Korax

I'll also reaffirm my interest. Any time other than Wednesday nights and Saturday morning-afternoon. I'll also give whatever game a shot, but Numenera has been on my radar for a little while now. (also, the initial post has the descriptions for Numenera and Eclipse Phase switched)

It would be great if it were possible to actually change graphics options beyond antialiasing and "low-medium-high-very high." I'm sure there's all sorts of unnecessary shit that's bogging down my framerate. It would also be great if I could change those few settings without having to back completely out to the main menu, and maybe some sort of benchmarking mode so that I don't have to play a round at 15 fps before I can do anything about it. I know it's an alpha, and all of those things may be intended and not yet implemented, but I'm getting a "lazy console port" feeling, and it's not making me want to buy the game.

I'd be interested in a Numenera game, if that happens. I picked up the core rulebook a few months ago, and found it quite interesting. Pretty much any time other than Wednesday night or Saturday afternoon (mountain time) are good for me. I'm also not that great at actual roleplaying, but if a party needs a bit of muscle, I'm usually good at that.

The continuing adventures of Bobby's dad not quite "getting it." Also, Bobby totally Rikered his way into that chair. The introduction of the Bookhouse Boys and their generations-long fight against "darkness" definitely makes it seem like everyone knows that strange things happen, and justifies the quick acceptance of the rock-throwing session last episode. Cooper's excitement at the prospect of a secret society made me smile. Invitation to Love! As mentioned earlier by Chris (I believe), the soap-opera-named twins Emerald and Jade are shown right before Laura's own "twin" appears. I liked the way Laura's funeral just kind of devolved into slapstick as Leland tried to hug the coffin and the lowering mechanism started to malfunction. (Laura's theme goes dark just as the preacher says he isn't going to "talk too much") Oh, and EVERYONE HAS SECRET COMPARTMENTS. Audrey's hidden space in the wall, Shelly's removable panel in... whatever piece of furniture that thing was, and Catherine's ledger stash. I wish I had a secret compartment somewhere. It would be so mysterious.

Oh, I also love Payday 2's music. It does such a good job of starting out low-key and ramping up as things go nuts.

My main memories of Payday 2 are from around last year's Halloween event. They added in four new monster masks that dropped at the end of missions like everything else does. Of course, because people really wanted those masks, they found a way to quickly grind missions to get them. There's a jewelry store mission that, if you grab the minimum amount of loot, can be over within a few minutes, usually without any casualties or cops showing up. I matched into a group of other people doing this, and stuck around with them for about an hour or so, over the course of which we started to get better and better at the heist. It got to the point that we were all holding the "don mask" button as the heist loaded so that they were on as soon as possible, sprinting up to the store, letting one person disable the security guard while the rest of us grabbed jewelry, and then bucket-chaining the bags back to the van while cleaning out the last of the store's easily-found loot (there was small a safe in the store's office, but we never bothered with it). In and out in 2-3 minutes, tops. Being able to pull off a quick smash-and-grab so quickly and professionally was incredibly satisfying. "Xenomorph."

HOLY SHIT DO THAT

I hope that Chris's comment about the Fievel joke coming up his esophagus was intentionally calling forth the image of him vomiting the words.

Tonight/tomorrow works for me!

Last episode was so low-key, and I was glad when things start getting comically over-the-top right at the start. The Horne family quietly eating their meal for the entirety of the opening credits, getting noisily interrupted, culminating in a conversation through sandwich-stuffed mouths. Nadine hulking out and trashing her rowing machine. And even in the middle of the woods, that table is still stacked with donuts. I'd forgotten how early the first appearance of the Red Room and first real introduction of Bob happened. That was great, as was this: Also, Invitation to Love! I always think of the Lords and Ladies show in Max Payne 2 when it's shown.

Man, that box art brings up a weird line of thought. All the people in the intro movie were basically just huge cereal pieces with a head, arms, and legs, but Chex Man appears to be just a normal guy wearing Chex-shaped armor. I wonder if there was any thought put into that.

