Crosswordcook

I miss seeing the guys who left on UPF and hearing them on the podcasts but I'm excited to see who and what else comes to the site. Jeff has been wondering out loud for a long time what modern video game coverage looks like now and I'm looking forward to what he and the rest of the people here come up with. Still enjoying all the current content though

Just doesn't seem fair. But now I guess he can rest, I'm sure he felt a lot of pressure to keep up and improve the quality of his art over the years. A real master of his craft

I just want to say thank you to Brad, Alex, and Vinny and all the Giant Bomb alumni. Listening to the podcasts, watching the content, reading the site, I loved all of it. During the times I lived alone and felt lonely, it was comforting to hear their familiar voices analyzing and joking about video games and the industry and just reading silly emails. I always looked forward to the GOTY podcasts.i literally teared up a bit in my car when Brad added that he was leaving.

That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next if it's public facing, and wish them all the best. I'm also a little excited to see how Jeff, Jan, Jason, and Rorie continue with Giant Bomb.

Go out there and be happy y'all!

Late to the party, but yeah. I wish the feedback for taking damage was better, its there it just gets lost when you’re in a big firefight.

It might also help if I didn’t keep trying to play it like doom...I died so many times because I was rushing enemies or trying to “glory kill” them. It made me play the game safe which I didn’t like because that’s not what I feel like Blazko does.

I do regret not taking the Dan way out sooner though. I played through the game on Bring it On and didn’t turn it down to the level below that until about an hour and a half of dying to the final bosses but it definitely seemed much more enjoyable after that. Something about the game just rubs me the wrong way though...I finished the game and have no desire to do any of the Ubercommander missions or the DLC that came with the game when I bought it on sale. Maybe I just ruined myself by not turning the difficulty down sooner though

Hey everybody, first ft sorry if there are already multiple threads about this but I did a quick forum search and came up empty. If I missed a relevant thread I apologize!

So basically I've been awarded a cooking internship in Japan that will last 8 months. The program is generously taking care of most of the big things such as travel to and from japan and lodging while I stay there, but there's still some things I just plain have no idea what to do about for right now so I'm just going to list them and ask questions and hopefully this thread will help guide me and others in some right directions.

This trip is from July through February and I will be spending the initial 2 months in Tokyo then the following 6 will be in either Tokyo Osaka or Kyoto.

1.) Cell phone: So I'm not even going to try to think about paying ATT money for an international plan, but I was wondering how easy or cheap it is to get a burner type phone with a Japanese SIM card in it for use within Japan. Obviously I'm going to be using Skype and Facebook over wifi connections to keep in touch with friends and family but I would like a mobile phone to keep in touch with my bosses and coworkers while I'm there. I spent a semester in Austria about 10 years ago and remember doing something similar and it not being crazy expensive but I have no idea about Japan!

2.) Public transportation passes. I hope that once we get there the program directors help us out with this, but right now I have no idea how public transportation passes are sold with regards to increments of time or zones or busses vs trains vs subways etc.

3.) public wifi: So I know Japan is a really tech forward society especially in bigger cities like tokyo but just how widespread is the public wifi/is there even such a thing? Ive been to Boston recently and some of that city just has publicly available wifi in the more touristy areas especially. Is there a similar situation in Tokyo?

4.) This one is kind of silly but....I can write out and sound out both sets of kana pretty proficiently (I sound like a child sounding it out but I can read it), but my kanji is lagging pretty far behind. How dumb will I look if I need to have things written out in kana to understand them or are most Japanese people a little understanding about that?

Anyway sorry for the super long post, here's the to;dr:

-Moving to Japan for 8 months from July through February, in central japan, probably tokyo or Kyoto. What do I do about cellphones, public transport, public wifi, and not having a firm grasp of kanji despite knowing the kana.

Thanks a bunch guys!

@cameron:

So it's been a few days since I've finished the game and with hindsight I really enjoyed the experience. I was definitely frustrated, really frustrated, frustrated enough to start what's probably my third forum post ever. But apart from one puzzle that has an oddly specific area you need to be in to continue I think I'm good with the rest of the game.

Team Ico games man...they're unique. If you still haven't opened it, I definitely reccommend playing through it rather than returning it or letting it sit on a shelf.

