Kickstarting this game has been worth it for the documentary episodes alone.  They are uniformly great. 

The Onion is there!  http://www.theonion.com/articles/embarrassed-sony-ceo-announces-new-video-game-syst,31380/

I'm really surprised no one picked up Vigil.  I know Darksiders 2 didn't sell as well as expected, but the franchise has a ton of potential.  You'd think someone would have realized that.

They were apparently working on new IP.  So you had to pay the price to buy them and then also pay the price to finish the game, which was still very early.  Could have gotten expensive fast.  They clearly had some talent though, and it's a shame they couldn't get picked up.

[John Dies at the End]

Definitely John Dies at the End.  Can't wait to read This Book is Full of Spiders.

For non-fiction, I can't remember if I read Emperor of All Maladies this year or last, but I'd nominate it again if I read it last year.  Amazing book.

If the ipad mini wasn't such an obvious cash grab I might actually pick one up.

Man, I don't know. Everyone I know who got one is in love with it.

Upgrading doors really helps take out boarding parties.  You can seal off their rooms and open a path to outside to vent their oxygen.  Even if they're in a room attacking a system, when the O2 drops, they'll stop and concentrate only on getting out.  The one thing you have to worry about is the boarding drone that is immune to O2 loss AND punches a hole right through your hull when he lands.  He is a real sonofabitch. 

FTL was probably my favorite game of the past year (that I didn't make ).

A question for you; my gaming group and I love Sartan Ops, but we would love to see some new maps used in the missions. We'd also be more than happy to pay for that via some DLC. Is there any chance 343 might release DLC in the  future that adds new SO maps?

Yeah new Spartan Ops stuff is coming.  They posted about it in a weekly update last week - http://blogs.halowaypoint.com/Headlines/post/2012/12/06/The-Halo-Bulletin-120612-.aspx  Basically the weekly cadence of new Spartan Ops goes on break soon until January, and then comes back with more missions that include new maps.  No announced plans beyond that right now!

An update is out for Halo 4 today that should address the issue with launching Waypoint from the game, and a bunch of other stuff - http://blogs.halowaypoint.com/post/2012/12/06/Halo-4-TU-Change-List.aspx

Sorry for being away.  I've been on vacation.  I actually saved up enough to take all of December off, so that's what I'm doing now

When was the last update to Waypoint pushed down?

No idea.  Sometime just a bit before launch I think.

BTW I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing problems  accessing Halo Waypoint from the menus. Tying to access it from the Halo 4 menus, I can reproduce a crash of my 360 as sure as death and taxes every time. Meanwhile, I don't have any problem accessing Waypoint from the 360 desktop.

Same issue here...try to access Waypoint from the Halo 4 menu and it freezes my 360 on a black screen every time. It's surprising that they left such a big bug in the game given how much they're trying to push Waypoint now, but it doesn't really bother me because you're exiting out of Halo and starting a new app regardless of the path you take...still have to restart Halo 4 when you want to play again.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one having hard locks any time I try to access Waypoint from the Halo 4 menu.

Yeah it's a known issue that is being looked into.  To fix it, just access Waypoint through the dashboard.  You'll be prompted to update the app.  Once you do, it will work from inside the game.

Going to see it today at 3pm.  Hoping it's as good as the previews look!

I love my iPad (3rd gen), but now that Apple is basically in a "tablet war" with umpteen other companies, some of whom are driving tablet prices down to "commodity levels," and it's inevitable Apple's tablet (and smartphone) market share will decline, maybe the best thing would be for them is to actually brainstorm a new product category that leaves everyone else going "What the hell is THAT thing?" and scrambling to chase them again.

If they can come up with something else relatively new again that leaves people here grumbling, "Why would I want a touchscreen phone? That's stupid!" or "What the hell's the point of a tablet without a keyboard? Tablets are dumb." etc., but that ultimately catches on and 50 other companies try to emulate, then they might have something.

I'm really not certain Apple as currently constituted is capable of that. They seem to be stuck on an "iteration after iteration after iteration" upgrading treadmill where they might add or subtract inches to their iPads and iPhones, they might eventually make them as thin as a pane of glass, but I just don't see much to indicate they have another New Idea beyond that where they could sort of enjoy their own market category for a while while everyone else catches up.

And I'm opining on that as a huge iOS fan, not a Hater.  

The long-standing rumor is that they've been working on television with some kind of Siri-type interface.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/10/21/steve-jobs-on-tv-i-finally-cracked-it/

Missed my 10th.  I am from a very small town in rural Virginia, so getting there from Seattle would've required quite a hassle and expense.  I saw the pictures posted later.  There were a few people I would've liked to see, but for the most part the attendees were just everyone who has been unable to escape that crappy little town.

Its not clear if I can start a Spartan Ops episode on Legendary, it seems to default at normal

What I meant to say is if there is a way to create a PUG spartan ops episode on legendary?

Also the music is incredible

You can select Spartan Ops difficulty if you launch through the "Play Chapters" menu.  This lets you play solo or with your party.  If you go through matchmaking (the "Find Game" menu), you can't select difficulty.

Multiplayer huh?..any chance for Halo 5 you can put the online maps on a rotation?,sick to the tits already of playing Ragnarok 5 times in a row this is the reason i have left past Halo games,everyone just votes for the same map they have just played,and again,and again and again

Yeah people love that map.  You can change playlists - different playlists support different sets of maps.

Hey Kathode, what was your role in the game dev? My son wants to know. (His dream is to become a concept artist on a future Halo game and he's asking about this sort of thing more and more)

I'm the main producer on the game side for the multiplayer portion.  "The game side" meaning not the server functionality or Waypoint or stuff like that, but I work with those guys a lot.  A game producer is basically equivalent to a project manager in most other industries.

