syntheticgerbil

Pretty sure it's just the first game. Also I had read on the Hothead forums a while back that this was coming to Steam, since some guy hacked it or something and found an upcoming release date. I don't know how this works, but everyone was super ANGREH at him. Anyway, the good news is the guy was right.

I don't have this service, nor will I ever, but I own a lot of the great games they offer from the 90s. What they do is great for people who missed out. So some PR stunt makes people this butthurt and refuse to have the services? I don't even think you're signed up to GoG anyway, are you Forbin? I'm sure the people that appreciate GoG will continue to be back for the most part. This isn't to say that the stunt way dumb, but how many people are offering what they are offering? Beyond buying the games on Ebay yourself and getting them to run painstakingly, there's not any major service I can think of that allows you to play the same great games. Also don't say Steam. Long story short: fully behind Miffy's opinion.

This looks like a lot of fun. I should probably keep this on a wishlist and play it eventually. Thanks Tankitsune!

Well, it appears Tim Schafer is credited for dialogue writan, so I guess I have to play this now. I'll probably wait until an official credit list still, but he seems to have already been credited as the writer in those newer interviews.

Well Jade of course has more polys in her face than any other character in the game, but I'm assuming Rodi was referring more towards background elements, using simple jagged boxes, planes, and hexagons to their advantage. It's easily most noticed on Domz creatures and the way their textures are laid out among the polys. But either way, it made do with good texturing and modeling. Also, brkl, I'm pretty sure the image you picked out is a promotional made image with a smoothed out model for that particular boss. Besides that BG&E did the depth of field blur on parts, if you check out movies or screens in game of the boss, you'll see on the white face stripe and lips there are corners created from where the texture is wrapped around the edges of the polygons. That shot you posted of that boss is completely smooth on the other hand.

Now that you mention it, that was true of the style. A similar effect was made use of in Rayman 2. The jagged swirls and rocks of both games had a lot to do with the art direction using the limitations to it's strength. There could be nicer character models though, but really I'm hoping more than anything if this is indeed going through, I'm not going to hear the name "Gameloft" mentioned anywhere around it.

So is the Costume Quest behind us so we can get to the other three games yet?

http://kotaku.com/5164608/a-boy-and-his-blob-looks-swell-in-motion-too This is apparently coming out. It looks fun, but it could just be the Braid-rip-off graphics influencing me. The video seems to suggest sparse level design, but maybe it's an early level. The original game sucks though, even though it had good ideas. It was just too hard. I'm sure this won't be the case this time around. It should definitely be better than this incarnation: Oh god, the oozing attitude.

Bad double post, but I finally finished this two weeks ago. Kind of sucks it's audience lies more in the early 90s when games were less macho and more about concept (not saying that is completely dead). The tone of this game's innocence is earnest, and I can see people getting put off by that, without some sarcasm slapping it in the face before it gets too much. The one major concern with me and this game is that it took me months to complete it. Maybe it was because I was playing all of the challenge levels (which double the amount of levels easy) and finding all of the treasure chests along the way, I found myself getting burnt out and could only play an hour or two at a time. On the later levels where the puzzle difficulty ramped up incredibly, I would find the relaxation this game automatically brings quickly turning to frustration. The biggest problem is if you miss a treasure chest there is no way to reenter the level, find it, and exit the level quickly (like the start and then select employed in Mario games and a few Kirby's). You instead have to complete the level again. The range is pretty incredible, because while some levels in the beginning could be done in a couple of minutes, a few of the final ten levels can take an upwards of 40 minutes to an hour depending on whether you are trying to get all the chests or not. There's an extremely pleasant suprise in the third to last level that was incredibly unexpected and one of my now favorite moments in video games. I can't spoil it. It must be experienced. So yeah, not much has changed of my earlier opinion. Definitely this is still how Boy and his Blob should have always been. Forget the '89 one.

Just to be well accustomed with Ubisoft practices, I'm betting this HD remake never gets released. If it is indeed going to get released, then it will be shat out by Gameloft and done in a very poor manner. I have no confidence in this being done right, so I'm hoping it won't be done at all.

I guess I finished with the second Deathspank and the Wii Boy and his Blob lately. Both top notch experiences that I talked about more in depth other places on the forums. Generally a good time for good games it seems like.

I noticed Juv3nal is playing, so me and you should definitely match sometime, sir. But if anyone else wants to play Castle Crashers on PS3 for a few hours in the evening, I'm all for it. With all the characters, I imagine I'll be spending the next few years on this game. PSN username: Syntheticgerbil.

I felt like this bot was making fun of me.

