Keyrock

I finished Portal Stories: Mel. It's a really well made standalone (ish) mod and quite meaty. It's more or less the size of a full game, which is damn impressive for a free mod, and the puzzles and well designed and thoroughly challenging. Unfortunately, the final challenge is terrible (why do so many games falter during the finale?). It's a decent idea and makes sense in the context of the game, but, unfortunately, it centers around the single most inconsistent and touchy mechanic in all of Portal (largely because in the base game it was never meant to be used as a game mechanic). Portal works because its mechanics are consistent and predictable, basing the finale around a mechanic that is inconsistent and making it time sensitive to boot was a big mistake. Still, it was a really great experience overall. Everything before the very end was quite fun.

We Happy Few is already funded and in the last day and a half of its campaign. It's sort of a stealth/survival game, but a very different type of stealth/survival game. The game takes place in a dystopian alternate reality 1964 England where all the citizens of the city are living in a drug-induced delusional world and you must escape before society completely collapses. The idea is to hide in plain sight as you hunt for food and formulate an escape plan. You need to figure out how to conform so that the other citizens don't catch on to you not being on the drug. The city is procedurally generated and different every time. The game is being made by Compulsion Games who made the game Contrast and coming out for PC (Windows/Mac/Linux), They are looking to do console versions later, but that's not part of the rewards here.

MCA should show up unannounced and cut a heel promo on Feargus and challenge him to a cage match for the Obsidian Entertainment Heavyweight Championship.

Things can go poorly if you try to go for a drive with a really huge package.

I'm not going to read too much into it. I mean, if I had just very recently left a job, even if it was on amicable terms, I wouldn't want to appear at a function with my former bosses/business partners either; it would just be awkward.

Nothing worse than a man flaunting the size of an artificially inflated package.

That he did, KaineParker. That he did.

Bernie Madoff? The guy certainly is a HUGE ****.

^ Good gravy, that's one helluva huge package. How does he ride a bike with that?

The wings on the helmet are such a nice touch.

He drives a tiny truck to compensate for his giant package.

Hmm? I am not really following. How did it fizzle out? It didn't. It's following the same exact pattern that practically every Kickstarter campaign does of a big push at the very beginning then grinding down to a slow slog through the middle then picking back up during the final day or two, The start was exaggerated for this particular campaign due to it being announced during Sony's press conference at E3, which, obviously, gave it exposure several orders of magnitude greater than it could have otherwise. It's currently averaging around 25-30k a day, which is a pretty good number, it just seems minuscule in comparison to the ridiculous start it had. As far as this ever reaching 10 or 11 million, that ain't happening, but it will almost certainly cross 4 million and I'd be surprised if it didn't at least flirt with 5 million, if not cross it. I don't think it will beat Iga's newly set record, though.

Still playing Portal Stories: Mel and having a blast with it. If you played Portal 2 and thought to yourself "I really like this gameplay, I just wish it was significantly harder" then this free mod is for you. There are some devilishly tricky puzzles and I'm not even at the end yet, I suspect it will get harder.

Obvious and unfunny jokes are my specialty, though. Here's a guy with two large packages. He probably could have gotten a job in the... "film industry".

^ Well played

He's got wood. Hard wood.

Man with a large package inside a larger package. So meta.

Chris "The Stretch Goal" Avellone sighting confirmed!

Who's Moosa? I'm quite ignorant when it comes to social media personalities, on account of the fact that I have zero presence in the social media world.

Has any of the content the Beamdog themselves have created for the Enhanced Editions been any good? I haven't played any of the EEs because I have no desire to replay any of the IE games I've already played, which is to say, all of them. An all new game, on the other hand, I might be interested in playing, assuming it was interesting. Hence why I ask about the content Beamdog has created on their own.

Portal Stories: Mel is definitely harder than Portal 2, or even the first Portal (which was more difficult, in my opinion, than the sequel). I welcome that, as one of my very few complaints about Portal 2 is that it was too easy. Also, I'm hoping Her Story gets a Linux version. Sam Barlow has stated that she's looking into it, but nothing is certain. It looks like an interesting detective type game. Plus, I have a soft spot for FMV games. For now, I'm going to avoid all videos and discussion of the game so that I can go into it fresh should a Linux version materialize. If not, I'll watch a Let's Play of it in the future.

Congrats on the upgrade, Pidesco. That's a fairly hefty jump up to what is more or less the top of the line GPU out right now. As for Fury X, I think this is actually a loss for AMD. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good card, however, it's at best equal to a GTX 980 Ti at the same price and Nvidia got its card out several weeks earlier, so it had that amount of time out on the marketplace without competition. Moreover, word 'round the campfire is that the Fury X is in very short supply right now, so good luck getting one if you want one. It's understandable for a new technology (HBM) but it doesn't change the fact that people shopping at that price point may turn to Nvidia simply on availability. It's too bad because we need AMD to keep Nvidia honest and their prices down, but, as it stands, there is zero reason for Nvidia to lower its prices. Hopefully AMD can improve the Fury X's performance with driver updates to push it past the 980 Ti and force prices down,

Planetscape: Tournament: Enhanced Edition with added dialogue and content from their new employee, Chris Avellone. Meh, Planetscape Tournament 99 is still the gold standard, they went down hill after that.

I watched Last Action Hero again for the first time in 20 years. I definitely disagree with all the hate the movie got. Sure, the kid was terrible, but in many ways, the movie was pretty damn brilliant. Like, really brilliant. I kind of think it was ahead of its time. It was meta before meta was a thing. Also, Charles Dance was amazing. But then, Charles Dance is always amazing.