wow, talk about confusing.  everyone seems to have wildly different opinions on this one! 

is there a neutral and objective reviewer that people agree with (or at least believe them to be sincere most of the time) floating around the 'net?

Maybe the reviews are different because *GASP* people have different opinions on the game. A shocking idea I know, but it could be true.

while i would normally agree with you, the divergent reports about something that can easily be verified like the framerate issues noted above leads me to believe that may not be the only reason for the inconsistencies. 

by the way, sorry i pissed in your wheaties this morning.   

wow, talk about confusing.  everyone seems to have wildly different opinions on this one! 

is there a neutral and objective reviewer that people agree with (or at least believe them to be sincere most of the time) floating around the 'net?

For the price of just one ass-raping, we'll sell you a game that you can buy used at EBGames for $10 less. 

Heck, they'll probably throw in 200 points worth of achievements, just to sell to the achievementards.

what's the standard ass raping rate, by the way?  can you buy an ass rape in a package deal, if you were so inclined?  tell me more, i'm intrigued by your ass raping service.   

sigh...i'm spending WAY too much on gaming the last two months.  I know, I know...a common sentiment around these parts.   

i'm going to hold off on assassin's creed and warhammer 40K:SC until I see some reviews.  I'll probably pick up Crysis sometime this week on sale at CC. 

[High School]

I just had a couple of my really good friends from High School (who I talk to off and on) call me and ask if my brother and I were getting Hellgate London. 

"We should all hook up and play together.  It would be fun!" they say.

Guess that takes me right off the fence, now doesn't it?

I love that aspect of our hobby, truth be told.

I'm jealous. I don't have one friend in real life who plays computer games. All together now...AWWWWWW....
Seriously though, I'm sure I would be enjoying this hobby so much more with real-life friends interested in it as well.

i know we've butted heads before elsewhere, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a game or two together.  add me to your friend's list, if you'd like.  i have two characters so far:  saij and caij.  i'll probably make up a third tonight and go with the highly imaginative name gaij.   

I'm down for whenever, but as a disclaimer I'm going to kick your ass.

Nah, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully use young guys aren't left out of the loop, however.

you have to be THIS high to ride this attraction...

 

Finally received my copy in the mail.  The discs are scratched all to hell, but I'm going to see if it's playable after work so that I can at least join in on Friday.  My wife is in as well. 

   did you get the infamous legendary edition or something?

updated 9/27/07

I picked mine up at Walmart at lunch.  I guess they were open at midnight last night, but I didn't care that much.  What was weird is that they escorted me and another buyer up front and had an employee stand with us until the cashier was clear.  Seemed awfully inefficient.

how many times have i told you to take the bloody ski mask OFF when you go into a store!?

 

just posted over in MP that I got my copy at lunch, even though I swore i wouldn't be swayed by the hype machine. 

you may commence killing me whenever you please....

I am weak.  I broke down and picked up halo 3 at lunch today.  If you guys are on this friday night, i'll try and get my butt on there so you have a slow, easy target...

i think i've been spoiled by Bioshock...   

Had a friend pick this one up for me at Gencon this year.  We gave it a couple of tries the following Saturday night.  I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed in it. 

The concept of the game and the history behind it are fun.  It's the execution that left me a bit wanting.

The board's much touted "pathfinder" system sounds great in theory, but the colors are a little hard to determine without getting up close.  And god forbid you're playing in a room without a main light directly overhead.  Combined with some issues of doors looking like walls, and vice versa, and you've got the makings of some confusing movement rounds.

Also, the rules are a little...well...odd.  You can tell that it was translated from the another language due to some syntax issues, but the way you have to jump around to different sections just to get rules for something that SHOULD be in one area (combat rules, for example, should be covered in a section called "combat", I would think.  Not chopped up and placed in various other sections throughout the manual, as it stands now) is annoying.

As for the combat itself, the meat of the game, it plays like Heroscape with an extra page of rules.  It really needs enhancement to become something more than it is, which is basically a very light miniatures game.  Of course, that could've been the intent the whole time.  I just expected more from it, I guess.  Hopefully the expansions add some new rules, new characters, boards, etc.. 

check out the Octopus Overlord Everything But Gaming forum for updates, or I'll try to update here as they're posted there.  I don't have an exact address as of yet for the church.  But it is on the near north side, as far as i can tell.

