Rxanadu

Like most people, I've noticed GTA IV running extremely slowly on my Acer laptop. However, I find this particularly odd as I've run games which require higher specs smoothly from start to finish. I just recenlty finished DmC on this computer with little to no graphical hiccups; heck, it ran at 60 fps all throughout my playthrough of the game. I've also been running Portal 2 and Borderlands 2 with ease on High and Medium specs, respectively.

I've also installed the latest patch for the game, and it still runs slowly. Both Game-Debate.com and CanYouRunIt say I should be able to run this game smoothly.

Then again, I've known Rockstar to release abominable PC ports for most of their games.

Here are my specs. Hopefully, they will be helpful in remedying this issue:

Machine Model: Acer V5-552-X418

Operating System: Windows 8.1 (64-bit)

Hard Drive: 500 GB

Memory: 6 GB DDR3

Graphics: ACM Radeon HD 8650G, 512 MB memory

Processor: AMD Quad-Core Processor A10-5757M, 3.5 GHz

My last computer tended to have tons of problems, so I wound up reimaging my computer more frequently than I liked. These moments caused me to constantly discover that, despite backing up my entire Documents folder ( the folder that holds most of my save files) to an external hard drive, I'd have to start games like Deus Ex from the beginning after putting about 6-8 hours into the game. This has happened even when I can locate the save files on the computer.

I just don't want that sort of scenario to occur again with my current computer. So, I've found using the Steam Cloud support to be a lifesaver with my save files.

I'm contemplating buying GTA IV and Euro Truck Simulator 2 just because they're on sale. Neither of them have Steam Cloud support, but they've intrigued me just enough to think about buying them.

Those mods in GTA IV... so dumb

If we're counting games that came out in earlier years, then it's To The Moon for me. Here are my reasons:

• It's short
• It has a wonderful story (if harmed a bit by some bits of poorly written dialogue)
• It has Steam Cloud, one of the major deciding factors of buying games now(I uninstall games frequently to make way for more space)
• It has one-handed controls in a point-and-click adventure game
• The music's pretty good
• It discusses autism without beating your head with it (it doesn't even utter the word!)

Note that I'm only adding this since I actually beat this game. I still need to beat Gunpoint, but I've been busy trying to clear out my backlog.

This may be a tangent, but have any of the characters from 400 Days appeared in Season 2? Given the possibility that Clem is referring to Glenn, what if she mistakes Vince for Glenn? It had been 8 months since Glenn left for Atlanta. After over 2 years after seeing him, it's possible Clem would assume Glenn didn't make it.

And another note: basing off the TV show, Rick's team got to the prison about 9 months after the initial outbreak. I'm guessing only 2-3 weeks passed between the first time at the prison and the end of Woodbury. If we also take the second novel into account, where Lily is stated as a resident in Woodbury, I think she's long dead at this point.

Now as for the Kenny believers, I'm not sure what happens if you leave Ben to his fate at Crawford, but I'm assuming Kenny dies in a similar fashion (i.e. mauled by a hoard of walkers) regardless of the choices you made.

Aside from the mugger and Vince, this only leaves Christa, which I think has become the new person for Clem to find this season.

Remember that one guy who was next to Clem's bag at the end of the episode? His face and hairstyle resembled the girl that mugged Clem at the start of this episode. Maybe that guy was the mugger's dad. If that's true, then maybe Clem was referring to that girl from a year ago. It would be more legitimate than Lilly coming back for two reasons:

1. Regardless of the choice you made in Episode 3 of the first season, Lilly leaves the group to defend for herself. That doesn't mean she died. Heck, the comic even refers to her being part of the group at Woodbury. If that's true, she either dies when the town is destroyed or is still living there "peacefully" under the Governor's rule
2. It would legitimately be surprising for a girl who took a gut shot from a rifle round to wind back alive and well. And if I know game artists, they didn't make that guy look that similar to the girl from the beginning for the hell of it; they're giving us a hint.

To recap, I think Clem's referring to the girl who mugged her and unintentionally killed Omid 15 months ago.

Recently, I've been asking myself how to create a game which allows people who cannot see an equally engrossing experience to what those who can see experience. I want to be able to tell a story that is as interesting to a person who can see and hear to a person who can only hear but not see. This is one of the questions I've recently come up with.

How do you tell a person a year has passed without stating precisely, "A year has passed" when the person is blind but can hear well?

I've been stumped by this question for a while now, and I wanted to ask everyone here if they had a valid answer. Please let me know if you do.

Just saw the game for around $4 on Amazon, so I decided to play the demo on Steam. The controls for both the 360 controller and the keyboard are incomprehensible. Pushing in the right thumbstick pauses the game; start zooms in the camera. That's not right.

I've read some of the previous threads in the forum, and they said the controls in the PC version were ported poorly. For the few still playing the game and those who've recently purchased the game, is this still true?

Man, this has been a stressful year for Giant Bomb in terms of staffing. First, Drew left in March (?); then Patrick left for Chicago in the summer; then Ryan left us on 4th of July (of all days). Now, Ian's leaving GB for better opportunities.

From what I know of the staffing over at Giant Bomb HQ (i.e. not including Scoops and the Wolf), we have:

• Jeff
• Vinny
• Brad
• Matt Rorie
• Drew
• Alexis

That's not a lot of people in a company creating numerous videos usually including commentary from 2-3 staff members. I've been asking about this ever since the move to the CBS office, but when is Giant Bomb going to staff up like they did in their second office? I know they can't get a lot of interns, but at least two permanent staff members at HQ could help them out with spreading out work.

I at least want to know their reasoning behind the lack in hiring staff.

Hey, duders:

It's the end of the year, a time of reflection, both of oneself and of the society they live in everyday. In this case, we're talking about those who play games. Very often, we tend to look back at their personal Game of the Year; other times, they focus on the worst games they played during the year. However, I've noticed a constant lack of people talking about those games played by almost no-one but them. They may be hidden gems, they may be mediocre games forgotten about within the week of release. They may be that one game you say to yourself, "Was I the only one who played this?"

This year, I wanted to contribute to the whole GB community by creating a list of games that were overlooked, rarely played by people outside of a few others, or just flat out forgotten about. However, I only have two games I can think of:

• Lost Planet 3 (Wasn't this announced 4 years ago?)
• The Swapper (a.k.a. That One Puzzle-Platformer That Isn't Gunpoint Patrick Likes)

I've racked my brain for hours thinking of other games fitting this classification, but, ironically enough, I can't remember many. This is where you come in: all I need is for you to post about that one game you remember but not many people remember came out this year. It can be a console exclusive; a small indie game on PC; a Flash game; whatever. So long as you can put the month and year it came out (and a few personal words you have to share about the game), I'm OK with it. An exact date would be preferable, but a month and year will do.

The reason I'm creating this forum thread is simple: I want to help in the preservation of games as much as I can. Hopefully, this will become a place to come back to for reference's sake.

As stated above, all I need is for everyone to post at least one game you think will be forgotten by the end of the year otherwise. State the date of its release (month and year will do fine) in your post.

That's it. Thanks again for taking the time to read this post. I hope to hear from all of you soon.