Golden Calf

Ya I pretty much agree with that. It's 100% unearned seriousness. They are the words of someone deeply moved by some series of events, and they're supposed to feel foreboding. But I have literally no idea what they're talking about. Don't tell me your story is interesting, tell me your story and I'll decide for myself if it's interesting. It feels like they're saying: "you better already be on board with whatever it is we're going to be doing, because we sure as hell aren't going to make any effort to try to get you interested." Yep, I agree there. I only noticed this sort of thing in a few places, never enough to ruin the experience for me.

Ya I definitely found it sketchy. The original Shenmue took approximately $70 million to make and came out in 1998. Adjusted for inflation, that's roughly $100 million today. And given that the game footage in the Kickstarter video was so laughably abysmal, it doesn't seem like a situation where they've assembled a rough but passable demo and are in talks with a publisher who just wants some confirmation of marketability through crowdfunding / a little help defraying development costs, or something like that. That said, I doubt Sony had them on stage just to do them a favor (edit: or maybe they did, just hoping to get a bump off the nostalgia without having to commit any resources to the notoriously money-losing franchise?). I'd bet they're helping out somehow. So... who knows. I'm definitely not dropping $10k to get the jacket.

Ok I transcribed the monologue over the top of the FF7 remake trailer: I hate this shitty style of writing so much. I can't play final fantasy games because of it. Going back to Kingdom Hearts, which I loved as a kid, is impossible. It even creeps in to the From Software games, which I've put hundreds of hours into, in a few places. Please make it go away.

why did I buy this

Nick, I think you completely missed the cool parts of Evolve, though since you didn't seem to have had much time with it, that's understandable. As you also noted, some of the appeal was reduced by the fact that so few people understand how to play strategically at this point. Not really your fault if it just didn't catch with you, either. But here's what I think are the really interesting parts of this game, after putting a shameful amount of time into it this weekend: The control and tactical use of (mis)information is incredibly important. A good monster player will understand all the systems that reveal their location to the hunters (the sounds of their abilities and movement vs. the sound of them sneaking, their visible footsteps when not sneaking, their scent which is trackable by the trapper's dog thing, the birds which are triggered by getting too close, etc), and will selectively engage with those systems in order to present a picture to the other team. For example, at the start of most matches as monster, I would run at full speed in some direction until I reached some place that I could plausibly have jumped from. Then I would go into sneak mode and loop around in the opposite direction, so that when the hunters spawn they start their search in a completely different direction than I am going, which gives me some useful breathing room at the start of the map, when you're most vulnerable. Similar things can (should) be done throughout the match. This plus the hiding you briefly described makes for some really interesting gameplay. It's an FPS that depends on strategic use of resources rather than (or at least more than) twitch accuracy. As the hunters, all your resources (abilities) except you basic guns have pretty steep opportunity costs: the trapper's arena, the support's orbital strike, invisibility, and shield, etc., all have pretty significant cooldowns, and prevent you from using any of your other abilities for a decent amount of time. Let's say you're playing as the support and you've split off from your team to cast a wider net when you see the monster. It's been a little while since the start of the match (so that the monster has built up a decent shield). At this point you could do a bunch of different things. You could just start shooting, and probably make the monster run off. Or, you could alert your team to where you saw it, and use an orbital strike on the other side of the monster, so that it runs into the arms of your team, only to be trapped by the arena. Or, you could realize that the monster is probably close to evolving, follow it using your invisibility power, hoping that it will start evolving and you can drop an orbital strike on it during that process, when it is immobile and without a shield for ~10 seconds, and then have your team show up to do a bunch more damage. Each hunter has decisions like this, and rushing blindly into situations and just using basic guns, not coordinating with your team to maximize your abilities' effectiveness is a surefire way to get rolled. It encourages cooperative decision-making in a really fun way (though getting saddled with teammates who don't want to communicate or play as a team can be rough). Also, these are just some thoughts I had over the weekend, not having read any more advanced strategies or thought about it all that much. I bet that once it's actually released and the community has had more time with it there will be way more worth talking about. I also thought the game was really beautiful, and had some more little things I liked/disliked as well, but those were the major points. Anyway, just my two cents.

I'm sure you'll be fine. I've got an i5 and a gtx770 and its perfectly smooth on max settings.

I have some steam codes too: RHJD3-P8DZK-ZM4YH RHJVK-Q8RCP-F8YLY RHKD6-5RX6W-0N79P RHKHG-0GB5X-65K97 This is incredibly fun so far. Curious what you guys think about it, especially the hunter/monster balance. I've been playing mostly monster/medic. As monster, I'm basically able to remain stealthed for most of the duration of each match, and get to level 3 pretty reliably, at which point I invariably win. I think they need to incentivize risk-taking on the part of the monster some more. But overall I'm enjoying it a ton.

you guys are insane

Such a cool rendering style. His devlog posts here are eminently worth reading. Also: I love the walk change on the stairs.

I love it when multiple hosts have played the same game. This episode was pretty great for that.

The speech thing was also done in this song, which I adore: Does Mrs. Horne ever show up again after this episode?

Mmmmm Washed Out is so good. "Good Luck" and "Feel It All Around" by them are great. I've been binging on French Music lately: Since having played Carmen with an old orchestra, I've always loved this tune, and I found Stromae's treatment pretty cool:

I can't tell who's worse on this front, Josie or Hawk.

Wish it were me. Alas, I don't have friends own an Oculus Rift.

I want to punch a wall every time Nadine or Bobby come on screen

The problem with this, I think, is that

Imagine being on the team that made this trailer, and then seeing the schlocky garbage that the marketing department tacked on the end: I actually thought it was pretty stylish (minus maybe the FPS gameplay demonstration shots). My reservations about the story being palatable remain, but I'm pretty excited about the open world bits, as I was with 3.

Chris, 10/14/14: Chris on Ethan Carter, 10/15/14: I thought that was funny. But ya, I thought the writing on Ethan Carter was kind of bad too. I finished the game, mostly I think because the environments were so pretty, but the writing definitely pushed me away from doing so. In the end, but I don't think that really redeems it.

The people whose delicate sensibilities you're so kindly guarding think "Social Justice Warrior" and "Feminist" are insults. It's not her job to be sweet and palatable to them. You think that, if she were just a little bit more diplomatic, GGers would suddenly accept feminism into their hearts or something?

I can't believe this. She had to cancel the event in question due to school shooting threats YESTERDAY. Now, she's too aggressive? The tweet was actually pointing out a good historical irony. If people don't like it, that's their problem.

It's her responsibility never do anything that would rile up people who are such garbage that they'd make threats in response to her? Isn't it abundantly clear at this point that ANYTHING she does produces an insane response?

I actually thought the same thing the first time I watched it. No, though.

Damn, well spotted

"Professional Victimhood" is such a hilariously stupid phrase. How exactly do people think publicizing your harassment results in money?