I recognize its importance as a historical object. It’s much like Half Life 2, in that it’s not nearly as interesting or as good as its reputation, and the story is barely more than a shallow puddle in terms of depth- but it stands out on a few key strengths of design and by simply putting in the motions of telling a…

I mean, the abilities were uninteresting, the core mystery never hooked me, and the boss fights were just exercises in tedium.

It is, in fact, a rad job, despite my mild complaints from time to time. Our company builds installations which mostly have a digital component to them. So, for example, we built a piece called “the Redwood Trail”. It’s a series of arches with LEDs around the lip and motion sensors so it can track and change color as…

That could easily be an improvement. I only played the first game in the series, but it was really bad. Oh, the art direction was great, but it was dull dull dull as a game.

It’s been awhile since I’ve played RL, but when I was into the game, I never understood all the cosmetics. I more or less kept my car stock, only ever tweaking the paint finish, and never using anything I considered “gaudy”. I also never got higher than Gold. Related?

I don’t think Valve is run that poorly

It’s not, honestly. I work in an organization which sort of has that attitude, and the result is that a lot of people end up wondering WTF they can do right now to help out the team. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to ask, “What should I be working on right now?” and get a straight answer.

It’s not the “always online” element that is, itself, the core problem. It’s the “instead of generating revenue from sales, we create a stream of revenue through online, toll-gated content.” That can make sense for certain kinds of games, sure, but it’s based on an endless treadmill. Something like, say, RocketLeague…

I feel like that’s gonna lead you into overestimating them.

Just play Fiasco all the time.

I personally don’t think of class as a job. Class is just the mechanics which define how your character can touch the gamestate. So, I could have a class of fighter, but my character’s main job could be working on a farm. Why not?

Honestly, I feel like the utter lack of budget really helped the film. The monster effects were great, but the movie lives because you couldn’t have too many of them, you had to rely on the character-focused paranoia. Now, when you find the time, I’d rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING…

The writing was certainly godawful, but I don’t think the gameplay was anything to write home about either. I didn’t get terribly far, but it was basically a clumsy shooter with a few jump scares from time to time. The maps were lovely, I’ll give it that.

I’m fine with Easter Eggs and references, but hopefully the game doesn’t bear too much other resemblances to Alan Wake, because Alan Wake was awful.

My main interaction with the EU was WEG’s Star Wars D6 game. Which is also the first RPG I played extensively.

Thank goodness Turboteen continues to age well.

I don’t disagree, entirely, but the mainstream brand of Star Wars was at its lowest ebb in the early side of the 90s. The movies were always popular, sure, but there’s the entire garbage fire of the EU that was definitely a niche interest. Nobody knows (or should know) what the Suncrusher is. Or remembers that there…

I mean, I’d play the fuck out of that. As you advance, your metal band gets new riffs, so the music gets increasingly epic during the battles, and based on your band config, you can choose the kind of metal it is that follows you into battle? Fuck and yes.

Yeah, another mechanical layer of polish would have gone a long way. The “first-person commanding battles” could have worked. It does work in games like Mount & Blade.

I feel like the strategy portions never quite worked, though. A lot of the later game battles are just exercises in tedium. But I did like the game, overall. Kickass soundtrack.