Link:
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=54983

Address:
6525 W. Irving Park Road in Chicago, at Irving Park Rd. and Narrganset Rd.

D'OH!  and i'm one of the chicago guys who's been involved with this since hentzau brought it up in an e-mail a week or so ago.   

check out the Octopus Overlord Everything But Gaming forum for updates, or I'll try to update here as they're posted there.  I don't have an exact address as of yet for the church.  But it is on the near north side, as far as i can tell.

as posted over on OO, we chicagonites are planning a "mini-con".  Since GT and OO have a long and friendly relationship, it only seems natural to let you folks in on it, too.    

Here's the original post from hentzau, in case anyone from GT wants to attend. 

Update: 9/27/07

What: OctoCon Chicago 2007

When: Saturday, November 3rd, 2007, 9:00 AM to Midnight

Where: United In Faith Church, 6525 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL

Why: Games, games, games!!!

Who: OOers, spouses, and friends

The Skinny:

We wanted to try and spread the gaming love beyond our Chicago borders, so we (the boardgaming contingent of the Chicago OO'ers) have broken out of our basement and into my church, and are inviting everyone here to come and play!

The Facilities:

I have acquired the use of the fellowship hall and lounge of my church for us to use for a gaming day. Cost of using said room is whatever donation you care to make, so I would like everyone attending to make a donation of some sort. Don't care how much, just a donation, however much you want to give. (Note that this is NOT manditory, just if you feel like donating, donate!)

My church also houses a food pantry that feeds a couple of hundred families on the northwest side of Chicago. I am currently working up the possibility of getting a raffle prize that we will give away for anyone making a dontation of canned goods at the door. More on this if I can get something firmed up.

The church is a converted printing plant, so the main fellowship hall is inside of the main plant space. It is large and roomy and doesn't look very church like (except for the statue of Jesus that will be staring out at the room the whole time. Hoping this might deter cheating.) We will have access to over a dozen 4X8 tables, and more could be grabbed if needed. It is totally handicap accessable. There is a soda machine in the fellowship hall that we are free to use. There is also a kitchen that is part of the hall, we should be able to use the refrigerator there for soda and snacks.

The lounge is right off of the fellowship hall, with couches and places to relax if you are not playing a game at the time. There is a 35" TV in there, so if someone so desired we could have video games running in there during the down times as well.

Food:

There are a number of restaurants in the area. Across the street is a Burger King, a Subway, a Dunkin Donuts, and a chinese fast food restaurant. Down the street is a gyros/hot dog place, a typical Chicago corner greek restaurant, a bar, and another Chinese place (non-fast food).

There are two grocery stores right by the church, a large chain store, and a smaller Polish market, for your junk food needs. You can bring your own munchies and soda in with you.

I have been thinking that we may do something like this. I would provide 3-4 dozen donuts and coffee for breakfast in the morning, on a first come first serve basis. Everyone would be responsible for their own lunch, but we have a wide selection. For dinner, we could have everyone that wants to eat chip in $5 (or whatever the total may be) and we would order a bunch of Giordano's Chicago Style pizzas for a buffet dinner. But like I said, that's just an idea at this point, we could once again disperse and have everyone do their own thing for dinner.

Alcohol:

I'm still waiting to hear if we could have beer in the church. Lutherans generally like beer, but i need to hear from the church council/building committee to see if there is an insurance liability if we do that.

Regardless, there are a number of neighborhood-style bars and pubs around the church.

Lodging:

Link to Google Maps showing hotels in the area

I've checked out a couple of no-name hotels in the area. Most are kinda on the rundown side, but are probably fine, in the general sense of the term.

The closest motel is the LP Motel, 4605 N Harlem Ave, Harwood Heights. Room rate is $65 a night for two queen beds. This motel is about 5 minutes from the church. Number for the motel is (708) 457-0600. No guarantees about quality, it looks pretty beat up and run down from the outside.

However, if you are wanting to go the inexpensive route, I'd recommend the Motel 6 at 9408 Lawrence Ave in Schiller Park. It's also $65 a night for two queen beds. Disadvantage is that it is more like 15-20 minutes from the church. If I were coming here and didn't want to stay in a fancier hotel, that would be my first choice. Phone number is (847) 671-4282.

