Ace of Spades HQ

December 30, 2012

Gaming Thread New Year's Eve Eve Edition
— Gang of Gaming Morons!

Afternoon Morons and Ettes! I hope you are enjoying a pleasant weekend with your friends and family.

This being the last Gaming thread of the Year, Game of the Year discussions are fine. Try really hard not to spoil people. For The Walking Dead, that ends next week. With all the GOTY discussion it's been really fascinating to go through everyone's different choices and how it impacted what was My 2012 GOTY.

So yea, GOTY discussions, but be nice about Spoilers.

I've really been enjoying the coverage and podcasts from Giant Bomb this year. Go check out thier show parody videos which were pretty funny. Also if you are a podcaster, all 5 are very good. Fair warning, the videos spoil the podcasts (not terribly, but you know the winners if you watch the vids)

More Gaming Shiz Below the fold Steam is once again attempting to send me to the Poor house. Great deals abound. Personally I think the THQ bundle is a great deal and you can capitalize on them almost being Bankrupt. I've been playing a grip of Saints Row: The Third, which is like GTA with some bubblegum and popcorn. Pretty fun.

I also gifted some Civ5 DLC to my father (he loves that game), picked up an extra copy of The Walking Dead when it was 50% off to gift it to someone at a later point, and now I'm avoiding the Steam Store. But Deals abound! Go get some stuff on sale!

Eve Stuff:

This is a map of the NullSec Sovereignty map. They also Annotate the wars so you kinda know what is going on.

Here's an Interesting Article from Forbes about Eve thriving in a FTP Market

One of the more hilarious kind of Meta Game things is This. There has been so much crap talked by some of those guys it's pretty unbelievable. There's going to be some quality trolling in the Eve Podcasting Community. Be sure and check out Crossing Zebras and Lost in Eve When they get new episodes up. The amount of trolling is gonna be great. I know the CZ guys are making a Rundle Soundboard.

Decent Eve 2012 Year in Review

For all things Not Eve. Yea. GOTY Stuff. Avoiding going broke on Steam. That sums up my week. Go get FTL and TWD if you haven't.

I'm in the market for a laptop to take on my trip to Iceland for Fanfest. Doesn't nec. have to be a gaming machine as my main focus is on battery life. If you have some suggestions, post those up.

If you have something you'd like to see posted on the weekly Gaming thread send it to aoshqgaming at gmail dot com

So yea. Grab some deals on games, and lets talk 2012 GOTY and what we are looking forward to in 2013. It's going to be an interesting year. If you haven't played Frog Fractions go do that right now. Just Google it.

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 09:30 AM | Comments (65)
Post contains 509 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Game thread should have booth bunnies with sharp elbows.

Posted by: Vic at December 30, 2012 09:28 AM (53z96)

2 Doesn't nec. have to be a gaming machine as my main focus is on battery life. If you have some suggestions, post those up.

I have bought 4 lap tops and everyone of them has torn up at about the same interval regardless of price. Buy the cheapest one you can find at Wal-Mart

Posted by: Vic at December 30, 2012 09:30 AM (53z96)

3 And they were short intervals.

Posted by: Vic at December 30, 2012 09:30 AM (53z96)

4 Sorry, I didn't write anything since I've been writing a best music of 2013 post for another site (Soul Overdue by Martha High and Speedometer is my album of the year)

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 09:31 AM (tw6Ar)

5 Yea. Dude is usually our Cosplay finder. I poked around reddit and was like....I'll just leave that there

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 09:32 AM (zyaZ1)

6 "...do that right now. Just Google it."

Yeah, or you could use even a Non-Evil search engine...

