Nappi

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by Nappi

  1. Firaxis' XCOM Enemy Unknown

    Do we still need a separate strategy games subforum?
  2. You will probably have to upgrade some of your buildings. Tracking station maybe? I'm playing the science mode because I enjoy the sense of progress but do not want to worry about funds and such. The starting equipment is pretty crappy, but you can research better equipment quite fast if you focus on doing a lot of science stuff at first. Remember that you can run each experiment on ground, in low and high atmosphere, in low and high orbit, etc. to get more science points. Some of the experiments also grant you points per biome (even in orbit). http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Science Sorry if all of this is obvious to you already.
  3. That sounds like a good plan. I'm really interested to see how the Scott and Drew dynamic works, as both are really cool and entertaining guys. On the other hand, I'm also excited/terrified about the prospect of B.E.A.S.T. team tackling the rescue of that Kerbal on a solar Kerbol orbit. How did that happen by the way? Did they actually escape the sphere of influence of Kerbin and realize they had no fuel left, or did they leave him/her on a highly elliptical Kerbin orbit and eventually Mun fucked up the trajectory, or what? I hope they will keep going after the rescue mission and shoot for Duna or try to build a space station or whatever. This is one of the most entertaining video series I have watched in a long time.
  4. Firewatch Spoiler Thread | Henry Two Hats

    So... Ned observes Henry leaving the cave on day 1, and decides to scare (?) Henry and Delilah on day 3 by making a mess of Henry's watchtower, and again on day 76 by leaving a creepy transcript of their conversation on a rock and a walkie-talkie a bit further away. Once Henry finds these items Ned knocks him unconscious. The transcript mentions Wapiti which Ned assumes Henry and Delilah may investigate (provided that they don't pack their bags and leave), and so he types out personality profiles of both Henry and Delilah to further creep them out, plants them on the table of the scientists tent on top of a transmitter collar, turns on the tracking device and hides somewhere nearby. Henry picks up the tracking device, finds the papers and eventually leaves, after which Ned immediately torches the tent, presumably noticing the absence of the tracking device first, as there is a distinct lack of loud beeping noise in the tent. Later that day* Ned decides to hide some supplies in a backpack near Henry's watchtower along with a key to the cave, and rigs up an alarm system for the cache. Either the backpack has a tracking device so that Ned can more easily find it afterwards or the alarm system is some sort of a bizarre contraption that inadvertently transmits at the same frequencies as transmitter collars. While Henry is looking for the backpack, Ned tapes a walkie-talkie to the door of Henry's watchtower. At some point, Ned realizes that Henry has found the key to the cave, and as Henry goes to investigate the cave the following day, Ned locks the gate behind him for whatever reason. He then records a confession and leaves. The backpack cache is really problematic in my opinion because Ned should either know not to use transmitters to mark the caches because Henry has a tracking device or (in case the backpack was planted before the Wapiti thing) not to leave a tracking device lying around for Henry to find because he has made hidden caches with transmitters. The other alternatives are that he wanted Henry to find the key (which I assumed at first, but is not supported by Ned's notes, it seems) or that the alarm system is really weird contraption indeed (which sounds a bit too arbitrary). I'm also not sure that locking me in a cave would motivate me to investigate the cave more thoroughly than I would have otherwise. Most likely I would just try to find an alternative route out and fast. * These could be hidden earlier as well, if we accept that Henry's tracking device just suddenly picks up the signal at random after both the tracking device and target being stationary for a long time.
  5. Firewatch Spoiler Thread | Henry Two Hats

    First off, the game looks and sounds fantastic. Chris did amazing work with the soundtrack and the environmental sounds worked well too, in my opinion. The artistic style is stunning. The animations were a bit clunky at times, but that did not bother me much. I saw vague comments about people being disappointed by the ending before playing the game, and when the Wapiti station thing was revealed, I had a brief "Oh dear.. Here we go" moment. Fortunately, that was not the issue. Unfortunately, the reveal was still a bit disappointing. I like the paranoid-conspiracy-turning-out-to-be-not-that plotline in principle, but in this case the diversion and reveal felt a bit too forced. I have a really hard time believing that Ned would carry out a plan this elaborate. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that I missed some important details about Ned's personality. Still, I enjoyed the rest of the story quite a bit, and conversing with Delilah was very fun and satisfying. By the way, Brian's fate and the things surrounding it reminded me quite a bit of (A major horror movie spoiler. Read only if you have seen all horror movies.) I wonder if the movie was an inspiration when writing the story. The controls took some time getting used to. I never fully mastered the "run - open map - zoom in on the map - put the map away - run" cycle, and had to look at the controls on the lower right corner every now and then when holding an object. Things would probably have been a lot easier if I had used LB more often to zoom in. I tested the mouse and keyboard controls, and the zooming felt a lot more natural. I don't know why I missed game-iness in Firewatch more than in Gone Home. I'm not at all bothered by a game being a "walking simulator", and in Gone Home I was perfectly okay with the fact that I'm basically just opening drawers and going through people's stuff. For some reason, however, I was hoping for more in terms of gameplay in Firewatch. Maybe it is the setting that seems to have more possibilities for interesting forms of interaction. Still, it wasn't a huge issue for me, and I enjoyed roaming the wilderness quite a bit, even if the playable area (understandably) felt somewhat limited*. Oh and I loved the disposable camera! I would never have guessed how much a counter would affect the way I take photos in a game. Overall, I really liked the game. Good job! Looking forward to some Firewatch DLC or a sequel. * Could someone please make a comparison of Firewatch and GTA V map sizes? Thanks!
  6. Someone in the comments took the time to check what the site looks like in daylight. Apparently, the Kerbal stands very close to the position of the B.E.A.S.T. ship. So yeah, they got extremely lucky. http://www.giantbomb.com/images/1300-2824078 Still so psyched about the next episode! I love the rogue space program and the cleanup crew narrative.
  7. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    Small thing that you may have missed that makes the area a bit less frustrating (but not by much)
  8. Books, books, books...

