Stuff I've been eating.

[prog]

JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL was my train-riding book today because I had no other, and I found that the very next chapter addressed the continuing fates of the characters I had taken for forgotten. I stand by my earlier criticism, because there is a very real difference between a reader anticipating missing characters' return, and wondering if the author's simply misplaced them.

LOST continues to be a soup of delightful and spicy meatballs floating in a broth of stale television cliches. Usually I have no palate for it, and sometimes I just have to have five bowls of it. I slurped down a good half-dozen episodes over the last 24 hours, and have three more to go before I know what half my flist is so happy about.

PSYCHONAUTS is wonderful, and is currently a $15 download for XBox 360 users. (I understand PC users can enjoy it via Steam, as well.) I have a lengthy post about it that I may actually finish someday. Suffice to say it's certainly the best written platformer-genre game I've ever played.

RACE FOR THE GALAXY is an amazing card game and I wish to play it again right now. I will almost certainly be purchasing a copy soon.

Comments

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Its great you can download Psychonauts -- otherwise it is a somewhat difficult game to find and it's a shame because it is a very good one.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly very happy that services like XBox Marketplace and Wii Virtual Console are being used to commercially recirculate older games. Video games' shelf-lifespans are so short, and doubly so if they have a marketing SNAFU or whatever the heck happened in Psychonauts' case.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

I agree about Strange & Norrell; I loved it but that was in spite of that sort of "first-book" flaws.

I've seen the Lost finale and I'm not so sure what the big deal is. They've been gradually filling in the pieces lately and it was more of that: good but not sudden.

Psychonauts is awesome and I got it for the PC using the Steam system from Valve (they of Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life and whatnot). I really enjoyed it but then I got stuck on some platformy-type stuff (rolling around on a big marble and doing tricky jumps and hovering) that, to me, get in the way of the story. I love everything about the game except for the running and jumping.

Race for the Galaxy seemed random, confusing and arbitrary to me, but that might be because it was explained to me very poorly while playing in a room full of shouting people.

RftG

[prog.livejournal.com]

Race certainly has a signifcant random element (hurray card games) but it's well balanced and falls together into a very rich meal, offering lots of room for a variety of strategies. It's basically about finding the best combination of actions you can perform using the cards you have, and calculating the cost of getting better cards, combined with trying to second-guess what your opponents will do (which is among my very favorite kinds of game mechanics).

Apparently its first printing is sold out already! I can't wait to get my hands on a copy, after they make some more. I look forward to playing it with you then!

[prog.livejournal.com]

Also, from all that I'd heard about Psychonauts, I was surprised to learn that it's a platformer... I was expecting a more traditional adventure game. And yeah, it took me at least two play sessions to get through the sequence that I believe you're describing. Anyway, definitely a surprising use of the medium.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

And yeah, it took me at least two play sessions to get through the sequence that I believe you're describing

I was referring to the sequence inside the Russian (?) female agent's mind, where it's all set up like a disco/nightclub, and I'm learning about how to hover and roll around. It's been a couple of months since I last tried it so the details are fading.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

It really is testament to Tim Schafer's superb writing that Psychonauts is magnificent despite being a terrible platform game. I am tempted to buy it again on 360 just to make sure they know I want more games like that.

[prog.livejournal.com]

This is interesting... what makes it a bad platformer, for you?

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

Meat Circus. You will know what I mean when you see it.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can say it's a *bad platformer* just because the authors succumbed to the "last level must be stupidly frustrating" fallacy.

It is, overall, a terrific platformer game with a lot of variety, which means that nobody will like all the parts equally. I had trouble with several of the hurry-up-hurry-up levels (not just the last one).