Twig

YOU'RE A FIRST WORLD PROBLEM ): Yes you're right it is better than cable packages, though.

I'm with you on this. Dunno if I have anything more to add, most of that stuff was addressed way back when the game came out and I've forgotten most of the arguments on both sides, but I definitely came out on the same side as you.

I beat AC1! I can definitely attest to Merus' claim that the core story assassinations in AC1 were the best. There's already enough side mission assassinations for the solve-the-puzzle type of kills, I definitely wish they'd bring back the storytelling type of kills for future Asscreeds. Though I haven't played AC4, the trend of the games' progression so far leads me to believe it'll be the worst of them all in that regard, even if the rest of the game is the best so far.

I think the same thing happened for Ping Pong (which is why I also haven't watched that, yet, even though I really want to). But yeah, I mean "traditional television" suffers the same thing, right. Netflix vs Hulu vs HBO GO. Though Netflix is a bit different in that it only licenses complete seasons after DVDs are released, but still. It's super shitty for us consumers because who wants to pay for three different services, especially when two of them only have one or two things you actually want to watch?

Barakamon actually is on CR but only in "Europe (excluding UK and Ireland), the Middle East, and North Africa." Funimation has it locked down for English-speaking regions, as usual.

Yeah but that was later in the game. Early on she was hurt from purely incidental damage as she climbed through the environments (and maybe fought off an animal?). But then she ran into a guy who tried to kill her... and killed him instead. And then she sat there like "oh god what have i done somebody help me". And then she killed a dozen more without comment.

I think it stands out so much more in Tomb Raider because it presented her as completely innocent and how hard it was for her to kill and she didn't want to do it and it was super traumatizing that first time she kills a dude. And then she immediately goes off and kills a dozen more. I have an incredible ability to suspend disbelief (sometimes for the worse!), but even I balked at that.

I also loved the first Tomb Raider reboot because it was the first good Tomb Raider! Besides the co-op game. I mean I really enjoyed it a lot. It definitely had a problem with the weird tone of "ahhh i don't want to kill anyone" *murders thousands of dudes in seconds*, but it's a problem common to all video games so I just accepted it and rolled with it, utilizing my usual propensity for suspension of disbelief. I definitely would have preferred a game where every single fight Lara was in was an incredibly difficult obstacle. For how violent everyone on the island was, it wouldn't have been a stretch for her to only run into a dozen people at most. If they were all just incredibly emotionally taxing and difficult gameplay experiences, it would've worked really well. Ahh. C'est la vie. The combat was fun, at least. In my opinion. I'm looking forward to this one. I really like the idea of going with a mentally broken Lara Croft. I hope it turns out well.

I didn't know anything about Tex Murphy until they were released on GOG. The first thing I heard was they were "FMV point and click adventure games", which may not be completely accurate (I assume because they're FMV they have some differences in how they're played), but I definitely never got the impression they were Dragon's Lair types of games!

Oh wow I thought they were all FMV games. Interesting. I actually have Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum on GOG, now that I think about it. They may have been free at one point, or super cheap. I will try that out and hopefully the oldness doesn't drive me away. I'm not too upset about cheap deaths as long as I know it can happen beforehand. I mean, as long as I know it's that type of game. Save often, etc. Anyway, thanks!

I've never played a Tex Murphy game, but always been Sort Of Interested! Any idea how the older games hold up in terms of just feeling like good games to play? Is the design of the Tex Murphy games the kind where you can die by doing the wrong thing (i.e., Sierra) or where you can just do whatever until you solve the puzzles (i.e., LucasArts)? Or do I have the genre all wrong?!

Agreed completely. Thankfully I think it's over, since the two-part live show. I also don't mind background plot progression, like the stuff with the library and the dog park and Cecil's own character development, and even Strexcorp taking over, to a point. But then it became The Only Thing Happening and fell apart. I so much prefer it when it IS in the background, when it's not presented as super important. Here's hoping things get back to, uh, normal now.

That is some pretty impressive Mario play right there. Also it upsets me how much less ugly that game looks when you shrink it down like that. Wish it looked that good at its proper size. Oh well.

Perfect. I'm just amazed no one else noticed it before me!

I feel worse about myself when ANYONE I know succeeds, but that might just be because I hate myself.

I am once again annoyed at Funimation for not signing a deal with Crunchyroll because this season I want to watch Barakamon: http://re-jinx.me/2014/07/06/first-impressions-on-barakamon/ I mean of course Funimation wants everyone to pay for their service to watch it in HD but I hate their website and I like CR's website why can't they just get together and be best buds already. I mean CR is already streaming most of Funimation's grabs in some regions, just not... English-speaking regions. Also is Funimation's licensing model as good as CR's? I've heard CR money actually finds its way back to the animators, which is pretty rad.

Haha, I don't know why I got the impression that you were sort of down on Fallen London overall Merus, because you're clearly way more into it than I ever was! I only played for a few months (almost every day for a few months though!), but I've always wanted to go back and continue where I left off. I guess I should do that.

NP doesn't need midas to be effective. It helps but it's not like a mandatory thing.

I also thought it was Thumbs-Up Rad getting to play badass Desmond without the UI, but also I hate Desmond more than I hate Connor as a character, so I'm conflicted. I also didn't really like the level design of that. Also chasing the crazy nuts guy was really frustrating because trying to run-assassinate him wouldn't fucking work for me and he kept running around in circles climbing and jumping off of everything constantly.

My favorite Insane Immersion-Breaking Dissonance was the Paul Revere ride I described earlier in the thread.

Yeah I would've been much happier playing Haytham. He was such a smug piece of shit, but in an almost endearing way. Sometimes I wanna be a smug piece of shit, too. Connor was just a bland selfish butt.

It's sad how much of that boils down to "have empathy for your fellow human beings".

Good, good. That's two out of three. Should've replaced King Knight with Tinker Knight or Polar Knight, though.

So there's an exploit going around to crash the server of the game you're playing on and make it so it's like it never even happened. Last night I was on my daily challenge hero as Spectre, playing with three friends and one pub on my team against a five-stack from Ecuador with the clan tag WPC or some such all in their name. We weren't doing all that well in the beginning, but eventually turned the game around and started winning. After we won a crucial teamfight at Rosh AND got Rosh, we were all excited and then... the game froze for all of us. The countdown from 30 seconds began and eventually the game ended and when we tried to reconnect we got the "No game is found" message. This is exactly how the exploit goes. Normally when the server crashes on its own, the game is still in your history, but maybe doesn't count. This always guarantees that it's as if it never happened. I'm fucking annoyed. volov pls fix

Yeah, Free! is the swimming anime.