Professor Video Games

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by Professor Video Games

  1. Steam Trading Card

    Yeah I guess at 0.20 a card at most, even hundreds of cards doesn't add up to be that much. I think the thing that surprised me was the number of games owned. Is there even enough time in the day to play them all? And with the limited amount of time the cards have been available, it gives the impression that playing the games is secondary to collecting the cards, which I find really weird.
  2. Steam Trading Card

    When you click on people's profile's in Steam, it seems to sort their friends by steam level. So I went four or five levels deep on this. I started hitting people with steam levels in the hundreds. With over a thousand games owned, hundreds of badges crafted, and hundreds of cards owned. Badges/cards just officially launched with the summer sale right? I'm not even sure what to think...
  3. Steam Summer Getaway Sale

    Looking at my backlog kept me from buying much this time. I did have Gunpoint in my cart and the sale expired just as I was going to purchase it. I'll probably just get it at full price when I actually have time to play it. I did pick up Dark Souls. Mainly so that I can post in any forum video game thread, regardless of topic, and say "This is why Dark Souls is so amazing. Blah blah blah"
  4. Idle Thumbs 114: A Heavy (Baboon) Heart

    Not many people know that the original plot for Prince of Persia 2 recounted the Prince's battle with early onset Alzheimer's
  5. Idle Thumbs 114: A Heavy (Baboon) Heart

    Prince of Persia: Sands of Time had the prince narrate the story to the player and whenever you died you'd here the Prince say something like "no no thats not how it went." Still a pretty standard fail state but I felt like that little effort to weave it into the narrative went a long way.
  6. GTA V

    I agree. While I think the character switching could be interesting I hope these side activities are optional. They always seem more tedious than fun.
  7. Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

    Get your free Gone Home Travelocity Ghost Gnome with XP Booster when you preorder today!
  8. Recently completed video games

    Just finished Bioshock: Infinite. The game has been discussed to death, so I won't go into too much detail, but I'd say overall I enjoyed playing it. I had fun riding around on skylines and turning all the dumb fodder enemies to goo in various ways, even if all the gore and violence didn't mesh well with the tone of the game. The world is just so gorgeous and detailed from top to bottom, it's a shame the story doesn't keep up. An absurd over-reliance on audio logs, questionable character motivations, and if you're going to tell a story with time travel and multiple realities, you better make that shit air tight because you're just asking for paradoxes and plot holes. This story was not air tight. But man those first few hours when you are first discovering Columbia are incredible.
  9. Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

    I'm looking to Gone Home to answer these important questions once and for all.
  10. Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

    After catching up on this thread, I was going to make some crack about the game being about a ghost struggling with his/her sexual identity, but then I wondered if ghosts could have a sexual identity, and if they did, what could they do about it, since they're all ethereal and whatnot. Would being a ghost be an eternal hell of sexual frustration? Then I blacked out.
  11. Spoiling games

    I'm playing through Bioshock Infinite right now, and their tell is one of two things; skyrails/hooks and tears. I see them from a distance (especially the tears since they make noise every time you look at them) and there are enemies waiting for me, or there are no enemies there and I get "ambushed" at some point. In the last Giant Bombcast, someone mentions that in Last of Us every time you see an area littered with bricks and bottles it's a sure thing there will be a combat encounter there. And all they'd need to do is use these elements in places where there isn't combat to keep you on your toes and make it feel even a little bit more organic. But they *never* do.
  12. The ______ of Video Games

    I'm pretty sure Call of Duty is the Transformers of video games.
  13. Honestly I don't begrudge Sony or Microsoft too much for charging for multiplayer. Running servers for them costs money so I get it. Unless a game is continually bringing in revenue (F2P, whatever MMOs are left with monthly fees), that's gonna eat into your bottom line eventually. It's not like on PC where anyone can host a server (is that how it still is? God I'm out of the loop on multiplayer gaming). I think you could still sell a full priced multiplayer only console game today, but you damn well better put a free trial of Live or PS+ in the box with it. You are right about the casual play though. I know there've been a handful of games I've ignored multiplayer components on because I let my Live subscription lapse. I wonder if a game like Journey were made for the PS4, would it require PS+?
  14. Wasn't Brink a multiplayer only major console release? Made by the Enemy Territory devs, even. I think the single player mode was just actually bot matches. Disclaimer: I've never played it. On an unrelated note, are you guys looking forward to Pikmin 3? I'm pretty sure it has multiplayer, though maybe local only? I loved the previous two, and when I watch the trailers I get the same feeling Jake described. They hook me, but I know it won't stick. I wonder what it would take?
  15. Idle Thumbs 108: A Premium Price

    Famous last (podcast ever) words...
  16. Difficulty and balance in Video games.

