Gwardinen

I actually do it the opposite way. I'm not playing ironman, but I am living with consequences as much as possible. The reason I don't actually play it in ironman mode is basically this: So rather than keeping the save card for when I fuck up, I keep the save card for when I feel like the game fucked up. I believe this was mentioned in the TMA podcast about the game, but it seems like the most "fair" way to play is to fake ironman in this way - don't be systemically bound to your save, but have the personal discipline to not use it unless the game screws you in a way you consider genuinely unacceptable. So far I've kept to this standard pretty well.

That's a pretty great sequence of events. I want a GIF of someone doing that.

He has surprisingly great comedic timing.

I agree with this. Since in a campaign-based game your main sense of achievement and enjoyment is through progression, something that blocks your progression blocks your enjoyment of the game. In a roguelike, progression is cool during the given run you're on but you go into any given run with the understanding that, one way or another, it will be one short section of your broader play of the game. FTL's out of campaign rewards such as new ships and ship layouts feed into this idea nicely; you sometimes gain something tangible even during a "failed" run. Also, since each run is so short, if you have it on a higher difficulty than you're comfortable with you can then turn it down on the next go if the game has that functionality. This ties in with what Elmuerte mentioned about sticking to normal in case there's no possibility to tune the difficulty at a later stage. Since many games both do not allow you to change difficulty during a campaign and do not allow you to jump to a previously completed moment in a campaign during a new playthrough (with a new difficulty level), if you pick a hard difficulty and the game starts off easy enough to handle (as most do) and then later shows its true difficulty, one can become stuck too far in to want to restart but too far from the end to just want to slog it out.

I used to love Key to the Kingdom when I was younger, but I haven't really played it with a critical eye as an adult. Do you recall which parts you considered broken?

I've only played the introduction so far, but it does definitely walk the line between some pretty serious shit and the implicit silliness of the art style. I feel somewhat silly putting this in spoiler tags, but who knows, someone might not want to know. It's worth noting that at no point during all of this are any jokes made or is any attempt made to lighten the tone. It's played completely straight. The only thing that's silly is the default art style of the game. So perhaps it's not meant to be a lighthearted game at all at this point, perhaps the art is the way it is just because that's how Introversion games look. That said, I don't know what the standard game is like yet so perhaps the tutorial is a bit of an outtake.

Man, that game was the best. I wonder if it holds up (and indeed even works properly on Windows 7 and modern hardware).

What do you need to do to get the Zoltan cruiser? So far I've unlocked the Engi ship and the stealth ship. The stealth ship is actually kind of great but is also sort of hard mode because you literally start with no shield module.

While this change doesn't bother me specifically, it does highlight one of the things I don't like about Apple's design philosophy. While my first instinct here is just to say "why didn't they simply add an option to let the user decide which of these behaviours they prefer?" I am immediately aware that this would entirely go against Apple's tendencies. The designers very much do not like adding options in any place they do not absolutely have to, and in general just try to guess what most of their users will want and go for that without the possibility of change. I sort of understand this tendency, and when their guesses and my desires line up it does make everything very clean and simple... but when they don't it just kind of leaves me in the lurch, doesn't it?

The date missions only unlock indicators for the minimap, right? Not the main map? If I'm meant to be seeing those collectibles on the main map something is jacked.

I just looked up jumping spiders, Sal, and I think we share very different definitions of "adorable" - but their mating dance is kinda neat. Also if a spider ever jumped at me I don't think I would ever stop screaming during my natural life.

I actually did very much enjoy the Black Prism, so I'm happy to hear the sequel is coming out. The way he set up how colour magic works is pretty neat, and would actually be great fodder for video games.

Actually right there with you on that. I took a break from Sleeping Dogs for a couple weeks due to being busy and Guild Wars 2 coming out, but it is a surprisingly easy game to just jump back into and be doing something fun within a couple minutes of clicking the icon.

Well if you mean Dust 514, that is currently considered a PS3 exclusive I believe. Meanwhile Mark of the Ninja is published by Microsoft and will therefore not appear on the PS3. Therefore there are no space bucks you could buy that would allow you to own both games, sadly.

That video is cool and all, and I recognise that it's a marketing campaign. But it probably still would have been quicker to say "we'll have Civilization-style campaigns rather than scripted campaigns, sound good?" Spending time telling me I can change the difficulty is also a bit of a weird choice. Excited to see how the game turns out, though.

I entirely agree. In reality I am ambivalent at best about children, but my priorities in the Walking Dead are 1) keep Lee alive, 2) keep Clem alive, 3) keep Clem happy/healthy/something, 4) everything else. In episode 3 particularly, Oh and I agree about the contrived problem, specifically

Well, it's good that Ubisoft is (apparently) backing off the always-online DRM model at least. Not being able to play singleplayer games when servers are in maintenance or just broken is super dumb, and never helped anyone. That said, Ubisoft has made statements about DRM that various games would have before and then gone back on them. As a result, I'm somewhat distrustful even of a communication of this size and seeming clarity and I'll wait to see if it proves true before applauding too heartily.

My favourite line in that video:

Isn't Mike the guy working with Doug on the new site?

Apparently ArenaNet has stopped selling digital copies for the moment because of overpopulation causing server problems. However, I'm not sure if they're actively trying to scale the servers, get more servers or are just waiting for the concurrent population to naturally drop off.

This happens to me too. I can lose momentum on a game pretty fast. Actually, Max Payne 3 is sitting installed on my PC right now just waiting for me to finish it. I estimate I was at least two thirds of the way through, probably more like three quarters. But I stopped playing it for a day, and then another day went by without me playing it and now every time I think about doing it I just sort of say "ugh" and either just play LoL/Dota 2 with my friends or log back in to Guild Wars 2 for a bit.

It's organised by the same company. I don't know if there's more of a relation than that, as this will be my first year going (if it happens).

I may be going to Eurogamer, which is the 27th to the 30th. Currently expecting that if I do go I'll be in London over 27th-29th, at least in some capacity.

Haha, awesome! I'm going to try that out!

I wouldn't necessarily say you need to be a warrior, but I definitely wouldn't recommend thief as a starting class. Knight can also be a good choice, as can pyromancer. Most of the classes can work, but thief is a genuinely difficult one for a new player I think.