Tale

Diagnosing network troubles at work today. Boss's computer works. Everyone else's does not. Try a spare cable to the router that does not go through the cieling and I can make any machine work. One desktop, all I have to do is change the network cable. Possible diagnosis: Possum

I just want to know how you got that tag at the front of the title. It's wizardry!

Beat Breath of Death VII. Felt more like a first project passed as parody than a more complex parody endeared by its source. But heck, I loved what they did for Rainslick 3, so I won't hold it against them.

Silent Hill, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, Street Fighter II's animated movie was superb. Mortal Kombat is well regarded, though perhaps more of a cult hit. That's just my opinion. They all have pretty low RT scores. Top two RT scores are Final Fantasy: Spirits Within at 43% and Prince of Persia at 35%.

That may be the source of my confusion. Thanks for the correction.

I hear that it's closer to Sins of a Solar Empire. Being an RTS 4X.

New thread.

What are we up to now? Does anyone know? Previously on "What you did today." Talk of iphones and who may or may not be hipsters. I think Nepenthe's the hipster, though I'm not quite clear on the contexts. Yesterday, I appear to have played 11 hours of video games. Which, sadly, might not even be a record for me. Combined with grocery shopping and cleaning the bathroom, I'm really not sure how I had time for that.

Any game that that relies on player choice and exploration of various potential archetypes needs not be voiced, especially for the main character. Voiced is cool and all, but it takes way too much away to be worth it. I see as much choice and player definition in the character for Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2 as I saw in Binary Domain, it's just that Binary Domain is a heck of a lot shorter. They're almost like a Devil May Cry game, except you get to choose between Dante, Virgil, and Nero on a case by case basis. I love a good action/adventure and third-person shooter. I don't hold to some notion that RPGs are superior than these. But I do hold that they should have some differences. And being able to express more than just three archetypes that only differ in tone 90% of the time doesn't strike me as a valuable thing to set RPGs apart.

I chose Penny-Arcade Adventures, episode 3. I am not writing that entire thing out. I'm a bit disturbed here. I played the entire thing today. That should speak for its quality. But it's 11 hours long. That speaks... for other things. I even took a break and went grocery shopping. How did I spend that much time on one game on one day? Maybe I started it yesterday and don't remember.

Pair them up alphabetically and flip a coin, whomever gets to semifinals you flip another coin. Post results. Or I could use Backloggery's fortune cookie feature. But that's how I started God of War: Ghost of Sparta.

Finished the two F.E.A.R. expansions. Perseus Mandate was better than I expected, definitely better than Extraction Point. But maybe I'd just gotten so use to Timegate's style it didn't bother me anymore. Now to debate what next. Prepare a Skyrim save for Dawnguard? Get back to Drakensang: The River of Time? Play PA Adventures: Episode 3? I did start a Thief playthrough too...

Finished Binary Domain. I liked it. I'm not sure which I liked more between it and Spec-Ops: The Line. Binary Domain had much better performance, fewer frustrating parts. But it also has quicktime events and felt a bit more arcadey. Now to continue my shooter roll. FEAR: Extraction Point. And then never before played, by me, Perseus Mandate.

Beings of light from the next galaxy over! And it turns out the Reapers were trying to protect this galaxy from them, yep, that's what was going on. Now to fight the true evil! Pre-order now for a Reaper squadmate.

I used to be a big King Fan. Desperation was one of my favorites. Avoid Hearts in Atlantis. That book was so boring it caused me to stop reading for 2 years.

Saw The Amazing Spider-Man. I really liked it. It's better than I remember the Raimi Spider-Man films being, at least 2 and 3 anyway.

Binary Domain. It's one of Amazon's deals today and I'd been really interested in it. Finished the first Chapter and it has promise, though it's not showing anything exceptional so far.

Nah, it's just that they view games as single-use products no matter how good they are. That doesn't make any sense to me. If a person views all games as single-use, then he is functionally undervaluing them. They may not be valuing them less by comparison between titles, but you'll have a hard time convincing me that they don't value the games less than the collector. Parts of the industry depend upon this undervaluing, the yearly rehash. They want people to toss the old title and move on to the new one. They want the longer term attachment to be gone. They are, in essence, cannibalizing themselves.

Finished Spec Ops. Brilliant game. Though the final battles needed a checkpoint or two more than they had. Time to completion 8.7 hours on suicide difficulty.

Why should either be reimbursed for re-sale of a copy? The 2nd hand market is a system for recovering value for the consumer. No more, no less. It is, in essence, a pricing problem. Given the relatively fixed pricing on games, it's just about the only way for competitive pricing to occur. The health of the used market on any particular title ends up reflecting its actual value to and demand amongst consumers. If they were paid more than was actually valued by the consumer on the initial sale, giving more on a second sale doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Might help the tail problem going on. But graphics are easier to market. Screenshots? Check. Videos? Check. Gameplay doesn't come across well in either, not even videos.

In my experience, Obsidian wouldn't have any control over that to help. You could try contacting Sony, as they handle redemption.

Specs Ops: The Line. Amazon's July sale on games has started, download titles only. So I did get to pick it up for half price.

They didn't write themselves into any corners. The events of the first two games could have tied together if they'd just chosen to do so. Two-thirds of the endings of Mass Effect 3 could have easily followed from already established elements. The only one that's not is Synthesis, which makes me think it is the entire reason the Crucible plot device was created. Reverse engineered Reaper weapons (Thanix cannons) and programming (EDI) would have been easily conducive to Destroy or Control resolutions without it. Mass Effect 2's ending could have been used as a reveal of an internal weakness just waiting for rifle wielding yahoos to pluck at to defeat the Reaper menace. They even had a central antagonist to focus the narrative on with Harbinger. They actively chose to abandon and forget what happened in the last two games. They weren't forced to. The abandoned Dark Energy subplot could also have been salvaged as a Reaper motivation. As much as I hate the previously planned resolutions that went with it, the motivation was still something that they could have worked with. It just can't be resolved by making everyone part robot.

Reports are that Amazon will have it (Spec Ops) for 50% off starting Sunday. I might grab it then.