dartmonkey

BOOM! Everything coalesced into a successful run. The USS Esperanto defeated the rebel flagship with a Basic, Heavy and Hull laser, a Pegasus Missile and a skeleton crew. Pre-igniter. Defence and Hull Repair drones. Full shields. I had a nail-biting experience with my two Rock redshirts in Sector 6. The enemy was down to one bar of hull, their ship was on fire and my Rock guys had the last remaining crewman down to a sliver of health. Do I beam them out and give up a few bits of extra scrap? Hell no. I unpause for a second and my guys take him out. Grey success screen, I salvaged what I could. I immediately pause to beam them out. As I hit the space bar to resume I hear the hull breach and watch the beam animation begin. Did I get them? Transporter room - do you have them?... I didn't. But damnit I love how this game taps into my Star Trek vocabulary and creates little narratives around my gambles and stupidity. Life can now resume.

Okay thumbs, I need your help. I'm hopelessly addicted. I'm also hopeless. After totting up 39 hours I have yet to beat this. On Easy. At the 32 hour mark I promised myself not to play past 40. Help me. I've got the RedTail, the Stealthy One and the Zoltan One. I've reached the Big Ship many times, but his droids eventually obliterate my hull. I prioritise getting the teleporter and always buy a Pegasus when I can. I generally save missiles, upgrade doors and shields ASAP, weapons as required. I like Hull Repair droids. My penchant for beaming over and seizing ships results in the odd lost redshirt but I think it's generally the right strategy. Maybe I've got into a strategy rut. What am I missing here? I've had some bad luck with crashes but can I really be this spectacularly shit at games?? Yes, yes I can. Distress beacon active! Waiting...

I thought the touchscreen allowed for mapable Fkeys and other customisable info and gubbins. Seems that removing it would jettison most of that, but maybe they've got plans for those clickable quadrants in the owl eyes.

Blue screen. An hour and a half of careful strategy, unlocked achievements for having all the species on the ship and getting to the Last Stand with no redshirt deaths, kicking ass... blue screen. All gone, bye-bye.

Over Christmas I secured Beatles Rock Band with all the gear off ebay (being six years late to the party has its benefits - I've got the entire set-up for a fraction of the original cost). And just yesterday Rock Band 3 arrived with the keyboard. With my girlfriend on drums, we rattled through Los Pollos Bros' very first setlist which included Dire Straits' Walk of Life and Centrefold by J. Geils Band. As I played them, I was struck by how much more I was enjoying them than if I was just hearing them on the radio. I've always found Walk of Life in particular pretty anaemic, but as I was forced to concentrate and play that melody myself, I developed a greater appreciation of the song and its textures. It reminded me of this thread. Sure, Centrefold is not Pride & Prejudice, but Rock Band is a further example of engaging one portion of the brain, giving another the chance to digest a text differently than I otherwise might have. Just this week Jeff Gerstmann mentioned on the Bombcast how Beatles Rock Band made him appreciate their music for the first time.

She is careful to say why certain things didn't work for her specifically. I think the premise itself is perhaps more open to interpretation than, say, Doom. Doom is about moving from A to B while shooting anything that moves before it kills you and you're sent back to A. Nobody wishes they could talk to the monsters because that relationship/mechanic is never entertained or even hinted at - they are fodder only. Gone Home can't be summed up so easily and presents complex human interactions, and the parameters are still in question for the player throughout their game. I was very conscious that my 'system' of leaving all lights on and drawers open so I could see where I had been jarred with the character I was playing. The note that told Sam she should turn all the lights off and that she was worse than Katie made me chuckle. I thought the writing throughout worked perfectly and I particularly enjoyed the dad's story. I wonder what effect a cel-shaded art style similar to the title screen would have had on the game. It looks great but after the AAA detail of something like The Last of Us (which continues to IGN me away with the sheer amount of everything), I found myself wondering how a more stylised take would have worked. I loved the title screen and UI elements.

