youmeyou

Some commentators are calling it the next Vista. As in, businesses won't buy it because the GUI is frivolous for everything but tablet related faffery. If that happens, I guess Windows 9 will be totally awesome?

This is why we can't have nice things, grumble grumble etc.

The imminent demise of the Mac Pro line kind of saddens me (they updated the procs and ram and left everything else the same. A half-assed update if there ever was one). But I suppose it was an inevitability.

Dead Space 3 looks like utter toss. A slightly different setting for Army of Two, essentially. That being said, coop survival horror can certainly work. See Left 4 Dead and DayZ. I guess it can only work if there is no single player to detract from.

Oh man, that dual joystick controller gives me serious nerdgasms.

I'm waiting to jump back into this once a patch gets released. Apparently a lot of the crashes and slow loading times will be fixed which should facilitate better puzzle solving.

Is the Sunday game plan still going on? (announcement on Steam group info) I'd definitely be down for that. I've been hopping on whenever I can, dying constantly, enjoying the hell out of it. Notable events: Wandering near the coast, I paused to scan up ahead, only to see a giant herd of around 30 zombies running in my direction. I managed to get out of their way (they hadn't seen me) and watched stupefied as this intimidating sight streamed past. Annoyingly, it kept dropping stragglers so it was as if the game was dragging a zombie spawning brush in front of me. A tense shootout with another player in the second story of a house in Chernus. I was happily looting away when I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I hastily typed in 'friendly?' in the direct com channel and got no response. I realized, much to my chagrin, that even crouching and creeping he could hear my footsteps as well as I could hear his. Eventually he enters the room and spies me cowering in a corner. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I shot first, I couldn't stand the tension any longer. I didn't know whether he was a bandit or not and never will as I went down under a hail of his retaliatory fire.

Preview for the E3 demo is up. Looks a lot like its predecessors. (And nothing like the controversial cinematic). But, again, I'm seeing this without having experienced the game myself.

Great link, Nachimir. Glad to see a lot of critical thought being brought to bear here. Judging from the print ads the author posted from blood money: http://www.sanjeev.net/printads/h/hitman-blood-money-2796.jpg http://sleazette.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/shocking.jpg http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/images/hitmanbloodmoney_print_01/screen1.jpg http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/images/hitmanbloodmoney_print_01/screen3.jpg this is part of an ongoing marketing strategy from I assume, eidos/squenix? Thanks to twitter saturation and more public awareness of the medium, this kind of shit isn't flying anymore and that's heartening to know. I really do hope the people behind this are paying attention, but it may be enough that video game consumers are now taking in a discussion that has been long overdue.

Has anyone else tried the horse combat yet? It's not very good, is it? I tried to use my bow and arrow on horseback and discovered I could only aim in a tiny cone in front of my horse. So if an enemy manages to get behind you, you're screwed. (Especially considering how awkward it is to control a horse in Skyrim)

I quite liked the openly interpretable nature of the game. Unlike say, Outland, which tries to force Diablo-style lore down your throat in the form of full screen paragraphs, Limbo lets the story come out through the gameplay. The narrative is intentionally obfuscated to inspire a sense of helplessness in the player. I think it was mostly successful. And I absolutely loved the ending for reasons I find hard to explain. I've also had some great conversations about Limbo mostly due to the murky nature of its plot.

Ah, the fun of alpha. I've got the official DayZ mod installed but some servers are now using the beta update. I tried playing this morning and after the 5-10 minutes it takes to actually get into the game I got the warning that my version was outdated. I need to check as to whether I can see what version a server is running BEFORE I begin the lengthy process of joining a game.

brkl, I enjoyed the E3 2011 gameplay trailer that's set in a library. If only for the immersion factor. It seems to play not dissimilarly from DX:HR or Splinter Cell and, not having personally played any of the older Hitmans, I can get behind that. This trailer though... is really not good.

Interesting points, Chris. It does make sense that coming from Blow's perspective you'd want something other than a game jam or conf. I guess he's not really saying game jams have no use at all, just none for him and game designers like him.

I heard avoiding public games is a wise strategy but obviously that's not substantiated in any way.

Calling game jams shallow is kind of missing the point. No one ever made the claim that game jams should result in finished fleshed out games. I'd say a game jam is more designed to allow many people to attack many problems at once in a kind of dense slurry of creativity. What comes out of that is indeed, a stronger sense of community, a better grasp of game design and workflow, a better understanding of why a game should be made and what makes you passionate about game design. Also Blow's opinion that he can't learn anything from neophytes really makes him come off as incredibly pretentious. You can learn things from anyone if you're actually interested in having a discussion.

No, it had a Rihanna music video disguised as a boss fight.

Same. I don't think I'm ever going to play this again. Reminds me of my brief love affair with AC:Brotherhood's multiplayer. Fun, but not sustainable after the novelty wears off.

I've got DayZ installed and am ready to join in the fun. My steam id is youmeyou. I'm also up for some of this ARMA craziness - will try and join in next time I have a free monday.

I'm very much looking forward to the PvP arena. Slogging through monsters is fun an all, but I'm expecting that sense of tension and split-second decision making (cast that spell, time the cooldowns perfectly, pursue different strategies to see what works best etc) will be much greater against human opponents. Rodi, you're spot on about the story. Blizzard should have relegated it down to the minimal premise of a game like Left 4 Dead, since D3 is similarly all about the gameplay. But my guess is that they're getting some false positive feedback from the rabid WoW fanbase who actually think that inconsequential lore is worth a damn. It's really one of the worst video game stories in a AAA title I've seen in a long time, which is insane considering the talent their team exhibits in other aspects.

That was interesting. Good to see some of the gameplay, which does look quite fun. I really, really hate the aesthetic though. And the narrative seems more of the same; I guess you'd play this for fun hack and slash, not for immersion in an interesting world.

I originally meant to ignore it but the rareness at which I get good items kind of necessitated using it (at least in Nightmare Mode). And it does make a huge difference, I went from 200 to 600 dps after spending only about 5000 on a pair of fists for my Monk. It's great because it allows you to tailer your searches for only the stats you want your items to have. Which is a great balm for all those times your blacksmith makes you something that don't have any applicable use for your char. (for thousands of gold a try)

Gatsby looks like it was directed by the props department. And in 3D? Why god, why?

I finally got around to finishing normal mode. Wow, what a disappointing and boring story. I know it's Blizzard but I still managed to be surprised by how bad it was. If it wasn't for a very fun multiplayer mode I'd be finished with this game. (and angry I spent $60 on it) Additionally, the fact that you can get everything you need for cheaper at the Auction House makes redundant any need to replay D3 for loot. I guess this is a good thing as you can focus on the actual combat, but it also seems to break most of the in-game loot related functions. I haven't messed with my blacksmith or jeweler in a long time. I just sell everything I find and use that money to buy better loot and gems on the AH. Is this what Blizzard was planning?

Whoah dude, careful. I died at least once because my game lagged out and my character froze there until he died from low lvl mob attacks.