mikemariano

I beat this game tonight. I liked it. Vimes is right that throwing safes around and riding them in constantly-swapped gravity is a lot of fun. Late in the game I saw a distant platform across from the manor's final generator. I thought, "hey, I can ride a safe over to the other side!" So I did, and once I arrived I realized that this distant platform was actually the beginning of the level. I created a shortcut to where I had already been. The "Couch Surfing" was the most frustrating segment, especially because brushing the ceiling for any reason is a death sentence. I lost a table in a set of beams, but I miraculously fell in between the laser beams and survived, stranded in the middle of what was intended to be a long table surf. Instead of restarting, I decided to navigate a table through anti- and regular gravity from the beginning, bringing it close to me, and jumping aboard. I died anyway, but I was impressed that the game gave me a chance to come back from one of my near fatal mistakes. Fun with physics!

Mass Effect could have gone a step further and kept the clock ticking over the course of all three games. Shepard is too late to save the galaxy because he spent too much time disco dancing four years ago.youmeyou is right: this system turned Dead Rising from a fun sandbox into a stressful game that required tactics, but I respect it for that. You had to make choices about who (if anybody) you saved.

I downloaded Barkley 1 last night and played up until the first proper JRPG Battle. Um, I'm glad this makes some people happy for some reason. What should I do if I don't want to give money to these guys or Peter Molyneux?

I suck so bad at Waking Mars. I hope this podcast is just you guys telling me I suck and that I don't know how to grow plants.

In a game where you are the Hero of Kvatch one minute and criminal scum the next, I'll let this bit of Archmage self-promotion slide.

Super Spacebass

Yay, Steam updated the game with a Mac Version and I got to play it this morning! (There's no Big Blum Mode, alas I guess I'll never experience that backer benefit.) I didn't understand a single thing that happened.

Last year I played only two 2011 games during 2011. This year my total has...increased? The demo for Quantum Conundrum The demo for The Walking Dead: Episode 1 The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb DLC Random Flash games everybody played (SpinSpin, CLOP, Transylvania Girls, etc.) I guess I could play a 2012 game soon, but I'm too busy playing the original Fallout. GOTY 1997!

It's true! She had a great world-weary deadpan that reminded me of Harrison Ford. As FemShep, I get to play as Han Solo! Male Shepard didn't give me that opportunity.

PS: I guess I really enjoyed reading this Octodad blog post about the changes they are making to movement in the upcoming game. I realize I have no future career as a 3D modeler because I don't know what "we switched from using softbody meshes to using ropes" means.

I beat Shining Force II last night, it only took me 18 years! You kids today with your XCOMs and your Hardcore permadeaths, I can't stand it! I own Fire Emblem for the DS, and I much prefer the Shining Force approach. Shining Force drags around a feeble RPG interface that it could probably shed. However, Fire Emblem sheds too much: why can I only shop or talk to villagers during combat? Now it's on to Phantasy Star IV!

Yay, Octodad!

Yeah, I really do think that paid off. Also, I recall seeing some playthrough videos on YouTube with all text removed, so going to the inventory screen or looking at an object didn't give you any description. Was that possible in the game itself or was this a hack? I don't know if I'd want to play the game that way but it made for a great video.

YUM YUM

It's not isometric, but are you thinking of Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams?

Aw, I listened to an incomplete podcast! I noticed at some point in the first ~20 minutes Chris cut out in mid-sentence and suddenly Sean was on another topic. This podcast actually got me to start playing a demo of a game I still have not bought. I play The Binding of Isaac demo on Newgrounds almost nightly. I'll beat the first boss, get frustrated by the keyboard controls and Flash lag, die, and quit. I go to bed angry! The demo does not seem to be updated with Wrath of the Lamb content, so I wonder if this is a good time capsule version of the game to go back to for veteran players, similar to how Jake mentioned Team Fortress 2 is now nothing like original Orange Box TF2. Which you can rediscover by playing it on XBox 360!

That thinking is so 2007. Half-Life 3D will be an open world exploratory season-changing puzzle game with crafting, released only for the Oculus Rift. Remember how abruptly Half-Life 2 ends? "Well, I guess I just killed Alyx and everyone in the City in a massive explosion. Ah, well; on to wherever the G-Man takes me next!"

It wasn't until The Lost and Damned that I learned how to shoot effectively in Grand Theft Auto IV. Locking in on a target, clicking to zoom, taking cover, leading my target, and then firing. I was bored with the endless Mafia gunfights in the GTA IV endgame, but suddenly realizing I had all these combat options made it more exciting for me. Complicated button schemes are universally considered a bad thing in games, but in this case I really did need to learn to press three Xbox controller buttons and two thumbsticks at once to play effectively. (Uh, I guess this isn't a youth story because I was like 28 when I played that game.)

The were glorious.

Ugh, I'll never understand DOTA. These games just seem so arbitrary and overcomplicated. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to send a bunch of wind-up bunnies across a minefield.

I love this topic. Eventually I think it will be my purpose in life to fling myself into a spike pit—for science. Being anywhere near lava is dangerous! So video game depictions are very unrealistic. Even Minecraft gives you more leeway than you'd get in real life. If you stood even further away than youmeyou, you'd probably suffocate in a closed space.

I've only ever played Fallout: New Vegas but I really enjoyed it. That was enough for me! Yay, I have Kickstarted at least seven games and have little evidence that any of them will ultimately exist!

They added the ability to actually download a podcast, which you could only do before by either plugging your iDevice into your computer or by going to the Music store application and searching for the show. As far as playback goes, they changed their "back 30 seconds" button to "back 10 seconds" and added a "forward 30 seconds" button. They also added an auto-shutoff timer, for people who listen to podcasts as they fall asleep? None of this is compelling to me and every returning feature is either unimproved or worse. For example, it will autoplay episodes of the same podcast in reverse chronological order, so if you want to listen to multiple Idle Thumbs episodes you listen to episode 74, then 73, then 72 by default. This is aggravating for podcasts that are "tune in next week for part 2" and it is the opposite of behavior in the Music application. And instead of "2x speed" or "1/2 speed", your options are now "hare" or "tortoise".

Have you seen the Podcast application? It has almost no new functionality compared to the podcasts tab of the Music application, but puts it over a picture of a reel-to-reel tape player. It's a nightmare.