juffowup

It's a really difficult thing to convey if you're not already steeped in the series, but the raddest thing about Zero Mission isn't really clear from playing the game. If you check out a map of the original Metroid 1, hopefully one that has all the items listed on it, you'll find that virtually all the rooms from metroid 1 are still there in Zero Mission, and in the same places. The Zero Mission maps are bigger, with detours, but they're basically all added on... Remember after Ridley when on your way out there was the speed booster thing that shot you as a ball up through a bunch of ceilings into a room where you found the screw attack? The reason your reward from Ridley came so late and in such a weird way is that that's where the screw attack was in Metroid 1; somehow it still felt natural in MZM though.

I'm suspicious if it will turn out that all three of them knew the victim indirectly in a bizarre coincidence. The shots of the three detectives looking at each other at the end of the first episode would make sense in retrospect as each feeling a little panicked that the investigation will point to their own seedy relationship with the vic. This isn't likely I know, but might mirror the 30 seconds or so of season one when Rust was supposed to be a suspect. Also, I was the one who wrote in saying we knew who the killer was... for some reason in episode 1 I came away thinking that the shots of the body and the mask were in Colin Farrell's car, and we were supposed to understand that he had ditched the body that night. Clearly, I see now that this isn't what was intended. But now I guess I'm gonna stupidly spend all season rooting for Colin Farrell to be the killer so I can say I knew it since episode 1?

I just sent in a long rambly email to the podcast that I'm thinking might have gone better here as a post. So I guess I'll post it: I only recently got HBO when they started their streaming option, and mass consumed season one of True Detective. The thing I keep thinking about this show is how it defies the normal rules of TV mysteries. Hearing about the show when it ran, I more or less expected it to be in the legacy of Twin Peaks, in which we have a cast of characters we learn more and more about, with suspicion shifting between them until a finale when the culprit is revealed... (The Killing, Veronica Mars, Top of the Lake are all more or less in this genre). I think this category is mostly an adaptation of the Agatha Christie type mystery, which traditionally ends in the big parlor room scene with the detective announcing how they figured it out. Usually there's a moment where you could pause the story and try to figure out the puzzle and then go back to keep reading/watching and see if you got the answer it right. Most older campy TV mysteries are in this vein, what with your Murders, She Wrote and your Diagnoses Murder and so on. But this doesn't seem to fit for True Detective... the episode-by-episode work of True Detective feels more procedural, like a Law & Order or a Homicide: Life on the Streets episode, where the meat of the work is in tax records or subpoenas or wiretaps, and there isn't a big a-ha moment, just the doing of the legwork. Except that in True Detective, there IS a big a-ha moment in the end... the green ears and the painted house were clues available to the audience to notice from very early in the show, as well as an appearance of the killer... So I have no idea what this show is I guess. Maybe it's just the first show to try to take a single procedural type of mystery case and stretch it out over an entire TV season? And maybe the flashback structure was just in support of a mystery that takes a long time to solve? Anyway, this attempt at categorization seems to get completely thrown out the window for season two, which so far at least may not be a mystery at all. Like...the investigation appears to be about a corpse found by the road, but we already know who killed him, right? So is this maybe a Columbo-style mystery, where we're following the killer, waiting to see how they caught? Or is that a decoy and we'll find that the real mystery the audience is following for the year is Colin Farrell's ex-wife's rape? Not knowing these basic questions but being engaged anyway is really great to me.

I didn't notice until you said it... True Detective Season 2 is also an 8-part series.

There was an earlier topic on this game that stalled out. I complained in there that the second episode was terrible (and it really, really is), but I've played the third and it might have won me back with more interesting character stuff.

he thing where new people watch an old TV show for the first time (possibly with a host who is a longtime fan) is called an introcast. If you have a favorite tv show, you can listen along as new people watch it for the first time and sort of experience what it was like the first time all over again.

Okay here's a really dumb thought I've carried with me since I dove reeeal deep into Metroid Prime 10 years ago or so. There's a point in Metroid Prime where you gather the keys, and are about to go down the elevator to the gross end section, and Ridley shows up and you fight Ridley. And then after you fight Ridley, you go down an elevator.... Why? Why doesn't the game end there? Samus went to this world following Ridley. Metroid Prime is sealed up with these Chozo keys and can't escape. By going down, Samus basically unleashes Dark Samus into the galaxy, while walking away could've prevented the genocide of Prime 2.

I'm an hour into the episode and I just learned that emperor Gestahl from FFVI is not a dog-person.

Also, don't eat the Mayo in Oregon...