Is one disc for MP?  They don't seem to be labeled.

Yeah second disc is for MP.  It will prompt you to install when you try and go in the MP menus.  Don't install through the dashboard - just follow the in-game prompts.

Thanks for the awesome review! 

Can someone explain what it takes to get Ghost for any given mission?  I played through the brothel mission (3?) and thought I got it, but it wasn't marked on the screen at the end.  Do I lose it if I knock people out?  If I get any alert icons at all, even just the first one?

Playing it a lot and really having to resist the urge to put it on my work PC   I made it to the end on easy once but couldn't beat the enemy ship.  I tend to fight EVERYONE and get in over my head early.

Bah, I'm on Sanctum of Rall.  Or Rarr or something like that.

Just started playing a human engineer last night.  Got him up to level 6.  Pretty fun game although still a lot that I don't really understand in regards to setting up abilities and dealing with items.  Is there a Wanderers guild or something to join?

Keep in mind, they weren't just purchased by EA, they sold the company to EA.

So I get the feeling they were planning to leave for a while now, sold the company ahead of time, and waiting until an appropriate amount of time had passed and all current projects were released before leaving.

I very much doubt they're leaving because of EA management, considering they were the ones to sell the company in the first place.

Well to be fair, they sold the company to Elevation, and Elevation sold to EA a year later, in a deal that put John Riccitiello from Elevation at the top.  I'm sure they were heavily involved in the sale though and there's no reason to think they opposed it.  I think these guys made their money, shipped the games they felt passionate about, and felt it was time to move on.  Personally I can only imagine, but I do imagine my tolerance for any kind of bullshit or managerial shenanigans would be at an all-time low with, you know, $20 million+ in the bank or whatever those guys might have

I think I just renewed my contract in May 2012. So I dunno... maybe this indentures me to Verizon for 3 more years or something? I am so out of the knowledge loop on that sort of thing.

You can find out just by going to preorder.  There's a verification step that will tell you your eligibility.  I am on the "S" cycle and don't think it's worth $550 for a 32 gig, so I'll wait it out until next year.

I know we have a lot more Campaign players around here than MP, so you might be more interested in this video we put out yesterday.  It details the design and evolution of the new Halo enemy classes we put in, and also a lot of info about the Forerunner weapons.  Also includes some footage from early discarded prototypes and visual tests.  Pretty happy with this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55zOTemj03k&feature=player_embedded

So good.  I cannot stop playing.  67.02.

This game is great.  Check out the trailer.  My record is 44.23 at the moment.

http://superhexagon.com/

Yeah, every day after about 20-30 mins of browsing, the forum gets into an unusable state for me.  Basically like it's frozen in time.  It won't even let me log out, giving me some error message about my session missing or something.  Also the issue seems to persist across IE and Chrome.

It only seems to happen on my work PC, so I wonder if it's not something to do with our crazy Microsoft firewall stuff.  I really haven't had the time to look into it too deeply unfortunately.  At least it seems to only be me.

Played the first two levels last night.  Tons of fun.  Got through the second level with no alarms and no kills.  CHEEVOS!

Finally finished this.  Your last task when you get to the safe house is ridiculously tough.  I don't think I'll play through again on Hard.  I can't imagine succeeding.

Ordered myself a Paperwhite 3G.  I have a wifi-only Kindle 3 right now and it's great but I miss being able to save my progress anywhere.  I read on my phone at lunch every once in a while.  Manually finding your place on a Kindle is pretty annoying.

I didn't make the post since it was the same one you just made.  It's weird.  I'll make a post and it will shoot me back to the page and won't show it.  If I make the post again, it says "Oh you already made this post."  Maybe just some weird browser cache thing.

Anyone else seeing this at all?  Occasionally I'll make a post on a page and it won't show, even after multiple refreshes.  I was just in the kindle thread, went to make a post, and it told me CeeKay had made a post ahead of me.  I refreshed over and over but it won't show up.  I'm on Chrome.

Kindle "Paperwhite"?  Don't think that's the name but that's how they're referring to it.

Touch-screen e-ink, higher contrast than current kindles, built-in adjustable light.  Take my money!

The Indie Mine has a decent review up:

http://theindiemine.com/organ-trail-review/

Decent review, although I feel the upkeep of the car is pretty much equal to party member upkeep.  If someone breaks a leg or an arm, their health shoots down and you usually have to take care of it immediately.  Really agree that something is fishy with the random percentages for car repair though.  I got three failures in a row at 77% odds.  I realize it's random but that just seems strange.

Made it to Alberquerque AGAIN and got eaten by a zombie bear while carelessly over-scavenging AGAIN.  FYI I've found it really helps to be a ruthless bastard in the random narrative events that pop up.  I met a wounded fat guy in one and I could either kill him or give him a medkit.  I killed him and he provided me with 400oz of meat

Still have been unable to get to the coast successfully under Normal difficulty.  Hard as heck.  I made it just past Vegas yesterday, but I made a mistake and brushed my hand against the button to leave before I was ready.  Ran out of gas just outside of town, ran out of ammo while scavenging for food, then died of starvation waiting for anyone to trade with.

I'll be working the PAX booth Sunday 2-6pm if anyone wants to drop by and say hi.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is now on Netflix Instant.  Awesome study on dedication to a craft.

Organ Trail is "The Oregon Trail" remade with a zombie survival theme.  Keeps the same lo-fi presentation, but adds a lot of content.  A lot of fun to name your in-game friends after real-life friends, and then end up having to kill one who's about to become a zombie.  It's a fun game.

Nice, I saw the link and queued up the Angry Nerd episode ready to link you, but you beat me to it.  Pretty amazingly bad stuff.