miffy495

Grah! Oh well, it wasn't a dealbreaker. Like I said, it was the only time a telltale game has ever frustrated me in that way though, so it stuck out more than it would have in a lesser experience. Just seemed notable given how streamlined everything else had been.

Hell yeah! Congratulations, mister 'vania! That's great to hear.

Damn. Awesome. That looks completely spectacular. I am now also really tempted to pick up the original, as it's on the 360 backwards compatibility list. Anyone know how it holds up these days?

Weird, I seem to have been hit by that today. I woke up and it was like my throat was paralyzed. Ugh. At least work will be a slow night tonight.

Good game, those who attended. This is the box of that ridiculous game that I bought and actually love. Seriously, if you can find it, it's amazing. All of the menus are really shitty knock-off anime, but when you get to the actual game, it looks like this: It is insanely complex and hardcore. I bought it last summer, played for a while, and then put it down until about a week ago. Now I'm playing it so damn much. Great game.

No fake cat moustache though. Inspired by that story, I think I need to start referring to my pockets/backpack as my "inventory."

That's true, it did include content from several games which people may consider contenders for game of the decade. Using science, we can see that a game which includes all of this content must be better. SCIENCE!

Just finished it. Continuing my grand tradition of playing every single Telltale game in one sitting. Very good, though I still think episode three is my favorite. The callbacks started to get to be a bit much but some of them, like the return of sword fighting, were delightful nonetheless. I do appreciate the odd reference to older games, the use of diving music from MI2 in Leviathan, for example, but I started to feel like they were being overused. Story-wise, it was certainly more interesting than I'd assumed it would be after the end of episode 4, which I halfway agree with Thunderpeel on. (That is, I agree, but didn't react as violently as he did to it). It ended up having quite a few moments that caught me off guard, which is enough to satisfy me with this series. Very happy it turned out as good as it did. Now I want to go back and replay Sam and Max season 1, just to see how it compares after playing the more recent entries... (Oh, and a gameplay note: )

Does that mean you're out for GTA as well, Wrestle, or will we see your triumphant return this week? Good job on the "happy marriage" thing, either way. Still no copy of the game for me. If this is going to be a thing, I should be able to start taking part early in the new year though.

Well done, man. Grats.

Oh god, working out how to go through dirt sucked. Yeah, I'm with you on that. That was actually the only part of the game I haven't liked so far. In the end, I sat there running at the dirt for several minutes until the guy I was going to save said something like "that dirt doesn't look very strong. Can't you figure out some way through it?" and I just brought up the control overlay. The only interactions are move, shoot, and spin, so I tried spinning. Lo, I tunneled through. That really should have been telegraphed better. Oh well, hope you enjoy the rest of the experience!

Yeah, I play Half Life 2 first thing every time I get a new computer, or at least a new graphics card. Through free hand-me-downs, this has meant I've played HL2 all the way through about once every 18 months since its release. Even given this though, I don't know if I'd call it my game of the decade. I don't know if I could make that call. After all, this decade saw every big Valve game except the first Half Life, every 3D Grand Theft Auto, the entire Freedom Force series, the resurgence of amazing classic adventure games, Psychonauts, etc, etc, etc. I may be able to fill out a top 10 of the decade (not one per year, but overall) but picking just one game seems ridiculously limiting.

Either way I'm good. I have a meeting at 10:45 that could run long, as nobody has any classes at this point of the semester and my prof and I can just talk as long as needed. Still, I should be dropping in at some point.

Ahaha. Yeah, that seems about right. Back in first year, I took a couple of econ classes in an attempt to keep my options open and feel around for disciplines I enjoyed. I stopped taking econ when the TA's I had for each course only really spoke one language each, and neither was English. One only spoke Japanese, the other only Russian. They made attempts to speak English when teaching, but the class would just look at them in a puzzled way until they put the answer on the board and everyone realized what they were trying to ask us for. I don't want to come off as a "speak English or get out" kind of person. I'm not. What I do think is that if you're trying to teach a group of people, it's very helpful to speak the same language as them. Econ, calculus, stats, and other courses where there is a decent emphasis on maths all seem to have this issue, as the language of mathematics is so abstract that your first language doesn't really matter. Great for research, bad for teaching.

