JonCole

Having recently played Killzone 2 (a few hours for the first time), I wholeheartedly agree that the controls are incredibly gross. I honestly don't know why anyone would make a FPS control scheme on consoles that doesn't mimic either Halo or COD in first-person. I bought my bundle with Watch Dogs, because it seems to be most likely to impress me out of the launch lineup. Just thought I'd briefly mention an observation I made today... SCEA (don't know if this applies to EU) is running a promotion where you get $10 back in credit for every $50 you spend on the PSN Store through October 29. If you choose to take advantage of this promotion preordering games that will eventually allow digital upgrades to PS4, the promo essentially subsidizes that $10 upgrade cost. I'm currently considering cancelling my BF4 preorder and just buying it for PS3 for eventual upgrade as a result, partly because I'm curious to try out the digital upgrade system and partly because I'm dreading driving to GameStop to pick up that PS4 preorder on release day.

The only issue I can imagine is Linux driver compatibility, otherwise they are Intel machines that should theoretically work just fine.

Kat Bailey wrote up a pretty solid article on IGN about competitive battling, might be good light reading for the uninitiated - http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/08/inside-the-twisted-world-of-competitive-pokemon-battling It's absolutely nuts that they've exposed EVs in the game proper and that there is now specific, non-wild battling training for them. The only thing I think they could do to make it more accessible is expose IVs explicitly and have a way to wipe out a Pokemon's EVs wholesale.

So, are we going to try to organize this into a thing? I'm pretty sure I'm going to be picking up the PS3 version this afternoon so I'd be down for a regular game session granted GTAO is actually fun. That said, I'm on the same page as Toblix in that I'll probably want to play more after completing the SP, however long that takes.

You guys are ridiculous. Just got this cartoon face drawn of myself so I figured I'd put it to use as a new avatar in all of my various social channels. A brief show of vanity, I suppose.

Nintendo likes to release games on Sundays. I think Saturday is just a concession that Japan gives to NOA because of US retailers.

I took a brief break from the Red track for LeafGreen and Soul Silver, but that's only because they were remakes. Everyone on the Y train!

Depending on how tight the launch window is on the first Steam Machines, I think there may be a market in hardcore PC gamers who are still feeling shocked over next-gen PC port system requirements. I know a ton of diehard PC master race people that have 1 or 2GB video cards, Nehalem Intel chips, and no SSD who might be attracted by an all-in-one, open box purchase. Like any console launch, I imagine that these will first need to convince the people who already use Steam before it carries on into the mainstream.

Due to lack of controller support, I played on 360 despite owning it on PC. I might go back and play it again just to see it in glorious PC graphics and for those damned Steam achievements.

Pfft, you're using last-gen lightbulbs so you don't even know the kind of pure entertainment insanity you could be getting. The Cree LED lightbulbs I use in my house use 9.5W, meaning I could have 47 lightbulbs going instead of this horribly boring Steam Machine tech.

Just did some research for the hell of it, looks like a Titan uses power from the PCI-E bus, a 6-pin connector, and a 8-pin auxillary connector, meaning it should draw roughly 300W on its own and power test results seem to corroborate that unless you're trying to drive three-monitors with it or something dumb like that. Considering all of these will presumably be rendering at 1080p resolution for a TV, it should probably dip below that if I had to guess. Throw in a non-overclocked Haswell Core i7 and the system should peak at 400W.

450w for a Titan is impressive, yes. I imagine they might be able to get some power efficiency from their OS tinkering, and they might be able to swing 80 Plus Gold PSUs with a ton of 12V rails that can deliver enough current for make that work. That said, if you have good parts that are clocked normally 450W is generally pretty solid for a single-card system.

Switch pipes audio to TV over HDMI, TV sends audio to soundbar using optical.

I use an HDMI switch and find it quite sufficient for my purposes. Can't afford a $200+ HDMI-switching receiver, personally.

Brian Crecente at Polygon wrote up a preview of Burial at Sea, there are essentially no spoilers and it gives me a lot of confidence that it'll be quality content - http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/4/4801862/playing-through-bioshock-infinites-compelling-burial-at-sea

Why wouldn't you use a DVI-D to HDMI cable?

Yeah, it's hard not to judge this practice on the whole when there are so many instances of it being super shitty. It's also somewhat murkier because usually, retailer exclusive content or day one DLC is a decision that you could most likely pin on publishers. In the case of these Kickstarter games, the developer is the one driving the choice to have this exclusive content so it's a lot easier to say, "weird, the game was actually designed in a way to give some people this content and others not".

Glad someone else did this, I was tempted to thread revive but couldn't be bothered to actually find it. Very cool, the addition of controller support is the most appreciated.

At this point, the goal seems to be being right at least 1%.

People (including myself) got quite miffed about Star Trek: Into Darkness's plethora of retailer exclusive content that included a director's commentary. Y'know, the one piece of meaningful bonus content that is the baseline expectation of anyone buying a DVD/Blu-Ray. The comparison is hardly 1:1, but that content was superfluous in a literal sense, as you didn't need a director's commentary to make a film "whole", but it broke just about every expectation that any reasonable consumer would have.

This was basically the point I was trying to make. For me, it's a degree of trust in the developer. Do I trust that comcept will truly be delivering what they consider to be a complete experience with the retail version? I do. Do I trust that Irrational delivered what they consider to be a complete experience with their retail version of Bioshock Infinite (despite having announced DLC prior to release)? I do. Did I trust that Bioware/EA delivered the complete experience with the non-Collectors edition of Mass Effect 3? Absolutely not. That trust is meaningful in that it is the red line between making something a bonus or a detraction. In this particular case, I trust Inafune and comcept to deliver a more than sufficient experience with their retail versions. If they break my trust and make that exclusive content a meaningful detraction from the "complete" retail experience, that might change my perspective when I choose to purchase their next game.

The only bit of semantics I'd like to highlight is in the assertion that by having something exclusive, it's being omitted. I think it's a bit like the general dissatisfaction with planned DLC - people think that if DLC is planned, then the creators must have intentionally carved away elements of the "complete" game to deliver that "extra" content. I don't think there's ever evidence of that being true, and similarly I don't think there's any assurance that this bit of exclusive content will be anything but excess rather than something essential. Of course, that depends on your definition of essential, but I just thought the comparison was germane.

I have like... 200 zubats from when I was trying to make a Crobat with half-decent IVs. They need to really add bulk-release to the box system.

Well, to rip apart the other part of this comment (2D part seems well trodden ground), it has reached the Vita/3DS goal through the PayPal component of the fundraiser which also contributes to stretch goals. Anyways, I've been holding my money until the eleventh hour and as I scroll through the reward tiers in one window and my bank account in the other window, I think I'm going to hold off entirely. The good thing about Kickstarter is that when a game is a success and all you really want is the game, the safest choice seems the most rewarding - don't spend any money now, buy the game when it retails for likely the same price as everyone else who preordered. I'm not incredibly interested in the higher tiers than just the $20-for-just-the-game deal, so I'm happy to contribute to their day one sales number rather than their enormous Kickstarter number. Glad to see it's such a smashing success, either way.