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I agree in principle, but I think in this particular case it's valid. Giant Bomb - both the dudes themselves and users - seem to love arbitrary things being represented as successes. Their site has loads of functions pertaining to achievements, trivia, rankings and the points system, so this kind of thing is ostensibly right up their street. I like Giant Bomb and think it's a good thing they exist, their database is very useful and I still occasionally listen to the Bombcast, but this isn't intended to appeal to me and that seems about right because I'm definitely not their "core user" or whatever.

Sure are a lot of beards in here. Here's me chopped pretty unceremoniously from a Facebook group photo, I probably look about two years younger than I actually am. Never give me alcohol because I will yawn, moan and then fall asleep on your couch (and also maybe break it, that happened too).

Fuck democracy, basically. Also, very disappointed in Labour. They're still my bros, but they're seriously shit on civil liberties outside of basic rights, which are actually one of their strongest suits. They've done a lot for the gay community, but that doesn't mean they don't want to spy on your ass with CCTV all fucking day. They don't call Mandelson the Prince of Darkness for nothing, the right wing cunt. Sums up New Labour, really. Give me back pre-Smith Labour, give me back clunking, shitty, unionised dinosaur Old Labour.

This thread has weirdly horrible echoes of The Martian Chronicles. Richard Garriot is pretty badass, I hope Chris brings this up and maybe writes a song about it. This or "No. ...You Hang Up."

My dad always took some kind of interest in gaming. He had a Spectrum at some point and apparently played the shit out of Sabre Wulf. Dabbled in some of my SNES platformers and later attempted to play Ocarina of Time, but struggled to get further than the first dungeon. Though he never finished them, he liked Banjo and Mario. He got really into Doom 64, played some Goldeneye with me and played a bunch more shooters when we got a PS2. I'm pretty sure the only lengthy game he's ever beaten is TimeSplitters 2. We got Turok: Evolution because he'd enjoyed the N64 games, and he got stuck on one of the shitty flight levels. He got so frustrated, it was pretty hilarious. Since then he's not played a lot, but he's really into film and art so is interested in some indie games and stuff that I show him. He always makes an effort to read my articles as well. My mum doesn't actively dislike gaming, but she's not terribly interested in it either. She does like SingStar and The Beatles: Rock Band though. GrouchoClub, I hope you're alright. I'm 18 so only really started drinking a couple of years ago and on a regular basis in the last twelve months, but I've made a conscious effort not to drink alone. Partly because of something Sterling said on Mad Men, partly because last Summer one of my friends became scarily close to alcoholic. He'd just become the legal age and went crazy - he was drinking every single day, mostly alone or with his twin brother. The latter was probably going too far as well but nothing like his bro. We got seriously concerned about him, it was all he wanted to do. He actually stopped going out so he could sit alone to drink and watch films. Obviously his tolerance shot up, and it was getting to the point that he could do half a dozen pints in about an hour and be virtually unaffected. Thankfully his dad threatened him enough that he stopped. Now he recognises that he was putting his own health and wellbeing at risk, never mind his family's. I don't know your situation, hopefully you're nowhere near this level, but it is possible to pull back at any time. Nothing wrong with enjoying a beer or cider with a game or film, but getting binned alone is dangerous. Don't know if this is encouraging or horrible or even relevant, but know that we're here for you

Use of Audio should have been Noby Noby Boy's.

I lol'd at Uncharted winning the Story one. As a Hollywood film it was above average, but whatever it was it certainly wasn't much of a video game narrative. I still don't understand why people love it so much, it felt really patronising. They're right about the music though, it was fantastic.

I was probably going to get this on Xbox anyway given the horrible DRM, but now I guess I don't have much of an option Looks good, might get the demo later.

I was looking forward to this game for months, so I was annoyed when the Steam page counted down and then disappeared. I bought a physical copy yesterday and installed it last night. After some trouble getting it to start (it was just a crash about two seconds into the first splash screen but there were numerous potential fixes, it's just about throwing shit at the wall until it sticks) I was ready to go. As you do I was messing around with the graphics settings, delighted with how lovely it looked even in DX9 - the texture filtering is super crisp - and eventually settled on something that gave me a solid framerate, in no way exceeding my new card's capabilities. I don't overclock for now and I didn't keep it at DX10. A nice, moderate setting that still looked great. Excellent, I thought, I'll just deal with these monsters.... BANG. "This game is so awesome your PC will literally explode" - IGN.com My PC blew up. I don't know why or which part, there was just a flash and a loud bang somewhere up top near the disc drive. It just exploded and powered down, leaving me with crapped pants and staring at a now-black screen. It wasn't a power issue in the house, my monitor and speakers were still on. What the fuck. What should I do? Does this mean it's totally fucked? I'm too scared to turn it on. On the upside, I had a dream involving both Boost Bindburn and Video Games at my house directly afterwards.

You all love poop, but this episode also contained some pretty interesting discussions Famous, I thought you were a great fit. Hopefully Thumbs will invite you back some day. Who knows, when we reach episode fifty of The Idle Thumbs Podcast and Steve leaves for a community manager job in Maryland maybe you could replace him as the third guy?