Ahhhh, I guess I finished Thongs of Virtue on a marathon, even though I shouldn't have been. It's super addicting. Everything that sucked about the first Deathspank was either made in smaller doses or gotten rid of altogether. I'm really happy the enemies this time around are not overwhelmingly just a ton of forest animals. There's a few but it's really hardly notable. The only really shocking kill is There was I think three item combinations the whole second game, but really it felt tons more adventurey than the first. I guess this is where I was hooked. The little subquests all tied together much more nicely with the story and furthering your trek, as well as they all seemed to gel and overlap eachother in a much more graceful manner. The variety of things you do in the second Deathspank is much more endearing as well. I guess there was still lot's of "go fetch," so it wasn't heavy adventuring, but I found some of the nods great, especially the MI2 library reference. Less juvenile junk in the writing and dialogue this time, but a satisfying amount, as well as parts where even Deathspank can stop turning every line into a joke. I'm really just left wanting more. This was that fun! I thought the end was I don't think that's a spoiler, but I'm putting it as one. The runestones are all there this time, the weapons, chests, and armor all seem to be completely laid out in a much more progressive manner. Also I noticed they got rid of a lot of the frustrating potion sizes for everything except the main ones. Very good idea, since you fill your inventory fast gathering crap you don't exactly need. Also I'm curious to play it again midway somewhat because the part where you go to kill the nun, I think there were a few other parts of the game you could solve without fighting, but I'm not sure. I could have definitely done well with multiple save slots. I had this bug as well. It wasn't game breaking for me, so I don't think you should fear to go on. I'm amazed a lot of people seem to be ready to start over from the beginning, as the bug is at the very end, because of what this Hothead employee said on the forum. I left my reply of a possible solution that worked for me. I'm pretty sure you also can't solve it by checking the Lost and Found. On PS3Trophies.org, someone said they basically got around the bug by resurrecting at the outhouse after letting the reindeer horde kill him. I was able to make Roodolph appear by almost doing the same thing, except I had killed the guys below the reindeer pen first, so no one was around to kill me. Went through the dungeon again, then they were back (but not the reindeer), and I allowed the respawned guys to kill me, making Roodolph appear in plain sight when resurrected. I'm guessing you really just have to resurrect at that outhouse to fix the bug, so it's possible you can just kill yourself with something or maybe teleport back and forth? Haha, I found it funny it basically works exactly like the Monkey Island 2 library. Now that you bring that up, I'm not sure what he means by that at all besides it maybe taking a shot at the industry, especially since the game has two endings. I agree, it seems like he's a little irked in that interview. EDIT: It appears that the resurrection fix I used to get around the Roodolph missing bug does not work for everyone, according to the Hothead forums. However, if you know about this bug before you play, you can prevent your game from being ruined pretty easily. I followed up and relayed some information between the user on the PS3Trophies.org thread who was doing a bunch of tests and the distraught people in the Hothead forums, and the Hothead guys sort of released an official statement on a fix before they can patch for now: http://www.hotheadgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=346&p=1419#p1419 Basically it seems like if you don't quit the game if Roodolph doesn't appear you should be okay and get him to appear by killing yourself in the area somehow, even if you killed all the other reindeer first. So everyone should be fine if they know this ahead of time. Making a back-up of your save file once reaching the North Pole should safeguard you as well.

Oooo, that's a brilliant way to look at it. I'm going to focus on that viewpoint, because it only means regular LCD screens will become more affordable. Maybe at some point I'll get a small one to replace the other CRT TV. Dealing with the old style chunky heavy body plus the coax only input is never fun! In a way, even though it's just the obnoxious butt of every game joke ever at this point, the Virtual Boy seems especially relevant to this discussion to me. It's like Nintendo learned from the mistakes made with the system and has made something completely likable in turn this time. The only thing that's annoying to me about the 3DS is that I was ready to finally upgrade my chunky gray oldstyle DS to a DSi XL, but now I would be better off waiting until the 3DS comes out. Either way, the 3DS will most likely not be super expensive, and I can even then imagine I will be sliding the games to 2D sometimes just so I don't feel the kind of sickness you feel when playing 30 seconds on a 3D TV. I know most people who make fun of Virtual Boys have never even used one, but I have one myself with a few games, and it can get exhausting, although maybe not make you completely nauseous. When they put the "take regular breaks during play" and "don't play longer than 45 minutes" warnings at the beginning of Virtual Boy games, it is one time where Nintendo is not kidding about their precautions. It probably won't cause any permanent damage, but the Virtual Boy does not lend itself well to prolonged play without just feeling fatigue or some kind of grossness. To be fair, the red and black graphics could have a lot to do with that as well. It only makes games like Mario Clash that don't save a nightmare.

I think they were saying the glassesless ones were more than anyone could afford. Either way, I don't see myself adopting this crap ever even if it somehow becomes affordable for me just because of the glasses issue. I know some people on tech and movie sites say you're just bitching if you hate wearing the glasses, but I seriously can't stand it. In theatres it becomes uncomfortable after 40 minutes, and I play games for hours on end. I don't wear glasses normally because I have good eyesight and I hate stuff like that on my face too long, sunglasses included, also sometimes I get sort of nauseas on certain tracking shots, pans, and zooms in 3D movies. No way that would be fun for me I would think. I got rid of the CRT TV from the 70s given as a gift finally and splurged on an LCD TV for convenience, space saving, things look much better, and it's good for games (along with having a crazy load of ports in the back). The glasses 3D TV honestly detracts convenience for me.

