Native Jovian

Bastion is one of the flash sale games for the next eight hours. It's an amazing action game (with some RPG elements). The amount of polish is incredible. I literally can't say enough about how great this game is (but I'll mention the soundtrack in particular, this being a video game music site and all). If you haven't already, buy it buy it buy it. Edit -- accursed ninjas!

Huh, I remember hearing about Tokyo Jungle from Extra Credits (one of their "games you may have missed" episodes, I believe) but I didn't realize it was a PS3 exclusive. Damn, I'm going to have to pick that up now.

That's a pretty fair assessment. If you don't like WoW-style MMOs, then you won't like SWTOR's gameplay. You may still enjoy the story (and I'd say that Callas is understating the class-story-to-everything-else ratio -- doing all the available content will leave you considerably overleveled, since the game throws more XP at you than you need to follow their expected levelling curve, which means you can skip large chunks of it and still be fine), but obviously putting a Star Wars skin on a game you don't like isn't going to make you like that game.

I've been a subscriber since pre-launch, so I can't really speak to playing on a F2P account, but from what I understand Neifion pretty much hit it. If you're just interested in doing the story content, then F2P will be fine; if you want to do any of the serious MMO content (especially endgame stuff), then you'll want to subscribe. Keep in mind, most of the stuff you get for subscribing you can also get as one-time purchases from the Cartel Market (the game's real-money store). So if you, say, want to make some alts, you can buy a character slot from the cartel market instead of subscribing. The main thing that having an active subscription gets you is unlimited space missions/warzones/flashpoints/operations (all of which are limited to a certain number per week with a F2P account, and require a real-money purchase per week to get around that limit). There are also other perks -- it's easier for subscribers to get more inventory/bank space, they have no credit cap, they get respecs for free, that sort of thing -- but most everything that can be unlocked via the cartel market goes away for a subscriber that lets their subscription lapse. tldr, if there are certain, specific things you want then you're probably better off just buying them from the cartel market instead of subscribing. If you want everything, or you plan on doing the limit-per-week content regularly, then a subscription is a better idea. What server are you playing on, incidentally? I'm on Ebon Hawk; my main is a defense Guardian, but I've been leveling a lightning Sorcerer recently.

Because Baha is awesome, I still have an extra pyro, and now all I need is a heavy.

I've got a pyro you can have for an engineer, medic, soldier, or spy. I'm just heading out to work, though, so hit me up on Steam later.

In other news, for-profit companies want to make profit, and CEOs make a lot of money. If Pandora is trying to get into lower royalty rates on a technicality by buying a terrestrial radio station then that's kinda shitty, but saying "they don't pay enough royalties as-is" when they're already paying more than other formats, or "their executives are making too much money" when that doesn't really have anything to do with anything is not a particularly compelling argument.

Why are people listing Wii games in the Wii U thread?

TF2 cards, eh? I have an extra pyro; I need an engineer, medic, soldier, spy, or heavy.

Stuff like this is why I never bother watching E3 stuff first hand. I get all the news in a fraction of the time, and in a more entertaining package to boot! Seriously though what was that dinosaur robot tank game? Because I approve of anything that has all three of those things.

What the hell does "has to phone home to Microsoft's servers at least once every 24 hours" have to do with owning a physical disc instead of a digital download?

No one's complaining about the fact that the Xbone can do more than just play video games. The vast majority of the complaints were about a) the online requirement, the used game shenanigans, c) the Kinect being necessary for the Xbone to function and always on even when the console's not, and d) the extra $100 compared to PS4. The first two are no longer an issue, since Microsoft has gotten rid of them, but the latter two are still legitimate reasons to prefer the PS4 over the Xbone.

Breaking news: Animal Crossing is not a valid replacement for an epidural. Details at 11:00.

I watched the first ten seconds and had to go punch myself in the face because they haven't invented a way to punch people through the internet yet. Holy crap that guy is annoying.

I got it on Saturday, played quite a bit this weekend. I haven't beaten it yet, but to be honest, I'm kinda dissapointed with it. While the voice acting is good and the dialogue is solid -- the characters feel like actual people, reacting realistically to the situation they find themselves in -- the story itself is cliche as hell. None of the major plot points that have come up have been the least bit unexpected, which leads to a sort of "yeah yeah, get on with it" feeling despite the quality of the voice acting. The gameplay itself is by turns tedious (wandering around looking for supplies and/or the area exit -- the level design has lots of twists and turns and nooks and crannies, but the UI has no "objective is in this direction" marker... until it decides that you've wandered too long and it brings up something that points you directly to it) and frustrating (long multi-part stealth sequences with no checkpoints! forcing you into gun battles where you're outnumbered, outgunned, and outflanked!). The immersion -- supremely important in this sort of game -- is pretty bad. The enemy AI will completely ignore your ally characters while you're sneaking -- even if they're literally getting stepped on -- and the game happily ignores its own mechanics in service to the plot. (Gotten in the habit of using the super-listen ability to check around corners and such before moving ahead? Too bad! If the plot calls for you to be ambushed, you will be.) That said, it's not all bad. The crafting system is well done, forcing you to juggle limited resources in a way that doesn't feel arbitrary. Should you use the blade you found to make a shiv, for quick stealth kills? Or use it to improve your makeshift melee weapon, for a one-shot kill? The crafting menu plays out in real-time rather than pausing the action, too, so you might end up desperately trying to put together a medkit before the enemy you're hiding from finds you. The sound design is also amazing -- it really leverages my 5.1 system, and it's possible to locate enemies fairly accurately through sound alone, which is very nice. All in all, I'd say the game is good, but not great. I don't regret the purchase, but if you're on the fence, I'd say wait until you can pick it up used or on sale or something.

Yeah, I don't really think "I prefer same-screen multiplayer to online multiplayer" is a legitimate reason to not include the latter. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and sometimes you can't be in the same room as someone you want to play with. Like if they live across the country, or you know them through an online community rather than having met them face-to-face.

So how about those Wii Us, huh guys?

First of all, I don't think "time trial" means what you think it means. A time trial is basically a speedrun, you're trying to finish the level as quickly as possible. As far as time limits, which is what you're actually describing, though, I completely agree. Artificial time limits and limited lives are both relics of the arcade era, where the goal was to get players to pump as many quarters into the machine as possible. That hasn't been a game design constraint in 30 years -- so why do we still have those mechanics? It's dumb.

A flop (more properly FLOPS) is FLoating-point Operations Per Second -- a teraflop is a trillion of these. It's basically how fast you can do math on numbers with decimal points.

It appears that Microsoft is requiring all Xbone games to tie into their no-used-games system, whereas PS4 is allowing developers to do that if they want. Should a developer not want to participate in that system, then the PS4 version will be DRM-free but the Xbone version will still be restricted to your account. The hell does that have to do with anything?

...what? I mean, it's amusing, but I don't get the analogy. Microsoft was going to destroy Nintendo, but Sony saved them by taking out Microsoft instead? Does not compute.

...like what? Those two things are basically the sum total of restrictions unique to the console.

I work at Disney World. I have no illusions left. Not that I had many in the first place. I was never really a Disney kid. The most recent animated Disney film I've seen is Lion King.

Well, yeah. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't, though looking back that's certainly the impression I gave. No, it's certainly reasonable to be displeased with the idea of an always-on internet-connected camera in your living room; what I object to is a Glenn Beck style conspiracy theory rant about the evils of society methodically taking over all aspects of our culture. Oh, well, there's your problem.

Holy sensationalist fearmongering, Batman!