80's Bad Guy

Man, I went through this thread and now have more subscribed podcasts than ever before, and that includes cutting out the fat, like Geekbox. Sorry Ryan, but I just don't agree with you on anything anymore and the rest of your crew is weak. WEAK! My only contribution would be In-Game Chat. I think it's excellent. But did Hollywood Saloon go on hiatus or become something else? The latest episode I can find is from October.

The DLC is great for the new skill tracks alone. The mountain climb seems like it was devised by MC Escher on PCP...it's a neverending twisted track of vertical evil. Would you guys go get it already? My friends list for the DLC is barren and I need scores to help motivate me over the weekend!

Yeah not being able to skip custscenes, randomly jumping in the wrong direction to your death, missions where you have to kill multiple targets undetected being really touchy, the slow burn of the beginning, these are all valid complaints but seriously, pointing out these flaws is like a finger pointing to the moon, don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

And started! I should have gotten to this sooner, but all the negativity surrounding it on other boards always gave me the impression it would feel very "gamey"...? Like that it wanted to create an organic world but included elements at odds with that goal like item collection (diamonds) and respawning enemies. I couldn't have had a more incorrect impression to be honest, who would want to have to drive across the map and not have a few white knuckled encounters? And seeing that flashing green indicator always happily sidetracks me long enough to find something new. Good stuff. Hell, I must have played almost 20 hours over the weekend and haven't even touched a main mission yet.

Two words...easy achievements. I've actually always had a soft spot for this series, but haven't watched the show in a couple years. I'll pick it up after I can find the time to rent the last season and figure out what happened to some of the old/new characters.

This is the best news ever! - ign.com This is the worst news ever! - me

Beat it last night. Ridiculously awesome ending. Time to mop up as many of the single player achievements as possible and then maybe jump in to multiplayer a bit. Any takers? Then I have to decide between Borderlands or Dragon Age before Modern Warfare 2. I was all set to pass up Borderlands after the last Thumbs, but the positive reviews flooding in have me intrigued. Dammit.

Imagine logging in to live and seeing a party comprised solely of wizards. It'd almost be worth the price of admission. lulz.

Favorite Game: Resident Evil: REmake. Running through the mansion killing zombies and avoiding crimson heads never gets old. It's my favorite game of forever. (Runner up Fallout 3) Best Game: I feel like this is more of a moving line. The best game ever will change. I guess right now (to the chagrin of many people) I would argue its still GTA4, for seamlessly combining so many elements in a beautiful open world. Desert Island Game: Star Wars Chess. Infinite replayability, impossible to master and I'll still have Vader soundbites to laugh at in my solitary madness.

Yeah I wish there was a little more Anthrax. At least a few tracks with Joey Belladonna's wailing would have been pretty sweet. Brutal Legend itself is tough for me to analyze. The one-two punch of Uncharted and Brutal Legend have left me a pretty confused gamer actually. On one hand, Uncharted was the most spectacular experience I've had all year; amazing to look at and a thrill to play, on the other Brutal Legend is just alot more fun. But its hard to tell how much of that is objective; not only is Schafer one of the people responsible for my current obsession with gaming, but I also have a large collection of Cannibal Corpse t-shirts in my closet from high school. Its interesting to note that neither games multiplayer interests me in the least though. Both feel like novelty versions of existing multiplayer games, just different enough to be interesting, but not deep enough to warrant a significant investment of my time. Anyway, I think Brutal Legend is one of those games I'll agree out loud is flawed but always secretly think to myself is perfect.

It's pretty awesome, but you already knew that. My only complaint would be that it's really, really linear. Or very streamlined I guess. Either way it feels more like an experience and less like a game, but I can't decide if that's a good or bad thing. It's certainly an amazing experience, a well crafted story that starts strong and never lets up with its relentless adventure. I'll certainly play through it a few times and dip into the multiplayer to see if it grabs me, and that amount of consumption signifies a very strong game to me, but there's still something missing from the formula here. Even in a Tomb Raider there is the ability to further explore an environment and get lost a bit seeking tertiary treasures, but here it just seems as if they are hidden in the existing rooms better so that there is less actual exploration and more just finding. Still, I haven't even discovered half of them so maybe I'm just not trying hard enough. It's really hard to stop and search when the narrative pushes me forward so strongly. And man is it gorgeous. I think they must be utilizing an SPU just for rendering Tibetan flags.