Posted by: Insert Clever Name Here at December 30, 2012 09:35 AM (SS8WM)

7 Played and beat Sleeping Dogs. Fun but I miss the supernatural stuff from True Crime: Streets of LA

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 09:37 AM (tw6Ar)

8 Yea, there was alot of love for Sleeping Dogs out there.

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 09:39 AM (zyaZ1)

9 Just tooling around with Torchlight II -- which is quite simple, but fun. Not intense, at all. I'm an Embermage, my hubby an Engineer. We LAN play. Bought Dishonored over Christmas, but haven't checked it out yet. And, saw a real mistake on a bundle for Bethesda games -- a huge bundle of all the great titles (including Dishonored) misquoted for like $28 versus $280, I suspect. I wonder if anyone actually got it for the $28 price, or whatever it was. A digit was left off. It was a Steam deal that came and went pretty quickly, but the link was dead when I tried to buy it, hehe. Really want to buy Far Cry, and missed a deal on Steam just a few days ago, I hear. bleh

Posted by: beach gamer at December 30, 2012 09:39 AM (LpQbZ)

10 Man this shit is Greek to me. I guess Vic and I can't start a discussion about pong can we?

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at December 30, 2012 09:40 AM (wR+pz)

11 Posted by: beach gamer at December 30, 2012 01:39 PM (LpQbZ) Very few actually got in on the GamersGate "deals", for the most part it just amounted to them taking the cash and making you wait for a refund that we'll hopefully get this week. They also had a Borderlands 2 four pack for $11.25

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 09:43 AM (tw6Ar)

12 Keep an eye on the Store. I'm sure it'll go back on sale at some point.

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 09:44 AM (zyaZ1)

13 Been playing 'Earthbound' on SuperNintendo all week. Wife might be getting me an Intellivision for my birthday

Posted by: zsasz at December 30, 2012 09:45 AM (W50F+)

14 The FarCry Franchise is on sale on Steam for $50

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 09:46 AM (zyaZ1)

15 The WarZ drama goes on and on. That might be game of the year in a negative sense.

Posted by: zimriel at December 30, 2012 09:46 AM (WHCmx)

16 For a fairly cheap laptop with good gaming performance, your best bet is something based on the AMD A8 or A10 APUs. Those are as good as it gets for integrated graphics these days. The CPUs cores are weaker than the competing Intel products but you get four of them are price where you'd most likely have a dual core in an Intel i3 or i5 based machine.

If the games you like are more GPU-bound than CPU-bound, AMD is still competitive in the lower price points.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 09:47 AM (kcfmt)

17 10 I guess Vic and I can't start a discussion about pong can we? --------- Speaking of Pong: http://tinyurl.com/aqlw93u Boffin recreates Pong in hardware from the original schematics.

Posted by: Citizen Anachronda at December 30, 2012 09:47 AM (1c58W)

18 Steam sale has been crap, I've only bought Resonance and Natural Selection 2 so far. Tempted on Mark of the Ninja though

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 09:47 AM (tw6Ar)

19 I am having fun with the Uncharted series, basically how Indiana Jones should have gone down.

Posted by: zimriel at December 30, 2012 09:49 AM (WHCmx)

20 Picked up the God of war collection for PS3 on sale from Amazon for something like $12. My old thumbs can't hit the o fast enough except for one of the titles. Man that pisses me off.

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 09:50 AM (G6kli)

21 I hate stealth games tho

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 09:50 AM (zyaZ1)

22 19 I am having fun with the Uncharted series, basically how Indiana Jones "should have gone down". Posted by: zimriel at December 30, 2012 01:49 PM (WHCmx) On the Indian kid?

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 09:50 AM (G6kli)

23 Yaaaaay, perfect timing!

I've got some Christmas cash to use and I'm currently browsing through Steam now for some new games to add.

Anyone play L.A. Noire? It seems a bit gruesome for my tastes but I could SWEAR I saw John Noble's face in the trailer, which alone makes me want to get it.

Also checking out some nostalgic options such as the Back to the Future series and a modern game that uses the famous pixelized art that made Monkey Island and certain Lucasfilm games famous.

Any recs on adventure games in particular to play?

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 09:51 AM (+AV7H)

24 13 Been playing 'Earthbound' on SuperNintendo all week. Wife might be getting me an Intellivision for my birthday Posted by: zsasz at December 30, 2012 01:45 PM (W50F+) Ever play Berzerk on Atari?

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 09:52 AM (G6kli)

25 My first exposure to Pong was a table version in a bar at the bottom of the London Lodge near Jack London Square in Oakland, CA.

