Keyrock

Sawx got hit with a bunch of naging little injuries right of the bat this season. Nothing major, but it still sucks to not have a team at full strength for even 1 game this season so far. On top of that, they've just plain sucked so far. Of course, the MLB season is insanely long, so starting out crappy isn't a very big deal.

Speaking of Cyanide

I'm attempting to survive the biblical flood in process in my area today.

So, this morning (I had a half hour to kill before going to work) I discovered that if you hold down the Y button in Guacamelee! you stick to surfaces instead of sliding down them. I must have missed that bit when it was explained (either that or it wasn't explained). Suddenly, all that ludicrously difficult platforming became decidedly easier. That whole trip up the Tule Tree that borderline gave me blisters could have been much simpler and taken me 1/4 of the time to complete. I'm going to try finishing up the game when I get home (assuming I make it home through the torrential downpours, thunderstorms, and heavy winds we're currently getting) then see about scratching that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. itch I've been developing.

Thanks. Caesar III, Pharaoh, and Zeus are all great games and all very similar, as Pharaoh and Zeus are basically modified versions of Caesar III. It's really a matter of which culture strikes your fancy the most. I'm a huge fan of Greek mythology, so Zeus is my jam. If you're into ancient Egypt more, then Pharaoh might be more your taste. If you're into the Roman Empire, then Caesar would likely suit you best. Thanks. Yeah, I would have thought the vote would be more heavily skewed toward Caesar III/Pharaoh/Zeus also.

They don't really run any sort of offensive system whatsoever. Back in the day Jerry Sloan ran the pick and roll with Stockton and Malone. Phil Jackson ran the triangle. Gregg Popovich's current system runs so many screens that it may make your brain bleed trying to keep up with it. OKC's offense is Westbrook or Durant bringing the ball up the court while the other 3 guys stand around with their hands in their pockets. They rarely run pick and rolls, they barely screen, it's playground basketball.

Do me a favor, fine folks. GOG is running a Battle of the Games promo where they put two sets of games against each other and the one to get more votes gets the steeper discount. Today's battle is Caesar III, Pharaoh + Cleopatra, and Zeus + Poseidon vs. Empire Earth 1,2 & 3. Zeus: Master of Olympus is my favorite city building game of all time. I still have the disc somewhere, but the last time I tried to get it running on a modern distro, it laughed at me. So, if you're not keen on picking up the Empire Earth games yourself, then be a peach and drop a vote down for the Caesar/Pharaoh/Zeus team for me. I would dearly like to scoop Zeus up on the cheap so that I can play it again without having to jump through hoops.

This is all the industry is capable of anymore (this game, Witcher 3, DA:I, Two Worlds developers pirate game, Spider's new game, Risen 3, and likely plenty more that I haven't even heard of -- all carved basically from the same wood). How profoundly boring. The fact that action RPGs are trendy and there are a lot of them coming out is undeniable, but I don't really see this as a problem. Contrary to your post, I feel there is a good variety of games coming out now and in the near future. I would say that the variety of games coming out right now is the best it's been in a decade. You have the action RPGs you mentioned, turn-based RPGs, both first person (Might & Magic X) and isometric (Wasteland 2, Divinity: Original Sin), RTwP isometric RPGs (Pillars of Eternity), JRPGs (Bravely Default, Final Fantasy XIII: Dress Up Quest, Tales of Xilia 2), funky matroidvana/JRPGs mashups (Child of Light), and that's just scratching the surface and just RPGs. We've recently had the return of sidescrolling platformers. There are tons of beat em ups coming out. Shumps seem to be on the rebound. I could keep going. To me it looks less slow paced and methodical like Dark Souls, and more button mash combo like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as I generally enjoyed the combat in KoA:R, for a while. Anyway, while I liked Spiders' previous game, Mars: War Logs, quite a bit, this one, for whatever reason, isn't grabbing my attention. Who knows. If it winds up getting a good rep after it's released I may scoop it up.

I gotta say, Expeditions: Conquistador is a rather frustrating game. There's a lot to like. I love the premise, the combat is decent, the choices and non-combat skills are fairly well done. However, the game is bogged down by a lot of mechanics that I guess are there to increase challenge and add depth and realism, but, in practice, what they achieve, more than anything else, is adding a lot of tedium to the game. I guess what I'm saying is, the game has fun moments, but overall, it's a chore to play, which is a shame. I'm generally against streamlining, as it usually boils down to dumbing down, but this is one game that could have greatly benefited from streamlining.

