youmeyou

Well I don't think there's no way. After all, we already know how Steam influences the market. It's not too hard to extrapolate how Steam in the livingroom space might effect things. I'd just rather talk about stuff like that than pontificate over half-life 3 ad nauseum.

So what do you guys about how this will possibly influence Steam's already powerful sway over the PC games market? Especially in light of stories like this and others: http://flippfly.com/news/race-the-sun-a-month-after-launch-losing-steam/ which suggest it's Greenlight or the highway if you're trying to get your indie game sold on a PC. Ultimately what makes PC games great is the open and grassroots nature of the PC ecosystem, and while Steam doesn't necessarily represent as closed an ecosystem as your average console, it is curated (even if its the users doing the curating) and thus is defacto somewhat closed. And with a console out, EVERY dev is gonna want their game on it, and would potentially be losing out on a huge market if Greenlight fails them (which it is likely to do, statistically). Obviously no clue what the actual box will entail, just thinking aloud.

I'm dying http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EB_XX_IM8io

Double Whoa.

When all you have is a gun every problem looks like a dead body! In other news, Leigh Alexander's excellent review-song got a cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8HZ21Lsw5WE

I thought Alexander's audio clip was actually pretty effective satire, poking fun not at the game itself but at how major reviewers reflexively use the language of the game's marketing in their writing. Her dictation instantly recalls this unnerving piece of marketing for the game that came out 2 months ago: I would not at all place it on the other side of the scale with the gamespot commenters, even if you don't think it works as satire.

This is great: https://soundcloud.com/leighalexander1/review-of-gta-v-this-is-why-we

Monaco is kind of too difficult for me, and I have played so very many games. I will refer back to Dungeon Defenders which is as great an intro game as it is a coop game. Orcs Must Die 2 also has coop tho I haven't played it. The first was pretty engaging.

Oh don't worry those will surely come 2-3 weeks after release.

You sound disappointed

I've heard the latest DLC is excellent. I quite enjoyed the first part playing as Daud. His version of the Dishonored powers are a neat twist on an already awesome set of tools. Specifically his new blink, which freezes time when you engage it, allowing you to leap, hold down blink and leisurely choose where you'd like to blink to. (It also allows for blink chains giving you insane traversal ability)

I could definitely see this being extrapolated into a bullet hellish, Vanquish type shooter with dozens of enemies on screen creating far more elaborate movement puzzles. Very fun concept, indeed. 14 years has since The Matrix and I finally felt a little bit like Neo.

That really is fascinating. I've had plenty of friendly-fire-caused descents into mayhem with my brother - (we could almost never make it past the 1st level of Battletoads thanks to the ease of ally-caused deaths) but never to the extent that eye-for-an-eye justice emerged. Great stuff. Oh, and in response to Outlast not having permadeath and that kind of being a bummer, the upcoming Routine is pretty exciting 1. because space horror 2. has permadeath.

I've played hundreds of hours of Dungeon Defenders with my gf. It's incredibly good co-op fun. Even has split screen should your friend ever make it over to your locality! Splinter Cell Blacklist is always on sale for hella cheap and has great co-op. Borderlands 2 is also endless co-op fun. These have probably been mentioned before. I will say I did not find Torchlight II very fun at all. It lacks the really slick presentation of Diablo III and doesn't boast enough novel elements to make it feel worth my time. Me and the gf also had trouble connecting: having to create a secondary in-game account to play multiplayer was pretty annoying and on top of that our game crashed all the time.

Cheers! I will definitely do that next time the opposing team pulls some shit like that.

Oh I totally agree with that. We learned a lot from watching what kind of strategies they used to defeat us. Then again, we didn't learn anything once they just started spawn camping us instead of attacking the ancient. I'd like to avoid that kind of gameplay entirely if possible.

Huh, that'd do it I suppose. We were a five man group but all new players to the game. (Me and a bunch of my coworkers). I guess we should keep playing bot matches for now. Kind of frustrating!

How good is the matchmaking in Dota 2? We were doing pretty good against Easy bots so decided to try a human match thinking they'd be at our skill level (lvl 1.5). NOPE. They utterly crushed us even going so far as to camp our spawn with Sniper. It was terrible. Is this a common thing? How wildly does human player ability skew at a given level? I was wondering if people had 'prestiged' and were skilled players who were starting new Dota lvl stats? If that's even a thing? oh and I tend to play every weeknight 10-12pm EST if anyone wants to hang. same nic on steam.

Mouse Trap was definitely too advanced for my young mind. That and the Dominoes toy set that came with bridges and random pieces of architecture. I'm sorry, parents for wasting so much of your money.

The comparison to bluffing among high level poker players reminded me about a super interesting interview with a poker play on this episode of Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/2013/mar/26/ in which she points out that bluffing and reading bluffs is NOT a tactic used among high level players because it's not reliable. For example, someone might bluff that they have a shitty hand, thinking they have a good hand, and might actually have a shitty hand. So if you're trying to read their bluff you're not taking into account that their information might be bad, thus making your own information bad. Not sure how much this ties into Netrunner, having never played it, but it was an interesting "Did You Know" type factoid that I thought was worth sharing.

Yeah it's slightly harsh and probably unnecessarily hyperbolic. The salient distinction is a game that I have absolutely no doubt I will finish and that I find my mind wandering to even when I'm not playing it. This year it's been Gone Home and The Last of Us. A counter example would be Papers Please, which is absolutely fascinating to play but also is such an emotional drag that I pretty much have to force myself to turn it on. I am in serious doubt that I will be able to get to an 'end' before my patience falters.

I think calling it unhealthy is a bit of a stretch. The fact of the matter (for me) is: most games are mediocre, a few are above average, and maybe 1-2 games a year are memorable, brilliant, and engaging experiences. A game can not have any glaring problems and still fail at drawing me in.

I look forward to reading your shaken account in the quitter's club thread.

http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke

I think it's fine to ask. If she doesn't want accompaniment, don't insist. I don't think it's unreasonable to go out of your way if you're concerned about their safety.