I would totally change Xen. In fact, I would make a lot of changes from the point the alien soldiers arrive, they're total bullet sponges and Xen becomes a real slog.
How odd, I started up Half-Life yesterday without having read this or watched ZP. I have to disagree with candide on the controls. HL defaults to run mode and there's no sense of weight to your character. He feels like a puck on an air hockey table, sliding all over the place. And I had forgotten about the weird ladder grappling. Climbing down a ladder is best achieved by walking off the edge, falling and then steering toward the ladder, at which point you become glued to it until you shimmy too far left or right. Xen was okay. I think over time it's gained a reputation for being a lot worse than it really is. The game still should have ended back at Black Mesa, though. All said, Half-Life really nails the atmosphere of dread and chaos as you work your way through the Black Mesa compound. So many great set pieces. And crates to smash.
One thing I remember about HL1 is that Hard difficulty screws up the .357. The .357 has a lot of drawbacks, which it offsets with its ability to one-shot a lot of enemies on Normal difficulty. When it can no longer do that, the high recoil, 6 shot limit and the slow reloads make it inferior to most other weapons.
Good lord no, it's awesome against soldiers. The time between shots is when you've moved back behind a crate or something.
I was curious once and looked up the etymology of "fuck this noise." This was a while ago but irrc there was some scanty attestation among WWII soldiers and better attestation for soldiers during the Vietnam War. But I'm kind of wondering if the modern usage mostly comes from The Blues Brothers. I seem to recall hearing it from hip and/or hep cats predominantly, although obviously Yahtzee just skewed things wildly towards nerd.
Remember how Yahtzee mentioned Sleeping Dogs at the end of the last show? Well, it's Sleeping Dogs this week.
Not to reopen old wounds, but the music is really annoying on ZP. Not the music itself (though that's terrible) but the volume. I find that I have to turn my speakers way down during the intro for the music to be at a reasonable level, and then way back up again to be able to hear anything Yahtzee says. Obnoxious.
I wouldn't call it opening old wounds so much as burying yourself under a mountain of dumbass baggage.
Yahtzee goes modscene this week with DayZ, and I somehow completely missed that he did Darksiders 2 last week, too.
No ZP this week? It's normally updated on Wednesdays, but unless somethings wonky with my browser, I'm still seeing DayZ from last week.
They had that EscapistExpo thing last weekend, so I'm guessing that bumped their regular content schedule for this week.
Resident Evil 6! I stopped playing at RE4, when they turned the series into an action game (good as it was). Did it ever get any better?
RE 4 was so much of a better game than anything that preceded it that it's impossible for me to be too nostalgic for what came before. RE6 was kind enough to remind me of that by including Code Veronica HD, which is such a godawful mess of a game that I doubt even a full-fledged Gamecube style remake could salvage it without changing it entirely; they certainly did relatively little with Zero despite good intentions. So, four is the peak of moving the RE structure into an exciting, tense, and yet player-friendly format. It also has an unbelievably well-developed setting despite the inherent silliness of the plot. RE5 goes in a more action-oriented direction, but it also has a lot to offer in terms of setting and carefully paced, shoot and move tactical management of combat. It has one of the most well put together versions of traditional coop I've ever played. Basically you stopped playing at the right time, and some day you will do something so good in life that you'll deserve the ability to appreciate them and a chance to redeem yourself.
And this week it's Dishonored, with a special guest appearance by Noam Chomsky! Edit: And his rant about silent protagonists reminded me of just how badly it stuck out in the later Suikoden games. It wasn't the biggest of S4's many other faults, but there's an early scene where someone dies in your presence, some guards burst in demanding to know what's going on for the obvious plot-driving misunderstanding, and all you do in your own defense is silently wave your arms around. S5 was a far better game, but a lot of the cutscenes still feel 'off', with everyone chatting around you and talking directly to you, but you just stand there smiling and grinning widely and beaming at them mouth agape, making it seem like you're the poor mentally retarded cousin that they're all just humouring.
Perhaps that was the vibe they were shooting for? Perhaps the designers of Suikoden are more skilled than you're giving them credit for.
"Sorry, when is this going to get back to stabbing people?" "...what is it with you and stabbing people?" "WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND NOT STABBING PEOPLE?"
Today Yahtzee mentioned porridge twice. Oh, and he reviews Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. He's really at his best when he completely despises a game.
I feel like Spec Ops: The Line made every CoD style game irrelevant, and it appears Yahtzee does too.
I vaguely hope that the SGW (spunk-gargle-weewee) moniker sticks. It's catchy and informative, like when a new RPG game gets announced but then you find out it's an "MMO" and that tells you most everything you need to know about it.
This week, he finally gets around to that WiiU Thingamabob and reviews ZombiU! Previous missed weeks were some game named Far Cry 3 and Hitman: Destroying a Series.
It's time for the best and worst of Yahtzee's 2012! For those lazy cunts who don't want to watch the funny, here is a spoiler list:
This week, Paper Mario: Sticker Star. "Fuck no, what do you think this is, some kind of multinational entertainment corporation?"