So episode 2 came out and I feel weird to see I'm still the last one to reply to this thread. No one else still following this one? I finished ep 2 tonight and ended with nothing but contempt for the game. Dialogue was dumb, plot was nonsensical, nothing interesting from the first episode was followed upon, nothing makes me want to play again except that I've already bought the last 3 episodes. Conversations you're required to rewind repeatedly until you give the 'right' answers? Tense situations I have to rewind to solve, but I can't rewind an extra 20 seconds to prevent the situation from occurring in the first place? A full third of the game spent collecting five bottles for no good reason? This was just garbage. If my last post left you interested in this game please ignore it....

The thing that drove me nuts about the key-hunts in the prime series was that the keys (artifacts) didn't do anything. It seems like in Castlevania Symphony of the Night this problem was solved by having them give passive stat boosts... the same could have easily been applied in prime... have this artfact boost the fire rate of the wave beam, that one reduce damage by 20%, or whatever. I think it would've gone a long way toward reducing the sloggy feel.

I remember at the time being struck at how similar Majora's mask and The Last Express are, for being nothing alike. Both had a cast of characters operating on a schedule, and invited you to go back in time and get them to play off each other in interesting ways. Also, both felt like takes on making a small world very densely filled with things to explore and fine.

I finished this last night and ultimately really enjoyed it. It's really weird seeing someone else copying the choice-matters type system from Walking Dead. Not that anyone used it, but just how blatant the lift is: it has it's own to the little pop-up messages about "He will remember this" (just an icon in this game), a chart saying how many other people made the choices you made. Even the 5 episode structure. Weirder than that though is how this game took a system I loved, and immediately ripped out the main thing I loved about it. Walking Dead blew me away for being a narrative game that I never felt like min-maxing, never wondered about my decisions, never felt like reloading and doing differently, never wanted to check a guide to see what difference this choice would make. Constantly, I felt like I was being forced to make a difficult choice immediately and live with the consequences, and it felt liberating to not be in a game, just in a story. The time rewind mechanic in this game shatters all that. Every dialogue I enter, I will see every possible end result and choose the one I like. There is no urgency, and no sequence feels like it has consequence. After 45 minutes of the game, I thought I would hate this. By then end, it had won me over... For as directly they copy the Telltale systems, the experience of playing this game is definitely its own. It's not immersive in the Telltale way, but has its own thing going for it. I don't know if the dialogue was just awkward or was a reasonable attempt at writing 18-year-olds being awkward with each other. I'm pretty sure it was the former, but my brain played nice and mostly let me just hear it as the latter on my playthrough. The plot was I think really strongly paced. There's a moment on the way out of school that all the plot threads grab onto each other all at once and things really take off. I'm really psyched to see where this goes, although I'm worried the sci-fi thing will get real dumb before this is over.

Hey wait, was that a letter from the same Sean Molloy who used to do CGW Radio?

My 4 year old (almost 5) just got the hang of using a mouse. She really likes Botanicula from the Machinarium and Samorost people--I think it might be the most suited for a young child. I know there were people doing educational type point n click adventures back in the late 90's... does anyone know if any of those were any good? Is Freddie Fish doable without being able to read more than 6 letter words?

Ugh... after scanning the entire wikipedia entry several times, I found the little box in the corner with 'release date'. [sidles away sheepishly.]

I was just answering your question of why someone would be upset with one of the kickstarted point and click adventure games that starts with 'broken' being split in half but not the other. [Hey that's pretty weird right?] But I think that even expecting backers to be in on the conversation is a little unfair. I'm sure that many of the thousands who backed in the first 8 hours thought they were saying "yes I will pay $30 for an adventure game this October", and didn't follow closely enough to find out that that offer was basically withdrawn already. Some of those people probably only showed up this July to hear Tim say "won't be releasing the complete game until 2015," and feel pretty unhappy. I haven't really been a fan of Double Fine since 2010, but I remember constantly being disappointed by their announcements... I bought an Xbox when I read about an awesome Xbox exclusive called 'psychonauts' that should be coming in the next year. I was having a hard time finding the last dragon statue in Brutal Legend when I heard that if I paid $5, they would show me where it is. Despite subscribing to both the double fine action news feed and the podcast, I didn't hear about Trenched until 6 weeks after it was announced. Maybe they've gotten better at messaging this stuff, (maybe Remo is helping?) but it feels crummy to be told that if you are interested in this video game and you want to know what year it might come out, you have to give us thirty bucks.

The version they have on Wikipedia, which more or less lines up with what I heard over the summer (I assume from giant bombcast) is: Schafer reanalyzed the state of the project in July 2013 and recognized that at the current rate, they would not be releasing the complete game until 2015. Schafer recognized they would run out of the Kickstarter funds before then and would not yet be receiving money from the sales of the game, either requiring them to drastically cut back on the project or alter their release plans. Schafer opted to adjust the schedule and place the game in its beta state on Steam's Early Access system as to make it available by January 2014, obtaining revenue from sales there to fund the remaining development while gaining additional testing input before releasing a final version. Is the story more complicated than that? Was the announcement only available to backers? I can't see it on the DF action news blog.

