CaptainFish

Guess who I found while playing the campaign? http://steamcommunity.com/id/CptFish/screenshot/560908400673309768?tab=public

Brannigan that was an awesome tale. I main a light operative myself and it's a ton of fun. I love the caltrops, and hacking turrets. I would suggest that anyone interested check out this Video On Demand of the Brink TV launch stream. The first match starts at 25:30, and it's a pretty good example of play. There's a few great moments near the end of that match that really show off the SMART system. The whole stream also highlights the weaknesses of the game. Class diversity is required, with Soldier as the one I miss the most. Their ability is an ammo refill, which is crucial when you're trying to accomplish any objective away from spawn. Most people tend to engi/medic though. A lot of the maps have some balance issues, with the defending team spawning directly on top of a defense with ridiculously short times. Usually at the end of the map, you'll have to run 20-30 seconds to get to the objective, and by that time it's swarmed. TF2 already solved this issue with the way they move spawns and change timers, it's disappointing to see it here. That issue also connects with chokepoints. There are a lot of chokepointy spots. The good thing is, there is a built in way to avoid them through using SMART. The bad thing is, it's hard to get your allies to do that.

I dunno how good an example that QL is of what Brink is. There are definitely choke point areas and locked firefights, but there is a lot of mobility over the course of a match. Jeff is such a vanilla video game player (soldier in Mass Effect, headshotted his way through SC:conviction without mark and execute, soldier in borderlands, etc.) that I can't see him getting excited about things other than gun feel in a game. Also, they spend so much time playing with/against bots when that's not what that game is about. It's not Giant Bomb's fault since that's how Splash Damage positioned the game.

I've heard Jeff mention that 'bots running up to objectives while you're capping' issue 3 times and I haven't experienced it. I'm pretty sure that in the quick look the bot is actually helping him cap, because that's a thing you can do. I've had blast with the Brink I've played since last post. A few rounds were won, because of desperation sprints with my light operative to drop off the flag. The caltrop grenade and hacking turrets are really fun strategic abilities. The experience is much different than my jack of all trades medium build guy, and I can see a heavy unit being even more different. I will admit that I wondered into a friendly fire on server and it was the worst thing ever. Huge guys with miniguns would just mow down, heal and then mow down their teammates again. The slide move knocks down allies as well, so every time I tried to do a time sensitive operative thing, I was interrupted by some chucklehead.

I've spent a few hours playing it today, and it's been pretty fun so far. It seems they've failed with the whole seamless blend of SP, Co-op and MP. When I first heard it described, they positioned it like training wheels for people who don't like multiplayer shooters. You play a little against bots, when that gets boring you play co-op and then you upgrade to playing against people. While that was the route I took, I think the bot AI is pretty terrible and unfun, and could actually turn away more people than it encourages. The weapon choice is kinda weird as well. There's a big focus on automatic weapons, but only 1 shotgun, 1 grenade launcher and 2 'sniper' rifles. On top of that, a lot of the automatic guns have obvious best choices, so it's not even a set of guns with different feels. It's really disappointing, especially since I think the Assault Rifle has become the one gun in every shooter and it's started to become really boring. The SMART system feels really great. It's my favorite part of the whole game. I've even started using a light character to be able to do more of it. I wish they had added in more Parkour challenge maps.

Isn't Sony getting that information the judge's fault? People make ridiculous claims all the time, but the legal system is supposed to mete out the reasonable ones. Rewarding that information seemed like a big breach of privacy, and not useful for actually determining the severity of the security breach. I can imagine an argument for wanting to know how many unique visitors saw that information in order to establish a plan for proceeding, but knowing the actual IPs is ridiculous.

What if Mass Effect 3 was structured like X-Com? Different earth locations get attacked, you have to respond to them in time or lose support from the alliance. Research reaper tech to counter their threat. I guess technically that's how all the other games work, save for the time sensitivity (for the most part).

Really interesting excerpts from an Erik Wolpaw interview. On the topic of Chell not speaking...

