thefncrow

I'm really glad Jeff pulled out Syndicate for UPF today, because despite not getting to play with Jeff, the slight influx of people playing Syndicate made it possible for me to actually get in some multiplayer Syndicate for the first time in a while. That game is great.

Just got my roll20 account setup and should be ready to go.

There was an earlier Dan segment he called "Better with Nacho Cheese?" I'll spoiler the list in case people actually want to watch that monstrosity and not be spoiled by what's coming, but the segment was Dan, Jeff, Dave Lang, and Maya Kramer doing taste tests to see if the following items were improved by adding nacho cheese (there may be more, I didn't catch the first part, and only know what I have because I'd dip back in like "Is that over? No, it's not, and that's fucking disgusting."):

I've been looking at it some while here at work, but I just had to turn it off and poke back in to see when Dan's Nacho Cheese-based Nightmare Fuel Taste Test was over. Watching them eat Oreos with nacho cheese during the last Mario Party was bad enough, but it doesn't hold a candle to some of that disgusting shit.

Listening to the episode, McCann-Erickson was indeed where they were avoiding going by creating Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Season 2 ended up with them being sold to Putnam, Powell, and Lowe, and then the end of season 3 was them escaping from McCann when McCann buys PPL. On top of that, McCann was the agency that tried to lure Don away in season 1, where Jim Hobart offers Betty a modeling gig as a way of trying to pursue Don. In fact, she was hired as a model for the Coca Cola account.

I finally listened to Dead Authors to hear the L. Ron Hubbard episode, and it does not disappoint. I do need to go back and listen to some of these. I especially want to listen to that Ian Fleming episode, because Gourley's Fleming is pretty spectacular. Also, at the end of the episode, I realized that Andy Daly was always perfect for playing L. Ron Hubbard, given how much time Hubbard spent out in international waters.

May 1 works for me.

I need to listen to Dead Authors. I know there was a recent episode with Andy Daly as L. Ron Hubbard and I can imagine that must be an amazing episode.

I love the NHL playoffs. Very little is better than playoff hockey. I caught the second period of Caps/Isles, the second half of the 3rd period to the end of Preds/Hawks, and the last 10 minutes of Flames/Canucks. So good.

First, that intro, wow. Second, seeing that Video Thing made me have to go back and watch the 2Human video, because that's what immediately comes to mind with the Video Thing category. http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/video-thing-2human/2300-29/

Nope. Jeff said that apparently his iPad rebooted to take an update. He was driving at the time, so he didn't notice that until it shut down.

Can you post a screenshot of where you're at?

I am. Tomorrow night shouldn't be a problem. Sorry about having to ditch last time,

I've just gotten a little deeper in, and man, this game is really good. Some of the video effect stuff they do looks incredible, and I'm really enjoying the gameplay. EDIT: Yep, got another few bosses in, and this game is really doing it for me.

Final escape spoilers:

I finished it about a week ago. Really fun game. But if you start to get close to the end (it'll warn you at the point of no return), you might want to bop out and copy your save. Once you finish the game, it ends, and you can't just go back out and collect anything that's left. Any save you make past that point will be locked into the final area. So keep a copy from just before it so you can go back and explore if you want to. (EDIT: Forgot that kickinthehead already said this. It's worth repeating though.) I don't necessarily mind the escapes, just as a sort of final test for whatever skills you've gotten up to that point. The game gets a little too free with the energy cells. There's a bunch of them to be picked up, and it lets you really attain a level where you're rarely scraping by with just a few points. I found myself basically never using the charge move offensively, so the only things I ever needed them for were the energy lock doors, the occasional set of pickups you had to use the charge to open, and save points. And once that happens, you can pretty much save at any time. (Even moreso if you pick up the XP-based ability to make save points only cost half a unit.) The escapes seem to be built in to make sure you can execute over longer stretches, but the total ease of saving kinda means they're the only points where you're really forced to do that. I kinda feel like maybe they made more sense in a situation where the energy points are sparse, where a stretch of unbroken gameplay like that might be more characteristic.

Ori definitely feels very Metroidvania-like to me, but it focuses heavily on platforming and doesn't have much of a combat focus. Being reductionist, it's sort of "what if we put a Metroid frame around Super Meat Boy".

Regarding Ori, basically all the XP-based upgrades are quality of life improvements rather than actual abilities you have to have. The abilities that are used to gate your progress in that Metroidvania style are all handed out as you progress through the story and you can't really miss them. You just have to progress on the critical path. It's not even a swimming ability. The waters in each area just remain dirty until you progress to a certain story event.But yeah, that upgrade does just take away the oxygen meter while swimming.

I might not be able to make it. Sorry for the late notice, I was thinking of a wizard, so we can just start with a pre-made one of those unless this suddenly frees up. Sorry guys.

I saw this thread last night and ended up re-reading The Filth because I hadn't read it in several years. Still great. Makes me think I should maybe do a re-reading of that whole cycle, going back to Flex Mentallo and The Invisibles before giving this a go again. In other Morrison stuff, I finally got around to reading Ultra Comics, and, man... I don't know if it's possible to produce a comic that is more meta than that. I think I liked it, but I think that one's gonna take a few more reads to really sink in.

The big thing I've found that helps is to use your loans. You have to use the credit wisely, but if you're running up against power limits and don't have the money for a new windmill, then take the loan and try to pay it back as quickly as you can. Your improvements, if done right, will increase revenue generation. Don't go hog wild with the credit, and pay it back as quick as you can, but there's no reason to just sit there letting things go bad just so you can save the cash for your badly needed improvements.

I restarted and built a new city based off some of those traffic guidelines from that video Chris posted earlier. It's going good so far, about to hit 5000 citizens, I've got an abundance of power, and I just bought my second plot so I can expand eastward. Had some really ugly garbage problems when I started (bad traffic routes between my residential zone and the landfill), but that's been solved. Now, to see how I can expand this without things going crazy.

I haven't noticed grind switching to have any real impact on speed. The big factor in those long grinds are the length of the grind, and whether or not you landed a perfect grind. If you're talking about one of those areas where you have a long rail with spikes on the floor and ceiling, the key is to land on the rail as close to the ceiling spikes as possible and getting the grind timing perfect. You're not going to come out the other side with very much speed, but you should be able to make it out. If you don't have the ceiling with spikes, the key to keeping up your speed is to flip trick to a new grind (keeping in mind you really, really want to get a perfect grind). Do that before you start to lose speed while grinding and you can go basically infinitely.

Yeah, Olli Olli 2 is amazing, but also hard as shit. I'm playing on Vita, because it's kinda perfect for a handheld. Also, no input lag on the Vita, which is only really noticeable if you play both. In the first game I unlocked every Pro stage, finished all challenges for the first 3 tiers of Pro levels, and have some number of challenges on every level in the last two tiers of Pro levels. Olli Olli 2? I still haven't unlocked the last 6 pro levels, have five starred none of the pro levels. A real increase in difficulty.

Just prior to the publication of Killing Joke, they released a Batgirl comic entitled "The Last Batgirl Story" where she retires from being Batgirl, just in time for her to be paralyzed. DC Editorial was apparently good with The Killing Joke basically being the end of the line for that character. Apparently, the stuff that came after was because some people working for DC, including Ostrander, got really pissed off about her treatment and began to push to make sure Barbara Gordon's last real appearance wasn't The Killing Joke. So, yeah, there were some positive aspects that came out of it, but the stories tend to indicate that the positive aspects were basically backlash from how shitty DC handled things.