Twig

I used to say the same thing - there's not a Zelda game I've played that I didn't like! - until I played Skyward Sword. Not that I'm saying I don't like Skyward Sword. I was enjoying it well enough while I was actually playing it. But once I stopped (because I had to focus on school for a couple weeks), I never felt any desire to go back. That was two months ago now. I know I'll get back to it eventually, and, in fact, this thread has kind of made me want to do it sooner than later, but it's not like I'm fighting some huge urge as I sit here and type about it rather than just play it. U: It's mostly just that... For me, Nintendo being Nintendo is keeping a good game from being fantastic. Darksiders is a better Zelda game to me than most Zelda games, in no small part because the developers streamlined a lot of shit. Everything is quick and snappy in that game. Menus, dialogue, whatever. It still has its share of flaws, but I enjoyed it way more than I was enjoying Skyward Sword. (I won't go in to the actual gameplay mechanics, as I think that's irrelevant to the discussion (but I like how much more freedom of movement War has as compared to Link (just give me a fucking jump button already, Nintendo))). It's even more frustrating when I look at a game like Super Mario Galaxy. It's from the same corporation, but it's got a completely different design philosophy. It's all about the fun. There's tutorial-ish levels in the beginning, but it's not holding your hand the whole time, and after a while, it's just like, "go to town, buddy!" Skyward Sword never reaches that point. At least not as far as I played (which is probably about 2/3 through the game). I think EAD Tokyo is perhaps the only studio within Nintendo that really gets how to make a good game from start to finish. Actually, Retro is pretty consistent, too, in my opinion, but they're a Western studio, which already means they're going to have different core philosophies from Nintendo proper.

Ironically, that's not even really hyperbole... it's just the wrong context. A specific instance I can think of is in dungeon three, the camera literally takes MORE than ten seconds to pan around a chest. Then Fi explains that, "hey, that chest probably contains the key to the final room" despite the fact that I already knew this from the first two dungeons because the chest always looks the same and the key within always opens up the final room. FUCK OFF. UGH. Even worse is when you fail a puzzle because for once the solution isn't completely totally super obvious but you only failed once but Fi already feels it necessary to FORCE you to listen to her explain how to solve the puzzle. It's not even the beeping "listen to me please if you want", no, she just pops right the fuck out with her 95% probability of me throwing the controller at the wall die die die you horrible little sword-puter thing.

DIUM: I was a fan of Wii from day one, but, yes, Skyward Sword is for sure the only game to take it to That Level that successfully. It's just such a shame it a) came too late and is bogged down by Nintendo's refusal to admit that maybe the people playing their games aren't troglodytes. If only.

I like how wub-wub-wub-wub-wub-wub-

The Tutorial is much shorter this time around, but many would say you still don't get to "the good part of the game" until like several hours after that. A lot of people don't like the first dungeon, or even the second one. The third one is the first time most people go, "oh, okay, yeah, give it to me, Nintendo." It all felt like Zelda to me, once I got off the stupid island in the sky, though. I like the first dungeon well enough, even if I didn't think it was spectacular. The biggest problem the game has is that the tutorial never actually ends. There's more hand-holding in this game than in any other game I've ever played. In fact, at some point I stopped playing the game and never really felt the desire to go back... The mechanics are a ton of fun, but all that hand-holding just drove me away. Normally I can ignore that kind of thing, but I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired of Zelda games treating me like an idiot. I don't necessarily want games to go back to Zelda 1 style of "don't ever explain anything" - I don't think that would be good for most games - but surely there's a happy middle somewhere.

Well, okay, but that's just a bit more unlikely than her saying no.

Ask 'er out?? Worst: she says no, you stop worrying about it.

Man, by the time I learned about this the goal was already met. I pledged anyway. OH GOD I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

are you a robot (or a non-human organism) if so yes

Yeah, I like JP well enough because it's... Jurassic Park. But the gameplay borders on laughably awful. I could see myself enjoying a QTE-centric game on some level, but in this particular case, the sheer inconsistencies between many of the character actions versus player actions made it worse than it probably should have been. I literally only play it because I like dinosaurs and I think the story is entertaining. U: The only dud Telltale has put out thus far. For me, anyway. (I have never played the CSI or Law & Order games, but I also have literally zero interest in them.) The Walking Dead already sounds a whole hell of a lot better, but it's still unclear what kind of gameplay is actually involved. SOMEBODY CLEAR IT UP FOR ME. ARE THERE QTEs OR NO?!

Okay.

): I like the concept art a whole hell of a lot, but the in-game screenshots don't quite reach that level of awesome for me. Which is sad, because I imagine, based on the description of the game, that the graphics/art style is going to be a good deal of what would make it great. I'm interested, though. U: Also, Blueberry Garden is excellent, even though I hated it the first time I played it. So that helps.

Aren't people who work at Starbucks the wannabe hipsters? Or are the "genuine" coffee places not not-good enough for hipsters? I don't know how this shit works anymore.

I find it amusing that that guy has gone from being Dude What Sounds Like McFly to Dude What Shows Up At Everything Telltale. Also, yessss, The Walking Dead.

