Nitrobeard: Episode 27
Jan 11, 2011 at 11:57 PM Welcome to a new year, and welcome to Nitrobeard! 2011 starts with a bang when Brian Belida, Mark Bradshaw, Imran Khan, and Wes Gardner get together to talk about holidays, homeless celebrities, and the tragedy that is the Sakura-Con 2009 advertisement.
We also discuss games! The Steam sale took hold of our wallets, as we share stories of Super Meat Boy, Lost Planet 2, Laura Croft and the Guardian of Light, Dead Rising 2, and Mass Effect 2. We also show some tabletop love, and talk about Heroscape. The crew dabbles some more thoughts into the mix, talking about Fight Sticks, the staff's New Year's Resolutions, the 'perception of value', and the ways our industry is being overrun by cynicism.
It's a New Year, which means an all-new Beard! It's 2011, Bearders! It's Nitrobeard, and WE'RE LIVE!
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Reader Comments (1)
Another great ep, guys. Just wanted to drop some comments on Alpha Popamole. (Noticing a pattern here?)
@Brian: Glad you're still enjoying it, and I don't think the last mission is a cause for TOO much concern. I played a stealth character as well and managed to beat the helicopters without much difficulty, but then again, the game basically force feeds you rocket launchers for the express purpose of taking them down.
Your experience may vary of course, and Imran is absolutely spot-on in noting that it's not a segment that will play to your character's strengths. If you feel like doing any kind of preparation, I'd recommend sinking some points into Toughness.
@Imran: I realize that ME and AP invite comparison because they're both recent action-RPGs with a superficially similar conversation system, but the more I think about it, the more I think it might not be the most apt point of reference.
When you get down to it, ME is basically combat, combat, combat -- a character build in ME is predominantly about deciding how you're going to be killing things. AP, though, tries to place at least as much emphasis on stealth and taking advantage of the environment -- options that are completely absent in ME. In this way, AP comes from the same school of thinking as the Shock games, Bloodlines, and (Mark won't like me saying this) Deus Ex.
As mentioned above, though, you're right that AP falls utterly flat when it fails to provide you with the routes that best complement your style. It's just not delivering on its philosophy. Playing your character the way you built him is rewarding; being forced to play him the way the game wants is frustrating.