Teenage Caveman

I got: Left 4 Dead 2 Introversion Complete Pack Monkey Island 2 Special Edition Telltale Everything Pack Osmos Team Fortress 2 Day of Defeat : Source Beat Hazard Red Faction Guerrilla Grand Theft Auto IV I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying TF2. I assumed it would have a high barrier for entry, but it turns out it's really accessible and a lot of fun. So fun in fact that I've put in almost 17 hours since I picked it up. Should have picked it up earlier. As for everything else; even considering I already own Darwinia, the Introversion Complete Pack was an incredible value. I work in the IT Security field so Uplink has been particularly enjoyable. Defcon is really fun as well. Also, after being indecisive about which Telltale game to start with, buying the complete pack seemed like the correct choice. I started playing the first season of Sam and Max and it has not disappointed. I'm assuming that future seasons of both Sam and Max and Monkey Island make callbacks to previous seasons? If that's the case, I'm planning on playing them in order. Does it matter that I'll be skipping the Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island?

Well, for me it boils down to buying 85% of my games on Steam during their regular massive markdowns (speaking of which, Trine is marked down to 4.99 so maybe I'll actually get around to playing it). The other 15% comes from Good Old Games. With that in mind, I really only need to assert a measure of self control during the holiday sales. The downside is never (or rarely) playing games as soon as they come out. Some of the surprise is lost as podcasts and forums discuss in length a game I'm looking forward to playing (Just Cause 2 is the latest example for me), but for the most part, it hasn't been an issue. You mention being wary of switching from consoles to PC, so I'll mention some verified data from my own life (feel free to disregard it). My wife and I have recently been discussing our budget; we're considering having another child and decided to really scrutinizing our spending, including (you guessed it) looking at every dime I've spent on video games over the last few years. For a two year stretch, I did most of my gaming on the Wii and 360. I had just bought both systems and my PC was a bit long in the tooth. I've since upgraded my PC, and have enjoyed a sizable stretch of almost exclusive PC gaming. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my spending dropped by almost 60% when I switched to PC gaming. Simultaneously, the amount of time I spent playing games went up significantly. Console games, even when on sale, are surprisingly expensive when compared to the sales direct download services offers. You also have the additional costs; Xbox Live and the ridiculously over priced accessories for example. On the Wii side, first party Nintendo games rarely go down in price much, and as we all know, the accessories are plentiful... With the PC though, there is an absolute insane amount of fun and affordable games available. That's not even counting all the free games out there. Will I ever play all the games I buy? No, of course not. But it still fits within my modest budget. I think the PC really allows you to maximize your entertainment dollar, and it's more flexible when it comes to really scaling down your spending.

Yes! Thank you so much!! He lived in Potsdam New York (I kept thinking the town had something to do with kitchenware). Such an obvious name too, don't know why I couldn't remember. My brain can rest easy now.

Since I can't create a new thread, I'll ask this question here (it's loosely related). Could someone help me with the name of an indie game developer? I remember reading an article recently profiling the guys life. Seems like he made one of the bigger indie games from last year. He has a wife and kids and they live in a small shack in the country. I remember the article mentioned his yard was like a natural prairie. He may have lived in upstate New York. I also remember people leaving comments in response questioning his devotion to development possibly putting the kids at risk (I think in the interview he mentions the house being rather run down and unsafe). I may have imagined some, or all of those details. At this point I don't even remember why I wanted to know this information; all I know is I can't find the right google search phrase to find who it was and it's driving me nuts. Anyone know who this is?

What a coincidence you just posted this! I finished Crysis just a few minutes ago after picking it up for cheap during the steam sale. Everything went fine for the first 90% of the game, and I was pleasantly surprised at the high level of settings my computer could handle smoothly. The flying sequence was complete shit, and felt a bit out of place, but it paled in comparison to the pain I felt on the last level. When I got to the ship and made it all the way to the sub-boss, my computer began freezing hard. Assuming it was high temperatures or my memory filling up, I checked the usual things. No indications of anything unusual though (I'm still using the Windows 7 RC1 so that may be a factor). Thankfully I stumbled upon a forum post somewhere suggesting that you run the game in dx9 compatible mode. That worked, and I made my way to the final boss. Somehow at that point it got fucking worse! I'm getting my ass handed to me running around trying to figure out how to beat the thing (it took me a bit to notice the cache of ammo, and for some reason I forgot how well the old cloak and shoot maneuver worked). After every few reloads I begin randomly falling through the floor to the belly of the ship. At first I thought there were legitimate pits you could fall in and get back out (maybe placed there for a little cover or something). I tried to find my way out, but nope, I was fucking stuck. I tried to fight through it and things kept getting weirder (the dead soldiers on the ship would be standing up like zombie puppets for example). Every time this happened I had to restart the game. Thankfully, after all that I finally beat it. What a shame, I so rarely finish games. I had a ton of momentum going yesterday too making it all the way from the mine level to the end in one sitting, but all the problems killed it and I ended up finishing it tonight. Considering the ending was basically a big ...to be continued, I considered playing Warhead next. After all the problems though, I think I'll play Arkham Asylum instead (or one of the 50 other games I splurged on during the sale).

