mikemariano

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Posts posted by mikemariano

  1. Posted

    Apparently merchandise from this game was an official gift to President Obama:

     

    From entries made since 2009 to the U.S. Protocol Gift Unit Federal Register Report, which records items given by foreign dignitaries to federal employees.

     

    ...

     

    “Witcher 2” playing cards and five wooden dice in black sack with “Witcher” emblem, to Barack Obama from Poland.

  3. Posted

    Any idea what they think of the movie? I'm particularly curious if your friend saw it - especially since she mentioned Laura as her favorite character and Sheryl Lee as her favorite actress but didn't talk about FWWM.

     

    I'm fairly sure she's seen Fire Walk With Me, but I have no idea what she thinks of it.  I wonder if she and Mark will do an episode for the 2017 series...?

  5. Posted

    On hard with a cipher and the two party members you find in Gilded Vale I couldn't get to the end of the temple dungeon. I had to go pick up Durance and come back and even then I had to reload lots. How the hell do you fight the shades and shadows? They're immune to paralyze, all their defence scores are high.

     

    Yes, I don't understand the justification for this at all.  I have no idea how to fight shades at a low level.  I went to Defiance Bay first and leveled up as much as possible before returning to Caed Nua.

     

    EDIT: Wait, I misremembered.  I trudged through that fight and then gave up on the next castle.

  6. Posted

    Looks like I'll wait until then and decide whether I want to jump back in.  I didn't find the end of the main game super-compelling.

     

    You discover that the gods don't have any real divinity, then are asked to decide which god's plan you want to follow.  Why should I give them any respect?  And if the end of the main game lowers its stakes like that, what can an expansion do?

  10. Posted

    I fail to see how having some pills with negative effects is at all a desirable thing for this game to have.

     

    It's all about showing off your Roguelike cred!

     

    I'm not sure what to tell you about the original Isaac—I'm not sure it offers enough variety to make it worth sticking with, and I definitely had a harder learning curve with the original than with Rebirth.  In Rebirth, when I get frustrated with Maggie's slow movement or Isaac's low damage, I end up picking up a weird item that changes the way I play for the rest of my run.  Those moments are a lot more rare in the original Isaac.

  11. Posted

    Yeah, demands for more speed without quicker damage just don't work.  Plinking away at enemies in Greed Mode that can't possibly die in time for the next round isn't fun.

     

    I've completed Greed Mode with all of the old non-Lost characters and fought some new boss with Isaac, though I'm not sure how I got there.  So I think I can still ignore the new challenges and stay away from what's frustrating about Afterbirth.

  13. Posted

    Just beat Read Only Memories.  It was OK.  The recent 18-minute game Murder did a much better job scratching my cyberpunk itch.  ROM had much more of a plot, but the twists weren't very satisfying and the re-use of characters got tiring after a while.

     

    I got what my Steam Achievement calls Ending Number Three, which is basically just the Wheatley plot twist in Portal 2.  If only I had been nicer to Turing!  I don't know if I'm motivated to try and get any of the other endings, though.

  17. Posted

    Just finished Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

     

    It was a more manageable final boss than I thought, and I liked that the final moments of the story were extremely low-key.

     

    I was amused by the fact that no one knows or cared that I battled and defeated an extradimensional god.  I should at least get credit for stopping everyone's collective bad dream!

  18. Posted

    Thanks everybody for the input!  I'm not opposed to sharing an apartment, but since I'd likely be in the apartment for most of the day, I wouldn't want a situation that would be distracting for me and an imposition for them.

     

    Downtown Vancouver is out of my price range, but the other neighborhoods look OK and walking/public transit-friendly.  When looking at Ireland I also looked outside of Dublin, but I found it tough to tell whether or not I would need a car.

     

    And I never thought about the Netherlands—I'm just reading now how thoroughly English has muscled in on Dutch throughout your country, osmosisch.  I apologize!

  19. Posted

    I am in the process of putting aside 2–3 months at the beginning of next year for a writing sabbatical.  Get a sublet somewhere and complete two of the plays I've been working on—maybe also the video game scripts I've been telling myself I'll write?

     

    In practice, though, this means quitting my job, leaving NJ and NYC, and finding someplace tolerable to be unemployed for a while.  Then magically finding a new job right away in my mid-thirties?

     

    I'm thinking of doing all of this in Vancouver, a warmer, milder city than New York.  Does anyone know how easy/fun it is to be in the city during the winter?  I also thought about Dublin (still warmer than NYC!) but the sublets were significantly more expensive.

     

    Or does anyone have any leads for cool cities, sublets, and situations where I can basically hole up with a laptop and a spiral notebook?  Or people I should collaborate with?  If I'm pushing the reset button on my life I might as well make it count.

  22. Posted

    I was pleased with myself for beating the October 31st Daily Challenge, but only came in 34,947th place out of what seems to be ~120,000 challengers.  I accidentally quit 10/30 (I got a phone call mid-game that stole window focus) and intentionally quit today's challenge with about 600 points for each day.

     

    At my best I'm not even in the top 25% of Isaac players.  And I'm rarely at my best!

  24. Posted

    I've almost finished it now.  Just need to clear out that endless dungeon before finishing up the main quest.

     

    Did anyone actually use the crafting/enchantment system?  I completely ignored it.

     

    Yes; most of my weapons were enhanced with crafting.  You can't make anything dramatically better than you can find, though I took some mid-game unique weapons and upgraded them, making them just as good or better than the unique weapons I found later in the game.

     

    I got to the end of the endless dungeon and couldn't win in a straight-up fight!  The game gives you other options, but I wanted to be tough for once!

  25. Posted

    Sorry to pile on with kvetching about the art, but I will reserve all judgement until I see the animation.  Day of the Tentacle is deeply in debt to Warner Brothers animation and cartoon logic, so only by seeing the game in motion can I make any real determination on how effective the new art is.