Talking of Infinite, I finished Burial at Sea part 1. I don't know. Can you guys answer a question for me? Did you immediately understand the ending? There were various threads that I picked up on throughout relating to Infinite and specifically where Elizabeth came from, but the first thing I did on completion was fire up the wiki and read the plot, just as I did with Infinite. I'm interested to see if anyone else did this. It's entirely possible that I'm a dunce or simply not concentrating enough and not picking up on obvious plot points as I play, but it all seems overwrought. Reading Comstock's history, it's all a bit breathless and littered with actions that explain the physical events but are emotionally hollow and don't quite ring true rationally either. I really get the impression that the devs sat down and constructed Columbia, an incredible city to rival Rapture, and then some poor bastard had to 'retcon' everything it contained into a narrative. I'd be interested to read more about the development. Burial at Sea was a pleasant couple of hours, but several things grated. The repetition of character models really pulled me out of the moment. I would go up to them, trigger their conversation, steal the coins from the bag beside them, then go to the next identical couple. The city is the main character, I get it, but the inhabitants are dead. Okay, programming paths and NPC interactions would be a huge amount of work, but surely for a game of this budget a few more faces isn't asking too much? I had the same problem with Infinite proper. I've also never found the 'gameplay' tears satisfying (as opposed to the cutscene 'narrative' tears). Okay, so a Machine Gun or a Samurai COULD exist here, so why not a lockpick when I need to open a door, or a tear to a reality where there's no door in the first place? The concept opens a can of worms that makes the paltry choices available feel trite. Ah, Rapture's awesome. I should stop complaining. I admire much about Infinite & Burial and it fires the imagination, but nothing quite adds up.

Edge have a visual guide comparing each box to some existing techbox or other. Made me chuckle. http://www.edge-online.com/gallery/a-visual-guide-to-the-newly-revealed-steam-machines/

http://steamcommunity.com/id/thedartmonkey/ My Friends list is currently one guy and he looks lonely, so feel free to make him feel better about himself. I've also got some cracking Batman screengrabs. Worthwhile

A more accurate representation of the morning after would be worry and guilt. Has any game implemented a 'what did I say?' worry feature where you spend the entire weekend filled with confusion and self-loathing before Monday when you discover it's all good and everyone else was similarly too pissed and self-absorbed to notice anyone else's bullshit?

It's becoming more obvious to me that these boxes are a direct response to Windows 8. Microsoft took a step back with 8.1, but if they continue to move towards a closed app store-like environment, Valve have a lifeboat for themselves and devoted Steam/PC gamers. The controller and the living room focus are less important. If, one terrible day, the Microsoft Man locks down the playground and turns your PC into a giant ipad with Windows 9, Valve will offer salvation in their open Steam Box utopia. Right now they've got their escape plan with minimal outlay and only a modicum of confusion over what these boxes represent thanks to the controller and sofa sleight-of-hands.

Agreed. In fact, I'd forgotten about the whole Windows escape hatch angle, which makes perfect sense. I'm just trying to imagine the backlash if Half-Life 3 was SteamOS exclusive. It computes as a strategy but does Valve have enough goodwill banked to weather the hate? It's a big ask. And if that was the case, how would a Steam Box be better than a drive partition?

This game! With my other half working on New Years Day, I sat down to this with a bottle of beer. A thoroughly enjoyable way to have my ass handed to me repeatedly for 5 hours. I've just read through this entire thread laughing. Comedy gold flows from the logic and the game's utter indifference (I particularly enjoyed the Zoltan-power pee story). I reached the Last Stand yesterday and punched the air when I took the boss down!... then WTFed when the bastard FTLed away and got his drone on for the second phase. I'm sticking to the Kestrel, though I just unlocked layout B which gives more (and varied) crew to start and more hull doors to help fight fires. Some insane philanthropy on my part has rewarded me with an Engi Med Thingy that slowly heals my crew regardless of where they are in the ship. I name my starting crew Wesley, Worf and LaForge. Always. It's the only way I can remember who mans what station without hovering over the names. Also I renamed my Mantis 'Burns', just because it suited. He's my away team redshirt. Red with the blood of pirates. My playtime is really creeping up, unsociably so. I'm thinking about it on the commute. A 3DS version would end me.

