Bjorn

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Posts posted by Bjorn

  1. Posted

    If you brush too hard, you can wear down the enamel on your teeth, I have that problem even brushing twice a day. 

     

    SAM, if you're going to take up regular coffee drinking, I do suggest either brushing, or at least rinsing your mouth with a bit of water after each cup.  I'm a very heavy coffee drinker, and have to get my teeth cleaned at least twice a year because of it.  I also seem to have teeth that are prone to staining, the lady drinks just as much coffee as I do, and doesn't have near the issue.

  3. Posted

    If I have some good nacho cheese on hand, I just wrap the hard shell in a soft shell and coat the inside of the soft shell with nacho cheese.  Mmmmmm.....so good. 

     

    And even without that, when you're done, you just have a little pile of some meat, a few crumble taco shell parts, a bit of lettuce and tomato.  You scoop it all together with a fork and eat it, and it's still nummy!  It's like having a bonus round of taco after you eat your taco. 

  4. Posted

    I'd previously seen the Warframe community praised in a similar way to the Destiny community (even with built in text chat, I've so far had almost universally positive experiences).  So I think it is a pretty good community, but good lord, make some changes to a game and see the torches and pitchforks come out. 

  7. Posted

    Hard shell tacos are the best tacos.  Soft shell tacos are just wannabe burritos.  Tacos are probably one of our most common lunches we throw together (fast and tasty). 

     

     

    I would guess this is because everything at Taco Bell uses the same 8-10 core ingredients.

     

    This is a complaint that gets leveled at TexMex/Mexican food, and always bugs me.  Like, most generic food categories are that way.  A burger joint is using the same few ingredients for most of their meals.  An italian joint is using the same handful of ingredients for most of their dishes. Pizza, same.  Fried chicken, same.  BBQ, same.   

  8. Posted

    Huh, they sent a clarification to Kotaku that:

     

    It means instead of concluding in one entry, multiple entries are being considered in development. Each entry will have its own unique story. As a gaming experience, each entry will have the volume of content equal to a full-sized game.

     

    That sounds less episodic and more like the FFXIII plan of having multiple games in the same time/universe.  They've also got the spinoff games that could be rolled (even partially) into the main game. 

  9. Posted

    I don't really visit any gaming related forums other than this one anymore, other than maybe seeking out some specific troubleshooting info about a PC game or something or checking some Reddit threads during events.  But a big update to Warframe came out last week, and that got me browsing their forums, and holy fuck I had kind of forgotten what a bunch of whiny, entitled cry babies gamers can be. 

  16. Posted

    A summer camp is such an awesome environment for a video game, and I think there's a lot of room to explore more video game experiences in that space. I'm particularly infatuated with the idea of a Prison Architect-esque Scout Camp Builder game. But the setting would also lend itself well to an RPG, or any genre that can support a large cast of interesting secondary characters to interact with.
     
    But I guess that's all kinda off-topic. 

     

    I think too few games really double down on just exploring a small, finite space.  The camp worked great.  Costume Quest also limited its action to just a few neighborhoods around the kids' house.  I'd rather have a neighborhood than a city, a camp than a forest. 

  17. Posted

    Yeah, this one was a bit more miss for me than the previous one, but it still had two games on it that were already on my Wishlist, and I didn't previously own any of them, so it was still a good deal.

    Banished (been curious about this one, but not enough to buy it)
    Rust (meh, I don't get into these games, but since I own it, might at least fire it up)
    PayDay 2 (would be super excited if not for the recent news about it)
    Neon Struct (fuck yeah, been super curious about this one)
    Chroma Squad (tactical RPG based on Power Rangers, been curious about it as well)
    Company of Heroes 2 (meh, don't really care)

  18. Posted

    On my second playthrough, Eileen met with an unfortunate end during her first duel, which allowed me access to her blades early on.  The whip is pretty underwhelming to start with, but isn't terrible once it's upgraded and you understand that it's two forms have different bonuses versus different enemies.  I never finished that playthrough, so I never played around with the Burial Blade to see how it fared.

