ThunderPeel2001

Yeah, I think it's always been easier with a good controller. And thinking back, it really wasn't THAT hard. I died more times because I was collecting figments, than any other reason. Also I really noticed similarities to Inception this time around. Psychonauts was the Inception of its day!

Thanks, Kingz. You're right, I need to allow myself to make a few mistakes.

So I finished Psychonauts last night. Great game, as I'd remembered. The Meat Circus was actually more annoying that I remembered, even though this was the "easy" version... Maybe I'm not the games player I once was. (It wasn't THAT difficult, though.) In the credits I noticed thanks to: Marek Bromstring, Jake Rodkin, and James Spafford.

That sounds great, Nach. I think that's got to be the best way to meet someone; Slowly getting to know them over a period. Definitely more natural than having to get to know someone on a loud dancefloor!

The first part said E Y B Also: Shame on you all for being human with your forgetfulness and having other things to do.

I also got to chat to Danny John-Jules at the party. Very nice guy

Allow me to cleanse everyone's palates:

I'm back. It was .

I'm off to see !

So I went to this amazing party with work last night. Holy shit! There were so many attractive women there, and as a single guy looking for a partner, I really thought this was the perfect opportunity. And it was, I'm sure. But I came away without really having spoken to anyone I was attracted to, and (obviously) sans any phone numbers. Bah! I learned a few things about myself: 1/ I immediately get nervous when I think about making the first move towards a woman I like because (and this is the idiosyncratic bit) I immediately think, "But is she The One?" And I start giving myself reasons why another girl is probably The One (often a girl I haven't even met yet). A sort of "the grass is always greener...", but also possibly giving myself excusing not to dance over to somebody. 2/ I'm pretty crap at first impressions, probably partially because of the above. I do know one thing: In my last relationship I wasn't "sure", and I kept going along with it because it didn't feel completely wrong. Five years and an engagement later(!) I had broken a perfectly good heart... And I vowed to never get myself into a situation where I wasn't "sure" again. So while there were several girls who kept looking over at me, who I liked the look of, as soon as I thought about trying to dance over I'd immediately go, "Wait a minute! What about that other girl... You don't want to lead this girl on unless you're sure..." Which is completely neurotic and egotistical, I know. It's damned frustrating, though. I need more practice at just having flirty fun with someone and not taking it too seriously. Thanks for letting me vent my spleen!

That's cool. I wish I'd known Unarmed was overpowered... But none of the guides I consulted mentioned it.

Very cool. I wonder how many younguns here actually know about Horace, and his terrible, insatiable appetite?

I give it a week.

Same here. It lasted about as long as I imagined it would.

I was going to ask why, but then it became obvious. Must make Horace! Horace is our saviour! Must make Horace!

Oh, darn. They have those now?

Really?

I've revised my opinions, I think I got it wrong.

Yep, it was more fun once you mastered it. I've certainly spent many hours racing with you guys... I'm just in the "more fun, less realism" camp. Thinking about it, my problem wasn't with the car handling, but the city itself... Too many sharp corners that didn't lend itself to fun driving. The car handling was pretty awesome (apart from the camera angles that it sometimes tried to force on you).

The weight thing is true. It was very satisfying once you mastered it, and understood that you could never go round a corner without braking... but I thought it took hours before it came fun, especially compared to equally "weighty" driving games like Driver (and apparently earlier GTA games -- from what people have told me). I played it almost exclusively with a controller on the 360.

I'm also going to The New World. In a few short weeks I'll be in Los Angeles. Hoohah.

That's also very true. It took hours of practice before you developed enough skill for the driving in GTAIV become close to "fun"... and even then you could never "drift" around a corner. It was too busy trying to be realistic. That said, I did enjoy the shooting mechanics. Also, I hope they don't include a "Liberty City Minute" style achievement this time... It just meant that new players burned through the main missions as quickly as possible and never did the side-missions until much later... Making it less enjoyable in the long run.

YES! He's good with dialogue, and he's not bad at characterisation at all, but his stories are so bland and predictable that he ends up shooting himself in the foot. By gods get some professional writers in! I wouldn't even go that far. I saw every single twist before it happened (apart from THAT one, which sucked anyway) his writing is so two-dimensional and obvious. If people here can hear the writer's voice in a Wire episode, I'm sure I'm not alone in being able to see a Dan Houser "twist" coming a mile off. There's always something horribly samey about the situations he creates and how the characters react... and it's never particularly satisfying. Take some of that $x million budget and give it to some decent Hollywood writers, already. The game structure is so simplistic that even someone used to writing for TV should be able to make the transition easily. Dan can write the dialogue for the bits when the characters are driving to the missions. Or better yet: Hang up his ego, and let someone else breathe new life into the universe he's helped create. And no more goddamn Lazlo, either. He and Houser try to write satirical stuff, but they never seem able to sustain a consistent point of view long enough for it be actually any good. They regularly fall into the trap of becoming the very thing they try to parody: Baseless, soulless "shock" factor for the sake of shock factor. (*rant ends*) Again I agree. When I first played GTAIV I was shocked that it expected me to drive to every mission... it seemed so pointless. Of course, by the end of the game I'd become really adept at driving and knew the city so well that I could just about navigate without a map. Just about. In LA Noir they just totally lost the plot (I know it was a Team Bondi game, but still)... There was ZERO reason to have a city, and even less to have one so accurately modelled (although the game was ultimately so flawed that I ended up enjoying sight-seeing more than playing the actual storyline). (In side news: We never discussed it here, but Team Bondi has been shut down, right? All those horror stories of what a complete dick the guy who was running it was, and how awfully he treated his staff... Even to the point where RockStar hated his guts and refused to work with him ever again. Well it sounded like he finally got him comeuppance?)

Delores just seemed very 2D in the books. I remember thinking how Imelda Staunton added a lot by making her much more nasty: She really believed in what she was doing. She really thought she was on the side of "right" and, as such, even absurdly evil things like making students write lines on their skin seemed all the more sinister: She really believed it was for their own good. I remember thinking that in the books she was just evil for the sake of it. I may be misremembering, though.

I've read all the books, and only seen some of the films, but I always had issue with the start of Book 5. It was so freaking tedious and boring. I guess JK thought she was being "dark", but it didn't work for me. The film version did a better job of that bit, while also making Delores Umbridge a little more three dimensional, and as a result scarier, than her book version. Otherwise, it's book versions all the way, if you ask me.