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My nuclear engineering phd roommate called a big old load of shenanigans on this. For starters, their claim that shrinking it down makes it easier is weird, since the hard part has already been how to shrink it down. Plus, they totally gloss over their "heat exchanger" since getting heat from these things is apparently a lot harder to do than you might think. Until they actually release some patent info, it sounds like the whole thing is a bit optimistic. Plus, we've always been 10 years away from a fusion reactor since like 60 years ago, so you know...

Yeah, wow, the general game design in this game seems pretty grating. Your reward for completing a maze shouldn't be another maze. There needs to be more pacing with like villages and small dungeons and stuff. Also, with the re-spawning enemies bit, it's not always that bad. That is to say, in some cases it makes sense, such as in an area you are going to go through a lot, simply to keep things a bit interesting along the way. Like an open area between towns. That is, if the re-spawn only occurs when you leave the area. But re-spawning while you are still in the area? That's pretty terrible, and can quickly lead to an un-winnable state if potion drops aren't often enough. Plus, in the caves, it just doesn't make any sense. Where are they coming from? All it does in these cases is completely destroy any sense of progress, and just builds frustration. Also, I will admit, turn based RPGs really get to me too. Like, even Fallout 1 and 2 gets too irritating for me to want to finish, no matter how good the rest of the content is. There are some good turn-based RPGs, though. Specifically, the Mario RPGs are all pretty great, and for one big reason. That is, you can actually do something about incoming attacks. In the Paper Mario games, you have to do button presses to both do maximum damage, but to also defend and even counter against attacks, doing damage to the enemy. The same sorta thing is true in the Mario & Luigi series on the handheld consoles, but with an additional layer in that you control the actions of each brother independently using the A and B buttons, meaning that you have to watch who is getting attacked when. Granted, times button presses aren't the BEST thing in the world, but at least you have some way to defend, and it keeps the combat interesting. Plus, the RPG mechanics are fairly straightforward without being too boring. You only have to worry about health points and special attack points, as well as badges that give you special abilities when you wear them (think like enchanted rings and stuff). Also, grinding is kept to a minimum. Combine that with some surprisingly funny writing, and it turns into a pretty dang fun game. Bet you never thought you would see a mafia hit in a Mario game, but it happens.

I could see that. I know I wouldn't be too keen on jumping into a giant glowing death ball in the middle of a huge tower with rotating stuff around it. Even if I already knew they were teleporters, that whole thing screams "high enough energy to melt my flesh". Then again, I wouldn't be so keen on jumping between platforms either. Also, if I recall correctly, they are way to different in height to be able to jump up to, even with slick pull ups.

At the end when he is throwing all the grenades at the Gargantua guy, one of the grenades (the first one, in fact) hits an invisible wall and comes back at him. Since he has nowhere to go to avoid the blast, in the script he just ignored it and pretended he didn't throw it, claiming that he hesitated. It's not especially noticeable, actually.

I'm kinda surprised he didn't ask why the guy was spazzing out as bad as he was though. There's kneeling in fear, and then there is having a full panic attack/seizure.

I was afraid of that. And Poland is a country in the middle of Europe. Saying that Poland is eastern (and therefore, more post communist ;p ) Europe always makes me irritated. There's nothing eastern about Poland, except some regional accents maybe. This could be a blooming country, but we're constantly being taken apart (Polish financial assets and companies being bought out by Germany, for example, and other countries) and treated like a cheap labor Western taxes, eastern wages, this is how it is. Meh... I read a few years ago that Poland is also the biggest drug smuggling track in Europe This makes me smile, for some reason... small fact- geographical center of Europe, if you include islands that are considered to be part of Europe is in Saaremaa, Estonia. if you exclude islands, its located in Lithuania though. So yes, Poland is actually quite center of Europe. This is very true, and applies equally as well to Missouri/Oklahoma here in the U.S. Also, it's not so much geographic center that takes this into account as it is population or transportation center. I live right next to one of the biggest drug trafficking corridors in the country, and while this isn't the exact geographic center of the country, it is roughly the population center, and certainly the part you are most likely to go through if you are traveling across the country, what with the Rocky Mountains being in the way and all. For some reason I can't find the population center of Europe, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the Germany/Poland region.