Mistakes in Omikron? Next thing you fools will be saying that Resident Evil has bad controls or that Shenmue is flawed in some way. All misnomers! When society crumbles and mankind is eradicated, Omikron will be the piece of software that aliens herald as proof of humanity's advanced intelligence.

Awww shit yeah, what?! I'm gonna nail her while shooting ALIENS with my big ass gun. What diddy fuck diddy what diddy who?! WORD! Gotcha! BOOM! . . . . . . . . . In all seriousness that is the worst thing I've ever seen. It makes Dante's Inferno seem respectful to the source material by comparison.

"It's like a combination of Bioshock and Crackdown, but not in a Biodown sort of way, more like a Crackshock!" -IGN.com

I beat Mass Effect on hardcore over the weekend and immediately started an insane run. See, I didn't get everything exactly the way I wanted because I turned in the cheating gambler instead of helping him with his project. I know most of this won't carry over, but in my mind, this is the canon I want my Shepard to have. So I guess I have to listen to Ashely's sob story about her dad just one more time...sigh.

I was actually going to ask if you liked Bioshock because of the comparisons a lot of people are drawing between the two until I remembered I hate that comparison because its DUMB. Do gamers only have a collective memory of a year and a half? It seems as if everything was inspired by either Bioshock or Crackdown and no other analogs for reference exist in our nomenclature anymore. Anyway, it shouldn't be hard for me to comprehend you haven't played those, there are actually alot of popular games I have an aversion to myself, such as anything under the RTS umbrella. Sorry fellow Thumbs!

I appreciate the witty remark, but am confused by your sentiment. Overall, Batman is a remarkably well crafted Video game that should be experienced by anyone who enjoys such things.

The resolution of Brutal Legend or its cutscenes are about as relevant to the experience as its water density ratio. I was going to buy Uncharted first and Brutal Legend later, but the demo has complicated things. I really felt like I was experiencing a slice of a grand adventure crafted by a master. Almost as if I were a little boy again, playing in the lap of an elderly kindhearted man on a Sunday afternoon. Ok, that didn't sound quite right...

Leap of Faith is pretty cool! I was able to get through it fairly easy, but did fail a few times near the end. I'll give it another go this evening, and download your other one as well. I especially liked the see saw to train track climb and shifting perspective at the end. A shame there is no leaderboard for the custom tracks though. Also, I beat your hill climb last night. Made it to 73 meters, 2 away from a gold...dammit. I'm just going to stick playing around with the skill games for awhile, the extreme tracks are driving me insane.

I think I'm finished. Got 850/1000 Achievements and just missing the silver and gold combat challenges. I thought I was good when I could nail the Freeflow Combat chevo and the 40-string combo chevo without much difficulty, but Shock & Awe Extreme can bite me. Normally I would just trade it in now, but the success of the game almost guarantees some sort of additional DLC, which forces me to hold on to it for a bit longer. so...DLC as a method of combating the used game market...mission success?

Well I though it was pretty neat actually. It was just another example of how Rocksteady explained in-game activities through appropriate Batman logic.

I'd also like to join, but that's 4am Wednesday for me. If I'm ever up playing GTA then I don't want to imagine what my state of mind would be.

I finally got all the collectibles last night and I really loved the Riddler mocking me for a while and then becoming increasingly frustrated the more I found. Highly amusing. It's just a small touch to have him there following Batman's progress, but it really puts random collectible hunting in almost every other game to shame.

I was having the same feeling last night as well. As I was going through Batman I kept thinking "well, this is pretty solid, but maybe not spectacular..." but after I beat the game, upon reflection the disparate parts really worked well together, and as an antagonist the Joker was amazing throughout. So many games just throw a random boss at the end, but the Joker was consistently there, prodding Batman along, making jokes, setting traps, a really worthy adversary.