Korax

So, the amount of upgrading I've done to my characters has allowed me to blow through the four sub-bosses again by just tanking the damage they deal with a barbarian (~900 HP right now), but the final boss is brutal. Doing a few gold runs to keep the upgrades rolling in.

It sort of rebalances the game to provide a challenge to your upgraded character that's similar in scale to when you first start out (two- to four-hit kills on starting enemies rather than the constant-one-shot-speed-running it gets to). All the rooms have been the same (so far), but the enemies are replaced with their late-game high-tier versions from the first playthrough. Like so many other things, though, there are runes you can equip that bump the enemy scaling down and make it easier.

I've only played a few games of Galaxy Trucker, but it is quite good, especially when you just accept that your shit is fucked from the outset and just go with all the terrible things that happen to you. I recommend the game Love Letter. Its 16-card deck and minimal rules are deceptively simple, but ends up being quite strategic and occasionally tense.

I've got a monocle. If it were three days ago, I would be keeping it for myself, but I found a sweet VR visor, and now I want to go cyborg.

Yeah, Animal Crossing was the decision point for me, too. It opened the gate for some of the other stuff that I thought looked interesting like Super Mario 3D Land and Pushmo. Also, Picross e came out on the eShop yesterday, and I loves me some Picross.

I just got access to the Happy Homes or whatever thing, which allows you to share houses via Street Pass. You store a "model" house that you can then go into and look around and apparently purchase things on display. My store's got a fishing pole and a shovel today, and I grabbed a net earlier, so those are up for anyone who wants them. Fruit other than oranges and pears would be a welcome trade, but I'm not bothered about getting anything out of it. I find it strange they don't just give you these things at the outset, since they're involved in so much of your main interaction with the game.

There's a way to eventually build/access a Dream Suite, where you can upload a "dream" of your town's state for others to visit. I haven't looked into it yet, though.

I believe there's an ATM in the post office that you can deposit your funds into.

It seems Isabelle will give you either a net or a fishing pole, depending on your choice during her tutorial dialog. I chose to talk to her about catching bugs because I already had a net, which then gave me the option to tell her I didn't have one, after which I assume she'll give you the tool. I didn't get the choice to talk about fishing after that, so it must be one or the other. The watering can and "foreign" fruit look to be constant, though. I still have oranges, and now some pear trees growing, so any other fruit would be great. I think my game's store has a net and a shovel up for sale today, so I can snag those for someone who wants them.

5429 - 7506 - 5798 I've got oranges! I guess the only way to add someone to the Best Friends list is for them to be actively visiting your town? I'll probably be on to screw around a bit during E3 wrap-up streams, so I'll leave my gate open.

I just finished a re-playing of Mirror's Edge over the weekend. Still just as great, and now I can't wait for this new one.

DERP 5429 - 7506 - 5798 I had the thing sitting right in front of my keyboard, too...

Giant Bomb's QuickLook reminded me how much I love to play Animal Crossing, so now I have a 3DS. I've gone through and added everyone who's posted so far, so you should totally add me back.

Crouch-jumping. It adds a little bit of alternate traversal that rewards those skilled at using it. Getting up somewhere behind enemy lines as a spy in TF2 and then stabbing people who (somewhat rightly) think they should be safe is great. Also, I was promised an Eleven Dollar Swapper. YOU MONSTERS BETRAYED ME. Guess I'll just have to go with the not-as-cool Fifteen Dollar version.

When I typed dotatoday.net into my browser, it briefly appeared as "potato day" in my mind.

My favorite thing about the Metro: Last Light watch is that when you're not on the surface and using it to time your gas mask filters, it shows your system time. And, to hopefully blow Jake's mind, there are things that you can use your lighter on this time.

Finished this a few days ago, and had a great time with it. My only real quibble is with the available graphics options. Aside from the basic stuff like anti-aliasing and texture filtering, everything is wrapped up into a Low, Medium, High, Very High selection. I don't give a fuck about depth-of-field or motion blurring, and other things like ambient occlusion are throwaway depending on how they look and how taxing they are on my system, but if I want that stuff off, I have to set the option to Normal, which then turns geometry detail to normal, bump mapping to low quality, and cranks down particle effect quality, among other things that I actually care about. Regardless, the game still looks amazing, and I'll definitely get around to playing it again in Ranger Mode (did Hard for the first run through).

I've got a couple invites up for grabs.

Is Patrick Klepek in on your Gone Ghost campaign, Sean? Every piece of coverage I've seen from him is under the impression that it's supposed to be a horror game, and it's so aggravating.

Another poor victim of a Shitty Wizard: http://metro.co.uk/2006/11/06/non-invisible-bank-robber-caught-348252/

I have to disagree with your assessment of Risk: Legacy ultimately coming down to just "playing Risk." Without any of the permutation that happens later, or even the basic variables in faction abilities, there are a few mechanics that make a single game different from the classic Risk experience. Starting out in one territory and spreading across the map, along with the more limited troop numbers, encourages caution in the early game (though bold moves and good die rolls can lead to a fast win, especially if other players make poor choices), but the victory point system means that a game can be won much more easily than just taking over the whole board. These things can take the afternoon-consuming experience of classic Risk and turn it into a 5-minute win followed up with loud, incredulous swearing: This was the third game we had played, but I had won both previous games. I was also the first to place my HQ, and Player 2 was determined not to let me win a third, so he placed his HQ close to mine in an effort to choke me out of possible expansion. Player 3 placed his HQ a decent distance away from us, and there were a 4th and 5th player, but they didn't do anything of note due to the shortness of the game. I took my turn, spreading a little bit, but wary of 2's proximity. 2 decided to press his luck, and after a series of good rolls, had taken over all but two of my territories, leaving each with one army apiece. Unfortunately, 2's losses and the limited amount of early-game troops left him spread incredibly thin, and player 3 was able to sweep across the area, taking the HQ's of both 2 and myself, giving him the win (1 point for not having won a game, 1 for possession of his own HQ, and 1 each for taking both of our HQ's). I love starting a game of classic Risk, but after a couple hours, I never want to play again. Risk: Legacy is a game that I found hard to stop playing.

Yeah, as long as it's NG+, you should have all your stuff.

I just made my way through the game figuring that if I didn't figure it out by the time I hit the 32-cube ending, I'd look it up. Then I saw that clue, figured it out, and even started getting to the point that Chris talked about way back where I could (slowly) read what everything was without painstaking decoding. It made the non-important things interesting without making them seem like a waste of time. I'll go back and finish the rest of it eventually (I ended with something like 29 cubes and 14 anticubes), but a break is definitely in order.

I've been having fun playing this a bit with my brother, but a full four-player game would be awesome, if people want to get together at some point over the weekend.

And every room has a Crest toothpaste collectible in it.