CaptainFish

Great vid! I love the Big Car. Needs to be .giffed.

Yeah, checking around it seems they patched WC3 dota like a month later, so I guess the engine didn't have anything to do with it. It was still interesting in being the first (definitely) and only (I think) Dota 2 mechanics patch that wasn't just parity from a WC3 Dota patch. Earth Spirit is quite a powerful hero right now. He has so much varied control without any items or channeling. He can do multihero stuns and silences, he can pull enemies into position, or allies away from danger, he can target a hero from far away, and his ulti does great team damage as long as he can stay alive and on top of it. Someone from Neogaf posited that you could take the damage away from his non-ulti abilities, and he might still be op or at least good, and I think he had a point. It'll be interesting to see how he gets changed in the future. I feel like a healer is a decent counter to him, specifically Abbadon. He can not only mitigate the damage you're taking from him, but he can also purge those silences with shield to let key heroes get off abilites, as long as you avoid the silence yourself. I'm having a much worse time against Broodmother, though. As she is pretty much the least fun hero to play against in her current format.

Glad to see Dota Today back! I'm pretty sure part of that lack of blink on Pudge and Venge is tied to the cliff stuff. With blink it's trivial to put yourself on a cliff, and then you can strand people for free. That patch wasn't for Dota and Dota 2, and I'm not sure if they made a WC3 Dota patch with that content.

I generally don't interact with Early Access / Kickstarter gaming. There have been a few (DFA, Shadowrun, and River City Revival) but since the early stuff, if I know a big project is going to make it I'm content to wait.... I mostly justify it because I already have a lot of steam stuff I haven't played so I can stand to wait until stuff comes out to get it. I don't really go back to games once I get my kicks out of them, so I'd prefer to just wait. Oh, I guess I bought 123 Kick It way back before Early Access (outside of Minecraft) was even codified as a thing. I messed around in it a little and haven't been back since around when Portal 2 came out. I feel like a lot of the people asking to get money back for these games are caught up in an alternate form of video games hype cycle, where you just throw your money at everything. If you're not doing it because you want to support the game and developer, and feel like you'd have any reservations between the time of purchase and release, just don't do it, don't ask for it to be different so that the developers don't get the benefits. Re: Nick, not trying to be a dick or anything, I figured it was probably him being busy. Just wanted to state that he's missed. (And I did find his name being used as a code a little funny)

Hover keyword "Breckon"? I'm not sure I understand the significance of that word. Signed, Captain Fish, a Bring Back Breckon Booster

The platforming actually drove me away from this game... I'll probably get back to it for the other stuff at some point, but I don't appreciate the way they designed the moment to moment gameplay at all.

Anyone have a link to that Day Z story on Sean's twitter?

I see you threw an Objective Tip n Trick into your Gone Home review.

I've seen this brought up before in this thread, but that's a definite problem with this game. Its plot is entirely driven by a man coping with his actions and opinions towards race, but the game is also not about that at all. The game in general is more about, uh, love and what it can drive someone to do and believe which is why I find the ending credits so powerful. I went back to confirm the sequence of events and I had missed a section: the game ends, the credits play, there's a 2 minute orchestral piece (it's the part I had forgotten, and it's probably only there to allow you some time to process the finale), and then their amazing version of God Only Knows plays. It hit me like a ton of bricks. "Oh, that's what the game was about." It felt pretty masterful. However, to get there all this interesting meat about dealing with race is just left behind. The way the Fink Manufacturing section ends, specifically with Daisy Fitzroy, is so ridiculously bad. It's shockingly bad. I'd even say offensive. And I think it's because the game feels like it started from the seed of the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth and its collision with these sci-fi elements, and then a setting was chosen. Oh, it's set during this time so we can use world's fair style imagery and tone. Oh, lets incorporate Wounded Knee and the Boxer Rebellion as important historical events. Oh, they'd definitely have and overt racial schism as a primary conflict. Then, when the player is expected to transition from asking, "What is this place I'm in?" to, "What's the deal with the main characters?" they ditch any attempt to use that world building to good effect. They ditch it hard. I don't really think I've gone from intrigued to put off so abruptly in a long while. It puts the game in a weird spot in my mind. In a lot of ways I think you could make the game that this game is about* without having to engage with those topics at all. On the other hand I felt so intrigued in spots (the gunsmith's wife changing race, for example) before my hopes were dashed and I realized the racial aspects were superfluous. I feel like it's better to have had my mind try to bend around a notion rather than just a mindless experience. On a third hand, there are still spots of writing regarding those heavier topics that work if you ignore the poorly handled parts.Specifically, I think Comstock's story about how being accused as a young man of having Native American ancestry drove him to commit atrocities as a sort of social conditioning that mirrors that of Columbia is a good example.There are not many others I can think of. In the end the result is a disjointed experience, as you said. It really makes me wish they just went further with it from the sci-fi end. Why couldn't the game, instead of going to alternate Columbias, go to completely alternate lighthouses? They could have avoided the turn of the vox by introducing completely different conflicting groups. This probably wouldn't stop the game from feeling disjointed, but avoiding the way they dealt with Daisy Fitzroy would be enough for me. *The game where I think about infinite Bookers dying in an off-screen Sisyphean loop to save a loved one they've mistreated so poorly they've blocked out all memory of them in shame and liquor, but are still compelled to save by an innate sense and then I listen to God Only Knows and I feel sad and tear up. Yes, the part of this game I think is crucial, or at least the most personally affecting, is the part you don't play before the snowy section, signified by like 2 lines of dialogue.

