CjEggett

9. The art style of the portraits for the dog tags/mispers.

The medical section becomes easier when you have to pass through later. It's probably the second most frustrating section of the game. If you're still looking for the Doctor's corpse you might want to know that there is a save point in that middle room with the windows. You may be able to sneak in there, save and then move on with the game without having to watch the video. Things I think about having finished the game: Great ladder work. I do really like the crafting, but I wish it was more obvious how the items could be used. To begin with you think they're precious and you hoarde these items. This is the one respect where it became a little bit too video gamey for me. Is it the game's fault, or some kind of response demanded from me from playing too much Diablo II? Either way, the game avoided doing gamey things for most of the time (and goes out of its way at the beginning to train you out of thinking like that), and this was the only system which broke form. They are fun to use in the last half when meetings with the Alien are unavoidable. I love where it fits into the Alien mythology. Everything is undercut by knowing that she never meets her mother. I came round to the saving mechanic, it did allow tension to build up when you're a long way from a save. It was frustrating going through medical though. Great maps. The survival mode isn't all that fun. It seems I was only interested in surviving an Alien when there might be a chance I could get rid of it? That said, is up against this: playing the main story there was a moment where the tensions got to me. So much so that when I spotted and airlock I considered flinging myself out of it. Obviously you can't do this - but I can't remember the last time a game got to me like that. It's probably the best haunted house that isn't a house.

Thanks - I used the noisemaker to make the Alien savage a few people, which was kind of interesting. It cleared out the area quicker than I could sneak around it! This game could really do with an autosave function - at least when you hit a cut-scene type break in the action.

I'll be swapping down to easy to get to the Doc's corpse. I started the game on hard, but the Alien does tend to hang around for a very long time - seemingly just across from there the doc's body is supposed to be. I've crafted several things like smoke bombs and flashbangs etc - but not really worked out how to use them yet. Any tips? Should I be luring the Alien away with a noisemaker thing? I have trouble not hiding straight away as the tension really gets me, so I'm not sure about whether I'd be able to get "around" the Alien!

I usually play Spelunky or UnNethack. While permadeath and fairly high difficulty shouldn't make for "relaxing" play I find that playing these games is more like a craft - you're playing to get better, and go further, but you accept that fundamentally you're not going to win "now". So it's great for listening to a podcast and relaxing. The only time it become in anyway stressful is if you somehow get further than you normally would. It's a bit like that chess thing where "everyone" knows the majority of moves that can be made in the first few turns, but eventually a move which has never been seen before emerges. It's something that makes it a game you can play all your life I expect. I don't actually know anything about it - I just heard it on Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/story/153799-games/ Anyway - when you hit the part of the game which you get to rarely you tend to switch to a higher awareness of your actions (and promptly cock it up). But when you don't ruin everything immediately and stupidly you're not relaxing any more, and you're entirely in the game. As far as I'm concerned that's the best way to play - relaxation suddenly spiked by deep emersion in the fresh(er) mechanics the game presents.

Just another vote for Tokyo Jungle. Played through it in Co-op last Christmas with my younger brother - there' nothing quite like the sweet victory taking down a lion or hippo as a pack of small dogs.

Definitely an owl. Sadly this means while playing you're shoving your thumbs into an owl's eye sockets - as if it were your moral enemy in the Tarantino-kung-fu-throwback version of your life.

Possibly a silly question - but is there a non-steam, non-drm version of Spelunky I can buy for my personal computer? I spend most of my time offline so it would be good to not have to rely on Steam's buggy offline mode. I played the original version while it was being developed, but I'd like the new shiny version. As an aside: someone mentioned on a cast recently that there are few old version of Spelunky kicking about. I believe I have a version 0.99 somewhere - is there any interest putting together a collection of different, older, versions of Spelunky?

Nothing seems be locked off geographically. Some activities are locked off however. I think I am going to try and get to the north coast this evening.

I've never been, but if you have ever had a passing interest in mining/extraction you'll realise that they're living a pretty comfortable version of what people who live near the pits do. To me it looks like a place that was a mining or maybe iodine extraction community some time ago, and people have been settled there for a while. Saying that, I haven't got that far in the game, I was just passing through after flinging myself off a mountain.

Seems like there is a lot of story to go through to unlock everything you can do. I know this was the case in the old GTA games, but I guess I had more time back then! Still, I was able to drive a car up a mountain and joyfully roll to my fiery death, and be chased across the map by police before finally making my escape by diving into a marsh-land/river estuary, and do a shitty half jump to I crack my chin on a ledge and fall to the floor like an athletic sack of potatoes. I am playing a video game. Oh, I found a road bike too. I'm happy about that - I just need to find myself some nice lycra.

I hope I don't have to play the whole "30 hours of story" to open the whole map and get my sweet road bike....

So I think I spotted some road bike racing in one of the trailers. Does anyone know how far they've gone with this - for example, could the character's body shape change into the traditional super weird frogman cyclist shape?

Anyone know whether there's a list of launch-window games that will be local-multiplayer?

Glad it's not being completely ignored then! Mario 64 style camera? It would make sense that way.