Corvall

This is awful news and I can still hardly believe it. I never met or interacted with Ryan, but you listen to someone every week for so long, and you still somehow feel like you knew them just a little.

To his new wife, his family, and the people who really knew him, I'm so, so sorry for your loss.

@TwoSe7enFive said:

Yeah we get it, it's a terrible deal for most people. But @Alex maybe try writing with less snark once and a while.

Snark is all Alex does. Without snark, I think he would cease to exist. I look at it this way: It makes me appreciate the articles written by Patrick all that much more.

@KaosAngel said:

• I repeat NO ONLINE Two Headed Giant

I just wanted to throw this out there, but on the XBLA version, you CAN play Two-Headed Giant online. Maybe online THG mode is a paid unlock on iOS?

I think the timing is killing it. Holidays are a great time to put out a blockbuster physical release game, but not so great for a small-publisher digital release game. Even the people who know about it are probably thinking that they're just going to wait for BF3/MW3/Skyrim/Batman/Assassins Creed/other huge release rather than buying a game that they expect to stop playing in a week or two when their target game does come out. It's really too bad. I hadn't heard anything about it at all before it came out and I've been really impressed by it. I just wish my friends would pick it up!

Ogres and bosses are definitely beatable solo, it just takes careful placement of defenses (and a strong enough hero). I've played the first five levels solo with the Apprentice (including beating the first boss) as well as the first three levels with the Squire (including an ogre), and it's pretty fun. I'd like to play co-op, but none of my friends have the game. Hopefully I can convince someone else to pick it up, but I have a feeling that at this point everyone is waiting for the holiday blockbuster releases. This just isn't a good time of year for a small game release, no matter how good.

XBL Gamertag: Corvall

I read this article by Tom Bissell on Grantland.com and thought it might be interesting to discuss (be warned that the article is pretty long):

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6963024/video-games-killed-video-game-star

While I understand Tom's basic frustrations about the game (especially the sequence he describes at the end) I generally disagree with his premise which essentially boils down to "This game is to game-y". For instance, he rails a bit against the RPG skill tree and progression mechanisms in general and suggests that all that stuff should be kept 'under the hood' and away from the player. But why have progression in an RPG if the player can't see and influence it?

Corvall

Nice

The game was always great, but it's a game for patient players.  It's a different sort of excitement than in a Call of Duty game.  It takes more effort and commitment than your small-instanced games, but the payoff is big.

You can add AI into 'multiplayer' games, so you could play alone against the AI, or with a friend in 'co-op' versus the AI, or with AI teammates against AI enemies.  There are several AI profiles that behave differently as well.  That being said, all the AI's are pretty weak and beating them is not very satisfying.  You can challenge yourself by unbalancing the teams (you could play 2v4, or any combination up to 8 players), but in the end this game is all about the teamwork strategy and tactics that just aren't there with the AI.