Kadayi

I'm not sure what hallucinogenics you've been taking but that is totally not a thing in the game at all. When you scan people Via the CTOS system using your phone it will flash up some random titbit about them 'credit card declined' 'has season ticket to Football' etc (because the whole premise about the game is that everyone is being surveyed by the CTOS system), but all hacking does is steal money from their bank account, steal music or point you in the direction of some item/event somewhere. There's no option to 'out' people as you purport. I get the need to 'hate on' AAA you've no intention of playing in case doing so ruins your indie cred, but at least trade in reality Versus fiction and grossly false dis-information .

A games got to be pretty astounding or succinct for me to actually finish generally. I think with most games if I get 75% of the way through then I'd consider it a success. Some games though I just lose the motivation. A standout game that just didn't do it for me was Bioshock. The concept was great and all, but the implementation just didn't grab me. For all the artistic stylings I just wasn't sold on the environments because the spaces felt like game levels not what they were purporting to be in the narrative. The fact that pretty much everything in the world was also engineered to assist you didn't help much either. From the health stations through to ammo vending machines etc. I didn't have a problem so much with the conceit in SS2 because it was nanites being converted into tools etc, but the idea just didn't translate that well to Rapture for me personally. The Witcher 2. I don't really know why in truth. Completely loved the first game, but found my motivation dried up once I got past Flotsam and I entered the next area. I think it might of been down to some degree of exhaustion at the combat, coupled with too much detachment from the political aspects of the storyline (it's hard to care about wars when you've no sense as to whose who). I think a lot of those issues may have been addressed in the enhanced edition update, but it's been so long since I played it that I know I'm probably best playing through the game from the beginning again and the appeal just isn't there. I think when TW3 is near release I'll probably find my mojo.

Personally never cared that much for that bat myself, but what I like about the SR series is how it deliberately maintains the seriousness of the narrative despite the actual absurdities of the situation/action. It's pretty similar to The Venture Bros cartoon in that regard with its whole codifying of the guild of calamitous intent and arching. From the outside it's quantifiably absurd, but within it's life and death to those participating . Also I think one has to give props to the writing and voice acting and the way the in situ cinematics are handled and how much more naturalistic they look compared to other games that operate in the same wheelhouse (mass effect, the witcher, GTA) regardless of how you've personally designed your character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1k86fWsmRE

LOL. I'm not angry I just find the criteria wanting, and the soft pawing questionable is all.

I don't know. It sounds a little earnest and Woody Allen to me. Borderlands is all sorts of daft. To deride it for being what it patently is though smacks of a certain degree of can do posturing.

You 'hate' it? Did it steal your lunch money or something? Obsessing about a Dildo bat is hardly the benchmark for insightful criticism and just reads as 'clueless hipster' syndrome. The part where the pair of them were doubling down on The Matrix part and 'why would you parody a film from 2000?' as if that was somehow the ultimate crime of lame was just painful listening. I mean jez, what kind of bubble of deliberate exclusion do you have to live in to not watch a games trailer and not therefore understand Danielle's referencing. Seriously? I missed that episode, but 'think of the children' is a pretty weak criticism of what is ostensively a co-op loot whore shooter with negligible plot.

