thorn

It makes me frustrated that after just two episodes of Season 3 have come out, they're already offering it (+2 others) for less than I originally paid for it. I forwarded the code on to someone else. Not sure if it'll work for them or not, but it's worth trying.

New website, with new trailer: http://www.limbogame.org/ And rather than just repeat things, I'll just copy-paste the newsletter email from the developers:

Where did you get that figure from? I can't remember the exact numbers, but when World of Goo went Pay What You Like, the developers said that any payment under about 20 cents actually cost PayPal money to process (given credit card transactions and whatnot) and that given the percentage of people who paid small amounts, PayPal would have lost more money than earned over the course of the offer.

On a vaguely related note, when the Lucasarts Adventure pack was released on Steam ages back they implied that more classic adventure games would be on the way. Does anyone know if they still intend to release more, like Sam & Max and DoTT? I personally don't think those games would require Special Edition updates, but do you think that Lucasarts management would agree?

Is there a trailer for the game? Or did you mean the video interview with Mark Darin and Graham Annable?

But you knew that there was going to be a DVD before you bought them. That was part of the upsell for buying the season as a whole; the fact that you got the DVD for free + postage. So the issue is that if a DVD of this one comes out some time in the future we won't have bought them as a part of a series, and thus won't have 'earned' the DVD. ToMI + SoMI-SE as a bundle.

http://www.gamepro.com/article/previews/215037/deathspank-hands-on/ http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/30/deathspank-preview/ http://au.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/108/1087222p1.html I've only read the gamerpro one so far; a few minor details, nothing overwhelmingly new other than the fact that it's due out in the Northern Hemisphere summer on Xbox Live, PSN and PC. EDIT: Maybe not PC, see below.

Full title ("Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent") and preorder now on the Telltale website. http://www.telltalegames.com/store/puzzleagent So am I right in saying that this will only be treated as an individual game (or several seperate games released over time), and not a purchasable as a series?

My impression was that Gilbert was initially hired as a consultant on the Penny Arcade games and only after that did he pitch Deathspank. Becoming Creative Director was probably part of that deal; giving him control over the game, and Hothead probably thought he'd stay on and produce more work with them in the future. ThunderPeel2001, why does there need to be a conspiracy? People leave jobs all the time. He probably wanted to move back to California or something.

Wasn't he also working on On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness? Given that it has been cancelled, that's even less reason to stay.

Hmmm... I just noticed that only the Gamerpro article claims that it's going to be for the PC; the other two just say XBLA and PSN. I'm taking that as an indication that they pretty much just made it up.

I've played a bit more today and I think the biggest issue with the sound volume is General Skunkape's voice. It's about 20% louder than any other character's, meaning that I either struggle to hear Sam, Max and Superball or my ears get blasted with shouty ape. I ended up sitting there with my hand on the volume knob, spinning it up and down to keep things at a healthy volume.

They've already done that. Haven't you played Reality 2.0?

Yeah, I found that too. My issue with the sound was that the music was inconsistently balanced; in some scenes I had to turn it way down to the lowest notch to be able to hear the voices, but in others it was so quiet as to be almost inaudible.

Have you played Portal with the developer commentary? There are floating icons located in various parts of each level. Walking up to one of them and pressing the action button starts the commentary playing. I imagine it would be something similar; a strictly location-by-location thing.

I don't get it. What is the actual gameplay of this? I mean, what does the player do and how much control does he have over the simulation?

Smart people can do stupid things sometimes... Anyway, Ron Gilbert has quite a good response to Ebert on his blog: http://grumpygamer.com/7961508

Just started playing the game and really like what I see, aside from the bugs and crashes. The extremely painful crashes. Minor bugs: At times, audio is a fraction of a second ahead of the character's lipsync In the opening FMV, the visuals freeze for a moment before camera angles change. This might happen later as well, but I haven't been able to progress all that much further. MAJOR OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME! The game crashes my computer when Max first receives the Rhinoplasty and the spinning coloured wheel thing comes up. I updated DirectX and it got past that point, only to die just before teleporting to Harry Moleman's phone Has anyone else had similar issues? Other than that, what little I've played has been brilliant. The dialogue has made me laugh out loud several times and I always love an opportunity to sound intelligent by describing something using the the phrase 'in medias res'.

Sushi Cat is kinda like Gish meets Peggle with awfully cute design. You play a rotund feline whose only ambition is to get as fat as possible in order to impress the girl of his dreams. To do that, you have to find and eat as much sushi as possible. Gameplay is a pure Peggle ripoff, but there's an added level of complexity in that the cat gets fatter and squishier the more sushi he eats.

To be fair, that would have worked in the movies. And the guy copying the code would have been watching a slowly moving progress bar whilst peering over the monitor at the Atomic employee approaching from the other end of the room... it finishing just in time to pull out the plug and run off as the guy asks 'Who the hell are you and what are you doing?' Or maybe not.

In Melbourne. So are you currently in Australia, or in Norway? I'm pretty sure the ratings only define where you can purchase games. If you took a full version of L4D2 here already on your computer, I doubt Steam would force you to change.

Yes, I am. And, frankly, the ban doesn't effect me all that much because I don't play violent games, on the whole. I just object to the concept of censorship, particularly when it's so inconsistently managed (compared to other media).

It is being celebrated, amongst those who know he resigned. My friends and I all shared high-fives at the news. People are saying it's just 'One step closer', because it still needs to be approved in a meeting of all the Attorneys General of all the states, which happens irregularly. Also, Atkinson claimed that he wasn't the only AG who was opposed to the R18+ rating, just that he was the only one prepared to admit it publically. What's more, the classification board is currently undertaking a review of gaming classifications and it's quite likely that the AGs won't make a decision until it reports. So, my estimation is that it will happen, but not for a while yet.

Okay then, the same question asked in my last post, but applied to all such industries.It's not like we're dealing with the fine arts, where artists really do need support and patronage, because so few of them can sell their work at a profit. The gaming and film industries are (overall) profitable, and when games lose money, it's generally with good reason (i.e. they're crap and/or just weren't marketed well enough). So, going back to my point, why do these industries need sponsorship, when fashion design, electrical generation and your local locksmith do not?

I have never understood why governments (mine in Australia included) offer tax breaks to game developers. Why is this one industry more worthy of special treatment than any other? And as for the Australian game industry, half the companies would probably fold within two days if the tax breaks were rescinded. Surely if an industry can only survive because it receives what is effectively a government subsidy, that's a sign that perhaps it shouldn't exist at all?