Flynn

Huh... so Aiden Pearce's iconic cap is a physical black hat with a fairly subtle symbol. No branding. Actually a pretty cool bonus game thingie comparable to paying more to get the soundtrack, etc. One upside to all editions -- seeing full game codes on ebay selling for 30 dollars.

For contrast I guess, I thought this was hilarious.

The Atari Indiana Jones game that the ET guy made WAS awesome. It was single player but used two controllers! It had an inventory, shops where you spent loot, multiple paths. Impressive for an Atari game.

The pre-igniter was already of the very best items, so having the new charge mechanics not get as much of a benefit from it is a nice balance tweak.

There's now three ways, the original way, unlock all the other ships, and with the Rock C cruiser that starts with a crystal crewmember so you can skip the first two events.

Interesting to contrast Free to Play with The Smash Brothers here. The Smash Brothers didn't have good footage of the original events and so relied mostly on interviews, and luckily there were some people who were could communicate the feels of those events amazingly (like Wife). For anyone who somehow missed it, I think it captures a gaming subculture even better than Free to Play:

So I looked up the developer of Calculords and the the interesting result... It's 'SeanBaby' of internet video game humor fame. http://www.calculords.com/about/index.html

Count me in. Anyone else playing this game? I've only got a couple hours in myself just long enough to learn the very basics. I did run around on a 150 active player server for a bit just to experience the madness.

With respect to f2p games as super hard puzzlers, Plants vs Zombies 2 was totally that. I never used a powerup in the game (pinch to destroy zombies, etc) and every level was beatable... just barely. I enjoyed the experience much more than the first game actually because it was the difficult PvZ game I always wanted. Some of those challenges required perfect builds. No exaggeration, it might have been my favorite tower defense game ever. Unfortunately they have revamped the game entirely -- the PvZ2 that I played no longer exists and nobody can play it. The game had a huge patch and is completely different now, they removed the map, challenges, and the fine edge of balance of gone. You can still get through it without paying but I don't enjoy using consumable powerups even when they are free.

Anyone have a server recommendation? I played about an hour to learn the basics on a random server, would like to find a place with a good mix between conflict and cooperation. Any unofficial Thumbs server?

Everyone seemed a bit self-conscious talking Nintendo, as if they had already talked it to death on an earlier show or something. But I don't think they did? It was a good talk and wasn't sure whe the Thumbs were rushing it along.

I don't think it's the reflexes as much as the lifestyle. Practicing for 8 - 12 hours a day living in a cramped team house... eventually it becomes a tradeoff you don't want to make. FWIW the typical retirement age seems does seem to be moving up over time. 24 used to be like the oldest player still playing. Now there are many way past that.

You guys (3MA hosts who are are way into esports moreso than readers of this thread) might find this show's wrap up of the year pretty interesting: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1u2afu/if_you_watch_1_show_this_year_make_it_unfiltered/ I caught most of the crazy 5 hour length and there was a lot of real talk about how players/casters/streamers feel about the state of esports in general, the future or lack thereof for each game, WCS vs LCS vs Ti3, etc. Be warned a lot of crass humor but a lot of honest discussion too -- none of the guests are well known enough to really care about watching what they say. Seems pretty rough to be a straight up esports journalist. Lots of esports inside baseball stuff.

Haven't heard of litecoin? Litecoin is dead. The world has moved on. I guarantee the Hat Baron is now dealing in this: (not a joke, is real coin that people are trading in high volumes)

Simply because it can only spoil only 5 minutes. The other 99% of the of the thing can still be experienced the same as anyone going in spoiler free. A spoiler of something revealed at the end, on the other hand, could mean you experience the first 99% with knowledge that changes things a lot. (I personally don't care much being spoiled -- I'd rather be spoiled than listen to people awkwardly talking 'around' things on a podcast any day.)

