Bjorn

So the KKK has been dropping flyers in Topeka, Kan., this week, apparently, which is something that no one can remember happening before.

You also get cards for buying things. So if you've bought anything in the sale, you might have picked up a few.

You get up to 3 cards per day for playing (though that seems bugged and most people are only getting 1-2) and you get a badge worth up to 200XP depending on the level your room reaches. It is kind of mesmerizing watching a 1,000 robots play a game. I just watched the room I'm in jump 300K levels in a single shot.

What in the sam hell has happened to Resident Evil. Watch the first 30 seconds of showing off the co-op mode emotes you can make. Also, has anyone played either of the Revelation games? I'm tempted to try them out. I really liked 5, but bounced off of 6.

Well that was kind of anti-climactic. I jumped into one of the organized groups for the summer game, and it broke 1 million in less than an hour, and it's not even one of the fastest groups.

I doubt it is, given that the designs of DeS and Bloodborne were still really good even with warping being included from the getgo (though their hubs). I think the big problem with DS2 bonfires is that you couldn't go 10 minutes without tripping over one. There's also this whole possible new system about being able to create your own bonfires somehow. If that's true, then I wouldn't be surprised if scripted bonfires are warpable, but quite rare, but made bonfires aren't. Polygon's coverage also noted this: Hopefully this means we'll get something closer to the lighting system that was originally promised for DS2.

Several pieces have been written about the demo that was shown at E3, which might be crossing over into spoiler territory for people who don't want to know too much about the world. But there is some more good mechanics info in there too. Thank the heavens. Agility as a stat wasn't a bad idea, but it was also annoying to have this stat that virtually every single build needed to invest in to have a minimum number of iFrames and item use speed. I think a stat that's practically mandatory for a majority of classes is one that should be on the chopping block, and should just be innate or incorporated through other stats.

Or not! I was actually thinking last night about that, and how it could be interesting to include in a game like this some interactions between people dealing with exactly that, both positive and negative. It would be entirely plausible and reasonable in a shelter like this for a couple to form a romantic bond that didn't preclude mating with other pople. Or even a situation where a man might be sterile, but his female partner still went and got pregnant by someone else so they could raise a child. Or a gay couple (male or female) might each still have sex with the opposite sex because it was the necessary thing to do. It might not have any affect on the actual gameplay, but it could make observing life within the shelter more interesting.

I'm in the section looking for the "clues" as to what happened, and the paranoid lady asked me to check all the windows AGAIN. I just kinda rage quit. I know this was originally designed as a Kinect game, which explains a lot about its controls, but it commits what I ultimately think is one of the biggest sins a game can make. It uses QTEs that actually interrupt the ability to watch and enjoy what is happening on screen. The fight on the plane was the single most interesting then that had happened in that episode, but because I kept having to focus on QTE popups, I only got to enjoy about half of it.

Has anyone else played D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die? I'm wondering if someone can convince me to keep playing it, because I'm about halfway through it and just find myself almost constantly irritated. I liked the prologue, exploring David's house, meeting his friends and whatnot, but the plane is just awful, wandering back and forth up and down a plane aisle talking to people I find universally annoying. I was super looking forward to this, but something about it is off-putting. There's no real game, just looking around the environment to click on things that are equally pointless. Clicking on people to listen to terrible dialogue. Ugh, I can't remember the last time I was this disappointed by a game. Does it get better? Is there a turning point where it becomes more compelling?

I feel like I want a good mix of replayability and one time through games in my co-op experiences. We usually have one or two evergreen games we play at a time, while going through more one off experiences for diversity. I don't think I would give anymore weight to replayability than I would a single playthrough. If a game is simply sublime the first time though, that makes it worthy in my mind (though I doubt very much I would put Portal 2 in the top spot, it can devolve too easily into one person tells the other one what to do). Also, to be a stickler, it's technically the 25 best PC games (yeah, I know that's all RPS covers, but the headline is just silly), which I think is worth pointing out because there are so few same screen games on that, and local co-op brings something to the table that online can't (and vice versa). I don't know what I would pull out of that list, because they are all good choices, but I also know there are other games I would put in my top 25. I'd be hard pressed not to include the Halo series in a best ever list. Lego games definitely. Terraria is certainly one I'd make a case for. Original Majesty is up towards the top of my favorite games ever, so it would have to be high in a list of best co-op games as well. Rayman Origins or Legend Gears of War series...maybe? It would be close Mass Effect 3 MP would probably be my number 1 I think I might go with Torchlight 2 over Diablo 3 This is a deep personal bias....but Resident Evil 5. My daughter and I found ourselves returning to it over and over to get all the emblems and upgrade all the guns. That's just off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

The current humble bundle is all cat themed!

