Trip Hazard

Has anyone played Valdis Story or Apotheon? In the market for a new 'vania, but not sure which of these to get (or maybe Odallus??)

(if anybody ever wants to play co-op Doom with me, I am so up for that it hurts)

I listened to the first two episodes of The Adventure Zone, and, whilst I haven't listened to many D&D podcasts, it was by far the best. They do have great chemistry, and I think if the D&D element was omitted completely and they were just sat in a room, taking the piss out of each other, I'd like it just as much. One thing I also quite like is that it's apparent that some of them aren't very familiar with the rules of D&D, so there's a bit of (brief) explanation; helpful to me as someone who wants to up a game with my friends. Best line so far: "Where are you, dad?" "I'm in the back of the wagon at the moment, studying my cantrips" "Just say masturbating, dad"

Quake is still great, glad you enjoyed it. Enjoyed it more or less than Doom™?

I assumed that, as with the Witcher 3, any "crafting components" (junk, then) would be weighless. Obviously, I thought wrongly. Seems to me it just creates a load of busywork for the player having to store things/combine things to lessen the load. I had a strange thing the first time I played Fallout 3, where I'd pick up scrap metal whenever I found it. I assumed it would come in handy at some point, and it was quite weighty (I typically equate weight with quality in RL), so I very rapidly became encumbered and just had to chuck it all. You couldn't do fuck all with it anyway.

Mother and baby are faring very well so far, he's eating loads and Cara has a remarkable amount of energy considering her protracted labour. Happy atmosphere atm and family are rallying around with gifts and treats, I do feel hugely lucky. It was when we saw Fury Road that we decided to call him Max

Hah! Or a warning for the unwary. He's literally toothless at the moment, though, so not much to be concerned about. His real name is Max Fury, which his mother and I think is pretty cool? Destined to be a superhero/villain

I'm pretty cool on Isaac as a game, but Bjorn has the right of it when he says to just play Rebirth. It's better in every single way.

Related to the subject of "Life", as of yesterday night I am a father. My beautiful son is very healthy and whenever I look at him, I feel like crying cos I'm so proud. It's a bit weird. Also my missus is hard as nails! Never getting in a fight with her.

I'm like the anti-purist, I always play these old FPS games with whatever front end has the most graphical wizbang, and turn jumping on. Makes a mockery of the pinky demons in Doom when you can just jump over them!

As I recall (tho I should add I never finished the game myself) you kill the final boss by manipulating a bit of a quirk of game design. Won't spoil it obviously, but I think that is really cool

That didn't happen to me, but likely only because I was playing on easy and looked at a guide as to which skills were decent. It did occur to me that you could fuck up your build pretty dramatically, though, and of course, I can't get no respec, no respec at all

There are a great many things I like about Path of Exile, but the hugely atmospheric music may be chief among them. This track makes excellent use of echo to give the sense of vast rooms clad in marble and polished stone, and evolves into a tense, driving rhythm, perfect for darting about the place carving up mobs. And this one, which is a boss theme, takes its cue from industrial music, with obligatory hissing of valves and clanging of hammers. Not the most original, but very effective at making this enemy one to be scared of. The short, tight loops make the encounter feel more claustrophobic as the enormous boss bullies you around his comparatively small living quarters.

Enjoyed watching my sister-in-law play Don't Starve more than I enjoyed playing it myself. I'm a bit too impatient and made rash decisions which got me killed, but she was very methodical and experimented with the different tools and creatures in a safe(ish) way. The game is just amazing to look at and the music is great, and there are lots of little details which bring it together. A shame, then, that whenever you die and have to restart it necessarily entails clicking on millions of twigs and bundles of grass before you get to create things and make stuff really happen. Probably there are mods that can help alleviate that sort of busywork, so I bought it. Edit: Cheers for posting that vid Eot, I haven't seen it yet but will do so soon and report back

I saw Ghost open for Alice in Chains. They were great, but only played for about 40 minutes, and the majority of the crowd didn't have a clue who they were. Then AiC came on and me and my mate left. Expensive 40m... Have listened to this at least twice a day for the past week.

The ones I've played I haven't liked, for different reasons. TR1, 2 and 3, cos they're ugly as sin and just moving around in them is a pain in the arse. There might be some incredible sights to see and mysteries to unravel in this level, but I'll never see them because I can't be bothered lining myself up just so for this jump, and then having Lara fall down into a bottomless pit/pit of spikes anyway because she's too slow to respond to my inputs. I also don't like Lara's curt "No". How about a bit of Yes, you sour-faced cow? What I remember of the music was quite good, tho. The new TR game (not the new new one, the old new one) marooned you on a really dull, nondescript island, flung millions of baddies at you, littered every location with pointless shinies to grab, and then made me not care about the story or any of the characters. Why should I care that my shipmates are still alive out there somewhere? The only time I've seen them is in the opening cinematic, and they were so flat they may as well have been made from cardboard. The actual tombs were made into smaller, discrete locations, and usually it was immediately obvious what you had to do, vastly diminishing any sense of achievement. Just generally, you don't get the opportunity to explore much, and I would have liked to. The QTEs are...wank. I thought the hour or so I spent with Anniversary was okay. Edit: Speaking of a bit of Yes

I finished...erm...Divine Divinity? Had fond memories of playing the demo as a kid, mucking about in Aleroth, killing pet pigs, pinching ganja from someone's garden and generally being a nuisance. The full game goes all serious about halfway through and has some massive dungeons to click through, and it ultimately tried my patience. Not bad, honestly, but too bloody long.

Didn't know that, thanks. That'll certainly make the occasional frosty foray more bearable

That Guardian review is by Rich Stanton, friend of Crate and Crowbar. He regularly writes for Eurogamer, and is generally pretty good.

I don't understand why anybody likes Tomb Raider :/

I've played Lost Planet 3 for 3 or 4 hours now, and it's...okay. It's solid. The guns sound good and feel good to use, the graphics are not bad, the writing (I'm specifically thinking of when your PC sends and received video logs with his wife) is strong. The controls on a gamepad are intuitive. There isn't enough variety in enemies, and there's too much trudging slowly through barren snowscapes, but if the player limits their engagement with side-missions they can cut down on this. The main base is tiny and poorly laid out. The yokel rock music in the mech is godawful. The main character reminds me a lot of Nick Cage, which is nice. I'll probably finish it if I can just get over wanting to do all the side quests.

Helldivers is coming out on PC, yayyyy

I'm most interested in what the modders do with it, gawd bless 'em. Dissatisfied with literally any aspect of your Bethesda game? There's a mod for that

Spelunky for me

Singleplayer is the new multiplayer! Get hype