Chris

It would take quite a while though to pump as many quarters as it would take to buy a real game, though. The payment system is basically structured around evangelists--I think they assume most people aren't going to be into this kind of hardcore concept enough to pay for it, so among a given group of friends, only one guy really has to want to pay for it, and then he can let his friends in.

It hasn't been published yet.

There's also the original Marek dance: <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qsKvGS4DQQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho2Q0LE-gNc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> (as not-immortalized in this: http://roflopolis.com/index.php/roflopolis/article/idle_thumbs_e3_2005_video/)

I think I was the one who drew attention to it, but yeah that's the sole source of the joke for us. Marek is also, separately, a cool and nice guy, but our obsession with his name is entirely self-contained.

I happened to be listening to a jovial, uptempo piece of music as I scrolled through this thread, and it created the impression that BigDog was prancing along in time when it stumbled and then immediately resumed its previous activity. After it recovers, it looks like it's almost going into a haughty high step. I love it.

Hey dudes!

The idea isn't "you have to lose your next game because you've won the previous ones." The point is "you're stressed out because you've won a bunch of games, and the pressure to keep up a winning streak is overwhelming, and as a result you are nervous and you play worse." I think you're completely missing the actual point we're making here. This is absolutely real, in a physical sense. I'm not talking about some cosmic destiny here. When I win a bunch of games, I get physically nervous because of the pressure of the ladder system, and because your match is not random (well, it's random within a specific set of constraints). The more you win, the better the players you go up against. That's how matchmaking and ladders work. You don't just get matched up with any random person from the entire pool of StarCraft II players. If you win a bunch of games, the matchmaking system ranks you up higher, and you play against better players. But even if it weren't for that matchmaking system, playing StarCraft competitively is a stressful, high-pressure task, and the longer your continuous play session, the more subject you are to physical and mental fatigue, and all kinds of other psychological factors are borne out of that. These are not random factors. Your claim that there are no discernible patterns when it comes to this kind of thing is demonstrably untrue when you look at the play habits of pro gamers over long tournament play sessions or long periods of time.

How does randomness have anything to do with it? What specific elements are random? As far as I'm aware, there is no randomness in StarCraft 2, except when an opponent chooses a random race. You win or lose based on the quality of your play; that's it. And the quality of your play is affected by how confident and prepared you are. And your concentration and preparedness is affected by your stress levels. Which part of this do you disagree with?

It was coincidental that Jake and I already lived relatively close to one another, although we now live even closer than we did before. When we first met Steve, lived in a different state, but about a year later he moved to San Francisco, where I was living, and got a job in games. Nick lived in Michigan and moved to San Francisco after working at Shacknews for a while, because that's where the game coverage is. Now he's lame.

Jake and I would like to do some kind of PAX East meet. Since it's already super last-minute, anyone from the Boston area have some quick suggestions on potential places we could meet up to have a drink that are relatively close to the convention center and likely not to be too overcrowded? During last year's PAX meet, we ran into difficulty when our original venue was completely full. We lucked out with another one but that was probably a fluke. Also, since there's so little notice for this one, there will probably be fewer attendees than at last year's, so we shouldn't need a huge amount of space or anything.

The thing that was awesome about that part is that it

When I first got Windows 95, I listened to the shit out of these files

What BioShock 2 "boss" fight?

Blizzard has been a subsidiary of various companies for a long, long time. They've always reported to somebody. No company would buy another company and have absolutely no oversight of it. Now Morhaime just reports to Tippl, rather than whoever he reported to before. That's a change to Tippl's role, not Blizzard's.

Thanks to everyone who came! It was a blast, and once again a massive relief to Jake and me that it wasn't a big horrible disaster. Fun times!

Feel free to at least show up to the pre-meet at the convention center entrance at 7:15. We still haven't actually figured out where we're going after that. Hopefully we will have by then!

Yo!

Absolute worst year for game awards in recent memory. God. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff last year, but apparently in reality there was only Uncharted 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and possibly Flower.

Steve and I saw Shutter Island a couple weeks ago. I was pretty disappointed, and I'm a massive Scorsese fan. A lot of the editing was fantastic, and it was a very confidently made film; Scorsese was just confidently filming something I found to be fairly hokey. Also, while I basically like DiCaprio, he really seems to be settling into a particular set of on-screen mannerisms that are making his characters too similar, and it's ruining some of his films for me. Last night I watched WarGames. It was fine, but hard for me to take seriously as an adult. Still, I can imagine why it resonated with people of a certain age and disposition when it was a current film; maybe it would have for me too if I had seen it when all the people I know did! The one scene that really worked for me was the war room scene that Defcon pretty much blew out into a whole game. That shit was terrifying. Tonight I watched Fail-Safe, after mentioning WarGames to Steve and him reminding me this movie exists. It's based on a book that was allegedly based on the book that Dr. Strangelove was based on, and so the two movies are wildly different treatments of the exact same premise, where Fail-Safe plays straight man to Strangelove's satire. It's not as important or incredible a film as Strangelove, but absolutely worth watching and incredibly gripping to see a more sincere take on that material. As a piece of film history, it's also fascinating as it was the subject of a brutal behind-the-scenes battle that had Stanley Kubrick essentially being a dick and scheming to block the release of Fail-Safe until after Strangelove came out. The style of the film is rather ballsy for a mainstream movie with known actors, and the ending is fucking extreme, and both of those things really remind me why Sidney Lumet is such a badass director. (Those things, as well as the inevitable Strangelove shadow, probably also explain why it apparently didn't do well at the box office despite strong critical reception.) Peter Fonda and Walter Mathau are both in this movie, and they are fantastic in their roles. Of the three most recent movies I have seen, it is probably fairly clear which one I would recommend for this recommendations thread!

I bought this on Steam and I'm happy with the purchase, but I was hoping it would have more longevity. It doesn't seem like the kind of game I'll be able to play indefinitely, which is usually a big criterion in this kind of escalating puzzle game.

Are you one of the guys who came to the PAX Thumbs meet? I bought Gunrazor on iPhone. Also, can you confirm whether Edge of Reality is called Edge of Reality because the studio was first colocated with Terminal Reality, thus existing at the latter studio's edge?

Are you talking about the metro station? Numerous metro stations are like that, they don't just do it once early on to impress you. Those are some of my favorite parts of the game. I've rarely played a game that captures the warm, buzzing atmosphere of a human settlement as well as this game. It's not exposition, just mood and tone. Maybe that's not the part you mean though.

So, this is hilariously late to be asking, but is anyone with a PAX hotel room looking for a roommate? I might be able to make it out at the last minute but I have no accommodations.

It is impossible for Quentin Tarantino not to look like like an obnoxious douche.

It's a good question. I don't really know. I would guess the state of game design education today is still fairly diverse, and not very standardized. There are probably various attitudes at play depending on the school and curriculum. It would be interesting to see an overview that attempts to get a sense of what it means today to get a game design degree.