Episode 60 is live.  Enjoy!

Gonna be hard for any game this year to top Infinite in my book.  Had a wonderful time with it and loved the ending. 

I'm all for a good dungeon crawl, but I don't really have the time to devote to a game with such a narrow focus after I've already had my fill and seen everything it has to offer.  I'm enjoying DDS quite a bit, but I'm kinda reaching the end point of my enjoyable interaction with it.  Games like Persona and Xenoblade do a good job of giving you other things to do besides combat and the best games link every system and interaction method together to enhance the overall experience.  So, no, I'm not saying that every game needs to be like this, but these are the games I enjoy the most. 

Episode 59 is live. 

Note: This is what happens when John isn't around to keep us on track!

Drink whenever Stephen says, "I see where you're coming from, but...."

Been playing a bit of the 1.07 patch, and, I gotta say, they've made some massive improvements.  Monster power allows you to tailor the Inferno difficulty to your liking, the Infernal Machine and endgame equipment adds a great deal of incentive for playing over and over again, and the insanity of some of the monsters and the amount of bullshit abilities they have access to has been greatly diminished (though you'll still run into some tough ones on occasion).  I agree that all of this stuff should have been in the final version of the game, but Blizzard has done an admirable job of enhancing the core game and keep people coming back.  Here's hoping the first expansion can add even more! 

Jesus, I don't want to talk about those spiders.  So damn creepy...

Just finished it, and my only real complaints came at the end.  There were some silly jumping puzzles and you can end up completely fucked before the final area if you didn't use all of your money to buy ammo.  Starting another playthrough with the mods suggested above and they certainly make a very positive difference (I also turned off weapon degradation so I don't have to worry about it anymore).  Gotta say, I see why everyone speaks so highly of SS2.  Great stuff!

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yoU worTHless PiLE oF mEAt....

Episode 57 will launch later on today (Sunday).  And a big "Thank you" to Annubis for catching my giant mistake on the last episode!

I can certainly see a lot of the complaints you bring up, Mesh, especially the hacking minigame.  I'm just loving this game's atmosphere and sense of place far more than anything else I've played in a long time.  The Von Braun feels alive and full of character.  This is the reason I loved the Spencer mansion in the original Resident Evil and Rapture in Bioshock.  The Ishimura was the closest thing to a living world since, but even that felt cold and sterile compared to the eeriness of the Von Braun.  

Loving it so far!  There's some rough edges here and there, but overall this game has aged remarkably well.  It's especially interesting as someone who never played it before but loved both Bioshock 1 and 2 (still think Minerva's Den was the best version of Bioshock). 

I'm interested to give it a try.  Playing Thief and the original Deus Ex years after release was kind of hard for me because there have been so many advancements in terms of player control and user interface.  My buddies always say that SS2 felt far more "modern" than most games of that time period, so I'm really excited to try it.  At the very least, there are a ton of mods for the game, so I can surely make something that I'll at least find fun.

And I love old school survival horror, FTR.  My main problems with Deus Ex were the absolutely insane stealth mechanics and Thief's biggest problem was the horrible map interface.  I'm sure there will be some retro creekiness with SS2 and I have a limit for that shit, but I would at least like to try out what some regard as one of the most influential video games of all time. 

Never played SS1 or 2 before, but I'm a huge Bioshock fan and eagerly awaiting Infinite.  I will be buying this from GOG tomorrow for sure.

Also, the listeners have been asking for more retro stuff on the podcast.  Looks like we have a candidate! 

I'm kinda shocked, honestly.  I figured they could at least put together a decent shooter with some fun scenarios.  I was planning on buying this during the summer Steam sale.  Guess I'll be rethinking that one...