rohlfinator

The Crew is free on Uplay for the next couple weeks. You have to use the Uplay client, but hey, it's free.

Picross 3D: Round 2 is super good, y'all.

I had a blast with Culdcept Saga for the 360 -- it was essentially Monopoly with a deck-building CCG on top. Sadly the series hasn't gotten much love since then, especially outside of Japan. Although I just discovered that a 3DS Culdcept game just came out in Japan, so fingers crossed that it does well enough for a worldwide release. Also, I haven't played it but I've heard good things about Regency Solitaire.

I enjoy the survival elements and the chill exploration elements, but I feel like the game makes a pretty muddled compromise between the two. The survival stuff gets in the way, but it also feels really inconsequential compared to other survival games. There's not much mechanical depth to the survival/crafting, so it can be mastered in the first hour or two of the game. That said, I'm still enjoying it as a zone out + podcast game. It'll be interesting to see how Hello Games evolves it from here. People have projected so many aspirations onto the game that it'll be impossible to satisfy everyone. Reminds me a lot of the early days of Minecraft in that respect.

There's a lot of good Dan Science Chat in the No Man's Sky quick look also.

I think the lack of in-game social features is part of what makes the whole thing work, honestly. It encourages conversation outside the game in a way that most games don't.

It's a pretty shallow game, but I've been hooked by the gimmick. It's been a fun diversion during my walk to work. Hope they add more to do though, preferably in a more "PvE" direction.

I'd recommend Hook -- it's not nearly as devious as *Cells, but it's a fun mechanic and it doesn't overstay its welcome. Totally worth the dollar if you're into this sort of game.

For some reason, there's a gym at the front of my office building. Once I finally hit level 5 I'm going to get rid of that damn Drowzee that's been sitting there.

This must be more popular than they expected, it seems like the servers have been down more often than not.

I'd be curious to see a more strict set of visualizations in that style -- those maps seem to be exaggerating DS1s complexity quite a bit, and selling DS2 a bit short. I feel the same way. I'm still in the first half of DS3 (I think?) but so far it's felt more linear. Though I do really enjoy how 3 presents the world as a more "real" physical space with lots of vistas that foreshadow future areas. I'd be curious to see a more strict set of visualizations in that style -- those maps seem to be exaggerating DS1s complexity quite a bit, and selling DS2 a bit short.

I finally threw in the towel on the Abyss Watchers last night and summoned a sunbro, and we proceeded to stomp the crap out of them in like 30 seconds. Felt good. I'm thinking I'll take more advantage of co-op this time around. I played DS1/2 mostly solo, but this time I'm not as committed to the self-imposed challenge.

Maybe I'm just an obliviously smug liberal, but I don't really get the author's point with that article. It reads to me like a self-indulgent rant of the same sort he's railing against. I tend to agree with Jamelle Bouie's response: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/is_liberalism_smug.html

Shoutout to Microsoft for horribly breaking the Xbox One controller driver in Win 10. That was a fun evening of troubleshooting why Enter the Gungeon was running at seconds-per-frame.

Fishing was a nightmare for me initially, but it gets a lot easier once you get a better rod and level your fishing skill a bit. I'm catching about 90% of the fish now, but there are still some that seem to be deliberately extra erratic.

I'm about 10 hours in and it's been extremely chill so far. There aren't really any hard failure states (your farm can't go bankrupt or anything), so playing "poorly" just means you aren't earning money as quickly. I haven't played much Harvest Moon, but the pacing feels a lot like Animal Crossing where you set your own goals and do them at your own pace.

It's going to be wait-and-see for me as well -- though I'm generally optimistic. It reminds me a bit of the leadup to The Witness, where I have pretty good faith that the devs have a good reason for asking this price and for being cagey about the full scope of the game. At this point I'm just waiting for the thumbs-up/thumbs-down from early reviews to confirm whether it hits its mark.

GameStop has Rise of the Tomb Raider PC for $18: http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/rise-of-the-tomb-raider/128202 I'm kind of surprised to see such a steep discount for a relatively new game.

Mass Effect VVVVVV Torchlight Atom Zombie Smasher Quadrilateral Cowboy Cook, Serve, Delicious! Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Also, I haven't played either -- which I should correct -- but I enjoy that the sequel to Digital: A Love Story is called Analogue: A Hate Story.

I thought the early stuff on Jakku was paced pretty well, but yeah, everything past that kind of felt like a whirlwind tour of "how many Star Wars-y scenes can we fit in". The whole Starkiller Base plotline especially felt rushed to me. I felt like it undermined the First Order as a serious threat when their big weapon was introduced and immediately destroyed with barely any setup.

Not that this excuses Konami's pay to win shenanigans, but with the PC version you could just run offline and use Cheat Engine if you feel like you're being artificially gated.

Yeah, it's possible that they've fixed that issue. Maybe check the reviews for complaints related to head parking or "Intellipark" -- that's the offending feature.

Avoid the WD Greens if you're going to use it for gaming -- I had one and the aggressive power saving "feature" caused a lot of stuttering in games. It was fine for other media though.

The ruleset of SquareCells felt more ambiguous at first, but now that I've settled in, I think it's become my favorite. Maybe it's just because I've internalized the tricks to Picross over the years.

Agree with eot, and I also think Jeff made a good point that to some extent, the customer shouldn't need to care about the technical details. Most "broke-ass games" have some technical or financial justification for why they shipped that way, but that doesn't stop the GB crew from calling them out. I'd be more forgiving if Bethesda was really pushing the envelope with their simulation stuff, but from a sim angle Fallout 4 is basically Fallout 3 + settlements. I was kind of surprised to see Mario Maker get GOTY -- I thought Metal Gear would have more support but it seems like most of them have cooled on it quite a bit. Also pretty glad to see a lot of smaller/indie stuff in the top 10 this year.