Murdoc

I'm having fun, but would agree it's not really worth the price, but I knew what I was getting into and accepted it before putting down $60 for a digital download.

Turns out work didn't send anyone to GDC (Probably trying to keep us from learning how a real company works, lol) but being my first year in SF during GDC I'd love to meet up too, I've always missed the thumbs crowed at paxes and such, so I have no excuse this time.

Christ, I've barely played this game. I tried the beta, but got busy and missed it. Downloaded it last weekend and my puter blew up. Now I reinstalled nad have to go through the tutorial again and can't find my city... I guess it is saved locally? Doesn't make sense. Anyway, back in it, sign me up, may as well start a new in a friendly region. ** Also is there anyway to change my mayor name, it's using my user name which is unpleasant to look at.

I'm just wondering how many people are like me; I played season 1, I loved it. The story was cool, it was emotional, the idea of a new kind of adventure game/interactive story is really cool. But I have absolutely zero desire for a season 2. The stuff I cared about from season 1 was resolved and another adventure with all new characters would be neat, but not a big draw for me. Continuing adventure and learning more about what happened with the Season 1 stuff is an immediate don't want as well. So I'm just curious if I'm just a rare case consumer or if Telltale actually painted themselves in a bit of a corner with Season 1? Either way I want more of this type of media in other stories, maybe one that is less depressing and I know a ton of people are in the category of "Season 2 now!" so I'm sure they'll do fine.

Zombie voice is the only way I could imagine playing Saints Row... the dialog wasn't great to begin with, but zombie voice made it so awesome/tolerable.

I am not into sport, and games that have the sports theme (Monday Night Combat for example) usually turn me off. Though oddly enough the one sport that actually held my interest for awhile was football, I didn't get into the players or teams, but the actual mechanics of the game... it was clearly a tactical game based on old world war rules. So, I didn't quite get into Frozen Synapse, but this is certainly intriguing, but I'll need a demo before sinking in any money.

Yeah, F that rich dude trying to get some extra capital to fun a rad game!

I dunno, it seems like direction oversight rather than marketing genius. They wanted to make a simulation of a city, but were tied to a set of rules that only allowed a smaller city size. Okay cool, turns out a lot of people don't really want that, so I can't fault them for realizing that and creating more content that changes that direction and charging me for it. I didn't buy SimCity, I was really excited for it, but after learning about the direction they took it in, I knew it wasn't for me. If they wanted to build a piece of content for people like me, I'd snatch it up in a second.

I poked it yesterday but didn't really figure out what was going on. It's more of a puzzle game than what I was expecting, which... was more of a base building game, I guess? I'll probably youtube some tutorials this weekend to get a better impression of it. I like the presentation and the idea of it so far though.

This is bonkers... http://i.imgur.com/K3KFAI3.jpg

Wait, Nick is back in the bay area? Does that mean we can finally get rid of this Vanaman character that's been guesting for far too long? I miss the old crew.

Space Garriot returns! Seriously, what sold me even further on Garriot was a discussion between him and Warren Spector during Spectors master class at Texas Tech. The game and design decisions they hoped to do one day sounded great, so I really hope this is his chance to make that game. One slight against it is that they need to hire some artists, because yowzer, it is not pretty. edit: Here's an idea, let's pool some money together and get an Idle Thumbs named house... a kickstarter for a kickstarter? lol.

The thing about Wildman is that the pitch wasn't good. It looked and felt rushed. The great thing about kickstarter is that it vetts ideas, which it isn't perfect as, but ideally a bad idea shouldn't get funded. Wildman wasn't a good enough idea to get funded. A follow up of Torment seems like a good idea and presented a good pitch. I'm sure there is a science to these kickstarter videos, that add up to pitch, idea, and developers history/attitude. Seems like Fargo has that mostly figured out; it'll be interesting to see if he can do it again in the future with a new IP.

I'm excited, but I would have rather have seen how Wasteland 2 turns out before giving them more money for a second project.

After Deus Ex and seeing that I really can't wait. Loved Thief and am confident that they can carry on a quality game.

I like the art style, not sure if I'll enjoy the game, but visually it looks like a high-res Proteus, hehe.

I was really needing to be sold on the platform more than the technical specs, I'm glad they are using a unifying architecture for developers, but we pretty much knew the thing would be powerful, so that's not really what would excite me. There's some cool social features and such to open up some cool features in games, but for another $400-$600 machine, I'm not just if it'll be for me. Since these things are basically PC's at this point, it'd be nice to see them give me something that I can't get on the PC I currently own which is a pretty hard thing to pull off at this point. They piqued my interest and will see. Was really disappointing we had to drag out sequels that looked impressive visually but uninspired from an innovated and design standpoint. Media Molecules thing looked slick and I like the look of the Witness, but as far as interesting game designs go, nothing was really shown. So I'll wait and see.

It's funny, when I saw Giant Bomb play through a quick look of the game I thought it looked neat. I m ean they nailed the art direction of Aliens and it looked rather nice. There is dynamic lighting going on and while maybe a bit dated looking, thought it held up. Then you look at the demo and, yeah, I can see why people are complaining. From a visual standpoint it looks like a standard practice of developing on the PC and when it doesn't work for your target platform(360/ps3) you start cutting all the cool stuff for performance without any regard to saving it for the PC release. I'd wager they just panicked to get it to perform on consoles and in a few areas of that video it just looks like specific art direction changes were made. Happens all the time, shame the actual game design was totally broken, I don't think the visuals are all that bad standing on their own.

