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I've tried, many times, and failed. One thing I've thought about doing is sending an alcohol habit quiz, maybe answering those questions just to themselves will knock something loose but I don't know. It's a bit passive aggressive.

"The thing that's great about it is that there are just no mechanics" The most Sean thing Sean has ever uttered.

20 minutes of CS talk? This is already the best episode in ages. Also gives me an excuse to post a CS video.

Not sure if this is the right thread but it'll do. I was proofreading a text for someone and there was a sentence that bothered me, yet I couldn't quite articulate why. Maybe someone who's better at English than me can! "the photon excites the electron, which in turn de-excites" This isn't the actual sentence because the person in question wouldn't want me posting it to strangers on the internet, but it's more or less the same thing. Anyway, even though it's sequence of events that are casually related it just sounds wrong. Is it because it's being used with an intransitive verb? I could say "he hit the ball, which in turn hit the cat", but it doesn't have to be the same verb repeated twice. "He hit the ball, which in turn broke the window", right? On the other hand "he hit the ball, which in turn fell [to the ground]" again it sounds wrong with an intransitive verb. Or is it something else?

I remembered to buy it with 20 minutes to spare. For some reason I have this bad habit of putting off buying games that are on sale and I always end up missing deals because of it. Just today I was going to buy a gift copy of Portal 2 as well but I missed it by about 90 minutes even though the sale was on for at least half a week (it's at least the second time that's happened just for Portal 2). If there's more than half a day left on something my brain just goes "I don't have to buy it yet!".

2 easy

You should play KotOR II instead

I've been going through a lot of old shooters this month, finished Quake, Quake II, Unreal, Sin and all their expansions. I was surprised to find that out of all those I enjoyed the original Quake the most, by far. The strange mix of sci-fi, medieval fantasy and cthulhu horror was of course the product of a troubled development and not some creative genius, but the result is something that has a very unique feel. It's a dark and claustrophobic game. For the most part I love the level design too, compared to a lot of games of that time it's surprisingly straight forward and doesn't devolve into maze like keyhunting madness (both Doom II and Quake II are way worse in this regard). Episode 4 isn't as good as the rest though. In terms of the combat it's similar to Doom in that there aren't a lot of enemies with hitscan attacks, so it's a game where you can effectively avoid damage just using good movement. Still plays extremely well, nothing quite like picking up a Quad and going on a run (the Quad sound has to be one of the most memorable sound effects ever). Having just played all those games it seemed like a good time to revisit Half-Life as well. I suppose people have already praised it enough over the years, but to me it's absolutely ridiculous how much better it is than games that came out even just six months prior. Not only was it very ambitious in a lot of its design, but it executes on most of its ideas almost flawlessly. Sin is an interesting comparison actually, because it released right before Half-Life and had similar ambitions. They went for a high fidelity believable world, with lots of interactivity (like computer terminals with some basic commands that actually render in the 3D world too), hostages you can rescue, locational damage on enemies etc. It's a neat game actually, but the level of execution is so far behind Valve's. Just take something like the encounter design, in Half-Life you almost never walk into a room with a bunch of enemies just standing around waiting for you. There's always a scene playing out, whether it's zombies chewing on some scientists or a security guard shooting headcrabs. If enemies spawn in it's always through some in world means, like the HECU grunts rappelling down, blowing a hole through the wall or maybe an Alien Slave teleporting in. Every single room in the entire game (Xen excluded perhaps) feels hand crafted. Of course we take that for granted now (well, few games do it as well in my opinion), but that they did it first and did it so well just blows my mind. I could go on forever, the enemy design is fantastic and watching the AI fight itself never gets old. I know some people like to pick on the combat, but it might actually be my favourite part of the game. You have a very diverse arsenal where every weapon is useful, it encourages so much creative play. Maybe most people never bother with the more exotic weapons though, even the grenades take a bit of practice to use properly.

I'd missed that bundle, I forget they do weekly ones too. I'll have to check it out.

Wages of Sin, the expansion pack to Sin, has a pretty fantastic crate joke. Good shit.

I know people like to take the piss out of it by calling it a walking simulator, but it actually made my middle finger hurt from holding down 'w' for an hour straight. I don't understand why they give you limited interaction (movement controls) when they never ask you to do anything with those inputs. It's like having to hold a button to keep your eyes open. I think I would've preferred a scripted walk path with free look over the game as it is. Maybe it's meant to feel like a chore though, I don't know.

I feel old, I just use Steam to download and launch games. I don't make wishlists, 'follow' games, write reviews or level up my account and I don't go to the store to discover games, I just go there when I know there's something I want to buy.

In the console type bind mwheelup / bind mwheeldown or bind mouse3 for the click (I think).

I don't think they make 120k a year, Schafer said it cost 10k a month to employ someone. That's not what they get paid though.

Light, how does it work

This is from 1983, I want to see what they have now. http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/DOC_0000619182.pdf

"Chosen Undead" Don't trust their lies.

I just use some razor with those clip on plastic cartriges with blades in them, except I keep them around for way too long so I don't have to buy that many replacement ones. I never quite understood why some people make shaving so complicated but maybe I should look into those safety razor things. As for my thumbs, I once tried filing off my fingerprint using some woodworking equipment in school, but it didn't work. Only made my fingers hurt for a few days.

In an attempt to clear out my blacklog I've finished about 25 this year and I didn't enjoy most of them so I voted maybe. Every now and then I enjoy something quite a lot though.

Far Cry 2 always tells me my video card drivers are out of date, no matter what. Well I just uninstalled it and even the uninstaller complained. I guess it's fitting for that game to nag.

It was distracting when the game first came out too. The body proportions are all off too, it always bugged me.

For years I used to have the hardest time falling asleep (it would take me 3-4 hours) and that made me hate the idea of going to bed. I hate getting out of bed almost as much though haha. Also, sleeping for 10+ hours makes me feel like crap for most of the day.

That sentence is complete gibberish to me.