JYoung

I mean that there are no interesting characters to care about, and the city you're supposed to be protecting doesn't have any personality or anything but NPCs stationed to serve a gameplay purpose. The Halo games weren't just about the combat (although there were more interesting setpieces worth seeing than Destiny has shown to have), Halo had other things going on that made you want to know what happened next.

I'm listening to Peter Dinklage's character drone on in Jeff's current stream and it's just all meaningless, there's no weight to what's going on at all. It's pretty and the shooting seems fine, but the game is not what I was expecting. I think it was justified to expect more from Bungie than an iteration on Borderlands, especially with how they hyped the game up.

Most excited for No Man's Sky, but a game I'll most realistically play is Inside. I'm all in for another Limbo-type.

Whatever you guys do, get those extra hands on deck SOON. I fully believe in Vinny's ability to lead a team like Jeff can, the prospects are exciting, but 2-3 guys talking in a room does not create the same magic and energy that vintage Giant Bomb had. Remember how it was when Ryan, Jeff, Brad, and Patrick were on the couch with Vinny and Drew in the control room? That's where the bar is set, and it's a tall one, but you can do it!

I'm excited to see Drew in a leading role in SF, conceiving and creating content, just get him the crew that he needs to make it happen. I haven't kept up well with Bombin' the AM or other east content because I try to cherry pick my content and not spend so much time in front of a screen, but I'll be eager to see what you guys cook up with the changes. Good luck!

FEZ gave me a proper ass-kicking for whole week; I think I fell asleep with my notes next to me.

If you've ever heard of KurtJMac or "Far Lands or Bust" before, you know that story's not about the game. That could be any human interest story, really.

I thought this was going to be a thread about how Mark Zuckerberg realistically has the money and intellect to be a real-life supervillian.

This means Kite Co. is about to ride the economic wave straight to the top, right?

"it's already proven that Sony, a consumer electronics company, knows how to market and sell these devices."

You mean like the Playstation Move?

Let the record stand that:

1. The game will eventually come out. Portal 2 came out almost 3 years ago, which, for a team that works at Valve's pace and polish, does not make it strange that nothing has come out in a few years. The hypothetical Half-life and Portal teams would share a lot of overlap at this point. We don't know how much has changed over the years, what has been scrapped or retooled, etc, so if they're serious about a Half-life game at the present, it probably has something like 2 solid years of work on it. Half life still might not come out for another 3 years, but barring any unforeseen new games, I still expect it to come out in the next 3 years or so.

2. The game will be good, and given that it's a Half-life game, it will do well. Half the people here say that expectations are too high and Valve probably abandoned the game because of them. Guys, that makes no sense. In the space between Portal coming out and Portal 2, Portal got very very popular, and people basically regarded it as one of the modern classics. This was before Portal 2 came out, a sequel to a stand-alone experience that was patched to have a shoe-horned reason for a sequel. And despite that, people were still excited when Portal 2 was announced, and when it came out, it was great. There's no reason that the people invested in Half-Life won't line right up for a game that will be very good, because that's what they expect. Half-Life has a way of leaving itself open for any sort of story turn in the next installment, so it's not like they're painted into a corner; they can go in whatever direction works best. These guys know their stuff, I don't doubt that it will be a good game. If you think the fans are too rabid to enjoy a good game simply because it isn't the best game ever, you need to stop stereotyping the fans. I like the games, and I love digging into the mythology, so as a "fan," I can tell you that Valve is in a good position.