     

    But, the real treat for me on that playthrough was the Reiterpallasch (which can had fairly early).  Normal physical gems buff it's pistol shot and fire paper buffs both the sword and pistol (unless that's been patched out, but I'd hope not).  It also means you can carry a non-gun weapon in the left hand, like the flamesprayer, which gives you instant access to three types of attacks, which can be fun and different. 

  19. Posted

    • A long distance relationship is way different than a normal one but can still be pretty exciting. You have to get creative to get some of the same satisfactions you would get if they were physically there. Suddenly, phone sex is super appealing and exciting and because talking is all you have, conversations are completely different and more interesting than the mundane conversations you might have on a daily basis.
    • You get to plan trips to see each other and when you finally do it is the greatest thing in the world. Oftentimes in normal relationships you don't really have big things like that to look forward to.
    • Having some space from each other gets your head out of the clouds and is a good opportunity to really reflect on your relationship from a different angle.

     

     

    :tup: :tup: :tup: :tup:

     

    I'm sure at some point I've at least covered the basics of the lady and I's long distance period.  There is the potential for good, as well as the bad, with long distance.  Sometimes we even wax nostalgic about our late night, multi-hour phone calls and how ridiculously fucking excited we would get about trips to see each other.  I wouldn't want to go through it again, but I would if it were necessary. 

  20. Posted

    The idea of "apology debt" is kind of gross to me.  It's never going to be enough now, for you and others who feel that way.  There was a window in time when a better apology might have been accepted (and that ain't no guarantee), but there's no debt moving forward.  There's the fallout from their choices, sure. Schafer didn't apologize well enough with his statement, and Hack n Slash wasn't enough to make up for the disappointment of Spacebase.  Some people lost their faith and/or trust in DF over Spacebase.  That's fine, I can totally understand why some people would feel that way.  But the way that you're communicating your feelings about this are weirdly personal feeling to me.  Maybe it's just the way you're coming off in text. 

     

    I'm somebody who is very big on apologies in my personal and professional life.  I give them when I think I've transgressed and expect them when someone has transgressed against me.  I can look at Spacebase and just see that it was bad all the way around at the end.  No amount of Tim grovelling is going to make me feel any better. 

  21. Posted

    To be clear, I'm not critical of the mechanics of Psychonauts at all, I think it was a pretty damn good 3D platformer (of which we have lots of bad examples to show how hard that can be), and it incorporated it's themes/stories into gameplay and level design in a way that was uncommon at the time.  Environmental Storytelling wasn't even a buzzphrase yet when it came out.  I just think it's not the mechanics that made it special, not that they were poor or substandard in any way.

  24. Posted

    And I think when you consider the thousands of video game sequels, those represent the data points well outside the norm, not within it.  Two of those examples also come from Bioware, and one from Obsidian (which I think Obsidian is a dev one can make an argument for excels at improving on narrative/character).  That's rarefied company.  I think that kind of reinforces how difficult it is to improve (or even match) narrative in sequels in games. 

     

    Mostly I'm arguing for keeping my own enthusiasm in check.  I'd rather have my expectations set low for this than too high. 

  25. Posted

    I used the term lightning in a bottle because I think it's very, very difficulty to recapture the same whimsy in a sequel.  Video game sequels often improve mechanically, but rarely improve in terms of narrative, tone or character.  Mechanics aren't what made the original special. The only sequel we have out of DF is Costume Quest 2, and it's fine, but mostly forgettable.  It's just more, but more is usually less charming than the original.  I guess I'm expecting the likelihood that a Psychonauts 2 ends up more like CQ2 and less like Psychonauts 1. 

     

    I'd be much more enthusiastic about a Brutal Legend sequel, because it is a game that mechanically I think has a lot of room to grow and improve.