I'm hoping the year transitions abruptly into the Year of Waluigi. Like if you load up Dr. Luigi, and halfway through your first game it goes "TOO BAD, WALUIGI TIME" and the game changes into Dr. Waluigi forever.

Humanity was too complacent.Too busy reading spoofed robot news e-mails to discover the truth. 300 'lucky' recipients clutched a steam controller, and became the first Steamborgs. Their last words as they transitioned away from sentience, "Data Complete." The world's hat supply was in their control within hours.

Huh, was that really the intention? I don't remember what the ticket looked like now, thinking back.

Hoodies are fine. Not sure why some choose to only wear them, but they're nice in moderation.

Listening to Giant Bomb discuss this for best music made me recall this post! I thought I had posted in here at some point after I played the game, but I guess not. Uh, pretty cool game, low points being the arena style fights near the end; high points being the music and style. The way this game ends goes to credits and plays a song is masterful as all hell. This also game has one of the worst (poorest/nonsensical) heel turns/betrayals I've experienced in a game and that's saying a lot.

Diretide intro was funny, but did you guys know that Valve basically admitted they were wrong?! http://blog.dota2.com/2013/11/not-my-best-work/ I haven't been so shocked in a long time. Doesn't make the reactions that lead up to it any less/more shitty/hilarious though. Anyway, feel free to go back to arguing about whether people are allowed to think things are cool now.

I remember hearing about the nyan cat creator or property holder getting after the Scribblenauts guys for putting it in their game. The goatse people should just do the same thing with goatse derivative design. Then they'd make enough money with that to put the original site up!

I think the opposite is true, at least if you haven't being netting for a while.

Oh man, Adventure Quest. I played so much of that in high school. The amount of attention it demanded was just enough that I could be IMing or doing homework and just slowly chip through some monsters. A distraction in the purest sense, and one that didn't actually impede anything you wanted to do. It was really interesting to see it evolve. New mechanics and abilities were being bolted on every so often. Then they did another game where it had more movement around a map. Then they did a sci-fi game about mechs. And then I think they did one where you can be a dragon person*, and that's the last thing I saw, long after I had ever played any of their games. *There's a lot of dragons and dragon-esque creatures in their games.

Yeah, hearing Nick talk at length was cool (cast blum).

I don't think so.

I agree. Liking CandyBox 2 though. Try throwing candy on the ground!

For a while I had convinced myself that The Stanley Parable Demonstration (I feel you should always say the full name) was the actual new full release of The Stanley Parable. I was also 100% okay with that idea. It was a combination of how much more content was in The Stanley Parable Demonstration in comparison to the original mod, and the price not showing up in Steam until its release. Not that I think the Remix is bad or anything, in fact not only did I really enjoy all the polish, but one of the new endings is my favourite. They really put the narrator through a lot more different emotional states in some of them. Now I'm kinda wondering about leaving the game running in a couple spots where the narrative seems to demand it.

Funnily enough, that's another thing I just bypassed in my rush on my first run by simply not wanting to be in that space. Caught it during the commentary run though.

I only vaguely remember the original Genesis game from a blockbuster rental many years ago. Keep wanting to return to try it out. I recall it being hard, all your ammo is limited and you only get a couple of hits before you die. Honestly don't know if it's good. I'd imagine not.

I just played and enjoyed my Gone Home experience today, and then went through it again for the commentary. Lots of fun, great attention to detail. I loved touching everything. Filling a space with so many writers was quite nice as well. It was really powerful to go to the music room and see Sam's assignment just steps away from Terrence's work. Kinda reminded me of Fun Home, with 2 major characters having similar brains, and yet just not connecting. It's kinda interesting how even though the game got rid of the violence it's still very much a similar game to ss2 or the bio games. Interesting things happened to people in an interesting space and you find out about them through the aftermath. The only complaint I have is due to me being a baby. The house was kinda spooky, and I'm not entirely sure to what end. Sure, it does recreate the feeling of running around a strange mansion during a thunderstorm , but that just made me constantly on edge when I'd rather have been just focused on reading stuff. Part of it is stuff like the light flicker and house creaks, but another part of me just couldn't shake that this game is pretty much indistinguishable from one where a crazy monster would jump out and force you to run and hide. In the basement I got so freaked out I turned off my brain for the important dark corner. Also, this isn't Gone Home related, since, as a game, it just has a very specific tone without actively scary content, but I find it a little weird that a lot of first person, interesting-space exploring games are being made, but most of them have a horror component and hard fail state death component. I dunno how well it would work, but maybe it would be nice if a game at least pulled a Space Quest and matched up danger and challenge with a lighter tone.