Irishjohn

Well, he was down and out in Mexico, no? I quite liked that part as well. You should definitely go back though. Mexico is a lot of fun and I personally liked the ending an awful lot.

I remember that bit. It just makes me think of those live online servers where everyone is playing GTA in character. Stopping at traffic lights and so on.

It is the best one so far. There should be more of this kind of tone, it puts Conan's "agh, I suck at this!" and weird coming on to virtual lady stuff in a new light. In this video he really seems a lot more in on it. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But yes, the bird-people animations. Brilliant.

Huh, I've never had that with Valve games. I really hope you haven't inadvertently ruined my next playthrough of Half-Life 2 for me. I think the bit is a lot more self-aware than it's letting on. It's got this whole "waaah I don't get games whatevs" thing but I think it's a bit funnier than that. The intentionally ridiculous and stupid rating system is pretty good. The thumbs up thing was cracking me up.

Definitely. For me though it started as a way to try and play RPGs like adventure games as much as possible, and just bypass fighting wherever I could, or have a really good bow I could use to take dudes out from afar.

I meant more that I pretty much always take the thiefiest option. Thing is, I don't even always play as a thief. I just like characters who can sneak a bit and wear light armour. I also pick speech options in stat boosts a lot. I blame the Quest for Glory games.

I have thief snobbery with RPGs, which is less fun (and less Thumbs appropriate) than wizard snobbery. I may switch my allegiance. I have actually never played the original Half-Life, though I adore Half-Life 2. I have heard about this Zen character. Tempted to give it a go with Black Mesa.

I've had exactly the same experience with Darksiders. In general I find this thread very comforting. I'm not the only one who buys games (especially during sales), installs them and then says "Now SIT there!" I did pick up Dark Souls again a few days ago (on 360) and to my shock and surprise I am playing it again. I hope the same thing happens with Dragon's Dogma, because I was enjoying that too. I was worried this Amazon sale would knock me off track again, but Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning SOUNDS like a game I would go nuts over but the demo was.... blurgh.

Metro 2033 is a great example of a game that I have temporarily abandoned. There are games that I have quit from frustration or boredom, but more frequently I get distracted by something else (sometimes another game, maybe work, maybe I just don't get time to sit down and play a game for a week or two) and boom, it's done. I don't go back. It gets put on the backlog list.

Well, they did seem to be talking about their editorial slant as somewhere to go and get all the information you need (I think... I don't want to misrepresent them) in response to which the EA guys were nodding and saying "yeah, as opposed to Kotaku for this, etc. etc.". From what I know of some of these guys, it'll be a decent site. Though I don't think I'll ever recover from that awful podcast I tried to listen to. Maybe I'll give them another shot. Then again, real life is building up and there's only so much time! I wish them well of course, but I don't think what they're doing is going to be for me.

Well, I would consider it realistic more than unsettling. It didn't bother me anyway. It did make me realize that they have some nice site technology that makes it easier for them to provide content to computers, tablets and phones. That was kind of it. I don't know, I still think the whole thing is a bad idea. I'm sure they're nice guys and I'm familiar with the work of a couple of them and its good. The thing is, all of this "what we're doing is earth shattering, changing the industry etc. etc." bullshit is necessary for them to sell themselves. That's just what you do. It doesn't make it less ridiculous.

I think the point isn't so much that they're taking forever, as to why they are trying to generate this mythos about themselves before day one. This would all be considerably less irritating as an exercise in self-aggrandizement if they actually HAD a site, although it would still be an odd exercise in self-aggrandizement. Speaking for myself, and only for myself, I couldn't care less about what the experience of starting a website is for these guys. Some people might care. I don't. Commissioning a documentary just seems silly to me. Then again, I like The Verge a lot as a site, but those guys claim all kinds of ideological trappings that I don't see on the site, the exception being Paul Miller's "year offline", itself a rather annoying concept and makes Miller himself come across as a bit of a twat, really. I'm not saying he IS a twat. I just don't like that people at the site get butthurt when people point out the whole thing is a pretentious exercise that proves nothing except that Paul Miller can get a salary for not doing very much. Then again, I don't know anything about his personal situation, and to be fair a lot of the butthurt comments from Topolsky and others was in reaction to personal criticism from anonymous Internet people. Back to The Verge, it's an awful name (the "on the verge" stuff always sounded silly) and their objective always seemed like a bunch of rubbish but who cares? It's got great podcasts, great writing and great coverage. I could just do without the whole "we're different" stuff. The real difference with The Verge is that they cover technology better than Engadget and the rest, in my opinion. This superior coverage is driven by the ideological centre they've worked at creating and maintaining, and if people ask why wouldn't they talk about it, but oftentimes it's just more corporate-speak, just from a smaller group.

