Xeneth

Phaedrus' Street Crew
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    351

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Xeneth

  1. Posted

    I imagine Microsoft wanted to avoid exactly what is happening with Infinity Ward now.

    Oh, absolutely. I remember being quite surprised they pulled that off at the time. It painted a picture of a prodigal son tossing big ol' dad a phat case of beer and running off to art school or something while he was good and sauced on the success of Halo. Mmm, sweet Master Chef beer. "I'll still come back and work at the shop Summers, paw, but a man's gotta blaze 'is own trail!"

    I already made a couple of comments in the episode thread so I won't go on and on here, but I remain cautiously optimistic in amongst all my "WTF ActiBlizzon"-ing, and want Bungie to continue doing stuff in spite of my chagrin at the prospect of moar moneys for the goliath. Wouldn't it have been a kick in the pants if EA were somehow publishing this on top of the whole Respawn thing?

    Ah, well. Looking forward to Reach and any news on how this IP shakes out.

  2. Posted

    Sweet cast, regardless of length- Great to have Steve's snark back in the mix!

    Jokes about every episode being the last one ever appear to be our hosts' new favorite meme, but I think some of us die a little inside every time it's cast into our faces...

    Re: Bungie + Activision- Bungie will be fine. I've seen nothing to indicate this deal is anything more than a publishing arrangement, meaning that Bungie isn't being aquired by Activision, and they might not even be getting the IP itself, just the rights to market and sell it for a decade. That said, anything that puts money in ActiBlizzon's pockets makes me a little sad, so I agree that this seems like a net industry WTF all around. Also, publishers DO tend to have a certain amount of control over how the games themselves are created these days, so there may still be some form of creative fallout from this... Personally, I hope Bungie makes as weird and experimental an IP as they can, to get away from the Halo typecasting they're likely to have as long as the studio exists.

    By the by, how did the whole Jurrasic Park meme start again? I'm assuming it spun off of this ala señor Goldgame -

    And the comments about guards talking too much in Splinter Cell dovetails nicely with a recent PA comic of course-

    838303391_mkMe4-L.jpg

  3. Posted

    Hahaha this is the best thing. I don't know if Telltale's team had any business beating anyone because we mostly fart around and blow ourselves up and then laugh about it (other than the couple months SR was going on, during which we had to fumble around to find enough mics for everyone, and figure out how to practice), so it was great to find a team we could not simply beat, but roll, if just that once.

    Heh heh, there were a couple of stories about the massive ruckus the TF2 players make during their lunch practices at NetDevil.

    The comment about the mics is soo familiar- It's amazing what it takes to even get 10 or so people onto the same vent server for some kinda coordinated video capture thing... There are certain weird tools that a game company can just SUMMON to every workstation, like "floating licences for Adobe Creative Suite and a stack of wacom tablets? No problem!" Ask IT for "some microphones" or "headsets" and pretty soon people are bringing hardware in from home, heh heh.

  4. Posted

    Yes, three cheers for a small and well spoken community! All the quality and content, minus the elitism and information overload.

    I have no idea how anyone puts in the raw TIME needed to even remotely keep up with a community that large... I feel like there's more than enough for me to read on a forum this size! It should be noted though that my overall tolerance for electronic communications is relatively low, and it's also possible I'm slow to process information or something. Not entirely sure, but staying in the darker, cooler recesses of the internets all the same!

  5. Posted

    Oh, so I forgot to mention it, but the Telltale TF2 victory had a big impact at work, thanks for that! Such epic lulz.

    Our company is sort of like NetDevil's parent company, and while it's not rare for us to have reasons to poke fun at them, the more the merrier. Our QA dept. was making TF2 jokes all week about them getting "backdoored" by adventure games and being shamed into putting honey and cat hair item drops into Lego Universe so that players could craft a mustache.

    One of our managers is transferring there, and during the meeting where he announced the transition, one of the questions was "can you play scout, cause they need some help over there." Bwaa ha ha!

    Just in case ANYONE missed the epicness (I doubt it):

    ytlukfuFL3A

  9. Posted

    So, I picked this up for the Wii today on a random whim.

    I'm only four or five levels in, so I won't analyze to death yet, but so far it's decently fun.

    I never played the original, but the simple change of making the jelly beans a power instead of a resource appears to have helped quite a bit if people's comments about the NES version are any indication. Of course that makes the game a little less of a puzzle and a little more of a platformer, but I like platformers enough that I hardly mind such a change.

