Triad Orion

Congratulations on fatherhood, OA. Best of luck to you on that! You're in for one hell of a ride. Also? Nice Baby. XD

I agree with the bat, but I'd go with the Backstab kill symbol or just the butterfly knife. Or a sapper. All of those are pretty iconic for the Spy. And yeah, that was a blast. The first time I've played TF2 in quite a long time. I did miss it, actually.

Goddamn Spies! D:

Nope, I think he meant Rush and Rush Adventure. And yeah, I'm going to echo the sentiments that this would make an astounding Sonic game. The speed is there albeit toned down, and you can do all sorts of acrobatic stuff which leads toward a more impressive platforming experience. As for the demo itself, it's extremely impressive and actually a lot of fun. I'm actually excited to see more of this.

Yeah, I'd agree that it's a pretty fair assessment of it. Considering the Campaign Mode is meant to be the main attraction for a group of friends, I agree with him that the replay value's probably not as good as Team Fortress 2. Though personally, I like the co-op experience more than the versus humans aspect of TF2, so there you go.

*Facepalm* Should we just call you Yakko Warner, Damned? Anyway, someone mentioned looking forward to a mall level? The Mod Community is way ahead of you: http://www.l4dmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=10 The mod community is modifying an older HL2 mod that takes place in the mall from the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. They have a video tour of some of it on this site. Dunno when it'll be finished, but they're working on it, so keep an eye out.

And this is why Versus mode is a killer, because smart Infected players will chain the Witch into the fun! XD

That's actually happened pre-patch, especially in Dead Air. When you first enter the airport terminal, it's not uncommon to have a tank spawn just outside the safe room. At one point, it was close enough to the safe room to come over to the door and try to reach through it weakly. The bar was still on the door, so it couldn't get in and we just pumped it full of auto-shotgun until it died. But I think they just increased the odds of tanks appearing in *different* places. I've seen tanks in their old haunts as well as new ones, so...

I dunno, I'm going with Ac!d as the IP. It strikes me as most likely, given the symbols in the equation and that there hasn't been a new Ac!d game in awhile. That said, I would freaking love it if MGS4 gets ported to the 360. I'm probably getting a 360 for Christmas, and it would remove one of the only two reasons for me to even consider a PS3. (The other being Disgaea 3, which will hopefully get ported elsewhere anyway.)

Smokers are lethal if used correctly. I wrecked an escape in No Mercy once because of it. Two survivors left, one of them somehow got incapped *in* the helicopter, and I pull the last survivor away from the chopper when he was about a three yards away, and proceed to rip him apart at such an angle where his friend couldn't help. It's all about opportunity.

Updates have arrived for L4D and they've implemented the much needed fixes for server stability. They also made server searches faster, in addition to making it so servers can't override the settings the users choose. No map swapping by the server and none of the auto-changing difficulties that really plagued some runs. Nice fixes. Still no word on balance issues for Versus Mode, however. But really, it's more important to get the mechanical problems out of the way first.

Bahamut and I had so many server problems on Blood Harvest tonight. Servers went down *five* times during the whole bloody encounter and it got to the point where we just stopped playing. It sucked. Then the finale we actually played sucked. Not the second time as much. But still. Gah, just a rotten night. Anyone else have server problems tonight?

Kinda flat this time around. Amusing, but certainly not his best. The humor was good when he started going on about how it was experimental. He does bring up good criticisms about the flatness of the game's story (especially considering the high potential for awesome dystopian fiction can get) and in some of the detection seeming spotty. Seems like he really wanted to like this game, and though he was disappointed I guess he doesn't view the effort as a waste, which does say more about Mirror's Edge than a lot of other games he's reviewed.

Yeah, I'm with DarkeSword on the subject of flamethrowers. Given how the Infected seem to lose their minds when they're on fire (Specials not included) a flamethrower would just eat through them like there's no tomorrow. You'd need to make it run through ammo faster than hell for that to be balanced. It just wouldn't work too well. Or rather would be *too effective.* And to answer Bahamut? The Tank is a whole other set of insanity on its own. XD

Actually, there's no reason to stick with the standard shotgun once you get the auto. The reload on the auto's a little slower overall but it does considerably more damage with a faster fire rate and a larger magazine. The tradeoff is that the reload's a bit longer and stopping your reload early means chambering a round which kind of sucks, but it's doable.

