Random Junk, part ङ
Hey, that letter-numeral of even looks like a five, even though it's probably an invalid character for most people. Gaming has been light this week for me, to be honest. Mostly Spelunky and Solium Infernum. Solium Infernum continues to be a deep experience, in part because there are still little issues to be found among the complex card interactions. It's inevitable, but I imagine it's a bit fr...
Gaming has been light this week for me, to be honest. Mostly Spelunky and Solium Infernum.
Solium Infernum continues to be a deep experience, in part because there are still little issues to be found among the complex card interactions. It's inevitable, but I imagine it's a bit frustrating for people. Still, overall my experience with that game has been enriched when playing it multiplayer. People can be right bastards if you give them enough tools to take a swing at whoever is in the lead (and that's me currently, so I get a firsthand experience of getting hammered repeatedly. Too bad the AI isn't so aggressive).
Man is it random, though. Some of my primary plans have already been thwarted by aggressive use of events, with more promising to hit me because I'm in the lead. With the AI, aggression is the key to victory, whether direct or indirect. In multi-player SI, it's almost like faking ineptitude is the most important skill.
An Online Adventure
Found this through RPS:
http://www.thedreammachine.se/ Which is a cool point-and-click adventure that's browser based. Really like its style from what I've seen of it so far.
A Trail of Tears (Mostly from Laughter)
Rooster Teeth's Fails of the Weak cracks me up:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoosterTeeth#g/c/7EB062CB0270A68C
Not sure if that links to the playlist or not, but you can do a search for the title and probably find it.
The Minecraft Forum Snakepit
Tried to get Minecraft running, but this machine is too old to handle it. When I try to read the help forums to make sure I'm not missing something, I've run into some of the most incredibly unhelpful, reactive posts I've ever seen on a game support forum. For all the simple genius of Notch, since his company was a one man show until recently it has managed to grow several tumors in the shape of petulant, griefing assholes who will waste time posting that they think this post was a waste of time. Sure, you get that a lot, but when LESS energy could be spent just answering the damned question, thereby helping Notch and the community, it seems like a bigger issue, like maybe the forum environment itself needs a bit of a thrashing.
I've seen good forum environments, so I don't buy the argument that it's just human nature or whatever. Human nature can change in a moment if there are consequences to one's actions, and if people have a personality to rally around they're more likely to look to that person as an authority figure. Which is why I think Notch should probably tell these people to knock it off. You know, when he's done building a company or whatever :)
Perhaps these posters are a symptom of the game's popularity. You'll often get aggressive, useless people in forums when there's a sufficient number who like to answer quickly and shout at you about it rather than think the answer through. The more people there are, the more likely it is that the shut-ins who think everyone else in the world is simply animated meat will settle in and take a big bite.
I think more helpfulness comes from the people who actually bother to START a conversation about the content, with how-to videos or whatever. It tends to be the case that an initiator tends to be a lot more wary of what they say and how they say it than those who simply react all the time, though I guess it depends upon how much effort there is in creating the post in the first place. There are starter trolls too, I guess.
Marty Looks Confused
With all these Back to the Future pushes lately, it was a bit disorienting to actually watch the teaser trailer for the full release of the Back to the Future adventure series from Telltale. Maybe it was pulled from the actual cinematics, but when I saw Marty accelerating in the DeLorean again, his emoting tended to... well.. OK, how about I show it to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wxXYnya89s
Maybe it's that it's riding on nostalgia, with those smart music cues, rather than decent lip-synching or emoting. I guess the trailer's ultimately fluff, though, since what will matter more is capturing a bit of the charm of the original movies through actual gameplay. The key to the original trilogy, I think, is that we care about the characters enough to worry when it seems like their life is in danger. I hope they'll manage to balance the comedy and drama enough, but I guess we'll see.
EDIT: Just watched the Quicklook, and I'm damned impressed.
Happy Christmas, etc
Hope you'll have a peaceful Christmas, whether or not you care about the actual holiday itself. New Year's day, too. Hell, how about every day? :)