Shack posted it, I'm assuming it was the same thing: http://www.shacknews.com/article/77771/wasteland-2-walkthrough-reveals-early-gameplay

That walkthrough looked slick. I never played Wasteland so I'm curious as to how the rest of the world is stitched together, is it fallout style of just going where ever or are these just specific mission areas?

I really hate modern video game trailers, most of them, at least a certain genre of games all follow the same formula which was established by Gear's Mad world trailer. I give credit to the idea of what the mad world trailer did, juxtapose unassuming music to the game and basically sell us a different game tone/mood to the game. Also in terms of song, at least mad world sort of describes what was going on in Gears... at least a shit load more than that Deadspace 3 trailer. There was a short Gears 3 trailer with a poem from Alan Seeger and it essentially was trying the same thing and thought it worked. What annoyed me the most about Deadspace 3 trailer was it sounds like a shitty cover and juxtaposition is fine, it's just that had f#$%ing nothing to do with anything in Deadspace, it's just piss poor editing that makes it feel like they animated the trailer then found some random piece of music to set it to. The editing doesn't match up with anything and the context of the song has no relation to the product they are selling. I'm sure I made that same rant on this forum about another game that did the same thing. It's just a tired formula for game advertisement as much as the roaring whatever was/is; but if you're going to do it, at least edit the cinematography to the song.

I don't think that's how the creation of the Xcom shooter originated. From what I've heard, I bet it'll make one hell of a post mortem.

I never got into Rayman, I'm one of those people that can't accept the fact he has no arms or legs. The new games look beautiful, but I think the character looks dumb, but I'd accept him if he had arms and legs; as it stands as a weird Ray-man, it's super unappealing and I won't play them. Love those rabbids though; they have arms.

Going to come out of left field and say Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, for a strategy game it did an amazing job at establishing atmosphere, or is that tone? I'm going to say atmosphere, I felt like I was some commander of this weird sect of human civilization reading data pads and over a strategic map. They also had these interludes that we're just written text that ackowledge you as a character in this world, it was really cool. Which reminds me, DEFCON had great atmosphere... unless, again, I'm mixing up atmosphere with tone.

Apologies for the late reply. It's also not a complete list and from a perspective of someone who's been here for less than a year. I also realize 90% of this is not in the downtown area, I don't spend a lot of time down there, but if it helps someone, cool. Restaurants (every day) http://www.burmasuperstar.com/ - A bit of a wait, but there is an awesome book store nearby to explore while you wait. A must go when in SF. http://www.bartartine.com/ - Great bakery. http://www.ferrybuil...arketplace.com/ - A market place with a variety of shops, sort of Granville Island-ish. Also on Thursdays and Saturdays there is a foodtruck/farmers market around the Ferry building, really good food and a good time. http://www.porkstorecafe.com/ http://www.yelp.com/...upiter-berkeley - Jupiter Cafe/Pizza/Brewery, but it's in Berkely http://www.missionbeachcafesf.com/ - Thieves pub across the street as a great caesar too, but never been there in the evening. http://www.citrusclubsf.com/ http://www.suppenkuche.com/ http://www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco - Jazz Club, sushi bar, lounge http://www.littlestarpizza.com/ - Good atmosphere, known for deepdish pizza. Crust is a corn crust, so I find it a bit weird. http://dosasf.com/ - modern Indian food. http://www.cafedelapresse.com/ http://www.ragazzasf.com/ - pasta, it's alright http://www.tonkiang.net/ - Only Chinese food I'll eat outside of China town. SF's chinese food is really bad, so stick with inside china town or skip it, I've gotten sick too many times to chance any new places. http://missionchinesefood.com/ - I lied actually, this is one of the more modern places that isn't classified as "American" chinese food and is amazingly good. Restaurants (Brunch) http://www.stacksrestaurant.com/ http://www.littlegriddlesf.com/ Eddies Cafe (Just an average cafe, cheap, sort of like bons, but tiny) http://www.lunaparksf.com/ Restaurants (Fancy-sh) After making this list I realize I haven't been eating very "upscale" while I've been here, so not many recommendations on this front. http://www.nopasf.com/ http://www.barcrudo.com/ - Seafood, so I can't comment, but met the owners and everyone in my area loves it. Coffee http://fourbarrelcoffee.com/ http://www.bluebottlecoffee.com/ http://www.philzcoffee.com/ Bars http://www.alembicbar.com/ http://www.magnoliapub.com/ http://hobsonschoice.com/ http://www.nocnocs.com/ http://www.toronado.com/ http://www.2sistersbarandbooks.com/ - Awesome cocktails, tiny space, close to suppenkuche. http://smugglerscovesf.com/trapdoor/ - Rum bar to end all rum bars. Looks like a smugglers den on the insider, no sign on the outside. http://socialstudysf.com/ http://www.fatangelsf.com/ -Wine Bar http://www.pressclubsf.com/ http://www.thehouseofshields.com/ http://www.bullittsf.com/ http://www.bigfootlodgesf.com/ - Thought this place was cool, they light the bar on fire at night, but the bartender was rude to my friends, so I dunno. http://www.yelp.com/...a-san-francisco - Go through to the back and there is another place called the Hideout. Awesome mixed drinks. http://www.monkskettle.com/ http://www.zeitgeistsf.com/ http://www.bendersbar.com/ -deep frys almost everything http://www.sfpalace.com/ - Palace Hotel Lounge features an original 12 foot Maxfield Parrish painting Tsunami Sushi - Honestly, I think the sushi in SF is subpar from Vancouver. This place is good, but I'm listing it under bars because while it serves decent Sushi, it's also a whisky bar with a huge selection. Theater http://www.castrotheatre.com/ - Go see any movie that is playing here, they are usually old, sometimes not interesting, but you need to see this theatre.