Gwardinen

I think it's probably to Dishonored's benefit not to release alongside BioShock Infinite, as I would imagine there's a fairly strong audience crossover there, but I would hardly say that there was a hole. This autumn is already looking packed with games, and I truly wish that they were more spread out across the year.

So some of you know a little about the stuff that was going on with me and the complicated situation with that girl. Things actually got less complicated and significantly better for a while, but now it seems like she's on the path to getting back with the guy and I don't want to stick around to see myself becoming the secondary to their relationship again, so it's over. Pretty sure this is the genuine ending this time. Felt like I should note it here for completion's sake, even though you guys have only had bits and pieces of the narrative. Also, any good distraction tactics or other ideas you have for (what should hopefully be a fairly traditional now) breakup, argh everything reminds me of her, etc. stage I'd appreciate it. This is the time when I kind of wish I played an MMO, or something else like it that can just suck up as much time and thought as you're willing to give it.

I am on a 3GS, so I imagine there's a set character limit for the icon title of an app that the developer has to stick to. This is a pretty good one. The Witcher Interactive Comic Book devs didn't come up with quite as elegant a solution, for example - their app is titled "The...Book".

Yeah, that's the one. It ends up being titled Diablore on my iPhone itself, to save space I suppose. It has decent summaries, but if those videos are good that might be a more enjoyable way to get the basic stories.

If you have an iOS device, there's a surprisingly decent app called Diablore.

I thought the cat was the thing he made for her.

The job market is fairly crap, but probably not significantly worse than the rest of Europe at the moment. Global recession, you dig? As for Latin Americans, I don't think there are too many fixed perspectives on them, because they're very rare here. Though that may be less true in the south. It's probably a good thing she's not Argentinian, though.

Yeah, I pretty much reiterate what I said in the other thread. I'm interested but the demo made me wonder if the game is a bit too shallow to play for the lengths of time one might put into a Civilization match, for example.

Yeah, Germany actually already pretty much "willed" itself out of the recession, largely by spending as if there wasn't one in order to kickstart the economy. It's possible France might manage the same thing. Alternatively they might dig themselves deeper into the hole. Isn't economics fun?

Thank you! That actually worked perfectly! I've begun to play the last campaign again, and hopefully I'll soon be able to finally finish this game. I am amazed and grateful that all this actually came together. I suppose the internet can be a force for good now and then.

So this is a somewhat weird post, but this has been irritating me for a while. I played Clash of Heroes on XBLA a while back, but then my console red ringed just as I was a few games into the final campaign. For whatever reason, I would really like to finish the game by picking up the PC version, but I don't particularly want to replay almost the entire game. I realise this is a long shot, but does anyone have a save file for this game that I could use to start the last campaign again? Alternatively, does anyone know of a place that I would be likely to find such a save? I did some Google searches to that effect without much luck, and there also doesn't seem to be a save editor that's widely available. I really did quite like this game, and would love to finish it, but it is surprisingly long and I don't think I have the patience to replay damn near the whole game to do so.

It's the "hand" at the back of the head that frightens me. Quite apart from the obvious neck snapping possibility, what hidden mind control chips could it be installing in the spine?

Yeah, I felt the same. I didn't know anything about the series before it suddenly turned up, but I was very excited when I realised it was a political comedy show. I was imagining some sort of lighter hearted West Wing affair. Perhaps that expectation was unrealistic, but I was pretty disappointed. I've watched the second episode too, and was possibly even less impressed. Willing to wait a little longer, but definitely not feeling too good about it now.

You look very much like Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica in that picture. The industrial background only makes it more striking.

I also enjoyed the demo but also worried a little about the simplicity. I quite enjoy Civ and the fantasy elements they're bringing to the basic formula here are neat, but the choices you make definitely don't seem as impactful. I'm curious to see whether a longer game ends up being more interesting.

I find it really hard to settle on a facial expression in pictures. I find a lot of the time when I try to force a smile it ends up looking either smug or manic. Yet, if you don't smile, people don't see you as "neutral" but as unhappy or angry. I wonder if that's just to do with our expectations when it comes to pictures. You've not done too badly, though, and the atmosphere is great for a picture. Though I suppose if you're one of the northern European Thumbs finding a snowy day for pictures might not be too difficult.

