toblix

About that Mario 64 DS, thing. When you say it works really well, would you be playing with the D-pad or with the stylus? I didn't find either of them very accurate. Also, is the DS Lite not fond of diagonal movement?

Having played forty minutes or so of the new Sin episode, Emergence, it's like Valve's excellent skills are being made more apparent. Even though there are some neat ideas and despite the fact that making the main female character have a visible thong is really classy, right from the start the game feels more, I don't know... empty or generic or whatever than even Half-Life 1. What do you all think? Have you even played it?

Well, I've given it some more time, and as far as I'm concerned, Emergence can kiss my ass. If they'd spent more time making better levels and less time working on that revolutionary dynamic difficulty system, which, to me, seems spectacularly broken, maybe I'd bother playing it through. I'm not a fan of quicksaving being an integral part of gameplay. That's just me, though.

Great job, Ben.

Two guys probably tried going through the door at the same time. That always happens then. Don't they have a back entrance for the important people, though?

Brilliant. Just so you know, there are probably one millions of people constantly refreshing their browsers, waiting for your updates. I know I am refreshing.

Ben, are you at the conference or are you just listening to the audio?

Is Rayman going Xtreme and Dark like Prince of Persia or what?

Sure, Deus Ex.

Well, I don't know what else you can get, but Runaway is cool if you're into point and click adventures. I don't believe thinking it was the greatest game ever, but I usually give up games pretty quick if I don't like them, and I played that one through, so I dunno.

Any chance of seeing screenshots, or bettar yet, video of these magnificous environments? They sound cool, and I'm never giving the game another chance ever.

I found this interview about a game called Contact, which sounds pretty cool. Although it's described as a collection of minigames, I find the element of helping another character like that, and the contrasting art styles interesting. It's out in the Japanese land already, and is slated for North American release in July. Anyone else heard of it?

Those guys are the worst.

I just importicated one from the Japanese Country, and now I'm reading all sorts of stuff about defective units and faulty pixels and loose batteries. Anyone here have problems with theirs? I guess if my imported unit's broken I'll have to deal with Japanese customer service. Aren't those guys ninjas?

I know this is probably weird, but does anyone know if the music in the PSP version of Lemmings is the one from the original, or is it completely new ? If it's the old songs, does anyone know if there's a way of getting a hold of the music other than purchasing a PSP and a copy of Lemmings?

I'm playing HL2 for the third time, and I'm just done with the Highway 17 part (the car part, where you drive along the coast), and it struck me how much I enjoy all the parts where it's just me and the environment. Like the abandoned houses and bases, and especially the whole Sand Traps part where you have to keep off the sand. It's like one of the best parts of the game (for me) is just me and the physics engine (and the magnificent level design), without any AI or shooting or whatever. Maybe it's not significant, but I don't know any other FPS games where the parts without action isn't just a hallway to the next shootout gallery. What I'm trying to say is this: I'd pay for an HL2 expansion pack without enemies if it's as good as the non-enemy parts in HL2. I'm delighted to hear that in Episode 1 the level designers are putting a lot more stuff everywhere in the levels, so there's more things to see and do.

Although I suck at getting point, isn't (part of) his that imagined details are teh bettar than actual detail? That while the mountains and cliffs looked like shit in HL1, you imagined the huge landscape beyond and got a sense of the scale of the Black Mesa Complex (which is true), and in HL2 most of this detail was actually shown because it was technically possible, and then everyone is impressed and now it's worthless. That was the impression I got, anyway. It gets me thinking. In HL there was this real feeling of travelling across a vast secret base that had some stuff on the surface but was mostly a huge underground complex, and the path you took through it was just the one that happened to be available to you (ie. that's where the vent shaft with the busted grating led). There was this deep, almost primal desire to get more of Black Mesa, to see more parking garages and laboratories and places where liquid with crates in it went through these large crushers and so on. In HL2 that exact feeling only got me in a few places: Black Mesa East and Nova Prospekt. I think this is because Black Mesa, Black Mesa East and Nova Prospekt were complexes built by the characters in the game, and only a small portion of them was actually revealed. City 17 and the coast felt like real environments, and they're supposed to be bigger than you can ever experience fully. Can it be that my desire to experience all things and places in a game is never fully satisfied in Black Mesa because I'm used to being led through the entirety of a "level" or whatever, but in a city I'm used to just see the parts where I'm going and ignore the other stuff? I just realised I don't know where I'm going with this, only that that specific "feeling" of having to see more is more present for me in HL than in HL2, I think.

What were they thinking? Really. If there's *one* animal you can't return to, they either didn't think about it, which I find hard to believe, or they intentionally made it so that a lot of people end up missing *one* animal and being unable to complete the collection. What kind of school of game design is that?

Well, I guess it was technically possible, like me playing ten minutes of Condemned in a dark room without chest pains and horrible death being mine is technically possible. Believe me, I wanted to get on with the game; it got impossible all of a suddenly. I can't remember much of it anymore, but I think the boss (or were there two?) had some fantastic attack that killed super good or something. Too late now, anyways.

Anachronox, yeah. I remember loving that game, and that it felt really epic and fantastic. Too bad about the part where you had to select three characters out of the group and travel real long time to fight some bosses, and it appeared I happened to have chosen the wrong people, so that the fight was impossible. I hate it when that happens, and since I had to do so much stuff over again to try it with a different group, I just gave up on it. That's why I love linear gameplay.

Wow, I really don't remember thinking Blue Shift was so much less gooder than Opposing Force.

Yeah, I'd recommend playing HL, then Opposing Force and then Blue Shift. There's a lot of visiting old places and seeing stuff from other points of view and stuff like that. I love it. I've never tried HL: Source, but I guess I'd rather play the Source version if you have the opportunity. If not, and you choose to play the original HL, make sure to install Blue Shift before you play, since Blue Shift comes with a HD pack which makes some models nicer in the original game.

Actually, yes.

This sucks. I installed Condemned and started playing, and Jesus, it looks good. I want to play it really bad, but unfortunately, I can't. I'm too scared. I could barely play through the part in Half-Life 2 where you're in the tunnel with all the burnt out car wrecks, and you hear the grunts of wandering zombies further ahead. Silent Hill I had to play while it was sunny out, and Condemned... I just can't. Am I the only Idle Thumbs pussy?

What audio restoration?