Salacious Snake

I ordered one of the devkits; couldn't keep it in my pants (my wallet, that is). Which means I'm probably also going to throw money away at the Razer Hydra or Leap motion controller, because obviously it's not a real VR experience until you're flailing around with your hands. Then again, I could try to get the power glove hooked up, or dust off the Falcon. I am a stupid person.

The community center area in the Skate demo was one of the best spots in the game. I got the full game, but I still spent a ton of my time in that area. It even returned as DLC for Skate 2, which really makes it the Wake Island of the series!

It's a pretty believable claim, since small, high resolution displays are presumably getting cheaper and more available all the time because of the way smartphones are going. Much restraint has been needed to stop myself ordering a dev kit, but I think I'll be much happier waiting for the consumer product if it delivers. I'm a sucker for this kind of shit (I have an old crappy HMD and a Novint Falcon and all sorts of other gimmicky bullshit of the sort). I feel like I'm missing out now that the dev kits are in people's hands, but I must be strong. Also, I don't know anything about programming or anything, so I'd have nothing to offer to the development community. edit: oh my god I want this ("Spacewalk -- An Oculus Rift-enabled space exploration game")

I'm feelin' pretty boned.

I've used it as a quick check to make sure something isn't totally broken. Like, if I haven't been paying attention to a game's release, I may look to make sure the score isn't in the red, because if it is, that means it's not a functioning software product. Outside of extremes like that, I don't find the number useful, though. Reviews don't really factor into my purchasing decisions either, for that matter.

I dug riding a hog around the country in San Andreas. San Andreas really grabbed me because it was the first GTA in which I could sympathize with the protagonist. He's not just some power-hungry psycho, and for the first act of the game, you can understand his motivations. Dude is under a lot of pressure. Once the story leaves Los Santos, shit goes off the deep end, but that first part was excellent. Rockstar loves their movies, and their take on Boyz n the Hood is some of their best work. It helps that CJ had a terrific voice actor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aHALWLDUPrI#t=94s

SimCopter > Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCopter#Controversy

Hopefully the treasure goblin has left some sweet golden gun parts around San Andreas this time around.

I'm excited. Rockstar are still the only game in town when it comes to making urban environments that have character and are worth exploring. Some of the competitors have advanced the style with regard to what you do, in terms of mechanics and mission design, but only Rockstar cities are interesting to putter around in with no particular goal. I learn my way around the neighborhoods in GTAs, but in the others I just follow an arrow.

I found a couple of games that may be of interest: Putt-Putt Joins the Parade My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade

If Kinect Disneyland Adventures doesn't feature parades, then they missed out on a key part of the Disneyland/World experience.

Syndicate (the original Bullfrog joint) has a parade. It's a great mission, but I don't think it'll scratch the particular itch you have in mind. It does sound like an excellent thing to include in a game that lets you explore a city like GTA.

I figure that's what'll keep me engaged in the game once my empire is no longer relevant (which I assume will be soon, since not only do I not know what I'm doing, but I am terrible at this type of thing in general). As my attention to strategic decisions dwindles, my concentration on roleplaying will take over.

It's 25 dollars to produce a fleet of whatever size has been built up at that star. (based on how much industry is there, I assume). So if you're paying 25 dollars for 1 ship, you're probably better off building elsewhere until you have more factories and more ships produced. The 25 space bucks is the price to launch whatever is at the space factory. At least I think that's how it works.

I think his idea is that this view wouldn't reveal anything that isn't already viewable by everyone in the game.

I'm definitely still interested. I don't really see the point of the random names; I like the idea for something like the Telltale employee game, where people know each other and are in close proximity and would have preconceived notions about each other, but we're all basically internet strangers, right? That said, I would never want to be a wet blanket, so I'll send you a name.

We can try! If you have a craft that you think has operational potential, just email the file to jd@wieners.xxx or put it online somewhere with an explanation of the stages and what you expect to happen. I'll fire up FRAPS and see what happens. If something cool or funny happens, I'll toss it on Youtube. edit: I should add that I'll be on a road trip through the weekend, so I won't be back to flying around space until next week sometime.

Started in on Dark Arisen last night. Cool game! I agree with Frenetic Pony about the blandness about the setting, but I'm into other aspects of it. The first time around, I saw a lot of comparisons to Skyrim and Dark Souls, but this game is really more of an offshoot of Monster Hunter by my reckoning. I wish it had the cat people from MH, though. They're so cute. edit: Holy shit, watching your pawns smash and ransack everything in town is hilarious! It's like watching a video game protagonist from the perspective of the townsfolk. (For those who don't know, your AI companions collect stuff in the world for you, which means they smash open crates and carts and dig through people's belongings of their own volition. You are the chosen one after all, and they work for you.)

Thanks to the stream, I got back into the game. I'm still not particularly into the design side (building stuff just isn't my thing), but man, successfully modifying orbits and getting to the moon, etc. is supremely gratifying and educational, even if the game is doing all the math for me. I want to be a spaceman.

There seem to be enough interested parties to start a second game. If so, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring!

That was a great stream! It was fun to watch all the attempts, and it makes me want to get back into the game. It seems a lot more fully featured than the last time I checked it out. I want to splatter some poor fucker on the moon.

I agree with you completely; I see no fault in metacritic itself, although I think they could be more transparent about the secret score-weighting herbs and spices. Also the people there were very nice the couple of times I dealt with them!

I think at least sometimes when people bash metacritic, it's shorthand for what you're saying. Speaking for myself, anyway, when I've said "Consarn that heckhole metacritic!" what I actually meant was "Dang those dadburned bean counters who use metacritic for ill!"

Double Dragon Neon sucked. I liked the stylings (and you're right, it's in similar territory to this), and virt's soundtrack was OK, but it wasn't fun at all, and that's coming from someone who still likes brawlers.

That makes me want to put together a Star Control II ROM hack type of thing that gives the game dialog an absurd comedic tone. (More than normal, I mean.)