toblix

Happy birthday, Christopher!

I've never ever enjoyed a poem on any meaningful level. If it's funny or witty I might enjoy it, but I've never read a poem that has evoked any sort of meaningful emotional response. I wonder if this is because of some defect or undeveloped aspect of my personality – highly likely – or if it's because I've never actually set out to read poetry. I should probably get a book of poems or whatever.

Pretty sure that's a koala.

I bought it right after finishing the first mission. After getting it I've talked to the chopper lady, David Sarif, the drug stealing guy in my office and the old lady that approaches you outside the building. Can you remember if any of those had the thing?

Well, fuck, piss and shit, I guess my game's bugged.

So, should I be seeing these in all conversations? I've had quite a few talks with the helicopter lady, the boss, the receptionist, the secretary, the old lady outside, etc. and there's nothing other than the conversation choices. Do I have to turn it on somehow? Is it a bug?

All right, how the hell do I use my casie augmentation? First thing I did was spend to points on that thing, and: The instructions are weird and makes it seem like it's automatically used, but I don't see anything special when talking to people.

It just hit me how perfectly this models the actual act of going to a library in Venice and looking through all the shelves for something interesting.

Why in the shiniest of fucks would you want to play this game with voice acting?! Though I haven't tried it myself, I'm pretty sure it must be terrible!

Don't I have to watch to watch everything? Isn't there a whole big arc? Can I just start watching from the "Ninth Doctor"?

Okay, I'll watch Dr. Who. Can someone please make a guide similar to TP's excellent BSG guide, or maybe there is one already?

Trying to finish this for the second time before the sequel, and just finished the first level. I remembered the whole opening level as a huge ordeal, but I probably finished it in under half an hour. It might be less of a desire to explore every nook and cranny (I didn't free Gunther, but I did the little forklift puzzle) and it might be that I'm a lot less careful... the quicksaves are instantaneous now – were they as fast before, or were they annoyingly slow? I'm just wondering if that might be a contributing factor. Also, experiencing the old school level design of the UNATCO base is pure gold. So many long and winding corridors. I didn't react to it at the time (that I can remember) but what a lame base. It's interesting that this game came out after Half-Life, which I remember (perhaps incorrectly) as noticeable for, among other things, having a realistic and logical level design. Anyway, next up is Castle Clinton, which I can't remember. I probably won't finish this before Friday, but I intend to soak up what I can before then. Upgrading skills still feels totally sweet. I hope I find some more sniper ammo soon.

So I finish the first mission and want to see if I can head back to explore the rooms I passed by on my way in. Turns out I can, and police officers have taken over and are securing everything, taking pictures, etc. The game lets me go all the way back to the start of the level (picking up overlooked boxes of ammo and cyberboost (fucking) proenergy)and have done all this work (including recorded dialogue) for the less than one percent of players who actually do not head straight for the chopper, when they could just as easily do what I initially expected, which was to make the elevator stop working or place a man in a doorway or something.

Sure is. Actually, you're probably thinking of the guy with top secret clearance. I got his name (and used it in conversation too!) One of the guards you meet on the road actually reveal his superior's name in conversation, which allows me to use that line of dialogue on him successfully. For the guy in the picture, I think I ended up having to grovel at his feet.

An example of one of the many excellent dialogue tree traversals this game offers: The nazi guard demands the proper papers for passing: Indy: That is out of the question. Guard: No one passes without authorization! Indy: Keep it down! This man with me is Gestapo! Guard: Gestapo? Him? Do you have proof? Indy: You have my word of honor. Trust me! Guard: Trust you? I could be shot for letting you pass! Indy: You spurn my trust? An insult! Guard: Insult or not, you must have clearance. Indy: Soldier! Do you realize you are out of uniform? Guard: Out of uniform? What do you mean? Indy: New orders have come through concerning uniforms. Guard: New orders? From where? Indy: Your superior officer, down the road. Guard: Don't remember his name? Dummkopf! (A fight ensues.) Keep in mind that, for each of Indy's lines, there are three choices. There's a lot of reuse between guards, but there's always variations, and the correct path is always different. Dialogue puzzles truly are the best kind!

It's out for PC? It's not out for my PC...

I had completely forgot how completely awesome the Castle Brunwald section is. If you're looking for a sweet infiltration sim, this has everything: sneaking around, wearing uniforms, going up stairs, tricking, sweet-talking and bribing nazis... Also, the dialogue in LucasArts games is so good. You can never reach this level of awesomeness with today's spoken lines.

TIME GENTLEMEN KINECT CONFIRMED

OH YES. I did a thing I would never do, which is starting a game on the smallest map size. I quickly got four cities up and running and left the other civ in the dust. Seriously, city states were giving me free tanks whilst Washington was moving his horses around. I won the cultural victory and got a handful of achievements for it. Very fun. Also, I saved just before winning, so I can go back and probably do all the victories easy peasy.

Yeah, in fact I'm considering picking a couple of achievements and going for them. It would certainly help fight the feeling of helplessness that quickly sets in as more and more options present themselves.

Finished a proper 3-day game last night. I forced myself to not avoid building military units, which let me fend off some attacks by that asshole Montezuma early on. I only had four cities (one of which was isolated from the rest by another civ's territory, which I'm not sure how to deal with properly) and by the end, around 2030, I was researching particle physics and had four complete policies, I had a pretty small military, everyone was hostile (though nobody had declared war), I had four spaceship parts done, and then for some fucking reason I build the UN and some completely unknown civ wins the game. For a good time, peruse the list of Civilization V achievements.

I love how the web lets me quickly look up weird references and then pretend I got it right away.

So, I'm going the stealth route, trying to avoid detection and that sort of thing. Without spoiling anything, is this possible using a non-lethal approach? If I tranquilize a man, will he wake up after a couple of minutes and sound the alarm?

Oh, are we doing these now? I've got a hilarious one for every FPS game in the world. Commandos 2 is the goddamn apex of video game design. As the hydrogen fuel in the Sun's core is consumed, its outer layers expand and Earth is engulfed in a rapidly expanding cloud of burning helium, humanity's last, collective thought will be how fucking sweet that game was. Commandos 3 was a joke and an insult.

What? I thought it was magical and wonderful, and almost exactly what I had expected. We're talking about Venice in Italy, right?