The Wiimote and Nunchuck are probably the most comfortable controllers ever for regular use. That's where Cheeto dust man comes from, your hands don't even have to leave your sides. Sometimes the waggle/motion stuff was the best way to proceed. Examples include RE4 for the aiming* and Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the quick directional smashes. *I will admit it took me a while to get used to this, but once I figured out the right way to aim in that game, everything felt really natural.

I was really tempted to buy the ultimate edition yesterday, since it was cheaper than all the dlc combined. I didn't since I don't know when I'll actually play more Dragon Age. I already have Awakenings as well if I really get a hankering any time soon.

I don't have a 360 so I missed out on the first Dead Rising, so I don't really understand the love of that character or the photo mechanic. Making weapons seems like much more fun, but I haven't really ever enjoyed taking photos in any video game.

I finished The Next BIG Thing by Pendulo last weekend. For the most part it was alright: the puzzles made sense and the characters were pretty interesting. The main female character was particularly nice, although some of her dailogue motifs got a bit repetitive. I think the animation on the in-game models was far too stuttery, especially considering the high quality of the animation in cutscenes. There's also no auto-save in the game, so I ended up having to replay big chunks of gameplay when the game crashed. It wasn't a big deal to replay those parts, but this is 2011 people. My big beef is with two puzzles in the game: a puzzle positioned as a quiz and a musical puzzle. The first one is presented as a knowledge based puzzle, so you first assume you have to figure out the answers. When that doesn't work you assume you have to talk/trick people who know the answers into solving it for you. The second idea seems plausible when you realize you have a magic hat that can transport things around. However, the real solution is This struck me as really bad, especially when the fail puzzle dialogue refers to there being some sort of trick, which once again seemed to reference the hat. Not only does the solution not use any in-game logic, but there's no real way to reason your way through it without making a huge leap. The musical puzzle was also a doozy. You're presented 6 objects that play/stop playing music when you click on them. 2 of them play dumb noises that cause you to fail. Every fail causes the what instruments the objects play to be randomized. So everytime you fail you have to click on each thing, figure out which ones are not necessary, and then try to successfully solve the puzzle. It's not helped by the task being presented in a unclear fashion. I thought the game wanted each instrument to come in on a similar beat or rhythm, that's not the case. There also seems to be only one order for the 4 real instruments that works, so the amount of experimentation to solve it is pretty high. Note I didn't use hints for any of these puzzles, since that's not how I like to play adventure games. The game asks you to set if you want to be able to use hints/hotspots at the beginning, and I chose no, so I'm not even sure if I'd have been able to turn them on at that point. Perhaps if I had used hints I would've been able to figure out the puzzles in a more logical manner. Those are the only two puzzles I had any difficulty with, as the game does a really good job of letting you know what your goals are at any given moment.

I bought it right after seeing that QL. It's really fun just building craft and tooling around in the world. The ancillary stuff is less good, but it breaks up your tasks fairly well. It's worth it to give it a try.

This is a huge bummer. I always had the sense that the PS3 was one of the few consoles that actually managed to be secure on all fronts. Now within a few months, both the software auth and the PSN account have been torn apart by hackers. In terms of how they communicated this issue (which strikes me as more of a customer service thing than a PR thing), I feel they've failed both their clients and their business partners (Portal Kombat, as was mentioned earlier is a good example). It makes me long for a time when all a console did was play a game, and inputting your name was just so your brother wouldn't play your zelda save.

I never played through HL1 when it was new. I had played parts at friends places, but I never sat through the whole thing. I had started playing it like a month ago since I realize it's kinda important. I also never finished 2 when I started it a couple years back, because my computer broke and I lost the saves just before cloud saving came out. Since I did the golden potato thing, I actually have every single Valve game, so I'll join you on this HL journey. Edit: Everyone should check out the Super 8 interactive trailer in the Portal 2 extras. Seeing all that tech in a more natural single player game environment made me super psyched to play another more traditional Valve game.

