Chris

You can still go over to your buddy's house and play with four players on one box, or up to 16 players on up to 4 boxes. (and it's still super-fun) IIRC, not every single mode from the first game is offered, but the missing ones are minor things like "Race" which I suspect I was the only person who played anyway, and there are a bunch of new ones to make up for it, such as Assault, Territories, and single-flag CTF.

Go fucking figure. This has confounded me for years.

These days, I prefer DVD cases. For whatever reason, over here console games come in DVD cases and PC games still come in boxes. Since manufacturers don't actually put anything in the boxes justifying that much space, I'd much rather just have a nice DVD case with art that's hardly any smaller and which is a million times more robust, and which can be shelved very nicely.

This game is extraordinarily fun. That said, there are a couple little annoying things. For the entire game, ammo and guns (including the ones in my hand) flicker on and off almost constantly. Has anyone else had this problem? It's really annoying, and fiddling with graphics settings (which take ages to apply) hasn't changed anything. It's not the end of the world, but it looks pretty goofy. Also, I'm pretty disappointed with the load times. That's probably the one actual game issue I have issue with. Sometimes you'll be in this crazy action-packed boat race, and there's this crazy music playing, and it's crazy, then everything stops and it says "LOADING" for three minutes. I understand it's the price you pay for having no distinct levels, but it really helps to take me out of the game. Finally, I have already gotten "stuck" a couple times, which also happened in HL1. By this I mean getting inextricably wedged into a corner or rock or something. You can't do anything except mouselook, and you have to commit suicide or reload. ANYWAY, BESIDES THOSE FEW THINGS, this game is totally awesome. The object manipulator gun is one of the most fun things I've ever used in a game. I don't even use regular guns anymore if I can help it. There's usually something to throw at zombies with the old gravity gun. Super-fun.

There's got to be something fun about this game... It's practically the best-reviewed title of the year.

I did too, although I've never been a fan of their video reviews. They're basically just selected excerpts from the main review, coupled with some video. I wish they did something else to make the two more distinct.

Valve has already stated that Steam is going to incorporate a system by which you can back up your Steamified games onto CDs or DVDs, so that's not a concern.

Man, GameSpot really took their dry objective approach to an extreme with this one. I like their site as a rule, but man, it almost seems like they were going out of their way to suck the emotion out of this piece. For once in my life, I approve the IGN review over the GameSpot one, on the basis of overall writing and style. I can't judge their opinions of the game yet, obviously.

Yeah, it's clearly not worth any perceived benefits, but I suspect some people just sort of give themselves up. I agree with you of course, though.

I, uh, like root beer...

It's probably easier to just say God, since the context is clear...

I suspect that a lot of people harbor long (sometimes even lifelong) dreams of working in the games industry, and they'll take what they can get, even if that means working for EA. They stay because they're hoping it will get better. I'm not saying they should, but leaving a shitty job in the industry you idolize is probably easier said than done.

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/914642.asp Tada

It's 12 midnight Pacific Time all around the world, I believe. So in Eastern Time the game goes up at 3am.

Despite a million other suggestions of Katamari Damacy, I'm going to suggest it too. You need Katamari Damacy.

11 more hours!

I don't think it was ever coming out for Xbox. The developers have said in interviews that they'd like to eventually put it on Xbox if there's demand, but I'm pretty sure it was never actually planned.

It's way, way, way, WAY better that more people know about Psychonauts. Things that would be totally lame include the game being released and only the Internet Adventure Community buying it. I've still yet to hear anyone else in real life talk about the game, with the obvious exclusion of the many people I rant about it to every day.

I, uh, ordered the gold.

I've been to events that were totally botched by the management. It's amazingly frustrating. I'm sorry, Marek.

Have you actually played that many Sierra games?

When it comes down to it, I'd rather have them be overly harsh than overly accomodating, though. There are far too many hypetastic review sites out there.

IIRC, it wasn't "best selling", it was "best reviewed", which could also include poorly selling games.

Man, I almost feel lame admitting it, but reading this article seriously was one of the most extreme emotional rollercoasters I've had recently. Of course, that's in large part due to me only really reading dry academic text lately, but man. It got pretty hard to read when it was just page after page saying "And that's when things really got bad", only to top itself a page later, then ending on a fairly triumphant note. I fucking hope this game is great.

...or be hired by Dave Perry.