Progressive Boink

[Casey]

Hanstock: skate is much more of a sim, so it is a lot harder to control and the payoff is not as "extreme". However, you don't have people doing combos for 8 million years and you don't have wacky stuff like special moves where you fly 40 feet into the air and rotate 8 million times, creating a tornado that carries your opponent away and when you get three baskets in a row you don't light on fire and run faster.

There's something to be said for the rewarding feeling of pulling off a normal trick, though, when it's actually hard to do-- kind of like real skateboarding. However, I don't care about real skateboarding.

[Terry Cheesecake]

I guess that was a big problem with their recent patch for the game, but they said to fix it you just need to clear the xbox cache (hold down both bumpers on startup) assuming you aren't playing the PC version.

I also used my wrench almost exclusively, with the exception of the shotgun on the big daddies(and the endboss). Most of the other weapons I found to be pretty useless most of the time.

It's the PC version. I used the chemical thrower for the big daddies with one shot of electric buck to finish them off.

[Casey]

Now Playing: nothing on the XBox 360. It bit the dust last night and I got the red ring of death. I called support and they took my information quickly and are going to send a box, but as reported, the repair process turnaround time has upped to 3-4 weeks.

Thankfully my coworkers have expressed their sympathies and most of them don't seem bothered at all by the though that they can wait however long it takes to start playing Halo 3. Still, ughghghhghh

Is it true that they're basically just sending out "new" 360s that have the same chip/board layout/problems at this point instead of fixing the one you send in? Because if so, it would piss me off that I have to wait 3-4 weeks just to get something that's bound to break again.

I picked up Metroid Prime 3 on the way home from work. I guess I don't have anything to distract me from that, for the time being.

[Alex]

They've fixed the problem in new 360s, so if they should happen to send you a new one it will probably be okay.

[webber]

my ps3 is functioning fine
(it's just a pity i don't have anything to play on it )

does anyone know if the new sega rally game is meant to be any good?

[James]

it was intentionally designed to be terrible (j/k dude i really don't know and wanted to make fun of your phrasing and also your owning a ps3)

(have fun waiting for MGS4 lol)

[webber]

i don't even like metal gear solid

edit: Seriously I can't complain too much, seeing as how my gaming time has been taken up so much by Pokemon lately that I have another five or so games I want to play backed up. I haven't even started on Phoenix Wright 3 yet (are you importing this, Alex/Casey?)

[James]

well why'd ya get a ps3 ya palooka

seriously could you somehow work up an interest in MGS4 we can be best friends then

[webber]

I only hired MGS1, so I stopped halfway through that, and never played the other ones because I reasoned that I would have to finish the first one before I started the others.

I bought a PS3 because it was cheaper than an Xbox, I was going to use the Bluray thing, and I figure eventually they will have pretty much the same games anyway (I might buy a 360 in a couple of years though)

[Casey]

webber: I already imported Gyakuten Saiban 3, but I was distracted by Bioshock and then trying to play the Halo games to get ready for Halo 3. Now that I don't have those distractions, I will probably be playing that a bit more in earnest (although I am also trying to finish up Picross DS, which by the way is AWESOME)

[Alan]

Cherish those moments casey, ever since I finished picross there's been a void in my heart

I tried filling it with the puzzles at griddlers.net but no dice

[First-Tiger]

I played Madden 08 for a while. It's much faster than 06, which is the last one I played. I like the newer controls, especially how more stuff is done with the right analog stick. The game is a lot faster, which is conceptually a good thing, but it turns out I suck at it, especially pass defense. With 06 I usually could get four or five interceptions a game on All-Madden, but in 08 I usually just end up switching to the wrong guy and getting burned terribly. It's still fun, but I think I'll just stick to playing against people I know.

Now I'm starting Dead Rising. I put orange juice and pie in a blender and got an invincibility potion, which I drank and then jumped off a balcony to the mall below. That got me an achievement. This game is awesome. The characters look scarier than the zombies though, an 8 or 9 on the uncanny valley creepiness scale.

[Alex]

The imported version of Phoenix Wright 3 evidently has an alarming amount of spelling and grammatical errors, (constant uses of 'then' and 'there' when they mean 'than' and 'their' for instance), so I'm holding out hope that the American version has these fixed.

[Casey]

I've heard the American version is fixed. I don't really care about the spelling errors; my friend has already played through it and said that there's no errors that get in the way of you completing the game. I'm a little ways into Case 2 and it hasn't been TOO bad so far. Not any worse than GS2.

[webber]

What is the game like overall?

[Bill]

I just got Team Fortress 2 and oh god i am so fucked because i don't want to do anything other than play this game

[Casey]

What is [Phoenix Wright 3] like overall?

Well, I'm still pretty early into it, but the first case was your standard short thing to get you introduced to the court mechanics, no investigation. I'm only in the first court session for Case 2 (having done a lengthy plot/investigation section first) but so far it's exactly more of the same. If you liked the second game and are ready for more, you will like this. There's no new mechanics, though, AFAIK-- the Psyche Locks are back from #2 and it uses the life bar instead of the discrete number of exclamation points. But... yep. More of the same. Which I am happy with!

[Alex]

You don't play as Phoenix for the entire game.

[Casey]

okay but that's not a mechanic, that's a sprite swap

[Alex]

But it's different, geeze