That was in the mid-70s. I am told that it is not safe to go there anymore.

Posted by: Vic at December 30, 2012 09:52 AM (53z96)

26 23 Any recs on adventure games in particular to play? STALKER. Still one of the best games ever made.

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 09:53 AM (G6kli)

27 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764429/

John Noble is indeed part of the L.A. Noire cast.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 09:53 AM (kcfmt)

28 Amazon also has a few game sales: http://tinyurl.com/6mnjonf

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 09:56 AM (+AV7H)

29 John Noble is indeed part of the L.A. Noire cast.
**************************

That's effing awesome. He's pretty much the only reason I watch Fringe.

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 09:57 AM (+AV7H)

30 Tried Frog Fractions. Really disappointed that I lost just before I could qualify for the Presidential Pool.

Posted by: Captain Whitebread at December 30, 2012 09:57 AM (5J54Q)

31 #24

I did. I remember it had the SAM effect. SAM was Software Automatic Mouth, a voice synthesizer in software that had to turn off the ANTIC chip and blank the screen to grab enough clock cycles to do its thing. Berzerk had voice like the arcade but had to freeze the game for each utterance.

That was on the 400/800/5200. The VCS had no voice, IIRC.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 09:58 AM (kcfmt)

32 That Pong reborn is so cool. How does one possibly "debug" an actual PCB like he did? Beyond me, that's for sure.

Posted by: Eric at December 30, 2012 09:59 AM (DWLi5)

33 17 10 I guess Vic and I can't start a discussion about pong can we? --------- Speaking of Pong: http://tinyurl.com/aqlw93u Boffin recreates Pong in hardware from the original schematics. Posted by: Citizen Anachronda at December 30, 2012 01:47 PM (1c58W) Dude watch All watched over by machines of loving grace. First glimpse of how social networking can be used to manipulate the masses was from a PONG experiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_%28TV_series%29 http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/may/06/adam-curtis-computers-documentary In 1991, a computer engineer from California called Loren Carpenter organised a mass experiment in a huge shed. Hundreds of people were each given a paddle, and told nothing. But on a big screen in front of them was projected a game of Pong Â– a very basic computer game, where a ball is knocked back and forth on a screen, like table tennis. Each half of the audience jointly controlled the bat on their side of the screen; they had to operate it together and, spontaneously and without discussion, they successfully played a game of Pong, whooping and cheering at their collective collaboration. "It was like a switch went in my head," Curtis says. "Carpenter saw it as a world of freedom with order. But I suddenly saw it as the opposite Â– like old film of workers toiling in a factory. They weren't free Â– they looked like disempowered slaves locked to a giant machine screen. It was a video game, which made it fun, but it still made me wonder whether power had really gone away in these self-organising systems, or if it was just a rebranding. So we became happy components in systems Â– and our job is to make those systems stable."

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 09:59 AM (G6kli)

34 Checking out Stalker. A game name after mine own heart.

Also downloaded Arkham City, FINALLY. Playing Catwoman is...

I'll be in my bunk.

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 10:00 AM (+AV7H)

35 Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 01:51 PM (+AV7H) Gemini Rue The Book of Unwritten Tales Momento Mori Machinarium Botanicula Amnesia (though this isn't a point and click but a fps adventure game) Jane jensen's Gray Matter

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 10:01 AM (tw6Ar)

36 Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 02:00 PM (+AV7H) Remember to download the Complete mods for the STALKER series

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 10:03 AM (tw6Ar)

37 34 Dude STALKER is strangely humanizing. First game I ever regretted having to kill someone for a mission. Even the singing NPC's are endearing. A couple of years ago I was screwing around with the game. I'd just started, didn't even start the first mission, and killed one of the Army. The Black Ops unit was sent into the little STALKER town. I hid in a house and picked them off one by one. Running between concealing spots at various windows and slipping out fast to retrieve ammo. Took me hours and I must have killed thirty enemies. Of course they devastated the town, but hey shit happens. Lot's of loot.

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 10:05 AM (G6kli)

38 Have Gemini Rue in my cart already. Tanks for affirming that decision.

I'm checking with Steam package has the complete STALKER with DLC now...

