juv3nal

I will say that the random nature of the loot can make for an uneven experience. Playing as a hunter class, of the drops I've gotten, my worst weapon right now is my sniper rifle. On the other hand, I've got a totally badass shotgun (actually I'm hanging on to a shotgun even better than that, but I'm about 5 levels away from being able to use that one). My advice would be to not worry too much about your class (or pick class abilities that are as equipment independent as possible) and just roll with whatever the random number generator gods give you in terms of weapon drops. I will also ditto what GrouchoClub said about firing from the hip. Unless the weapon you're using has a scope, I find I'm *more* accurate firing from the hip. I may just be delusional, but it seems like there's a bit of aim assist there that isn't present when you're zoomed in.

The first time it happens, they're maybe going for drama, but it happens *so often* that I find it impossible to see as anything other than an intentional, self-aware tongue-in-cheek joke thing by the end. I haven't counted, but I think it happens way more than 4 times. I'm pretty sure there's 4 in the ice area alone.

I'm starting to have a bit of a better time of it. As a matter of (admittedly stupid) principle, I was trying to get by sticking with my class weapons (sniper rifle, pistol) when I had a much better option in the smg I picked up off of bonehead(?) I think it was. Deciding to give that a try has helped a bit.

I picked this up on a lark and It's better made than I expected. Having said that, I'm having less fun than I expected because I just find it really tough. I mean I already knew I'm pretty awful at shooters, but I figured the rpg aspect of it would help me out, but it really doesn't as you can't grind on stuff way below you in level. Maybe I just picked the wrong class. I went with Mordecai. What is everyone else using and how easy/hard a time are y'all having with it? I have *not* run into the boss-just-standing-around phenomenon described in the podcast. To the contrary, every boss completely rapes me. I've died at least twice on every boss I've encountered.

So this is basically a sequel to fate, right? It seems the same gameplay mechanics, just prettier?

The tank part isn't too hard once you realise there are certain bits of cover (walls, mostly) that the tank can't shoot through. It can suck though when you kill an rpg dude and the rpg drops off the ledge he was on meaning you'd have to expose yourself to tank fire to grab it. I died every time that happened. edit: on reading closer, notice you mention still getting damaged while behind indestructible cover. It's true, you take some damage from rpgs and tank cannon, but they have pretty long intervals between firing and shouldn't really be able to kill you (on easy) as long as you take out the rpg guy quickly.

Gaming: Out of the Game A Life Well Wasted I do listen to some others like rockpapershotgun, brainygamer, rebelfm, gamerwithjobs, & giantbomb, one life left, but the two above (plus Idle Thumbs) are the ones I really dig. If do you go digging in the giantbomb podcast archives, there's one episode where they eat weird Swedish candy which is utterly hilarious. One Life Left is a radio show that often features VG related music like the doyouinverts. who are cool.

Aw crud. Congrats to Nick etc., but can't you just make Jake pretend to be Nick? It's not like anyone can tell their voices apart anyways.

Favorite: Planescape Torment. Ask me on another day and I might say Star Control 2. Best: Portal, probably Desert Island: Some latter version of Pro Evo Soccer with player improvement. I have it for PSP and that's the one game that's a constant. I just find the whole building-the-perfect-team thing incredibly addicting, plus it keeps going and going because your star players get old and retire and you have to scout out the new up and comers etc. Like pokemon crack for soccer fans or something. Not sure about which version of the gameplay model I prefer as the differences are pretty minor (if any) on the PSP. For Desert Island, purposes, I'd probably want a non-handheld version tho.

So I've been playing it for the last 5 hours or so (a couple of tries at coop objective mode plus single player) and it's freaking awesome. The multiplayer matchmaking still takes what seems like *forever* though. It's a shame because plunder mode + plaza map is wicked fun. I'm going to have to pace myself on the single player or else I'll burn through it this weekend.

I was going to chime in and mention Bloodnet earlier then thought better of it remembering how brutally difficult the combat could be (to say nothing of how dated the combat system/mechanics/ui are) in that game. Some really good writing in there though. The Umberto Eco wannabe guy who speaks in nothing but quotations was brilliant as was the multiple choice quiz character generation (although by no means the first to employ such a method).

Anyone know if it has any offroad/rally tracks?

I'm not Jewish, but I thought playing a Rabbi was interesting and it made sense to me. The "rabbinical answer" was a neat touch and, not to get too spoilery, you do get to see it both "succeed" and "fail" in your interactions with others. I would agree with ThunderPeel2001 that the appeal is largely universal. It wasn't proselytizing at all (which I understand Jews don't generally do) which would have turned me right off.