If you want to stay someplace with historic significance, why not stay at the hotel were OJ cut his hand on the broken piece of glass, and not on a big old butcher knife? Stay at the Ramada Plaza O'Hare! 5615 N. Cumberland Ave., Chicago, IL
(773) 693-5800. No idea about rates, but, here's another little secret...you'll be staying mere minutes away from where John Wayne Gacy lived!!!

Otherwise, lots of hotel choices all very close because we are near O'Hare. Just look at the map link I provided and use whatever cheap lodging deals you can find!

List of games so far:

Talisman - Zarathud
Game of Thrones - Snow
Tide of Iron - Snow
Call of Cthulhu RPG - Snow
AT-43 - Friend of Zarathud's
Tannhauser - Hentzau
Heroscape - Chaosraven and Hentzau
Arkham Horror - Hepcat

Would like to see run:

Cosmic Encounters
Twilight Imperium III (was said almost in jest, but I'll throw this out there anyway...)
Last Days on Earth

Open Pick up and Play games:

Carcassonne
Munchkin
Apples to Apples
Cineplexity

Attendees:

Confirmed:

Hentzau
Hepcat
Jeff V
Snow
Seppe
Zarathud
Chaosraven

Thinking about it

Zaxxon
Remus West
Lord Mortis
JimDave
ImLawBoy
Stimpy
Windows95
Orgull
Archinerd
(plus some random other non-OO folks)

If I misinterpreted anyone's status, please let me know.

More info as we go along!!! 

come on, spill it, oblivion boy!   make with the initial impressions or be prepared to have your every post dogged by yours truly!

[Spoiler]

I still haven't decided what to do in terms of harvesting the little sisters-I am right before the first decision and I just can't decide. I know I am going to play through this multiple times on different platforms-that much is a given-the question is simply whether I want my first run through to be harvesting or not-someone said you get a lot more stuff eventually by harvesting...so, since I am playing on normal maybe thats better left for hard? Or maybe not harvesting is better left for the PC runthrough so I can aim and fight more easily?

Anyone have any tips for me? I am playing a game of football now and trying to decide whether or not to go pick up the PC version and play through that first.

I'm playing it as a good guy the first time around and sparing the little ankle biters.  here's what to look forward to if you go that route:

Spoiler for Hiden:

if you choose to not kill the little sisters, tannenbaum (or whatever her name is) will eventually reward you with some pretty cool toys and some extra ADAM...

Personally, I like the hacking mechanic, and find it a fun and rather tense mini-game, but there are several safes I have found that I would classify as hard, if only because you start with two looping sections and have to immediately find and open up a new path. It's not easy.

ditto.  love the hacking mini-game and actually look forward to safes, health stations, vending machines, etc...

hey, what the heck am i doing wrong?  i have a cleric and i equipped him with the spiritual weapon spell.  however, when he casts it, it just sits there and does absolutely nothing.  no attack, no movement, nada.  do i need to do something after casting the darn spell?

Well, picked it up yesterday after trading in some recently completed 360 games.  So far it really does play like a handheld version of Temple of Elemental Evil, and that's fine by me.   

To be honest, the interface hasn't really bugged me as much as I thought it would.  It's functional, allows me to get where I'm going fairly quickly and doesn't take up screen acreage.  However, the shop desperately needs a filter!  Scrolling through hundreds of items to buy is just annoying.  Give me the option to look at only weapons or potions when I want, darn it. 

Like Jarrod, my main character is a psychic warrior.  Lovin' his powers so far.  Very fun!

will the 360 version come with the patches applied?  or would you basically be buying a broken game?

but the US release come with patch 1.5 which is at least 1 gig of fixes.

 

i was interested in two worlds and considered it a day 1 purchase for quite some time.  however, when they pushed back the release a month or two ago for both 360 and PC, I started seeing some pretty frightening reviews/previews indicating that it was just too buggy and fell  way too short of what the developers initially promised.

i think i'll hold out for some reviews before i get this one now.

If i absolutely loved the gameplay in Temple of Elemental Evil (and I mean LOVED), should I get this game?

I just paid off the balance on my pre-order from Liongames.com.  Let's hope they're reputable.  The majority vote on cheapassgamer.com is that they are.  at a pre-order price of 39.99, i couldn't resist trying them at least once.

sigh...had my first freeze up in a game last night with my 2nd system that I just got less than 2 months ago.... 

let's hope this is the exception and not the rule.  but this is how it started before when my first one went bad.

microsoft should be sued for this kind of shoddy workmanship, imho.   