Bombcast made me think again about how the 'gamey' combat padding and collectable...collection diluted the great moments in both Infinite and The Last of Us (though I'm only 6 or so hours into the latter). Losing 50% of the combat stuff would tighten them up no end. In Bioshock you can see Irrational getting mileage out of the environments, but The Last of Us churns through locations like it's EASY to throw them together. TOO. MUCH. GAME. The Walking Dead flushed that bullshit to its benefit.

I'm five or six hours in (after a download of more than twelve hours until I could start playing - only about 70% of the total!) I'm getting inevitable whiffs of The Walking Dead and Half-Life. I sighed near the beginning when I walked into a yard strewn nonsensically with conveniently waist high crates. I've just finished Arkham City and the thrill of the superhero stealth takedown is dampened here, probably appropriately for a forty-something non-superhero, but it was still a comedown. It's been a slow few hours. It looks beautiful, if a little glitchy. Characters snap here and there, and moving the camera too quickly gives Joel a pixellated halo - unless that's the twist and it's all in the matrix. Having said that, it's a generational leap in BeardTech. As I progress I can't help thinking about the scores of assets and textures I'm merrily trotting by, never to be seen again. I only see Ellen Page in Ellie. What was the deal with that in the end? Hmm, time to wiki...

My Humble Bundle backlog cycle will continue until the Googlypse so I've bought precisely zero in the Steam sale. John Lewis said their 'suppliers' have run out of £150 Wii Us so they cancelled my order. So my purchases so far this holiday season have been limited to The Last of Us on PSN for £20.

Arkham CIty. Really enjoyed this. Rocksteady nailed the mood and the balance of swooping/arse-kicking/World's Greatest Detective stuff, even if it only involved scanning bloodstains and following the trail. The collectables felt a bit overwhelming this time round - my map is cluttered with ?s - but there's a chance I'll go back and hunt some more just because it felt so good to be 1970s Batman. Of minor concern was the framing of female characters. I understand there aren't any munters in comics but I don't remember a frame when Talia al Ghul was onscreen and her arse wasn't. Likewise, Catwoman is ridiculously sexualised, but it seemed in keeping with her character and her excellent animation was a welcome break. With Talia it felt more leery - this character model's got a great ass so let's track it through the cutscene. I've got no desire to play Origins, but if Rocksteady do another, I'd definitely consider it. A story about Bruce Wayne struggling with age would be interesting.

Interrupting Steam Sale news with a tip for UK readers! Follow Jake VG Rodkin down the Wii U Rabbit hole for £149.99. http://www.johnlewis.com/nintendo-wii-u-8gb-basic-pack-with-new-super-mario-bros-u-mario-mascot-and-8gb-sd-card-white/p231817620 That includes New Super Mario Bros. To trade in for 3D World. Plus a Mario mascot keychain for the video games connoisseur. Plus an 8gb SD card for the lulz. I couldn't resist. Edit. This is the white 8gb version. I prefer the white and if you're downloading more than a thimbleful of eShop games you're gonna need a bigger boat external drive even if you're packing a massive 32gbs.

I find it very difficult to muster enthusiasm for Mario Kart. The trailer looks like...Mario Kart (with added Delorean wheels and moustache flappage). Sit four people in front of any iteration and it's bliss (64 and Double Dash are my era) but it is, and has always been, boring as hell in singleplayer. What confuses me is why Nintendo have begun numbering the games. Slapping 'Super', '64', 'DS' or Wii' on the title might have lacked imagination but you knew where you were with it and it disguised how many times you'd bought this game before. Perhaps it's just me - has numbering hurt Mario Party 9's sales? Probably not, but I was never interested in that series in the first place. But how does it benefit Mario Kart? Why risk making Joe Casual think he needs to have played the previous seven? Why draw attention to a huge catalogue of past entries in such an incrementally iterative series? Also, I only hear great things about Sonic All-Stars Transformed.

Genres are fine for quickly defining something, but become infinitesimally less useful by the syllable. I just had a coffee that was a roguelikelike.

