Garple

Right? I've never heard of that game but holy hapanap does it look good.

Except that Steam won't accept my credit card or paypal account. I thought I'd cleared it up when I bought Audiosurf (which is probably a great candidate for desert island game, btw...with a few gigs of Mp3s that include "Ante Up" by M.O.P. and "Blue Lips" by Regina Spektor). Oh well, I've sent steam support another message. in the meantime, maybe I'll get torchlight from a different site. Probably be a good idea to buy it direct from runic if that's possible. Edit: I'm also looking forward to jumping on D2D's Tropico bundle to get ready for Q1 of 2010 when the xbox 360 version of Tropico 3 comes out. Thank God for the Xbox getting a lot of the games you'd have expected to be PC only in the past. Yes...I know...Playing a strategy game on a console...blah blah blah (console gamers don't necessarily mind that...we're more used to a controller anyway and don't necessarily have enough experience with PC games to know what we're supposed to be frustrated about) Also: Has anyone played Democracy 2? or the prequel?

Seeing as I'm stuck with the GMA for now (it's a laptop, so I can't upgrade), I've been tinkering with it, seeing what I can run. I've managed to get Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines running beautifully the other night but haven't been able to get it going at all tonight. I got Messiah running flawlessly. All this messing around is so lame, but if I have another platform for gaming, I feel compelled to take advantage of it. If nothing else, I can lose a million hours to Diablo II and the first two Fallouts. Please offer any suggestions you might have for PC games made in 2002 or earlier that you consider essential, or at least well worth playing even today.

I was thinking about the line in Chris' song "Remember" where he says "Indie and casual and core/were on the same shelf at the store/they were one and the same" and now that I'm playing Diablo II I see how true that is and it's very interesting. I mean...that game is compulsive in the way that casual games are and it's very simple on the surface. You can just whittle away the hours doing the same thing over and over...and yet...I can tell you could be really hardcore about your play-style and enjoy it on a deeper level. What other games are open to this and what was the time-frame during which it took place...what are your favorite games of this nature and was this something people were aware of on some level at the time or is this more of a hindsight thing? As someone who turned 21 a week ago...I think I may have been just a little too young to have been aware of this phenomenon (at the time I was probably just playing whatever Christmas gift I'd recieved for my Playstation or Super Nintendo). Anyone who cares to...please just discuss this concept in general (however you want to approach it)...especially interested in what Chris has to say about this.

Please refer to it as "The New World" .

If it makes you feel any better. I probably won't have gotten over it (neither will many others, I suspect). I listened to Shadow & the Colossus last night and it was the happiest/saddest thing at the same time. It doesn't help that I'm chemically prone to depression...

My laptop runs the Freedom Force demo on the highest settings! I'm pumped...now if I could just get Steam to accept my credit card see, I've never been a PC gamer, so I've missed so much that's it's perfectly fine with me to be going back and playing old games. I'm downloading Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from D2D (a game I drooled over in Best Buy 5 years ago) and keeping my fingers crossed (it was only 5 dollars) All this is really making me want to save up for a new PC. So...if I bought a mid-range dell for like $600, I could play most games? If I did that...would you guys recommend customizing it on their website to get the best vidcard they offer...etc? Note: I'm not worried about the cutting edge...I just want to be able to run most games on decent settings. Is there a particular PC you guys would reccommend for that (one that's relatively cheap?) I don't really want to build my own computer, because I'm afraid to screw something up and I don't really have the extra money to cover any costly mistakes.

(ign.com/forums)

Just in case this is useful to anybody else: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251808-33-intel-game-compatibility-list long list of games that'll run on Intel GMA 950

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-torchlight/17-1551/

Who cares what anybody thinks, it's your own favorite game that's being asked for. Kudos to you for having a unique answer (literally: it's unique in that no one else has picked it).

Actually, I was at Best Buy today, and I stood for a minute and looked at the big box with the game and the stick and then looked at just the game by itself and felt no desire to buy either one. I never feel right about paying full price for fighting games because the content is so limited.

I just bought and started playing Diablo II and holy crap that is a video game. So I'm really interested in PC gaming again. But I only have a laptop with an integrated graphics card. I've found I can run "The Path" if I turn everything to low settings...does anyone have experience with running games on extremely ill-equipped specs? Does it ever work well enough to play a whole game that way? What about those programs that emulate a better graphics card and virtualize other tech by using more of the CPU (like 3D Analyze)? Also, any suggestions and or links to great games that probably would work well on an HP dv6000 base model (I do have steam installed so recommendations for games from there especially good deals would be cool)? I've been playing a lot of indie platformers lately, many of which have been great, but those just feel like console games that happen to be on the PC.

