mikemariano

Darkness of Tevye?

I have been waiting weeks to finally post that.

That's just what I was thinking, Rodi. I'm really surprised no one has made a Freeman's Mind mod for a Half-Life game.

Side note: In each of the first three Monkey Island games, I have had a laugh-out-loud moment so intense I had to stop playing for a bit. MI1: The two men not throwing a knife off the dock. MI2: Guybrush "dying" in a vat of acid. MI3: The reveal of Skull Island.

What an insulting, ageist essay. For those of us who have been playing these games almost exclusively since 1998, that's really the way we talk. I announce everything I do out loud and expect to die some day at the hands of Solid Snake.

I have no personal knowledge of anything Bioshock Infinite, but I am very pleased by the picture announcing their expansion pack's "1998 mode." This homage to the old Eidos packaging makes me regret throwing out my Thief Gold and Thief II boxes. The packaging was controversial, too! Electronics Boutique and Gamestop wanted PC game publishers to standardize their packaging into something that would guarantee more shelf space. I've been trying for a while to find a contemporary account about this, but could only find someone's recap from 2008 in regards to the Tomb Raider board game packaging, which also aped the Eidos packaging design. Now Gamestop gives its PC games no wall space at all—they get a forgotten bookshelf in one of the store's corners. PC game boxes are a lost art!

I played a bit of the Super Mario All-Stars version of Mario 3 this weekend and died a lot more than I thought I would. Spend a lot of time just flying around! The Raccoon Tail was my favorite way of flying in Mario. I remember reading about the that World 2 warp whistle—in NES Game Atlas, maybe? Before learning that I remember thinking before that "There are no Hammer Brothers left on the map, but I hear them shuffling. I guess that's a glitch?" That's a Grim Fandango Kitty Hat Day environmental puzzle built right into a platformer!

Super Metroid and Half-Life 2 "solve" the problem of a boring endgame by basically throwing challenge out the window. You get de facto cutscenes and a "super gun" in both before coming to a boss battle. I have spent the last week dying repeatedly during the Octodad boss level; the generous failstates in the rest of the game are replaced with one-hit kills. Do I really want to post about Octodad in the Quitter's Club thread? I might have to.

John Walker is a nightmare of a human being who subjects anyone in his orbit to his vicious, righteous whims. I have him blocked in my feed reader and do my best to avoid him because he really is psychically exhausting. He's also not very useful to read. His concerns are inconsistent and nitpicky and don't give me a good sense of what a game will be like to play. And since Rock, Paper Shotgun is the only video game news site I read, guess I'll never see a review of Thief! Only read this If you want more threadjack about John Walker:

The little bit of detail that's in the article is still astounding to me. Whether or not that's purchasers who never install or people who have booted up the game, that's still nearly 1 out of every 5 players not even getting through what is basically the opening cutscene. Crazy! I know you want to see more of that but I'm scared to see how that number breaks out if you dig deeper.

The Blade Runner game from 1997 took a stab at this and did a decent job. Some characters are Replicants during one playthrough and human during another. This doesn't affect the available story paths, but it does affect which ones you might choose. The game also left some gutsy ambiguity: No matter what ending you get, the game never reveals if the player is really a Replicant or not. You could be a human who believes he's a Replicant, a human who believes he needs to help Replicants, a Replicant who denies his true nature, etc. All the endings gave a concrete story resolution, but character resolution only happened in the mind of the player. I don't know if most players saw that as an incentive for replayability—maybe they always thought, "Huh, guess I'm a robot." But I only discovered this story structure after playing through multiple times.

I can't even imagine watching an episode earlier than Season 4. I know Season 3 only has a single plotline of "Bakula hunts down the terrorists while Blalock gets addicted to Vulcan drugs," and what little of that I watched was terrible. Earlier seasons have low-stakes plots like "Minefield" where a mine gets stuck to the Enterprise as well as frivolous-sounding episodes like this: Swap the names and this could be the TNG Season 8 parody account. I don't know if this counts as a "recommended" list , but I'm going to list the only episodes of Enterprise I watched and didn't regret watching. Home — 4x03 (The first episode I watched straight through. The crew recuperates on Earth after fighting alien Nazis.) Borderland — 4x04 (3-parter. This one has Klingons and Orion slavers and Khan-esque supermen and Brent Spiner!) Cold Station 12 — 4x05 The Augments — 4x06 The Forge — 4x07 (3-parter. How did the lame Vulcans of Enterprise become the Vulcans as we know them?) Awakening —4x08 (Actually gives Bakula something important-seeming to do.) Kir'Shara —4x09 Babel One — 4x12 (3-parter. A spiritual sequel to Journey to Babel. And it has Jeffrey Combs!) United — 4x13 (Fun with inertial dampeners.) The Aenar — 4x14 Affliction — 4x15 (2-parter. Klingons! Uncle Phil! And John Schuck!) Divergence — 4x16 (It seems like this entire season is about retconning; here's the biggest one.) Terra Prime —4x21 (This is actually the second part of a 2-parter, but the first episode "Demons" is terrible. This is the de facto final episode of Enterprise.)

This really made me uncomfortable, too. It makes a huge show of concern about his former staff without really doing anything concrete.

The last Take 2 studio left standing will be Cat Daddy Games, makers of Turd Birds.

Four years ago I was surprised that Ken Levine showed so little interest in how his games were played. I'm curious about the small team that will work with him—will there be any wonky, systems-driven designers? Or just whippable yes-men?

I am the world's worst multi-tasker, and I am trying to imagine myself playing a video game at the same time as exercising. How do you keep your balance? When I have to move or lean in real life it always affects my position in the game. I can't keep a car going in a straight line or keep Commander Shepard in cover. I'll stick to slouching on the couch!

Dear talented Idle Thumbs community: Please draw Zero Suit Laika. EDIT: Please also draw Donkey Kong Syriana. Basically just draw every back and forth between Jake and Danielle.

Don't feel bad; this is Valve. I am sure they will concoct some way to force the Castro to put keys for rare item drops taped to each seat.

GABE NEWELL: "Oh, done. We have an inflatable donkey. Game changer. Innovate."

Yay AAA gaming! I can't wait for Chris and Steve to comment and give us all the inside dirt on Levine's evil deeds! This confirms every nefarious thought I ever had about Ken Levine!

Can I buy the rights to Freedom Force? I want my Alchemiss fanfiction to be canon!

おめでとう!

Just now realizing that Snow is not Sno. Hello to all Sno(w)s, new and old!

It was surprisingly satisfying to see Hugh Grant and Tom Hanks—two 90s rom-com heroes—fighting to the death in a nightmarish dystopian future.