I just realized it's been 25 years since communist dissapeared, and we're still a former communist country :/ When is long enough not to be "former" ? =p If I had to guess, probably after a generation or two. At the very least, until most of the population no longer has had a personal experience with it. That, or until something more notable happens that overshadows the "former communist state" thing. If it helps, at least from what I've seen, Poland isn't as associated with the "former communist state" mindset as much as the more eastern European countries like Ukraine or the Czech Republic. In the perception of here in America, closed off as we are, Poland has seemed to have had a somewhat more stable history before communism came about, at least as a sovereign state, meaning that there is more commonly understood history that people know that doesn't necessarily involve communism. Especially compared to much of Eastern Europe, which has undergone a ton of change over the past 20 years, meaning that the history of those countries has become rather garbled in a lot of people's minds. Not to say that there aren't tons of "Poland gets invaded a lot through history" kinds of jokes known here, but at the least, in most people's minds, it's always been Poland.

You know that for me, as Ross's girlfriend, these kind of jokes are totally NOT funny and in bad taste. It's easy to joke like that when you're far away. Would you joke like that about your girlfriend/boyfriend? I hope not. Ha, jokes on you, I'm too socially incompetent to ever be in a relationship! But yeah, sorry about that. The joke kinda snowballed into a thing that, in my sleep-adled brain from having just woken up, seemed too good to pass up. I suppose you are right in that it can be kinda easy to become disaffected, what with the whole limitation of the internet in meshing with physiological cues and all.

He hasn't confirmed that. He's obviously alive. I say we take the logical route by making a compromise and assuming that he is in a coma, or is otherwise paralyzed/incapacitated. I think we can all agree that this is the most likely scenario, given what we know so far.

You are talking about USA here, in Europe, there are huge restrictions on GMO, it's TOTALLY banned in France (in Poland certain grains that were supposed to be allowed, are banned but it's not that clear as in France :/ ) Many food producers in Poland place information "No GMO" or "GMO FREE" on their products because they want to, as it guarantees better sales (even for products that wouldn't even contain GMO in the first place And in all of this, I'm worried about USA citizens, as eating GMO in uncontrolled scale like it's been happening will have inpact not only on people now but also on next generations :/ French research showed things that are so creepy, that I don't even want to qote it here. Here's one article: http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/gmo-safety-zmgz13amzsto.aspx#axzz37cbbUNLc but it's bad news :/ Monsanto and whoever else helped GMO to spread on the whole USA just let a huge, uncontrolled, genetical experiemnt to happen on hundreds of millions of people, just to get more money and power And it won't be anything sudden, changes will be very slow because human body is prograhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug#Criticisms_and_his_view_of_criticsmmed to work on optimum as long as possible, with fuel that it gets. Of course you can see many minor symptoms before, but many people ignores them. Ah... ok I can go on forever on this.... Fellow Americans, you have a really tough thing to solve here, beause everyone has to eat! Keep in mind that GMOs have also been credited with saving over a billion lives in the past century from famine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug#Criticisms_and_his_view_of_critics That, and there has been no scientific evidence to support GMOs causing any sort of negative interaction in humans (at least in any way different than ordinary food). http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/08/can_gmo_corn_cause_allergies_don_t_believe_elle_s_scary_story.html Also, while gluten allergies do exist, they only occur in a much smaller part of the populace than most people assume.

Yeah, a bunch of people said that, I feel dumb that I didn't hear it. I added that to the annotations, I actually think that's pretty funny then since Joey is a little too lax even by plumber's standards. Don't worry about it. People miss things. For the longest time, I didn't realize that the French Soldiers in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were trying to pronounce "Knights" when they said "Kuh-nig-ets." .... This changes everything.

Wow, I never even noticed the The Band, Yes, and The Who joke when I heard it. You have much better hearing than I do. It reminds me a lot of an old Animaniacs skit about Woodstock which basically does the "Who's on Third" routine with those bands. Anyway, I made some edits above which I believe are more correct.

