bhurnie

This is very useful, thank you.

I have no idea how to make the URLs, sorry, but if someone wants to be a completionist there are some older simultaneous videos that aren't videogame recordings:

https://www.giantbomb.com/videos/brad-loves-mondays-043012/2300-5933/ & https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/the-real-i-love-mondays-04302012/2970-18093/ are competing recordings by Brad and Ryan

https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/i-love-mondays-04-15-2013/2970-18054/ & https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/giant-bomb-mailbag-squishy-gill-grunt-edition/2970-17949/ are similar

And it's maybe not a great fit because it's so short, but https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/giant-bomb-mailbag-11172011/2970-17975 overlaps with https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/quick-look-kinect-disneyland-adventures/2970-14575 (~3 minutes into the first, and ~7:20 into the quick look) for barely a minute.

I'm not an insane person with some kind of super memory, I just keep a long long list of GB videos I like (maybe that's a little crazy) and the duplication was amusing enough when I watched them that I made a note of it.

Couldn't see any obvious reports of this; going through the back catalogue ("what's on page 200?"), I've come across two videos that don't fit properly inside the player window, whether normal, embiggened, or fullscreen. They extend below the player controls (and behind some parts of the webpage in the normal view). The video looks stretched on one, but it's hard to tell. I'd written the first one off as a weird broken thing, but two is maybe enough to find something in common. Everything else works fine, I've had no issues with playback.

My system: Windows 10, Edge 38.14393.0.0... not sure what else to add? Roughly up-to-date, not one of the cutting-edge Insider builds.

Faulty videos:

• http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/osama-bin-laden-is-authentically-captured/2300-6541/
• http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/spookin-with-scoops-clock-tower-forsnes/2300-6704/ (premium)

And a picture to demonstrate:

Edit: Opening a download link in a new tab displays/fits it fine, but Patrick's video still looks stretched, so I guess that was him and not a video-player-related issue.

I've never managed to replay a GTA game because they spend so long up-front on tutorial-type missions, slowly unlocking abilities and things, and I get bored long before I reach the frustrating ones. I probably cheated the first time round in III through SA to finish them but I don't remember.

I gave up on Intrusion 2 at the final boss, probably reaching 30 seconds of gameplay from the end, but not caring enough to practice for much longer to survive those 30 seconds. Plus it was the kind of boss fight that's more about memorisation and timing than, y'know, playing the game.

I think I did the same for Master Reboot, because IIRC the final mission was timed and either a difficulty spike or plain buggy, though I'd already stopped enjoying the game by then so it was easy to drop.

In what I'm starting to think is a pattern, I quit PROTOTYPE 2 a few missions from the end (after unlocking the whipping arm) because I was just so tired of the boss fights specifically. They weren't difficult, it just felt like the same thing every time and was no fun. Again, I was kind of burned out on the game at that point anyway.

I abandoned Sniper Elite V2 on the... third mission? It seemed to be missing a bunch of mechanics from the first game, and I didn't care for the replacements - the x-ray cam feature felt unpleasant after a while, and enemies would only spawn when the player passed arbitrary points (to force the player into fights at ridiculously close range). The stealth mechanics also felt half-assed or designed specifically to make them useless, e.g. the incredibly inaccurate silenced pistol.

I never finished SpaceChem, and haven't picked up any more Zachtronics games, because they get so difficult that eventually the time and effort spent solving each level would be put towards study or practice of a real hobby that I would get a long-term benefit out of it. Don't remember when I quit SpaceChem specifically but it was probably one of the timed 'boss' levels too.

There are another bunch where I disliked something from the start and abandoned them fairly quickly, but that doesn't quite seem the same, because there was never a point where they were fun. (SPAZ, Alpha Protocol, I Am Bread, etc.) And I suppose all RTS games too, but that's because I'm really bad at them so anything after the tutorial is nigh-unbeatable.

Red Faction II missing the point of Red Faction I, and then the series repeating history with Armageddon after Guerrilla, presumably never to be given a third chance.

