I don't recall Fire Emblem having a class system like this...have I just forgotten?

Anybody know if casual mode is available for any difficulty setting?

Looks like Might & Magic:  Clash of Heroes will be hitting iOS tonight.  I wasn't crazy about this on DS, but might need to give it another look on iPad

Can't wait to play it again. Any particular reason you didn't care for it, Gratch?

And they would get 70% of that, yes? I didn't figure conversion was that high, but yeah, that would be pretty rockin'

I'm curious to see how Colin does after teams get a bit more film on him. Do you think he's going to be the real thing long term? Either way, enjoy the run while it lasts. Harbraughl should be fun.

40 dollars? I'm not sure the 360 release cost that much (it was a budget title...might have been 30, but not sure). Great game, though.

Temple Run 2 has been downloaded 20 million times in less than a week.

Dayum.

That's crazy.  Someone's rich.

How do you figure? You think that many are buying IAP? Are there ads?

Or are the people they keep making this shit for too fucking stupid and they keep buying it all?!

I think you just answered your own question.

Right now I'm torn between this and the new Fate system and its games. Both have a nice emphasis on storytelling, SWEotE with its dice abstraction, and Fate with its give and take, story as character sheet elements.

It's funny how prices have steadily climbed on RPGs in the last decade. People told me I was insane when I put out a 320 page HC book for 40 bucks, but here we are with 60 dollar books, 100 dollar box sets etc. (of course there's much, much more to it than just price point, I just find it interesting).

Playdek sale going on. All games and DLC a dollar, including the everything pack for Summoner Wars.

Is there any way to tell (a la Minesweepers) how many enemies there might be in adjacent squares? Or is it all luck?

Also, is there any way to go back to a previous level? I had one door say I need to bring a lantern, but there was no lantern on that level that I found (or any subsequent one for that matter).

You can't tell how many monsters there are, but there is a little bit of strategy in choosing where to look. There are items you can find that will tell you where traps, chests, keys are, but nothing like that yet for monsters (and i doubt there would be). But most of the strategy comes in when things start to get tougher, and figuring out when to use scrolls, when to dive to the next level vs explore etc.

I didn't listen to your advice. Tried the demo, seemed fun, bought the game. You accomplished exactly the opposite of your goal with that post!

Curses!

Gratch, I can see where it would definitely not be for everybody. For me, it has a great mix of luck and strategy. With a strong "just one more" pull. The character unlocks were a strong motivator for me initially. Now that I have unlocked all the currently available characters, I can work on upgrading them, but we'll see how strong the desire to play remains. Even so, I have burned quite a few hours.

There were some nasty crash issues in the initial release, but the developer got that fixed quickly. There is a known soft-lock condition, that I think they have already submitted a fix for. The dev has also promised to implement a save state as soon as possible (a major oversight, admittedly).

There is so much potential here. I'd love to see more quest variety, more classes, etc. I also think implementing some Talisman-style side dungeons would be really nifty.

If you have any work to get done in the next week or so, do not download Dungelot.
If you an imagine a casual rogue-like, dungeon raid, and minesweeper all tossed into a blender, this is it.
Turn-based on a grid. You tap squares to reveal monsters, chests, traps, etc.
There is no goal, it is a high score game. There are multiple classes w/ skills to upgrade.
Very, very, fun. Do NOT download!

I've noticed some people at NFL.com that are so horrific, my mind can't comprehend that it isn't an act. For instance:

"I MAKE PREDICSHUN FOR SUPER GAME: SEEHAWK GONG WINNED VS RED SKINEDS THEN WIN VS PACKER THEN WIN VS BRONCIES THEN WINNED VS FALCSOCNS IN SUPER GAME. WHAT YOU ALL THEINKS?"

I never once thought this would become a trend for myself. Here it is, I read comments on ign articles. There I said it. I never registered to post, I only read comments.

 They are so "fanboy" drivin, so uneducated, so random. It has, seemingly, taking over my reading on my phone. Maybe one calls it toilet humor. I do, because the only place I read it is in the tiolet. That being said. A said article can be about, for instance, a CPU. After only a page or so of comments this will turn into a argument about the fall of the berlin wall! It literally changes in seconds.

Anyone else have a fetish involving watching the next "car wreck" like this?

Btw, this was posted via my iPhone via the tiolet.

I love going into the posts and finding the dummies who can't spell.  Or who rearrange letters in common words.  It's funny because they'll often write it correctly the first time and then swap two letters in that same word the next time, and you think it's just a typo or something, but then they write the same word a third time and it's the wrong way again.

Takes a special kind of maroon to do that.

That pic looks like it's a miniature version someone built.

Yeah, cool! Reminds me of the opening of BBC's Sherlock in that way.

Sorry for the derail, but yeah, you're right. It looks MUCH more like 2017. Can't wait.

the forthcoming EDF 2025.  

Wait...what?...runs off to look for info

I'm glad that RG3 was walking around after that twisted knee.  

Same. A fair number of injuries in this game. Not surprising given the condition of the field. The Redskins should be embarrassed.

Go Falcons!

You don't have to worry about playing the Seahawks. You're not going to make it past the Packers *ducks*

I've watched the first three episodes and so far it's been entertaining but not something that's going to be that engaging.

It's a guilty pleasure sort of show, if that makes sense. It can be pretty funny at times, and I like the characters, but isn't the sort of thing where you expect the writing to be brilliant.

It has multiple overarching plots, that kind of come and go. Castle and Beckett's relationship, what happened to her mother, Alexis growing up, etc. occasionally one of these will get featured for a bit, then return to the background for a while. For the most part, though, I don't think it is anything that you couldn't jump in and enjoy the show.

