Dewar

CK2 multiplayer is still a bit unstable, as a warning. I like it a lot more than EU4, but I can never convince my friends to play since the connection dies for no determinable reason.

I bought this yesterday. It's a bit overwhelming at first. The built in quest system is nice, but it also causes random shifts in opinion with other clans which has thrown a lot of money in the form of diplomatic visits down the drain. I want to see this to the conclusion, but I'm also looking forward to playing a game with that stuff turned off.

I finished Rebel Galaxy this weekend. By finished I mean I barely scraped through the last couple of missions of the main story line after playing about 20 hours. It's probably good for another 10 hours or so of bopping around, listening to space cowboy rock and running from the cops. It's definitely one of the best games I've played this year.

I think it's the shadow, but I definitely see it too.

I tried this at PAX in a crowded room without much in the way of tutorial or developer attention and I bounced off pretty hard. It seemed really really easy, until it was suddenly really hard and I died in a few seconds. Obviously not the most optimal conditions though, so probably worth another try.

Would you say it would be worth playing for someone who's kinda meh on the core Borderlands games humor?

Rebel Galaxy is pretty good. I'm not sure if I have enough to say to sustain a thread, but

I participate by trying to absorb (and donate to) as many streams as possible. Unfortunately, I managed to schedule a late Halloween party on the same weekend this year, so I dunno how it will go.

After a week of alternately enjoying it and pounding my desk in frustration, I completed Titan Quest: Immortal Throne. It's one of those games that fakes you out into thinking a magic build is actually viable, only to leave you being able to be killed in one or two hits in the later portion of the game. The expansion areas are especially bad for this, so bad that I ended up cheating through the last stage of the last boss because I was tired of dying. Still, a worthy successor to Diablo 2 in many ways, and having various ancient religions as a backdrop was pretty cool.

Congrats, I listened to a couple of steams and chatted with a few Canadian friends last night. It was cool to see how the political system up there actually works, as opposed to the US one that seems unfixable at the moment.

My wife and I ate our way through Lovers. One of the best games to come out this year certainly.

I'm just going to skip the response I had and say that: I'm buying it. I have no idea how much it will cost because I don't know how much work went into it or how much content there is.

Gone Home did have voice acting as well, but point taken. I feel that there's a pretty big gap between $20 and $40 and that a lot of games that land in between those two numbers have a tough time marketing themselves. I've been conditioned to think that $20 is about the maximum for "small team" games, while $40 is about the minimum for "large productions" such as Talos Principle. Of course there's always the question of length. I'm past the age where I'm going to sit down and debate hours/price ratios, but I've had a hard time telling from the material I've seen so far (which, I admit, I stopped watching because I knew I was going to buy it anyway) exactly how long and rich of an experience this is meant to be. If it's Gone Home length, I'd have a tough time justifying buying it for more than $20, no matter how well made it is. But, like I said, I trust Campo Santo to price it at a level that is fair and reasonable, so I'm just gonna buy it.

Well, in this case I'm buying it partially to support the developer so I plan on paying full price, but I generally only buy 4 games a year at release anymore, so I'm with you there.

I will purchase it for pretty much whatever price they offer it, because I have trust that the Thumbs wouldn't try to cheat me and the price they're selling it for is representative of the cost to make it. That being said, from the trailers and presentation at PAX I've seen, I would be very surprised if it was above $40, and I'm expecting around $20. I'm not sure exactly what created that impression, but I'd guess it's a combination of graphical fidelity, being vaguely aware of the team size, and just the general price related narrative based games like Gone Home. On the other hand, if it turns out to have the branching storyline of my dreams and full of all sorts of cool little details like throwing the turtle in the toilet, I'd love for it to be a huge $60 dollar experience. At this point, the "What Is Firewatch?" thing from Giant Bomb might be the best marketing you can get for the game.

Not as uncommon as you'd think, but that's a particularly awesome reaction.

So, anyone have any ideas where I might pickup a steam-punk looking corset for a somewhat overweight male? Edit: Random Amazon orderings of women's corsets with 6XL sizes has commenced. Men's corsets either aren't showy enough or are super expensive full cross-dressing models. As fun as that would be, I can't quite justify the price tag.

I guess I'll just pipe up in this thread and say my personal definition of a game, which has no grounding in any scholarly reports, is an interactive thing in which you have more choices that effect the experience than you would have with a book or a movie. With a book, I have the choice to read, or not to read. I can go back in the story and re-read a bit, or I can skip ahead and read the end if I want, but the story itself is in a strictly linear order. Gone Home is a game because I make the choices on where to go next and there isn't a linear strictly linear order to experience things. There are many experiences that could be completely missed in the process of playing. A twine game with no branching choices is not a game, as the only real choice I have is to continue, or not continue. And yes, by that definition an interactive art installation is considered a game, which I don't really have a problem with. I mean isn't that what Minecraft basically amounts to anyway (at least before the added The End and the associated credits.)

The kicker got replaced or the groin did?

I would go through and kick the troublemakers occasionally.

Ha, I have the cheap plastic shot glasses that go with that cheap plastic mug.

This weekend I finally caught up in my games beaten versus games purchased ratio, by playing through Unfinished Swan and This War of Mine. Unfinished Swan was pretty good, but it gets caught in the trap of trying to vary up game mechanics in ways that end up just becoming frustrating. There were parts in the 2nd and 3rd worlds where you're in an all white or all black space, but you don't have ink to spread on the walls, so you end up just wandering around throwing water so you at least know if you're hitting a barrier. I guess my sense of direction is bad or something, because I got stuck in these fairly small areas for almost long enough for me to just quit. I wish they'd just stuck with the ink balls and instead varied up the environments or changed colors or something. Despite those complaints, I enjoyed the visuals and the cool feeling of exploration, and I'd still recommend it. This War of Mine is worth every bit of the praise it got when it first released. Excellent visual style, excellent controls, interesting game loop, and tense at times without being overwhelmingly so. My only thought on this one is that I found it a bit too easy. After a 12 day aborted play through where I was first learning the mechanics, I was able to play all the way through to the end without once having to steal, answering every call for aid, and without getting wounded or firing a shot. For a game that's been advertised as having to make tough choices, I didn't find that to be the case. Still wonderful, and there's a bunch of custom stories on the Steam workshop now, so I'm sure there's some harder stuff out there.

Mother Base badly needs a research task for a notepad and paper, or maybe Morse code.

I have never heard of this game or seen this thread before. I am intrigued.

I don't disagree with you, I'm fine with Valve as a marketplace, a bit more snide about Valve as a developer these days but, to play devils advocate for a second: If a company produces a healthcare treatment that costs them $500 and sells it for $600 and then they pioneer a new way of treating the same illness for $200 and sells it for $500, it's a net gain for the consumer, who pays $100 less, and it's a net gain for the company, who makes $200 more. That seems more or less fair, but there are certainly people who would scoff at the business making more money and think they should sell it for $300 or $400. Now take those numbers to extreme. What if the business learned how to make the treatment for $50, but was still selling it for $500. There's still a net gain for the consumer, but I think most people would scoff that they're making almost 10x as much profit as cost. Now obviously we have no way of knowing how much money it really costs Valve to sell something on their store, and video games are much less critical than health treatments (I only used it because there's been some news about it recently and it's on my mind.) I still think there's a prevailing opinion that Valve is getting 30% for doing basically nothing. There are times, when I look at the mess that Steam has become, that I agree.