Leferd

I had carbonara for dinner last light. Death to cream in carbonara! Bacon, 50/50 whole eggs to egg yolk ratio, pecorino romano, sea salt, freshly cracked tellicherry black pepper. Sometimes I add red pepper flakes and garlic - but that's just me being decadent.

*Gromnir spreads arms wide and offers tim cain, and feargus urquhart a manly group hug* *Feargus and Cain cry out "He likes us. He really likes us!"

I throughout I enjoyed RecOctober and Patriot Games. But after Cardinal in the Kremlin, it just became...too much. That's not to say they weren't well written, after all I also ended up reading Without Remorse, Rainbow Six, Debt of Honor, Sum of All Fears, as well as Airborne! The problem for me was that after the end of the Cold War, his novels became too convoluted and his antagonists were blasé. I liked Irish Terrorists and Soviet Commies myself

"while i enjoy watching the playthroughs of arcanum by sawyer, he would have taken away much more by reading the rulebook (which he didn't do given his issues with the interface). it had great fluff and told how it was envisioned, which is really good, and has pretty much what was lacking from the game itself." You're actually confusing Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone.

It's like he became a parody of himself after his success of Patriot Games. Each subsequent book became a whale of a tome of the efficacy of the Amerikan Intelligence/Military Industrial/Ekonomik Complex.

10 hour road trip. Longest I've driven in a while. All good since get to see my niece and nephew - 1 1/2 years old and 4 months.

Haha yeah. I almost considered actually buying alacrity potions...before I came to my senses and just waited it out. Still, it was a fun game once you took out the silly social/FB/farmville mechanics out of it.

One of their more under-appreciated songs. Almost forgot about it until the Watchmen trailer.

Eating Middle Eastern. Falafel, gyros meat, saffron basmati rice, shami kabob, and roasted veggies.

Too bad they didn't port it for iOS -> iPad. I'd probably still play it.

I actually had more fun with DA Legends than I did with DA2. Then again, I didn't really give DA2 a fair shake...I only completed its prologue. PS I was surprised to learn that DA Legends lead designer was Soren Johnson, the designer behind Civ IV -IMO the best of the series.

Lolz. The cycle repeats itself yet again. I think when Bio invented the Reapers, they created them as a parody of Grommie coming back out from hibernation waiting for someone to call him out on his posting style. ... Josh definitely takes his history very seriously which is consistent with his general approach to game design. I minored in history in college and this interest/knowledge/fanaticism of history has allowed me to talk way too much about the minutae that has proved to be detrimental to my keeping conversations from being interesting. ZZZZZ

http://i.imgur.com/UfwuLIm.gif Lols. Starting to like Tom Brady more.

Another healthy dinner, good one Are you are vegetarian Leferd? That's the first time I've ever been accused of such. Ha! No, but I am making a conscious effort at eating healthier. My metabolism isn't what it used to be and my knees are preventing me from running the 3 miles (5 km) I used to do everyday.

I like Alpha Protocol, but also think reviewers had every reason to hammer it. Agreed. I love AP but it was still flawed in many ways.

A stew containing tofu, onions, tomatoes, garlic, and sweet soy sauce over jasmine rice.

I like Starship Troopers. It's still a bad movie.

One of the reasons I'm still on the fence about the game is the very reason you've commented on. Sometimes reviews punish a game not for what it is, but for what it isn't. They have preconceived notions about what they believe it will be, then rip it to shreds when it isn't that, even though the game never claimed to be. Obsidian's own Alpha Protocol is a perfect example of this. The reviews hammered it, because they were expecting Splinter Cell. But to this day, it's one of my favorite games to replay. From the reviews I'm reading, that's not the case for The Bureau at all. I suppose it's more analogous to what Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is to the original Fallouts. It was just a bad game, regardless of genre. Counter example would be the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. Games, which were legitimately good games in their own right. The IGN review is actually pretty good in that the reviewer actually states why the game is bad in its own right, while still comparing it to XCOM EU as he very well should. But the rating itself is based on the actual gameplay as a third person tactical shooter.

Second Wave options available at the start for Enemy Unknown: Damage Roulette: Weapons have a wider range of damage. New Economy: Randomized council member funding. Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats. Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, stats increase randomly.

yes it is. And i'm interested in the new one myself, but i might wait for a few months. I need some really positive opinions before i buy it. Doubt you're gonna get one. It was doomed to begin with.

Egads.

Playing Classic + Ironman + Second Wave options is the only way to play X-COM. Definitely waiting to hear what they'll add to the strategic layer.

I actually used to do QA (developer/publisher side and not as a contractor) years ago and it was the most fun job I've ever had. It was work...but really, it was finding creative ways to break the game and then reproducing it, and then documenting it in such a way that any monkey can do, only to be told by the programmer it was...*cough* as designed. Haha! Of course this is when we were deep/late in crunch and anything short of "A" bugs had to be set aside for post launch patches. Finding a bug is one thing -and to recognize it as such AND to actually be able to reproduce it consistently and write steps to do just that is what separates good testers from those that are useless drek. Doing post launch QA, I had to try and reproduce bugs that were submitted by the player base, and many of these really took a lot of effort as they didn't really do a really good job at explaining their bugs or how they got to it. You'll see a lot of this during beta.

Good interview/overview of XCOM: Enemy Within: Kind of surprised that Jake Solomon isn't seemingly involved with EW. Then again, after 5+ years working on XCOM, maybe you do need a break. Not sure I like the idea of the "meld" as a resource. Seems kinda gimmicky, in that you are exposing your soldiers to greater risk as a mechanic to discourage deliberate gameplay.

*mind boggled*