toblix

At least moderate fandom has become much easier, since you can join online communities. As for extreme fandom, there's stuff like Black Mesa: Source and the Outcast sequel -- just ridiculous stuff that would never have happened if not for the web. What is your dissertation about, more specifically?

Aren't most sequels made with the requirement that the player shouldn't have to know about the previous games at all? For example, I wouldn't go see, say, the second Batman film without having seen the first one, but I don't have the impression that any of the games out now that end with a 2 (AC2, DoW2, MW2, BC2, ME2, BS2) really need me to have played the prequel(s). Or expect me to for that matter, other than the occasional back-reference. Even Mass Effect 2, which continues the save game from the prequel -- even though I haven't played it -- I get the impression it's not really built on the previous one, but just uses it in places to spice things up, if you will.

I'm playing this game in windowed mode, and I'm really impressed by how well it's behaving. It runs perfectly, and when it loses focus it mutes. I can leave it running in the background and just come back to it whenever. I'm really starting to dig windowed mode in games, especially in a multimonitor setup, where clicking outside a full-screen game makes it go crazy. Also, what's with all the voices being strangely not engaged? For example, the guy lecturing the troops and scalding them for something or other spoke like he was reading the lines from a script. I guess he was.

I think I've played every Dizzy game, and completed none. They were really brutal.

Okay, so is there a mod or trick that lets me play this like a normal person, and not like an octopus? Surely there's a way of having the TAB button function be togglable, and surely there's a way to strafe?

It seems like the player is following a script, peeking out at the right times, doing everything really slowly, etc. I wonder how the game will play if you're not playing like such a pussy. Anyway, this is sadly another of the games I would really like to play, but am too easily scared by. The door-barricading reminded me of the rage about Valve demonstrating how you could stack stuff in front of the door in HL2, and then in the end you couldn't. And that reminds me of the fluid simulation system in Red Faction that they demonstrated in a ton of videos, and then the game was released without it.

Holy pants full of crap, the chat system in L4D2/Steam is just horribly defunct. I just played a couple of campaigns with three other people, and we used TeamSpeak for chat. During the game I was unable to prevent the game from sending my voice to one other person, making a a horrible echo. No matter what setting I changed, both in the game and in the Steam overlay I was not able to turn the damn thing off. There's definitely something fishy going on either on the OS level or in the game.

I've picked this up again, and, while still being a completely amazing game, one thing is annoying the living Hell out of me. When I'm in an area, and it has two or more exits, there's no way to tell which is the one that goes ever on through the story, and which lead me to some more bonuses and optional areas. This leads to so much backtracking since I end up traversing the level breadth-first to make sure I get most of the stuff before I fall down some one-way hole. I don't see any great solution to this, other than making everything strictly linear or having some indicator on where you're supposed to be going, but that's why I don't make games for a living.

This is awesome.

l°l

Hexagonal tiles has already been done. Even Fallout had it, for God's sake. How is this progress?!

So I'm going to have to write down your special Battlefield names on a piece of paper and type them into the game? Isn't there any Steam integration?

I keep watching House, but I always get depressed by how everything nice always turns out to be just shit, and if you're kind it's because you're sick, and everyone's a lying, manipulating asshole and nothing has really changed.

Not the first game I played, but the first game I played on the Amiga, which is the first system I didn't have to visit others to play on.

Nice! Some fun races, including one where I won! Also, thanks for the sweet Abarth, Patters!

Late as always, having finished Assassin's Creed 2 last night, I'm starting Dragon Age today. Anyone want to recommend a particularly good character type? I'm not asking for builds or anything detailed, but I understand there's a selection of opening section depending on race and... class, is it? Chris's lower-class dwarf sounded pretty cool. Any other suggestions?

That was awesome fun, lots of great moments related to helicopter escapes, etc. Hope everyone is all discussed out on Mass Effect 2. I muted the chat to avoid being spoilered, and I'm declaring a ban on all ME2 discussions in further GTAs.

tabacco and Moosferatu!

This is hilarious. I just spent half an hour trying to set up a campaign game with three friends. We had to give up because we couldn't for the lives of us get the voice chat working. For all four of us, one of the following was true at some point: We could hear everyone else, but none, or only someone could hear us We could hear no-one, but someone could hear us We could only hear somebody, and they, or someone else, could hear us After much restarting and naïvely toggling settings we got it so that everyone could speak together -- in the lobby. Of course, after starting the game everything went back to being shit. We ended up canceling the game because of it, which is a bit annoying.

That's weird. I'd think that stuff was one of the main points on their certification checklist.

He's a regular Adolf Hitler, that guy.

This is coming out this week! Holy macaroni, I have so many awesome games in my pile of games it's incredible. It's truly a good time to be a person that finds games to be a fun pastime.

EA Presents: Slaughterhouse-Five 2: Slaughterhouse-Six EA Presents: Catch-22 2: Catch-23

You guys weren't too heavy on the self-references at all. In face, I would almost expect there to be more of it than there was in this comeback cast. While I think all the referencing has gotten slightly out of hand amongst listeners (at least it did for a while towards the end of the last run) I never felt you guys "milked" them in the cast itself. Although I doubt you ever would, please don't attempt to avoid saying stuff or going off on baboofests if you feel like it. It's your show, and it's been a success so far. Of course, for all I know, Chris might've already cut out hours of baboos and wizards from all the previous casts. Also, thanks for addressing my CSI question from last year. I'm sorry to say that waiting game was just too much for me and in the end I went for the PC version. Now I realize I've made a huge mistake. Oh, and if you're going to be monthly or bi-weekly or whatever, don't worry about it being too long. Rather, worry about it being too not long.