I would not say that Portal 2 treats the player like an idiot. I'll say that some of the Wheatley stuff may have felt a little too handhold-y and linear. Especially when there is no place to portal to until he illuminates it. The fun of that stuff is finding out where to go yourself, and being told to put a portal somewhere was always a bit annoying. However, I feel the intro of the game is much better. The example from the commentary is the room where instead of waiting for a portal to hit walls in succession, you're given button controls. New players experiment, veterans just blow through it in no time flat (I did). It felt great, much better than any of the early stuff in Portal 1, which felt really slow regardless of experience level. The test chambers did a great job IMO of teaching you mechanics simply through the learning curve of the puzzles. The only thing I think they could have done is put the end-of-section style puzzles from the co-op into the single player. Those really felt like the culmination of the puzzle arc, while each transition in single player felt like a break*. Maybe make the transition sections more about using recent mechanics than simply finding out where to go. Most of them only used the fling mechanic, while a light bridge or funnel here or there would've spiced things up, even if it would've felt out of place. *This was obviously the purpose, they probably wanted people to slow down and examine their surroundings without worrying about a tough puzzle. I also realize that the game as a whole is both the single player and the co-op, so it's fine better if they both use different techniques. I was really impressed that co-op had new mechanics in it, because it felt fresher than just permutating the single player stuff.

I might have to go back and watch it again, but I didn't think the stuff was 4th wall breaking. Sure, it was heavy handed, but I thought it fit since My favorite line from that section is when In general, I liked the approach of presenting a bunch of test chamber overseers, because they garner different reactions despite key similarities. It was a funny joke, but I don't actually buy this. She doesn't talk because she's a silent protagonist. Having is far too convenient. The only "negative" effect of the sequel transition being the loss of an ability she's never used and never would have used is a bit contrived. It would be like Episode 3 starting with the combine cutting out Freeman's tongue. I would've bought her being mute in general far more than this Portal 2 specific reasoning.

This was definitely a big moment for me too. Just finished the game. Loved it. Ending was crazy. I was really impressed at how much throwaway dialogue (soliloquy is more accurate) is in the game. It really helped the sense of immersion. Mechanic appreciation spoiler: The hats/colours/gestures store is kinda weird. Especially the fact that their combined cost is more than the game itself, they seem to incur no gameplay bonuses and the only multiplayer is co-op. More disappointing is the fact that they're charging for all those gestures. I know they're more technically involved, but it feels almost like charging for the lines the L4D survivors say. Some of them seem to be achievement based as well, but that raises the question of how much you'll enjoy those small throwaway animations after you've grinded a bunch of cheevos. I haven't played co-op yet to try and see how much stuff is in there by default.

Your steam profile will show all the potatoes you've earned. But yeah, everytime you earn a potato a steam browser thing pops up.

I've still never beaten the pong boss. I don't have the patience to retry when the level is so long. I never tried it on easy, though. I'll do that if I go back. Edit: Oh hey, B.TB is the current game! I'll give it a try right now.

Even if the reward isn't that great, I do think some of the content is really interesting. Killing Floor, The Ball, Amnesia, Bit.Trip Beat and Defense Grid got really nice portal themed add ons. I also got to find out about Defense Grid, Toki Tori and Wonderful End of The World, all games I'm not sure I ever would've played otherwise. I also realized that Cogs is not my thing. I tried to get in TF2 but the loadout hasn't been working for me since friday. I wanted to check out my portal pin, but no such luck.

The Audiosurf one is infamous. It depends a lot on how many companion cubes drop and that's random across playthroughs. The Ball's side campaign thing has been the most enjoyable so far. I still have to do the Amnesia one, but I'm a bit skittish about that so I'm waiting until tomorrow.

I have one hint. If you're playing The Wonderful End of the World Portal level (which canb e reached by holding "P" while entering Sugar Candy in Timed mode) your goal is to get the cake. The hint on the chart says you just need to be big enough to eat the cake, but it is false. You will get a B- (which I believe is the lowest grade) for any playthroughs that don't get the cake, and as soon as you get it the level will end. This bugged the hell out of me, because I went to more densely packed areas to max out my size, when all I needed to do is grab the cake at a certain point.

I did make it using this editor. Endless fun for the whole family! It started out as just a regular post, but I couldn't resist.

Well the Wiki is trying to organize to finish the easiest ones first. This might be a bad idea, especially if the games reward time nonlinearly with respect to userbase.