Wow, that is... schizophrenic. If all that is really true then yeah, I wish that series had been made elsewhere. It's like a choose your own adventure game in which you always choose the worst third path. Do we explore human sexuality or do we keep it clean for families? Answer: Neither! Make the series appear sexualised but prevent it from actually tackling any issues related to that! Do we maintain a light and fun tone for ease of consumption, or traverse darker storylines to provoke thought in our viewers? Answer: Neither! We'll have those dark and edgy plots, but won't actually allow the series to show anything which might expose the heart of the reasons for or consequences of disturbing human behaviour. TV executives really are weird guys. I don't know if I actually entirely disagree with this one. There were a couple of episodes in the series, and a few scenes in other episodes, that showed Mal (and to an extent, Zoe) had been profoundly changed by the war. I was looking forward to getting to see that explored more thoroughly as the series went on, but I don't know if it needed to be the core of his character. I quite liked the balance that was able to be struck between humour and emotion with Mal, most of the time. I also think Nathan Fillion excels at playing that type of character, amusingly lighthearted much of the time and occasionally more serious and emotional. Though, yeah, you did note one of the moments during which it was... strained.

Yeah, it's not like I ever watched Buffy or Firefly and thought "what this really needs is some graphic nudity, violence and swearing!" It would have been pretty out of tone for both shows (I always saw Buffy as being deliberately a bit silly, but if I'm wrong about that feel free to correct as I'm not a huge fan), although at least having the option to show Inara's life a bit more honestly might have been appreciated I suppose. Dollhouse is really the only one that prompted me to wonder.

Now that I believe, as bizarre as it is. It sort of makes you wonder what the show might have been had it been on HBO. Not that I'm necessarily implying it would have been better - having only watched a couple of episodes, I'm not really even in a position to judge the quality of what actually existed, let alone a speculative alternative version. Nor am I saying that HBO's seeming insistence that its dramas all have relatively frequent nudity is always a good thing, but the network is at least clearly not afraid of that aspect of humanity. Dollhouse seems like a series that could have said things about it.

Neat, I'll give all of that some thought. I have to say, though, there hasn't been a game in years that I've so desperately wanted for someone more experienced to just watch me play and tell me all the things I'm missing/doing wrong. For example you mentioned improving holdings - I've barely done any of that. I'm not totally convinced I even fully understand the system. Beyond systems that I'm aware of but don't necessarily understand, though, I'm pretty certain there are a number of systems in this game that I don't even really know about. Perhaps it's time I started trying to root out further tutorial videos on YouTube or something.

Fair enough. That advice does actually help, thank you. A couple interesting things have already happened - I started off with a claim on a part of "Scotland" that was held by the King of Norway, so I went to war with him pretty much immediately, and was raiding across the coast of Norway until he gave me the province. Feeling good about this, and presuming that I was master of all that I surveyed, when the opportunity came up to create a Ducal title that would give a vassal of mine a claim on an English province, I jumped at the chance. I had quite a successful invasion, before my army was thoroughly routed by the English and they began to shift the borders back again. I saw the writing on the wall and ended up signing a white peace before it came to the point that I wouldn't even get that. Since then I've been doing as I noted and just occasionally manufacturing claims on provinces in "Scotland" held by the Isles. I've been taking all that territory steadily, but I've still been feeling strange about simply sitting back as you're advising and just seeing how things go. Trying to marry into the English or Welsh succession hasn't actually occurred to me, and my occasional attempts to get good marriages to bring in new nobles and such have not been working out too well for me... I apparently don't understand that aspect of the game fully. Any basic advice for attempting to get in a good position with England and/or Wales?

Not to mention there are prostitutes for those people who just want to have sex with a pretty woman (no pun intended). If you're willing to pay the money and run the legal risk for a brainwashed human robot it's not inconceivable you might want more than just sex sometimes.

Yeah I still feel pretty out of my depth with Crusader Kings II. I'm not sure if the things I'm doing are the things I'm meant to be doing at all. My first "real" game I'm playing as the King of Scotland, and I've basically just been gradually trying to conquer the provinces that are in modern Scotland. Am I totally missing something by just manufacturing claims, then going to war for a bit, then manufacturing more claims? Feels like a weird way to play.

I would note it was Steam and not Twitter we were using as I remarked that I still don't use Twitter because I'm a Luddite or something. I'm still trying to figure out whether the unearned pride we felt is a bad thing. Why shouldn't I be extra happy for Jake and Sean because I know a little about them? If I was reviewing the game or something then it would be an issue, but for now I'm just enjoying the feeling of liking a thing some guys I've listened to made. It's kinda like when an author you like suddenly has a bestseller (though I've no idea what kinda numbers the Walking Dead is doing, I hope it's doing well - which shows my objectivity is compromised anyway). Honestly, Speedy, my favourite comment that you made came late last night, presumably just after you'd finished the game. It went along the lines of "so the Walking Dead is actually really good, who knew?" Who knew indeed.

I was just talking to Speedy about how I'm probably going to replay this episode on my own Steam account now that I own it, since I don't know of a way to coopt my saves from my friend's profile. I don't have a particular problem with that, but now I'm starting to be swayed by all your arguments to save Doug. However, my intention is still to completely recreate the split-second decisions of my first playthrough, even if they were bad ones. It's just going to be harder to do that now that I'm starting to think losing Doug was a really bad idea.