I don't know. If we're talking like age 18 or 19 and up...most of us probably have some of our fondest early gaming memories with the X-Men beat-em-up machine at the Catholic Youth Center. Or the Street Fighter II cabinet at the Pizza Parlor. The first time I saw 3D graphics was in Virtua Fighter. I used to stand on a milk crate to play Rygar at my Uncle's pizza place when I was 3 or 4. I think I'm going to wait, actually. But games are such an impulse buy for me, I never know if I'm going to pull the trigger or not until the last second.

Better than a controller? I'd say so...but I guess it depends on personal preference. Fighting games usually come out in arcades first I find executing moves easier on an arcade machine and the tactile aspect of playing the games that way satisfying. It's like playing an FPS on PC instead of a console. The latter can be done, but most people will have an easier time with the former. That said, I've changed my mind about buying this.

Thumb action? Yikes. This is not the place to talk about sex moves that are illegal in Oregon. Edit: Also, I agree with you gdf. Without Nick, it really wouldn't even be Idle Thumbs. The podcast, I mean (I hope other stuff will be forthcoming under the Thumbs banner). But it will never really go away. There's still a huge archive of episodes for you to listen to and several Idle Thumbs institutions (Grand Thumb Auto, IGN.com...that seem unlikely to fade any time soon).

I've been searching around for casts to replace thumbs (other than Giant Bomb, which I highly reccommend). I tried Rebel FM and Fall Damage but neither one does anything for me. A big issue is that my taste in games is so compatible with the thumbs and incompatible with most other casts (on Rebel FM, they had positive things to say about Dante's Inferno!!!!!!!!!!!) Edit: If you enjoy superhero comics, I'd recommend ComicVine. They're in the same building as Giant Bomb and their cast has a very low key, down-home feel with very solid chemistry among the hosts.

Hush, child.

It's tempting to aim down your sights all the time because it's the logical thing to do and ensures greater accuracy. However, in this game, I highly recommend shooting from the hip most of the time. That will allow you to strafe and move around in the open while shooting, thus decreasing the amount of damage you'll take. I use the zoom when I'm going for my last shot or two on a particular enemy, am far away, or am just in good position for taking my time to line up a shot. At the very least, you should alternate often between the two types of shooting. This is especially important if you're playing alone because you'll be so highly outnumbered all the time. As soon as I started doing this, I noticed my shield wasn't dropping so rapidly and I was able to advance to a new position without having to clear the area first. Also...take cover and wait for your shield to recharge. The enemies will either stay where they are and you can bide your time, or they'll advance on you (which you can see on your radar) and you can be ready to pop up and take the first shot, catching them off guard.

Yeah. Bethesda is in Rockville, Maryland.

You'd better.

That's my recourse, as well. It's really pretty good. I could see myself being ok with that as my primary gaming podcast. It kind of scratches a different itch than Idle Thumbs, but it's good stuff. I imagine it gets better the more you get used to the guys (like thumbs did).

Borderlands might actually be a good one. The low complexity AI keeps things feeling light and breezy...but because the environments are so open...there's plenty of room to find all kinds of good cover etc...(so it might be a good way to get some basics down). Although...it can get quite hectic when you're being attacked from all sides, and she'd probably be bored by all the minutiae of the guns. It's hard to say how a total newcomer would find it, but let me say this. I suck at FPS games and I find the difficulty of this game perfect for me. It's challenging, but never overwhelming, and I'm able to achieve a fluidity with the guns after a while that makes me feel like a real badass.

I've read the whole thing, and I don't recommend finishing it. Probably my least favorite piece of all the Kafka I've read. Whenever someone tries to write pure allegory like that, it comes off so heavy-handed, because the themes are so far in the forefront and the story is usually thin. The infinite machinations of Kafka's imagined bureaucratic agencies are clever and quite interesting, but the whole thing gets old. It's kind of supposed to, I think, because it seems Kafka intended the reader to feel as bogged down in red tape as the surveyor does.

Wow...I went a little overboard with my post. I'll just have to find another video game podcast And I'm sure I'll get used to no Thumbs just like I've gotten used to a million other changes over the years. I wonder if the individual thumb units will appear on other podcasts once in a while...they should. Jake has a sense of humor the likes of which I've never quite come across anywhere else. Jake...you should do some "let's play" videos of the new games you bought (Uncharted 2 etc...) We were all so excited that you were playing a bunch of games. Also...what does community manager at Bethesda entail? We'd all love to get an update at some point on what his doing...and if any of it involves stuff that's not behind the scenes (in other words...stuff that we could follow) like updating a community blog or something. Also, Congrats Nick, if you happen to look at this thread. Please keep turrets out of Bethesda games.