Korax

True, but usually things like that are more just using a particular mechanic in an unintended way. I can't figure out what that roll does other than just make you roll. It doesn't appear to make you travel at a different speed, and you can move normally when crouching. It seems like it's only there because someone said, "He needs to be able to roll, like all those spy movies!"

No, I'm saying that there's an in-game mechanic that allowed me to break the intended seriousness/immersion of the game by rolling everywhere, similar to the break caused by Heavy Rain's speed-controllable analog stick actions that the guys talked about a few episodes ago.

There are also some choices that aren't as obvious without a second playthrough as a different alignment. Often times, if you ignore an interrupt action, you'll get an opposite-alignment dialog choice afterward.

I just played the demo, and had a nice Heavy-Rain-in-slo-mo-style, immersion-breaking moment. When you're crouching, you can pull the left trigger to do a roll. I spent almost the entirety of the mission doing somersaults from cover to cover, only stopping when I had to do something like climb on pipes or shoot a dude. Aside from that, it did actually pique my interest. I've never been a fan of hardcore stealth games, so the changes to make the gameplay more accessible are a plus for me. Also, Sam must have some crazy-strong twitch muscles in his neck. He's able to flick his goggles up and down with just a slight nod of his head.

Glad to know I'm not the only one completely freaked out by the Far Cry 2 cell tower voice. The radio garble gives it just enough of an inhuman edge to make it one of the creepiest things I've ever heard.

Gonna have to agree with this. In the first one, Kratos gets the butt because he's a selfish asshole, then "comes to his senses" and decides that the only way to fix things is to help the other gods kill Ares. He does so, and the story gets wrapped up with no real need for a sequel. Then in the second one, everything happens because he's too stupid to recognize patterns. He starts doing the same things that Ares did, and is somehow surprised when the other gods don't like it and betray him with one of the most painfully obvious set-ups that I've ever seen in anything. Because of the amazingly dumb story and frustrating QTE bullshit, I don't think I would have enjoyed the games if I had bought both of them when they first came out.

I'm in on it, and I've been playing off and on. Any other Thumbs are welcome to send invites.

Yeah, the assumed actions for a clean ME2 game are lame. What made it worse is that various game sites were reporting that an early dialog tree would allow you set those options manually, but then it turned out that it was just a feature in the debug builds so that BioWare guys wouldn't have to keep a bunch of save files on hand when testing and showing the game.

WHAT? I've never before confused the identities of the cast members, but I was pretty sure that Scoops was doing the robot voice.

I blame James.

VGuwINIpByM It's "business." Subtitles confirmed it (although they're too small to see in the video).

The ending isn't really connected to the ARG (at least not in any significant way) for now. There are surely at least one or two YouTube videos of it. As for the significance of the change, I'd say there's not much. It's mostly a sort of retcon that may make the story transition to the sequel more smoothly.

Man, my brain had an orgasm when I heard Scoops' description of Flotilla. Gonna have to check that out.

-GNnftq744I

This was in the G4 article, but for anybody who hasn't seen it, Tim Shafer had a few choice words regarding Activision:

More images from the BBS: http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3631/bigimagev2.jpg

Activision has filed for an investigation into "breach of contract" and "insubordination." I'm wondering what specific things they could be talking about. I'm also wondering how the studio will react. Firing two long-time, important employees after years of rampant success is gonna send morale down the tubes.

Found them all. Some of the later ones are bastardly. Quick summary of what I've gleaned from the Steam forums: Update adds radios and achievement Radios play either Morse code or garbled noise when brought to certain spots The Morse code has a bunch of different messages in it The radio garble is actually SSTV-encoded images which then provide an MD5-hashed phone number Calling the number proves it to be a BBS system The Morse code messages are used to guess the login BBS

I played a little bit, and there has been one radio per test chamber so far. Some are fairly easy to pick up, some are in plain sight, but in weird places that require some portalling to get, and some are hidden well enough that it might take a few minutes of searching to even hear it playing. There are a few threads in forums detailing all the locations, but so far it's been relatively easy to find. Further digging around in the updated files has revealed a BBS address/dial-in number. People are trying to figure out the login and password. And how the hell they'll connect to it.

pVI6Agm1-kY

I just started listening to the episode again, and I'm surprised that Chris's comment of "this is number two" didn't quickly devolve into poo jokes. Also, it's great that Chris used his Resident Evil voice for Civilization 5, because that's exactly what played in my head when I saw the game's announcement.

