Cr0ssbow

Some good points here. Sounds like it's been brought up before--I admit I was surprised there wasn't already a thread on this particular incident when I looked. To address a couple of the points I've seen multiple times:

Just skip it -- Yeah, that's obviously a solution but not a good one for me, since I listen during my driving commute and scrubbing through a 10+ minute conversation to figure out when they stop talking about a particular thing is not my idea of a good time, or safe.

I like listening to all their opinions - I do too! I thought I made that clear in the original post. I also would like--and welcome--everyone's opinions. It didn't bother me that both podcasts, for instance, talked about the Xbox One hardware revisions because Brad kind of just skimmed over the facts of the story (probably coincidentally but hopefully maybe because he knew Beastcast dove real deep into it) and we went directly into their personal takes. But, continuing to use the Coleco example, that was not ten minutes of opinion. That was Jeff explaining the entire back story to an obviously perplexed Brad and Drew.

They're separate podcasts, I don't listen to both, who cares? - As a fan of the bombcast for like what, 6, 7 years, I just want them to be the best they can be while respecting my time. As a comparison, the Idle Thumbs podcast try to make sure to A) not rehash stuff they've already covered, B) point to other podcasts on their network (or even other podcasts like giantbomb!) for insight on a particular topic and C) always pimp their other shows, with actual knowledge of what that show discussed. Everyone who says they only listen to one or the other only kind of further proves my point; if they did a better job of bringing up stuff from other podcasts, and strived to better make each one unique/worthwhile, maybe they could grow the listener base. Is that so bad?

"Beastcast, what's that?" is a "great" running joke, but I just spent the 15 last fifteen minutes listening to Jeff re-hash the Coleco Chameleon fiasco in the middle of an Emails section that never had an email mention it, and it honestly felt a little disrespectful to the Beastcast crew. I know there is a certain percentage of listeners that do not listen to both casts, and I don't mind getting both sides' opinions on the various goings-on (especially in the News section, it would be unfair if one cast or another had a "monopoly" on that discussion), but I feel all too often they feel supplementary instead of complementary. Would it not behoove them to at least mention that some things were also covered in the other cast, just to get more ears for both? For Jeff not to say at some point during his story something along the lines of "they've been talking about this for weeks on the Beastcast so go check that out if you're interested" seems crazy.

Then, as a perfect kicker, the next email they read is one that someone sent to both cast emails and Brad says he wishes they could get Vinny's opinion.

@bane: I made this same mistake the first time I did the blacksite facility. Was trying to sneak my way past a turret...by foolishly sneaking right up the middle, and popped 3 pods at once. I think it's still a viable strategy but recommend sticking to the edge of the map to minimize catastrophe if you get caught.

Hrm, what's a good tip I can add...skulljacking for story reasons is guaranteed, so anyone can do it, but skullmining successfully requires some pretty good hacking stats and has pretty harsh repercussions if you fail, with no chance to cancel like you can with hacking towers. I lost a Ranger from a failed attempt of skullmining a shieldbearer, because feedback effect did 6 damage. Equip it on your best Specialist, and make sure they're full health before attempting (or save scum)

Don't forget that most missions let you summon an evac point at anytime, anywhere. One mission, my medic specialist was bleeding out (thank you GTS upgrade) and I was able to save him by having my sniper pick him up and evac out. Sucks having to do rest of mission with less people but better than a permanent loss.

Explosives will blow up dropped items, but DoT effects from grenades like fire or acid afterwards will drop items without issue. Have a Hazmat Vest-equipped Ranger swoop in there and grab that shit!

I bought this game back in August but avoided playing it until it's full release on Tuesday.

I am loving the SHIT out of it. It's everything I've always wanted, and looking back at the secondhand reports of people whining about the heart attacks and corpses, I really don't get the hate at all. Both mechanics seem to make a lot of sense balance-wise. I'm glad Red Hook stuck to their guns. No one should be listening to the insane min-maxers on elements of design.

Eager to get off work and get back into it.

@daneian: Unless they drop another bomb on us, yes, it's only single player. Historically, X games always have been.

Egosoft has finally come out of hiding and announced release date for X: Rebirth, something I've been waiting impatiently for years for.

November 15th in Europe, November 19th in the US. Already on Steam, but no pre-orders yet.

With it, they've also released a new nearly 4-minute trailer, which links to another video of Bernd explaining scale and some game features.

I haven't really been paying close attention to this, so I was taken aback by the fact that you have a multi-crew ship, and can actually enter and walk around stations. The game looks simply gorgeous.

Yes, it's kind of a bummer you're stuck in one ship, and yes every single X game comes out with game-breaking inexcusable bugs but...good God I haven't been this excited about a game since the new XCOM hit. I put over 1000 hours into X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Reunion combined and unless things go horribly awry (and they might), Rebirth will be gettin' near those numbers over the holidays too. Who needs new consoles?

Just applied to Kite Co, the name's Jax Musseau

@JasonR86 said:

It's just a map. Rather then focus on the bonus you get for preordering don't preorder because preordering is for suckers.

I am also in the anti-pre-order crowd. I find most bonuses game-breaking, immersion-breaking, or otherwise lame and often ignore them, even if I do pre-order. But this Amazon gift card ain't gonna spend itself!

So, Black Ops 1 was a pleasant surprise for me. I hated World at War, was disappointed with MW2, so I swore off the franchise and didn't pay much attention to Blops. Months after release I came home for holidays and watched my sister play it and was pleasantly surprised. Map design, the dive to prone, the tomahawk...I picked it up and really enjoyed it.

That said, I could never, NEVER understand the community's love of Nuketown. It was upvoted every single time it came up, and when they added Nuketown 24/7 playlists I couldn't believe how popular they were. The map was tiny, a spawnkill fest, a spawn-and-shoot/throw your grenades-asap fest. Lord I hated it--even if I usually did very well on it because let's face it, the majority of CoD players are hilariously bad. Upside of such a huge community.

So, my question is this: Is anyone else, like me, planning to NOT pre-order the game because Nuketown 2025 is the pre-order bonus? Or, perhaps, pre-ordering but going to leave the code un-vouched for? I think it was rather nice of them to allow me to opt out of this god-forsaken map. Oh and here's a trailer they just put out for it. It looks like the same exact map.

1. - If any squad member can see an enemy (the red/yellow alien face icons appear in the bottom right), and the sniper has a clear shot/line of sight to that same alien, then he can shoot it. After the big patch on PC, you can tell which aliens can be seen in squad sight by their red icons having a little yellow crosshair over them when you have your sniper selected.

2. - I always pick the same abilities for every soldier of a certain class, mainly because I'm afraid if I switch it up, I'll forget which soldier has which ability at a crucial time and mess something up. "Alright time to do this, and-oh shit this Heavy isn't the one with Shredder Rockets. I'm boned."

3. - I have not had this issue.