I'm a serial re-starter until I feel I have the hang of a game. I very quickly established a beginning approach: - 1) Make your own King/Earl whatever using the DLC. Firstly it means you don't have to deal with existing family ties. Secondly you can give yourself a good starting character without a bunch of terribad traits. Traits I pick are Midas touched as education and quick, patient & content for general traits. Then I spend enough points to take my character up to around age 35 to round out a few of the lower scores. You end up with a well rounded ruler with good stewardship. Getting lusty or hedonistic might seem like a good idea to increase fertility, but they're both a constant drain on your piety and your standing with the clergy. You're far better to get a lusty wife in truth. However saying that, the game throws up some odd rolls when you get down to it. I had a ruler with 4 sons, whose wife died and I ended up marrying him to a lesbian Norwegian princess partly on the basis of her having a great stats, but also mayhap it might put and end to his fetundity (too many heirs to manage already). I was even blessed with his lordship suddenly deciding he liked the boys more than the girls himself after a tournament, however despite the astronomical odds of conceiving, the pair of them went at it like rabbits and managed to squeeze out 4 girls before he gasped his last, leaving me to manage the succession bloodbath that followed. Also with Lusty your character will always jump at any leg over opportunity which can lead to all sorts of problems, where as without it you're able to make a choice (and unless you lack for sons the best choice is 'not tonight Josephine'). 2) Before you even unpause, take a good look around your court and Vassals and identify whose beneficial and who you can marry off matrilineally to some far away terribly traited foreign courtier. My fave way of dealing with early title claimants, and people who have terrible stats & traits in general. 3) Also (and again before you unpause) get in a few debutantes to populate your court (I tend to get 5). They'll cost you 1 GP each, but are useful to marry off to valued courtiers and vassals and often times you can marry off the less than desirable ones to some hapless lord whose territory you covet early on meaning they're weakened in the long term. Hell I managed to marry off a 77 year old dowager to a 40 something earl who actively wanted kids simply because he was more impressed with her pedigree than anything else.Once she died I then managed to convince him to marry a chaste debutante with truly terrible stats. 4) Also before you unpause, have a good scan for unmarried women with good stats and decent positive traits. You yourself might take a bad prestige hit from marrying a commoner however there's no good reason not to marry some into your court and use them as educators of any children that are there. The youth of today are the potential chancellors, marshals and stewards of tomorrow and if you can raise them yourself you'll be all the better for it. Similarly before any of your own children are 6 it's no bad thing to educate a few court kids personally as they'll likely inherit your positive traits and pass them on to their children also. 5) Line up people who are favourable to you to take over your bishopricks. 6) Don't give honorary titles to people who like you already, save them for people who have a mildly negative opinion of you (though not so negative that they might poison you) 7) Make sure to mark down people of interest so that you're informed as to what they're up to. Very useful for keeping tabs on court children as they age, so you can choose who educates them (and try and avoid negative traits). Also it's well worth doing the occasional scan for bright children elsewhere in the world and marking them so that you can try and marry them into your court when they are of age. Betrothals are a damn useful tool as well. 8) Getting in advisers from outside isn't easy and generally requires bribes to encourage them. But sometimes it's a necessity, especially if you lack for a decent chancellor or spymaster. Best to target courtiers with decent stats rather than those already in a position. 9) With selecting a wife, Stewardship is the stat you want to look out for the most, however a wife with high intrigue is also able to take on the role of spymaster (the only role women can take) and that can be beneficial.

They're hardly comparable titles in truth.

'They' being THQs marketing, not Volition itself http://www.edge-online.com/features/walking-the-line-volition-on-courting-controversy-and-saints-row-iv/ Judging from that interview it seems clear that THQ were largely behind things like Jims bat, and not the developers directly.

Really enjoyed this pod. Inspired I took advantage of a fortuitous Steam sale and snapped up a copy of CKII as well as the DLC for a tidy sum and then proceeded to plough several hours into it. The learning curve is absurdly steep and I've been through a few dry run getting familiar with the mechanics, coupled with watching copious amounts of youtube videos, but I'm really loving it for the intimacy of the scheming and long term planning that it requires, coupled with the inherent uncertainties as to events that can arise that are largely beyond your control such as typhoid epidemics, or the death of an ally.

We all have infinite games to play Jeremy. As regards not liking parody style humour and over the top wackiness, correct me if I'm wrong but you do work at Double fine? I'd of thought love of the wacky was a prerequisite surely? Obsessing about a comedy dildo (an optional item that isn't even integral to any mission in the game at all) and finding that somehow reason enough to dismiss it just seems rather out of hand. SR3 is a cleverly put together title. It's certainly not perfect mechanistically but it plays to its increasing absurdity with a straight face without breaking character in exactly the same way that The Venture Brothers or Archer do which is what makes it such a joy to play. It just came across in the podcast that you were angling from the off for reasons to dismiss it with little real conception from either of you as to what it was, and why it was referencing certain things and Danielle wasn't really able to explain why your conclusions were misplaced because she's clearly limited in what she could say without *massive spoilers* on a title that's not yet out.

Amazed at the lack of any real awareness of the saints row series, especially in light of it being one of Ryan Davis favourite game series tbh. Missing out of the series over some misbegotten ideas as to what it's about, and declarations of unlikely to touch based off of those misconceptions is kind of lame. The games are fun.