JonCole

Yet another masturbatory plug here, but I recently recorded an episode of Pixel Revolt, the Bitmob community podcast, with Aaron Thomas (of Gamespot 'fame'), Brett Bates (you might have seen him recently on Co-Op), and Derek Lavigne. A brief description, for those of you who want to possibly save a mouse click: Anyways, if you're interested, check out the blog entry for the episode or just go here for a direct download.

I was thinking about making a big ass blog post with pictures of all the shit I got for Christmas, but then I realized that I neither had the motivation nor vanity to go to those masturbatory lengths. Instead, I figured I'd just make a good ol' forum topic for people to slap their lists on. Stuff: Playstation 3 Infamous Killzone 2 District 9, 500 Days of Summer, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Blu-Rays A huge surge protector with like... 10 outlets. I don't know why I'd ever need something like this. A sweet brown hoodie Some shirts A blade coffee grinder Couple of USB Flash Drives Best Buy, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart Gift Cards

Oh, man, no shit. I spent like the first three hours straight updating firmware, updating games, downloading PSN games, installing PSN games, installing games, etc. I used to think that PS3 whiners were just... well, whiny, but now I don't blame them.

I've pretty much already burned through the archive once, probably going to start up again soon. At this point, I actually have a dedicated MP3 player completely filled with Thumbs.

Same time? Vanilla?

I'd say that Oblivion is as good a pick as any, if you haven't played it before. The Witcher is supposed to be a pretty premier PC title and it's just running at 13 USD, cheap as hell. Beyond that... I dunno, Orange Box? Probably played at least some of the Orange Box titles, but it's still worth owning and replaying, especially with all the shit they're putting out there for TF2 all the time.

Some guy named Chris Remo once wrote an article about good PC games of this year.

Just got finished watching Sugar... not the typical feel-good sports movie, more about being a person in completely unfamiliar territory and the promise (or lack thereof) of the American dream. Also, you don't really have to be familiar with baseball to enjoy it. Probably lands at least in my top 20 of the year, maybe better.

Nothing really jumping out at me too much today... Jade Empire is tempting, from the "I've had the Xbox version of the game sitting on my shelf for years and somehow still haven't played it, maybe I should get it for PC where the graphics are bound to be more approachable" perspective. And Tales of Valor is also on the shortlist.

Yeah, I'm definitely with Jake on this one. No amount of upscaling will help when there's so little work put into character design and backgrounds. Simply "being on the PS3 or 360" doesn't change the amount of detail put into the game, as is evidenced by that 1080p render which frankly just makes the game look like high resolution art that I could easily crank out using Forza 3's decal creation tool, let alone something as robust as Photoshop.

There is a quick pop-up showing item descriptions, as you mentioned. And to be fair, you can pick up all the ammo and money on-screen at once if you hold down the pick up button for a couple seconds.

Well, I guess I'm gonna have to do an ugly, multi-part response. I apologize in advance. I would say that the co-op would probably make the game look far more unpolished than the single player campaign. They really dropped the ball with how players interact with each other and how quest logs work in tandem. Comparing items is one of the most broken features in the game. Fortunately, I never really have too much of a problem with this because my main is a loot/money machine and I usually just buy what I want and figure out what's better through experience. Also, the interface is pretty much an untouched port of the console version, which I've personally remedied by actually plugging in a 360 controller to my PC. Probably. The enemy sounds are particularly grating, I wish I could silence every single midget thing in the game. I honestly haven't experienced this, because numbers pour out of an enemy if you hit them. I think that I take issue from this most... because I don't really know of a loot-driven game that doesn't just have "shit everywhere" and required you to "run around and look at all the stuff". Now, there's plenty of room for improvement, like... why do I have to manually pick up money and ammo? Would there be any reason I wouldn't want that if I'm in a single player game? Now, if that's what you're talking about, I'm with you, but having to run around to check out weapons and shit seems pretty... standard in a loot game. This is the worst fucking thing in the game. Fuck that intro scene.

Prey isn't a great game, but I'd say it's pretty good. The "Native American cultural elements" get hokey as hell, though, which made me have to stop playing before too long. I just can't deal with that shit.

From the very small amount of Uncharted 2 and several hours of Uncharted 1 that I've played, I'd say it's a little more than a popcorn movie (that figure of speech being most aptly analogous to Modern Warfare 2). Maybe Steven Spielburg on a good day, or something (where he's directing, not producing).

Great deals today: Star Wars Premier Pack (Battlefront 2, Galaxies, Jedi Knight 1/2, Republic Commando, Starfighter, Dark Forces 1/2, Mysteries of the Sith) - $25 Dragon Age Origins - 25% off on both versions (Deluxe $49, Standard $38) Lumines - $3 Torchlight - $5 Universe at War - $5 Prototype - $20

Or crashing into the back of Jon with a car that's nearly twice the weight, effectively causing Jon to do a 540º.

I think that's probably because it went on sale for so damn cheap on Steam during Black Friday. Either $1 or $2, if memory serves.

Because Indiana Jones's soundtrack was composed by John Williams. If John Williams did a video game soundtrack for a game that's not in the Star Wars, Indie, or Harry Potter universes, I'd shit my pants in glee.

Hmm, yeah, I'll give that a try. I was actually admiring the soundtrack as soon as I popped it in, though I couldn't really hum a verse of it yet. It's just that coming off its contemporaries like Gears of War that so obviously signal a transition, Uncharted feels a little archaic, which is so strange due to the fact that it's a completely beautiful game.

So, I'm playing the original Uncharted and while I remember a lot of people complaining that it took too many hits to kill enemies (which it does), I didn't seem to notice people talk about the lack of sufficient signaling at the end of combat sequences. The whole "shoot a guy five times in the head to kill him" thing wouldn't be so bad if I didn't think a battle was over about five minutes before it was really done and get stormed from behind.

Yeah, my parents managed to snag the best Black Friday bundle out there, as far as the PS3 + games go. And I actually originally watched D9 and 500 Days with my girlfriend, so she figured they'd also make great BRD gifts for me (she was right, I adore both of those movies).

The latest episode of This Week in Tech was pretty damn entertaining, Leo Laporte had Jonathan Coulton and John Hodgman on. http://twit.tv/twit227

Oh, I wasn't really salivating due to the graphics or representation of gameplay or anything like that, I was really just more excited about the fiction. I'm a self-diagnosed sci-fi whore, so I got a lot out of the story (and more importantly the universe) of the first Mass Effect.

Nabbed Red Faction: Guerilla and King's Bounty: Armored Princess at $10 each. Too bad RE5 is only 50% off, $25 is too rich for my blood.

The Stalker Complete mod is a complete graphical overhaul for the game, which is probably the first mod I'll load up when I check out the game. Aside from that, I'm sure there are all sorts of AI and difficulty mods that will make the difficulty curve a little less steep.