SecretAsianMan

I'm sure they'll still have some dumb meta game going on.

The Fall and Winter Steam sales are almost upon us, but they're going to be a bit different this year. There won't be any Flash or Daily sales this time around. Instead, Valve is asking that discounts be maintained throughout the sale at their most competitive prices. This means no more waiting on prices to see if they get lower later in the sale. What you see day one is what you'll see for the rest of the sale. On the one hand I'm glad that I won't have to play the waiting game to see if a game will get a better price later on. On the other hand I'm worried that it means the discounts won't be as big this time since they now have to last the entire sale instead of a few hours.

I finished up the main story for the game. Last night I wrapped up the Riddler side quest, the most satisfying part of which was finally getting to punch the Riddler in the face because god he's annoying. Also I was extremely annoyed that in order to collect all of the Riddler trophies, you have to get the freeze blast upgrade which I spent the entire game expecting to get during the story. NOPE. It's just a random thing hanging around in one of the bat-hideouts. I probably could have picked it up at any time except I didn't even know it was there. Why didn't you just start with it if they're not going to make it part of the story or give you a prompt? It's completely unnecessary for anything besides the Riddler stuff (I know because I played the entire game up to this point without it). Anyway the only thing I have left is a checkpoint I can't seem to find. Also the story is lame.

Does anyone else besides me wear their socks inside out on purpose? I find them to be much more comfortable that way.

Ostensibly they consume alcohol or oil to power themselves but those rules will get thrown away in favor of a joke. It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to.

A couple clarifications on Amazon Underground. You don't need a Fire or Kindle device or Amazon Prime. It comes packed in on those devices but it's also available for Android (and Blackberry or via the web). You just have to download their Amazon Undergound app (which is basically just the normal Amazon app but with some extra hooks for Underground stuff). You have to enable data collection usage because that's how Amazon tracks how long you've been playing so they can pay the developers. It's an opt-in program meaning developers have to submit their app to the program themselves. It's mostly an extension of their Free-App-A-Day program they used to run in their app store. Amazon labels all the apps that participate in the program with a small sash that says "Actually Free". These can be apps which normally cost money or free apps with in app purchases, or both. There are some notable apps that participate in this, such as Monument Valley, Jetpack Joyride, Knights of Pen and Paper +1, Goat Simulator, Duck Tales Remastered, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Where's My Water, and many more. There are also apps that aren't games such as Officesuite Professional 8

I don't really remember seeing them eat regular food, apart from Hedonism bot but that's part of the joke with him. Can you give me some specific examples?

This and also the fact that Quake for me was much faster paced due to mouselook. It might be subjective, but Doom felt slower to me because I was using the keyboard and couldn't react as fast while Quake was basically non-stop running and gunning/jumping.

I don't really disagree with Twig/Ben/Gormongous but I'm gonna play devil's advocate a bit here. What is a suitable use of pretentious? Like can you tell me something that is appropriate to call pretentious? And why that's so?

The real question is whether you're using WASD or not.

It's not so much that they don't accept there's a problem, it's more that there isn't much they can (or want to) do about it. At this point the most I can do is focus on the big ones while trying to work on the little ones when I can.

You can argue about developer intent, but to really capture the spirit and the zeitgeist that Quake introduced, I think mouselook is totally appropriate. The legacy of that game is definitely not in the single player (outside of speed running anyway). While Quake may not be the birth of that control scheme (Wikipedia says Terminator: Future Shock is the first game to have it on by default while Marathon is the first to have it at all), it's certainly responsible for making it popular.

Agreed, Hulu is terrible.

It is kind of a bummer that "he's sexist but hey, at least he's honest" is enough win points.

I liked the first couple Duke games when it was a side scroller. They were quite a lot of fun and the machismo of Duke was much more amusing. But Duke 3D grossed me out because it felt like they were embracing the parody too much, to the point of it not being a parody anymore and instead being some adolescent boy's wet dream.

I know what Chris means about appearing wealthy through travel. When I was a kid my dad used to do a lot of business travel so he'd rack up the miles and had platinum cards with several airlines. Most of the time the company would fly him business class and he'd sometimes bring home those magazines that try to sell you overly expensive things you don't need. We also got a ton of them in the mail because of his presumed high status.

I wonder if they'll learn from the Episode I soundtrack and not title things like "Qui-gon Jinn's Noble End" or "The High Council Meeting and Qui-Gon's Funeral"

That's a good question because I realistically can't. I'm not likely to lose my job or anything (to be honest they can't really afford to get rid of anyone anyway) but it's not going to makes things easier if something gets missed. In a way it is, but we're talking about executive level here. The higher ups made a number of business moves that didn't pay off so now they're tightening the belt, the effects of which are usually felt the most at the bottom.

Without going into complete detail, the bottom line is we're understaffed. Everyone has a lot on their plate. To save money, the company has initiated a hiring freeze meaning that relief isn't coming any time soon. In fact it's only going to get worse because of a lot of upcoming retirements. The main thing I'm complaining about is that I was handed a bunch of things all at once and almost all of them just before they're due. In terms of priority, they're all a priority otherwise we wouldn't need someone to babysit them. Some of them are actually being done by outside contractors, but I still have to review and oversee their work, which can actually take up even more time if they give me a bad product (and so far at least one of them is). My supervisor is fully aware of the situation but there's really nothing he can do about it unless he somehow gets the authorization to hire more people.

Smash is just Nintendo made MUGEN now isn't it?

While I have no answer for that particular reader's question, here are my thoughts on the subject. It's ok to talk to your partner about what makes you comfortable and what doesn't. In fact I would encourage it otherwise it's going to be an issue that festers until it can no longer be ignored which is usually when it's the worst time to deal with it. The important thing to realize is that saying you are uncomfortable or unwilling is OK. Love does not mean you have to love every single thing about that person. People are different and like different things. No one is going to agree on everything. Sex is certainly a more delicate area than something like movies or games but saying "no" does not mean you don't care about that person. The fact that the conversation is occurring at all means that they matter. Like Patrick and Gormongous said, sometimes it results in irreconcilable differences. But I don't think forcing yourself to do something you are seriously uncomfortable with is going to have positive results.

I'm feeling really overwhelmed at work right now. I already have a number of projects that I'm responsible for and don't really have enough time to get them done to the degree that I would like. But on top of that one of my colleagues is quitting to move to New York to be with his wife who is currently attending school there. He's basically been solely responsible for a rather large project for the past 2 years and the implementation date is quickly approaching. Because I was tangentially involved at the beginning, I will inherit his project when he leaves. I've been out of the loop for the bulk of those 2 years and yet I'm going to be responsible for making sure it's done. I'm also being asked to babysit about 5 other things by someone who is going on vacation, all of which I know basically nothing about. Every one of them is pretty large in scope. I feel like I've been handed several flaming chainsaws then forced to learn to juggle them.

In my experience those things are hit or miss. My first job out of college I was told I'd be contacted in a few weeks and I got called the next day with an offer. The job I had before my current one also told me a few weeks, then after 3 months of zero contact I was suddenly called with a job offer. I think you're fine contacting them at least once.

Maybe you can beat it in less than 100 hours but it sounds like there is easily 100+ hours worth of content. That's not a bad thing per se, but these days I feel better about being able to finish a game in less time than that while having experienced all the content.

That's sort of my problem too. I don't really have time for a game that's designed to take forever.