Now that I come to think of it, I don’t really mind certain horror stuff. I love Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti’s stuff, for example, and my favorite episodes of Doctor Who are Blink and the Library two-parter, both of which make me terrified of everyday items and events, like, oh, nighttime.

I guess I just don’t like the “trapped in a scaaaary place!” sort of horror, or maybe I just don’t like being immersed in it. In books, I’m detached enough that it doesn’t terrify me excessively, and I guess in Doctor Who I know everything will turn out OK because the Doctor’s there? I dunno. Maybe I just don’t like gory horror stuff.

I guess in Doctor Who I know everything will turn out OK because the Doctor’s there?

You never watched Midnight?

I’ve recently rediscovered Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle-Earth 2 on my computer. I have been skirmishing every chance I can get, and playing with the ‘custom hero’ function.

Yes, I’m well aware that it is essentially LOTR meets Age of Empires meets Warcraft, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying a well-played goblin-horde rush.

And OMG, you guys. Player-controllable oliphaunts (mumakil). That is all.

Played the Mass Effect 2 demo today…

...yeah, OK, fine, I give up, I’m going to buy it. I was TRYING to save my money, but… I really, really want that game now.

Yeah. I prefer the first one slightly over the second.

The first one’s cheaper, plus I know your character/choices can carry over, so I got that one instead.

bq.Yes, I’m well aware that it is essentially LOTR meets Age of Empires meets Warcraft, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying a well-played goblin-horde rush.

No Age Of Empires shall be associated with a lesser game. Especally one with an inferior engine like Battle for Middle Earth II.

I’ve recently rediscovered Chicken Invaders. boo-yeah.

Anyone else played this?

There are two more in the series, now. Number 3 is even more awesome.

(This is one of the demi-boss guys, toward the end of certain waves) Yes, you can have lasers in this one. As well as lightning, plasma, and three kind of ‘regular’ projectiles. You gotta watch out, though, because some of them overheat pretty quickly (the bars at the top next to your score). Also, in number 3 you’re able to control with the mouse, and move over the entire screen instead of just backwards and forwards.

Uhg, every time I see another Minecraft video it makes me want to buy the game more and more.

Puppet! You can play it for free, right now at least. You can’t play it online, but at least you get to play it offline. So basically, yes, you should go get it immediately. It is AMAZINGLY AWESOME. I am more proud of my epic Minecraft house (three stories, plus a connected cave system and some tunnels, with plans for further expansion) than I am of pretty much anything I’ve ever done in real life.

Have you been watching the X Plays Minecraft videos, btw? They’re really great.

Oi, play this. RTS with time travel.

Yeah I suck at them as well. :\

Yeah, MoH looks pretty terrible. Probably best if you just wait for Black Ops.

If you think that’s hard, try playing Fallout 3 as evil. I can barely get myself to do it at points, as silly as that is.

I'm surprised you waited for a sale (unless you're being conservative with the funds, in which case, more power to ya), because Arkham Asylum is one fantastic game and well worth the money.

Really looking forward to _Black Ops_.

Picking up _Black Ops_ tonight and am stoked for it. One review is clocking the single player campaign at around nine hours on regular difficulty and states it's "more intense and well told" than _Modern Warfare 2_.

My brothers picked up BlOps and I’ve been idly playing it. Its entertaining, but way, way too scripted for my tastes. Half the time its just a cool movie where you’re looking through the eyes of the main character.

Shotguns are deadly fun though. :D

and I’m still in the throes of a ~400 turn war with Gandhi

I heard the enemy AI had really poor military strategy; there’s probably some way to get them to do something stupid.

since I’ve got naval superiority in an absolute chokehold, but cracking into his empire on the ground is going to be tough, especially since he has so many defensive bonuses.

Seems like expanding while keeping him contained would be the way to go. Who started this war, though? Gandhi starting one just seems off.

In other news, I got a new graphics card. Meaning I can now play Starcraft 2 with ultra graphics. Aww yeah!

Have you seen the video where one guy plays the entire first level without firing a single unscripted shot?

I know of it, but I haven’t seen it. Having played the first level I can imagine its very easy to do.

I’ve seen an argument saying that this is the opposite side of the coin to bad friendly AI and the player ends up doing all of the fighting in the game. Its an interesting point, but I don’t agree with it. You can still have brilliant AI and less scripted sequences.