Yep, Sonic is a very nice job. Slight disappointment at no widescreen mode (as opposed to the updated iOS version by Christian Whitehead), but the whole 3D package is great. Reading that M2 interview, it's weird that ports from hardware this old are so challenging. It reminds me of the Iwata Asks when they were discussing the difficulties of getting lag-free Wii Sports Tennis for the new Wii U version. Really? Twitch based shooters rarely have lag problems nowadays, and Wii Sports is hardly juggling polys. Of course I defer to the experts, and with different architectures and hardware iterations, etc, it must be a nightmare, but as a layman it sounds odd, especially with Sonic where the host hardware is nearly 25 years old! I downloaded Miiverse for my 3DS this morning. Of course 'dartmonkey' was taken, so I am 'thedartmonkey' - add me if you fancy. Or follow me. Whatever the system is. The interface is a little confusing and it takes a while for pages to load, but I've never used the Wii U version so I don't really understand what it's all about. I'll noodle about on it a bit more later. Regarding online handles, I recently exorcised a niggling OCD thing when I registered another PSN account. I set up the original within the last year and I'd only downloaded Flower and Journey to it. 'dartmonkey' was taken and I'd opted for 'dartmonkey_' as an alternative. But in the meantime I'd opened a Steam account as 'thedartmonkey' and ever since that underscore had been eating away at me. A couple of weeks ago I gave in to myself and now have account parity with 'dartmonkey'/'thedartmonkey'. I'm irritated that I'm THAT guy, and I've lost my license to play Flower, but goddamnit I feel better. Sorry. Back to 3DS.

Sega 3D Classics are coming out two per week. I downloaded Space Harrier last week and I'll be getting Sonic later today. They're great updates and well worth supporting - there's some interviews with M2 up on the Sega blog with interesting insights into projects and the issues they faced. http://blogs.sega.com/2013/12/03/sega-3d-classics-%E2%80%93-3d-sonic-the-hedgehog-interview-with-developer-m2/ http://blogs.sega.com/2013/11/27/sega-3d-classics-%E2%80%93-3d-super-hang-on-interview-with-developer-m2/ http://blogs.sega.com/2013/11/25/sega-3d-classics-space-harrier-3d-interview-with-developer-m2/

Mario's got me jonesing for some new hardware. I'm just waiting for the magic £150. I'd prefer the white one anyway, and a 32gb HDD is almost as useless as 8gb so it makes little difference to me. Would love it for xmas, but realistically I'll be waiting for a New Year deal. I've thought about second hand, but a) I won't get that 'new gear' smell when I open it, I might get that questionable second hand smell when I open it, and c) I'm not quite sure what that would entail with IDs, etc. Is is possible to format and return to factory settings?

Link to the Past, the final big Zelda gap in my knowledge (still haven't played the Oracle games... or the CDi ones). Hmm. I felt I should play this before Link Between Worlds and my feelings are mixed. The problem is I've played this game a dozen times, most specifically with Ocarina which was my first ever Zelda. I was playing the GBA version on a DSLite so perhaps the world felt a little truncated onscreen, but little irritations kept springing up. I've always found the arc of Link's sword swings annoying (eg. I've got an enemy approaching from the top right but facing north my sword swings 45 degrees anticlockwise so it won't hit him) and the Light World Theme really started to wind me up through repetition. Plus side, the dungeons were excellent and the music was otherwise great. I can stand back and appreciate it in context, but I think there's just been too many iterations and subtle enhancements in the past twenty years for this to have the same impact. Glad to have plugged the gap, but might give it a few months before Link Between Worlds.

I'll throw my hat in with the 'yay-3DS' crowd. It's been my primary system for a couple of years now and for me the 4 or 5 must-owns that inevitably appear on every console are already available. Animal Crossing, 3D Land, Fire Emblem, Luigi's Mansion (although at times I take issue with the controls) and now this make it a no-brainer, plus some great eshop games (Pull/Fallblox, VVVVVV) and VC and 3D Classics (I've played numerous retro games for the first time here thanks to portability and save states). When you find a good deal, jump in. XL only, of course.