JonCole

Looks like Europe is indeed getting The Cave via PS+, just have to wait a little bit - http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/22/ps-plus-for-eu-ambles-into-april-with-thomas-was-alone-the-cave/ Also, holy shit you guys get so much better stuff than us. ME3, Mortal Kombat, and MGS: HD? Damn.

They're not very common and this is probably the best one I've seen on the service. Not indicative of what their norm is. I doubt this is the best price ME3 will ever be, but I also wouldn't rely on it getting cheaper any time soon. I'd anticipate that it'll be cheaper in the uptick toward the next ME game, which isn't going to be for a while. TLDR? If I didn't have ME3, I'd buy it now.

I was being facetious. I've posted about "completing" games here before, when I decided I was "done" with a "complete" experience. Example, the first five hours of FFXIII constituted a very "complete" game as far as I am concerned.

Um, aren't we only supposed to post in this thread if we've 100%'d a game?

I felt like Deus Ex's MGS stuff outdoes anything MGS ever did. I look at MGS4 and the action-heavy combat just seems like the stealth combat dragged fighting to the action side of the spectrum. In Deus Ex, it seems like it takes the MGS mechanics and fits them into a combat system that can both use them and still be a competent FPS game.

Mewtwo would be a cool boss. I bet he'd be all over jeans Friday.

For me, AAA indicates a number of things that encompass most of what you guys said - Significant to financial success of a company Really expensive Big team (or tons of outsourcing) Definitely a full retail game, aka not $15 XBLA or something As far as I'm concerned, the definition of AAA changed the moment Assassin's Creed became one of the biggest gaming franchises. It basically added the big team aspect to the equation, because since AC1 and AC2 you've seen tons of games with credits that will run until you're dead and buried (notably EA games, especially since they did the thing of renaming studios "Bioware Whatever" under the umbrella of one central management apparatus).

It's incredible how fast 3D as a feature has turned over. Nintendo is even treating it in first-party games at a similar level to Sony with Sixaxis in in the PS3. The industry at large doesn't seem to care about 3D anymore, with Sony basically not giving it the time of day in the PS4 conference after producing a Sony monitor to be used specifically with the PS3 that supported 120hz and came bundled with Motorstorm Apocalypse with 3D support and a pair of 3D goggles. Anyways, the 3DS will succeed nonetheless. I'm glad to own one if only because it seemed like the hardware upgrade the DS deserved. While the DS had some great games, it seemed like little more than a second screen on the GBA as far as technology is concerned (evidenced by the weird DSi upgrade which was barely a half-step between the DS and 3DS). I just picked up Kid Icarus and am eager to play it, though I find it odd that I've spent more time playing DS Pokemon games on my 3DS than all the 3DS games I've played so far combined.

Yeah, Audino has been a blessing at keeping my team on an even level even when I'm entrenched in areas where they simply don't stand a chance against the local fauna.

http://www.amazon.com/Kinivo-501BN-Premium-wireless-adapter/dp/B0049SCB2Y/ + http://www.amazon.com/ViewHD-Premium-Audio-Extractor-Converter/dp/B00AHS8LD8/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_1 ... is what I'm thinking. The reviews on that ViewHD seem generally positive on the few sites I found that stock/have stocked it.

Are you asking for an HDMI switcher with separation of audio to HDMI + TOSLINK out? Or in other words, something like 4 HDMI in, 1 HDMI + 1 Toslink out? Because I'm looking for something similar, so I can eventually setup some nice wireless headphones for the living room.

This doesn't really have to do with speculation about these new consoles and specs and junk, but I didn't know where else to say it so I'll say it here - I think that I'm not going to buy new consoles until I completely finish my backlog of games from this generation. Or more specifically, I won't buy a PS4 until I finish my PS3 games. I won't buy a Durango until I finish my 360 games. It's kind of stupid, but it gives me some motivation to finally wrap everything up from this gen and move on. Not to mention HDMI Shortage 2013, which will certainly bring doom and destruction to the port setup on my main television if I don't clear out stuff.

How about Vullaby? I think you can catch one on Victory Road and it'd be pretty close to evolving into Mandibuzz, whose Dark/Flying would address Fighting, Psychic, and Ghost. I'm about 20 hours in and just hit Nimbasa City, so I'm a little slow going. My team is a little weak on type-coverage - fire types are annihilating my team and my Riolu/Elekid are just glass cannons until they evolve. I always thought it was weird how rare water-type Pokemon are until you learn surf or get a fishing pole. I'm also struck by how I'm really not very overleveled in this game so far. Typically, I find myself at least a good five or six levels on average stronger than enemy teams, but I'm almost always evenly matched on levels and gym leaders/special enemies usually take out at least half of my team. I don't know if this is just because I'm less patient about grinding or there are fewer trainers in the wild to level against, but it's definitely a different experience which is keeping me roped in and on the edge in combat.