I have come to the conclusion that once you get into MOBA games;
there is no way out, ever, anyhow, anywhere, anyplace…

Seriously… an entire circle of friends has gone from the ‘clubbin, drinkin, partyin, education is bad’ group to DotA, etc. addicts and have also become more studious and picked up some constructive hobbies as a result. It is by no means bad; but its funny that I was made fun of years ago for playing ‘complex’ things like dota with items and levels while everybody else and their sisters preferred CS and CoD, RPGs and RTSs were the ‘sad’ genre.

Now the most discussed topics in parties are: “Whats the most effective item build for Kunkka?” “Who do you think is the best carry?” “Lets create drafts for tomorrows LAN games!!!”

I think I'm becoming addicted to the multiplayer in _Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood_. It's just such a refreshing change of pace from the deluge of FPS games over the last three years.

I knew that! I feel so special now. :D

There’s a bit of a trick to getting them. You can’t just plop down tetraminos willy-nilly. Of course, I’m really, really bad at the trick, but I do sort of know how it works…

Oh, and Mass Effect 2 is now $19.99, which is the highest I’ll pay for a videogame (and $9.99 for DVDs. I am such a miser when it comes to my entertainment. The only exceptions are things I REALLY want, like Portal 2 (which I will be purchasing IMMEDIATELY AS SOON AS IT COMES OUT NO MATTER WHAT IT COSTS or Inception, which I will also be happily paying full price for), so I bought it. It’s fun so far. :D But I heard Kaiden’s character was ruined, so I’m not looking forward to that part of the game…

Halo: Reach. It's something of a shame though that everyone dies.

Portal 2

I want it!

Inception

That too.

Nah. I just had the response "Good man" run through my head when I read your post, and then my brain filled in the last bits of that quote.

Which reminds me, I need to finish that. Bioware games are addicting. And I just found out last night that Kaidan and Carth had the same voice actor. As if I didn’t know it already (KEVIN CONROY), yes, it’s possible to fall in love with a voice.

No, it’s Raphael Sbarge. I meant I’m also in love with Kevin Conroy’s voice. Not the man himself, necessarily, just his voice.

Portal speedrun in under 10 minutes.

Yahtzee does.

WARNING: Language.

@swenson: I don’t think it’s a complete run though… It seems like he ran each of the stages separately and edited them together. You can see 1 or 2 pretty obvious edits throughout the video.

It is, but for the uninitiated, I thought I’d include the remark. :D

It was one of the funniest reviews of his, in my opinion.

Elder Scrolls V!!! :D :D

Oh man, I want Arkham City so badly now… that trailer is awesome. I also find Hugo Strange an intriguing choice as a villain. It definitely is not what I expected! But it could make for a very interesting story, so I’m excited.

Mass Effect 3, of course I’m thrilled about the trailer, but… well, it wasn’t more than a teaser, so there isn’t much to say about it. It’s the very first teaser released, though, so I’m hardly surprised it’s so short. All it really did is confirm what a lot of people were predicting anyway. I wasn’t necessarily expecting that particular path to be followed in ME3, but I’m hardly surprised or anything.

Portal 2, isn’t much to be said about that. Of course the trailer was adorable and awesome, but it wasn’t really anything new.

Elder Scrolls V!!! :D :D

This coupled with Starcraft 2 means I should have no life for approximately another five years.

Awesome!

Oblivion was a cinematic disappointment

o_O? We need to define cinematic disappointment, then, or account for confounding factors, because I don’t follow. The graphics weren’t legendary or anything, but they worked. And the strength of the Elder Scrolls has been the depth of gameplay, anyway.

I never played Morrowind, though, so I can’t draw comparisons.

Oops. What I meant was, it was cinematic, and a disappointment. Not that the graphics were sub-par. The graphics were about the only bit of the game worth mentioning. The actual gameplay was a step backwards except for the integration of magic, the story was far too limiting for the franchise, and the world was too fantasy-stock-standard for the franchise.

Morrowind, on the other hand, was brilliant. the world and cultures were original, creative and realistic in ways that the fantasy genre (in any medium) hasn't seen for far too long, the backstory and mythology is too deep and complicated for words, and the entire thing feels like a place that has been in existence for countless ages, and a native culture which has survived for untold generations until the arrival of the Outlanders. And the gameplay is truly immersive and nonrestrictive. Oblivion is far to centralised around the story and the plot, there's very little to do outside that and mere levelling within the guilds. In Morrowind, you can make your fortune as anything form a trader to an alchemist to a pearl diver.

