prettyunsmart

Is the general feeling that we should wait to open until actual Christmas? I haven't gotten anything just yet, but I'll be travelling, so I'm tempted to open it if it gets here before I leave for the holidays.

It's been a good couple of months for Android ports finally coming through, ith Hearthstone (which doesn't work on my phone or tablet), 80 Days, Crossy Road, Republique, and Calculords all coming out. Now if only my phone had more internal storage...

So this game's out on early access. I picked it up on a whim because it looked neat, and because I remembered that Nitronic Rush had a stunt mode like San Francisco Rush 2, which was one of the high points of my video game childhood. Overall, I like it. It plays smoothly and is substantially prettier than Nitronic. I'm surprised to say I like the online mode a lot. It's kind of like Trackmania, but with more pretty lights and fewer French people. If the community gets big enough, I could see myself playing this game for a long time, since the user generated maps seem pretty alright, and the online mode is so chaotic. EDIT: Wow. I played more of this last night (and just a moment ago) and it is way crazier than I remember Nitronic Rush being. The way they use wall-riding and ceiling-riding in some of the later levels is both devious and pretty awesome. The difficulty and speed of the game really gives it a nice sense of tension, since your car takes damage but can keep going for a little bit. It makes for some great moments where your car is just barely holding together as you race toward the next checkpoint, hoping that you don't self-destruct too soon.

I haven't been following this game too much, but for those of you who have (or are already playing it) how possible will it be to play this infrequently/casually? I tend to only have a few hours here and there to play games, so I worry that picking this up will just result in misery given the PVP-oriented nature of the thing (everyone plays more, everyone has better ships, everyone just kills me a bunch while I'm trying to just fly around space and enjoy that experience). I should probably read some of the longer write ups of the game on RPS and other similar places, but I thought I'd ask before spending too much time looking around.

I just assumed the gift was $25, and then shipping was whatever it cost on top of that. Hope that's ok. Anyway, mine is on the way, and should arrive by the end of the week

Mine should be going out tomorrow. It turns out, getting a gift was easy, but getting to a post office during work hours is quite hard.

Hey fellow thumbs. I've mentioned that I'm a grad student studying English on these forums before, but this is the first time I've thought about trying to do something with my research here. One of the bigger projects that my department has been running for years is called the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. It's an attempt to gather as many stories as possible about how people from many different backgrounds with many different experiences learned to read, write, and compose any kind of text. One of my goals as an academic is to help my colleagues understand the good that popular culture can do, and this project could really help with that. If you have a story about how gaming or other kinds of popular media shaped you as a reader, writer, or a maker of things more generally (composing gets defined pretty loosely these days, and can include art, coding, crafting, or many other kinds of "making stuff"), I would really appreciate the chance to record your story and add it to the archive. Or, if you have a literacy story that isn't about pop culture, but that you'd still like to share, that would be great too. If you want to share your story, PM me, reply to this thread, or get in touch with me some other way. Thanks! (I thought about making a new thread for this, but since it is sort of self-serving I thought I'd put it here first. Would a new thread be allowed?)

Games I really liked without reservation and generally think were pretty great: Mario Kart 8 Monument Valley Sportsfriends Neverending Nightmares The Terror Aboard the Speedwell Kentucky Route Zero: Act III Game that might have been my GOTY if I hadn't lost my damn save and 30 hours of progress so I just stopped playing it instead of starting over: Divinity: Original SinGames I think are great but are unfinished and kind of a weird fit for a GOTY list: Crypt of the Necrodancer Broken Age Kentucky Route Zero east van EP Games I liked as I was playing but ended up having complicated feelings about on finishing them which make them a weird fit for a GOTY list: Transistor The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Games I would probably really like if I actually got around to playing more of them, but I can't seem to find the time at the moment: Dragon Age Inquisition Hatoful Boyfriend Smash Brothers Game that is getting delivered later today but I won't be able to play until Sunday which I'll probably end up liking and editing into this post: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

So is there a rule about when we are supposed to send these out? Should we wait until actual Christmas time, or just start sending them as we find gifts?

In my family, we always put up the tree Thanksgiving the day after Thanksgiving. The relatives all went home, and it was time to switch gears. However, I maintain that Christmas music in stores before December is kind of the worst.

This just makes me really want to play a non-Assassin's Creed game set in Victorian London. Suggestions, anyone?

See, I was thinking that if Nick Breckon is verbally berated while online, it's because he's Nick Breckon. Congrats Nick Baboo The Wizard.

