feelthedarkness

Witcher 2 was fairly drastically different from Witcher 1 in terms of playability, more polished and the systems were a little more "conventional". I love them both, and W1 was sort of my introduction of obtuse former Soviet game development. I never played the Enhanced Edition of 1, though I probably should.

This was sweet. This isn't really a spoiler, but I love that if you don't redeem the characters, the next trinkets you swipe to enter the cave are theirs.

I do that all the time in my home dimension where there is no such thing as context or history.

Dude, you don't get to will the realities of society out of existence because you don't experience them.

Nice. For more twisty sci-fi, I love Socrates Drank the Conium with Vangelis, bringing that Blade Runner flavor to their late 60s greek prog:

CoL49 seems like great training wheels for GR. Wish I read it first. The style is similar. The seeming random occurrences and like dream logic. Bumping into random people who are deeply connected to the protagonists obsessions. GR is tough. I'm about 2/3 done, and was 400 pages in, when I realized all the Pokler sections were flashbacks. whoops.

The narration winds up being split between wealthy and not wealthy kids at the fancy tennis academy, but also alcoholic career criminals, so some of the class stuff is mitigated, if that bothers you. also, even the wealthy kids get pretty bogged down with drug habits so like it's not all tennis and art film.

Here's something nobody asked for! My Best of 2012 including extremely minor notes on the very very off chance anybody was interested! (It's really from my main forum (bunch of diy 90s punx to today) (reminding me of that recent Thumbs episode when they talked about main internet communities.)

Were we too late for the trend? (featuring wizards) [media] [/media]

Dwarf Fortress does a bit of procedural narrative, in that the world crafts a readable history, including the items. It often comes out like gibberish "An exquisite grate covered with jeweled engravings depicting a legendary grate."

It can be a bit post apoc, but you need a libertarian fantasyland at least.

There an SNES Shadowrun rpg/action game. Kind of rough, but kind of charming.

I prefer 1 book at a time, but my current book is Gravity's Rainbow, so the Idle Book Club books have been getting worked in.

Yeah, there is a bit of environment interaction, but I always want to go into the shops. I really like the way they do FPS combat though, same with Painkiller, arena style, really frantic. Though, there is also something a little less than satisfying in smashing all these metal robots.

Gemini Rue - new, old school adventure game. Hard Reset - FPS from the original Painkiller team, plays a lot like Painkiller. Gibberish plot with and extremely stilted narration that I pretend is a tribute to Bladerunner.

Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader - I've been slowly working through all the Black Isle & affiliated studio games. LH was built off the fallout engine. The first half was pretty neat, a more medieval Arcanum. I liked the alternate history setting but the back half was a brutal series of corner cutting/publisher pressure dungeon slogs with no good way for my magic user character to get his mana back. I would just let the game idle and go run errands. Finished it out of spite. If you're a quitter it's a good $2 on GOG.

Adding the original PnP designer to the team makes me hope the game will lean more towards Witcher's modification or standard RPG systems than just futureboobs, but it's also hard to deny that sexy sexness isn't pretty baked into the cyberpunk concept. The nightmare (or rapturous) future of fucking a robot is basically a central tenant.

Another great cast. Love hearing Nick back. Hope you squeezed him for a regular cast. I wasn't assigned this book in high school, and I feel like two of the main themes, class and the regret/longing for lost time seem very hard for a 15/16 year old to really appreciate. I don't think the line "I'm 30" is coincidental. It's an age where you can really see what those class divisions mean as an outsider. Where you reach a point you realize those thing will never be that fluid. The depth pf Wilson's rage at how thoroughly Tom has humiliated him. Not only has he slept with his wife with total disregard, but that he could also never provide the things she desired. I disagree about the empty funeral being a stretch. Gatsby, to the old money was a gadfly. A socialite life of the party, but never really in the club. When the party ended they moved on.

I find that some genuine difficulty does a lot to mask elements of a game that might grate or grow tedious otherwise. I'm thinking of Spec Ops and both Dragon Ages specifically. I can see, and understand people's complaints about the short comings of the action, but when you're scraping through sections that gets tamped down a bit. Maybe it's manipulative? I sort of felt that about Hotline Miami at times, but that urge to get it right is so strong.

I think this considered disagreement is fun, but I don't want the cast dudes second guessing what they're saying. It's never too long! I haven't played FC3, but they should have let any any material be used for any crafting, but made some more and less optimal. having a drug addled dude with really crummy cobbled pouches could be interesting as well.

holy crap indeed. congratulations!

As somebody who loved Doom and who can barely get Dwarf Fortress to run, I think it makes total sense from an art and "big picture/what is miraculous about games" perspective. The list points towards a kind of systematized expression. What are these things trying to communicate to you? Again, I love Doom, but is it that expressive beyond "point at a thing to make it go away?" Tetris kind of covers that pure joy of mechanic category anyway, plus it has a more compelling background.

My favorite "frenetic game" is the original Painkiller. (also my favorite FPS) No quick or regular saves, only check points, but always placed right before or after an event. They'd refill all your health and ammo which in effect primed you for absolute recklessness. I'm surprised this isn't more standard because it's an invitation to have MAXIMUM FUN. They also used this as an opportunity to dump much more than the average number of units. 10-20 squishy jerks at a time. That team's other game Hard Reset does it to, but robots are sadly a little less satisfying to mulch.

But what if this lone man, with his singular vision, and ability cutting through the riff raff is the purest expression of it? Isn't the FPS the purest expression of Randian individuality? i wound up with all the money, and all the toys. (for the record I think Objectivism and Libertarianism in real life is silly)

Freedom of speech means I need to provide you with a platform to say the most horrific and bigoted things you can think of.