HTRM Repairman

Regarding people only playing a single game, the fighting game community is very much like that. Many of them play fighting games and that's it. Before I realized this, I was once out at a local fighting game gathering and I was using my custom Portal-themed arcade stick (picture) and one guy asked me what the theme was. I looked at him strangely and said "Portal" in such a way that probably indiciated I was confused by his question. He responded, "What's that?" Then I just said, "A video game," and that was the end of the interaction. It just blew my mind that someone playing a video game wouldn't know what Portal was.

The mouse-over beacon connection lines in FTL have been there for a long time (more than a year); I've been using it forever. It was just an option in the settings you had to turn on. Since Alex Navarro made a similar comment, I guess they just enabled it by default with the release of AE.

I was going to post this, but I don't consider it a spoiler. They need to look, and I hope it eats at them.

Makes sense; I'm pretty sure I've come across some other weirdly specific names. My initial thought was that it used frequently chosen custom names. But maybe that's giving too much credit to people's affinity for Mr. Breckon.

Maybe this is old news, but I was playing FTL and at one of the stores that had crew members you could hire, one of the Engi crewman's name was Nick Breckon.

Reminds me of the time my wife tried going to the Dick's Sporting Goods website, and a minute later looks over to me and says, "FYI, dicks.com is not the right address." Edit - Hmm, apparently they have since acquired said domain.

Twilight Imperium is a great, truly epic game. So what if it takes 6-10 hours, it's worth it. Also, when whoever that was said "win conditions", he really meant "how to score a VP." There are a lot of different ways to score VPs, and you need 9-10 to win. Everyone has the same chance to score any particular VP condition. Eclipse and TI are not comparable, as far as I'm concerned. Eclipse is an economic game with a space theme, and Twilight Imperium is a grand, space empire building game.

Your descriptions of the difference of approach between Anno 2070 vs. SimCity (European vs. American) reminded me of a big divide in boardgames (which I only bring up since you guys play them, at least occasionally), Euros and Ameritrash games. Eurogames are generally all about the game mechanics. Very tight systems based on efficiency. You are trying to make your mechanics-based engine run better than everyone else's. Theme is the least important thing and usually pretty bare, and not tied to the mechanics at all. Ameritrash, on the other hand, is very much about theme, and how those mechanics are tied to the theme. They also tend to go big on production, with lots of plastic figures and other "bling" just because it's awesome and adds flavor. Maybe I'm reaching here, but it was the first thing I thought of when you started describing the difference in approach.

In reply to Jake's confusion in Letterpress about always being blue but the scores switching sides, in Street Fighter 4, when you are playing Endless Matches (Player matches), the host starts on the left side and the other player starts on the right side. If you win the match, you are put on the left side regardless of your previous match. So if you stay in the same lobby for a while, you'll be switching back and forth a lot, which I don't much care for. I have been playing this game regularly for 3.5 years and I still get confused and occasionally find myself looking at the wrong life bar and super meter. I wish it would stay consistent.

I liked Yahtzee's comment about Cortana.

Everytime you guys talk about competitive gaming, you never seem to mention fighting games. Fighting games are a highly competitive genre on consoles. Streamed events also get a hefty number of viewers. Maybe it's just because I love SSFIV that I like to see it mentioned. Bonus: Fighting games let you re-map all the buttons.

The "act as an NPC" thing in Spy Party is also used in the Assassin's Creed multiplayer. I like it quite a bit, but it seems like most people don't bother trying to blend in, so it loses a bit because of that. Spy Party sounds like a highly refined version where if you don't pretend, you will die, instead of being able to run away like in AC. Sounds fun, I can't wait to play it.

What happened to the DayZ "additional info" you were supposed to talk about?

Regarding the Arnold Schwarzenegger signature thing, I had the same feeling of weirdness about a year before I graduated from college when I realized his name and signature would be on my bachelor's degree. Then I thought about how amazing that would be.

Awesome, thank you.