God I hate the Celsius way of telling temperature.. Is there any way to get the world to use the more precise Fahrenheit system? Metrication is the devil!!!!!

lol...is that the great artie lange in your avatar?  RM9 would have a fit if you used that over at OO.   

oh, and add hepcat1 to your XBLive friend's list, ya punk.  i didn't even realize you were on there.

[Spoiler]

holy jumpin' giant monsters, batman.  forget everything else. check out their link to the trailer for the movie D-War in their tabletop gaming section!  http://gaygamer.net/tabletop_gaming/ 

i think i just lost all control of my bodily functions... 

Could you send the link over here the.... I apologies, but I did try. However the first sentence on that web site just made me lose control of my digestive system .

Spoiler for Hiden:

For boys who like boys who like joysticks!

seems like I still got some ways to go.......Sorry 

here

although you DO realize extreme homophobia usually masks some latent issues, right?

 

he he, that was fantastic! 

i really am ticked off at microsoft for releasing the 360 with such shoddy workmanship under the hood.   

 

holy jumpin' giant monsters, batman.  forget everything else. check out their link to the trailer for the movie D-War in their tabletop gaming section!  http://gaygamer.net/tabletop_gaming/ 

i think i just lost all control of my bodily functions... 

i think some of us over at OO were planning on playing tonight around 8 or 9 central (9 or 10 eastern).  since the cross pollination between OO and GT is high, especially on the 360 front, that means you're all invited as well.   

Probably nothing.  Am interested in hearing about Vampire Rain... although the lack of buzz to date is not reassuring.  Might pick up Overlord as I blew through The Darkness and to date no one has shown any interest in trying out the MP.

same here.  i put off The Darkness and Overlord for Vampire Rain since my budget was compromised thanks to unseen expenses this past month.  but the fact that i'm not hearing any buzz is definitely making me reconsider a day 1 purchase.  the concept of a splinter cell type stealth game with vampires makes me drool, but it could very well turn out to be horrible.   

edit:  upon seeing a few screenshots on IGN, i have to say it's not exactly the prettiest game around.  it looks like Metal Gear Solid circa 2003.  i can forgive that if the gameplay is good, though.

i haven't been able to get into OO for the last 30 minutes or so.  are they having issues today?

edit: never mind, it appears to be okay for me again.

I'm hoping some of you are on tuesday night for a little pre-fourth fun...   

I spent the better part of this weekend playing this game on my 360.  I'm about 9 hours in and I've only completed 45 percent of the game.  Personally, i'm having a LOT more fun with it than I thought I would.  Sure, the controls could use some work (I HATE activating web crawl instead of webbing someone up when i'm fighting near a wall 'cause they share the same darn button), but those complaints don't amount to a gamebreaker for me. 

It's a B2G1 free sale on all used stuff until june 9th now. 

I just replaced my first 360 a couple weeks ago.  It started freezing up on me and it just got worse and worse until eventually it was freezing up during boot.

Fortunately, I had the best buy 2 year replacement plan.  Unfortunately, it cost me another 60 bucks to get a new 2 year replacement plan.

However, if this 360 breaks I'm seriously thinking of selling all my xbox games and going over to a PS3.  Perhaps if Microsoft starts losing noticeable numbers of customers to Sony due to the crappy failure rate on the 360 and their inability to provide a meaningful solution, things may change.

...although i doubt it.   

what a coincidence!  i found this used at my local GS on saturday for 12.99 in perfect condition.  Snapped it up as well as a brand new copy of another great, BC game Phantom Dust (for only 5 bucks, i might add).

it was a red letter day for console games for me.   

I think unbreakable is confusing the 360 version with the PC version in terms of price. 

I put in some more time this weekend with it and I've come to the conclusion that it's just not worth 60 bucks.  if they'd released this at 29.99 it would've been okay, but 60 is way too much for what you get.  I may trade this one in before it loses any value at GS, then pick it up when it hits the 20 buck bin. 

However, if they consistantly add maps and other content to the game via DLC (FREE DLC, i might add, for anything less than a full expansion) than that will take a bit of the edge off the price point they currently have.

Well the whole team was nuked so this isn't likely

WHAT??!???!

i didn't know that!  man, that sucks!  have they turned it over to another team of developers for support, or is it just an orphan without a home now?