"Least overbearing theme song" - While I do likes me some podcasts, the songs do get to be a bit much. Be they much too driving techno, or simply too self-indulgent in their length or lyrics, the theme song is a thing that needs a lot of improvement. "Best use of an accent to make poop jokes seem classy" - Admittedly, I have a winner in mind here (The Bugle) but it is something I find interesting. A North American ear can put up with a lot of disgusting jokes if they come from a suitably proper-sounding accent. I think it'd be interesting to think about the podcast that is actually one of the more disturbing, humour-wise, while not seeming so to someone from our continent. Anyway, there's a couple for you.

It worries me that the only name on TRON Evolution is Disney Interactive. I know it's their property and everything, but TRON 2.0 is actually a game I would count as one of my favorites ever. Without the Monolith name on this one, I'm worried that what is currently a brilliant gaming legacy for the movie (one much like Riddick, where the games are actually better than the movies) will be sullied by a crappy tie-in game. ...man, I need to dig up my copy of TRON 2.0 and play it again. That was a bloody sweet game.

Where are you stuck? Nothing has seemed particularly tough so far. I've finished the first level of the third world now, so I may not have made it to the tricky part yet, but it's always seemed fair...

I happen to share a name with a professional crazy right-wing octegenarian news editor who is very prominent in my county. Putting my name into that returned a shocking amount of "Peter Worthington is a clueless..." etc. ...Now I remember why I never google my name.

I can! I know more than a few idle thumbs are at least competent in French reading comprehension. For our benefit, perhaps?

Did you actually watch it? While I agree that the majority of what you're talking about it utter crap, Clone High is bloody excellent. Written by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (who recently made the awesome Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) and is completely hilarious. Just because it shares an animation style with shitty shows is no reason to disregard excellent television. KNOOORK!!! :(

Wait, what's wrong with on rails?

Fair. PoP2 is actually the only one that I haven't played, so I can't comment on it. PoP3D was absolutely terrible, and the others have all been passable (WW), pretty good (TT, PoP2008), or amazing (PoP, SoT). I'm just saying, 2 (or maybe 3) out of 7 doesn't exactly inspire the most confidence in a series, so I don't quite get the feeling of betrayal that some people had with PoP2008. At least not as much as I would if, for example, the next Metroid or Zelda came out and was a giant turd of a game. At this point, those series have established the kind of pedigree where I'm saddened if the newest installment isn't a serious contender for my game of the year. PoP just doesn't carry the same weight.

Wow. This game has a really appealing style. As good as Eden was, it seemed a bit too self-serious in its art direction. This game is just goofy and fun, and really sure of itself to boot. It plays great too, with things like the magma cannon really forcing you to change how you get through a level. Like trying to play Asteroids with a fire hose. And yeah, excellent music. Just finished the first level of world two myself. From the "Gallery" screen where you can see the named guys you've rescued from each level, there appear to be 4 worlds with 5 levels apiece. This is the one that was named by a contest, right? Too bad people didn't know more about what the game was back then. After having played it for an hour, I'd say something like "PixelJunk: Fluids" would be more appropriate. Water, Ice, Magma, some unnamed gas, and forcing the interaction of all of the above are what this game is all about, as far as I can tell. Also, interesting the way you have a heat meter rather than a health bar. Diving underwater is like a full recharge, but you can always just wait for the heat to dissipate on its own if you need to. Nice.

So I know that this game has the Remo endorsement. Thing is, I was just fooling around (read: procrastinating) with my PSP and noticed that for $5 you can get a PSP version of Brainpipe from the new Minis section of the PSN store. Does anyone know how the PSP version plays? The game sounded interesting to me on PC, but the added ability to play it on a bus or something may make it worth the $5. Thoughts?

Well, shit. It was $5, right? Much like Remo's comments on the podcast, when a game is $5, it may as well be $0. I bought it. My only experience with BrainPipe up to now has been the PC demo, but from what I've now played, the PSP version is a completely faithful straight-up port. $10 cheaper than it's big brother too. Trip of a game. Maybe a little more frantic on PSP as well if only because you're using the analog nub to control the game rather than your trusty mouse. This is a really rad experience. If you've already got a PSP, go into your PSN store thing, click on Minis, and get yourself a $5 BrainPipe. This is the first time I've booted up a Sony system in over a month, I think, and I'm happy I did. EDIT: Just went back and played the PC demo again. It's noticeably smoother than the PC one, and is definitely the better experience of the two. Still, the PSP game is very good, and given the portability and price difference, very recommended. Just don't bother if you already have the PC version I guess, unless you really love it and want to have it in your pocket at all times. I just wish there was a better way to get fine control on the PSP, because that analog nub can only do so much.