Yeah, all these new 3D releases are tempting from an OCD standpoint, but either way I couldn't afford the TV. Even if I had $3,000 USD or whatever they cost to burn, there's no way I'd spend that kind of money on it. What's really obnoxious is the expensive glasses you have to wear (and buy) as well. I'm kind of hoping this is a fad for the sake of the dorky glasses required. No way would I buy a 3D TV unless they become comparable to what a regular large LCD TV costs. Even then, I still think LCD TVs cost way too much even though they have gone way down in price the last few years, allowing me to buy one without feeling too much of a strain last year. But yeah, I'm sure it would look nice to play good games in 3D. I'm hoping there's not trophies attached to owning a 3D TV or something. That would be fucking awful. I'm also looking way forward to the 3DS which doesn't require glasses.

Hooray! Answered my questions almost fully, except the guy who wrote this article does not specify which game he is talking about appearing as the European version (although I think he's talking about ICO only because of the video link). So left to be found out is whether or not the extra making of video and gallery on the Shadow PAL release is going to make it as well. I wish the article tried to dig just a little bit deeper. Also :fart: on all the bastards in the comments sections bitching that his game is *only* going to run at 30fps. Fucking hell, it is not that big of a deal.

Just finally got around to finishing this one. I suppose I'm not all that sad because Idlethumbs was never just a podcast like me to some, probably how most older members feel, and I've still kind of missed a lot of the people around when the podcast people were completely absent from the forums and site for two years. I'm truthfully hoping some kind of new combination of the multi variety and styles of the old days can make it's way back when Idlethumbs was a larger group of people. but that's probably asking for way too much. Just what really sucks is the four person dynamic with Vanaman, Gaynor, Rodkin, and Remo was really strong, almost ridiculously so, even though it seems like the former two expressed in this episode possibly that they weren't sure if they belonged or not (?). Either way, this is the best balance, and I wanted it to continue. It seemed like more than ever the right combination of jokes, self depreciating and non, literary douchebaggery™, genres and games played (and not), and all out serious discussion on game design and theory. It gave me something to listen to while I work, being someone who needs to compulsively have some noise going. Also, I don't know if Chris has already rewatched Aladdin or not, but since it came up in the movies thread recently, I think you'd have better time spent grabbing a torrent of The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut. And before I get yelled at for torrents, it's not exactly piracy since this version of the film is really only offered in this manner, being "cobbled" together to make a "creator's" version of a film that is only released in mangled and changed form on actual DVD.

Ahaha, I finished Game Boy Gallery playing on Game Boy Color. It's some bastard child Nintendo game from the revamped Game and Watch series that later starred Mario and the gang. Instead this stars some strange kid who takes odd jobs and gets fired. That's the running story throughout the manual at least. I only say I finished it because I got to the points in all the scores where "special animations" happen as listed out by the manual. I was totally cheating on Flagman and pausing and writing down all the Simon Says type directions. I could have gone on forever, but got tired. Still it's amazing how enthralling a simple Game and Watch minigame thing can be.

Well yeah that's probably wrong on my part. He's probably way less of a businessman as far as businessmen cartoonists go. I just meant for some of the TV series he did like the godawful Spiderman ones or his Lord of the Rings trilogy just ring of cheapness of getting it done as a project for the money, but most people end up doing that I suppose in one way or another if they are doing licensed work. But then again, Bakshi made a lot of films that he wanted to make with his ideas and visions, so it wouldn't make since for him to cheap out for business reasons, but to just, like you said, make an artistic compromise. Did you see Heavy Traffic? I heard that was the one I should start with. I've seen Fritz the Cat for about 30-40 minutes and flipped it off. Also saw Christmas in Tattertown and Cool World, which were both nice looking, but more for kids or less heavy subject matter.

I always found the only real benefit of doing that was to continue playing as a paladin. It did get super easy to keep being the same thief the whole way through or something like that, so I always started over for everyone except the paladin.

Awesome, I was looking for information on this just yesterday and could find nothing! That's some crap cover art, but I guess Sony had a retort. Actually, I feel like this is the big question. I bought both the limited edition PAL versions long ago for both games (before they got expensive) because they had the most junk on them, but have yet to have played them. I think the Shadow PAL version only comes with a making of movie and some other extra thingy, but it seemed like ICO was a bit more overhauled for Europe. I probably won't buy this HD version and still continue to one day get around to playing my imported versions if they are not going to use the European releases. It would be a shame though, because if I were to sell them I could probably make an okay chunk of money on Ebay.

Oh wow, I guess I had bought something in the "very good" range last year with almost the exact components from that guide without even knowing it. I still am using the onboard graphics card however, which sucks, and have put off buying a good one. Also Armchair General gave me a great tip that made my PC stop that infernal beeping, I just never got back about it in whatever thread that's in. I'm glad you're all so cheery about him running a mail fraud program!

Guh, that copy protection ruining the sync really makes me not want to buy it now, even though I still plan to own and play through this game at some point in the next year or so.