youmeyou

Clearly I'm the glue that holds our chickenshit outfit together

Max Payne 3. I was bored and tired last night and had about an hour of gaming in me before it was time to hit the hay. Had this game eating up hard drive space so I figured, what the hell, let's see what it's all about. Ok, so from what I can tell Rockstar took the original formula and then squeezed it into the run and gun mission format of their GTA series. You're running down narrow corridors with no possibility to flank and just pointing and shooting where the game tells you to. It's a modern day ultra-scripted shooter where you can occasionally dive (i won't even add bullet time as most shooters already have that). And while you can dive there has been absolutely no reason to thus far and I'm not sticking around to see if that changes. From what I hear it doesn't really. And the story is shit. It's predicating on you remembering the first two games really well as it gives you no refresher of any kind. Max just starts off super grumpy and comically drugged and drunk. He's always going on about "why am I doing this, why am I here?" That's a good question, Max. Why am I in a helicopter sniping guys on a rooftop in a franchise that was supposed to be about nutty gun fights from an 80's John Woo flick set in gritty subways and whorehouses instead of some wanky architecture school dropout's levels? Rockstar really wants this to be a film, it's so very clear. And they have the ability to do so here much moreso than in the GTA games. Except so far the writing sounds like a bad parody and the editing and effects look like someone just found their way into Final Cut's effects suite. The video distortion is overblown and overused and really doesn't have much to do with the noir themes of the narrative. I have too much other good stuff to play to put up with all these negatives in the hope the game opens up later. I get to walk around with a giant hammer and eat people in Fallout NV. What am I doing here is right, Max!

Found the functionality for the screen!

I do, I'm in NYC. Add me on steam: youmeyou. I can start a guy on Waterson. (Can't wait for stupid purchases to work across characters)

Heard that rumor too, which is pretty exciting. Though it's less 'delayed' and more like 'it may actually happen.' Its felt like a foregone conclusion for a while now that LG would be a PS4 game.

I was playing with the american RPS contingent on connery for a bit but that kind of stopped happening. Good people to play with though. Also: looks like I'll be going to IndieCade in NYC this weekend, so I'll have to miss saturday's scrimmage. Next week, guys!

lol dammit. I'm workin on it! I've actually been going out on liberator runs during the week. It's a great activity for when you just have 2-3 people playing with you: go out in a lib or a couple of scythes, take an undefended point, hot-drop style, then tear out before anyone gets the wiser.

I did 3-5 in an hour so it's pretty easy to catch up if you ever fall behind.

Also let me just say: while the marines in Aliens were overtly and purposefully clichéd there was plenty of really interesting character work being done. Bishop, who's loyalty was dubious up until the very end. Ripley's character arc of overcoming the trauma from the first film and developing strong maternal instincts toward Newt; which led up to the fantastic symbolism of the final standoff/showdown of between her and the queen - two mothers battling to protect their own. Aliens is the film where Ripley went from victim to warrior and that was awesome to witness. (Cameron designed a very similar arc for Sarah Conner in the second Terminator.) While she was great in Alien, Aliens made her a bad ass female protagonist and that's an incredibly unique thing. Then Alien 3 came along and made her a victim once again (the rape scene, ugh) And argobot, I did watch the first two back to back recently after the disaster that was Prometheus. I like them both for very different reasons. (some of which I've described here).

Apparently it's pretty popular here! Harrumph!

I actually found the xenomorph acting in Alien to be the one thing that didn't age well at all. *JAZZ HANDS*

I'd argue Dead Space is as close as gaming has come to capturing the atmosphere of Alien. They cribbed heavily from the franchise so it's not really a shocking statement. Dead Space 2 (and it sounds like 3) have veered into something entirely different, they're much more space shooting gallery and less suspenseful tight corridor exploration with aliens crawling around vents. Rodi, I disagree, I think both films are groundbreaking on different levels. Alien is a stunning, minimalist horror film with an inventive sci fi wrapping. Aliens is a war film repurposed to become something totally different. It plays the cheesy jingoistic gung-ho soldier cliches against the unstoppable terror of a classic horror villain. Watching soldier feeds blip out on the TV screens still feels intensely desperate and chaotic. If it suffers it's from having been copied by every dark sci fi action film ever made practically.

Just started playing Fallout NV on PC modded up the wazoo. That No Mutants Allowed mod looks quite interesting, I might go ahead and try it! Starting out in hardcore mode recalls some of the tension of playing Stalker, I've already died a bunch of times and get crippled in almost every encounter. (Doctor's Bags are fucking priceless) I even ended up following a caravan for a bit on the way to Novac in order to benefit from their mercenaries' protection. Which was a really fun systems interaction, I gotta say. However, I do forsee what Upthrust was talking about in later game difficulty curves getting much easier and turn into a more classic Bethesda type game where I can easily destroy everything. Still, I'm wondering if the character I rolled is going to be able to deal with a super harcore mode very well. I'm a dr. scientist who likes to run around and hit things with large hammers. So being in-your-face comic book hammer dude might not vibe well with a play mode that limits you to more realistic outcomes. I'm guessing a sneaky sniper character would do much better in that situation.

No, it's good. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Finished the third fourth and fifth in a row to get caught up. Took me a little over an hour. Third: Fourth: Fifth:

Looks great! The writing will hopefully develop a bit, but all the tactical combat and general world exploration looks like it'll be a lot of fun. Money well spent, I say!

Thomas Was Alone: Excellent writing and well-voiced narration made this game stand out as a super memorable experience. Being able to ascribe so much character to a bunch of rectangles jumping around shows that good writing can make even the most unlikely content feel compelling. The puzzles themselves are fairly straightforward, nothing too brain twisting. They seem to just be there as something to do while the voice over serves out the narrative. I think I'll come away liking this more than games like Qube or Antichamber probably just because I'm a sucker for well told stories.

It was actually running better for me than it ever has before. 6 hours and it didn't crash until the very end.

Witcher 1/2 are great but you have to enjoy: RPGs, long Bioware-style conversations, cutscenes and have a pretty healthy tolerance for Elves and Dwarves.

No, Geralt will have to doge-roll his way up mountains.

Where does it say that? (about the animations mapped to one button)

Pretty tempted to pick up Fallout New Vegas + all DLCS: http://www.reddit.co...999_with_promo/ I played it through once on the 360 and the crappy textures + laborious load times really soured the experience for me. I'm hoping there are some sweet mods out by this point that might make this closer - in terms of quality control - to Fallout 3. (And it really wasn't when it was first released on the 360)

"Witcher 3: What Geralt Wants"

I hear you can reach the "end" without solving all of the puzzles. But I haven't looked further into it for fear of spoilers. Don't worry owen, I got stuck a few days back and I haven't opened it for fear of being frustrated. Have to work up the nerve again. (this happens far too often to me)