miffy495

I beat the game without Typhoon. Maybe I should check it out if I do a replay, but for me it was barrels for the first guy, electric resistance for the second, and kiting the third dude into mines. Got the job done, but damn if the only reason I didn't start a replay of the game was the thought of seeing those fucking bosses again.

I think that at least we're all in agreement that it's no Mona Lisa Duck.

You got set up by your girlfriend and the Columbian gang. You bust out of a prison convoy and work your way up to shooting her and her gang members out of a helicopter with a rocket launcher on top of the city's dam. Pretty simple, but a lot of the side characters were very entertaining and had more substance than they deserved to have at that point in gaming history.

I vastly prefer GTA when it's being ridiculous. I like just having the world and being able to do fucking whatever. I guess I should just buy Saint's Row 3, but San Andreas was such a perfect achievement of that for the time that I really want to stick with Rockstar and see if they can do it again. Of course, it won't be that. Still, I can dream.

I'm just hoping that they'll add planes and some of the goofy shit from San Andreas back in. Jetpack-strapped dildo clubbing didn't get old for quite a while in that game.

Do you know how to run a projector? I could use a hand at the Plaza. Trying to cope with full time management and teaching practicum at the same time is fucking killing me.

Ok, so I managed to find an hour and a half to play before the weekend. As it's the only game I have on PS3, I was really hoping it would be awesome. Turns out, hooray! It is. The game itself is actually nothing special, though it is well executed. Cover and shoot mechanics from Gears, jumping stuff straight out of the newer Tomb Raiders, with just a bit of God of War style environmental interaction to balance it off. All done well, but nothing extraordinary. What makes this game great for me so far is the little details. Things like how Drake's sweater and jeans will get darker and cling to him for a minute or so after he gets out of the water. This actually applied to an in-engine cutscene where he just dips his left arm underwater. Only that part of the sweater showed the dampness. Really nice touch there. Voice acting is great. Story, ok a little predictable. Characters are well done all around so far. The reporter woman actually has a realistic body and wears clothes that a normal person would wear! I realize that this has become slightly more common lately (Alyx Vance, various characters in Bioware games) but it's still nowhere near prominent and very nice to see. So yeah. Very good game. Probably not worth buying a PS3 for all by itself, but it definitely presents a strong case for the system and makes me feel pretty good about the money I spent this morning on the thing.

While I know that reaction to the first Gears was quite mixed on the Thumb, my Live account tells me I'm not the only one who's playing the sequel right now. That established, let's start the talking. I just completed the second chapter myself, having not had a whole lot of gaming time lately and taking advantage of a long weekend off school to really embrace the games that have been piling up. Holy crap, playing this game, I've got goosebumps. It's bloody incredible. It's still Gears, but it's so much more refined. The final chapter of Act 2 blew me away. Actually, all of Act 2 blew me away. It was crazy. And after that last chapter, I've finally seen a game show me what I was imagining in the Jabu Jabu's belly segment of Ocarina of Time. If you don't know what I mean, rent the game and find out. When I realized what was happening as that chapter started, my jaw dropped. That said, the character interactions are pretty standard. Cole and Baird return, your squad is now the complete Delta Squad from Gears 1, plus one extra guy. At any rate, lots of fun despite the generic story, and the insanely cool setpieces make it a game worth playing. I may actually give the online a shot in this one, as I got the special edition and have a gold lancer to show off...

iTunes killed Subbes! We must rise up!

Itunes fucking sucks. I have it on my desktop computer because I have an ipod and something that I own needs to be able to update it. I absolutely refuse to install it on my laptop because I fully believe that a computer that doesn't ask me if I want to install Safari every day is a superior computer. Keep that apple shit away from me. I'm sure specific programs are fine, but I would only ever want those, not every damn thing they make. If it's all or nothing, I choose nothing.

Happy birthday, Mr. Games!

It's not that they particularly bother me. It's more a quality of life thing. With time available to spend on games so limited, why spend it dealing with assholes?

I'm honestly more surprised that you didn't expect people who act like dicks in your game. This is kinda why I only ever play Thumb-related private matches of things.