Hot off the presses: VERY IMPORTANT!!!!.txt [maximize this window, or the title below will display wrong] ________ ___ / _______\/\ \ /\ \______/\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \_______ ___ ____ ___ ___ __________ ___________ ________ ___ _____ \ \ \ \ \ ____ \\ \/ ___\\ \ /\ \\ ______\\____ ___\\ __ \/\ \/ __ \ \ \ \ \ \ \__/\ \\ /___/ \ \ \ \ \\ \_____//___/\ \__/ \ \/\ \ \ /_/\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \\_______ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \_______\ \ \ \ \ \\ \ \ \ \__\_\ \ _____/\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \_\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \_________\\ \__\ \ \__\\__\ \ \________ \\_________\ \ \__\ \ \_______\ \__\ \ \__\ \/_________/ \/__/ \/__//__/ \/_______/\ \_________/ \/__/ \/_______/\/__/ \/__/ \ \ \ _ _ _ ___ ___ \ \__\ | | | | | | | | \/__/ |- |-| |- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | _|_ Chyston is a trilogy of Super Mario worlds, precisely engineered to create some of the toughest levels around. I'm not going to give you Parts II and III until you prove you beat Part I. When you do, email me ([email protected]) with the ending that you, of course, wrote down, and I'll email you part II. Then beat Part II, email me the end, and I'll send you Part III. If you then email me the Part III ending, I will be amazed. Not that it isn't possible, it's just quite difficult. Well, here you go... +---------+ |+++DATA: | +---------+-------------------------------------+ |+++NAME: Chryston Part I | |+++AUTHOR: Chris Remo | |+++LEVELS: 8 | |+++SIZE: 2207 | |+++DIFFICULTY: Really hard (or so I've heard) | +-----------------------------------------------+ _______________ _____________________________/\ \____________________________ /\ \ \ HALL OF FAME \ \ \ \ BEAT WORLDS 1-3: \ \______________\ BEAT JUST WORLD 1: \ \ \ \/______________/ \ \ \ 1st: Jay 3rd: Lance Underwood \ \ \ 2nd: Jonathan Chen \ \ \_________________________________________________________________________\ \/_________________________________________________________________________/ These three so far are the only ones who have sent me endings for any worlds. Can you be the next Hall-of-Famer? Next time I update this .txt file, I will include all of the most recent "winners." This world is quite difficult, and even I, as its creator, have trouble with it sometimes. Don't expect just to run through it holding down the jump button like you can with some worlds. If you beat even the first world, you're good. Good luck -Chris Remo aka ChrisMan

Halfway through this episode everyone mentions how they feel guilty playing games other people already talked about on the postcast. Don't worry about it too much, really. Maybe some people mind it, but I would much rather hear about the same game over and over if that's what people are genuinely excited about.

It's almost like someone selling the original gameboys, never lowering the price, as they started to be sold alongside Vitas. Or Razr flip phones alongside iPhones. In fact even farther than back that, it's more giant 90s brick phones against iPhones. The hardest and best tests were always open book/calculator/ in my experience. Whatever the test was going to ask you to solve had to be really difficult and high level since it couldn't rely on rote memorization at all for questions.

Surprisingly hard to find youtube video of it, there's just snippets available. I bought a TI-86 in 1997. They were still selling those things, at almost full place, not that many years ago.

This would make a fun second-wave option as well!

I only enjoy the heavily scripted encounters the first time I play them anyway. The fact that they don't randomize spawns means they are exactly the same the second time.

I finished my first attempt of C/I though I was pretty experienced from the original. A few things that may help: You can skip council missions with no penalty. If you have too many wounded or just aren't ready for bomb disposal just skip them. Early game heavies are a massive equalizer against thin men, able to take out groups in one rocket or just clean up that 90% shot you missed. You probably want to rush either laser OR mecs even if it means losing countries due to not having satellites, or else you just fall too far behind in firepower.

