RocketDude

I dunno, I don't really care for indie roguelikes/roguelites like this game, but I feel like you didn't give this game a fair shake, Ross. While it probably could have tutorialized things better, you could have still experimented around. But then, I suppose the constant death countdown would discourage wasting time by testing the mechanics.

I bought this game on GOG along with like every other Shiny Entertainment game, including other games from this era like Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Shame it's kind of a ball-buster, I think the devs wanted to give the player a sandbox for causing chaos, but there's just one too many obstacles in the way and not enough signposting. There's a bunch of other games from around 2000 that have similar sci-fi aesthetics. Slave Zero and Forsaken come to mind, and the former even has the same basic premise of taking down a totalitarian dictator, except you're a reprogrammed bio-mech who has to shoot through everything instead of being an angel that has to stealth through everything. Lastly, I think we could use some fanart of Bob asking Saint Septevar from Apocalyptica if he's one of the good guys.

Hey, Ross, have you heard of RobotCache? It recently went into (closed?) Early Access, and one of the main features of the storefront/client is the ability to resell your games, IIRC. I think they're also going to solve the resale issue by giving a cut to developers. (It's probably also worth noting that you can buy games via their own cryptocurrency that you can mine yourself.)

'Grats, Ross!

I remember that trailer! That was in an old forum thread I used to read!

Has anyone else in the apartment complained about the air quality?

They really tried hard, but it looks like they weren't sure of the direction they wanted with the gameplay. I actually assumed they wanted you to stop and grind when you got to the third map.

I would like to join, if I can make it. I don't remember if I've ever played on Emerald or Cobalt, though.

I think YouTube tends to "discolor" thumbnails at times. Anyways, I'm in the camp of "AI risk is certainly worth taking into account" and I think if we can learn anything from AlphaGo and Tay, it's this: 1. Letting a computer learn on its own is a good way for it to "bootstrap" itself to a better state... 2. ...But for chrissake, PLEASE don't just let random people feed it info and train it. I think similar things happened to an IBM AI and some other AI that learned words like "shart."

I can't wait to see you sharing vidspace with TotalBiscuit.

Man, yeah, I'm surprised there aren't a lot of these "raid"-type games. Like, one of the only other close things I can think of is the MechWarrior games where the single-player lets you add extra BattleMechs to your party, but it isn't quite close to what DS1 does. That said, the multiplayer seems fit for larger-scale co-op. Just invite as many people as the server can fit and go hog-wild.

1: With regards to ARG games, I'm surprised you haven't heard of some of the more notable ones. I mean, yeah, I could conceive that you wouldn't have followed the Portal 2 ARG, but there were a couple of interesting ones like Year Zero. I recommend looking up the archives on that one or sinking some time into the Nine Inch Nails wiki's articles on it. 2: In addition, EA actually put out a conspiracy-themed ARG-MMO called Majestic back around 2000, and from what I read, that game was ahead of its time-almost like a proto-Secret World. In fact, Majestic was probably more X-Files than Secret World is (loved the Lone Gunmen reference, by the way). Not very successful, though. 3: I kinda figured you'd reveal that Secret World was going under too. I actually kinda thought "I'm amazed that game's still running, but probably not for much longer." EA is not known for holding onto a good thing or even maintaining an MMO. Need For Speed actually had an MMO before World, called Motor City Online, and that game's also long since shut down. 4: I'd say the closest thing to a typical MMO I've played is probably Spiral Knights, and that game is pretty atypical. The combat isn't really cooldown-based in that game, it's more "Zelda-style," I'd guess.

I love how you always have interesting stories to share in these, Ross.

Yeah, that park segment is kind of like the gameplay equivalent of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment. Come to think of it, it also reminds me of the album art for the Skinny Puppy album "Too Dark Park."

I like the degree to which you go above and beyond to deliver all this information about the games you feature, Ross. Like, you put something more into the Game Dungeon to explore what some would consider to be peripheral trivia.

Some of the levels, with the black-and-white images and the headache-inducing backgrounds make me think of the Nine Inch Nails movie called "Broken." Also, with regards to the discussion on the last page, it sounds like they're thinking of Jezzball.

Yeah, the Medallion factors in majorly into the game, so you might as well use it. I thought it was impressive at the time, but I think I like The New Order's sci-fi more than Wolf '09's magic.

I also never finished the game myself, but I really liked it. I just found the Hospital level frustrating due to the assassins. I was seriously expecting a big April Fool's twist, but I guess the pumpkin head thing was enough.

Yeah, honestly, it's a rather simple-looking game. Like, had they made a cult sim back in the 90's, it probably would have had a lot of detail and ways to go about things.

Oh man. Ross, thank you. Thank you for everything. You just capped off a saga that I followed since my high school days. You kept me entertained for years, and while you'll keep on making videos, when it comes to Freeman's Mind, I just want to say this: Thank you for everything.

That's Infogrames for you: they (used to) make games that sit somewhere between "rather good" and "shovelware."

I was not expecting Uplink, to be honest. It actually looks really neat-kind of a shame it's a non-canon-ish demo. I actually suspected it might have been Uplink because of the whole "reposition the comm dish" thing.

Take a good long nap, Ross, you earned it after slogging through that insanity. I feel like it was supposed to be a kid's game, but the deranged animation is a bit too much for Cartoon Network, if you get my drift. I think only kids could have liked this.

The backstory in this game reads like a creepypasta, honestly. It's pretty interesting, too, since it's not quite like the stereotypical image of a game creepypasta, almost.

If you remember this thread that I made, I mentioned a game called "War of the Elements." I could not find this game through Google, but I remembered one detail: the protagonist/PC was called "Ryuke Breafer." A Google search of that turned up a PDF which was a manual for "Battle of the Youstrass," and a Google search confirmed that, indeed, this is the game I once played as a youth and now looked for (how it got relabeled, I'll likely never know). I'll let the MobyGames page speak for the game. I saw a YouTube video of the game (part of what seems to be a playthrough), and I could swear I remember there being more music outside of battle, but it seems to be the same game otherwise, anime tropes and all.