mikemariano

Finally listened to this EP. It was good!

Octodad: Dadliest Catch According to an achievement, that chef has killed me more than 100 times. I'll never beat him!

This really is compulsively watchable: Another list reveals that this video is missing my favorite L&O URL: upyourbutt.net.

Ah, the dreaded Dream Waluigi!

Wow, I am Level 14, which is 13 levels higher than I thought I'd be. I have received a booster pack only once in 2+ years, going from level 1 to 2.

I haven't played Under A Killing Moon or Pandora Directive since the last century—even then the controls were a little stiff, though to give them credit they were doing full-3D first-person that predated Quake. Once the games got going they were similar to how Tesla Effect plays. I never played the non-3D/FMV early two games: Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum. I also never played Overseer, the most recent game before Tesla Effect that was a quasi-remake of Mean Streets. There are a lot of cheap deaths in the Tex Murphy games, though—it is very much more Sierra-style. Even in Tesla Effect I died before realizing what was going on at times. Tex Murphy puzzles are a combination of environmental puzzles and arbitrary Puzzle Agent-like logic puzzles.

I completed the new Tex Murphy game Tesla Effect this afternoon. I liked it! Frighteningly, the post-credits contains the Idle Thumbs Podblast music sting—and it's the second time today I've heard it! This morning I was walking through Coney Island and a carnival booth was playing it on a loop. I'm sure it's some Action News-esque piece of music up for grabs, but I have only ever heard it on the podblasts. Hearing it in real life and then hearing it a few hours later in a game is just bizarre.

I just beat Tesla Effect. It was fun, and the team is really good at balancing their gameplay with their FMV. It's definitely a dad game, though. You do some simple puzzles, then dress up like a detective and make some wisecracks.

If Dwarf Fortress hasn't already implemented the ability to urinate into a rag to mitigate poison gas damage, Valiant Hearts has now thrown down the gauntlet.

You absolutely are not obligated to point that out. We've ventured into terrifying Sonic stuff in the forums before (never Google "[Your Name] the Hedgehog") and it has never failed to chill me to my core.

I need to do the co-op, too! I played with some random person online but they hated me.

Truly Criterion-worthy filmmaking.

No GH:OST?

That was amazing! Apparently those are all actual puppets being inserted into those film clips—I was wondering how his CGI work captured them so well.

I knew what I was getting into: "I will spend fake money and real effort to craft this worthless badge just so I can say I existed during Summer Sale 2014." But even knowing that, I was unprepared for the hideous underpants. Just now I bought GhostControl Inc. and System Shock 2 (I have the CD, but I am $1.50 too lazy to install it.) so now I have two cards to sell and get back some of my money and dignity... ...or I'm only eight cards away from crafting another badge!

That's me! Completing the Summer Sale badge has been worse than useless. I used to have .33 cents in my Steam wallet. Now I have .11. All that money went into selling duplicate cards and buying necessary cards. In a half-hour, my team will come in last place for the only day I contributed points. My prize for this was the badge, the standard wallpaper and chat emoji, and "underpants" for The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot. The underpants icon is so hideous and so worthless. Valued at .03, it is basically unsellable, and if my Realm of the Mad God prize from the Winter Sale is any indication, it will never go up in value, either. To get rid of this thing, I friended the "Trashbot," a bot with a Steam account that will accept any trade you give it. I gave it my underpants. FYI: My purchase of Jazzpunk during this sale did nothing to earn points, cards, etc.

The fan-created epub I stole looked terrific, with separation for Princess Irulan's sections and all that fun stuff. In other stealing-from-the-Herbert-estate news, I encourage people who want to watch three hours of David Lynch's film to download Spicediver's Dune: The Alternative Edition Redux. It gets rid of too many voiceovers and changes the very end, which was Herbert's biggest complaint, but it's very well-paced. I was surprised to discover how much of the book actually got filmed.

I'm a massive fan of Dune: The Film Everyone Else Hates. I finally read the novel last year and thought the most interesting thing the film left out was: Wikipedia descriptions suggest that the following books talk about "the path" more than they build on it. Instead we get shapeshifters and clones? I don't really find that interesting. But then, I didn't think I'd find yet another hero's journey story interesting but Herbert and Lynch are both weird enough to make it play out really well.

Hey guys! True Valve fans will come around to this belief eventually: But at least we can enjoy a Team Fortress 2 short film!

I dug out my 3DS (powered off since February!) to "Yeah" this pic!

Ugh, reading this Metroid Dread wiki entry is going to send me back to the Half-Life 3 thread.

Manny has a gigantic head, just like Link in Wind Waker, so it was easy to notice his focus. Guybrush's focus was much more difficult to interpret.

What's there to froth over? Their hearts aren't in it. They need to find someone who wants to make a Metroid game.

VVVVVV 2.2 has been released! Besides a frightening video effect I don't know what else has been changed for the main game. BUT there is a new free release! VVVVVV: Make and Play Edition, which is just user levels and the level editor. Now I have to start re-exploring user levels for this game. I need to dig deeper into how to create these levels—I couldn't even figure out how to make a level title show up in the selection screen.