Author Archive

I got to play Rage as part of the Promotional Grant, however Jeff put a small dent in my enthusiasm with the following tweets:

Warning: Id’s Rage is very, very bad IMHO. Neat tech, terrible game. Well, there goes $60.. I say “bad” because I have absolutely no motivation to keep playing Rage after 2 hours in (I loved Doom3). The tech really IS amazing tho.

Granted, two hours is hardly enough to judge an entire game, but I can see where he’s coming from. I have been ‘enjoying’ myself so far, but its surely not flawless. As Jeff mentioned, the tech makes it look great. Great and realistic lighting, massive environments

But I have a feeling this is mostly skin deep. What do I mean by that? Physics engines in games like Half-Life 2 have spoiled us, but I hate how objects in Rage are so static. You see a table covered with papers and other objects, but no amount of movement and bumping against the table will make them move and feel ‘alive’.

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First, a confession: I never played games on Facebook because I found them all annoying, and I generally don’t use Facebook a lot anyway. I’m a Google fanboy though, so I’m on Google Plus a lot more. When Games for Google launched, I decided to give them all a try, and see what I’d make of them. As a first remark, I listen to music all day long, and I hate it when in-browser games start playing annoying tunes. Worst of all: every game hides their mute button in another place, and they don’t always seem to work right of the bat. On top of it all, they forget my sound settings when I get back… -1 so far!

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With the growth of the Gaming Stack Exchange, and the loss of Grace Note as a moderator, it is time once again to hold Community Moderator Elections for 2 new moderators. The winners of this election will be joining our remaining group of moderators.

We’ve got 10 candidates so far, but if you think you would be an asset to the community as a ♦ moderator then there are still a few days left to get your nomination in.

Please visit the official election page at http://gaming.stackexchange.com/election to participate – we need you to ask the candidates questions and vote, even if you’re not putting yourself up for election – of if you have general questions about the election process, or “big” questions for moderator candidates, feel free to ask them on meta with the election tag!

For more information on how the election will work, read on…

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Image from Galactic WaterCooler

Storm8 games, you’ve probably seen them around when browsing the App Store or Android Market. There are currently nine games from them available:

• World War
• Racing Live
• iMobsters
• Pets Live
• Ninjas Live
• Vampires
• Kingdoms Live
• Zombies Live
• Rock Battle Live

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Meet P-Body and Atlas, the two co-op robot characters from Portal 2.

Ronan was wondering whether GLaDOS hates Altas, because while P-Body mostly gets comments, Atlas gets referred to as “Dead Weight”. Now we all know GLaDOS doesn’t like pretty much anyone and even if she did, she would probably try and gas them… But still is there any proof in the game that she actually hates Atlas (more so than P-Body)?

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Warning: Spoiler alert! If you haven’t played Portal 2 yet and you’re planning on playing it, I’d suggest you stop reading and play it first.

Welcome back to part III of my journey through Aperture. I was actually surprised how often I got stuck in Portal 2 compared to Portal 1. Nearly every chapter (of the nine in total) had one room that was giving me some trouble. Here’s a chronological overview of the rooms:

Chapter 3:

I didn’t spot that I could create a portal on the wall on the left.

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Warning: Spoiler alert! If you haven’t played Portal 2 yet and you’re planning on playing it, I’d suggest you stop reading and play it first.

I reckon most of the die-hard Portal fans had already seen the introduction, but Portal 2 starts with Chell waking up in a bedroom after being asleep for nine nine nine nine nine… well a long, long time!

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Just before they released Portal 2, I decided to finish Portal 1 first. I had played it years back on the Xbox, but never bothered finishing it. Given the hype around Portal 2, I reckoned it must have been worth finishing after all.

Turns out I quit just before reaching GLaDOS, so most of the puzzles were pretty easy going through a second run. The only level that gave me some trouble was this one, even though I had made it last time.  Luckily StackExchange came to the rescue!

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by Kronos

Remember those old “3D picture” book you had in school?  You know what I mean, the ones where you have to “cross” your eyes in order for them to work?  If not, then just look at these and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.  The problem with those type of images is that after time your eyes start to hurt.  It’s awkward too, because your focus is entirely on that one section, and if you move your concentration at all you lose the 3D effect and have spend the next 20 minutes getting it back.

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Sejanus was wondering why on earth gaming consoles require a button-press, whereas on PC games you simply press any key and you’re straight in the main menu.

One of our local game devs, Sadly Not, pointed out that requiring a button press is an easy way to figure out who ‘Player One’ is, because he’s the most likely person to be in control. Obviously, when you’re sitting behind your computer, the one controlling the mouse is the boss. more »