Professor Video Games

THIS IS INSANE

What a perfect time to find out the R2 button on my controller is broken

video games

I stayed up until 3am to play Half Life 2. That was the first and last time I'll do such a thing.

You will not Become Legend

Honestly I only use Twitter to follow people and rarely post myself, but even with that in mind I've found the company's practices (and perhaps consequently) much of the userbase very shitty so I'd be interested in encouraging some alternatives. Though with their noble ambitions I don't know how they plan on paying the bills. Uh...in other words I'd take an invite I guess?

Haven't you seen The Incredibles? Only fools wear capes. Anyway, I'm pretty excited. So excited that I bought the bundle that includes the expansions! Fully aware that was stupid, but I think I get some sweet ship that definitely makes it worth it? Now to decide if I want to do space wizard/mage again or try one of the other classes...

No you're right. The animation system is getting a bit long in the tooth. The body animations can be pretty wooden but I find the transitions between facial emotions or whatever they're called even more jarring. Like, I pick a positive response and the person I'm talking to transitions to "smile" face...it's too robotic. I hope they revamp things for the next season. I don't know if I'd like puzzles to come back. I don't think they fit with the style of game Telltale is going for, but I would like to see some more open ended areas, where I'm free to move around, check things out, and talk to people as I want. Sometimes this season felt too on rails for me. Regarding the final episode:

Yeah...I'm not much of a twitter user to begin with but I'd be terrified to involve myself in these conversations. Which I suppose is the problem. Here's the vine that I mentioned before: vine.co/v/OuMOZvWnWJY

I don't really have anything to add to this conversation that hasn't already been said better by either someone here or in the various linked articles, but the topic of twitter did remind me of a video Jenn Frank sent out earlier today that was just 7 seconds of her twitter notifications. It was a literal blur of garbage (admittedly too quick to tell if they were even positive or negative)...I can't imagine how anyone deals with that. Seems like it would render the service entirely useless. And if they are mostly negative, who wouldn't want to give up on that shit. Phil Fish probably has the right idea.

Over the weekend I watched the whole first season of Bojack Horseman, a new-ish Netflix animated series. The first few episodes are kind of terrible, but there was something compelling about the characters and story arc that I couldn't put my finger on (despite the premise of washed up hollywood actor being a bit cliche) and I stuck with it. It really finds its groove in the second half of the season and has some genuinely good episodes. Also I really love the title sequence. Has anyone else watched it?

The beginning can be a little intimidating because they just throw you on this huge island with little guidance and your skills are all shit so it's relatively hard to kill people (or easily sneak around), but don't worry, you'll be an insane killing and/or sneaking machine soon enough. The only real BS that comes to mind is that the enemy AI is a bit terrible so it can take time to figure out. And at least for a first playthrough, the best weapon class to put points into is rifles, but really there's no wrong way to play it. That's the magic of it. Aaaaand now I want to replay it too...great.

I work with a guy who, if left to his own devices, would sleep 12-14 hours every night. Probably more if he could. He LOVES sleeping. I tell him "you're sleeping your life away!" to which he just responds that he likes it. This is a 30-year old guy. It's baffling.

Ironically, that IS taken.

In finding out that a new member got the name horse bag I checked for "video games" and now I'm a new man! This was probably not a good idea...

Horse Bag was still available!? *goes to check if "video games" has been taken* Edit: It is! Oh god what have I done!

mechanically

Despite my better judgement I think I'm gonna go to DragonCon tomorrow. PAX is for jerks. East Coast 4 life.

Number three forever. It's not that it's too easy to hit diagonals, it's that it's too hard to not hit them. I've wobbled off the cardinal directions too many times to count and it's infuriating.

Ever since the International last year (3 I guess?) I've had an itch to get into this game, and I even went as far as to play through the tutorial and some bot matches before I got sidetracked by other things. I'm not intimidated by the games inscrutability or community as much as I am by the sheer time investment it requires. Irishjohn's approach seems encouraging...maybe time to give it another shot.

I don't really care about the Falcons either way but I liked his dig at downtown Atlanta (from here). There's also a Hard Rock Cafe! More sports related, I'm excited to see the Braves either blow their chance to get the wildcard spot or lose in the first round of the playoffs.

I've put some time into Road Not Taken. I don't mind the town segments personally. They're good respite from watching children cry and get eaten, and you get to exchange your supplies from the previous level for items and some unnerving dialogue. But I have very mixed feelings on the puzzles. Sometimes they can be really challenging and interesting, but then they are often brutal to the point of being unfair. Like In later areas there are these wisps that just zigzag straight to the kids and vanish with them. Or god help you if an animal poos in a room your in, because that means these self replicating flowers will soon bloom out of it and literally fill the entire room making it unsolvable. The wolf example is also a good one. It can be very very frustrating. And while I appreciate the fact that the game requires you to discover how the various items interact and combine, there's often no real intuitive aspect to it, so the element of discovery isn't so much fun experimentation as it is just throwing things around blindly. Ax plus tree makes wood? Sure. Two apples make a potion of movement? What? And the combinations with the blue flame can be especially strange. I suppose this is less of an issue once most of the combinations have been sussed out, but it's not very compelling. Even with these complaints, there is something really engaging about the gameplay and atmosphere. I'll probably find myself coming back to it now and then.

You mean a stigma. Astigmatism is an eye/vision problem.

In game screenshot of the character looking at the Firewatch PAX poster.