Apparently Adnan is going to get another appeal in January, which has been in the work since before the podcast started airing. As I post this, I realize someone may see that and think of it as podcast spoilers, which once again makes me think about how weird this whole thing is.

I like what they did with the look of the thing. The art direction seems reined in, at least from what they're showing. But then again, it could be terrible, and there could be a guy with an even worse looking lightsaber in it, one that's shaped like a corkscrew or something.

I started using Jawbone's "Up" app yesterday since I know that I'm about get get one of their fitness trackers as an early Christmas present from my wife. I already have some concerns. Right away, it was telling me what my goal weight should be, based off of my BMI (I'm a short but relatively muscular person, so even when I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm still listed as overweight according to the BMI). It wanted me drop 50 pounds, and if I did that, I'm pretty sure I'd be a tiny husk of a person. Also, their food tracking seems a bit severe. I had fruit and yogurt for breakfast this morning, and I was told to "take it easy" on such unhealthy foods. Has anyone used Jawbone's stuff? Am I just too easily put off by this kind of stuff? Is there a way to turn off the stupid features and just use the better ones?

The criminalization of political protest is one of the most legitimately disturbing developments of recent years (accepting of course that protestors throughout history have been beaten and killed, but in those cases it was understood as happening outside of the law to some extent). I was a part of a teacher's union in Wisconsin a couple of years ago during the protests surrounding Act 10, which effectively dissolved all public employee unions in the state. After the protests ended, the state passed laws stipulating that those wishing to protest at the state capitol needed to apply for a permit, and that they would be charged for any cleaning and added security costs. Again, I realize that this isn't quite the same as violence being carried out against protestors, but both work to undermine the right to free assembly.

I wouldn't worry about changing characters if you're a mage. I have 3 warrior types to choose from, two rogues, and several mages, and I'm only 9-10 hours in. I imagine there will be more.

If you're talking about Solas, you'll get the chance to swap him out of your party after too long. If anything I'm finding that my list of available characters (9 or so hours in) is a bit mage-heavy.

That's pretty much exactly what I ended up doing. Once I got into the next main story thing, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the writing and quest design. To be clear, when I said the quests seem MMO-inspired at times, I don't think that's entirely a bad thing. It's just more clear that there's an uneven level of detail to different activities. Some get cut-scenes and weighty choices, others just get a few lines of text. That's fine as long as I'm enjoying my time with the game. So far, I have been.

That is how I live year round, which is why I manage to remain kinda chubby despite exercising pretty vigorously most days. The winter gym drop-off is kind of great, really. I've had a much easier time getting a locker, and there's less of a wait for some of the more popular machines. Lower gym populations make for better gyms, really.

I have been seeing some of the strange performance issues that people have noted here (texture pop in, hair clipping through clothes, people dropping from the sky after a load). But I'm mostly having a hard time shaking the feeling that this is one of the first games Bioware made after making an MMO. I've actually been enjoying wandering the hinterlands and completing side-quests, but so many of them amount to "go to this place and loot this body to find a letter that explained what happened." It really feels like MMO-inspired quest design. That isn't to condemn the game as a whole. I'll reserve judgment until I play more of the main story missions, but a lot of the side stuff feels pretty thin narratively, which is kind of a shame.

Playing the chest opening/item get sound effect when you pick up an item block is just about my favorite video game thing in recent memory. Is that sad?

I also have keys for Euro Truck Simulator and Insurgency if anyone wants them.* *Standard "don't ask if you just made your account" rules apply, not because new people aren't cool, but I worry about giving games away to key reseller types rather than cool idle thumbs readers.

Have you had good luck with Green Man Gaming? I have a friend who refuses to do business with them after something went wrong with one of his orders, but I can't remember what it was. Do you know if you can still pre-load if you order through a site like Green Man?

I continue to enjoy Serial each week, but the more I read about the way it's inspiring reddit investigations, the more uncomfortable I get. In other other podcasting news, Earwolf spun off one of its podcasts into a new network called Wolfpop. How Did This Get Made is routinely pretty good, so more shows like that could be a positive thing. The shows range from sounding like pretty good ideas (I Was There Too: A podcast about interviewing people who had small parts in big movies [ex. Paul F. Tompkins in There Will Be Blood]) to horribly misguided (The Sylvester Stallone Podcast, in which Paul Scheer pretends to co-host the show with Stallone who keeps cancelling on him, so instead he interviews someone who ran into him once). I have only listened to the first episode of The Canon, where two film critics argue if a particular movie should be canonical, which I found to be equal parts intriguing and off-putting.