Edit: let me also add that I really appreciate the lack of sign posting the game does. It really just makes you look at the environment and figure something out.

JRPG-ass JRPG....I never realized how bizarre that game was until you put just a few of the weird crazy things in a list and you basically left the main plot out of it entirely.

One thing though that Brad pointed out in a bombcast a few weeks ago...in ff6 you can suplex a train. Also you fight an octopus in the sky

@frostyryan: I just finished the game and yeah...I definitely agreen that not long after the spot where I decided to post it did get easier to work with trico. Either I got better at it and recognizing cues or something or it just gets easier late in the game? I'm not sure really.

I do know that having just finished it, I definitely don't hate Trico, and I actually feel kind of bad for our earlier misunderstandings (damn you Ueda and your mastery of heartstrings!) I'm not saying I want to start a new game again right now...but I'm definitely gonna hang on to it.

To respond to Mister_V and what Humanity is saying. I don't currently have any pets due to my apartment's rules though I have in the past and now have friends who have pets and I love visiting them. PlaYing fetch is fun and messing around and trying to teach them tricks can be frustrating but in an endearing and fun way. However, I would never try to get a pet to start my car which, metaphorically, is what I feel like The Last Guardian wants me to do.

It could also just be that I just am really misunderstanding some mechanic as in separate spots where I'm required to do a leap of faith with Trico catching me in dramatic and sweeping slow motion I've had hiccups. Once he just stared, tracking my fall with his head as I plummeted into the game over abyss, and another he tried to catch me and flat out missed, causing another respawn at checkpoint (which are actually very plentiful and helpful, you're never far back from where you died).

Once I got so frustrated trying to get it to swim in a certain way, I gave up and looked up a walkthrough only to see that I had been doing the thing the game required me to do to progress, either Trico just hadn't felt like listening to me for the past 15 minutes or I was doing some subtle thing incorrectly...that said I'm still playing and enjoying the story and mysterious world but it's in spite of the Trico mechanics, not because of them.

Let me start by saying this...I have been looking forward to the release of The Last Guardian since I heard about it after finally getting around to finishing the amazing Shadow of the Colossus way back when. I only played an hour or two of Ico before I bounced off it, but Shadow is a game I've played through a few times myself and sat and watched friends play through it to vicariously relive playing it for the first time so I guess I had pretty high expectations for this one.

I bought the game yesterday and while I started with high enthusiasm, I've only felt it dwindle as I've continued playing due largely to Trico's behavior. Maybe I'm misunderstanding a fundamental about how to direct it, but getting it to jump across a gap or swim or just go in a particular direction seems an increasingly difficult task.

I've heard people compare it to the horse in Shadow and how it would sometimes ignore your calls, but when I got on the horse and told it to run, it ran; when I move the stick left or right, so would the horse. Trico though...I can point and jump and clap my hands and I feel like I'm MORE likely to get a snort and have it wander in the opposite direction than to actually proceed through the environment/puzzle.

Basically I find myself thinking of other AI buddies you were meant to get attached to, like Ellie I'm The Last of Us. She took cover when the player did (even though enemies were blind to her until they also saw joel) and she never initiated combat or took my ammo or otherwise made me say "goddamit Ellie." I scream "goddamit Trico you asshole, just GOOO!" with regularity.

I'm not a heartless bastard, I swear. Watching it roll around and play in puddles of water or gaze at me expectantly when I have a food barrel is endearing and im lpoking for ward to continuing and compelting the journey. I just find myself cursing more than I'm awwing at this point.

Anyone else have any similar or contrary thoughts?

Edit/update: I posted something similar as a reply below but so it's up here, I just finished the game and the frustration pretty much abated immediately after I continued playing. I'm not sure if thats because of how I was playing the game or if the game played slightly differently toward the secons half but there it is.

Trico and I are now good pals and even though he's not my favorite AI buddy in a game I think he wound up being wsay better than i first thought. I'm not gonna try to replay the game again anytime soon, but I'm gonna hang on to my copy. Would recommend to anyone who knows they like ico games. It took me something less than 15 hours according to the trophy I got, if that helps with an approximate length (FYI I don't think anyone has the platinum trophy yet if anyone cares about that)