Humanoid

Oh I'm very much ignoring them. Just don't like it as a business practice, that's all. It's like giving away toys with kids' meals at fast food outlets, yeah, it's business, but it just feels icky.

Yeah, the monetary value is an issue. If it was just a plain collectible - well, offline mode can remember achievements now for example, so it'd be a similar thing. Not that I'm saying that's a good thing, offline mode now is a lot more intrusive than it used to be, with Steam connecting regardless of your wishes, to update itself and update the Store panel in the client for example. I'm pretty uncomfortable with that now, since it's basically turned into an online-light mode instead of being the strictly offline thing it used to be. On the mechanics of cards themselves, eh, it's a case of the cart driving the horse. Needless to say, my opinion of the platform as a whole continues its downward slide.

Cards are also only earned when playing in online mode. There's an indirect motive as well, ultimately with the same goal, but it's to get people more absorbed into the Steam ecosystem as a whole, in that you're encouraged to play online, with all the various knickknacks that that entails. They're selling the idea that Steam is the *only* games platform, much like MS tries to sell the idea that Windows is the only OS. That it's not just a distribution platform, but something you should make the centre of all your experience, not just for gaming, but perhaps everything that's social online. From a business perspective, the idea that you can make it a Facebook-style primary social hub while selling your own products through it instead of just serving ads is an attractive one. Case in point - already Steam is the first and only thought for people buying various indie games during the sale right now. This despite being many of the games being price-matched during the sale, right down to the daily deals, by the developers own storefronts. Monaco right now is on sale at the exact same price on Steam as it is on the official site, which not only gives you a Steam key, but also a DRM-free copy on top of it (and a couple other trivia). Steam takes a 30% cut of the sale when you buy from them, as opposed to a 5% cut taken by Humble Bundle (who do the fulfilment for the developer-direct sales).

I'm baffled that modern beat'em'ups have dropped the best part of the genre: multiplayer.

The thing is, I hate dungeons. So I'd go along with the one-dungeon design as long as all dungeons are 100% optional. The difference this time though should be that the time and money saved by doing so go into the overworld game rather than into Riccitello's pockets. (Yes I know he's gone, but point remains)

I'll go with the compromise candidate and choose the silicone spatula. If nothing else, it keeps the silicone out of the attractive women thread.

You got promoted then?

I'd say that of the various funding drives from all the other Sierra alumni, this one seems the most mature at the point of KS launch. The product itself is probably easily at the most advanced stage at this point compared to the others, and the sparse tiers aside, the logistics of the campaign is up there with the better ones. And given that fairly concrete news about this project being actively pursued as back as February, that's probably to be expected. Recent projects have certainly taken some steps back away from the high-cost physical goods excesses of previous projects. In this case they might have gone a bit too far stripping it down, resulting in losing some potential of the mid-range meat 'n' potatoes pledges, but the rationale is sound, particularly in light of the Double Fine problems. Ultimately it's a project of a fair bit more complexity than say, SpaceVenture or Larry, while at the same time probably not a meaningfully more attractive money draw - which would probably necessitate a lower percentage 'bleed' of funds into reward fulfilment.

Well, once you get the full set....

It added four separate entries to my library: Company of Heroes, Company of Heroes (New Steam Version), Opposing Fronts, and Tales of Valor. Confusing to say the least.

Cheers, will do, but I'll need to pick up a second copy to gift to my sister to try MP with, so I'm curious anyway.

Just when my wallet was starting to recover (that's a blatant lie). Well, I can't not support a Sierra alum, and I did love the bejesus out of Police Quest. Sonny Bonds Maxwell Jones reporting for duty. I fear that the $30 entry point to get the game will turn away many would-be supporters. Aware of the concerns over the relatively steep entry price, they've introduced a lower $19 tier now (limited amount). The $30 tier has been turned into a bonus edition of sorts. Good move I think.

Checking before I go ahead with it, there's no hidden gotcha here is there? Just regular pricing stupidity? $4.98 : Company of Heroes Complete Pack - Includes 3 items: Company of Heroes, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor $7.49 : Company of Heroes: Gold - Includes 2 items: Company of Heroes, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Don't think I've ever managed that, even in attempts to play again within the last few years.

I guess all the predictions before the base game was even released, that the game would only get good enough to stand on its own after the second expansion, is very much true then. I bought both the base game pretty much on launch, and likewise Gods and Kings. Yet I only have a couple hours logged under the former, and none at all after the latter. I ought to be more sensible about these things, but I can't be. Only decision now is whether to buy digital or import a hard copy. EDIT: I think this is my worst grammar-ed post ever. But I can't fix it satisfactorily so I'll just add this.

Myst is just too cold, but the latter-day Zork games showed me that the format can still inject a bit more fun into the sub-genre, despite my heavy preference against first-person adventure.

Cutest chick ever:

The power from Dishonored I'd most like to see in Skyrim is, er, climbing things.

Alan, oh my hat !!! You do crack the occasional joke, nice one It better have a Nissan Leaf charging station inside, and of course the car itself to ride into battle.

I would love to bits a Sims variant where your subjects are fully autonomous and independent of the player. Kind of like an AI-driven ant farm, you'd be able to affect the environment and see how they react to your scheming, but their minds would be completely their own (aside from whatever is set during character creation).

I won't. Then people on Steam would see me purchasing a Bioware game. What would that do to my reputation? It'll only be on Origin. And honestly, who has any friends on Origin?

If it means ME is put to bed, there's really no where to go but up. ....at least, that's what I told myself the last time.

They should do a reprint of the original hint book, would make a cool collectible given its mythical status. Still waiting for my Shadowrun Returns email. Then there's inXile still taunting me about all the Wasteland T-shirts I won't be getting, booo.

Yeah, I thought Steelport was a pretty dull, grey place, like what I'd imagine a generic American city to look like (I've never been to the US). Need a total conversion of SR3 to take place in Sleeping Dogs' version of Hong Kong. So far it's the only open-world city-roaming game city that I enjoyed just tooling around in, but the game itself was just a bit too oppressive for me, it needed a bit more levity.

I played Skyrim with default textures - with a 1GB 5850 pushing 25x14 res at the time, high-res textures would have been suicide - and had no particular issue with them, but then I'm sort of used to lower standards and haven't really played many other graphically intensive games. I've since upgraded to a 3GB frame buffer, which would handle the high-res textures easily ....but really have no desire to go back to the game. Maybe if I could get all the DLC for under $10 I might try, but there's no real draw at the moment, and as far as I can see, despite the vaunted moddability of the game, there's basically no real user-generated content that's more than a trivial distraction (the seemingly infinite number of Mary Sue custom companion NPCs don't count). New Vegas I pretty much played unmodded, so not much I can say there, except to get aviator shades to hide behind.