Salacious Snake

I'm checking this shit out on Saturday. Really looking forward to seeing what the hell it is.

That doesn't look like 83 tracks to me. Look here: http://www.rockband.com/zine/rock-band-3-full-setlist

I can't see myself getting one of those guitars, but I think it's rad as hell that they exist. I am super excited for the midi-in box, though. I'll be able to hook up this baby: (Bizarrely photoshopped woman not included.)

The boss fights are either way too easy or too annoying. Most of the time, once you see the pattern, you're at no risk of taking any harm, and you just have to wait around for the right attack conditions, and it requires no skill to execute whatsoever. Others are a pain in the ass, largely because of how Shank's moves were designed more to look cool than be functional, so he'll get locked in way too much animation when you need him to act fast. The masked wrestler guy with the exploding barrels in 2-player mode is infuriating, because you have a tiny window of time in which to shoot a thing a bunch of times, but the shooting animations, fire rates and ammo counts of all the guns act against you in one way or another. I found most of the cooperative boss fights irritating as hell. There's no reasonable difficulty curve. You'll get something hard, and then it goes back to dead easy when it seems like it should be harder. It's just poorly tuned that way.

Shank is the kind of game that's more fun if you're the kind of player who likes to make his or her own fun by mixing shit up. With all the combat moves and weapons at Shank's disposal, you can really get stylish with the combos, but the game doesn't reward you much for it. Back at PAX East I got a demo from Jamie Cheng, and he told me that the damage scales so that it's more effective if you mix up your attacks instead of doing the same thing over and over, but in playing through the game, I didn't get the sense that this was happening, at least not to a significant degree. And yes, the difficulty spikes are a bitch. It seems like the boss fights in particular weren't play tested much, especially in the cooperative campaign. Cooperative is fun anyway, just because beating up dudes with a friend is always better, but the game isn't really suited to it. All of the dialogue made me want to shotgun a can of drano. In spite of all these gripes, I should say that I enjoyed the game. The ass-kicking is good enough that it outweighs the problems for me. I gave it an 8/10, for whatever that's worth. Hurr.

With all this talk of cards, I'm thinking I could go for something like SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. Maybe I should break out the NGPC.

It doesn't sound very flattering. And I think the fact that I imagined the jackbeard makes it even funnier. I seriously want to steal all your terminology and run a game of Cyberpunk 2020 this instant.

I preferred the image of the "jackbeard," assuming that wasn't a hallucination.

This made me realize how much I miss cyberpunk. I can't wait to have metal arms in Deus Ex 3.

Life has many twists and turns. Maybe I'll fill you in at PAX.

If ever I had a GOTY, Space Giraffe was it. It took a lot of time and effort to get all the achievements (something I've never gone out of my way to do with any other game) and to protect my place on the high score list. For about the first week or so I was in second place right behind Jeff Minter himself. I had an unfair advantage, since prior to the game's release I had gotten drunk and passed out at Jeff Minter's house, and at some point during that night of debauchery I had played some SG and received tips on strategy and enemy behavior from the designer. There's a big difference between not knowing what the fuck is going on in that game and having a slight clue. It wasn't long before I was left in the dust. I've seen people do things in that game that I know I'll never be able to accomplish. Edit: but yes, I understand how absurd it sounds to have passed up Bioshock for Space Giraffe.

This game is intriguing. Here's a new and big video about it: http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/play/79263/PC/From-Dust/Cinematic/Tech-Demo-Gamescom-2010/Flash-Video I've had Heart of Darkness on the mind lately because of Limbo, so I'm all lubed up and ready for Chahi.

I found it a bit off-putting how overtly gamey the social interaction was in Fable 2. Is that what fate has in store for Milo?

Ah yes, the Citizen Killzone of hover-cart simulators. (Seriously, those flying things they used to drop into the combat area seemed ridiculously impractical.) I actually just finished KZ2 a couple of weeks ago. Apparently I had stopped playing right before the final battle without knowing it, so I popped it in, played for 5 minutes, and it was over. Man, that game was dumb. I will say that I like what I've played of KZ3 so far. The controls seem tighter, and it has jet packs. You know what else had a jet pack? That's right, PO'ed, one of the finest first-person shooters of our time. 3DO for life, son.

The way the characters move around feels really strange to me. In fact, it feels the same as every other Io Interactive game I've tried, going all the way back to the first Hitman. It's like the people have no body mass at all and just sorta float and twitch around the place. I'm not describing it well, but it sucks.

It clearly has something to do with the regulation of magic. You can't let Wizards enchant things willy-nilly.

Someday I'll play BioShock. Initially I skipped it because it came out too close to Space Giraffe, and I always intended to go back to it at some point, but I haven't yet. I have no right to talk or write about video games.

The comparison to the New Yorker is pretty apt. The articles tend to be about the experiences of the authors. There isn't much in the way of pontificating about things. There's a focus on showing how games can have such a variety of effects on people, depending on the context and the person. It's not much like Edge. Edge essentially follows the conventions of the games magazine genre as a whole; it has previews, reviews and news. Kill Screen doesn't have any of that. Jamin would like to get more into criticism, but he has a ton of things he wants to do with the mag. Edge does have above-average writing, as does Kill Screen. That's the only major comparison that I would draw. Well, that and the fact that they're both visually appealing in layout and design.

Kill Screen is very good. Also, Jamin is a super nice guy who's a lot of fun to talk to. The writing-about-games scene here in the New York area may not be that big, but it's a cool group, and fun things happen when you get a bunch of us in one place.

That's sensible. If any casters of pods or readers find themselves looking to grab a few beers on any of the other nights, something can always be improvised easily enough. I'll be rolling with a posse of colleagues, at least one of whom is also a fan. PAX East was my first PAX and it was a blast, so I'm looking forward to the full version. Maybe I'll actually be able to make it into the panels.

I'll be there! My fancy-pants ~media credentials~ were approved today. I look forward to the likely Wizardmeet as well; the one at PAX East was fun.

In theory, I think special editions are dumb, but in practice, I'm a sucker. I have quite a few of the dumb things.

This was a hilarious episode. I was dying through all the airfield business. It's almost that absurd in the game. In regard to cult "so bad it's good" games, there have been a ton of games that would have received the same kind of recognition through the years had they come out in a time with this insane convergence of social media. It's amazing how quickly a meme can explode and then collapse back in on itself and turn inside out and go back in time and fertilize your mom's ovum. Check this list for some likely contenders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_for_negative_reception

It looks to me like he increased the contrast. EDIT: HEYYYYY there's another page here!

edit: I'm a stupid moron and everything I say is wrong!