was technically always a guest host, wasn't he?

Funny, i just heard about that too and was going to post something about it.

Wayforward's 2d art is incredible as always, but those 3D environments look pretty awful. I played the Gameboy version of Duck Tales when i was a kid, and i'm assuming this will be based on the NES version, but i don't even really have a clear picture of how different the two games were. I think the Gameboy game was mostly just a pared down version of the NES game.

On the premise that i think we probably have had this discussion before, i guess i won't go into how crazy this sounds to me. Armored Core, hey? Did you hear Verdict Day is coming to the west?

Pfft, who needs Season 2 of The Walking Dead when you can play this fine game:

It seems really, really wrong that i find that refrigerator so exciting.

The boss fights are apparently being redesigned for the Wii U version.

Deep down inside, you know that isn't how it will go. They'll double down on guns and shooting, they'll promise that they're going to get it "right" this time and that it will be very "visceral" shooting action to compliment the parkour.

What part of the thing i said are we in disagreement on?

Gears of War 2 i think was probably the most linear, least interesting game in the series. A lot of sequences just kind of rail-roading you down a very specific route, very little room to get creative with the combat spaces. Gears of War 3 was pretty fucking stellar though, just an absolutely great game, and the updated horde mode was a riot. (Something that has not returned for Judgement!)

I never finished Bastion. I was literally like fifteen minutes away from the end and i just never finished it. This looks beautiful though, i love the art. Definitely want to play it.

Well, i've been hearing that the narrative in the game is absolutely nothing special, so probably don't get your hopes up. You know, maybe don't play Gears of War for its story, that's probably a thing to do. Just in general though, Judgement is looking like a pretty thin offering packed to the brim with microtransactions.