    I stopped really noticing the art direction about 20 minutes in. It suits the style of animation they're going for well and adds to a sort of relaxing atmosphere. I think that's the main takeaway I have so far; It feels very relaxing and isn't much of a challenge.

    The few missteps I've seen appear to be based around the tutorial system, or lack thereof. I'm fine with hitting buttons to discover what they do on my own and sussing out level structure and system design through trial and error, but I've been gaming for a couple of decades. Several times I discovered something like how to control the parachute form properly and wondered why there weren't any doodles about how to use it on the (now traditional) wooden signboard hints. The overall difficulty and tone seem perfect for exposing a parent or younger sibling to the form, but I'd recommend shoulder surfing a bit early on. With a little prompting this could be an awesome gateway drug to harder Braid and Winterbottom-flavoured narcotics.

  10. Posted

    Approaching the about the halfway mark, but play got interrupted by lots of Flotilla for a while... will throw some impressions down in a while.

    Thus far the whimsical tone seems to be inspiring me to finish the puzzles with a bit more tenacity than some puzzle/platformers. For example, Braid encouraged me to sort of mull over puzzles and soak in atmosphere before even attempting a solution, whereas this has me leaping in and trying all kinds of crap prior to even understanding what the "point" of a particular puzzle is.

    It's different, in a good way.

  11. Posted

    From what I've seen it's an entertaining playthrough(s)/commentary.

    ...I'm still sort of weakly considering trying to pick this up and laugh through it with a friend of my own, so I'm hesitant to watch more of it.

    What do you guys think? It does look pretty awful from a control and gameplay standpoint. Should I just leave it to the professional funnymen?

  12. Posted

    A pretty cool list! A few on there I haven't played either.

    Good luck and godspeed- Goodness knows we need more thumbs that are good at working through "the pile".

    I'm seriously failing on that point... "Finish Bioshock 1?... Right after my millionth game of Spelunky, promise!"

  13. Posted

    I'm glad we're working on creating things like this now- By the time we make first contact with really freaky looking aliens, we're gonna need a non-xenophobic generation of scary robot/thing acclimated people to make nice without throwing up on their organically wiggly bits.

  14. Posted

    So apparently I was making an obscure Kings Quest reference without even knowing it when I added "wizard eyes" to that image...

    Genies are LIKE Wizards I guess... kinda. Have the same eyes at least.

  18. Posted

    Which episode did Jake say "Worst!" in again?

    (I kid, I kid)

    Uh... I seem to recall something about a piece of equipment making a terrifying noise at random and scaring the crap out of Either Nick or Jake, the memory is foggy... I always wanted to know what that was exactly.

  20. Posted

    Thanks, I'll have to try hardcore next... Ooo, co-op hardcore afternoon *drool*

    i really like that game but i loved the background music the creator of the game is a fantastic creative mind.

    Agreed! If you haven't checked out any of his other games, like GravityBone, go forth... definitely someone to look up to and keep an eye on, that Brendon Chung.

  21. Posted

    I agree that it's seriously "yuck" and lacks taste, but I think any work that's capable of making me "feel" anything, whether it be joy or disgust probably deserves to exist...

    So bravo on an intense concept. That being said I'm not gonna watch it, let alone pay to watch it. Was never really interested in seeing Hostel either, but strangely enjoyed the first Saw. I guess that had more going on in terms of atmosphere than PURE gross-out though.

    This looks like there's little reprieve in the way of twists or plot.

  22. Posted

    I am a master of spectral blade, and improved spectral blade.

    The Wizard is pleased! See below for proof...

    If you put your hand over the bit where his fist is in the screen, it looks like he is masturbating and everyone is applauding him for it.

    Yeah, I FIXED THAT FOR YOU GUYS!

    tarantinoWizardMasturbation.gif

  24. Posted

    Alright, smartasses you want me to get specific?! Ha ha ha...

    Humans require more liquid than you'd get from poo to live, so you'd need sommat #2, eh? Think about the anatomy fer a sec and then you'll see why I think it'd have to be female-to-female-to-male.

    And by the second "pass" of the same material you'd start seeing significant nutrition loss.

    Clearer? So glad to be thinking about this again, BLARGH!

  25. Posted

    I uh, dont!

    I get myself into minor financial trouble about once a year because of my video game buying/impulse habits...

    Be a better person than I am and choose your games wisely. There's always a few hanging around waiting for me to get interested in them again, and I totally could have bought those later on or waited for a sale instead of jumping all over them in launch excitement.

    Agreed that Steam sales are awesome and terrible events- I don't even want to look at the list of gems I have yet to install, let alone play from last holiday season...