Woah

Hero Siege is on sale for $0.89 for the next 14 hours, and it's a fabulous local co-op game (also has online, but it's considered to still be beta). When we first fired it up, I honestly thought it was just a cheap knockoff that was cribbing everything in it from Binding of Isaac and Diablo. Which, it is! But it turns out to have done it really well. Simple skill tree with 9 skills, you clear maps that are about 4-6 screens big, waves of enemies and random mini-dungeon popups. There's like 10 different classes that are all pretty neat, including a Redneck class that should be in all RPGs. It's half roguelike and half Diablo, in that when you die, you lose a ton of your bonuses (all relics, bonuses from statues/potions and shop purchases), but you keep your level and equipped gear, so you're not having to start from scratch.

CSD is fucking good. I thought it would be a fun, cheap little diversion, but man, it really is brilliant. Hero Siege is $0.89, which I think I got from a bundle or something quite awhile ago but we've been playing it this week. It's a lot of fun for as simple as it appears.

MP can be solo'd, I've done it up to the 3rd difficulty tier (out of 4). It's definitely a serious challenge though. I don't know if I would say that it was enjoyable if you didn't already really enjoy it with other people. The game is balanced for 4 players and the difficulty is fixed, there's no scaling for number of players. You also start with level 1 characters, basic weapons and getting a few classes leveled up without any help would be quite a chore. There are still people playing to this day. And if you were playing on PC, cheat engine can be used to give yourself free credits to unlock things faster. Normally I wouldn't be an advocate of that, but the unlocking curve for MP is on the scale of hundreds of hours to unlock everything, and I think at some point in a game's lifespan that become an unreasonable expectation of a new player.

I almost bought it earlier today, good to hear a positive word about it. It certainly looked interesting.

I agree that the ending was ultimately disappointing, but I never did understand the level of vitriol it generated. Ending something well is fucking hard, and the bigger/longer a story is, the harder it is to wrap it up well. The more time has passed, I've actually felt like the ending was probably just about the only way the story could end (a series of choices disconnected from your actions), and the actual outcome was surprising and made sense, that destroying the relay network and destroying the entire structure of the known galaxy was the only way to stop the Reapers. The structure and context could have been improved, but realistically any other solution would have been unfeasible or would have pissed people off for other reasons. I put hundreds of hours into MP. The expansions steadily added more diversity, but mostly I just still think it's the best horde mode in any game ever. And the play style differences between the different races/classes is staggering, something almost no other class based shooter pulls off to the same scale.

Listen to the interview with Sean, Jake and Steve, that's really good. If they aren't interviewing someone I like, I can't listen though. I tried to listen to some this week, and just can't.

We have so few grand scale space opera type games, that I'm pretty much insta-hyped for anything else in the ME universe. Plus I fell head over heals for the MP of 3.

I played some Necrodancer over the weekend. I brickwalled hard on Zone 2 back when I was playing it during Early Access, but managed to blow through both 2 and 3 on Sunday. That's a game that gets me kind of jittery after playing it awhile, and I just couldn't focus on zone 4 by the time I got there. I did try a few of the alternate characters as well. Holy hell, they are all super hard.

Dark Souls 3 will not be the final Souls game, but it will be the final dark fantasy themed Souls game. This is pretty much exactly what I want to hear. Also, Miyazaki has a co-director overseeing the more nuts and bolts parts of DS3, and DS2 director Tanimura will be on the project in some capacity. I think this is also probably a good sign. Miyazaki has the vision and world design, but he's got other people to depend on for some of the elements that they are better at than him.

I lied, Krogans confirmed, hype train engaged.

I hadn't actually watched the trailer yet, just got around to it. Using "Ghost Riders in the Sky" is just the weirdest music for that trailer. I'm not entirely sure what they were trying to do there. But no Krogans, so it sucks, pre-order canceled.

So apparently Valve placed a 2 hour limit before cards drop to combat people buying games for cards and then asking for a refund.