I got it when it was momentarily available for free (special thingy for Yom-Kippur I think) so I'm not sure if it would warrant the $5 they're asking. Not to be harsh on it as it does succeed in making you feel like you're conducting an investigation (and features full voice acting), but is quite short if you don't get stuck in a silly manner like I did (by not reading the readme.txt manual). It took me longer than 3 hours, but I would imagine if you didn't get stuck like me, you would probably be done with it in well less than that. There is a demo: http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/mayoco/project/media/shivah.zip Prototip: There's an autosave, but there is also at least one point where you can continue past a decision that locks you into a less-than-optimal ending so you probably want to keep multiple manual saves if you do get it. I think Chris mentions it in a podcast, let me see...podcast 45? There's a link (I think) to the relevant excerpt on the wadjet eye site: http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/shivahThumb.mp3 The story is IMO well executed as well. Nuanced, kind of noir-dark in a rabbinical-crisis-of-faith manner which was new to me and neat. My only real criticism is that it's short, really. Which if you come from the always-leave-em-wanting-more school of thought may be a good thing. *shrug* There's some press coverage link on this page: http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/shivah.html?page=press

Just beat The Shivah. Short and irritatingly got stuck because I didn't know you could combine clues, but overall quite good for what it is.

PSN is not so bad, but I do miss the fact that there's a demo/trial for any & everything on xbla.

As mentioned here: http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showpost.php?p=122466&postcount=68 I just finished this in prep for uncharted 2. I'm a big wuss as well and had the same I-hate-scary-stuff sensation with the monster things. Almost gave up and quit, but I soldiered through it. It's not difficult once you figure out that against those things, aiming is for suckers. I just kept running away from them while blindfiring and managed to muddle my way through it. I'll ditto Ben upthread: that rail shooter section from the back of the jeep was awesome. I wish there had been more of that.

Personally I vote ©, but Disney still gets a some credit from me for things like Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 and (at least partly), Destino. Destino here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU_f2vqEgGM

Just finished uncharted in preparation for uncharted 2 coming out. Some moments are a bit of a slog with the shooting, but still very positive experience overall. Didn't think I'd be able to manage it before the sequel came out (I only picked it up a week and a half ago), but the checkpoints are pretty tightly packed so you don't end up having to redo a heck of a lot when you die.

I hope it comes to something other than Wii. Not because I think it will be awful on Wii, but just because I don't own one. They could do a lot worse than cribbing from Okami.

No, that's totally fair. I'm not very good at the realism/sim type racing games and do basically "barge my way to the front." It's not strictly the length I mind, I guess, but the repetitiveness of it. I'd rather do half as many laps of a course twice as long, for instance.

I'm not a huge realism/sim racing buff but I tried the demos for both NFS Shift and Forza 3 and I liked Forza a lot better for reasons I'm not really able to quantify. I may just hold out for GT5 though. It has rallycross cars which, as far as I know, the other two don't. Also ditto the poster upthread who mentioned loathing the super long (e.g. 10 laps) races in Forza 2. Realism/whatever be damned, when you've already held the lead for 2 laps, to make you keep doing it for 8 more isn't a test of skill, it's a test of your patience. It's enough to make a man welcome agressive rubberbanding.

I know you found a way to get a gamepad to work with keyboard controls, but An Untitled Story is a pretty awesome metroidvania freeware thingy that supports gamepad: http://mattmakesgames.com/games.php (3rd row, on the left) edit: I see it's already been mentioned over here http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showpost.php?p=110615&postcount=35

I just jumped on board the PS3 train with the slim and have been burning my way through the first one. It's balance of shooty stuff versus other stuff is more on the shooty side than I'd like, but it's pretty awesome. I hope #2 has less shooty stuff or improved shooty stuff. Er, the on foot shooty stuff anyways. I thought the sequence where you're firing from the back of a car was pretty sweet. And the on foot sequences could have been a lot better if they gave you more chances to take out guys from farther away instead of having you trip over an invisible line and a zillion guys pop out of nowhere. From what I've tried of the multiplayer demo, at the very least, the mapping of controls for using grenades is improved.

Hello, all. I've been listening to the podcast for ages but never got around to checking out the forum before. I'm here now mainly because I wanted to ask Chris about e4g: http://twitter.com/IdleThumbs/statuses/4662060920 (I don't use twitter, but I follow by rss) What's the deal with that site? Is the entire site really satire or just some of their writers? It seems Shawn Elliot couldn't tell either: http://twitter.com/ShawnElliott/statuses/4488129128