Badfinger

You could talk to us in slack instead of being dramatic about the act of attempting to interact with people instead, I guess?

I'm now at the portion of the podcast where Nick angrily describes eating a bushel of crabs in Maryland. He is objectively incorrect, because nowhere did I hear him say "the best eating experience you can have with friends, where you get to hit stuff with a hammer". The weird partially remembered recollection of the miasma of crab guts and old bay haze was hilarious to listen to, though.

Good lord I wish I was rich enough that I also could be that stupid about money.

One game box that made a huge impression on me was the original Civilization. Box art that for all the world appears to actually be a physical model that was very striking, and stuck with me.

I'm trundling towards the end of the game, and I think the way it's going to end is I hope that's true, because that is exactly correct for the arc of the game and would be a fantastic payoff.

This game's awesome. You're basically playing batman: crackdown. They establish up front that you can elf ghost jump and elf ghost sprint and the regular orcs will notice you but mostly after you've run past them. The feeling of danger in this game is extremely low, except for situations you create willingly. You're a goddamn undead man elf superhero with a ring of power. At one point I felt like I only wanted one sub-power from each ability, but now I'm at the point where I am sometimes swapping them depending on the fight. The gear is interesting, and the whole thing is far less overwhelming than the demo videos at E3 made it look. The fortress assaults are kind of fun, but I'll be frank they're a little too straightforward for my tastes, counter to a lot of the discussion about them. I'm at the point in the story where the "grind" begins. I am as few as 1 story mission from starting that. We'll see how it goes from this point forward. I commented in slack, but I find parts of the story way more interesting than I've seen any reviewer give credit for. There's been a lot of fuss that Shelob is a pretty lady and not a huge spider, but the story they tell with her, while a liberal (though technically plausible!) interpretation of her history and backstory is a creative way to hold your own actions up to a broken and warped mirror.

When I was half as old as I am now, I knew a lot of things. I was a font of knowledge. Today I know so much more than I did back then, but now I barely know anything.

Rocket League Bad Company 2 PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS Left 4 Dead 2 Empire: Total War Spelunky Skyrim Shogun 2 Shadow of Mordor Dishonored Hah, I was so wrong. Notably, two of those are games my dad played primarily (Empire) and totally (Defiance, lol). I had genuinely forgotten Modern Warfare was on Steam, and man those hours of Elite pile up on you. I did manage to get 5 of the top 6 though! Skyrim is 11th. I knew TF2 wasn't going to be on the list, but only because I played a ton of hours before they started logging them.

This seems like it's against track from other suggestions, but possibly get a bigger mousepad and use the entirety of it. Turning mouse sensitivity down can also help. The goal with those actions is rather than relieving stress like a foam pad, it eliminates it by transferring the action of moving the mouse to a joint more suited to that motion like your elbow and shoulder. You can't flick the mouse around to cover the whole surface of a 16" mouse pad.

Heat Sig feels very "get out what you put in" to me. Saying it's not very long is in some ways saying that Spelunky isn't very long. In some ways it's accurate, sure. I've been surprised and pleased by some aspects of the unfolding "story", but I can tell the thing that will make me load the game in the future is the actual act of entering a ship and hitting people with a cyber-wrench, rather than the progression of the story and galaxy.

I can already see I will be bad at this game the same way I'm bad at Spelunky. Mechanically competent, but completely unable to stop moving forward and commit to patience and planning.

I'm just saying, you started a thread where you didn't know what socialism was so you joined the socialist party, and then reported back two weeks later that socialism is a movement in response to capitalism. I think maybe you need to dig a little deeper than youtube summaries.

Might I suggest Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto.

The custom intros to Exquisite Corps is worth every mario party and stolen sunshine. It is worth owning premium just for that.

I watched them, it was great I loved it.

Listened to TTAZZ. I'm worried that I'll become one of those "not for me" people. I have an open mind for new games and characters, and I definitely want to see them try new things and succeed, but the heart of the show to me personally is a family of fuckin' nerds playing nerd games and making nerd jokes. I'm concerned they're going to start serious before I'm committed and it's going to lose me, because what they need out of the show is different from what I want.

Y'all seriously need to listen to Video Games Hot Dog. If you like Idle Thumbs there's a lot of reasons you'd like that too.

Wow what a long episode. I admit, because it was so long, I was disappointed in spots. How do you end a thing that started with a joke about tacos that's now been going for 3 years? Haphazardly! I liked most of the character interaction stuff, but realizing like a year ago that the part where they play dungeons and dragons became Literally Final Fantasy and then the way it ended was Literally Final Fantasy took a lot of enjoyment and every ounce of drama out of the encounters. I still teared up for bits and pieces. I guess I feel the emotion that I always feel when something finally happens that was in doubt but I wanted to happen: relief that it didn't fuck up. I am excited for them to move on to new projects, and possibly even to play dungeons and dragons for the first time in years.

I'm glad this thread exists, because the split second I saw the news yesterday this game is real I knew this was necessary and came looking for it.

I agree, people dying inexplicably is more interesting than flawless play. They're idiots playing on ironman, it's gonna happen. I don't know why the stabilized soldier died either! The fact that watching GB videos is always the 2nd or 3rd activity I'm paying attention to has dampened the blow of selfishness, apparently. I read the posts before I watched the episode and from that perspective it was way overblown. The Dan Selfishness angle isn't what fucked up the mission, it was the being bad at XCOM part completely divorced from that.

At one point, the devs jokingly referred to the game as "stick figure Skyrim", and I think I agree with them. Mostly because I care about some of the more involved side quests than i care about the main quest (ooh, sick burn). Seriously, the game is lovely. I have barked with laughter, chuckled, chortled, guffawed, and snickered. Some of the puzzles are harder than I will ever care to attempt, but they're all lovingly crafted. It's a great game.

To be fair there's a reason all the things Jason talks about sound really similar. I miss the video game news podcast, where a man talked about video game news as if he were reading the video game newspaper. Does anyone listen to 8-4 Play? I've heard that's good but I just don't care much 'bout games from Japan very often.

Video Games Hot Dog is 100% not what you're looking for, but it's a really good and funny as hell video game podcast, with the perspective of 4 people who make video games.

https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/premium-news-free-trials-and-new-gift-subscription/1100-5627/ Neat, they're offering a 7 day premium trial.

My perception is people younger than me are more familiar with Keith David than Kurt Russell, so I think it depends on which nerds are reacting. Escape From New York is almost too old for it to be a formative experience to people 10 years older than me, but Keith David is like Goliath and the Arbiter and Admiral Anderson and Vice President Keith David.