Cool for Mac gamers I guess (lolololol). I'll probably never buy one, but it can only be a good thing for the computer gaming market as a whole. Plus it'll encourage developers to incorporate Steam Cloud more often. I'll sure as hell never buy a Mac, but being able to keep my saves online to use on my netbook or someone else's PC is pretty rad.

This game was interesting, but also incredibly lame. It does an awful lot horribly wrong.

I'm surprised that after that number two key bit nobody said an even grosser thing about squeezing a strategy chocolate onto Two Hot Scoops' chest.

Hooray! This is almost weekly (but don't tell 'games).

One of the first things I did in Heavy Rain was take a piss. Shame you couldn't do it in Jason's obnoxious little face. You're right, though. Fucking sewer levels in every game.

I got Pripyat based on Chris and Scoops' tales, I liked Shadow of Chernobyl a lot but got put off it after a while. Decent start, but why won't AA or vsync turn on? PC gaming can be so aggravating.

I think it depends what you value. If you're a massive douchebag like this guy maybe you don't have time for games. Have they distracted me from work? Yes. Have they caused me to lose sleep? Yes. Have I spent a silly amount of money on them? Hell yes. That doesn't mean they're not valuable experiences. Whether it's making you realise something profound, escaping a little from reality or just being able to blow off some steam and shoot mutants in the face, games are worth every sleep deprived, expensive and socially exclusive hour I've played them for. Fucking video games!

Those paragraphs are alright. I don't agree entirely because, as I said, I think innovation is an end in itself, but his view isn't without merit. Who, though, actually says any of that which he purports to object to? Who gives "indie" or "artsy" games a free pass, or says that all mainstream games are devoid of creativity? It comes off as thinly veiled contempt for any goal other than constant entertainment. He sprinkles these qualifiers and caveats around, but then he totally dumps on something whilst completely ignoring what he's written. As a way of addressing the core "fun" argument which you alluded to, I think have a fairly solid response. This is about the third time I've said this, but nobody watches Stalker (the film) in its entirety then complains about the lack of action. I don't need bullet time in my Tarkovsky just like I don't need a particularly exciting mechanic in The Void. Most people are just in it for the entertainment, that's fine, there's no shortage of that out there. Those who are actively interested in art house cinema shouldn't have to hear their tastes called "pretentious" or "bullshit" or be told that a certain film shouldn't exist just because it involves a different kind of engagement or even engagement at all, and the same goes for gaming. There's a small group who like "artsy" games, and they should be allowed to do so without shit-slinging and insults. It's not like they didn't play the shit out of Call of Duty as well. I dunno, his style and tone bait me so bad, maybe that's deliberate. The last two sentences annoy me more than even the insults. There are too many "s in this post, and sorry if I sound like I'm directing this at you rather than him, it's definitely aimed at him.

He's frustrating, that's what he is. I wrote a response article to his first post, but his second was probably both less offensive and more irritating. Sometimes I just don't understand where he's coming from, and yes, I'd say innovation is a virtue in and of itself. Innovative games are often flawed, but it's a small price to pay. He seems to argue that we should refrain from playing "innovative" (as he defines it) output, but what good will that do anyone? There are plenty of shit games that had a unique or forward-thinking aspect which came to fruition in later titles, either its own follow-ons or other developers' work inspired by it. He's like one of those "fun funny fun fun" Gamasutra commenters that Remo pointed out in the podcast once. He just happens to be at least semi-literate and in possession of a platform.

There are a lot of big games around right now, but they don't all necessarily appeal to me. The internet is what I find most exciting, digital distribution has given more limited appeal games a chance to reach a wider global audience, and I love having the chance to play stuff from countries outside of the traditional western/Japanese development circles. Also, there are shitloads of casual games available free online, which is great, because I play a ton of stupid crap.

Semi-tangential point, but I often think of the fervour games produce online. There's nothing else that produces such dedicated communities who produce art (sometimes gross), fanfic, animations, music, live action films, cosplay, entire new games and, as you mention above, translations from the Japanese. I'm not super into Final Fantasy, for example, but it never ceases to amaze me how insane a certain subset of the fanbase is. Seems like an interesting topic to investigate, Sombre. Remo mentioned it a few times on the podcast, citing specifically the Stalker games and the small mod communities that he and Jake were involved with back in the day.

"Yakuza 4 will pick up a scooter and smash you in the face" - IGN.com From here.

I think only the first System Shock is abandonware.

Capitalist bastard. Look at his smug fucking face.

EA Presents: The Rugged Chinned Misanthropists EA Presents: Break Shit at Tiffany's EA Presents: The Crucible Episode II: Proctor's Revenge EA Presents: The Killmarillion EA Presents: Citizen Kane Your Ass EA Presents: The Torah II: Murdah EA Presents: The AAArt of War EA Presents: Meditations on Shoot First Ask Questions Later Maybe not all classics, maybe not all books Great effort everyone else though, my favourite in this thread is definitely EA Presents: Atlas Slugged.