Hey speaking of playing with the home screen--- Here's a thing that sucks: handheld games that make it too easy for a 2-year-old to delete your save data. I lost 3 hours of data on 9-9-9, and looking at the menu that led to it I can totally see why that happened.

I think the people complaining about Double Fine's two parts are really complaining that the second part isn't expected to finish until 2015. Unless I'm missing part of the story, Double Fine backers were backing a project that had an estimated delivery of October 2012... the game will be 2.5-3 years late when it's done. The Broken sword cutting in half is affecting backers by only a one extra month wait, on a project that was only 6 months late at the start.

Speaking as a parent of a 4-year-old, this is maybe not as bad as it seems. Kids this age are sort of just learning how to concentrate on a task at all, and so they go overboard sometimes. The peeing thing-- this just happens. If it hasn't happened more than twice I wouldn't worry about it. The part I would focus on, (and I don't want to sound preachy or anything since I can't really tell if this is actually a thing from what you say), is that this is a chance for your nephew to be learning to be better at taking turns and respecting the wishes of others. If he only wants to play the first 3 levels because the 4th is too hard for him, he should be learning to explain this. If you'd like to try one of those levels, he should be willing to take turns picking a level. This is all stuff that's learned around that age, and is some of the best stuff that you can learn from a game like that. And if you really do want to lay off the game, maybe try picking up a mario jigsaw puzzle to have around next time he comes over. (Around 30-50 pieces is good at 4 years old.)

I have a four-year-old who plays a lot with me. [One time on Idle Thumbs, they read a question I wrote that ended with 'anyway I have to go---my wife is having a baby'. She's that baby!] She's tried a lot of things but the best is Kirby's Epic Yarn. I highly HIGHLY recommend this game for anyone who would like to play something cooperative with a 3-year-old or older. Many co-ops come close, but Epic Yarn is the only one that really does this right: Mario lets you pick up your friend when it gets too tough, but after a few levels it's always too tough, and becoming a bubble when you die is too frustrating. The Lego games have non-punishing death, but don't let you help a partner when it's tricky, and too much of the platforming is frustratingly finicky for little fingers. Kirby's epic yarn nails it on all fronts. The cave seemed like it would have worked too, but then a princess got eaten by a dragon. [Hey, does anyone know if there's a 3 character set in the cave that doesn't lead to gruesome visuals?] Regarding boundaries---on some old 1up podcast, John Davison gave advice that sort of stuck with me. He talked about his kids getting too interested in watching star wars over and over, and how rather than saying no star wars, he found that the smarter thing to do is say "let's draw pictures of star wars instead", or other activities that can engage the interest without being unhealthy. So when the Kirby game was getting a little overplayed, my daughter and I made ourselves a board game to play. (Felt world glued to cardboard, with little cardboard monsters and characters. There aren't really any rules, but there are dice to roll and jewels to collect.) I don't think I could ever keep to the two-hours-screen-time rule that many parents do, but so far we haven't seen any resistance to being told to take a break every so often. Sometimes we like exploring the indie space. Proteus was her first try at 3d dual-stick controls. Thomas was Alone makes her laugh and laugh. Monster loves you (I think is the name?) is really engaging for her. She really likes Wind Waker, but it's a weird game to her. For two weeks it was a game that takes place on outset island about a girl visiting Grandma and chasing crabs and talking to her sister. I tried to charge through and accumulate some more items for her to play with and bring her back to outset, but man that took forever. When her sister got kidnapped, she freaked out and wouldn't play for a while. Now she really likes buying flowers to decorate the bigger town. I thought she would get into Animal crossing but not so much. Too much reading necessary, and me too bored to stay and read it all to her.

This is basically the same experience I've had. A point I don't see people bring up is the particular choice of plants that cost money--- the grumpy squash, the frozen peashooter, the jalapeno, and a new one that generates plant food. In PvZ 1, I used the squash and frozen peashooter in basically every level. Between squash and potato mine, you could buy enough time to get an economy going strong enough to immediately fill a column with frozen peas, and then another, and then add whatever you need to deal with any specialist zombies in the game. These plants also share a lot of the same ideas that one of the new staple plants (iceberg lettuce) occupies---but iceburg lettuce is a much more interesting plant. It's free but it only temporarily pauses a zombie (squash killed). When I now play an opening with potato mine and iceburg lettuce used to buy time to build economy, the game is a lot more tense and interesting than games with squash and potato mine were. Likewise, frozen peashooter was so powerful as to be an always-use. Its main drawback (you can't use it with a torchwood) wasn't enough to mean that it was the only plant you ever needed to beat many levels. Instead of viewing this as Popcap removing content and putting it behind a paywall, I tend to see it as popcap better balancing this game and then allowing purchase of game-breaking items.