Dance your dance and backtrack and twist your own words any way you like Volo, we all see right through it. But, by all means, write in all caps, italics, throw out supposedly trendy insult phrases. It totally makes you look intelligent. In NBA news, Miami got smoked by the Wizards without 2 of the 3 big 3 and OKC lost to New Orleans when Durant gassed in the 4th quarter. Scotty Brooks' "brilliant" strategy of running his franchise player into the ground just in time for the playoffs at work, ladies and gentlemen. I've seen a couple of times this year both LeBron and Durant run out of gas late in games. These guys are freak athletes, but they're not invincible. At least Miami will get to coast through the 1st round and recover, and maybe the second, unless they wind up playing Brooklyn, whom they'll beat, but the Nets will likely push them to a game 6. OKC won't have any such luxury. Sometimes I think the best thing for OKC that could happen would be to get swept in round 1 so that maybe that would get the owner to fire Scotty Brooks and get a real coach who knows what he's doing. Scotty Brooks is a good positive attitude guy, but he's terrible at game management, clock management, very rarely changes his lineups to take advantage of the other team's strengths and weaknesses (seriously, I get playing Perkins against teams that like to play big, but why in the world does he play so many minutes against athletic teams that play small? It makes no sense), runs no set plays whatsoever for the half court offense (it's a testament to the ludicrous abilities of Westbrook and Durant that they win as many games as they do playing essentially pickup basketball). OKC wins 55-60 games a year in spite of Scotty Brooks, not because of him.

I agree Volo, your post was an EPIC FAIL. All I did was apply your own faulty logic to the Miami Heat resting LeBron and Bosh, so if my post was a fail, then, your own post must also be a fail since it uses the exact same logic.

I wanted to play more Guacamelee! today, but I did my thumb in yesterday playing those intense platforming sections and didn't want to get a blister, so I played some Expeditions: Conquistador instead.

http://espn.go.com/nba/truehoop/miamiheat/story/_/id/10782556/lebron-james-chris-bosh-miami-heat-sit-washington-wizards LeBron, Bosh, and the Heat. Such they're such cowards, so unsportsmanlike, such wusses, and so uncompetitive. They should be playing as much as they're physically able to.

This is all the industry is capable of anymore (this game, Witcher 3, DA:I, Two Worlds developers pirate game, Spider's new game, Risen 3, and likely plenty more that I haven't even heard of -- all carved basically from the same wood). How profoundly boring. This is Spiders' new game.

Bound By Flame Combat Trailer

It would take a really special alpaca to replace sleepy rat.

Meh. I'm not impressed by any speedrun that uses scripts and/or console cheats. I beat this game in 20 minutes when my character could fly and move at 10 times the speed. Whoopty doo.

Hillbilly Alpaca

There were some seriously intense platforming sections going up the Tule Tree in Guacamelee! A few of the sections took me about ten times, but I made it all the way up and got all the extra goodies along the way.

To take a page out of Volo's troll playbook, LOL.

I'm not saying don't play Durant at all, but why the heck would you play him 42 minutes in a essentially meaningless game? Play him for 20 or 25 minutes or something. The Thunder needed 1 win in their last 3 games to assure themselves the 2 seed. The 3 remaining games: Indiana, New Orleans, Detroit. Why would you go all out to win the Indiana game (which they lost anyway) when the New Orleans game should be much easier and the Detroit game should be a breeze? Not to mention, if the Clips lose even once then the Thunder don't need to win any games. It doesn't make any sense.

Ugh. I wish the Thunder would fire Scotty Brooks and get a real coach. Seriously, he's had Durant play for 40 minutes today and the game is not over yet. This game is essentially meaningless and Durant has been playing 38.4 minutes per game this year. Earlier in the year leaning this heavily on Durant was a necessity, since Westbrook was out and they needed to scratch and claw to get one of the top seeds in the West, but why the **** would you play Durant this many minutes in a game that means nothing. The Thunder can't get the 1 seed, and while they have not mathematically locked up the 2 seed yet, for all intensive purposes they have. Their 2 remaining games are the Pelicans and Sixers. All they need is 1 win or 1 Clips loss. They should beat the Pelicans with Durant only playing half the game, heck, they could beat the Sixers without playing Durant at all. I get Durant is only 25 and an alien mutant from another planet, but you can still run the guy into the ground. What the ****, Scotty Brooks?

I'm not bothered by "exotic", quite the opposite, it makes me eager to try it. Besides, I'm originally from Poland and we eat all types of stuff that many Americans would find revolting or at least strange, such as flaki (tripe stew) and befsztyk tatarski (steak tartare) and smoked eel.

I don't. I guess the standard procedure to building sets in loot em ups is figuring out which boss or champion drops the piece(s) you're looking for then grinding said boss or champion until you get the complete set. Similar to what people do in MMOs. I, personally, can't bring myself to do that, hence I almost never get complete sets in loot em ups as I just play through the game as if it was a standard RPG and whatever drops I get is whatever drops I get and that's that. An alternative/complimentary method to getting complete sets is to dump set pieces in your shared stash and eventually getting all the pieces after having played several characters. This, obviously, will only work if you intend to run through the game many times with many characters.