Again, I'm taking a cautious wait-and-see with this. Sonic with a sword is less ridiculous than other things they've pulled. It's far less ridiculous than the Werehog bullshit and at least there's a justification given the universe he's in. He is in a storybook, and it IS Arthurian Legend, so it's not that unusual of stretch. It's just a manner of how it's implemented. What I hope to see with it is that Sonic would use it as a new means of locomotion rather than a fighting implement. They've mentioned in previews that he can use the sword to cut a hole down a wall to slow his descent (though why he couldn't simply *run* down it is beyond me), but I'm not ready to totally write it off without playing it.

Hey, personally, I don't have too much against SA2 itself. It set a lot of bad precedents that would haunt the series to come, but taken solely as an individual game it wasn't terrible. And I admit, when I first picked it up, I loved it. It just took time for the flaws to appear to me. See, what I was more annoyed about was that my friend's kid brother immediately wrote off the classics because of its looks rather than actually trying the game.

...Wait what? *Blasted* I see what he did there.

Pretty much. I'm an only child, but the moment I showed Feliks's kid brother Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) after he played and loved Sonic Adventure 2, that was the first thing almost verbatim from his mouth. I facepalmed. I paused the game and facepalmed. Then I told him to get out. ...I don't like kids, can you guess? XD

I couldn't agree more. ..."I LIKE RICK-ROLLING!"

Happy Thanksgiving, OCR! Hope your turkey-day is great and fulfilling!

Seamless transitions are a pretty big plus. Often times in songs with so many themes in them, the transitions are kinda iffy or too sudden. You pull off these transitions markedly well. I too think the piano doesn't quite sound organic enough, but even with samples, the song is still very pretty and moody. You did an excellent job. The judges and other reviewers here have said what's on my mind to the negative, and as for the positive? I can't really offer much other than I really like how you arranged it all. Great flow, good sound, and another generally excellent piano mix. Hope to see more from you in the future!

The problem is, if you don't get a good Boomer, the Infected are pretty much screwed against a competent team of Survivors.

Blazing Sword is a tough act to follow. Really, Radiance's story wasn't strong, and as stated, Radiant Dawn didn't do much better. The strength came mostly from the characters involved in the events, rather than the gravitas of the events in the war itself. The only ultimately worthwhile thing about it was to see how the characters grew and reacted to the war. Radiant Dawn did a little bit better as it involved more guesswork for the overall plot, but the shifting perspectives forced the narratives to be sped up and often forced details to be left behind, and unfortunately gutted supports couldn't provide more insight into the plot. Generally, you were left with the character interaction as the strength once more, but your generally cool secondary units got less development than in other games. So, nah. If you're looking for something as powerful as Blazing Sword you'd be highly disappointed in Radiance and Dawn. Unfortunate, but that's the case, even if I do love Radiance in particular. *Shrugs* EDIT: One big thing I realize I miss from Radiant Dawn on going back into Path of Radiance is the celebratory actions your units would give when victorious in a fight. I actually really miss Oscar or Geoffrey showboating by spinning their lances confidently after making a kill.

Yeah, by the end of the game you could generally buy Silver Weapons along with the Blade Type weapons for Swords and there were usually a couple of different types of magic tomes and a decent number of staves. That was Path of Radiance. Radiant Dawn has a similar system. You don't get Silver until surprisingly late which sucks, but you get access to Steel everything long, long before that, which included Poleaxes and Greatlances. They also fleshed out Knives for thieves considerably, including Daggers for melee combat and throwing knives to give rogues a ranged attack. The additional choices are worth the gold, generally. Radiant Dawn also introduced "bargains" or rare items that can only be purchased once and the list changed from chapter to chapter. Sometimes you could buy stat-up items or rare weapons such as a spare Florete sword for Mist or an extra Kard for Sothe. This was one of the only ways to get some of the rare stuff, but rarely were buying Stat-Up items cost effective, considering they cost you 8,000 gold which could go toward a Forged Weapon which could be better for a lower price. In neither game were you ever able to buy like, Bolganone or Tornado Magic, unfortunately. You had to just make do with what they gave you in that department. But who cares, Soren was powerful enough to rip through everything with basic Wind Magic anyway, so...