Actually, my perfect fantasy life would be thus: Buy and run a beach bar. I don't really know why, but the idea of owning a beach bar is really appealing to me. Buy a sailboat. I don't know how to sail, but I really want to learn. Make some o' dem indie vidya gams in my spare time, while out on the open sea, surrounded by awesome. Die happy. I'd like to some day! Something in the vein of Endless Ocean on Wii? That kind of game. But with more stuff. I dunno. That's so far down the pipeline at this point that I've never given it much thought. I have a billion ideas, and as they say, ideas are cheap. U: I, too, want to play this game.

Yeah, that's where my ignorance shines. I really don't know. Like I edited in, "To be honest, it's just a word I've long associated with 'ocean is something i like uh huh'." It's not anything I've ever actually really explored as a possible professional path (pppppp). My interests are purely superficial. A fantasy, if you will.

Haha. Study of ocean stuff, basically, I guess? To be honest, it's just a word I've long associated with "ocean is something i like uh huh". I love the ocean. Although very specifically, I would want to study marine biology. Fish 'n' shit. But, like, the cool fish. Coral reefs! Yeahhh. I finished the TDD and it was horrible. I am not ashamed. I played a game of Dominion with my roommates and won. It was good.

I am sitting here writing up a technical design document for a physics engine that I am making for a class that is all about making a physics engine and suddenly I am struck with just how little I care. The rough draft is due in, oh, 52 minutes. (47 now that I'm done with this post) I cannot wait to be done with school, once and for all, finally, forever, etc. etc. etc. come the end of this semester. There are a lot of things I would like to still learn, but I think I am done learning them in the academic environment. I will take my master's degree in computer science and run, screaming, hoping I find a job, probably not finding one for a long while. It doesn't help that also for this school - which I suppose I should mention is DigiPen - I am currently making a goddamned game, my dream job for many years (alongside oceanography, and zoologist, and well I guess photographer in general, though I have no real experience in any of those, it's just kind of a hey that seems like something I would really love? thing), and all I want to do is work on the game, but no, I have two other classes on top of the game project class, and they are interfering with one of the most important couple weeks in said game's development process (important due to a conflict of interest with our artists - they care more about their grades, and we lowly programmers/designers care more about making a great game -) and what in the fuck did I just write? It is incomprehensible. I apologize. Okay that felt good, back to work.

Well, also probably faith in the developer's ability to deliver. But yeah. This is pretty cool. I wish people were this passionate about less-famous people, but what're you gonna do.

To be fair, we like to play super aggressive when we lane together. Combos like Lion/Sven or the Drow/VS you saw today are not uncommon. When you pull off an aggressive lane properly, your opponents tend to start bowing out of fights way earlier than is probably necessary. Too, Viper has no chance against a super aggressive lane that early in the game, even if he was good (which he wasn't). Windrunner should've had an easier time holding us back, though. Scare them early, and they stop being brave. They would literally run from us all the way back to their tower by the end of the laning phase, if we showed even a hint of aggression. It was hilarious. U: We also almost always win when he mids Pudge and I Dazzle with someone in a side lane. He's a pretty good Pudge, and Dazzle was the first hero I put real effort in learning in Dota 2.

Yeah it definitely tends to scare off some people when I'm stupidly vulgar and offensive, but... that's who I am. I'd rather scare those people off early than get close to them, only to upset them later and ruin a friendship that never really had a chance. Or something like that. I used to be ridiculously shy, too, so NO ONE ever knew how I really thought. Not anymore! Yay, growing up.

If it helps, I laughed out loud reading that. (I also knew what it was without clicking the spoiler.) Am I a terrible person?

Man, that's like the perfect opening for conversation. At that point, you can go no lower, and might as well roll with it. says the guy without a hope in the world

Oh! My mistake. I could've sworn. I haven't played the game for a long while. You can buy IP boosts or whatever they're called to get more IP per game to get runes faster. I know that for sure. Although I actually have no issue with this particular pay-to-win mechanic, which is kind of weird, I guess?

I actually hate League of Legends because it does exactly what I do not ever like to see in F2P games. It locks actual GAME content behind some arbitrary wall. Sure, you can get it for free if you're willing to grind up enough magic in-game money-points, but the only reason that wall exists is to encourage people who want the content faster to spend money instead of waiting. And yeah I know it's all BUSINESS, but I don't care about business, damnit! I want to play your fucking game. If I like it, I will pay for the extraneous bullshit all on my own! Which I actually did, with League of Legends, all the while being miserable because I couldn't play well over half the champions when I wanted to. All that said, LoL is not a pay-to-win game (except where runes are concerned, as they actually can be a legitimate game-changer if one person has all the best runes and the opponent has all the worst, and they're of equal skill - but it's very rare for that kind of thing to actually happen). It would offend me a hell of a lot more if, I don't know, I had to grind to unlock an item from the store OR I could buy it for real money to unlock it. Like if, say, the basic level one boots weren't available in the (in-in-game) store until you unlocked them at the meta level... Of course, if that sort of thing existed in LoL, it wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is! I do hate the way TF2 does their unlocks, but at least if I really want something, it's only a trade/craft away, and rarely takes more than a couple days to acquire, as opposed to the weeks it can take to unlock champions in LoL. I really, really hope Valve doesn't lock heroes behind some arbitrary wall. I... would like to say I wouldn't play the game if that happened. But I love it too much to guarantee as much. I don't think it will happen, though.