Trip Hazard

The good news is: I passed my driving test. The bad news is: my body is impaled on spikes

I think describing my performance in the Spelunky daily as "inconsistent at best", would be far too charitable.

Does nobody else think that Snow might actually have been trying to push Brooker's buttons by being deliberately combative and insensitive? I think that, whilst he plainly is fairly ignorant on the subject of games, he was playing the Devil's advocate and deliberately emphasising certain tired arguments which are always brought out when games are being discussed, namely that they make people violent psychopaths, that they serve no productive purpose, and that they are exclusively the employ of pathetic men. edit: but now I've thought a bit more, and if he is playing DA, he's not giving Charlie time and space to refute (which he certainly could do) any of his (and, by extension, others') concerns about games. The whole tone of the piece is mocking. TREAT GAMING AS A REAL ARTISTIC MEDIUM YOU SHITS!!!

It took me 23 hours to beat Olmec for the first time, so don't feel bad if you're struggling at first. Spelunky can be quite a difficult game, although luck does play a large part. One thing I will say is not to be too tempted to watch lots of Let's Plays. I did, for tips, but it has meant that the thrill of discovery has been dampened somewhat.

I like Jon Snow (not the character in Game of Thrones; he bores the piss out of me) but for a newsreader, he's really fucking ignorant, and seems to wear that ignorance as a badge of honour. Although my girlfriend pointed out to me that he's deliberately trying to wind up Brooker, with a great deal of success.

Hi. This is a really nice forum, I love what you've done with the place.

Whenever you think you're done with an area, you're wrong. There's always something else tucked away. There are definitely spells which do AoE damage, and probably pyromancies too. I'd like to be more helpful, but it's been a while since I've played. Very envious of you getting to play it all for the first time though

I beat the game today, for the very first time, and it was on a daily! Really would appreciate some feedback on my vids, on the sound levels and my commentary and suchlike. If you watch it, I hope you enjoy it, cos I sure did Edit: quality should be 720p, but it has only just gone up so might still be...calibrating? Or something? Yeah, it's not supposed to be grainy

Nice one! As a sorcerer, those guys caused me all kinds of hell

You'll get the eventually, which will allow you to travel between some - but not all - bonfires, provided you've already lit them (of course) Works a charm, thanks Squid Division

Congrats! I've not gotten there myself yet, but I did beat Olmec for the very first time today, and in the daily to boot! Video uploading now My mood: transcendent joy I'm pimping it again, as I have no shame, no shame in my game

That bit in LI where you get the elevator back up to you-know-who completely blew my mind. Related: how do I do a spoiler thingy? Bit new to this forum and forums in general so sorry for newbie question

Okkusenman! There's a blast from the past. Still as enjoyable as ever. "When I eat curry and stuff" has me in stitches every time

I really like this jazzy rendition of the music from Super Mario 2. The band playing it, Estradasphere, have got some serious chops. Listen that double bass!

Nnnnnggggghhhh, that was amazing. I want more. Need more.

One of the best covers ever recorded. You can't sing along to it, you can't dance to it. You can feel miserable to it, which is precisely the point. Don't watch it unless you want to make yourself sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dlohScIKRY

Thanks for that clyde, I had been consciously avoiding FX2 because I didn't think it could stack up against the real tables, but that does sound right up my alley. I'll give it a whirl (also, I had no idea that they had licenced Marvel content! YES!) Edit: gave it a whirl, and whilst the ball physics do seem a little strange at first, there's a high degree of craftsmanship present which I wasn't expecting - and that's just the free level. I'll get the bundle asap.

Haven't played Centaur yet. Something else that I realised when I was playing is that some of the tables seemed to have a narrative of sorts, and that if you can fulfil that, you'll unlock big point boosters and the like. I first noticed it with the free table, Arabian Nights (or something like that), where you can battle the genie. Monster Bash is another one, getting the band together. When I've encountered real pinball tables in the past I'm so wowed by the sheer joy or twatting the ball about and making lights go off that I'd never noticed any of that. Reading this thread, it seems I'm not the only one.

I played loads of Pinball Arcade last week, after a friend showed it to me. There are some tables (generally the easier ones, it must be said) that I really really enjoyed, like Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars. One thing that stuck out for me is just how brilliant the sound design in PA is - I feel totally immersed in each table after only a few seconds of play.

The Ballad of Halo Jones is pretty great. Too much invented speech (what's a proper linguistic term for that?) in the first part, which hampered the pace for me, but it gets better after that.

The only game I think I've finished this year, besides Arkham Asylum and Arkham City which I was completing for a second time, is Dishonored. It completely sucked me in and was all I would play for about 2 weeks. I keep meaning to finish Deus Ex: HR, but I think it's really ugly and that puts me off massively. Good game, but.

I said "Careful!" out loud, and then you went down and argghhhhh, that was close.

The Forever War is my favourite SF

I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable reading Innsmouth. Loved the story, one of my favourites of his, but as you say, predicated on the idea of otherness as being somehow inherently twisted and wrong. As I've read more and more Lovecraft, my feelings towards him have transitioned from profound admiration of how effectively he can scare, to ambivalence because his stories so frequently fail to scare, to something of a sense that he is, for a pulp writer, hugely overrated and actually wildly inconsistent. Sometimes he gets it spot on, as with The Colour out of Space (my personal fave) and sometimes he transcends horror in the wrong direction and ends up being a parody of himself.

Ahh, that's a real cracker. I read it last year or the year before, perhaps, but it's one of my favourite SF novels. I noticed you mentioned Ursula Le Guin too - which did you read? I've only read Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness. The former was good, but not great, and the latter is one of the best books I've ever read bar none. Anyway, the best book I've read this year is I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. Not sure why it has taken me so long to get around to it, but it was stunning.