CHEX QUEST I played a lot of Chex Quest when it first came out (on a CD-ROM with an AOL trial installer). It's been quite a while since then, but I don't think it's that bad. It's just a weird, branded Doom mod. It had an opening CG movie that looked okay at the time, but is incredibly dated now. The Flemoids were absorbing nutrients from the rocks in some sort of cereal mine and then rapidly reproducing, overrunning the mining facility. As explained in the opening, the weapons you used - "zorchers" - were re-tuned to the frequency used by teleporters, harmlessly sending the Flemoids back to their home dimension. Those weapons were of course just reskins of the existing Doom weapons and behaved in the same way. The pistol zorcher and the chaingun zorcher used the same ammo pool, and the shotgun zorcher retained an element of the pump action - an apparently single-use battery that was ejected and replaced after every shot. That was a strange touch that I liked even at the time. You can download all three Chex Quest games set up in a ZDOOM wrapper right here - http://www.chucktropolis.com/gamers.htm That package has been sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to play more than the first level for quite a while now, but the memory is strong enough that I noticed a few small changes even at the start: I don't think that intro movie is there, and a few portraits of people on the walls that were based on renders from that intro have been replaced with pixel art drawings. My thought is that maybe the creator was worried about character likeness rights or something and didn't want to risk having them in there. Also, instead of a punch, you have a spoon that you stab at enemies with, and the chainsaw is replaced with a whirring "boot spork."

I've got it on PC, and don't really play it as much as I think it maybe deserves. I'd also like to express my deep disappointment in the fact that this thread isn't titled "MO MONEY MO PROB-THUMBS."

I would think it just switches over. That seems to be how it worked with the Arkham games and Bioshock 2.

http://bandainamcous.tumblr.com/post/100546461401/we-are-very-excited-to-announce-that-next-month-it Dark Souls is finally getting updated to use Steam instead of GFWL! Hooray!

I'd still like to try for the raid. Things should also be settled down for me this week, so I'll be good to go evenings or whenever this weekend.

Paul Prospero in: The Macbeth Cipher Paul Prospero in: The Raven Summit

I think it seems like a name from a dime store novel because that's the exact kind of self-important illusion dime-store pulp would make. Paul Prospero and the Capulet-Amontillado Conspiracy.

I like the implication that any work that references Shakespeare or Poe is somehow beyond critique because Shakespeare and Poe.

Sure, I'd be game. Anyone want to try the raid again? I have nothing else going on tonight/tomorrow.

The thing that stuck out to me the most is how so many shots shots linger on their subject just long enough to be uncomfortable or weird. The slow pan down the phone cord after Leland drops it. Bobby barking in the cell - initially goofy, then just enough to be unsettling. Those fucking unnerving staircase moments. It's all so slow and deliberate, and adds to the weird dreamy sleepiness of the show. I also get little twinges of high school nostalgia whenever Laura's Theme is playing, because I listened to a lot of Moby in high school.

I haven't completed a Nightfall strike, but got to the boss arena by myself when getting kills for part of the Pocket Infinity's bounty. I would be game for trying to actually complete it. Also, my aforementioned surprise family visit did indeed disrupt my entire weekend, so I didn't get to do much of the raid. I want to go through the whole thing, so if there's anyone who wants to run it (either from the beginning or whatever first boss checkpoint I have saved), let me know.

Hot tip for the Weekly Strike: The canyon that leads into the boss arena narrows and then drops down a bit (it's lit up by a few glow stick things, for further landmarking). If you back your way into that nook, or even double-jump back up the drop, most of the enemies in the arena will de-aggro, even going so far as to just break off pursuit and run back into the main area. It's still going to take some time to complete, but you can solo the strike on lvl 28 difficulty as long as you exercise some caution. Because of that, I had enough Coins to buy the Ice Breaker. JonCole and I rocked the final step for the Thorn, I rocked a few rounds in the Crucible to get the Bad Juju, and yesterday I completed the bounty for the Pocket Infinity, so my exotic collection is coming along nicely.

A surprise visit from out-of-town family means I may or may not be free tomorrow, depending on when we can all agree is a good time to get together.

Super Smash Brothers Kerfuffle Super Smash Brothers Quarrel Super Smash Brothers Scrap Super Smash Brothers Quibble Super Smash Brothers Squabble Super Smash Brothers Argument (Super Smash Brothers Row for European English localization) Super Smash Brothers Combat Evolved Super Smash Brothers Rumble (introducing Officer Krupke!)