JonCole

LittleBigPlanet isn't a cinematic single-player game and it has a great co-op experience. I wasn't trying to make a "fair comparison" as much as I was incredulous that the Ouya is worth buying for a single game when many people won't buy a more prominent console despite numerous notable games.

Really? I mean, really? Because I know some people out there who are still like, "I'm still on the fence about the PS3, it may just not be worth it since I played most of the games this generation on the 360." If people can resist buying a piece of hardware when it has Uncharted, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, I can't really believe that one game will convince anyone to buy anything worth more the price of the game itself.

Gamescom PS4 News (this may not cover everything, it's just what I remember off the top of my head) November 15 release date in US, November 29 in Europe. Call of Duty: Ghosts, Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, and Battlefield 4 will be discounted in digital format on PS4 if people buy the PS3 versions prior to PS4 launch. Remote play is promised for almost all PS4 games, demonstrated and looks quite solid. Games - Minecraft is coming as launch title for PS4; Fez is coming to PS4, PS3, Vita; Shadow of the Beast revival coming to PS4 exclusively; Developer of Dear Esther and Amnesia: Machine for Pigs is bringing next game to PS4; Wasteland Kings, Rogue Legacy coming to PS4 and Vita PS4 share button will be able to broadcast live to Twitch.tv.

Or it may give some bundling potential with the old Vita to clear stock and refill with this new model. Either way, very cool. I'll probably just wait for the PSV-3000 Slim White version to upgrade.

If anything crops up, you can also use AMD Overdrive (part of Catalyst Driver Suite) to lower the power consumption like this:

Depends how small form factor the rest of your PC is. If you're running like a Core i3 or Celeron (Ivy Bridge or Haswell, preferably) along with 4GB of RAM and a single HDD (5400 RPM would be ideal), it wouldn't be incredibly foolhardy. If you're worried about it, a 7750 usually uses about 40w less under load than the 7770.

I really hope it's not that early, or else I'll really have to budget tighter than I'd like to afford it or cancel one of my preorders.

Particularly regarding DRM and Kinect, there definitely were some best-case scenarios where it could have been better. If Kinect is mandatory and developers could rely on it being plugged in at all times, I think there could be a lot of room for innovation. When it comes to motion control, there were few successes but the successes were fantastic. For all the shitting on PlayStation Move, JS Joust is easily one of the most darling indie games that the press talks about on a regular basis. Kinect birthed Dance Central, which I think was a fairly amazing implementation of IR motion tracking that captured the hearts of many of my non-gamer friends and gamer friends alike. And of course, who can forget Wii Sports and how that roped in so many people into the Wii? I think there's still a ton of potential locked into motion control, and having it be quite optional in all of the gaming consoles this generation is sure to put the release of that potential into the first, slow gear. And then DRM I can be less long-winded about. It could have been Steam for consoles, years before anyone else even tried it for mainstream consumers. If they managed to really incentivize digital through convenience and value, it could have really changed the gaming landscape in a positive way. Of course, neither of these scenarios was likely and in fact Microsoft seemed to be doing nothing to foster a Steam-like marketplace nor a creative culture to really juice the best from Kinect. But still, the potential was huge and now it's all gone.

Maybe this is an overly emotional reaction to the state of things for the Xbone, but all of these reversals do nothing to restore my confidence in Microsoft because they come off as totally spineless. Sure, many of the changes were things that I criticized, but it's still very clear in my mind how confident Microsoft was at E3. They were proud of these features they had and seemed willing to stand behind their progressive choices. Instead, they basically decided to rip out almost every differentiation. In some ways, this makes me much less likely to grab one - if it's not offering much different, then why get it in addition to a PS4?

Releasing multiple versions has always been their attempt to foster multiplayer, because each version has exclusive Pokemon that must be traded to complete the Pokedex. There is always a small degree of variation in the story as well, usually involving catching the exclusive Legendary Pokemon displayed on the front of the box. So really, the only consideration you'd want to take is buying a different copy than any friends you might play with. Or which one has a cooler looking Pokemon on the cover.

I feel like the degree of dickery in the environment ramps up as the levels progress. In the mines, the one-hit kill dangers are pretty manageable. Really, the spikes are the only threat you have to deal with regularly and the Idol's rolling boulder is totally optional. The jungles have the man-eaters in addition to the spikes. The ice caves have the pit at the bottom in addition to mammoths which replace the man-eaters as one hit killers. And so on. The later levels also add enemies and challenges that do a lot more damage than the typical bat or spider, but since your health has the opportunity to be much higher as time goes on these threats seem more manageable than if they had been presented in the mines. I guess my point is that the major threats only seem to get harder to manage as you should theoretically be acquiring more items and health during your time playing the game. I don't really find the bat + spikes scenario as particularly convincing to the argument against randomness, because you can almost always move away from the spikes to engage the bat. The bats are difficult because their movement is unlike other enemies and requires much better timing than any other enemy. I don't really think they inherently add more randomness, as much as they provide a mechanically different enemy to combat. They're one of the few enemies that attacks from above, but you always have the ability to throw a rope up and kill a problematic bat.