Favorite I’d have to go with Urban Terror for this one. On the first episode of the Idle Thumbs podcast Jake (I think) tells a story about a GameStop clerk that continues to buy games for current gen consoles, but continually finds himself returning to Counter Strike; a game that just sucks you in and you play with no real goal in mind, almost becoming trance like. That’s exactly how I am with Urban Terror. I am not at all into tactical first person shooters, and I’ve never even played Counter Strike. The tactical elements of Urban Terror are completely lost on me. Instead, I typically just jump onto a server and run around killing stuff. Sometimes I only use a knife, or the pistol. Sometimes I try to slide around as much as possible. Generally I just run around like an idiot (or Negtard) inventing little sub-games for myself. With all the maps and the generally laid back community, I just can’t seem to stay away. Being cross platform and free, even after moving to Linux as my primary OS years ago, it’s been installed on every PC or laptop… pretty much ever in my house (or at work when I can get away with it). I don’t even know why I continue to play it, but I couldn’t even fathom a guess at how many hours I’ve put into this game. For that reason alone, I’d have to call it my favorite. As a side note, I nearly shat myself when I saw Urban Terror listed in the show notes for the Starcraft II podblast. Sweet giblets! Best After much (probably too much) deliberation, I’ve got to go with Diablo on this one. It’s almost a genre unto itself. It’s amazing that such a simple premise became such a fantastic game. Clicking the mouse on stuff, collecting gems and loot, more clicking clicking… sell some stuff… loot click… As the idle thumbs crew pointed out, it sounds so pointless when you talk about it out loud, and it’s certainly not the something you want to hold up as an example of games being a positive influence on your life. But the music, the environment, the loot mechanic, it all came together so well. Desert Island I suppose I’ll go with Civilization 4 as my desert island pick. As much as I’ve played this game, I only feel like I’ve scratched the surface of the underlying mechanics. In fact, I feel kid of stupid when I play. No mater how hard I try I eventually succumb to the temptation to just select options randomly with not forethought or planning. If I was stranded on an island with nothing to do but play, maybe I'd be able to play competently. If my desert island had an internet connection though, I’d go with Urban Terror for my reasons listed above.

True story about emotional game experiences, tears and what not; it may not fit the spirit of this thread, but I'm going to post it anyways. So a couple of years back, one of my closest friends was diagnosed with leukemia. He was only 19, so it came as quite a shock. His prognosis in the beginning was generally positive, but almost a year to the day later he passed away. After his funeral, a group of us decided the best way to honor his memory would be to hang out, drink, smoke, reminisce, and play games for 24 straight hours. So we did just that. A week later we piled into his old room. Nothing had been moved. His enormous collection of games sat undisturbed, and his PS2 and 360 were still connected... Someone brought a full Rockband setup, and what was intended to be a couple hours of plastic guitar shenanigans quickly turned into eight hours of ridiculousness. After the fatigue of rocking out set it, we decided to play something else... Shadow of the Colossus. It was his favorite game after all, it was only fitting. So we played and played. We just took turns, passing the controller when we died. Although several of us had purchased SotC, none of us had made it past the first two colossi. As you can imagine, it took a lot of trial and error. There was a lot of frustration, and a lot of laughter as we just tried whatever the fuck we could think of to take down the massive beasts. The first few went by pretty quick, but as the night wore on things got pretty crazy. But one after another they fell until we finally reached that climactic ending. When it was over there was a weird mix of emotion in the room. The chain smoking had left a thick fog that burned my eyes, the lack of sleep left me delirious, and the marathon of gaming had left us all mentally drained. And all at once, as then ending cinematic rolled, the gravity of the situation sank in; our friend was really gone for good, and we were never going to see him again... I'm not ashamed to admit that tears were shed. I swear we stared at the screen in silence for a good ten minutes after the ending had played. There was nothing left... Finally someone spoke up; we were already passed our 24 hour mark. Somehow we had made it 24 straight hours playing only two games! We exchanged a few words, braved the blinding morning sun and went our separate ways... It was the most intense feeling, and I'm having trouble putting it into words. Sure, coming to grips with the loss of a friend played a big part, but the theme and general mood of Shadow of Colossus fit so well... To be honest I can't even clearly remember the ending in detail. I just remember the feeling of loss that carried through the entire game, and how well it fit the situation.