SecretAsianMan

Yeah, there are some things I thought seemed kinda like that, such as the amount of tequila everywhere. I'm not super familiar with Mexican culture so I don't know how accurate any of it is but I do get the feeling it uses common stereotypes.

I picked this up during the Steam Holiday sale as a flash deal. I'm having a lot of fun with it so far. The combat is fun and interesting, the gameplay feels very smooth, and the style is nice to look at. In a lot of ways it plays like a Metroidvania Smash Bros game. The only thing so far that's annoying me is getting the combos in the chicken training house. The special moves knock the guy out of range and I can't complete the chain. That's a minor annoyance though, one that seems skippable so I'm not going to beat my head against a wall trying to finish it. There are also a ton of references to other games, mostly old school Nintendo. Some are rather overt (such as the Mexican Chozo statue) while others are a bit more suble (such as an outline of Megaman in a brick wall in one of the towns). Many of them are posters for luchadore fights and I'm enjoying the way they're portrayed in this style.

I bought Guacamelee just now. That's it so far for me.

There is one very important item that's used in several puzzles (and becomes symbolic of one of the game's themes) but I can't really remember well enough if there are others like that.

Using pinyin (a phonetic system for transcribing Chinese pronunciation into Latin script) 他 - tā (male) 她 - tā (female) 他们 - tāmen (them, male) 她们 - tāmen (them, female) Google's translator will pronounce it if you want to hear it.

In Chinese (and other languages possibly) the written form of "he" and "she" are different, but they're pronounced the same. In the case of multiple people, there's a written form of "they, them" for just men or a mix of men and women, and another form for just women; again the pronunciation is the same. So in casual conversation, there's effectively no gender distinction. Incidentally, there's also a written form of "they, them" for animals with the same pronunciation.

Last night I dreamt that Video Games Rodkin (who in this dream is a separate person from Jake but they're identical in every way) snuck into my room and messed with my alarm clock. Instead of showing the time, it was displaying Twitter hashtags. The alarm sound itself had been replaced with the sound of Chris laughing. Then an episode of Idle Thumbs was recorded in my bathroom because it had good acoustics. Chris, Jake, Sean, Steve, and Video Games Rodkin discussed a game called Gone Home. Except it wasn't the actual Gone Home, but some parallel universe version that somehow involved flying monkeys, FPS gameplay, and Nick Breckon as the silent Gordon Freeman-esque player character.

The offices of Hello Games was hit by a Christmas flood and they lost a lot of equipment, including PCs. Hopefully it won't impact development too much.

This doesn't have to do with the passage of time specifically, but you may find it interesting nonetheless. http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-players-you-don-t-know-about/1100-4798/

I'm glad you guys are liking my recommends. I will say that a few of them are on the goofier/not as good side, but I was trying to spread it out among all the seasons. Relics in particular is notable only because it has Scotty in it. Unification also has a TOS cast member. Yeah, First Contact is definitely the best TNG movie largely because of that.

Merry Xmas thumbs!

I'd make a shitty wizard

I'm Christmasy now too. Thanks Teg.

Even though I like The Dig, I haven't played it in a long time so my memory of it is a bit hazy as well. I might play it again too.

That's actually what I figured Peter Parker would do.

If the character of Superman was created today, what job would Clark have? I don't think newspaper reporter is plausible anymore. I'm not even sure he'd have a job, maybe he'd just be some guy on Twitter or a blogger. I bet his YouTube channel would be popular.

Community, self-made, and Valve quality items cannot be traded or used in crafting. The non-vintage Lugermorph is one of a few other items that also cannot be traded (although there is a workaround in the form of the gift wrap tool).

Honestly at that point I wouldn't even bother trying to move them all, at least the chickens. I've been collecting the eggs every time I'm in the area and depositing them in the chest. I imagine the number of chickens that could be obtained from just throwing them would be enough to start another chicken farm. It also didn't occur to me until the other day while I was feeding the chickens, but I find it funny that chickens both lay eggs and give live birth in this game.

I died once during my first playthough and that was before I even rented anything (I attacked a cucco and summoned the horde). I've died exactly once so far on my current Hero mode playthough, although if it weren't for my habit of repeatedly bottling fairies, I should have died several times by now.

I listen during the drive to/from work. A combination of Idle Thumbs and the Bombcast is usually enough to last me for a week's worth of commutes. Lately I've also been listening while dicking around on the Minecraft server.

To answer Chris' question about what a "sunbeams unusual effect" is, what makes the unusual quality items 'unusual' is that they all have effects applied to the hat. In the case of the sunbeams effect, the hat has sunbeam-like rays coming out of it. This makes them easy to identify and highly coveted items. Additionally, crates have only a 1% chance of giving an unusual item, and the only way to get an unusual (other than trading) is by unlocking a crate with a key. There are other item qualities as well. The normal quality items are the stock weapons that everyone has. Unique quality items are the new weapons that were added later. Vintage quality are items that were crafted or obtained before a certain date and cannot be obtained again unless Valve decides to apply them to a new set of items. Genuine quality items are promotional items given out for preordering associated games on Steam. Strange quality items are ones that track certain statistics, such as kills or assists, on the item. Reaching a certain number for the statistic changes the description of the item as well. Haunted and festive quality is associated with certain items obtained during the Halloween and Christmas events. Community and self-made items are given out by Valve to people who contribute to the game. Valve quality items are developer items given to Valve employees. Community, self-made, and Valve quality items can't be traded. Also, I would say that while the earbuds are probably the equivalent of the gold standard, refined metal is usually the most common currency used during trades although they have no real monetary value. Metal is crafted by combining 2 items and turning them into scrap, which can be combined with 2 more scrap to turn into reclaimed, which can be combined with 2 more reclaimed to become refined. Keys and Tour of Duty Tickets are also common trading fodder which can be purchased in the in-game store.

Before I get into any more discussion about PA, I need some clarification (although I suspect the thing I'm going to ask isn't very clear at all). What exactly does it mean to be 'phobic', ie. homophobic, transphobic, etc? I thought I knew but then I started hearing it used to describe things I didn't think were 'phobic' and now I'm just not sure. I'm not trying to start another stalkinghead-esque argument but I feel like I can't respond properly without knowing this first.

Yeah, you can retry the remixed bosses at many times as you want. When you die during a remixed boss fight, you don't actually die but are instead teleported back to the room with the doorway so you can try again. But each attempt will happen under the exact same circumstances as the last one. I'm fine with it being hard and having infinite tries, I just don't like that they negate all the progress I've already made and force me to use a combination of things I wouldn't have chosen on my own. It seems like such a large contradiction to the rest of the game.