Yeah, totally agreed. Spelunky inherently gives you the ability to clear a level without the use of any bombs or ropes, granted you take the "main path" and don't get stuck in a hole or something. With the appropriate level of caution and managed level of greed, you will very rarely want for bombs and ropes. But if you say to yourself, "well, I need to get every crate, every damsel, kill every enemy, mine every dense gold square using the mattock, farm every enemy on the altar to Kali, and kill every shopkeeper" or even a subset of three or so of those things, getting killed by the more clearly randomized elements is more or less fair because you were really pushing the limits.

I had no idea until watching a ton of Let's Plays that the camera had the same one-hit kill effect against vampires as it does against bats. Basically, it's one of the ultimate hell weapons and I thought it was useless until seeing one specific use case.

Thank god. EV training has always been a huge nightmare slogfest, if they even make it marginally easier I'll be eternally grateful. If only they had an in-game IV calculator or something.

Mega Ampharos OMGGGGG. Easily one of my favorite Pokemon, but it got fairly short shrift compared to it's high SP ATK + high SPEED Electric type competitors. Interested to see what this interesting(?)/dumb(?) evolution(?) holds for it.

I'd be curious to see a list of changes, because that seems like a rash judgment. I'm going to sound like an apologist because I clearly enjoy the game, but just taking your example into account ("Arrows are too easy to dodge!") makes it seem a little silly. I don't think it's an unreasonable game mechanic to require that you trigger a line-of-sight trap by throwing something in its way. Or in other words, why should you have been able to dodge a flying arrow to begin with? Anyways, Spelunky (like other unforgiving games that I mentioned, like Dark Souls) will certainly float different boats. I don't ever feel cheated when I play the game, but that may because I appreciate the mechanics more than others.

http://spelunkyworld.tumblr.com/post/57672253638/which-version-of-spelunky-should-you-get I feel like when all is said and done, I will own all of the versions.

I have a Steam key for the add-on bundle for the Humble Bundle Deep Silver pack, containing Metro 2033, Risen, and Sacred Citadel. If anyone has interest in these three games (all three or any of the three, it's just a single key though), send me a PM.

I don't have anything to contribute, except for the creative criticism that this topic should have been named "A Far Cry 2 from Home - Travel Discussion"

If you want to do episodes, they're on sale via GMG - http://slickdeals.net/f/6191384-GMG-Deals-GTA-EFLC-7-99-GTA-VC-2-49-LA-Noire-4-99-GTA3-2-49-GTA4-7-99-More

This game is fantastic. I played it every day for at least an hour over a span of maybe 2 months straight. Now that the PC version is coming out, there's a lot more excitement in the community that is sure to send me back to it. I think the best part of this game is somewhat connected to the popularity of Dark Souls and the like, in that execution is everything and every mistake is yours. Sure, there may be a particularly weird cascade of cause and effect in the game due to physics or interesting interplay of enemies/environment, but if you had just hit that button to deploy the rope one second faster you would have been fine. This is only reinforced by the repetition and generally short game times, where you constantly feel like you're learning and tightening your skills even though there are so few persistent indicators of progress built into the game. I've watched a ton of let's plays for this game for this reason - the progress is palpable over many episodes and there is a lot of drama mixed into relatively short bursts of gameplay. I recommend NorthernLion's series in specific for this purpose, if you're interested in seeing how the game works/you like LPs -

Why? YOLO

Considering Clash in the Clouds is $5 and Irrational has stated that the Season Pass will offer $30 worth of content for $20, you're certainly correct that the story DLC will total about $25. So really, if you bought the season pass you're getting a discount on story DLC and getting CitC for free. I find it hard to be sympathetic toward season pass owners who are dissatisfied because Infinite owners were free to wait until the plans were detailed before buying the season pass (you can buy one now). You can wait until they're all released, if you want. I waited until all the Saints Row and Borderlands 2 DLC was released before I decided their season passes were worth my money. Plus, the passes were on sale (25% off or something) and I got even more than my money's worth. So it's hard for me to think that this is some money grubbing scheme, since you have to be somewhat careless with your money to get "taken advantage" of.

Stuff like this is why the Vita is the greatest.