If anyone here cares about the DS, you know whats a recent good DS game? 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. It is a point and click mystery game which is incredibly story-heavy so there’s lots of long sections of dialogue and stuff you have no control over. But thats ok because I ended up not even really caring about the gameplay sections because the story was so engrossing I just wanted to know what happens. Also it’s got options and alternate endings so you have to replay it 5-6 times with the ability to fast forward through everything you’ve seen before.

What makes the story so great is it has tons of really cool math stuff, with a lot of the game revolving around digital roots. There’s 1-9 people, each with a different number from 1-9. They each coolly come up with a code name that relates to their number. And there’s 9 doors with the numbers 1-9, with only 3-5 people being able to enter at once so long as their numbers combined have the digital root thats the same as the door.

Though the alternate endings feel a little sloppy to me. Like as in how you get to them. Like you choose the correct order of paths to go, and all that does is make people say different things that they shouldve been able to say even if u didnt choose the right order of paths, and these new things the people randomly decided to say this time round for no reason is what changes what happens. But the best endings do actually require you to choose the right things to say which causes people to say the right things in a more believable way and thus lead to more believable endings.

So yeah anyone who has a DS who wants to essentially read a good book/comic with different paths to take should check it out.

Hooray! I hadn’t actually finished the last endings when I posted that and now I have and the game is such a mindfuck. I love it.

Now I’m in the mood for another point and clicky game and I found out Hotel Dusk got a sequel so I think I’ll get that. But it’ll probably feel subpar now that 999 raised the bar, but at least Hotel Dusk 2 (whatever it’s called) will give me way more actual gameplay than 999.

And I am kind of a lame gamer who doesn’t usually play much of those more hardcore titles so I wouldn’t know anything about Dragon Age.

999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

I need to look into that because I have a DS, and I like getting cool games for it.

Create-A-Sim sliders for breast sizes? Wow….

Of course, those already exist as mods, plus with the detailed skins and no nudity mods available, I shouldn’t be surprised at all…

Dothack, best game from the playstation 2, evar. I just got the third part to it and I love it. Can't wait til I get the last "installment" of it. Then I can replay it. /tearsofjoy /isshot

I was going to amuse myself by playing The Sims 3 again… used to have it installed on my computers. But load times are ridiculous… seem longer than I ever remember them, even though I’ve got 100+ gigs of free memory on my computer. Takes over 30 minutes to load my neighborhood, and it’s not smooth when I play.

I’m disappointed. I suppose I could get rid of all the custom content I have… but that’s no fun.

Morrowind. The sheer scope for gameplay/exploration is much, much more than Oblivion.

Also, Morrowind mods are better and more numerous, and there’s a huge community of gamers who make mods and share them for free download; and installing and playing mods in Morrowind is infinitely easier than in Oblivion. If you get the version with the toolset, you can even made your own mods. Oblivion does not come with a toolset. :(

Plus, the actuall main story/plot of Morrowind is more interesting, anthropologically, than Oblivion. Oblivion’s pretty-much-inescapable main plot is about hunting down a fanatical satanic cult trying to open the gates to hell (to use English equivalents). Morrowind is about trying to unite the indigenous tribes in a war between the gods (to make it far more simplified than it is). mAlso, in Morrowind you can avoid the main plot forever, and ‘open-world’ truly is open-world gaming. In Oblivion, you’re pretty much forced, eventually, to pay attention to the main plot, and there’s far less that you can do outside of the main plot.

I will say that Oblivion’s magic/melee dichotomy is handled slightly more fluently than Morrowind, but that is far outweighed by Morrowind’s overall superiority.

And finally, the Morrowind theme music is so much more awesome than the Oblivion theme music

Still not as good as Daggerfall’s guards, RandomX2. Halt! Halt!

Also, Morrowind has all those delightful Dunmer insults. You n’wah!

^ lol to both of those

In my defense, I got it before you guys posted… and it’s entertaining so far! I got some mods already (the Unofficial Oblivion Patch and so on), so I’ve at least been spared some of the graphical glitches I’ve heard about. So I guess there’s that.

Just beat Arkham Asylum, and it was a pretty cool game. I was skeptical for a long time because I wasn’t sure how much content it’d actually have, but it ended up being pretty reminiscent of Metal Gear: Solid.

but it ended up being pretty reminiscent of Metal Gear: Solid.

That cuts it. I’m getting Arkham Asylum.