JDP83

I don't know if it's been said but here's the hottest tip I know:

You can fulton extract yourself.

How?

First off, you need to have upgraded at least to be able to fulton shipping containers.
If you've done that, then here's the trick:
1. Climb up on top of the shipping containers with unprocessed materials.

2. Get near one of the sides.

3. Begin to fulton the container.

4. As soon as the fulton finishes attaching and begins lifting the object, as long as you're still on the container and near the fulton attachment point, you will see an icon and a button prompt asking you to grab on to it as it lifts off.

5. As long as you press and hold the button until it finishes executing and before the container launches into the air, you will INSTANTLY be exfiltrated as if you got on the helicopter and left the mission area, along with your buddy, too.

See example video below (spoiler free) if still confused:

O'Donnell is gaming's "John Williams." At least in modern context.

Stay with me on this:

Almost all modern game music composed by dedicated game composers (Harry Gregson Williams and his amazing Metal Gear work doesn't count since he comes mostly from a background of movies) is largely forgettable, even in most good modern games. And no, a re-orchestration of an old piece does not count, so hearing "The Zelda Overworld Theme" with strings and woodwind accompaniment also does not count.

In old games it was actually much easier to make the music memorable because of repetition and brilliance resulting from forced simplicity. Hum a few notes from Super Mario Bros. and nearly everyone in the world knows what it's from. Now try to ask yourself: What is the "Call of Duty" song and if there is one, how does it go? What is the "Gears of War" song? What is "The Last of Us" song? What is the "Uncharted" song? What's the "Mass Effect" song? What's "The Witcher" song? They don't exist as common knowledge like the "monk theme" from the Halo series.

That simple theme is recognized by almost anyone who has ever played Halo and even by some who never have.

That sort of musical talent makes O'Donnell a treasure. And I'm afraid with him branching out on his own and leaving AAA game development behind, we are losing one of the few people in this industry capable of scoring a big budget game with music that's actually worthy of the caliber of game it accompanies.

When I saw the "dystopian nightmare future" part, I thought "Oh cool! That's exactly the sort of universe Deus Ex should be in."

...And then I watched the video.

Congratulations, video games. You've hit a new low.

JDPoZ on Steam

CMDR JDPoZ requesting docking clearance into duder space.

I used to go to all the big sites back in college (2002-2006) but especially Gamespot (for reviews), Kotaku (for news), and Gametrailers (for videos). Since I visited multiple outlets, I was able to follow along with the Gerstmann-Gamespot-Gate (or whatever you want to call it) scandal and decided that I would never again visit any media press outlet that revealed itself to be corrupt enough to compromise its consumer's trust - doing things like taking ad money in exchange for good press.

It's one of the reasons I don't go to Kotaku anymore (with all the other scandal stuff they had about undisclosed relationships possibly affecting any sort of positive press, as opposed to the Giant Bomb guys who are definitely friends with folks on the other side of the fence, but are always open and honest about disclosing and showing their friendships with guys like Dave Lang, Tim Schaefer, Geoff Keighley, etc.).

I don't go to Gametrailers because the site format and layout started sucking, with annoying things like ads playing throughout videos, as did the content and video reviews. Geoff Keighley's video interviews like the one he wasn't afraid to openly criticize Nintendo to Reggie are the only thing that bring me back to Gametrailers on rare occasions.

I originally started visiting Giant Bomb when I heard about Jeff's departure and the announcement that he was going to start his own outlet. I think I either read about it on a Kotaku article or maybe saw it on X-Play. Not sure when I visited the site originally first, but that was when I first started at least keeping an eye out for what Jeff and consequently, Giant Bomb, was doing.

Eventually, Giant Bomb has become the one place I go to, since it seems they are honest, uncensored, mostly unbiased (or at least open about their biases), funny and entertaining, and most important of all, as displayed by Jeff's reason for termination at Gamespot, have integrity - at least with regards to their criticism ;). They have good articles on important news, the video quick looks are entertaining and informative enough for what I need to see when making a decision to buy or not buy a game, and their detailed reviews for major game releases (or sometimes just really interesting games) give a lot of important detailed information that otherwise might be lost on a less formal quick look video.

The only issue I've ever had with GB is that we don't get the guys all in one place anymore. I miss Vinny's excellent sense of humor in the podcast. And of course we all miss Ryan dearly, as his jovial nature and love of dumb things seemed to be the perfect pairing with Jeff's anger for what would result in great entertainment. But as a whole, I have never been happier with any gaming media outlet than I have with Giant Bomb.

Goddamnit. These are amazing. Nice work. :D

WOO! My first PAX! I will be there with my wife, a friend, and my brand new baby definitely on Saturday all day... maybe Friday... maybe Sunday. Depends on whether or not I'm able to convince my wife to let me get more than the 1-day pass I got earlier last year.

In any case - super excited and looking forward to meeting people there and actually getting a decent number of Streetpasses for once.

I hope I didn't come off that way. And again - I don't want to pester anyone.

I know that Patrick at least seemed interested in checking it out since we had some correspondence for a while when the Gear VR was first announced publicly. I assume the only reason he didn't respond to my most recent message a few days ago before the end of the year is because at that time I had sent it, he no longer worked for GB but it wasn't official yet.

In any case, even if the rest of the crew weren't interested but read my PM, I would assume at least one of the guys would send a "no" rather than just ignore it on purpose. Wouldn't hurt my feelings at all and I would still be just as excited to see them live at PAX.

Couldn't find their actual emails anywhere listed - I assume that was for a reason. But again. I don't know what the proper channels for this sort of stuff are anyway. Maybe I'll check one more time via PM on Jeff and Brad's respective Tumblrs.

After that, I'll assume they just aren't interested and will shut up.

I work for Samsung in Dallas as a UI/UX guy on the Gear VR headset and its software and am going to PAX South in a couple of weeks.

I thought I might could reach out to see if the guys wanted to check one out while my wife, a couple of friends, and myself are there for the event. I reached out with private messages here on the site to pretty much the entire crew (Just Jeff and Patrick originally like 10 days ago before Patrick announced his departure since he was kinda the resident VR enthusiast, and then 2 days ago I sent another and looped in Brad, Dan, Drew, and Rorie) but not a single one replied. :(

I mean... I figured if they weren't interested, they'd just say no as opposed to actively ignoring a message, but then again, I don't know if they get lots of messages from other users, spam, don't check their private PMs or what...

So assuming the Bomb crew doesn't think I'm some asshat trying to shill for corporate overlords, does anyone know of a better way to privately contact the dudes? Feel free to PM me if there is and you think they'd be interested but you don't want to post it publicly.

Also, I want to stress I'm not a marketing person or someone trying to get a segment or video or whatever on the site or anything. Just thought maybe a couple of the guys might like to check one out if they hadn't already but were curious or interested...

Thanks!