Sniper Elite V2 being dumbed down with linear missions and gimmicks like the x-ray cam. Maybe I'm blinded with nostalgia for the first (it was probably a lot more scripted than I remember) but the sequel felt like an entirely different series targeted at somebody else. Never bothered with the rest of the series.

The full-length, AAA-quality version of Alive/I Am Alive that got shrunk into the still-alright released version.

Master of Orion 3 being developed, then getting bits of the game ripped out halfway through (or later), and thus being incredibly lifeless and tedious.

FreeSpace 3 never existing *sob*

The compromises in the latest/last SimCity like tiny areas and all the pointless effort on multiplayer. Maybe Spore, but I figure Will Wright abandoned the more realistic/deeper versions for a good reason, and the version we got was probably more entertaining.

Terra Nova 2 also never exist- holy shit the first game's on GOG! That's cool.

Frontlines: Fuel of War not being a bigger thing. Don't really remember why I liked it so much, but at the time I did. Even the campaign is still fun every now and then.

Inversion was a waste of a great gameplay idea combined with some really aggravating plot twists.

Test Drive Unlimited 2, PROTOTYPE 2, Red Orchestra 2, Wasteland 2.

@oursin_360: If you have the version that lets you go in and change the update settings to notify only, it's well worth it and pretty straightforward. (Group Policy Editor, etc. It still works after the Anniversary Update.) Even if you can't there are apparently working methods. I think I used the information from here:

http://superuser.com/questions/1112380/disable-automatic-restarts-in-windows-10-home-anniversary-update

http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-permanently-stop-windows-10-reboots-after-installing-updates/

@monkeyking1969:

Out of interest, do you have a backup routine for your computer?

Mafia 3, if I was going to get something new. But I may as well just wait a few months until it's patched and discounted. Various racing games including Forza Horizon on PC, if I'd thought ahead when I got my new desk and checked if my wheel could attach securely to it (it can't ;_; ).

More likely: DLC for Watch Dogs, next time it goes on sale, and whatever gets a big discount on my wishlists next (right now, possibly Omnipresent and Project Tarvotan, both indie games, and cheap enough for me to not care if they're as bad as the Steam reviews suggest).

I voted Great, but the more I think about it I should have said average. I've never got around to replaying it but despite still liking a bunch of the individual setpieces I remember a lot of the combat feeling tolerable rather than fun. And I hadn't seen Apocalypse Now when I played it, so I missed some stuff there.

The second link got into the wayback machine, but only the first few comments are readable, and obviously the video doesn't work. At least it's proof it wasn't a collective hallucination?

Er, the forum software doesn't consider it a valid link so you might have to copy and paste: http://web.archive.org/web/20111231064442/http://www.giantbomb.com/giant-bomb-mailbag-soupwallet-edition/17-4654/

I thought I spotted a flaw, but I suppose for non-square puzzles you can just solve individual lines until it becomes square. So, yeah, neat! I can't say I enjoyed these before but they tend not to pop up in the kinds of games I play anyway.

There's always more difficult variations though...

Red Orchestra. I bought it in one of the old Steam huge sale events at the same time as ArmA 2, and probably ignored it for months. I guess I wanted a realistic FPS thing but I got hooked on ArmA first (not a surprise, I already knew I liked that one). I think I only touched RO when I ragequit ArmA one night and noticed that my ISP had local RO servers and they were practically full - RO had been out for four years at this point, so it was a lucky coincidence I saw the weekly get-together for the locals who still enjoyed it. And then I loved that and played it instead, then moved to the Darkest Hour mod, and then things fell apart during the transition to RO2 and I stopped playing.

No, wait - Creeper World. Definitely minimal expectations, since it was just something in a bundle that I bought for other games. But I put in 100+ hours on it and the rest of the trilogy, and still replay them occasionally. Fun little casual game, practically built around turtling. It's not the only random bundle gem I found, but definitely the longest-lasting.

Also Space Station 13, which seemed really stupid and boring when I first learnt about it and later became the only game I don't dare to reinstall.