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 10:05 AM (+AV7H)

39 #33

Loren Carpenter was also the guy who created the Genesis Sequence animation for Star Trek II and applied the same fractal techniques to the first Lucasfilm game, Rescue on Fractalus. (Also known as Behind Jaggi Lines in early versions that found their way into the community.) It did amazing stuff on an Atari 800.

He also co-authored a book with David Fox on computer graphics which used the Atari for examples you could run at home. I forget the title but it was a hugely educational experience. I learned more of continuing value from that single book than any other technical volume I've ever read.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 10:06 AM (kcfmt)

40 Yeah, really dug Gemini Rue though the few action scenes are clunky and it makes you wish Blade Runner wasn't stuck in licensing hell so GOG can't rerelease it

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 10:07 AM (tw6Ar)

41 31 #24 I did. I remember it had the SAM effect. SAM was Software Automatic Mouth, a voice synthesizer in software that had to turn off the ANTIC chip and blank the screen to grab enough clock cycles to do its thing. Berzerk had voice like the arcade but had to freeze the game for each utterance. That was on the 400/800/5200. The VCS had no voice, IIRC. Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 01:58 PM (kcfmt) Dude this Berzerk? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yej3M9Ec8Cg

Posted by: Mike Hunt at December 30, 2012 10:09 AM (G6kli)

42 The Sherlock Holmes collection is a good buy since its cheaper than buying the good ones out of it (Awakened, Jack the Ripper and Mummy

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 10:12 AM (tw6Ar)

43 YATZEE!

Posted by: Truck Monkey at December 30, 2012 10:13 AM (jucos)

44 #32

Very slowly and tediously. The prototypes are masses of wire forming the connections between the components rather than traces on the board. Even then, one of the pictures shows a jumpered correction.

I didn't take electronics courses until the day when cheap SPICE apps were widely available. That machines like the early Apples and Atari got made is just stunning when one considers the labor involved.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 10:14 AM (kcfmt)

45 Asura's Wraith is just over $18 on Amazon. Very much worth the money for its absurdity in over the top shit. Just be prepared to buy the DLC so you can get the ending

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 10:20 AM (tw6Ar)

46 Squids is on sale at Amazon for 2 bucks. Angry Birds + Final Fantasy Tactics. It comes with a $5 off coupon (usable in January) for games which will cost more than $5 more than they are now.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at December 30, 2012 10:22 AM (qkP36)

47 The Testament of Sherlock Holmes looks pretty good as well, but too new to have a decent price break though.

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 10:24 AM (+AV7H)

48 #41

That is the VCS 2600 version.

Doing anything on the VCS was insane. The approach to programming the machine was wildly different from almost anything with more resources. You didn't have a screen in the sense of any modern system. It couldn't as there were only 128 bytes of RAM. Everything except the Player-Missles (the Atari version of hardware sprites that had a very similar implementation on the Amiga thanks to the same man being the main chip designer) was done algorithmically. This meant everything you could accomplish was based on the operations you could perform while the TV was drawing the image. The reason a lot of games flickered badly is that there just wasn't enough time to calculate all of the objects before the beam had moved on to drawing the lower areas of the screen.

There is a great book for those with an interest called Racing the Beam that details what it was like creating VCS games.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 10:25 AM (kcfmt)

49 Get an ASUS with an Aluminum case. They shed heat like you wouldn't believe.

Posted by: Butters at December 30, 2012 10:26 AM (NIZHJ)

50 Just got both Bioshock games for 10bucks on steam. They have this really cool campy feel to them similar to Fallout 3 that I always loved. Plus, you get to see what the world would be like if Ayn Rand was in charge.

Posted by: Gozer the Gozarian at December 30, 2012 10:40 AM (nD2pm)

51 Bioshock games for 10bucks on steam. They have this really cool campy feel to them similar to Fallout 3 that I always loved. Plus, you get to see what the world would be like if Ayn Rand was in charge.

*******************************************

What struck me was the creative and inventive ways that you could kill people. The little girls were seriously creepy though.

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 10:43 AM (+AV7H)

52 joined eve a month ago after reading about it here. awesome game. it is threateningto take over my life. i might go willingly.