I have a code for Darksiders that I have almost certainly not given away (I have it in my Amazon Digital Library, which doesn't indicate to me whether or not I redeemed it... but I'm pretty confident I haven't). I know most people have crazy THQ junk in Steam/elsewhere, but it's up for grabs. PM me if you want it (and have something like 10+ posts). Given away!

Well, just thinking about new computer stuff by reading this thread clearly had an effect on me, as I finally pulled the trigger on a video card upgrade (albeit a small one). I'm going from a GTX 560 Ti 1GB to a Radeon 7870 2GB for only $210 AR. An admittedly small upgrade, but with news that next-gen GPUs in the price range I'm interested in are about a year away I decided that I should go ahead and get the most out of this generation of hardware. Not only that, but the upgrade lets me put my old card into my girlfriend's PC (a significant upgrade to her Radeon 5770) and I get Bioshock Infinite + Tomb Raider download codes for free. Not too shabby!

I like Corsair's cases and most of them look pretty presentable for a normal human being - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139011

The AMD Radeon 7850 is comparable to the GTX 660. The 660 may benchmark slightly higher and get better power consumption, but I wouldn't pay $50 extra for that when in real terms there is little to no difference between them. The GTX 650 is a big step down from the GTX 660. That said, both will be more than enough to handle 1080p gaming with reasonable expectations as to performance. The GTX 660 would be more futureproof.

We don't have many chain businesses that'll do that for you here in the US. The only ones I can think of are TigerDirect in the SE or Microcenter.

He said he doesn't want to build a PC. Seems silly to continually recommend it knowing that. The 640 won't do you much good. It could certainly run some games, but it doesn't come close to "ensuring you can play new games in 6 months". I'd also be inclined to recommend something like this from Cyberpower - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229361 AMD CPUs aren't nearly as popular as Intel, but they almost always give you much better bang for your buck in the mid-range (think Core i3 or Core i5 equivalents). Also, Cyberpower and companies like them tend to use off-the-shelf parts, meaning you won't have to worry about crappy white label motherboards and PSUs.

What I would do is keep an eye on Woot.com for one of their prebuilt desktop deals. They often run Core i7, 8GB RAM, 2TB HDD machines from Dell or HP for around $500 and all you'd need to do to make it a gaming machine is swap in a mid-range video card like the GTX 650 or Radeon 7770 (both run around $100 - $120). If you want higher performance than that would grant you (which would be medium/high settings in most games at 1080p), then you might want to look at machines specifically built for gaming in mind as they'd have much more significant power supplies that could better support higher end cards like the GTX 670 or Radeon 7870.

That was seriously the worst gaming moment of last year for me. Black hole for momentum and excitement.

You can make all kinds of stuff with a fuzzy logic rice cooker. I won't argue against the utility of a pressure cooker (because I'm currently in the market after watching America's Test Kitchen's recent YouTube series on them, here's ), but if you consume a lot of rice you can get a fair amount of the variety that you can get from a pressure cooker with a nice Zoji rice cooker. I'd know, because I eat rice with everything (everything).

Yeah, as I continue on I'm noticing very few instances of necessary HMs. Though I feel like Surf is still quite necessary to always have around, which is not the worst as it's probably the most effective of the whole HM moveset. One thing I'm really liking so far in BW2 is that they're actually utilizing the backlog of Pokemon that are available. Only a few hours in and I already have two of my favorite Pokemon in my party, or at least their predecessors - Growlithe and Elekid. I appreciated that in BW they focused on the new Pokemon, but this one is tapping into the nostalgia that also made stuff like SoulSilver quite enjoyable.

I don't think that's too weird, I just don't want to be surprised when the third evolution of a pokemon I've been training for hours looks ridiculous or doesn't get a good STAB like Flamethrower or Thunderbolt in the natural move list. Side note as I'm rolling through White 2, I really wish they'd get rid of HM's from the game or at least make them a holdable item that lets my Starmie use waterfall in the game world without dedicating a move slot to it. I just hate having to put sub-par moves on my team or having my sixth slot taken up by a weird normal or water-type HM whore like Pelipper or Bibarel. Easily the worst mechanic to hang out in the series from the very beginning.