Sounds like a !

After watching the two Giant Bomb quicklooks for this game, I am super pumped on it. It's installing to my laptop now (thanks for organizing that, El Muerte!) and I'm stoked to bust out the 360 controller and have at 'er.

Yeah, there's certainly been some of that already as well. Trying to keep smiling while talking to an adorable 6 year old girl about the physio for her cerebral palsy was a particularly bad one, as was seeing the notebook of a child who had attempted the same math problem over two dozen times before erasing everything and writing "HELP" across the page in all capital letters. I have no idea how dealing with that for years will change me as a person, but so far I think it's been really valuable for me to be seeing these things so early. It's rough, as I said before, but if you can keep it together you can do a lot of good and I think I can do it. In a weird way, I feel more sure of myself in terms of what I want to do with my life than ever before now.

I'm now two days into student-teaching at an elementary school. I can't say much more than that due to confidentiality agreements with the board of education, but I've never felt more sure of what I want to do with my life. The school I've been assigned to is in a really low-income area and has a lot of troubled kids, and they have spare rooms which get filled with a special program for kids who get bussed in and have severe behavioural problems. It's kind of rough, but even in two days I've seen the kind of breakthroughs that would melt your heart. Also some incredibly difficult moments, but you get through. And for chuckles, guess what the very first thing I was teaching to my very first class on my very first Monday morning ever was? . How's that for getting thrown in at the deep end of the pool?

I'd be down. How we doing this?

Jesus, have all three of us had 8800s melt in the past few months? Wonder if there's something up there.

That's ok, I'm not 24 for 2 months yet. I was just fudging numbers for the sake of comedy. Speedy, nobody thinks any less of you for feeling shit. That's life, and especially life when you're a teenager. No matter how far removed you get from that, it's a common thing that everyone remembers. Most of us, I'm fairly sure, are reading your posts thinking "Man, I remember when things like that mattered this much to me" with a twinge of nostalgia. Then we come to our senses and are glad that we've altered our minds in whatever way so that this doesn't happen anymore. We've been there, and we get it. Don't feel bad about wanting to express it. I'm sure that at one time or another, particularly if the internet was already a thing when we were coming of age, we've posted something similar. If it helps, more often than not I have to be reminded of your age in order to not just assume that you're also in your mid-twenties. That goes for all the teens on here. I'm happy this forum turned out that way.

I watched nVidia's "hey, look at all the crazy PhysX stuff that the PC version has with one of our GTX cards!" video and got a bit excited that the laptop I just spent way too much on to replace an old and constantly crashing laptop has a GTX 460m in it. I'm excited to see what this sucker can pump out with that. Since I'm replaying Arkham Asylum right now (and for the first time on PC, previously I played it on PS3) I'm noticing all kinds of crazy effects that the PS3 version didn't have. Crackly leaves swooshing around as I run outside, chunks of building, good old Tarp Physics (P.I.) being applied to the cape, etc. It looks bloody great. I'm stoked on how pretty the sequel is going to be. Ah... PC gaming. My only problem is keeping a coworker quiet about his spoiler-filled PS3 playthrough while I wait for this version to be released. Ah. PC gaming.

And that reminds me of me in 6 years.

Replaying Arkham Asylum right now to keep myself stoked until the PC release. Since Steam had it on for a $40 pre-order if you already owned another Batman game, I totally pre-ordered that shit and can't wait to give it a go.

I suspect that if you couldn't maintain interest in Diablo 2, this may just not be your genre. That's sort of the peak of it. That said, I am quite excited for Torchlight 2, despite knowing next to nothing about it. I actually didn't finish the first, largely because the abilities felt overly similar to one another (and also didn't feel all that much more powerful as you levelled them up) and I felt like I'd seen all that the customization had to offer around level 30-ish. If they put a bit more variety in, that should be enough to carry me to the end.

Man, it's hard to be sarcastic around here... I agree. Jokes, people, jokes. Only 23 myself, and the majority of my classmates, etc. drive me fucking crazy.