I like The Verge, I think they're doing a solid job,but the Polygon stuff turns me off as well. I have no problem at all with focusing on the written word in 2012. In fact, I would prefer to have more well written articles to read. However, Polygon offer me nothing I can't get somewhere else. While saying that, I now get most of my game news on twitter, at Rock Paper Shotgun and here. I barely read Giantbomb anymore, and their return to the fold at Gamespot was the final nail in the coffin for me (even if the lid had been sitting on top only slightly ajar for several months). I do still like their podcast. I just have zero interest in their actual site these days. I tried to give the Polygon podcast a listen one day, one of the earliest episodes. I know this is terrible of me, but I found their voices so annoying I quit on them forever. Not just the sound of their voices (not a lot they can do about that) but the whole attitude pervading their conversations. I found absolutely nothing about their conversation appealing.

Well, I guess because so much of gaming is online, people just "meet" that way? The only conversations I have about games are via e-mail with a close friend in Texas and here on the Idle Thumbs forums. Actually, I really need to take advantage of multiplayer networking more, but I'm kind of the worst. I play in short bursts and at extremely irregular intervals. That being said, if you're ever attending a Barcraft event in Chicago or something like that, let me know. I live on the north side of the city.

Can't believe I didn't mention this book earlier but Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage is fantastic.

I had to stop playing sports games because they took up too much time. I was burying a lot of my time and energy into career modes in sports game. I'm terrible at them despite all this investment, too, so online multiplayer didn't work out for me. That being said, I'm always curious with new Maddens. I know that one of these years soon, I'll dive in and get one. It's kind of nice, actually, because I don't have to worry about that year's edition being too close to the previous one as I hadn't played it. Incidentally, my favourite Madden is still 03. And I would love to see more sci-fi action sports games.

Hmmm.. cool, sounds good. Maybe the third person thing would make the TD aspect more appealing. Maybe some Thumbs will play online. I haven't been very active in playing with people online, this might be a place to start.

So.... the words "Tower" and "Defence" give me a headache when put together. But I love mechs. Will I like this game? Definitive answers only! Or, failing that, interesting comments on the appeal of the game!

Cheers. Feeling a bit more confident now, might go on and have a go later on today!

Cheers, thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll give Zerg another go. I have noticed that expanding is normal now. When I played over a year ago I was winning in one base versus one base regularly. I'll need to work on macro. Still, the game does reward you for practicing. I'm not even sure what time I usually expand. At least after ten minutes in, which is probably crazy late. Was very close to signing up with gomtv.net again, though it's a wee bit pricey. Watching those games helped me a lot before despite clearly being in a completely different league, literally and figuratively.

Terran. When I was playing regularly before, and got to Silver after a ludicrous winning spree (30+) I was just handy enough at building a MMM ball. Wee push after a couple of minutes, if there was enough resistance turtle up for another few minutes and then either drop the ball behind them or storm the front. Decided to give Zerg a try, am awful, terrible at Zerg it turns out. Back now after ages and I'm not sure if Bronze are a bit better, seeing as I'm fairly limited myself. Macro is a bit aimless at the moment, allowing myself to have WAY too many minerals unspent here and there, but mostly once I'm finally ready with any kind of force my opponent is easily ready for me. Just getting slaughtered.

Cool, though I'm the US server. I'll keep an eye out. Losing resolve a little though. Getting MURDERED online. Had forgotten what this was like.

What's the deal with tournaments? I've seen some that talk about all being welcome, but I am REALLY bad. Like, "I built a ton of marines and didn't win inside ten minutes, now I'm boned" bad. Bronze bad, to clarify. I did get to silver once, trying to re-train my brain to get back to those dizzying heights.

No one can capture the elusive Golblum. No one.

So, finally read this, in anticipation of the eventual inaugural Idle Books... um... Thumbed Pages... anyway. I'm glad I read the book... it's so brief of course it would be difficult to be frustrated by reading it.. more than that, I did enjoy it. The writing is at times really very nice indeed and it reminded me a lot of incidents in my own life, or at least how I chose to remember them. In constructing a fascinating discussion about memory and how it works and what we can do to affect that and we choose to do to affect that... I liked it very much. As a story, as a piece of literature, I went through a journey. At first, I found the book off-putting and far too impressed with itself. The end of Part 1 and beginning of Part 2 really entertained me and I was extremely happy reading the book. The last few pages flew by only because I wanted it to end. I had lost patience with it really. The protagonist is unlikeable, a rather unpleasant person. In this respect Barnes did a great job in creating a fully fledged character, but I didn't like him and I didn't like what he was apparently supposed to represent. By the end of the novel, I was back to feeling like the prose was far too impressed with itself. That definitely lessened the impact of the book as a whole. It's weird... I feel like I went through my own crisis many years ago, learned how to deal with it and got on with my life. I understand that Barnes is saying that this is exactly the kind of artificial process that we all go through, and that we all tell ourselves that we've gone through it, but Tony doesn't get to complain about modern football being morally bankrupt and the world changing and then whine about how things haven't turned out for him the way he expected or thought. I had kind of guessed at how the book would end early on, and I like the way that the book generally chooses to leave things unresolved. It shows respect for the reader and fits in exactly with what the book is trying to do thematically. Ultimately, though, it left me feeling a little cold. Anyway, an enjoyable experience. If pushed, I'd probably say I wasn't the biggest fan of the book... if pushed. Thing is, you don't have to be over the moon in love with a piece of literature to have enjoyed the experience, and I did. I'm looking forward to the podcast.