Duck and Cover

I quit.

It's telling when the best the game has to offer is collectible-hunting.

Good? Animations, particularly the enemy's reactivity to being shot (instead of the usual bullet sponges who only react to every 5th or 6th bullet); some pretty vistas; turns out it's not that torture-porn-ish, although Lara does seem to excel at finding ways to get the shit kicked out of her (usually when you're not in control... which is, what, 50% of the time?)

Bad? Put it this way: Yes.

Also, should someone with more patience than me decide to track the bits copied from other games/movies all down, here're the ones I found.

-"The old wooden houses some dick decided to build against a rock wall (rather than on top of it) are falling" by Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
-"The glass pane I decided to take a nap on is cracking!" by Lost World (IIRC)
-"Yeah, I'll jam something hot into a wound cos' that's manly" by Rambo and a few others probably
and
-"Dear Diary, After failing to defeat 30 armed men with a bow and arrow (because it would've been too easy with the Kalashnikov), I decided to settle for suicide. Turns out several hundred people had had that idea already and so my fall was broken. Now my favorite pants are ruined. -Lara" by The Descent

Saints Row - The Saints go Three and a Half, despite the projected 22 month development cycle/stand alone DLC fold-in, looks as though it could be as Saints Row 2 was to Saints Row. Or so I hope.

One can only hope.

Apparently Crystal Dynamics have determined that there is no point in creating single player enriching DLC for their Tomb Raider re-imagining, when the multiplayer experience is doing so inarguably well.

Ahahahaha ha.

Classical Caciquist wrote:multiplayer experience

It can't be any worse than the single player...






...can it?

Blargh wrote:Saints Row - The Saints go Three and a Half, despite the projected 22 month development cycle/stand alone DLC fold-in, looks as though it could be as Saints Row 2 was to Saints Row. Or so I hope.

Uooof. Powers? Powers. Wow. I like it but I assume there's going to be something sadly wrong with it. More than likely, it's going to be 100% completable within ten hours of play.

Yeah, I'm aware that it'll probably be utter shit, possibly even worse than The Third, but I'll to cling to my unfounded, uncharacteristic optimism until violently proven otherwise.

Lugubrious Palm Frond Toupée wrote:worse

DOA, essentially. Primarily due to being uninspired, repetitive, and extremely safe. If I cared to speculate baselessly, I'd surmise that Eidos gave CD a mandate regarding DLC composition before Lara's Magical Chrysalis of Unapologetic Sociopathic Slaughter - sans Short Shorts Edition shipped.

Rolling a turd that almost no one has any inclination to play with in glitter seems to be a surprisingly popular marketing tactic, these days . . .

I've been playing a rather entertaining HoM&M/AoW/Dominions hybrid called Eador - Genesis, via GoG. It was released in 2009, but only translated (rather well) from Russian a few months ago. It's quite punishing, and I've had a lot of fun with it. Apparently the developer, Snowbird, is working on refurbishing it, and it will be re-released mid April. It appears to be a mostly graphical re-working, though I hope they improve upon the UI, which is occasionally cumbersome.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that repurposing dirt cheap, initially useless milita as either blood sacrifices for demon summoning or fodder for undead reanimations is a very effective military tactic. Less effective for fostering contentment among the masses (which is alright, as rebellions are a fine training aid), or healthy diplomatic relations with certain morally rigid entities - but diplomacy has a limited shelf life, as in the end, there is no Supreme Universal Despot club.

Varmint Superintendent wrote:a turd that almost no one has any inclination to play with

<strike>Ah, so those feces-flinging pricks in the cage aren't really chimps, they're mark</strike> [The previous attempt to compare marketers to chimpanzees has been redacted as the board finds it in poor taste and insulting to our like-dna'ed cousins. Our apologies to any apes inconvenienced by this matter.]

No door slams.

Hey, please to be throwing some money at this, okay ? It could be really, really cool. TIA.

my high score is 140.8 seconds

Divinity - Original Sin has reached its goal. Larian always seem to have a difficult time with media exposure.

Also, Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon has been unintentionally released into the interwilderness ahead of schedule. Via the notorious Uplay DRM. It appears to be gloriously, brazenly stupid. Also, the game. I am looking forward to experiencing it.

Blargh wrote:my high score is 140.8 seconds

good stuff, gave up after reaching the third stage :hafid:

woohoo finished it, but couldn't tell my score so don't know if I'm better than blargh:(:(

Blendo's on sale. It's a fucking grand deal.

Blatant tangent : Apparently the sods behind the Shadowrun Returns kickstarter have moved their goal posts. Particularly, something about the proffered DRM free release being, by design/necessity, strictly and forever inferior to the Steam integrated version - details like less/no developer borne patches/bug fixes, no support for user created content/mods, and any future DLC being exclusive to Steam. Writing of, also talk of stretch goals, such as additional campaigns, being repurposed as DLC ? Gadzooks.

Or it could just be that they don't want to waste an imense quantity of their time and money creating and maintaining patcher and mod infrastructure that would probably not be up to the snuff of Steam, amongst other things. Is there an Ockham's Razor built entirely on paranoia and mendacity, I wonder ?

Or it could just be MICROSOFT.

Forecast : FUN TIMES IN KICKSTARTERSTAN AHEAD.

Also, frigging Far Cry <strike>3</strike> Mark IV - Blood Dragon - because Ubisoft have finally given up on cease-and-desisting the videos and released one of their own. Or perhaps it was their plan all along . . ! MUTANT CYBER-CASSOWARIES FOR NO REASON. NEON LASER EYED DINOSAURS. A plethora of terrible, horrible puns whenever you kill someone, which change depending upon the weapon you employed. A flip off function. Also, a rather ducky soundtrack by Power Glove. Not to be confused with Powerglove.

Funk Soul Catheter wrote:better

Did you punch, were you shot in the face ? IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Been playing Papers, Please for the past week.

REMOVE KOLECHIAN. GOD IS ARSTOTZKAN.

So Monaco finally came out. It's... simple. A good tactic for some excellent multiplayer, not so good for someone who deplores other people. Impeccable style though. Hectic, too.

SenisterDenister wrote:Been playing Papers, Please for the past week.

Good call, D. Impressive how, through a consistent 80's Berlin vibe (with shades of east URSS or Yugoslavia), an intuitive, almost physical handling of the objects in the game and the promise of emergent storytelling, one can hold a player with the most stupidly basic of gameplay mechanics and actually make it enjoyable. Very reminiscent of that indie game where you edit a daily newspaper in a dictatorship and have to balance keeping your family alive and "doing the right thing (HA)"... What's its name, again?

I'd recommend putting faces to the family, though. Kind of hard for the death of your kid (because you didn't realize you could choose between food and medicine) to have any sort of impact when he's just a word on a points screen as opposed to all those foreign cunts without a permit.

Cackalackyland is not a valid Arstotzkan District! RED STAMP! NEXT!

Fistful of Whores wrote:reminiscent

I believe it might be called . . . Coincidence ?

No, that wasn't it.

Am soon to dabble with The Knife of Dunwall, will post thoughts laterish.