Went to see Les Mis the other day, and saw some cool previews. Oblivion looked neat (hey look, Tom Cruise playing another dude named Jack!), Oz looked way more interesting than I would have expected, but the one that really blew us away was the trailer for Star Trek, which looked amazing.

As for the violence vs sex thing, thats a specific US trait. You guys really don't like sex, and really love violence as a nation.

Seriously. Watching people get stabbed, shot, or beaten is routine on network tv, but you won't find nudity. When it has been done (NYPD Blue comes to mind...a show that's been off the air nearly a decade) it was minimal and considered scandalous.

I doubt a lot of people trade in or sells a car or a house after using it for a week.

* CeeKay ducks TiLT's thrown shoe

Clearly, you haven't met my father.

I've always been of the perspective that the used games market is stealing from the developers and publishers.

I don't think it's stealing, but it is drastically changing their business model.  That's why we saw the online pass stuff and the emphasis on online gameplay as it was the way that publishers/developers thought of to recuperate their losses from the huge increase in used games.

It always seems to get lost in these sorts of discussions that at one time GameStop/EB etc did all of their business selling new games. That changed because of shrinking margins for new product. If selling new product were still profitable the way it used to be, they would still be doing it the same way.

I have long maintained that the way to make this work is to focus on DLC. Let GameStop churn used copies over and over. If I, as a game developer/publisher, could capture a few dollars every time they do by selling add-ons (new content, online passes, etc) then everybody wins, customers included.

I can see the niners ending up 12-4 winning the NFC West.

Well, I was close.  Damn the Rams

No, you've got that wrong, it's damn the Cardinals for not beating you guys so we could get the #2 seed *snort*

Looking forward to the game against the Redskins this weekend. Seahawks are a healthier team right now, and that could make the difference here. I'm interested to see how the defense holds up against the 'Skins offense. They've played well against some other mobile QBs, like Kapernick. It will be interesting to see what Washington does defensively, too. Will they bring a bunch of pressure like they did against Dallas, and try to confuse the rookie QB (especially when he got sacked 5 times in the first half last week) or go back to their more usual style?

If that's the wheel I think it is, it's fantastic.

True.  On the other hand look at the pricing for ebooks.  Often just as much as their paper counterparts and ebook readers were the hot time this holiday season.

Yup, thanks at least in part to collusion on the part of Apple and the major publishing houses. Don't mistake me, I firmly believe keeping those prices up is a good thing. We've already lost one of the largest publishing houses in the last year. I don't want to lose them all.

And why should they? Their income from digital sales is dramatically higher than from retail sales. They can go quite low in prices before retail starts looking attractive again. Not to mention that the increase in digital sales will compensate for any reduction in price.

I don't believe for a second that AAA games will go down in price in the coming generation by the way, digital sales or not. iOS is not a good comparison. Not in the slightest.

Yes, they make more from digital sales. I worry about the long term impact on the console environment. I think prices will have to drop. Right now, people can buy downloads as a convenience, but what happens when that is the only option and they don't have retail stores to use as an excuse for not having lower digital prices?

Here's the thing: it's a slippery slope. Once prices start to drop, where do they stop at? You think iOS isn't a good comparison, and you're right, but not for the reason I suspect you think. It's a bad comparison because the user base for the PS4 will be much, much smaller than the install base for iOS.

And if prices don't drop, you have a different problem. If users can't trade their purchases back in, they are in-effect paying more per title (because they can't recoup part of the investment to put toward the next thing). Now, what Sony COULD do is have digital trade-ins (I think Amazon does this?), which would be very interesting.

Sony is most likely going to slowly try and get rid of retail sales in the next generation,

Which would be a catastrophically idiotic move (thus making perfect sense for Sony) because then there would be zero justification for selling downloadable games at traditional retail prices. Just look at the price environment on iOS.

Some great games already mentioned. I'd also through Fallout 3 as one to consider.

Sure thing!

The scenes in which he was trying to get the "memory worm" and kept forgetting to wear the gauntlets was only funny because of his timing.  I actually laughed out loud when he tried the second time while under the cart and yelled out, "Sir, I seem to have been run over by a carriage!" 

I just busted out laughing all over again reading that. He was indeed hysterical.

I haven't been on in months. I was pretty bummed when a bunch of people I knew got let go from the staff. Then Diablo came along, then Borderlands.

Cool. If you have any questions, let me know.

If anyone else has been waiting for a sale on the Borderlands 2 season pass DLC, it is at GMG for $10.50 (15 with a 30 percent off coupon on the front page).

Jenna Louise Coleman is adorably hot

I have named my new iPad "Oswin"

I know we are never going to get rid of guns completely, and people are correct that the second amendment provides the right to bear arms, but I have a solution:

Ban all guns, then grandfather in any technology that existed when the 2nd amendment was written. Let's see somebody slaughter 20 kids with a muzzle-loader.

Btw, this game gets crazy difficult in a hurry.

So nice that we can see the critical hit bonus on Moxxi's Bad Touch. How about now they fix it SO THE DAMNED WEAPON SPAWNS PROPERLY? *headdesk*

Oh, and while I'm making demands, can we fix the bug that causes weapons not to reload when the clips are empty? Kthxbai

At least the base game is free. Demon's Score has a similar structure where there was loads of IAP, except that the base game was sold for 7 dollars (currently on sale for a buck actually, though from what I've heard, it isn't worth even that).

Looking forward to playing it. Maybe they'll make an iOS version as well.