    Finished Umberto Eco's latest novel Numero Zero yesterday. I had set my expectations quite low, but was still bitterly disappointed. To me, the book read more like a parody of an Eco novel than a mediocre Eco novel, with surface level observations and lessons in journalism and media presented literally as disconnected lessons in most unlikely editoral meetings ever, descriptions of various historical events quickly devolving into long lists of names and dates with very little to connect the different events, and the writing relying more and more on literary and other cultural references that, to a much larger extent than in his previous novels, seem to be there mainly to illustrate how well-read the author is. In short, the book left really bad taste in my mouth. The Name of the Rose is one of my favorite books ever, and I quite liked Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before. How are his other novels? I feel like I need to cleanse my palate after this.
  9. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    You are in the right place. Here is a bit more direct hint:
  10. XCOM 2

    Still on the fence about this game. Would love a new XCOM campaign, but it sounds that many of the new additions make the game more unpredictable, brutal and stressful in a way that I'm not sure I would enjoy very much personally. At some point, I will have to take a closer look to what extent the gameplay experience is actually affected by these changes and additions. I will probably play through The Rise of the Tomb Raider first, though.
  11. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    Woohoo! I beat the challenge!
  12. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    I can see why some people would not like this at all, but I did not find this to be a problem. In fact, I quite liked having to fit the pieces together in my mind before tracing the solution, especially with the tetris puzzles. I felt like it trained me to visualize things better. Sure, having to "code" the entire solution of a Portal puzzle without the ability to test/visualize it would indeed be painful, but the Portal puzzles tend to be much larger in scale or at least have more free parameters than The Witness puzzles, so I'm not completely buying the comparison. Still, valid criticism of course. The only external tools I used was a camera (and once a piece of paper) for puzzles that required you to memorize things, because I don't like to go back and forth between the puzzle and the hint. However, I do like how easy it is copy a large majority of the puzzles on a paper if you need help visualizing things. I would imagine that this would also be a nice feature if you are playing with other people, because you could explore different areas while your friend works on the puzzle that you got stuck on. Dewar: I feel you. I quit in the middle of the one part of the game that felt frustrating to me, and now I can't get it out of my head. Also, holy Tetris Effect! I was reading a book on the bus this morning, and I was constantly tracing a line between the sentences and paragraphs in my mind.
  13. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    492 puzzles complete, and I'm very close to getting the Challenge achievement. Fuck pillar puzzles. Fuck this game. Fuck Edvard Grieg.
  14. Movie/TV recommendations

    Apparently not in the USA.
  15. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    Finished the game yesterday. Loved it! Probably the best puzzle game I have ever played. I never got the feeling that the game or the developers hated me, or were trying to make me feel dumb. On the contrary, I really appreciated how much trust they put on the intelligence of the player, by not only letting them solve the puzzles without any hints but making them figure out the actual rules as well. I think it helped a lot that I knew (or assumed I knew) that each new concept has a tutorial area somewhere, so when I came across a complicated puzzle with concepts I was not familiar with yet, I moved along. The complexity of the puzzles was just right in that brute-forcing the solution was rarely a viable option, but you did not feel exchausted by the number of (wrong) options either. I was definitely stuck a few times, but never felt that the solution was unfair. Most importantly, the feeling I got after finally solving a tough puzzle was always "Fuck yeah!" and not "Fuck this game!" That feeling combined with unlocking a laser after clearing each area was reward enough for me. The only puzzles I did not like very much were the sound-based ones, but fortunately there weren't that many of those. The collectibles were a bit silly, but they did not bother me at all. I would have been perfectly happy without them, and their inclusion did not detract from the experience at all. I think it helps to assume that the developers were not seriously trying to Jonathan Blow your minds with that stuff either. Oh, and I thought the hidden credits thing was hilarious. I finished the game after about 19 hours with 420 (+ 15ish) puzzles solved. I know there are a couple of shortcuts and individual doors with to solve still. How many "regular" puzzles am I still missing? Are more unlocked by solving the environmental puzzles? I might came back for the environmental puzzles later, but I did not find them as interesting as the regular ones.
  16. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    You should check out the final area, at least. Some of the puzzles there have quite interesting twists to them.
  17. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    How does the final part of the game work? (Technical level progression spoiler)