Gwardinen

I had a slightly more literal interpretation of it.

What the fuck? I thought Adult Swim just made weird cartoons and iOS games? What the hell was that about?

And the main scoring system of Crusader Kings II is prestige. Since winning wars gains you prestige, as does having as many titles as possible, you're pretty heavily incentivised towards not staying neutral.

Yeah, if someone updated the UI of King of Dragon Pass to not be so profoundly unintuitive - hostile, even - it would probably be my favourite game.

In fairness, weren't you in the middle of having a baby or whatever?

Oh my god you outed the fact that I had to have Amazon ship and wrap it! I am internet shamed in front of all these better Santas. I was out of the country, people! I had no choice! Stop judging me.

Yeah that's a pretty steep markup, just going straight from $50 to £50. As for how good it is... I'm more of a GG enthusiast than a particularly knowledgeable/skilled player, so in terms of the changes to characters and systems I can't speak much. It feels relatively balanced, but then it has already been an arcade game and then out on consoles in Japan for a while so you would figure they've had time to iron a lot of stuff out. In terms of the experience of playing it, it's a lot like #Reload and Accent Core, but on a modern system. All the things that are enjoyable about Guilty Gear - the speed, the crazy anime moves, the "easy to pick up, hard to master" controls - are still there. Anything you didn't like about Guilty Gear is almost certainly still there too. But now occasionally the camera swoops around into 3D when launching someone into the air, or at the end of a round, or during a character intro. It's bizarre because when you're fighting it still really looks and feels like a 2D fighter - they essentially built it in a 3D engine just to have little wow moments at non-critical times. There are a few little system touches that are nice too, like the ability to select English or Japanese voices, and being able to change button inputs easily at character select screen. They've also put colour options in there straight up this time, so you don't just have to press random buttons on the controller and hope that it looks like how you want it to. Something that I think is new to this one is that there are fairly extensive training modes - both in terms of the standard "do all of this character's moves and combos" mode and also in terms of a hypothetical situation mode. For example, I think the first challenge in the latter case is that Ky is jumping backwards and preparing a projectile move. Your objective is to dash in and use a long ranged strike to knock him out of it before he can hit you. That's a genuinely useful manoeuvre to master! I still don't really know what the best way to teach someone a fighting game is, but this seems like a step in the right direction.

All right, if we're doing pre-Christmas openings, here are my excellent Finnish presents: Sweet cards (I particularly like the owls): Hopefully not accurate view of Finnish cities on interesting novel cover: Curious comic book - actual book of comics à la Garfield: Example of a comic within: And finally, a bag of (possibly traditional?) Finnish sweets - open because I already tried one (it was weird):

Yeah I see it more as "Random Santa".

Pfft. Pfft, I say. Do as I did - make a US PSN account, buy PSN credit through US Amazon, apply it to your account and buy the game there, before switching back to your profile after it's installed. What are you, a filthy casual?

Which, in winter, will be just fantastic.

It is indeed lying, but I used this site to make it downloadable without much trouble.

Is anyone actually playing the multiplayer of this? I'm really tempted by it, but the combination of not knowing that I'd have people to play with regularly and not having quite enough money is staying my hand.

I received a parcel today that looks very much like an Idle Santa package, so my Santa is very on the ball! I will not open it yet, but I am excited to. Unfortunately I've been out of the country so I haven't managed to get mine sorted out yet, but since my victim target recipient is also in the UK I'm hopeful it'll still get there by Christmas.

I experienced a bit of slowdown and fatigue in the first half of season two. Did you perceive that at all, and if so does it pick up again?

I was actually quite interested in finally getting into Unity myself yesterday with the announced performance patch, but the patch is now delayed and I just don't see myself having a good experience with it as it stands.

Generation Kill is shockingly good. I don't know whether there is any other TV series that manages to be as impactful without being draining for me. I feel like it says and shows worthwhile things, but I don't feel like I need to rest after an episode (which I often too, I'm a wuss when it comes to putting myself through difficult entertainment) - on the contrary, I want to start the next one. The only other series I feel the same way about is the West Wing.

I've basically been waiting for Together before really considering playing Don't Starve. I won't have the money any time soon (Christmas is wiping me out) but I'd definitely be interested in hearing people's impressions of the multiplayer.

That's my understanding, yes. Sadly region barriers still apply, though, so no EU to NA crossovers.

I totally only just noticed that when you look at the negative space of the cover, it's in a dragon shape.

This may help with the graphical glitches, at least:

This may not be a terrible idea, but if you're only viewing it as a chance to reassess, make sure he is seeing it the same way. If you dangle the possibility of taking over for him and then say "actually I've got a cool new idea for myself, good luck with that!" he may feel a bit hoodwinked.

Although it's worth noting that when you get to the final sandbox mode, if you make one group significantly larger than the other (say, to reflect white and non-white populations in western countries), it becomes much harder to resolve to everyone's satisfaction. I'm not at all trying to say this is a bad message, or a poor way to communicate it - actually I think this is a great way to communicate such a thing! - just that there are even more problems than the post itself is able to tackle.

The font treatment, intro sequence and character likenesses are straight from the show, as are some of the actors. However, House Forrester is only mentioned in the books, not the show. It is also currently set at a time during which the books and show had not diverged a great deal. From here on in, I suspect it will be partly forging its own path.

Hmm. The themes are probably somewhat universal, but it certainly does trade on characters and situations from the books and show. I would say it's likely playable and enjoyable without foreknowledge, but you will be missing some context. Also, if you ever have any intention of reading/watching, the game spoils stuff pretty fast, as it's set a few seasons/books in.