So, I'm kind of split about Other M. From what various different sources have to say, there seem to be an equal amount of things that I like and things that I hate. The game itself will be in 3-D, but mostly locked into a 2-D plane, with the occasional slight shift in camera angle. A Wii remote held NES-style will be used for control, but with the option of pointing the remote at the screen to activate a first-person firing mode. A little weird sounding, but if implemented right, it could be interesting. There's also a little bit of ambiguity as to what can be done in first-person mode. So far, it seems that the only time anyone has seen missiles being used or bosses being fought, it's been in first-person. While there won't be crazy, Ninja-Gaiden-style melee combat, there is a Gaiden-esque dodge move that Samus can now use to quickly evade enemies. Again, if implemented right, it could be good. My biggest problem, though, is that the tone of the game seems to be rather non-Metroid. For me, Metroid games have always been about isolation. Samus is a lone soul, exploring unknown and hostile environments. No one else is with her because they're either dead or too scared to try. There have been a couple minor exceptions. In Fusion, there's a computer that pops up every once in a while to give objectives, and Samus has a bit of inner monologue during elevator sequences. At the beginning of Prime 3, there are some interactions with whatever military organization hired her, but it quickly abandons them once the game gets going. This time, she's hired as an operative to help a group of commandos, with whom she apparently keeps in regular radio contact with throughout the game. You hire Samus because she's the best and can get the job done when everybody else has failed, not to babysit a group of assholes who are apparently too incompetent to do what they specialize in. There's also a "concentration mode" of some sort that allows you to regenerate missiles and an amount of your total health. Again, this seems non-Metroid to me. Part of the exploration is not knowing what's out there to get you, and making sure that you're cautious and aware of your surroundings, because at any moment, something might try to kill you, and you'd better hope you've got enough health and ammo to survive. Now you don't have to worry about it. Low on health? Just find a quiet corner and sit for a little while. Everything will be okay! There's also a thing that makes me worried that Other M will be much more linear than the other games. Instead of taking away all your weapons, you just can't use them until you're authorized by the hiring organization. I imagine it like this: Instead of finding a place you can't get to, doing some exploration, finding a gadget, returning to a previous point, and using it, you move forward until you can't any more, some sort of trigger is hit, and now missiles are active, letting you continue to move forward. Looking back at this, I realize that there are actually quite a few more negatives than positives. I'm not looking forward to Other M at all.

Metroid. I didn't have a NES when I was young, although I had a GameBoy and Metroid II. I've played every other iteration, and the original has been sitting on my Wii since it was released on the Virtual Console. At first I was surprised at how short/small the game is, but then I remembered that it was an early NES game, so it makes sense. Even then, most of the paths are completely unnecessary, and just serve to distract you from finding essential power-ups and beating the three bosses. I now understand how people can complete the game in half an hour, even without sequence breaking.

I've also been using a DeathAdder for the past few months, and it's pretty good. It is somewhat large, though. Prior to that I was using a Razer Copperhead, which is also really nice. A bit smaller, and ambidextrous, if that matters at all to you.

I'd say that while there have been a decently greater amount of great game recently, it's also due to publishers finally (fingers crossed) realizing that there are other times to release games than the fall/winter holiday season. Not only did a bunch of releases get pushed to early this year to make room for games at the end of last year, but some of those are getting pushed even further because so many games are coming out right now. A nice, steady schedule of releases over the entire year is much better than having to stockpile or even just miss out on games due to a busy couple of months.