The late game strategic problem in XCOM is simply that panic, the primary strategic mechanic, is irrelevant once you have satellites everywhere and there's no other source of urgency in the strategy layer. The beginning of XCOM is a tense race between global panic and alien power escalation, and your ability to split resources to deal with both. Every battle, every decision, has huge consequences. Early game XCOM feels like a climax of a campaign! When you fall behind you have to press your luck and hope you can pull off next mission with a weak squad. But once you get over the hump it's just a grind to the end. In fact you will likely never have a panic raise in the last third of the game since the only way for panic to rise is if you fail a terror mission -- every other mission can be skipped or failed without consequence. You can stare at the alien temple ship as long as you want and take your time powering up. I find myself not playing XCOM games to the conclusion and stopping after I know the game is won. I hope a modder can make it so that alien base attacks occur on periodic but unpredictable intervals with increasing difficulty to the point of being completely impossible if you wait too long. So you have a press-your-luck thing going on -- can you really wait until you have all your mec suits upgraded to level 3 before the overseer UFO? Ultimately it would be better if the panic mechanic scaled all the way through the game that requires deeper changes. I too found the meld made me play risky in the beginning but I soon adapted and only got it when it was perfectly safe, so the gameplay ultimately didn't change much. I would LOVE a second-wave option, "Every time a meld canister expires a random soldier is killed." Now THAT would be tense. What I would give for actual mod support in this game! The second wave option that gives you random skills, Talent Roulette, nice tweak to the game. I think it probably makes it a bit easier overall but it's really fun and each soldier is actually unique and irreplaceable. Recommended for anyone who has already done a complete play-through of the original. David is right about the stealth gene mod (memetic cover) in fact I'd go farther and so it's outright broken. I would almost recommend avoid it as the AI just can't handle it. I won't spoil the details it seems like a squad of mimetic cover soldiers can win any map. It needs either a flat chance of failing, or it should only work if the cover actually benefits you so can't walk into flanked positions like you you can now. I play super safe and rarely lose a single soldier on C/I like David but I do often use shotguns. 100% shots are gold on ironman since they leave nothing to chance so running up next to enemies to guarantee a hit is something you want to do somewhat often anyway -- you may as well do it with a shotgun and get even better damage. With the crit perks the damage with a shotgun really gets up there and it's possible to get three attacks if you forgo lightening reflexes. Seekers seem like the obvious anti-sniper enemy but they aren't a threat by themselves and in all cases but one that's how they spawned for me. They need to only spawn in conjunction with other enemies. During the base attack this actually happened and it was amazingly frightening to know they could latch onto any soldier at any time. And I'm not sure if they can see stealthed squaddies but they should have that ability. Comletely agree about the tedium of the giant UFOs. Give me a small intense map any day. Nothing worse than lining up your whole squad to open a door over and over and over again. Couple of errata they did nerf squad sight, crit is always 0% on squad sight shots except with headshot skill. So it's a bit less clear now... but only a bit. the alternative to lightning reflexes in EW is actually a shot that uses no action if you are within 4 tiles of an enemy. Rob looked up the old talent from EW. This is a pretty tough choice.

If you've already played a ton of XCOM, perhaps already beat the original twice or on ironman classic with multiple attempts, I'd strongly recommend trying the 'talent roulette' second wave option. It really changes up the game by making every soldier actually unique and irreplaceable. I don't think it makes the game harder really -- you can get access to high level talents earlier than vanilla -- but it makes you not rely on old synergistic combos.

Mimetic skin will probably need a patch -- the AI can't seem to deal with it and a smart player can use it to win almost any battle if you don't mind slowly kiting enemies between two soldiers with it. I think it should only work if you are getting a cover bonus from your cover and not count if you are flanked. That way it could break unexpectedly and you can't run up next to enemies in cover, on the same side as their cover, and remain hidden. Ghost armor basically does the same thing but it comes so late in the game and it actually runs out after one turn -- at that point you want the equipment to break all the rules.