Posted by: Dogstar at December 30, 2012 10:44 AM (2MnmS)

53 I'm not getting why the bundle deal on Stalker is more expensive. It has two games included yet buying them separately would be $4-5 cheaper, and there's no mention of the bundle including any additional DLC to justify the added cost.

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 10:46 AM (+AV7H)

54 Adventure games can be hard to find on Steam, because they have no idea what the word "category" or any of the words delineating "categories" mean. Most of their "adventure" category are side-scrolling action games, casual action or puzzle games, or puzzle games (as in jigsaw or matching, not adventure). They have / have had some adventure games on pretty good sales, though, like the Broken Sword trilogy, some of the Monkey Island and other old Lucas games (Loom, The Dig, etc), Resonance, the Sherlock Holmes games (some are more puzzley). Psychonauts and Insectiside are "blended arcade and adventure" games, but cheap. On the action-rpg side, Mass Effect 2 is $5 today.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at December 30, 2012 10:52 AM (bxiXv)

55 I want a Primordia daily or flash sale since it was denied in the community vote

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 10:54 AM (tw6Ar)

56 Yeah the category filtering on Steam is worthless. Instead I use adventuregamers.com to keep track of new games I might be interested in, then check for them on Steam.

I remember The Dig, damn that takes me back to simpler times.

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 10:58 AM (+AV7H)

57 "...do that right now. Just Google it."

Yeah, or you could use even a Non-Evil search engine...

Use DuckDuckGo. No tracking, no filter bubbles, no ads.

Posted by: Huusker at December 30, 2012 11:00 AM (PaKLC)

58 Walking Dead, 5 episodes for $19, hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Posted by: Christina Hendricks's Mighty Jugs Will Replace The New Year's Ball at December 30, 2012 11:05 AM (+AV7H)

59 Its worth it. Plus you'll be able to join in the decision discussion next week

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 11:15 AM (zyaZ1)

60 Not worth it at that price. It's been $12 for pc version plenty of times

Posted by: The dude at December 30, 2012 11:16 AM (tw6Ar)

61 Yea. If you can get it cheaper, then obv

Posted by: Zakn at December 30, 2012 11:17 AM (zyaZ1)

62 The five episode set of Walking Dead was $10 on Xbox Live a couple days ago.

I've been finding some hidden gems on the Wii for very cheap. For instance, a used copy of either season of Sam & Max is only $5 used at GameStop. They were having a B2G1 Free deal on used Wii games when I was there yesterday but that may have ended with new promotions starting today.

The Wii had a vast amount of garbage or stuff suitable only for small children but there are some good items in there beyond the Nintendo franchises, especially now that the prices are getting reasonable.

Posted by: epobirs at December 30, 2012 11:54 AM (kcfmt)

63 OH YEAH!
Vikings are self destructing!

Posted by: David K at December 30, 2012 02:58 PM (zb6pn)

64 Resonance and Machinarium I think are great adventure games to recommend to people who aren't into the genre. Besides their great worlds and stories, their puzzles are all pretty rational (usually not the case for many adventure games). Well, except for the bird on the wire in Machinarium. I really enjoyed the Deponia games as well. They do feel like they've lost something in translation from German (bits of dialog here and there make no sense whatsoever), but they're still pretty clever and funny.

Adventure game fans should check out GOG's collection as well http://www.gog.com/catalogue/adventure (they're having a winter sale too). Granted there's a lot of overlap with Steam's, but they have some gems that Steam is missing.

Posted by: some guy at December 30, 2012 09:40 PM (BCYnA)

65 I have been thoroughly addicted to Awesomenauts, which is like DOTA (which I haven't played, but people tell me) as a side-scrolling action platformer. I don't remember ever getting hooked on a game like I am with this, it gets deep into my brain.

The 3 games from the Playstation 2 console generation that I kept coming back to and replaying over and over are all on Steam now for fairly cheap: Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, and GUN. I could probably almost lump the Prince of Persia trilogy of that generation (also on Steam for very cheap) in there as well.

Posted by: some guy at December 30, 2012 09:50 PM (BCYnA)

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