    I somehow totally missed all the Halo discussion on the first page...sorry about that! Anyway, on your point, that's one reason I don't complain much about Legendary's reduction in ammo drops even though it's pretty annoying (really you only had two shots left when I killed you Mr Brute? I hate you). It tends to force me to be more creative and find solutions other than energy shot -> head shot. Those moments end up being the tensest and most memorable. It helps that Halo's weapons are pretty well balanced. On the topic of tension though, I do think the near ubiquitous inclusion of recharging health in FPSs has done more harm than good. Yeah I'm sure it's easier to design for and in many ways makes the game less frustrating to play, but the loss of that moment where you make it through an entire tough encounter with just a sliver of health is a shame.
  17. Difficulty and balance in Video games.

    Halo games go a long way towards getting this right. Legendary still has some of the common pitfalls of lazy higher difficulties ie health adjustments and level memorization requirements, but they get a lot right as well. Enemies don't just have more health, they are smarter and better armed. Advancing often requires intelligent weapon selection and movement through/use of the environment (which the level design usually encourages). I've heard the encounters referred to as "combat puzzles" and it's pretty apt, though it's important not to lose the emphasis on the combat part...you still have to be precise as hell to take down the tougher enemies before they get a bead on you. It's funny though that those skills don't translate at all to multiplayer. I made my way through Legendary in several of the games but online I was always a maximum scrub. Also everything I said breaks down in any of the games when you have to fight the Flood. Then it's just shit and I generally give up.
  18. Kentucky Route Zero - A Game in Five Acts

    Act II is out now. I really enjoyed it. Thoughts (spoilered though probably unnecessarily):
  19. Idle Thumbs 106: Imagine the Man

    And then there's IGN today. If you squint you can see some content in there! Of course there was a clickthrough ad before I even got to that. They've come so far...
  20. Recently completed video games

    It's ridiculously easy. That combined with the weird pacing/structure do make the game seem to go on forever. Also, it's been a long time, but I remember being frustrated that you had about 1 minute at any point to figure out what to do next or how to solve a puzzle before Issun would get in your face and straight up tell you. Congrats guys, you made an even more annoying version of Navi. Oh my god I hated Issun so much.
  21. Recently completed video games

    I finished a couple games recently. First was Binary Domain, which I'd picked up after reading in various places that it's something of a hidden gem. The gameplay is for the most part stock sci-fi third person shooter, though the enemies, all robots, are fun to shoot as they have lots of tiny pieces and limbs you can blast off them, and it's pretty satisfying. The characters are cliche as fuck, but somehow endearing. Though the best/most absurd one, a french robot, disappears at one point never to return and with zero resolution (I think if I'd gotten the "best" ending that would be different, but that's not happening). The plot had some neat ideas but I don't think it ever really went anywhere interesting. I'd say overall I didn't come away very impressed. The other game I finished was The Last Express, which I'd gotten after it was mentioned in some older 'cast. This game is super sweet. The setting (pre-WWI Europe on the Orient Express) and characters are interesting and unique, and the real-time gameplay for the most part really works. It lets you rewind time as much as and whenever you want, which helps with the "I'm gonna miss something" anxiety. The entire thing takes place in essentially just four or five cars on the train, which I suppose could be considered a negative, but it allows the environments to be much more detailed. Also since the cast is limited, the characters, even non-critical ones, are all well realized. The game does have some of the typical adventure game problems pop up, like hard to find hotspots and a few weird puzzle solutions, but nothing terrible. Oh also I love that when the game starts you know nothing about the main character and you have to infer his backstory through the dialog and some notes you encounter over the course of the game.
  22. The Idle Book Club 8: Cosmicomics

    Alternative episode title: Pro Moon Milker (I have nothing of actual substance to add)
  23. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

    The gusto with which these guys are going for it is pretty impressive.
  24. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

    From that trailer I feel like the idea of this game may be more fun than the actual execution. Hope I'm wrong though.
  25. Oculus rift

    How long until someone combines this with ?