miffy495

Another reason why I'm still incredibly happy that rather than a good HD TV, I got myself a good computer monitor. When I'm playing multiplayer on the larger SDTV, people don't care so much about the visuals. When I play by myself on my 1080p 28" screen, I'm about 2' away and getting the full benefits.

Shit. Stupid RRoD'd 360 meant that I bought the PS3 version, and now have to miss out on the awesome-sounding DLC. If it's good enough, I may have to buy it again on Steam just to play...

For clarity's sake, the only reason I bought Gears 2 instead of Mirror's Edge was that it came out first and I still had the money for it at that point. Mirror's Edge I'm greatly looking forward to, but will have to be a post-Christmas purchase. Still, as I believe I alluded to, I'm very happy with the way things turned out.

Having had the first night in a long time when I could get some quality game time in, I just sat down for 4-ish hours and finished my first playthrough of the game. Yeah, first. I'll be going back. It was really, really good. Also, the ability to select chapters after clearing them means that now I can go back and replay the most awesome sequences. (Read: 4/5 chapters of the last act, as well as a few choice chapters from earlier in the game.) The last act of the game was phenomenal. From the second that up through the and culminating with the fight against I couldn't stop playing the damn game. So intense, so well executed. I only regret that I didn't figure out how to use the damn mortars until the last chance I had to use them. D'oh. So as I said, I'll be replaying this game. Next time I need a brilliant (if mindless) action-movie experience, I know which disc I'm reaching for. I'm actually suddenly amazingly psyched for Gears 3 whenever they get around to it. After finishing Gears 1, I enjoyed it but didn't love it. Gears 2, I love. I want to see this storyline wrap up. Though I do get a bit of a vibe that they're going to pull a Halo on us and have you forge an alliance with the Locust against a greater enemy. (PS: This is purely speculation based off of a vibe I got from the game, and as such I don't think it warrants spoiler tags.) At least they did go above Halo 2 and actually give a real conclusion to the middle chapter. An incredibly satisfying one at that. Again, so happy with this game. Damn. If you even remotely liked Gears 1, at least give it a rental.

Hmmm. I did have that problem with Bioshock, so I'm surprised I didn't remember that. Right you are. Any idea how that works with people who only have the 256MB Memory card/thing? Or do they just get much longer load times...?

I doubt it, given that it's always been Microsoft's policy that games don't require a hard drive at all. The thing about offering an SKU without any storage solution at all is that all your games will have to be able to run without one. This is also what gives us the massive loading times in things like Mass Effect. If they were able to assume that every 360 owner had a drive, they'd be able to have the drive at least store some temporary files to speed up the process. As it is, everything has to go into the system's memory. So yeah, the Arcade 360's existence is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, no required installs. On the other, games that can't take advantage of a hard drive. Hopefully now that the option is available though, developers will be able to implement some code magic so that it can tell if you've opted to install it and will be able to load faster from here out. In the mean time, it's worth noting that some games, like Halo 3, have been optimized to run faster off the disc, and load times will actually increase if you install them. EDIT: sorry for the redundancy, Wrestlevania posted while I was writing...

Actually, more than anyone else, he reminds me of the dispatcher guy from Jet Grind Radio/Jet Set Radio Future. I'd say he works out ok. Again, I'm another one who's only played the demo, but I didn't mind that guy at all.

Damn, good call. Added.

Wow, n0wak, you totally out level-knowledged me. Well done, sir. Fun times were had.

Well, I've got three pages of planning down with sketches for everything I want accomplished, so it's not for lack of forethought. I just may have thought of more than I'm capable of doing at my current skill level. I don't exactly have tons of free time available to create stuff, given school and work, so my main concern is that I'm shooting too high. I guess we'll see in the end. I made a few things work this afternoon that I'll hopefully put into my level, and the feeling of accomplishment was immense. I can see this becoming very addictive once I'm familiar with the toolset.

So now that I've started going into production on my LBP level, I'm realizing how difficult a task I may have set myself for a first level ever made design. Like, damn. I'm dumb. It'd be nice to know if there's any kind of deadline for when these things should be submitted by. Before the next podcast is obvious enough, but is there anything more concrete you can tell us?

Oh my god, this level creation thing is so much harder than people make it look. I hope I can pull this crap off in time...

My schedule is rather severely more limited. I'm available after 6:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays (Which I believe is 1:30am GMT, so that could be difficult) and any time after 1:00 on Thursdays (8pm GMT). Weekends vary week to week. For example, I think mid-afternoon on Sunday is actually viable this week, but that's no guarantee for any other Sundays. Given how limited pretty much any day is usually for me, I'll just chip in those days when I am available, and you folks should just set up your games. I'll show when I can. On the plus side, 2-ish weeks from now the semester is over, and I get a good few solid weeks of quality game time! Expect to see a lot more of me then. In the mean time, I'll say any game on a Thursday I'm in for. But please don't bother setting anything around my limitations. There are simply too damn many of them.

I plan to be spending some time working on my Thumb contest level this afternoon, so I'll probably be in-game quite a bit. If you sign in, I'd be happy to save, quit, and have a run at some levels with you.

Tuesdays not so good for me, but have fun!

In that case, Miffy495, as if anyone needed the clarification.

Goddamn... So cool.

I'll add you right away. Glad you'll at least be able to experience this game, man.

I'm a tad on the fence. I don't feel that strongly either way about Avatars. Mine's a decent enough approximation of me, but aside from settling a bit of curiosity as to what certain people on my friends list look like, I don't really see the point. On the other hand, the interface itself is very nice to have. Like the XMB if it were made more visually appealing. Very slick, very useful, very nice. Unfortunately, I can't really evaluate the online yet as the 10 or so minutes I had to fool around with it yesterday after installing the system was overwhelmed and kept timing out on me. As for the installs, I would love to do that for so many games, but due to my having a 20GB HDD, I only have 3 gigs of space on my drive. I'd need to upgrade first, and MS has made the price for doing so so prohibitive that I can't justify it just for that. Ditto for the Netflix. Crackdown, GTA IV, Saints Row, pretty much anything with a big open world I would absolutely love to install and reduce the wear on my system, but I can't. Poo. Oh, and for posterity's sake:

Oh man, that expansion looks fantastic. The only way they could have made me happier would be with new locations in addition to new story. So psyched for this, but the wait til February is going to kill now. Unfortunately, this weekend is a crunch time for exams for me so anything between tomorrow and Monday are pretty much out. Honestly I still don't have the matchmaking worked out, but I'll pop GTA in sometime tonight and see if anyone's around for a game.

I think most Thumbs have my tag already, and given how little I actually play online, I'm not sure if it's worth posting it here? Define "active" I guess. I log on quite often, but only really play with other people every month or so, and then not for a very long time...

What an awesome idea for a contest. I just spent about an hour planning out my level on lined paper. I really like what I've got, I just hope my abilities can match my design on my first ever level. Can't wait til tomorrow when I can actually start building the thing!

I was always taught: Of course, Musso is short for Mussolini. Don't know what he's doing in that song when many other Germans would have fit, but go with what works, I guess.

Eew. I was afraid it stood for that. This list is pretty much a who's who of people to avoid like the plague then. Good to know.

Hey, they put it back up!