If they do make a new potty pigeon game for today's audience, it bloody well better have Oculus Rift support. Edit: Like this:

Frig, he'll be flying straight into HL2! I guess this might explain his willingness to go into the teleporter to Zen...

It's kinda disappointing to hear that being able to release and distribute quality content is once again more about who you know than how good it is. That said, the Stanley Parable pack is pretty friggen fantastic in every way possible, and the full audio can be found here: I could listen to this forever. Unfortunately, listening to this has kinda made me realize that the Narrator is basically just a more philosophical and British GlaDos, but it is still pretty funny. Also, don't know how well it fits to the scripting "rules", based on some of these rather lengthy responses... Still confused about the "not compatible" business the FM voice pack faced, then.

Fun fact. I got that achievement while also doing the One Free Bullet achievement. It turns out that being too afraid or unable to stick around and fight ends up keeping everyone safer, since they also won't stick around either. It was still pretty stressful, though.

Considering Ross has mentioned "Finishing Half-Life" this year a couple of times and never saying "Finishing Freeman's Mind", I think it's a safe bet to say there's at least a very high chance. Whether or not he does though, I'm willing to support him with whatever he decides to do. To be fair, that might have just been to be more clear. If he had said Freeman's Mind, some random person might think he meant HL2 and all the episodes, and then get super snippy about it when obviously is unable to meet that. Just saying HL was a safer choice of words on his part, especially for something in which money changes hands.

Maybe, but I get the feeling that a lot of the people introduced to the series through TGWTG might take it slightly the wrong way, being an appeal for money so relatively soon from being introduced to the site and all.

I really hope not, to be honest. I just want to get to and through Xen, finish Half-Life 1 and move on. Well, it could be like with other Mind Series, where Freeman teleports at random to other games, then finally stops teleporting and moves on. I dunno, I always thought it really broke the immersion in the other mind series. Keeping things contained to the HL universe helps to make the series more cohesive.

I'm thinking he will get confused and think that it is a portal out of Black Mesa. I mean, it is, but not to where anyone would want to go, even given how bad Black Mesa is.

Is that a hint or just a theory? WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!?!?!?!

Black Card: "I have to blow _____ up! It's the only way to prove I'm not crazy!" or alternatively, "I have to blow _____ up! It's the only way to prove I'm not ______!" White Card: Cthulhu Dog, Giant Nutcrackers

Well if it's any solace, the coolest game character ever in my opinion is Kain, and he has a British accent, so it works out. Alright I found it. It's overall pretty depressing, but watch the chunk that I've linked here: I remembered it wrong however, it wasn't "looks on their faces" so much as what they were saying, but you still get the idea they were NOT ready for the amount of radiation they exposed themselves to. The moral to this story is don't go to Chernobyl, ever. To be fair, assuming what they are saying is correct, if they are experiancing 1000x the amount of radiation one would be exposed to in a normal city, they would probably only getting about 10 or 20 mSv, which is around as much as maybe a couple chest CT-scans. The maximum yearly dose for a US nuclear worker is 50mSv, so it's definitely not something you want to be around for too long, but I don't think they will be severely hurt in the long run (although I would expect some amount of chance of their long term cancer risk being higher. That said, the proven standard is getting at least 100mSv before increasing your cancer risks). From sources I've looked at, the areas around Chernobyl give off about 6mSv or so, but that can vary a fair amount. Also, granted, I got this data from a compiled XKCD chart (here: http://xkcd.com/radiation/) but most of his stuff is good for a basic understanding, and he draws from a number of resources, including consolation from a nuclear expert.

I actually own that game, and sadly, it's actually very very boring. It's not even a funny bad, just a ludicrously boring bad. So I'm not sure there would be much to talk about. As for games I could recommend, I'm not entirely sure what to suggest, since I never really played many PC games as a kid. I know Ross doesn't have PC games as a requirement or anything, but I am also kinda assuming that's more where his focus will be from personal experience. The only thing I could really think of is The Incredible Machine (which, btw, has some pretty good music).

I didn't even get to say goodbye.